The Storyteller: The Lie of Baby Sen

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Tenth Birthday

Big white clouds raced overhead on a blustery morning, not threatening rain but blocking the sun every now and then. Sen sat on the beach, knees drawn up, watching the sea change colour under sun and clouds without really seeing it. She had heard nothing but rumour of Tu for four years now, but the more she heard the same ones over and over again, the more she started to believe them. She had been such a naïve little kid when she had last seen Tu. She had believed every word Tu had told her and tried to reason it out even when it didn’t make sense, but now…

She sighed. She was a big girl now—double digits. She was practically a teenager. Time to stop being a little kid believing everything she heard.

Tu was a pirate captain. It was still too hard to say, too hard to think about, still impossible to accept. But hadn’t she had seen some of Tu’s raw anger on that last night when she had yelled at Sula? And she had a reputation, even Tu acknowledged that. But before she had disappeared, the sailors who came to Jita spoke both admiringly and fearfully of her. Surely that was the right response to a bounty hunter. She was, as she had said, someone you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of. She was one of those who kept people honest, reminded them why turning pirate was a bad move. It was still too hard to think of her as becoming a pirate herself.

Just in case she was, though, how long had she been a pirate for? Had she only just become one when the pirates had captured the Horizons, or sunk it, or whatever had happened there? They might have captured her and forced her to become a pirate, and Tu had done that to—to save Kes’ life, or something. She imagined Kes being tied up to their own mast with ropes, forced to her knees, Tu yelling that she would do anything for her most special person in the world. That made sense, didn’t it?

Tu was a good person. She had given them a jetty and pearls and she had saved Sen’s life. Could someone be a pirate and a good person? Could a pirate be a good person?

What if Tu had been a pirate when she came ashore that very first time, with Sen in Kes’ arms? She buried her face in her knees. She didn’t want to think about that. People in the village had been wondering just that, she knew. They had been looking sideways at her, stopping their conversations when they noticed she was walking by, but she knew.

‘Stop talking about me!’ she yelled at them once, but it didn’t make a difference. They still talked. Kaiji had overheard them talking.

‘What if Tu was a pirate when she brought Sen ashore?’ they asked. ‘What does that make Sen?’

‘Did Captain Tu definitely say they had been attacked by pirates?’ another would say. ‘Or did she just say Sen’s parents had died in a pirate attack? Could be that the Horizons was the pirate ship doing the attacking. That would explain the pearls she came with.’

Angry tears dripped down her face, but Sen was past trying to wipe them away now. Tu didn’t attack other ships, only pirates.

‘And what does that make Sen?’ they said. ‘Her parents were on Tu’s crew.’

Did that make Sen a pirate, too? Everyone looked at her suspiciously now. For the longest time she had been the only legitimate person in Jita, the only one who stood above the rest of the village just because her parents had been married and legitimate themselves. She gave them legitimacy and drew ships to their jetty. She was the hope of the village, the hope that they might one day grow and become a real, viable port with a real ship calling Jita home. Now, they thought she was a pirate, even lower than they were.

But what if that was why Tu brought her ashore? Maybe Tu realised that piracy wasn’t a good profession to be in, so when Sen’s parents died, she took Sen ashore so she could have an honest life and get on a different ship. Maybe Sen, and by extension, the whole village of Jita, was Tu’s way of trying to make amends for her piracy.

Tu had said her ship was no place for children, but Sen was born there. Maybe she valued Sen’s parents so much that she promised she would protect them and their daughter. As they were dying, maybe Tu promised she would take Sen ashore where she could be brought up free of piracy.

Or maybe Sen’s parents were both still alive, still part of Tu’s crew, and they had taken her ashore so she could be brought up safely until she was old enough to be on board. Sen didn’t know how she felt about that possibility, so she decided to ignore it.

And then a horrible thought came to her. What if her parents had been on the other ship? She didn’t want to think about that possibility, but it kept gathering momentum like a wave rolling into shore. What if Tu had been the pirate and her parents the bounty hunters? Or what if it was the other way around, what if the Horizons was still a bounty hunter at the time and Sen’s own parents were the pirates? What if Tu had been the one to kill Sen’s parents, then found tiny baby Sen and, rather than hand her over with the rest of the pirate crew, she took her to Jita to be brought up safe away from the knowledge that she was a pirate? The wave crashed. Maybe she hadn’t killed them—that was how she knew their names—and she had turned them over to Ryas and saved Sen.

‘Where are you, Tu?’ she sobbed into her knees. If only she could ask Tu those questions herself.

A soft hand rested on her shoulders and the rustle of fabric brushed against her legs as someone sat down beside her. Sula. She had been so lost in her own thoughts she hadn’t even heard Sula coming up behind her, but now she scooped her up into her lap like she was five years old again.

‘Shh, shh,’ Sula hushed. ‘What’s wrong, my big brave girl?’

‘Am I a—a pirate?’ Sen sobbed. Her breath hitched between words, but she didn’t care. The world was against her.

