Gonzo:

I've known Miss Tetra since she was a child. When I first joined her mother's crew, I was young. I was a brat. I'd run away from home. My old man, after my mom passed, he had a thing for working his problems out on me. He worked them out with his knuckles, his shoe, his belt. He didn't like it. I saw him crying once, afterwards, face dripping with a drinker's sweat. "Sorry boy," he said. Not to me, just out loud. "Sorry boy. Sorry boy. Sorry boy." I'd hate him, then hate myself for hating a man that pathetic and low. I had no siblings, no one to protect. I left the coward and ran.

If the old captain hadn't been at port that night, I'd have stowed away. Getting out, that's what I needed, and nothing was going to stop me. I saw her heading back to her ship. I'd seen her before, making sales with some of the shadier dealers. An old woman, always walking with a swagger, maybe from the booze, maybe from her own self-assurance. I ran up to her on the docks, just her and me surrounded by the barrels and rope and fish stink. A tipsy old lady and a brat.

I told her I needed work. I remember me from that age, remember the few times I saw a mirror. Those ropey arms, bruised from the elbow up. The knobby knees that'd shake like thistles. Not worth the food I'd eat. The old captain, probably near sixty, dressed like a man in britches, frilled vest, she looked right through me. I'd never felt more like a child till she looked at me.

"What can you do boy?" she said.

"Anything. Everything."

She grinned at me.

"Anything? You think there's much you can do for me? Why would I want a kid scuffing up my deck?"

"I'll do anything. I mean it. Gutting catch, cleaning out latrines, cooking the food, anything. Whatever a cabin boy has to do. I need to get out. I have to get away." I don't know why I said that last bit. Just a desperate kid I guess. The old captain noticed though. She nodded.

"Look there." She pointed over my shoulder, at a barrel of whaling hooks and spears behind me, almost up to my chin. "I haul cargo from that big up. See if you can move it."

I tried. I grabbed the steel ring round its middle and tried to lift. Dug splinters into my fingers, moved it about half a foot before I lost my grip. Gashed open my thumb. The whole damn thing spilled over the dock, some of it into the water. The captain laughed at me. I tried to lift the barrel again, trying to haul it up right. It was so heavy. The captain patted my shoulder.

"Enough boy. Enough. Come on. You can tie knots."

I wasn't born a sailor. I was a Windfall brat, land bound as they come. The crew was different in those days. Senza was there, a lot younger than he is now, but the others were all old sea hands, rough necks with beards, scars, and burnt skin. Those craggy faces, around rotten teeth; I thought it was the old man all over again. But no, they toughened me in a different way.

The ship rolled and shifted on the sea more than I expected. I didn't understand the meaning of "sea legs." I stumbled a lot. Each time, I'd try and protect whatever I was moving with my body. I'd be bruised by a crate before I let it hit the floor, but there were moments when the motion of the sea would throw me off, send whatever I was carrying flying to the side, cracking the wood. Fruit, wine, metal, I've seen it all spill out. I waited for the blows to come, but they never did. Maybe the captain told them not to. Instead, they sneered at me, they laughed.

"Babe's getting those sea legs! He'll be crawling pretty soon, that's a boy!"

"There ya go shrimp! That's how it's done, throw them around! Teach that cargo that it ain't good enough for shop!"

At meals, my food would be knocked off the table. My drink'd spilled. I had a high bunk, and some nights after a really big mess, my bed'd sway more than usual, throwing me on the floor. There was always laughter after my nightly tumbles. I couldn't say anything. Even if I could stand up against one of those old hands in a fist fight, I couldn't stand up to all of them on the long voyages out at sea. They hardened me. Made me big. Made me strong.

All of them but Miss Tetra.

Miss Tetra was younger than me, almost a baby. I'd never heard of a child so young being on a pirate ship, but the old captain never showed a sign of worry over her. Some mornings, I'd come out and Miss Tetra would be climbing the rigging, her legs barely long enough to wrap around the rope. She'd be up in the crow's nest, hanging over the side with her hands around a telescope. Senza was our navigator and he'd always have her around, showing her how a compass or a sexton worked, how to find your position on the ocean by the stars, how to judge distances. The old men didn't notice her. But she noticed everything. Even me.

