The Storyteller: The Tale of Dragon Ghan
Nov. 13th, 2018 12:09 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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yrae
Sen still couldn’t completely banish Captain Tu from her thoughts. She didn’t entirely want to, either. On the morning of her birthday, she and Kaiji were cleaning the morning’s catch, along with half a dozen other children in the village. It was a communal gathering. If one fishing boat didn’t have a good day, another may have caught too much for one family to eat. Everything was tossed together and distributed among the families for breakfast. This morning, Kaiji was gutting the smaller fish while Sen cleaned them. The bigger teenagers got the bigger fish, like salmon and long, slippery garfish. No part of the fish went to waste. The guts and the scales would be boiled up to make stock for soup that night, with kelp that hung in dried ribbons in the sun.
After every fish, there was still some part of Sen that looked longingly towards the jetty and wished, wished, wished that she would see the Horizons pull into the bay. But the ocean remained stubbornly empty.
‘I’ve got a present for you,’ Kaiji said.
‘What sort of present?’
‘A story,’ Kaiji said with a grin. ‘I’ve been working on this one for a really long time. More than a month, even!’
Sen smiled broadly. ‘Really? Just for me?’
‘Yep!’ She cleared her throat and prepared a storytelling voice, imitating Tu’s as best she could. ‘It’s about a pirate captain called Tu.’
Sen smacked her, teasing, with the back of a fishy hand. ‘You’re making it up!’
Kaiji raised her eyebrows along with a handful of fish guts in warning. ‘How do you know that? It might all be really true.’
‘Does it have sea dragons?’ Sen teased.
‘Shh.’ Kaiji jerked her hand as if to throw the guts. Sen squealed and held her hands up, but didn’t get splattered. ‘No jumping ahead,’ Kaiji warned. ‘Like I was saying, it’s a story about a pirate captain called Tu. She was a really, really tough sailor, even before she was a pirate. She fought every monster in the sea and even made friends with sea dragons, too. Because before she was a pirate, Tu was a hunter. She hunted treasure, and monsters, and then pirates.’
The other children were listening now, too. They had heard all Tu’s stories from Sen and Kaiji, but they hadn’t had anything new in years. Sen wondered if Kaiji’s story was in part to prove she could still tell stories.
‘There was one really, really scary pirate she wanted to hunt down, though, the worst pirate on the seas. He didn’t just make friends with sea dragons, like Captain Tu did, he kept them as pets and trained them to go and attack pirates for him.
‘You can train sea dragons?’ Hashi asked, amazed.
‘Of course,’ Kaiji answered with a shrug. ‘Don’t interrupt or I’ll lose my place. And I’ll chuck fish guts at you.’ She shuffled more comfortably into the sand as the children swayed back with ‘eww!’ noises. Sen giggled behind her hand. ‘So anyway. Tu was looking for the dragon captain, who was called Dragon Ghan, on account of his sea dragons, but she didn’t know how to find him. She asked everywhere. She asked in Ryas and Llayad, she asked other ships, even all the way to Kazin, because he was the fiercest pirate around and he was worth a really big bounty. A hundred gold pieces! But Tu couldn’t find any information at all… until…’
She grinned at Sen, and Sen could feel tingles up her spine.
‘One day, she ran into a pearl diving ship, where she met a husband and wife called Jin and Uti.’
Sen forgot all about the fish scales. Her eyes grew wide at the mention of her parents.
Kaiji’s grin broadened. ‘Their ship had been attacked by Dragon Ghan, they said. He didn’t take the ship or the crew, because they were really good pearl divers, but he did take every pearl they had on board, and he told them he would keep coming back to take them every year. His sea dragon spies would always find them, so they could never hide. They begged Captain Tu to catch the pirate for them, and Tu promised she would look after them.’
Sen bit her lip. She felt like she knew where this bit of the story was going, but didn’t dare interrupt Kaiji. She still held the fish guts.
‘So, for a month Captain Tu followed Jin and Uti’s ship to be their protection, until at long last, Dragon Ghan appeared on the horizon, with twenty sea dragons swimming alongside him. They were beautiful and terrifying, bright red and yellow and knobbly all over like coral, flowing and stringy like seaweed, one was even shiny like the inside of an abalone shell, and they all had big, sharp teeth like the biggest sharks in the sea. But Captain Tu wasn’t scared. Even if she was, that just made it the perfect time to be brave.’
Sen curled her toes, at once scared and excited.
‘She wedged her ship between the pearl diving ship and Dragon Ghan’s ship so he couldn’t get to them, but the pirates all jumped on board and they started fighting. Everyone fought really bravely, and even the pearl divers took up their swords and began fighting, because everyone at sea can fight.’
