SECOND MATE {LILIANA SPARROW} ★ D4

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INFORMATION

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BIOGRAPHY

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"There's a storm a'coming, 'Phelia."
Five girls sit around a table, their heads bent together over a torn piece of parchment. Fingers press against the paper, while ambers eyes strain to see in the dimly-lit surrounds. The tallest of the girls looks up, and it is clear that she is their leader - a defiant gleam lights her eyes and confident gestures accompany her words. "We are the oncoming storm, Lil," says the girl, presumably Ophelia. She rolls her eyes and places a pin decisively into the middle of the ocean.

"If we head directly north and cut across here," she commands, ignoring her sister's exasperated expression. "Then we should be able to intercept the supply ship just after midnight." The darkness does nothing to conceal their faces; each is scattered with freckles and framed by a tangled mane of fiery red hair. In the glow of the flickering lamp set before her, Liliana Sparrow shakes her head. "It's not safe. That'll give us a half hour, best, to get back out'a the rocky 'ere and into the docks." She across the table to the girl who sits on the other side - the smallest of the band of orphans.

"Half an hour is long enough," declares the Captain, grinning around her crew with a crooked smile. There is silence for a moment as they wait for Liliana's argument, but she is silent. She pushes a golden strand of hair behind her ear and turns to face Ophelia. "We're all out'a soap, as well, 'Phelia." For a moment longer, the girls discuss the chart before them, before the eldest begins to command the others from the cabin to right the sails and ready the swords. Liliana stands, swaying slightly with the movement of the ship, looking out at the line between the sky and the sea.

And then, all at once, she stops being still and instead begins to work with wide eyes and a bitten lip, scrubbing down the decks and tying knot after knot in the thick ropes. She knows what to do, and she does it well. A heavy raindrop lands on her sharp cheekbone, but she brushes it away without so much as a glance to the skies. Although she cannot hear a clock ticking by any means, she can still feel time slipping away, the storm nearing and Ophelia's stubborn daring leading them closer and closer to capture. "Gentlemen, stay calm. We're commandeering your ship." Ophelia's call rings out through the night, a hollow battle cry that is far too frequent in Liliana's mind.

Suddenly, a smile jumps to her solemn lips and she finds herself with sword in hand and feet moving, one-step-two-step-three-step-jump. A while after midnight, the girls climb aboard the ship that brings wares from the Capitol. Liliana notices the way her fingers capture the ropes without instruction, binding the first of the sailors before he can shout for the rest. Mast. "Don't speak!" she warns in a whisper, raising her sword to the sensitive crook of his neck. She's ruthless in that moment, the darkness haunting her features undoubtable.

"What do you want?" the Peacekeeper demands, although in no position to do so. Liliana's fierce expression softens all at once, and she turns, sword still held to his throat. Behind her, swords clatter to the ground and Aurora's cry of innocence in victory rings out. Liliana does not move, because she is wondering for all the world what it is that she wants. Finally, it is Ophelia's old words that fill her mind and she answers, dutifully. "We do what we have to do." She takes a deep breath, feeling another splattering of raindrops upon her bare arms. "We want your supplies, and we want a change of course charted on your radar so you wont cross our path again until we're long gone."

"Your just kids!" he counters, pulling at his restraints. As he does so, Liliana catches her sisters tying another two Peacekeepers to the mast alongside her. Usually, there are four. "We're pirates," Liliana counters in a somewhat pedantic voice, and then feels the sharpness of the hasty kick he makes to her left shin. She slides backward, not unused to un-cooperative victims, and yet startled all the same. "Time to go, 'Phelia!" The rain clings to the girl, strands of wet hair sticking to her face.

She's on her feet again in a moment, checking the bindings and counting each of her sisters in turn. Ophelia, somewhere down below, always safe, always in trouble. Artemis, rifling through a box of star charts with Aurora smiling broadly at her prisoner in Artemis' wake. Evelyn is still fighting, the clash of metal not an unusual sound, the day not yet an unusual day. Grace, nowhere. "Godspeed, peasant. Better hope Ophelia shows you mercy." With this, Liliana wipes the water from her face and makes her way slowly below the decks of the ship she does not know, sword draw. Her youngest sister, missing somewhere, and a violent storm drawing closer.

Cursing Ophelia and her reckless, useless missions, and biting back the kind of fear that often claws at her empty stomach, the child waits. The ship luches beneath her, a table scattered with pins and co-ordinates toppling and trapping her against a wall. She can hear nothing now, nothing but the heavy rise and fall of the ocean, the torrential rain and raging winds. The light flickers above her, the candle almost blowing out "Grace!" she calls, pulling herself out from the wall and trying to remain upright. She makes it back to the deck just as the water begins to leak into the cabin, pouring in through the sides of the ship like blood through tangled veins.

