A year and a half after their brother's betrothal, the Harkon twins know that the chrono is winding down before their own fate will be decided. Thankfully Sanya has had a project to work on to pass the time.
Leon Hardicort sheathed his knife and threw himself down onto the ground, exhausted. "Mercy! I've had enough! Take it easy on an old man!"
He was only twenty and she wasn't always sure if was just humoring her.
"I beat you fair and square that time," Sanya sat beside her sparring partner, sheathing her own knife. She was only a little short of breath and ready to go again as soon as he was.
"Oh, aye. I haven't let you win for more than a year. I can tell you've been practicing since the last time I was in port."
"I've tried." She shrugged. "It's not that easy to get away from tea etiquette lessons."
He laughed. "Ah, come on, I heard you got to have a little fun while I was gone. That construction going on in the warehouse?"
Sanya brightened. "Kriff, Leon, she's the prettiest ship you've ever seen."
"And you've actually gotten to work on her?"
"As much as Papa would allow." She nodded and sat up on her knees. "I've been involved from the design all the way through acquisitioning the supplies and overseeing the construction. I know every beam and line and yard of cloth on her."
Leon smiled at his young friend, "She should be yours by rights."
"Aye. I can hardly stand it that she'll be going to that son of a…"
"Then why are you putting so much effort into making her so fine?" He asked.
"I thought about it." Sanya picked up a rock and chucked it toward the water line. "I could have sabotaged any point in the operation." She sighed heavily. "But with Papa letting me be so involved. It's like my blood is running through her. I couldn't let her be anything less than what she was meant to be."
Just then she remembered something and jumped up. "Would you like to see her?"
"Now?" He mock complained. "I'm still catching my breath after that epic battle."
She grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. "Come on! I almost forgot! They're taking her out today to check if her hull is water tight! Of course it is." She dragged him up the beach to where they could see the unloading area at the shipwrights warehouse. "Her timbers are fit perfectly snug and she's already been tarred."
Sanya didn't have to say any more. Leon whistled as the shining new hull emerged from her berth. She didn't have her masts yet or any of her rigging but even at this early stage it was easy for the seasoned sailor to see that she was going to be a marvelous craft when she was finished.
"When you're right, you're right. I don't think I could have scuppered her either, even if it meant denying the Blackwelp the pleasure of her."
Sanya gazed wistfully at the craft. "And she should have been mine."
Leon elbowed her playfully. "You know if you were a real pirate, you'd just take her."
She rolled her eyes and was about to make a snappy comeback but then she stopped and thought about it. "What if we did?"
Maybe he was humoring her but he considered. "You do know her better than anybody. If we could put together a good crew…"
"Well you know the men you've served with and there's been a few down at the docks looking for work, former Blackwell sailors who didn't like working for the Lord's fleet. They want something better. We could offer them something better, couldn't we, Leon?"
"Aye." He rubbed the stubble on his chin. He'd have to shave before he went back aboard his ship. Sanya knew the boson of that craft didn't stand for scruffiness even in the able seamen. "I know the men I could ask to join us but as of right now they're signed on loyal to your lord father. Once they broke faith with him there would be no going back for them. They would need to know that you're committed to this as well. You aren't just going to run home to your lady mother when the seas get rough."
"You know I wouldn't do that. This is all I've ever wanted!" She grinned her cheeky grin and her eyes shown with delight at the prospect.
She was thirteen and a half years old. She was a girl. She had only been on one actual voyage as a member of any crew and then they'd only been able to give her the official rank of cabin boy. Other than that she had been on short cruises with her family gussied up in dresses and fine shoes and parasols. Despite all that she knew ships better than just about anyone he knew.
She was small and skinny but she was quick and she knew how to fight with all manner of blades both dueling and throwing. If she had been a boy she would be ranked first or second lieutenant already. She'd actually secretly taken the tests for both positions.
Her tutor, who'd recognized her keen mind, had wanted to challenge her. So on top of the regular reading and writing and arithmetic that her sister was taught she got extra lessons in navigation and ship board politics. While her sister left the classroom to embroider pillows, Sanya stayed back and studied battle tactics and the form and function of weaponry.
"We could do this, couldn't we Leon?" She asked him.
"You have to be sure."
Sanya nodded her head fervently.
