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When Amanda was younger, they did not think they’d ever become a parent. It wasn’t for any reason in particular, they just didn’t see it happening. Marriage, children, settling down, it was never even something they considered happening. Being a pirate was all they had ever known, and they were more than happy with that fact. They wouldn’t trade in being a pirate for anything, even having a traditional family. Their crew was already family.
As per usual, life had other plans for Amanda Cadmus.
“Petra, he’s gonna bite you,” they called over their shoulder, keeping their eyes on the horizon as they steered the Sapphos. It was a sunny day, the sky bright blue and devoid of any crowds. Amanda was sure they’d be applying burn salve to the kids once night was upon them, with the way the summer sun was beating down on the deck. The heat was enough for the rest of the crew to be sheltering below deck, but Petra had insisted on accompanying Amanda as they steered the ship. Accompanying them, apparently, included terrorizing the wolf of a creature that Sophie claimed was a dog.
“Shasta won’t bite me, he’s playing,” Petra said from behind Amanda, and they could tell without looking at her that she had rolled her eyes as she said it. They could also tell that she was continuing to hold a piece of jerky out to the dog before closing her hand around it right as he went to eat it, based on the snapping of Shasta’s teeth and the giggling that followed.
“Tell that to Benji,” Amanda mumbled. They could still remember the day: Benji had been play-wrestling with the dog, and he’d gotten bit when Shasta got a little too excited. The dog hadn’t done it on purpose, based on the way he’d hung his head with his tail between his legs for the rest of the day, but he’d managed to break skin anyways. It wasn’t a bad bite or anything, just enough to bleed a little. Benji still had a few pin prick scars on his arm. He didn’t hold it against the dog, luckily. None of the crew really did. The dog was a powerhouse, but he was also a big softie. No one could stay mad at him for long.
“Benji is a wimp,” Petra said, snapping Amanda out of their reminiscing.
“Petra,” they warned, a note in their voice that they had come to perfect over the last few years of having the children on board. Matteah called it their “parent voice.” Sophie just called it “fucking scary.”
“Sorry,” she apologized, and it sounded like she actually meant it. Amanda took part in their fair share of friendly insults, but they didn’t want the kids taking it too far. Benji wasn’t as, for lack of a better word, tough as Petra, but that didn’t mean he should feel bad for it. Most pirates would consider Amanda soft, but they had been raised the same way, and they were just as willing to cut a man to pieces as they were to read the kids to sleep.
The two sat on the deck in a comfortable silence for the next couple of minutes, The gentle rocking of the waves and the heat of the sun lulling Amanda into a half-trance. It was how they often sailed when there wasn’t other business to attend to, and they enjoyed it.
Then, Petra screamed.
Amanda was at her side in less than a second, taking in the scene as they turned Petra to face them. Shasta was backing away, ears back and head low, guilt written all over his canine face. Petra was holding her hand to her chest, red running down her arm and peeking through her fingers. Blood.
Gods above, he’d actually bitten her. Amanda could be a fucking oracle, they swore.
“You’re okay, it’s alright,” Amanda soothed as Petra cried. She wasn’t outright sobbing, but there were tears running down her face and her breath came in hiccups. She was the toughest kid Amanda had ever met, but she was also eight years old.
“Let me see,” they prompted, and Petra slowly lowered her uninjured hand to reveal her bloody one. Amanda’s stomach turned at the sight of the bite, immediately knowing it was much worse than Benji’s had been. The main wound seemed to be where Shasta’s teeth had dug into the heel of Petra’s hand, two punctures deep and bleeding steadily. Amanda gently turned her hand over and saw two smaller but still bleeding wounds where the dog’s bottom teeth had made contact.
“Amanda?” called a voice from further up the deck of the ship, and Amanda raised their head to see Sophie striding towards the pair, her hand on her hip where her gun rested. Matteah and Benji were not far behind, just coming up from below decks with worried looks on their faces.
“We’re okay,” Amanda reassured as Sophie practically lept up the steps to where they and Petra were knelt on the deck. Amanda knew how Sophie was and was able to see the way her body untensed instantly at the confirmation that there was no present threat. As hard of a shell as the woman had, she cared deeply for the crew, and it was clear in the way she had been ready to shoot someone just because Petra screamed.
“What the hell happened?” Sophie asked, taking in the scene. Matteah and Benji wordlessly came to stand behind her.
“Shasta got a little too excited playing with Petra, but it’s nothing too bad, just bloody. She’ll need stitches, though,” Amanda explained, and at the mention of sewing her hand up, Petra let out a weak sound. Amanda could hardly take the noise, and moved one of the hands that was cradling Petra’s to squeeze her shoulder.
“Gods above,” Matteah muttered, and Amanda had to agree.
“Sophie, you get Shasta somewhere else and get him sorted. Matteah, you take over steering,” Amanda instructed. “Benji, you go down to my room and get my medical kit. It’s below my bed.” The three nodded and made varying noises of acknowledgement, springing into action around Amanda and Petra. Amanda was always grateful for their crew, but in that moment, they were even more so. With everyone and everything else sorted, they could turn their full attention back to Petra.
