Brighter Than the Stars

Annabelle - Ahoy Matey--In Which, I'm a Pirate

"Would you hurry up?" James snapped. "If you don't, we'll leave without you."

"Ha-ha," I said. "You wouldn't dare." I slipped my hairbrush into my bag, and added a few ribbons. "I'm important. You can't leave me behind, anyway."

"I'm sure we could 'accidently' forget you." He smirked, and I shut my bag with a bang, before I marched past him and 'accidently' kicked him in the shins. He didn't seem to be as big a fan of accidents as he had a moment before.

Everyone else–no surprise–was already packed when I got down. Clara wore the pink ribbons I'd given her on the ends of her braids, and, combined with the half-nervous half-excited expression she had, it made her look several years younger than she actually was. She had been permitted to come, after Madeline had talked to her mother, and she had bounced off the walls about it for the weeks leading up to our departure. I was excited to go back to Atala myself–it'd been three years at least, probably more, and I'd always wished I could have been born there instead.

"Are we all ready, then?" Maddie asked. Her hair had been coiled neatly at the nape of her neck, a jeweled pin in the center. She may have been dressed to travel–in one of the dresses Clara and I had made–but she still looked every bit a Queen. She'd told us she hadn't had much contact with the former Queen, even though she'd been prepared to take the throne. They were distantly related, and with their families being on different continents, and busy with separate positions of power. Family gatherings had been few and far between, and she said the last time she remembered seeing the Queen, she'd probably been about seven.

She and her family would have come from the funeral, but with all the confusion, no news had made its way across the border, and they'd been in the dark. The deal, Madeline had told us, was that she would take the throne, not her mother, if she was old enough when the time came. That way, her mother could stay as Duchess, and her family would be more widespread. I didn't consider eighteen old enough, mostly because I never would have been able to do it, but I supposed it wasn't far off from when I would have entered the court. If I'd been married.

"Ready as we'll ever be," Leo said. He reached for Nicole's bags, and she slapped his hand away. She looked exhausted–she'd looked exhausted forever, like she was permanently stuck in a state of no relaxation. When she'd delivered the news that M.C. was still out there, still plotting, I'd thought she might collapse. I had taken what we'd done as a victory–Madeline was in charge, the revolts seemed to have stopped, we got to live in a castle–but she didn't seem to have. While I wanted to yell, would you just relax? half the time, I didn't. I wasn't James–who had told her to stop fidgeting, or just go to bed so many times I'd lost count.

"It should be a quick meeting," Madeline said. She started towards the exit, footmen picked up her bags as she went. "Perhaps a week, at most. A few days, at the least. But I'd like to visit my Mamá while we are in the city, if it does not bother anyway. During that time, you are free to explore or do as you wish."

I could easily follow that instruction.

We rode in a carriage down to the dock, where Madeline had asked the Silver Lining to be prepared. It was certainly the most impressive of Itari's fleet–not that there was much of that in the first place. That was one of Maddie's goals, but she said she wanted the army to be fully functioning again, first. It almost was–we'd put out recruitment posters, advertisements in the newspapers, and spread the news through word of mouth, and plenty of people had shown up. James said they could almost win something, and he expected Itari to have a decent army in a few months.

Itari's flag–the blue and black, with a white circle containing a clock tower in the middle–flew above it, and we almost looked like we could be a real nation. Though, a "real nation" would have more than one ship coming. James had once said that the Itarise flag should have been a gambling card, and, to be honest, I agreed. That was what the country was most known for: taverns and a good place to start a game. Besides that, it was festivals and plays, but always something related to having fun or commerce, and I thought the card would have suited it far better.

Someone should have put James and I in charge of designing the flag.

"It's big," Clara informed us, her voice a bit awestruck. It reminded me that the first time she'd left her town was to come to the castle, and now she was leaving the country. I didn't even think she'd left her house much, not with things being in the state they had been–her mom probably hadn't considered it safe. And she would have been right.

"Well, no use standing around and gawking," Madeline said after a moment, back to business. "They're expecting us soon, and I don't want to be late." James and I rolled our eyes behind her back–a few hours wouldn't make much difference when the journey took days.

"Relax," James said. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he rolled his eyes again–to her face this time. "We won't be late. Besides, we're important. They can suffer and wait around for us for a few hours–what are they going to do? Send us back the way we came, just because we were a little late?"

"It's a very good thing you don't run a country," Madeline said. "You should always be on time. It's rude not to be. And now I'm wasting time arguing with you, when we could be on our way already. So, let's begin." She started toward the gangplank.

We followed her onto the ship, and while I had no idea what the others were thinking, I couldn't wait to have one of the Atalese pastries.

Word Count: 1,054