‘But what about the sea dragons?’ little Pin asked.
‘They didn’t like it one bit,’ Kaiji said, shaking her head. Apparently she didn’t notice that she had been interrupted. She was just happy everyone was listening to her story. ‘They could see Dragon Ghan was losing, so they started swimming around and around in circles to make a whirlpool. Captain Tu could only keep them away for a little bit longer, but in all the confusion, Dragon Ghan still managed to get what he came for—the pearls. As soon as he got them he called off his dragons, ran back to his ship and called all his pirate crew back, then they sailed off and away. Unfortunately, though, he still killed some of the pearl divers—including Jin and Uti. With their dying breaths, they told Captain Tu that they had a little baby girl below decks, and begged for Captain Tu to save her. Of course, she said yes, and she vowed that she would hunt down Dragon Ghan if it was the last thing she did. She would make the seas safe before little baby Sen grew up and joined her crew.’
Sen threw herself onto her friend, scales, guts and all. ‘That was the best story ever!’ she cried.
Kaiji hugged her back just as strongly. ‘You were just so sad, thinking that you might be a pirate. I just had to prove to you that you’re not.’
‘But what happened next?’ little Pin asked. She had been holding the same squid all through the story, and she was too young to remember Captain Tu or the Horizons at all. ‘Did she catch Dragon Ghan?’
‘I dunno,’ Kaiji replied with a shrug. ‘I didn’t get any further.’
‘I bet that’s where she is now,’ Hashi guessed. ‘I bet she went to look for the Pirate Isles so she could find him again and bring him to justice.’
‘Yeah!’ the other children cried.
‘She’s been pretending, all this time, to be a pirate,’ Hashi went on. He tipped his head back with an air of authority. Though he was only a year older than Sen, he had been all the way to Ryas once on the yearly taxation run. ‘She had to go for two years not collecting her taxes for being a bounty hunter so the other pirates would think she was on their side. She went back to Tisadez again to find treasure, then pretended to the pirates that she had stolen it from other ships, until finally, they let her into the Pirate Isles.’
He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘But she wasn’t alone. Dragon Ghan’s sea dragon spies had been watching her the whole time, and they knew she was coming. The whole thing was a trap to lure her in.’
Sen hugged her knees. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘She wouldn’t fall for a trap like that!’
‘But she did,’ Hashi said with a sage nod. ‘Because Dragon Ghan was really clever.’
‘Not as clever as Captain Tu!’ Sen yelled, and threw a fish tail at him. ‘She pretended to him really, really well, so he believed she was a pirate and invited her to the Pirate Isles himself. But when she was there…’ She frowned, trying to think of a reason she would stay instead of just killing the pirate and leaving.
‘She met the king and queen of the Pirate Isles!’ Kaiji chimed in. ‘Dragon Ghan had already told them about how she had nearly beaten him, and would have if not for his dragons, and how she was a really dangerous bounty hunter. But now it’s been so long since she went to Ryas to collect her taxes that she’s been declared a black spot, and the Pirate Isles were the only place she could go.’
‘But the pirate king and queen still didn’t believe her,’ Sen picked up again. She thought she knew where the story was going now. ‘Because pirates don’t trust anyone. They wanted her to prove to them that she was really a pirate, so they told her she had to…’ She looked at Kaiji again for guidance. Just as she realised how the story ended, Kaiji must have at the same time, because her face wore the same horrified look. ‘She had to finish the job Dragon Ghan started, back on the pearl divers’ ship.’
Kaiji nodded. ‘They told her she had to kill little baby Sen.’
Silence fell on the group as everyone stared at Sen.
‘But of course,’ Kaiji murmured into the silence, ‘Tu couldn’t do what they asked, so the pirate king and queen locked her away in the pirate dungeon, where she still is today.’
Sen shivered. ‘What if it’s true?’ she asked, in a whisper only Kaiji could hear.
Kaiji shook her head. ‘It isn’t. It’s only a story.’ But her voice was a whisper, too.
They finished cleaning the fish in quiet conversation, though Sen didn’t participate in any of it. She kept looking out to the jetty, to the bay and the little deserted island beyond. What if the story was true? Would it be anymore farfetched than any of the rumours she had heard? It certainly sounded more like the Tu she and Kaiji knew. She could be stuck in a pirate prison waiting for someone to save her.
‘Hey, I’ve got an idea,’ Hashi piped up. ‘What about you and Kaiji go to Ryas for the next tax run? You can ask at the taxation office. They have records of everything. I’m sure they’ll have something about the Horizons.’
‘It’s got a black spot,’ Sen answered with slumped shoulders. ‘That means they haven’t heard anything of it in ages.’