“Let’s get you below deck, okay?” they said, earning a miserable nod from the girl. Amanda helped her stand, pulling Petra close with a hand on her shoulder, before the two made their way into the belly of the Sapphos. Benji had only left a few seconds before them, but by the time they made it to Amanda’s quarters, he’d already found the medical supplies and laid them out on their bed.
“Thank, Ben,” Amanda smiled, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Go see if Sophie or Matteah need any help,” they said, and it was only a moment before Benji was out of the room. They sat Petra on their bed next to the medical supplies and crouched down in front of her.
“You need a second?” They asked, and Petra nodded immediately, forgoing words as her hiccupping cries persisted, though they were less intense now. They made Amanda's chest ache all the same. “Alright, let’s just get something on it, and we can wait a bit before stitching it.” Petra seemed to relax minutely as they explained their plan, and for that, Amanda was grateful. They dug a clean strip of cloth out of their supplies and carefully wrapped it around Petra’s wound. They considered it a job well done, based on the way Petra had only whimpered twice as they covered the wound.
“Good job,” Amanda murmured as they tied the cloth around her wrist. Petra just sniffed. The silence was almost unnerving. Whenever she stubbed a toe or nicked herself with one of Sophie’s knives, Petra would be anything but silent. She shouted and cussed and complained like a true pirate, and Amanda wouldn’t have it any other way. Especially now that she was eerily silent.
The two sat in silence for a long moment, Petra hunched over on the bed, her hand once again clutched to her chest, and Amanda crouched in front of her on the floor, rubbing circles into her thigh with one hand and trying their best to prepare the disinfectant and stitching supplies with the other. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, but it felt like the silence lasted forever. Still, when they were done getting everything ready, it still felt far too soon.
“Alright, Petra, let’s get this over with,” they sighed, giving the girl’s knee a squeeze. Amanda expected her to hold out her hand hesitantly, to be resigned to the stitches in the quiet way she had been to everything else since Shasta bit her. Instead, she clutched her hand tighter to her chest and shook her head fervently.
This, Amanda realized, was much more than a painful dog bite.
“Hey, hey,” Amanda soothed, abandoning their position on the floor to sit next to Petra on the bed, pulling her into their side. She went easily, turning her face to bury it into their side, her whole body shaking. It took a moment for Amanda to realize she wasn’t just hiccupping anymore, but well and truly sobbing. Amanda wrapped their other arm around Petra and tried desperately to stop feeling so helplessly lost with their kid falling apart in their arms.
“Petra, baby, what’s wrong?” they asked, petting Petra’s hair as the girl struggled to suck in a breath. She didn’t answer, or give any indication that she even heard Amanda. “You’re okay,” they murmured, purposefully exaggerating their breathing as they continued to attempt to sooth Petra. She wasn’t really listening to them at the moment, but maybe her body would get the hint and start copying their breathing automatically.
Miraculously, it seemed to work, Petra’s sobs turning back into quiet hiccups after a handful of minutes. Amanda continued to pet her hair with one hand and hold her close to them with the other. They’d slowly shifted so that Petra’s face was now pressed into Amanda’s chest, the front of their shirt wet from her tears.
“Petra?” they asked when it seemed like Petra had calmed down enough to listen to them again. Sure enough, she nodded weakly into their chest, as much of an acknowledgement that Amanda figured they were going to get. It was still enough for them to be relieved.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me what’s going on, but it might help,” they offered. Petra was silent for a long moment, and Amanda was worried that she wasn’t hearing them again. Before they could say anything else, though, she shifted in Amanda’s arms and took a, thankfully deep, breath.
“Mom used to drink a lot,” Petra said softly, and Amanda froze.
Oh gods.
The crew didn’t know everything about either of the kids’ lives before they came to live on the Sapphos. Petra, though, they knew incredibly little about. Benji, at least, had shared where he came from. Amanda had found him in Camlet, but he’d hitched rides and smuggled his way there from an orphanage near Carchester. Unlike in Bexsevian, where the orphanages were funnels into either domestic labor or the Navy, orphanages in Hulnola were secluded estates where children were sent to never be seen again until they were old enough to work in tough labor like mining or lumber. Like all orphanages in Echorim, though, they were cruel, and Benji had run away for a reason, though no one knew exactly what that reason was. He seemed to have moved past his past fairly well, all things considered. A few nightmares here, a couple of odd reactions to some things the crew said there, but that was about it.
It wasn’t the same for Petra.
Amanda had picked up Petra in Rendune, and while Benji had taken some convincing, Petra had hardly even considered Amanda’s offer to join them on the Sapphos before she’d agreed to go with them. She’d been bruised but clean, and Amanda hadn’t mentioned it. Petra had been flighty, despite her quick decision, and they didn’t want to scare her away by asking too many questions. All they’d really learned since then was that she had run away from home and that she had lived in Rendune her whole life before coming to live on the Sapphos.
“She would get really mad if she drank a lot, but I hid from her before that, so it was okay,” Petra continued, quieter this time, snapping Amanda out of their thought spiral. They continued carding a hand through the girl’s hair, hoping to encourage her to keep talking. It seemed to work, because she kept going.
