Since she was picked up from the shipwreck she’s been a bit different. She said her name was Catalina Buckley. Her parents had died in the explosion. I figured I could sell her off as a wench to some noble for a pretty penny. She was pretty enough, and young. Plus it was our cannons that wrecked the ship so I felt a bit responsible.

We had our colors up and they fell for it, was more their fault than ours. We’re not but humble pirates.

In case you’re wondering, half my crew is women, including myself. Most of us are runaways from servitude: husbands, masters, slavery, and the like. Some of us are educated, some of us aren’t. The best thing in the world is opening out top coats and revealing that we’re women just before sending sending men to the locker.

This girl was different. We had more visits from sea monster with her around, but fewer attacks. She liked to jump off the ship and return with various sea critters. They died on the ship, of course but that didn’t stop her. We started calling her “Squid” after a few weeks. She took to it. We decided it was better luck to have her on the crew than to sell her. Saved my ship a few times, she did.

One day the crew was ashore and little Squid waltzed right up to a mage and offered the blighter passage in my ship in exchange for a spell that would keep the critters alive. She was maybe 12 at the time, old enough to be womanly but still young enough to be naive. Every sailor worth their salt knows not to bring their kind aboard. It’s bad luck. Not little Squid. That child will be the death of me.

She dragged that poor mage right up to me to discuss the terms offered and any terms of my own. I couldn’t turn her down. She wore the same face I did when I first took up sailing. She was determined, defiant, and if I’da turned her down she’d give me hell, or turn of her sea beasts against my ship.

I told her my terms: 7 silver to a close by island, 7 gold to to a far away island, 1 platinum for one of them magic islands. The mage agreed and offered to provide education to the Squid and provide food for the crew. She signed as a cook, which we needed since we have the best fisher in the Spanish Main, and our cook was taken with the pox.

Anyway, after a couple of months at sea, mage on board, a kraken came out of nowhere! Was twice as big as the ship and wished death upon us. Little Squid walks right up to the beast and gives it a lecture. Mage shrank it down to a manageable size and wrapped it in some water spell. Now our Little Squid is all grown! Best pirate ever.