Hanging up the hats, for now

Night had rolled in along with the tide as the Kit & Killian slowed to a drift for the night, quiet slowly beginning to fall on the ship. Kit laid on her bed, waiting for total silence, as she did most nights. Mounted on the ceiling above her bed were her trophies – engagement rings. 34 of them, varying gems, diamonds, and stones, colours, sizes. All reminders of the skill with which she had used to procure all of them.
 
One would assume each were linked to some kind of broken heart, but Kit would tell them otherwise. Broken vaults, maybe. But hearts? No. None of those men had ever loved her. It was how she was able to convince them so easily to get down on one knee for her. She was a prize, a trophy, and it was exactly what she intended.
 
Did that make her cruel? Maybe. Kit was, however, always particular in her targets. It wasn’t about herself. The amount of wealth many of these bachelors both inherited and often took from others who were already down was abhorrent. They had yet to visit a single port or city without an orphanage filled with little to no money coming in. These places were often so far removed from the capital that they had little oversight by the royal family or guard, leaving the governors and self-appointed nobles to keep the disparity between wealth and poverty in a rather large berth.
 
She considered the engagement rings a forced sort of penance for those men. Kit and her brother never kept the wealth they took, aside from the bare minimum to help get them from one place to the next, or to cover Oak’s wages when he was helping them out. The majority of it was given to the orphanage in the next port town they visited. Always. Keeping the funds far enough away from the person they were stolen from that no-one would even be aware of their source let alone make the connection. Valuables were sold off so that only coin was passed along, untraceable, and often enough to carry the place at least a few months with more food and better care for the children.
 
The rings were a reminder that no matter what piracy they did, there was always a bigger picture, always something more they should be doing. Maybe that made them piss poor pirates at heart, but then again, nothing in the pirate’s code ever said it had to be done for themselves. And they weren’t angels, not by any stretch. Kit and her brother were as selfish as pirates are expected to be, but they had their lines and they had their own morals, and they were quite pleased with themselves to keep to those.
 
As the last of the noises on the ship settled, Kit sat up, waited a moment, then slipped out of her cabin, climbing up to the bow of the ship as she did every night. Once she was comfortable, balancing on the edge of the bowsprit and the ledge of the ship, she pulled out the small flute Killian had made her when they were young and started to play. Her musical talents were not something she spoke of often, saved only for night when the ship was silent and the only things that might hear her were the fish and the sirens. What she played varied based on her mood – sometimes it was what one would expect a pirate to play, others were more mournful, sad, or weighted. Some nights, she played something more classical based on bits of music sheets she had picked up over the years.
 
Tonight, it was a soft, calming tune, her notes singing out to the mythical beasts of the sea. Kit played, as she always did, for the length of two songs, then tucked her flute away safely, and continued to rest, listening to the low waves slap against the ship, and the odd splash in the water. This was the only time she ever felt truly at peace, a moment when nothing existed beyond the sea and the ship.
 
Kit froze, sensing someone approaching, then breathed a sigh of relief as she realized it was Killian. He didn’t say anything, but climbed up the other side of the bowsprit and leaned against her.
 
“Are you sure this job is the right course, brother?” Kit asked after a few moments of silence. “We’re not the straight and narrow kind. And how do we know when we show up to sign the intent to serve for pardons it’s not some kind of trap to take us in too?”
 
Killian shrugged. “We don’t. But I do know it’s the best chance at getting ma and pa out, and then we can start over again. Maybe rebrand the Kit and Killian. Get ourselves some proper crews. Be a family again.”
 
Kit sighed. “I don’t trust’em Killian. I don’t trust any of this.”
 
Her brother chuckled. “Kit, aside from me, you don’t trust anyone.”
 
“That’s not true,” she protested. “I trust Oak!”
 
“It’s the right choice, Kit,” Killian assured her. “It’s just one job. We stay low, we do our thing under the radar, and we get our pardons.”
 
Kit didn’t know what to say. Whatever Killian asked of her, she would do, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling they were about to get themselves in a world of trouble they hadn’t faced before. She started to wring her hands together, the only tell she ever had to being nervous, playing over in her head the many ways this meeting could go.
 
“Play for me?” Killian asked, breaking her thoughts. “Maybe that song da used t’play when we were young.”
 
With a sigh, Kit pulled out her flute and obliged, playing an old pirate’s tune as the two sat together, watching the black ocean and ripples in the reflection of the moon’s light.