The first time she spoke to me was a few weeks after I'd been on board. By then, I'd lost the tremor in my legs that made me sway with the rocking of the ship. I'd learned knots, how to work the sail. One of the old men was starting to teach me how to steer so I'd be of use, and, around the middle of the day, he let me take the wheel while he went to grab a bite. It was just me at the helm, everyone but our look out down below. Miss Tetra, barely up to my waist, walked up beside me. She'd never said a word to me before and I'd heard her talk so rarely I thought she was dumb, or close to it. She stared out at the ship. A few birds came and landed on the railing. They chattered. We were drifting along by a light breeze.

She said, "You're off course."

Just hearing her speak was surprising, so I didn't register what she'd said until she pointed at the compass. I'd drifted south, losing some of our wind. She took the wheel, forcing me to let go, put us back on course. I don't remember what I said. I was a stupid kid. Probably blathered.

"We've got to keep with the wind," she said. "Mom told me that. We have to keep with the wind. Keep it straight, because if you aren't working with the wind, you're not sailing at all. You're sinking, slowly." Her mother came up then, calling Tetra to her for some chore, leaving me at the helm.

I'd be ashamed to have a kid almost half my age speak like that to me, but I had no one else back then. She was the only one who was like me, learning. So I let her teach me. She'd correct me, when the old helmsman wasn't around. Taught me how to hold steady, how to feel the ship, how it changed with the ocean and the wind. The huge wheel seemed to grow smaller; the chaos of the compass, the sails, the tackles, the flat sea more sane. The helmsman started praising me. "Gonzie's getting some arms to go with those sea legs," he'd say. "My boy'll be captain before you know it, just watch." The old captain would laugh and pat my back and tell me to start drinking so she could toast me. My food was knocked over less often. My bed stopped swaying so violently at night.

Some of the older men left us. One died there at sea, in the middle of a calm night. We woke up and he was stiff in his bed, swinging with the roll of the ship, mouth hung open. We wrapped him in his bunk, gave him to the sea. Some of the others left for the land, unable to keep pushing their bodies out there under the sun and the beating waves. Mako and Nudge joined our crew. Zuko came soon after. The Forsaken Fortress gang started up around this time, out of a few smaller crews that we'd encountered before. Miss Tetra grew older, started taking over duties for her mother. She kept correcting me. We'd spend hours at the helm, just me and her, me watching the compass and the sails, her watching the ship, the horizon, the crew until her mother called her to help with the sails or the freight. Sometimes there'd be no words between us, save for "drifting Gonzo" or "winds changed, let's head west a little." But those times at the helm were peaceful, oceans away from the old man and his hard fists. It felt right with Miss Tetra beside me. I could really believe I was steering my own course through the world. Not a lost boy beginning for a better leader.

The old captain was on deck less and less. Miss Tetra would go into her room and stay with her, sometimes all day. Even then, no one went into the captain's quarters except Miss Tetra. When I first met the old captain, she had Miss Tetra's gold emblem wrapped around her wrist, like a bracelet. But as the old crew moved off or passed on to the winds, Miss Tetra began wearing it around her neck. I guess that was when we knew it wouldn't be long before the old woman left us. Nights were quieter and quieter without her laughter. We'd go days without seeing her. Miss Tetra spent more time with me at the helm. Her face would always be set, unflinching, but back then, she hadn't learned to hide herself so well. She was afraid.

We maintained our silence, as we'd always done since we were just two children on a pirate ship, but Miss Tetra stopped correcting me.

The captain came on deck one day, dressed in her best. She looked dandy: loose leggings, red and yellow, a long red shirt with pockets and silver buttons, real leather shoes that looked like they'd never gotten wet, large brimmed hat, the first I'd seen her wear. We'd had a run in with the gang from Forsaken Fortress earlier that day, as they were moving some goods out of one of the reefs in the west. Miss Tetra had led us in taking the goods from them, a huge shipment of wine and fruit. The crew was celebrating; we had one of the barrels open, Senza pouring out wine into our mugs. The sweet liquid was washing over the deck, dripping down into the water. When the captain came on deck, we asked her to have some with us. She smiled.