"Don't think I wont toss you all overboard!" Ophelia demands, somehow both serious and thoroughly enjoying herself. With a sigh, Lilian accounts for all five of her siblings and the four Peacekeepers that were sailing this ship toward the dock. A wave breaches the deck, showering them all in a torrent of icy water that fills their mouthes and noses and hearts. "Ophelia, enough!" she pleads, but Ophelia only grins and begins to climb, higher and higher into the masts of the foreign vessel. Another wave breaks above them, and Lilian is all at once grabbing hands and forcing bodies back onto The Black Pearl. The children still smile, because nothing is dangerous to Ophelia, and Ophelia is their leader. With her, they are always safe.

"'Phelia! Get down, please!" she shouts, lingering between the threshold of the two mirroring ships, struggling to keep herself together. "But Lil, it's lovely up here - why don't you come and enjoy the view?" Liliana Sparrow hesitates, looking back at the children behind who need them both, the storm ahead, the flashes of lightning that light up the world far too brightly for either of them to see. "You're going to get hit by lightning!" she shouts, but her words are snatched from her and there is nothing to do but climb. Making quite sure to stand upon the man who kicked her as she does so, Liliana holds tightly to the ropes and finds her way into the sky. She cannot see with the water pounding endlessly into her eyes. Perhaps it is better not to see, because what you do not know, you can make up.

"Captain Ophelia Eurydice Sparrow," Lilian begins, fighting the roar of the world. "We need you." In this moment, she realises that it's true. Although Ophelia might forget to buy more soap every time they are in town, or never turn of the lights after dark so they risk capture, or set out on impossible missions and drag them all along with her, it is true. Without Ophelia, The Sparrow Sisters are nothing, and Lilian is nothing. And although she goes around picking up the pieces that her elder sister leaves behind, without her they would be nowhere at all. That reckless streak and ability to risk anything for everything lies at the very root of the storm.

Ophelia gets down. Together, they stumble upon their own ship and shelter from the waves and sail out of the storm, leaving the four unfortunates bound to their mast on their quickly sinking ship. "So, girls, what did they have for us today?" Liliana asks when the darkness begins to lift to make way for morning's gleam. While Aurora and Evelyn and Grace spin stories of merchant wares and weaponry from District Two, Ophelia tosses a bar of soap in her general direction. Liliana smiles and sends Eve to send the weaponry overboard and Ophelia nods her unspoken consent. (Sometimes, you need someone there to remind you to stop.)

. . .

The girls sat on the end of the pier, their legs dangling into the water, waiting. "As soon as you set yer deadlights on 'im, you tell us, Aurora," Evelyn demanded, because the second eldest Sparrow sister's eyesight was best. Aurora nodded sagely. "Well," said Ophelia. With a deep sigh, she got to her feet. "I don't know about you girls, but I've been waiting around long enough." There were murmurs of disagreement at this, however everyone else ended up with their feet no longer brushing the surface of the ocean but instead firmly on the wooden structure that lead them out to sea.

"Let's swim!" squealed Grace, eleven years old and already verging on as daring as Ophelia. Before anybody could protest, the tiny child was leaping into the air and landing smoothly in the water. She turned a summersault and then proceeded to splash her sisters, urging them to join her. "What if we get caught?" Liliana asked, hesitant and yet aching to do something other than simply waiting for a father who did not seem to be coming. "So what if we get caught!" was the reply, and suddenly each of the children were bobbing near the end of the pier, shoes lined up in an orderly fashion. Aurora's were missing, because she always seemed to forget to wear them, but nobody cared.

After what seemed like an endless hour of chasing each other about in the water and listening to Liliana's shouts of 'Grace-Sparrow-if-you-do-that-one-more-time-I-will-drown-you-and-you-better-believe-it', the six children hoisted themselves back onto the pier. It was a clear night, and the laughter that had been cutting through the air around them suddenly fell to silence. They huddled together for a moment, all thinking the same thing, but refusing to put it into words. Finally, Artemis spoke. "What time is it, Lil?" Liliana consulted the watch that was always strapped to ankle, and didn't reply for a long moment. "Quarter past one in the morning." Thoughts of 'he's late, he's late' turned over in their minds to a deep dread that so obviously read he's never been late before, what if he's not coming back?

"It's going to be okay, guys," Lilian lies with all the confidence a thirteen year old can pull together. Okay, that is, if spending the rest of your life without parents, evading authorities and stealing everything you can get your hands on counts as okay. If not, then they weren't okay, not in the slightest. "Kids!" comes a shout from the darkness, and Lilian's arms stopped holding onto everybody. The huddle of children broke apart and turned in the kind of excitement that can only be felt at one o'clock in the morning. And then, it died. The man who was crossing the dock to greet them was not their father.