"Alright, I've got some time before I have to be back onboard." He was still considering. "I can put the word around to those who are interested and set up a meeting."
"Kriff! We're really gonna do this!" She laughed. Then with a whoop she pulled down his face to her level and planted a kiss on his cheek. "We're really gonna kriffing do this!"
She stepped back quickly, a little embarrassed, and swaggered around to cover the reaction. "Quartermaster Hardicort, gather the crew! We'll be underway as soon as my ship is rigged out!"
She looked back at the uncompleted ship in the yard with longing. "My ship!" She murmured.
He patted her on the shoulder. "She will be, Captain."
…
It was a bit like studying for a test for her tutor. Sanya sat at her desk in the school room and prepared what she would say to her prospective crew members. She had to give them reason to swear their loyalty and their lives to her. Some of them, most of them really, would be breaking their oaths of loyalty to other lords and captains to be a part of this wild unsure venture.
She thought she was all alone when a shadow fell over the sheet of flimsy on which she had been scribbling. Talya picked up one of the sheets she had discarded and looked it over. "Working on a little extra credit?" She asked her twin.
"Something like that." Sanya grabbed back the sheet and wadded it up in her hand.
"You're already Master Flint's star pupil. You don't have to prove anything to anyone."
Sanya went back to her scribbling. "I have to prove myself every day of my life," she mumbled.
Talya laid a hand on her shoulder. "Nobody expects you to be anything other than yourself."
"What I am is not what they want me to be?"
"What do you think it is they want you to be?"
Sanya looked up at her sister. "They want me to be you."
"I don't think…" Talya began to protest but Sanya rolled her eyes before she could finish and went back to her scribbling.
"Mother and Papa want to see both of us." Talya delivered the message she had been sent with and then pulled a chair over and sat next to her twin. "Maybe it will be better than you think. Papa's let you help with that…"
"He's just trying to make up for sending me off to marry some kr-" she stopped herself before she swore. She knew it bothered Talya whenever she did and it wasn't her sister's fault. She laid down her stylus deliberately so she didn't find a use for it as a weapon. Not that she would ever use such a thing against her sister, but the others... "You said they wanted to see us?"
Talya nodded and her twin began to straighten up her things and get ready to go.
"Nya." Talya stopped her before she could run right off.
Sanya could tell by the tone of her sister's voice that it was something important that she had to say.
"I know that you… aren't thrilled with what our parents have planned for us. It's not really their fault. It's just the way things have always been done."
"Well maybe things shouldn't be done…" Sanya started up again and her twin raised a hand to stop her.
"I want you to know that whatever they choose for me," Talya went on, "that I'm okay with it."
"Lya…"
"No, I don't want you to try to fight it," she insisted. "I know that sooner or later I'm going to be betrothed. I'd rather enter into it happily, willingly even. And… knowing now, when I know the wedding won't actually happen for a couple more years, I can get used to the idea, maybe spend some time getting to know my future husband."
Sanya really didn't want to hear this. She would fight her own betrothal tooth and nail until they dragged her kicking and screaming to the salt formation. She didn't want her sister to just submit to this like some fambaa to the slaughter.
"Maybe if we enter the terms of the agreement as friends we can…"
"Okay! Okay." Sanya stopped her from going any further. "If you don't want me to put up a fight, I won't. That doesn't mean I'll be happy about it." What did this do to her plans of taking her ship and running away? Maybe it was better. Talya was resigned to her fate as the wife of some lord's son. Sanya didn't have to worry about her twin being taken care of. She didn't know about happy. How could anyone be happy chained to some holdfast on some island with nothing to do but make babies and knit or whatever?
"Thank you, Nya. It's all I ask." Talya smiled, or tried to smile. What was there to smile about? "And I promise if there's anything I can do to help you postpone or change their minds or…"
"Nothing either of us say is going to make them see any way around both of us making powerful marriage alliances."
"Well, maybe, but we might get them to delay or…"
"We'll both do what we have to do, in the end." Sanya told her sister and Talya must have been content with that because she only nodded and then the two of them proceed to the sitting room to hear what their parents had to say that was so kriffing important.
There was no reason for her to pretend at this point except for the promise that she had just made to her sister. Her parents already knew her feelings on the subject. Talya stood before them with her hands clasped ladylike before her. Sanya crossed her arms over chest and leaned against the mantelpiece like any common sailor loling about off his watch.
