Custom Common Ontra
Faber
My name is Jacky Faber, by the grace of God and Neptune, and all the lesser gods, I am alive, and I am happy. What I did to deserve such favor, I'll never know. Many a time I've stared down a gun barrel, or a knife, or a noose and thought it must surely be the end of me, but somehow I am still atop my own two legs, upon a ship with the wind in my face and the sun on my neck. With my friends beside me, I shall honestly wish for nothing more from this wild and fickle life. 
I'm sailing under the Stars and Stripes these days, not the Union Jack. My blue anchor flag of Faber Shipping Worldwide flies below it. If you knew where to search you'd find another banner stowed on my ship in a secret compartment. I sewed the skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger myself, and didn't do half bad at the stitching neither. Mistress Pimm, my old headmistress at the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls back in Boston, would be proud. She'd never show it, of course, but I'd know.
From behind me I feel two arms encircle me and warm lips are pressed against my neck. I breathe deep the smell of my husband, James Fletcher. He smells the same as he always has, from the first time we met all that time ago. Of course, he thought I was a boy, then, and really we were just kids, but we fell in love anyway. We stole moments, here and there, for years, and I thought for sure one or both of us would die before we'd ever have the chance to be married, but I was wrong. We lived through battles and storms and more than once we thought for sure we'd never see each other again. But we always found our way back. I have a feeling now we always will.
"Would either of you like some tea, this morning?" I hear the voice of John Higgins, my forever loyal friend and ally behind us.
I can feel Jaimy shake his head. He's tracing his lips across the dragon tattoo there. His hand finds my hip where my blue anchor tattoo sits. Why my suitors have always been fascinated by the ink on my scrawny self, I'll never understand. Men, I swear.
"How about some breakfast, then?" Higgins presses. That got our attention.
Jaimy pulls away from me but catches me by the hand to follow him. "Sounds like a perfect start to the day," he says, and I couldn't agree more.
We break fast with fresh scones slathered with jam and butter standing at the bow of my new ship, the Dog Star. She's a brigantine bark like my Lorelei Lee and she's trim and beautiful and she's all mine. With her, we're fulfilling my dream of sailing shipments of goods from Boston to London, and from London to the world, taking things from places that have a lot and taking them to places that don't have a lot. It's a profitable business. It allows me, as I've always wanted, to see the Cathay Cat and the Bombay Rat and gaze upon the Kangaroo. And if we occasionally take a prize in the form of an enemy's ship, well, ain't that our right? I do try to be good.
The wind is good and the sun is shining. My spirits are high, and so I grab my fiddle and begin to sing. Before long my crew has joined in and we're belting away at the top of our lungs as the sea rolls swiftly below us.
Now, I don’t want a harp nor a halo, not me
Just give me a breeze and a good rolling sea
I’ll play me old squeeze-box as we sail along
With the wind in the rigging to sing me a song
Wrap me up in me oil-skin and jumper
No more on the docks I’ll be seen
Just tell me old shipmates, I’m taking a trip mates
And I’ll see you some day in Fiddler’s Green
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