He was a Peacekeeper, one they knew by site and not by name. "Are you the Sparrow children?" Everything stopped for Liliana - her heartbeat still, her breath captured between her lips. Before Ophelia could introduce herself firmly and confirm that yes, they were indeed, and what was his business around these parts tonight, Liliana knew. "I'm afraid your father was caught in a storm earlier this evening, and thrown overboard," the man said, placing a hand on Grace's shoulder. She shrugged it off. "He can swim, I'm sure he's fine-" she demanded, daring the officer to say otherwise. "I'm sorry, kids. His body washed up on the beach not an hour ago." Liliana did not hesitate. Within moments, she was sprinting across the beach, desperation raw and hard and mingled with disbelief in her mind. It couldn't be true. It can't be. It isn't.

Hands grabbed at her, holding her, but she fought them. And then Ophelia was holding her tight and she was sinking to the ground and silent. Liliana Sparrow did not cry. "We're going to be okay, girls. You'll see," Ophelia lied, and they believed her, because there was no other choice. "And you've got somewhere to go tonight, someone to look after you? I hate to think of you kids all alone." The Peacekeeper smiled, a horrid, pitying smile. Liliana hated him. She hated him for lying and she hated him for smiling and she hated him. "Of course we do. Our Grandmother lives just off the docks, we'd better be getting back now." For once, the thirteen year old was glad of her eldest sisters fluent lies. They bid the Peacekeeper goodnight.

"We don't have a Grandma, 'Pheels," said Grace, biting her lip. Liliana grabbed her hand and held it tight. "We don't need a Grandma, girls. We have each other." That was a promise. A horrible, heavy promise in which Ophelia and Liliana swore everything would be okay. They lied, of course. That night was spent huddled together in their father's bedroom, none of them sleeping and yet nobody brave enough to open their eyes and see his bed empty and hollow.

. . .

"Tell us a story, Lil." It was not an uncommon request aboard The Black Pearl, especially the day before they were set to dock in District Four. That was the day they all had to lie, something not everyone found as easy to do as Ophelia. Attending reapings and showing up often enough to answer questions kept them off the suspect list and gave them time to gather supplies but it was dangerous. Fear clutched at the children, and they came to Liliana begging for something else to think about.

"It's late, girls." They looked at her with pleading eyes and she couldn't help but do as they asked, because she knew her sisters far better than she knew herself. She knew them well enough to know when they hurt, or when they were afraid, and she knew that it was her job to fix it, because nobody else would bother. "What do you want a story about?"

"Tell us the one about us!" suggested Aurora, quietly. Liliana hesitated, considering. It was dark, and the single kerosene lamp was the only thing to light the room. Liliana was curled in one hammock with Artemis to one side and Aurora to the other. Across from them, swinging their legs over the side so their bare feet brushed against each other, Evelyn and Grace waited. "The one about us doesn't have a happy ending, Ror." The girls shook their heads, wanting to hear it anyway.

Sometimes, there is hope in despair. Perhaps, it is the falsehood that if you remember all the terrible things that have happend, you will remind yourself that things cannot possibly get worse. Liliana, however, knew that this was not the case. There is always something else that can go wrong if you hesitate to save the day. And so she begins to tell her family their story. "It started with 'Phelia, 'cause ev'rything starts with 'er. She was born, and then Artemis, then 'Rory, then me. Eve 'nd Gracie, then. I don't remember 'er that well, our Mama."

Liliana stopped, trying to remember something, anything at all. "She was the best Mama anybody could ever had, and she was ours, girls." At this, Grace scowled, perhaps because of all of them, Grace Sparrow never had a mother. "And then, 'cause she was so special, we only got 'er for a little while. But even then we were all really happy. Father loved us very much, and we stuck together." At this, Liliana ducks her head to see if she can get a glimpse of the Captain, who was still standing at the helm.

"We learned all 'bout the Capitol, and about swords and all the other things you got'ta know if you're goin' ta live in Panem. We trained for the Games, just incase, and we didn't really mind because we we're lucky, weren't we?" Not like the other kids, this implied. Heavy words told lightly, aching through the girl's very core. This was a story, but it was more a twisted fairytale than anything else. "Then Father got caught in a storm, just like us, and he didn't come home. But we were okay, 'cause we'll always be okay and we always got 'Pheelia."

"Remember, girls? A month after it happend, and 'Phelia walked down to those Peacekeepers and just took their ship, took 'em with her and kept on goin'. That was the day we realised we could do anythin', and we can." There is silence, and Liliana thinks for a moment that her dysfunction, merry little family may have fallen asleep.

"Remind me how the story ends, Lil."

"With happily ever after, of course."

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COMPLETE

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