She noticed Dalla Flint, who still had yet to actually be married to her brother, sitting quietly with a work of embroidery in her lap. Mother was sitting across from her, hands fidgeting as if she couldn't concentrate on anything so intricate at the moment if she tried. Papa and Herron were both standing, prepared for a fight. Sanya knew that agitation was directed at her perceived reaction to whatever they were about to reveal to the twins.
"Girls," Papa began, "thank you for obeying my summons so quickly."
"Aye, Papa," Talya bowed her head submissively. Sanya sort of shrugged and began to play with the leaves of the ornamental synthsilk plant in the vase beside her.
Papa cleared his throat. "Your mother and I have made a decision concerning Talya's betrothal."
Sanya felt everyone in the room glance in her direction, "What? It's not my noose."
Dalla tutted and mother gave an exasperated sigh, "Sanya, please."
Sanya rolled her eyes. She thought she was behaving quite well under the circumstances.
Talya spoke up to bring them back to the subject at hand. "What have you and mother decided, Papa?"
He said it quickly like ripping off a bacta patch. "You will be betrothed to Jamos Blackwell shortly after your fourteenth birthday and then if the arrangements can be made in proper order married after your sixteenth."
"Kriff," Sanya murmured under her breath. She crushed the synthsilk leaf in her hand but other than that she held her temper. It was just as she had feared.
Tayla jumped in to cover the curse. "Of course, Papa. If that's what you think is best. He seems a fine young man and I know his family would be a powerful connection for House Harkon."
Sanya wanted to punch something. She knew Talya would have said that about any choice her parents had made for her. They were still all expecting some outburst from the other twin. She wasn't about to give them the pleasure.
"We're glad you feel this way, Talya dear. You'll have plenty of time to get to know the young man and your father and I are sure that the two of you will come to an amicable relationship in that time."
"If he's ever at the Hold the same time she is," Sanya mumbled.
"What was that?" Herron asked, fishing for an argument.
Sanya smiled grimly. "Just that the Blackwell second son is quite a sailor, they say. He seems to spend an awful lot of time at sea. Who's to say he won't be spending much of the next two years on some voyage or other?" Then she returned to her mumbling. "On my kriffing ship."
"Aye Papa." Talya rushed to cover for her again. "You said after our fourteenth birthday. How long after our fourteenth birthday?"
Their father's eyes shot to Sanya again as he answered. "As soon as his ship is finished. You will sail upon your intended's new ship to meet him for the betrothal ceremony."
Angry tears sprang to Sanya's eyes and she bit her tongue. Talya went to stand next to her twin and squeezed her hand. "Of course Sanya will be able to come with me. We've never been apart."
Talya was trembling. For all her obedience and polite agreement, she was afraid. She was right. The twins had never spent any time apart. Well, other than during that voyage when Sanya had stowed away. When she returned, tanned from the sun, with a whole new vocabulary, and exuberant with everything she had learned and seen aboard the ship, Talya had fallen on her with hugs and kisses. "I was so worried about you, Nya, and you left me all alone !"
Sanya held both her sister's hands and they looked into each other's eyes. She hadn't even thought of that part of the equation or that this was the very thing that her sister was most worried about. Talya didn't want Sanya to put up a fight, not for the propriety of the thing but because she needed her twin to be strong for her in their parting.
Their mother's voice seemed to come from someplace far away from the twins own little world, "We thought it might be best to have this trial period. The two of you can still comm each other every day. Talya will go to Blackhold and Sanya will remain here and prepare for her own betrothal."
"If anyone wants kriffing wants me." Sanya snarked. There were remarks at her language but she still only had eyes for her twin.
Talya through her own tears didn't even mention the swear word. "Of course someone will want you. You're strong and brave, much braver than me."
They hugged each other tightly as if the rest of the family didn't exist.
"Do you still want me not to fight it? I can…" Sanya whispered and came very close to alluding to her plans. She would never let that kriffer Blackwelp have her sister!
"No, Nya. Don't make it any worse. Just," Talya sniffed and took a handkerchief from her pocket to dry her eyes. "Let's not make the last of our time together unpleasant. We've got months and months and then our birthday. I'm sure it will all work out."
Sanya glared daggers at her parents, her resolve never more strong to go ahead with her piracy. "Aye," she hugged her sister again, "It'll all work out."