‘But there’ll be more news for you there than here,’ he said. ‘Ryas is huge. In five years, someone has to have seen it somewhere. And you know the best questions to ask.’
Sen brightened at that confidence boost.
Kaiji nudged her quietly. ‘Even if we don’t find anything, you can ask about crews to join there. And it’ll be fun. Come on, let’s wash up and go ask Mama and Papa.’
Sen agreed with a shrug. She dumped her knife in a bucket and wiped as much of the gunk from her fingers as she could, then climbed to her feet and followed Kaiji away up the beach. Maybe, in Ryas, she could learn the truth.
STUFF
o It's midnight I'm going to bed.
After every fish, there was still some part of Sen that looked longingly towards the jetty and wished, wished, wished that she would see the Horizons pull into the bay. But the ocean remained stubbornly empty.
‘I’ve got a present for you,’ Kaiji said.
‘What sort of present?’
‘A story,’ Kaiji said with a grin. ‘I’ve been working on this one for a really long time. More than a month, even!’
Sen smiled broadly. ‘Really? Just for me?’
‘Yep!’ She cleared her throat and prepared a storytelling voice, imitating Tu’s as best she could. ‘It’s about a pirate captain called Tu.’
Sen smacked her, teasing, with the back of a fishy hand. ‘You’re making it up!’
Kaiji raised her eyebrows along with a handful of fish guts in warning. ‘How do you know that? It might all be really true.’
‘Does it have sea dragons?’ Sen teased.
‘Shh.’ Kaiji jerked her hand as if to throw the guts. Sen squealed and held her hands up, but didn’t get splattered. ‘No jumping ahead,’ Kaiji warned. ‘Like I was saying, it’s a story about a pirate captain called Tu. She was a really, really tough sailor, even before she was a pirate. She fought every monster in the sea and even made friends with sea dragons, too. Because before she was a pirate, Tu was a hunter. She hunted treasure, and monsters, and then pirates.’
The other children were listening now, too. They had heard all Tu’s stories from Sen and Kaiji, but they hadn’t had anything new in years. Sen wondered if Kaiji’s story was in part to prove she could still tell stories.
‘There was one really, really scary pirate she wanted to hunt down, though, the worst pirate on the seas. He didn’t just make friends with sea dragons, like Captain Tu did, he kept them as pets and trained them to go and attack pirates for him.
‘You can train sea dragons?’ Hashi asked, amazed.
‘Of course,’ Kaiji answered with a shrug. ‘Don’t interrupt or I’ll lose my place. And I’ll chuck fish guts at you.’ She shuffled more comfortably into the sand as the children swayed back with ‘eww!’ noises. Sen giggled behind her hand. ‘So anyway. Tu was looking for the dragon captain, who was called Dragon Ghan, on account of his sea dragons, but she didn’t know how to find him. She asked everywhere. She asked in Ryas and Llayad, she asked other ships, even all the way to Kazin, because he was the fiercest pirate around and he was worth a really big bounty. A hundred gold pieces! But Tu couldn’t find any information at all… until…’
She grinned at Sen, and Sen could feel tingles up her spine.
‘One day, she ran into a pearl diving ship, where she met a husband and wife called Jin and Uti.’
Sen forgot all about the fish scales. Her eyes grew wide at the mention of her parents.
Kaiji’s grin broadened. ‘Their ship had been attacked by Dragon Ghan, they said. He didn’t take the ship or the crew, because they were really good pearl divers, but he did take every pearl they had on board, and he told them he would keep coming back to take them every year. His sea dragon spies would always find them, so they could never hide. They begged Captain Tu to catch the pirate for them, and Tu promised she would look after them.’
Sen bit her lip. She felt like she knew where this bit of the story was going, but didn’t dare interrupt Kaiji. She still held the fish guts.
‘So, for a month Captain Tu followed Jin and Uti’s ship to be their protection, until at long last, Dragon Ghan appeared on the horizon, with twenty sea dragons swimming alongside him. They were beautiful and terrifying, bright red and yellow and knobbly all over like coral, flowing and stringy like seaweed, one was even shiny like the inside of an abalone shell, and they all had big, sharp teeth like the biggest sharks in the sea. But Captain Tu wasn’t scared. Even if she was, that just made it the perfect time to be brave.’
Sen curled her toes, at once scared and excited.
‘She wedged her ship between the pearl diving ship and Dragon Ghan’s ship so he couldn’t get to them, but the pirates all jumped on board and they started fighting. Everyone fought really bravely, and even the pearl divers took up their swords and began fighting, because everyone at sea can fight.’
‘But what about the sea dragons?’ little Pin asked.
