i have a new chapter! sorry for the delay on the new chapter. i have discovered that i love writing cora cos she's the smartest and wisest.
i'm thinking of changing the banner to this. it's more evocative, i think? taken on their home on ternion at sunrise.
anyway, Short Sighted.
the rest of the fic is on ao3.
sneak peek
At the moment, she was in C&C (acronym for command & control, she learned. She liked that better than “Scanning Control,” which was the name on the sign. C&C sounded cooler) and was sitting under the console with her hand holding a plate in place from the underside (the power was off, Dad! she said in the running conversation she was having with her father in her head) while Vlad was spot-welding the other side (he was nowhere close to my hands, Dad!).
“You have hands to the right spot, Rook?” Vlad asked Cora, his head popping up from the other side of the console to make sure she was OK.
She grinned, “Aye, Captain!” she responded. She knew her dad would not approve of Vlad calling her Rook, but she thought it was pretty cool. Pirates were cool. She’d heard about the infamous Crimson Fleet and its King of the Pirates, Delgado, from some kids in her online classes. She asked Vlad about him, and Vlad told her that Delgado was just another captain when he left the Fleet. Well, what he actually said was, “Delgado was only another Fleet captain sailing the blackest sea in search of plunder.” It sounded much cooler when Vlad said things.
Once she tried speaking like Vlad, but her dad got annoyed. “I don’t want you talking like a pirate,” he told her. “You might get ideas in your head, or something,” he mumbled as he walked away. She rolled her eyes at him once his back was turned. She loved her dad more than anything in the universe, but boy, he could be such a stick-in-the-mud! Gramps had once said that her dad was a “reprobate” when he was young (she had to look that word up at the time), but she didn’t really believe Gramps. Dad never let her get away with anything! He even got annoyed at her if she didn’t always look both ways when crossing the street like she was still a little kid, so she had a hard time seeing her father as a “reprobate.” She loved Gramps almost as much as she loved her dad, but Gramps was the mud that her dad was stuck in. Maybe that’s why they didn’t get along.
Vlad gave the console a solid thwack, then stood and stretched his back. “You can come out of there now, Rook,” he called after checking the solder. “This is looking ship-shape with your help,” he said, clapping her on the shoulder after she stood up. Her knees almost buckled under the heavy thump of the old pirate’s hand, but she stood up straighter and taller. “You did a good job. Couldn’t have asked for a better deck-hand.”
Cora beamed under his praise. “Dad says I’m the best when it comes to stuff like this, because I have such small hands, and they’re strong,” she said.
“Your father is right,” he agreed with a nod. “Speaking of your father, little rooks should check on their captains,” he said looking around. “I’m going to put the new array through its paces. I’ll call if I need more hands.”
