Zita headed into her cabin and removed her hat, throwing it onto her bed before collapsing down onto a nearby chair. She had just reached eighteen a month or so ago and her father had decided it was time to take her out to sea with him, wanting her to take over as captain of his ship once he died. She did have a younger brother - a ten year old boy called Jason who had been allowed on board the ship for the past three years to act as cabin boy - which meant, under most circumstances, that he should take over as the male heir. Given their father's career choice, however, he had decided that it would be better to hand the position to Zita because she was older so would be ready to take over sooner, which may be necessary if he died during battle suddenly. That was why Zita, who had spent the last eighteen years of her life at home in Italy with her mother learning how to be a housewife, was now on board her father's ship despite the crew protesting that she would be bad luck.

"She's better suited to life with a rich merchant," one crew member had commented, looking over Zita as he spoke and clearly thinking about arranging a marriage between her and his son, who had refused to become a pirate in favour of life as a trader. It wouldn't have been hard to find her a husband if her father had decided to put her into an arranged marriage, that she knew. Like her mother, Zita had white-blonde hair and blue eyes; she was tall, slim and almost anything an upper-class man would want in a wife, appearance wise anyway - she stood out and it was in a way that would have men fighting over her if it weren't for her personality. The pirate, as she now referred to herself, had a temper that was near-impossible to quell. As well as the fact she was older, that was another reason her father had decided she was the better candidate to captain his ship; while Jason was rather lazy and easy going, Zita always expected the best in all ways which would include expecting near-perfection from her crew as opposed to allowing them to do whatever they wanted near enough. 'Seen and not heard' was definitely not one of her qualities, making her less appealing to any man who knew her, which just showed how much her father's crew had to learn.

Looking around her cabin, Zita sighed before turning to her desk and writing in the journal she had been keeping for the past couple of years. Most of what she had in it was rather boring and pointless so she wrote rarely however her life at sea was far more interesting than the one on land and she had taken to writing most days recently, detailing her weapons training and learning how to steer the ship among other things (which tended to be in less detail because she found them boring, but detailed enough she could refer to her journal if she forgot anything to ensure she never needed to look clueless in front of her father's men). The book was quickly filling and she made a mental note to pick another up when they next reached land.

Her training came along slowly, her standing among the crew increasing as her skills did. By the time her brother had reached the age of thirteen, her being twenty-one, she was already good enough in her father's opinion for her to take over if needed and he turned his attention instead to her brother, teaching him sword fighting to begin with then moving onto other things as he progressed. While the crew seemed happy with this arrangement, it annoyed Zita as she became aware Jason would likely become captain if he continued at that rate. At only fifteen, he had already become better with a sword than her despite her continued practising and improving after her lessons ended.

Being surpassed by someone eight years younger than her, as well as over twice as lazy, was not something Zita much enjoyed and she packed up her belongings on her brother's sixteenth birthday, the day when her father announced he would become the captain as opposed to her, and left the ship for good when they reached land the following evening. Six years of training after being taken away from her mother specifically for the purpose of becoming the next captain had been bad enough in Zita's opinion, and it all being in vain took things too far.

She hid until she saw her father's ship leave port almost a month later, presumably having been searching for her until then seen as they never docked for more than a week, before heading to the port herself in an attempt to find herself a ship and a crew to go with it.

...

[X] by Lesa
[X] by H2freak93
[X] by Emi
[X] by Khiton