“One time, though, she- I wanted to get a snack, and I thought she was asleep, and I opened the door, and she was behind it, and she dropped her bottle and-” Petra cut herself off with a shudder, curling one hand into Amanda’s shirt as she pressed closer to them. Amanda, in turn, tightened their grip around her and hummed encouragingly. Petra took a moment to suck in a few deep breaths, before continuing.
“She got really really mad, and she picked up the bottle and- and she-” Petra’s voice cracked, and Amanda’s stomach sank as they realized exactly what she was implying.
“It’s okay, baby, you don’t have to say it, I know,” they soothed, and Petra let out a single sob into their chest.
“She- she told me to shut up and did the stitches really bad and they got all red and hot and she had to take me to the doctor which also made her mad,” Petra said through tears, and if Amanda’s heart was capable of breaking any more, it certainly was doing it. They had to resist their own urge to cry as they shushed Petra, rocking her back and forth as she cried.
Wordlessly, Petra extracted her uninjured arm from between her chest and Amanda’s and held it up so that the top of her forearm was on display. The jagged scar Amanda had noticed long ago and never questioned seemed more pronounced than it ever had before.
They were half convinced they were about to throw up from it all.
“Gods, Petra,” Amanda breathed, moving their hand from her head to take their arm and lightly run their thumb over the scar. Petra shivered.
“I know you’re not Mom,” Petra said, her voice a little steadier. “You won’t make it hurt on purpose-” fucking gods above on purpose- “like her, but I still- when I think about it I-” she began shaking again, and Amanda wasted no time dropping her arm and pulling her closer.
“I understand, baby, I know,” they soothed. “That has to be so scary, I can’t even imagine. I’m so sorry that happened to you, baby, you didn’t deserve that.” Petra just sighed.
“It’s okay now, because I have you instead of Mom,” she whispered.
Fucking gods above have some fucking mercy.
“You have me,” Amanda repeated, and despite how deeply and achingly painful it was to know that Amanda had even for a second reminded Petra of her mother, the amount of trust she was putting into them made them want to cry for completely different reasons. God, they loved their kids.
“I know it’s scary, but I have to give your hand stitches so it heals okay,” Amanda said. Petra let out another sigh, pulling away so that she could wipe at her face with her good arm. Amanda almost didn’t want to let her go, despite being the one to bring up tending to the wound, but they let their arms fall back to their sides anyways.
“Okay,” Petra said quietly, holding out her arm with much less hesitation than she had to get it bandaged. Amanda took her hand as gently as they possibly could and got to work.
Half a flask of vodka, five stitches, another bandage, and a few shed tears later, Petra’s hand was properly attended to. Amanda packed away the medical supplies and slid them back under their bed as Petra ran a finger over the cloth that covered the bite.
“You’re a much better patient than Sophie,” Amanda remarked, earning a laugh from Petra that was music to their ears. “Seriously, she bitches and moans every time I have to patch her up,” Amanda continued, a note of laughter in their own voice as they shook their head. Sophie was tougher than anyone Amanda had ever met, but when she was comfortable enough to let someone else tend to her, she was also comfortable enough to be an absolute baby about getting stitches or having a bullet dug out of her.
“You’re all good, kid,” Amanda announced, standing from the crouch they had been in to put the medical supplies back.
“Okay,” Petra said, sitting and staring at her hand for a moment longer. Suddenly, she shot up, and for a split-second Amanda expected her to dash out of the room to show off her hand to the other members of the crew. Instead, she barreled into Amanda, wrapping her arms around their torso and squeezing like their life depended on it. Amanda let out and oof and instinctively returned the hug.
“Thank you,” Petra said into their shirt, before pulling away and shooting out of the room. “Benji! Come look!” Amanda heard her shout from down the hall, and they couldn’t help but chuckle. Leave it to Petra to recover this quickly.
Amanda followed Petra, albeit at a normal pace, and emerged into the sunlight to see Matteah still behind the wheel, Sophie below her on the main deck with Shasta lying miserably to one side of her and Benji inspecting Petra’s arm to the other. Sophie raised her visible eyebrow at Amanda, and they shrugged back at her as they made their way up to Matteah.
“Is she okay?” they asked, moving out of the way without any prompting so that Amanda could take over steering the ship. It was only once they had a firm grip on the wheel that they felt themself fully relax.
“She will be,” they said, and Matteah hummed in agreement. Later, they’d tell Sophie and Matteah about what Petra had told them. Matteah would cover their mouth with both hands and Sophie would snarl and pace with a fury reserved for those who harmed those she cared about. They’d discuss the best way to handle the new information and what it meant and how to help Petra as much as they could. For now, though, Amanda was content to watch Petra and Benji begin to chase each other around the ship, yelling unintelligibly, as Matteah and Sophie watched them side-by side. They steered their crew, their family, towards the horizon, and for the millionth time thought to themself there isn’t anything I wouldn't do for this lot.
They wouldn’t have it any other way.