Hell Hath No Fury - Book One

Decisions

"Cooker? How do you know so much about upper houses? It seems like more than just book knowledge," Ava pointed out, "Too passionate about it for it to not have affected you personally."

"Ava, you're a witch. A scary intuitive witch. They ought to burn you at the stake," Cooker commented.

Ava shrugged with a smirk on her face, "I am smart. A smart witch. Now answer or I tell Theo this is your second sun off and you've been hiding out here."

"Fine!" Cooker laughed, "I was born to a greater house."

"Where?" Ava asked.

"I'm going to turn myself in. The third degree isn't worth it."

Cooker wasn't the only one that Ava had gotten closer to. During the trip, Oceane and Morgana had continued to train her. There were not many new things that Ava learned, they worked mostly on improving her strength, speed, and reaction time. They wanted to make sure she could anticipate a situation and react to it to defend herself. Oceane had even spent one of her suns off teaching Ava about different weapons and the stories behind the ones in the armory.

She often found herself having lunch with Tuni and whichever girl was training her that aftermorning. Sometimes it was Tuni and Morgan and other times Oceane replaced Morgana. Either way, lunch was a lighthearted time for them to fool around and have fun. Tuni had endless stories and Oceane, like Ava, enjoyed to listen rather than talk. About halfway through the journey, even she and Xyra had a civil and friendly conversation. Ava's highlight of the journey was attending their voting night. After casting their votes, the pirates sang and drank and celebrated a successful referendum. All of the pirates voted in favor of keeping the sun on sun off schedule and to everyone's surprise not a single location had a majority. That part of the vote was rescheduled for after the raid.

As for Theo, neither of them really brought it up again for most of the trip. Ava still showed up every night and they still spent some hours of every night speaking. Ava steered the conversations away from heavy topics and Theo was all the more glad to follow. Some nights, others from the crew joined them and other nights it was just them alone. By the time they were due to make landfall, she and Theo had practically forgotten about the tenseness from before.

But Ava hadn't forgotten about becoming a pirate. The longer she thought about it the more it made sense to her. Every night she wanted to bring it up again but she couldn't. Her words were stuck in her throat. Her mind was working constantly and it would keep her up at night. She would construct her case if the topic was brought up again, she was capable of becoming a pirate. She read in hopes to rid herself of some of her naivety. She was prepared to show that she understood things would be hard and she was willing to put in work.

One of the nights together with Theo she had gotten so close to bringing up piracy again. They were on the balcony and Theo had a pipe filled with something or other she had gotten from Morgana. The conversation that night had been light and comical, they had been exchanging different jokes they used to tell as children. It had quieted down as they both stared at the moon when Theo changed the track of the conversation.

"Why did you run away?" Theo asked and looked over at Ava.

Ava was honestly shocked she hadn't gotten that question before. She assumed Theo wanted to let her maintain her privacy but when Theo was intoxicated it was obvious her filter did not work. Ava didn't have an answer. She didn't have an answer because she couldn't find the words to describe it. After a while of not answering, Theo got the hint and turned back to look at the stars, opting to not pressure Ava.

"I was unhappy," Ava finally spoke up, "my family treated me as if I was not a part of it. I knew something was wrong, that I didn't belong. Most of my life has been spent in boredom and isolation. Like, I had been looking out into a muted world with only black and white. When I left, I could breathe for the first time. I saw color."