"No. You boys enjoy it. You've earned it well. Each of you. You've earned it."

Miss Tetra, who'd been watching from the helm, must have seen it before the rest of us did. I heard her speak with concern for the first time when she said, "Mother," and started running down the steps as the captain dropped to the deck. Her hat bounced and tumbled off the side of the ship. She was so light when we lifted her.

It was like the old lady had wanted one last look at the sky, at her crew, at her daughter. I wonder which it was that she wanted to see the most. I wouldn't dare guess, not that old woman's mind.

Miss Tetra never cried. She wrapped the old captain in her bed sheets by herself, alone in the cabin. When she brought the body out, I saw that she'd sown a piece of paper into the bag, a piece of sheet music. I never did ask why. I felt like it wasn't for me to know. That evening, the sun coming down, she dropped her mother over the edge. Senza sounded the gong a few times. It didn't take long for the ripples to disappear, swamped by the toss of the ocean.

"Well." Miss Tetra grinned, one side, just that flash of teeth like the turn of a lighthouse. "Enough solemnity. Mother hated long faces. Gonzo, open up our catch. Let's celebrate."

We passed the mugs around. Senza told us stories of the captain from when he first joined on, how the old captain had tricked a better armed vessel into a nest of Sea Hats, who thrashed the ship apart, how she nearly burned up an entire island trying to smoke out a member of her crew who'd jumped ship with a load of rupees and gone into hiding. Stories of the wild woman, who clung to the rigging during battle just so she'd have a better view. The young woman before the old mother with her rusted crew took over. Miss Tetra listened, laughed, clapped. She didn't drink, but the distance that had always been between her and the crew was gone. No more "the captain's child." She had become, at once, captain and crew. Her mother had named no one captain after her, but none of us had to ask.

The last of the old men left soon after. They said that Miss Tetra lead well, but their captain had always been her mother. They knew no other voice to sail by. Miss Tetra grinned.

"It's for the best," she said, "Can't use a new ship with old sails. Rusted rudders will just slow us down." They left us with just enough men to crew the ship. It was a rather sad crew. Mako and Senza were both better with navigation than labor. Zuko was our look out. That left me and Nudge as the main ones to do heavy lifting, and I was the only one with experience at the helm. But we made do. Whenever the work got harsh and the toll of being shorthanded started hitting us, the captain grinned.

"Mom must have spoiled you guys. Come on, let's work! I don't want to have to bring in women to get things done right."

We gained an extra hand when Niko snuck on board. The idiot was trying to stow away in a crate of fruit. When we found him, he was half starved, despite being surrounded by food. No one thought about keeping him as a part of the crew at the time. We just put him to work to shut him up. But Miss Tetra never dismissed him. Guess she has her mother's eye for usefulness because, stupid as he can be, Niko gets his jobs done. Sloppy, but done.

Since her mother passed on, Miss Tetra still comes and stands with me at the helm. We don't talk anymore now than we did back then, as two children under an old woman's sail. But even with her grins, her playful looks, Miss Tetra's become harder to read. I can't tell what goes on in her mind, even less than before. Like with this boy from Outset. Link.

I don't care what that Rito postman says. Miss Tetra didn't owe anything to that brat. If he hadn't of helped her out there in the forest, it would have been me instead. Miss Tetra owes the boy no thanks, no favors. But, she's letting him on our ship, giving him a lift all the way to the north, to Forsaken Fortress.

Miss Tetra… you remind me of your mother now, you know? Looking down at some worthless kid and giving him a chance. Why? I never understood it when your mother let me on her ship. I can't understand why you're letting him onboard. I feel like there's some half of you, you and your mother both, I've never been able to see. As if that is what's made our hours at the helm so much more silent and distant.

What are you thinking captain? Why won't you tell me?