‘Oh, Sen, beautiful girl. No, of course not.’ Sula stroked her hair and Sen could already feel herself calming down, just a little bit. ‘Is that why you didn’t want Tu to be a pirate? Because you think that makes you one?’

Sen nodded and found herself sucking on the smooth piece of amber, still bound to her wrist. Sentimentality.

‘Now, you listen to me,’ Sula said, a firm, solid wall against the world that hated her. ‘You are whatever you make yourself to be. You’re a legitimate child; you control your life. You can join a crew—start asking anyone who comes ashore, if you like. You can be a monster hunter or a bounty hunter, like Tu, or you can be a trader, or a deep sea fisher, or a pearl diver or a treasure seeker. You could be an explorer and map the world we haven’t seen, or an ambassador treating with Llayad. You’re strong, and confident, and so, so brave. Now, take a deep breath with me. One, two, three.’

Sen did as asked, listening to Sula’s own breath in her ear to calm her.

‘You can be anything. You can make it happen.’

Just the sound of her voice was soothing now, melding with the rhythm of the sea and the wind in her ears.

She pulled the amber from her mouth. ‘What if I want to stay here?’

‘Then… you can stay here,’ Sula replied with a shrug. Sen had heard the pause in her voice. She didn’t like the idea. ‘But there’s such a great, exciting world out there for you, and you can see it all.’

‘Would you come with me?’ she tried instead. ‘And Kaiji and Nak, too?’

Sula shrugged again. ‘If you captain your own ship, then I would be honoured to be part of your crew, and I know Kaiji would want to follow you everywhere.’

That felt weird, being Sula’s captain, but then Sen remembered that Sula didn’t know who her father was. Just because of that, she could never be a captain because nobody would sail under a bastard captain. Nobody would even hire one as a crew member. ‘Sula, why is it so bad to be a bastard? Tu said once that you could be a captain, if you weren’t a bastard. Why is that so bad? Why is it so special that I’m legitimate?’

Sula sighed heavily. ‘Tradition,’ she said, bitterly. ‘When people in the past were living such cramped lives on much smaller ships, and especially when every ship was against each other instead of working towards the common goal of Tsayth, it was important to know your lineage so you didn’t accidentally marry your cousin. If two people are too closely related, their babies can be deformed, born with only one foot, or not having their mind develop further than age three. To stop that, the king and queen of the time made sure that only married couples could have children. Any child born who didn’t know their lineage was a bastard, just in case.’

Sen frowned. ‘But that’s silly. Just because you might accidentally marry your brother?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Well,’ Sen decided, sitting up straight so she could look up at Sula. ‘I’ll get a ship all my own, and I’ll be the captain, and I’ll only take bastards onto my deck.’

Sula laughed. ‘That’s a very noble sentiment.’

‘And Kaiji,’ Sen amended, then frowned. ‘Is Kaiji a bastard? Because you and Nak are married, so doesn’t that make her legitimate?’

‘Yes,’ Sula said with a nod, ‘but she’ll still find it very hard to find a crew because Nak and I aren’t legitimate ourselves.’

‘That’s really silly,’ Sen scolded.

‘Well, beautiful brave girl, you—’ She poked Sen’s nose with one finger, drawing a giggle. ‘—can change that.’

Sen took another deep breath and settled back against Sula’s chest. Sula began stroking her hair again, curling her fingers over her scalp and rocking quietly back and forth.

Nothing of Sen’s history really mattered. Nobody cared what her parents did for a living, whether they were pirates or bounty hunters or even the pearl divers Tu had first introduced them as. All the world cared about was that she knew who they were, and Tu had made certain she would never forget that.

She wasn’t ready to look for a crew yet, not unless they would take Kaiji, Sula and Nak with her, and who would take on an entire family because of one ten-year-old? But she could start asking, find out what other kinds of ships were out there. Which ones would give her adventure but not quite as much danger as leviathans and kraken. Which ones, she wondered without voicing it aloud, might lead her to cross paths with Tu.

‘What’s an ambassador?’ she asked, remembering the word from what Sula had said earlier.

‘It’s someone who represents all of Tsayth and talks to other kingdoms on our behalf. It’s how we get cheaper wood from Llayad, because the taxes pay for a good portion of it.’

‘Oh.’ That sounded boring. ‘What other ships do you know about?’

‘Well,’ Sula said, tipping her head back in thought. ‘There are couriers and messengers, carrying very special packages or messages across the world, and they have to be really fast. Passenger ships taking people around, cargo ships that carry goods for people who don’t like to go on the sea themselves, like Llayans and mountain Kazinians…’

Where before the world seemed so dark, Sen’s future now opened up before her, and she was ready for it. With or without Tu.

STUFF

o YES CAUGHT UP. Oh man. Three chapters a day is absolutely my limit. It's only 8:30 and I could theoretically punch out the beginning of another before bed, but jesum christmas I am braindead.

o Hey look that same cricket match is still going. I remain disappointed, though there is the vaguest snifter of a hope now. 79 from 42? Nnnnno.

o SENNNN BB.

o That last pun makes me happy. SHUDDUP.