‘They didn’t like it one bit,’ Kaiji said, shaking her head. Apparently she didn’t notice that she had been interrupted. She was just happy everyone was listening to her story. ‘They could see Dragon Ghan was losing, so they started swimming around and around in circles to make a whirlpool. Captain Tu could only keep them away for a little bit longer, but in all the confusion, Dragon Ghan still managed to get what he came for—the pearls. As soon as he got them he called off his dragons, ran back to his ship and called all his pirate crew back, then they sailed off and away. Unfortunately, though, he still killed some of the pearl divers—including Jin and Uti. With their dying breaths, they told Captain Tu that they had a little baby girl below decks, and begged for Captain Tu to save her. Of course, she said yes, and she vowed that she would hunt down Dragon Ghan if it was the last thing she did. She would make the seas safe before little baby Sen grew up and joined her crew.’
Sen threw herself onto her friend, scales, guts and all. ‘That was the best story ever!’ she cried.
Kaiji hugged her back just as strongly. ‘You were just so sad, thinking that you might be a pirate. I just had to prove to you that you’re not.’
‘But what happened next?’ little Pin asked. She had been holding the same squid all through the story, and she was too young to remember Captain Tu or the Horizons at all. ‘Did she catch Dragon Ghan?’
‘I dunno,’ Kaiji replied with a shrug. ‘I didn’t get any further.’
‘I bet that’s where she is now,’ Hashi guessed. ‘I bet she went to look for the Pirate Isles so she could find him again and bring him to justice.’
‘Yeah!’ the other children cried.
‘She’s been pretending, all this time, to be a pirate,’ Hashi went on. He tipped his head back with an air of authority. Though he was only a year older than Sen, he had been all the way to Ryas once on the yearly taxation run. ‘She had to go for two years not collecting her taxes for being a bounty hunter so the other pirates would think she was on their side. She went back to Tisadez again to find treasure, then pretended to the pirates that she had stolen it from other ships, until finally, they let her into the Pirate Isles.’
He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘But she wasn’t alone. Dragon Ghan’s sea dragon spies had been watching her the whole time, and they knew she was coming. The whole thing was a trap to lure her in.’
Sen hugged her knees. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘She wouldn’t fall for a trap like that!’
‘But she did,’ Hashi said with a sage nod. ‘Because Dragon Ghan was really clever.’
‘Not as clever as Captain Tu!’ Sen yelled, and threw a fish tail at him. ‘She pretended to him really, really well, so he believed she was a pirate and invited her to the Pirate Isles himself. But when she was there…’ She frowned, trying to think of a reason she would stay instead of just killing the pirate and leaving.
‘She met the king and queen of the Pirate Isles!’ Kaiji chimed in. ‘Dragon Ghan had already told them about how she had nearly beaten him, and would have if not for his dragons, and how she was a really dangerous bounty hunter. But now it’s been so long since she went to Ryas to collect her taxes that she’s been declared a black spot, and the Pirate Isles were the only place she could go.’
‘But the pirate king and queen still didn’t believe her,’ Sen picked up again. She thought she knew where the story was going now. ‘Because pirates don’t trust anyone. They wanted her to prove to them that she was really a pirate, so they told her she had to…’ She looked at Kaiji again for guidance. Just as she realised how the story ended, Kaiji must have at the same time, because her face wore the same horrified look. ‘She had to finish the job Dragon Ghan started, back on the pearl divers’ ship.’
Kaiji nodded. ‘They told her she had to kill little baby Sen.’
Silence fell on the group as everyone stared at Sen.
‘But of course,’ Kaiji murmured into the silence, ‘Tu couldn’t do what they asked, so the pirate king and queen locked her away in the pirate dungeon, where she still is today.’
Sen shivered. ‘What if it’s true?’ she asked, in a whisper only Kaiji could hear.
Kaiji shook her head. ‘It isn’t. It’s only a story.’ But her voice was a whisper, too.
They finished cleaning the fish in quiet conversation, though Sen didn’t participate in any of it. She kept looking out to the jetty, to the bay and the little deserted island beyond. What if the story was true? Would it be anymore farfetched than any of the rumours she had heard? It certainly sounded more like the Tu she and Kaiji knew. She could be stuck in a pirate prison waiting for someone to save her.
‘Hey, I’ve got an idea,’ Hashi piped up. ‘What about you and Kaiji go to Ryas for the next tax run? You can ask at the taxation office. They have records of everything. I’m sure they’ll have something about the Horizons.’
‘It’s got a black spot,’ Sen answered with slumped shoulders. ‘That means they haven’t heard anything of it in ages.’
‘But there’ll be more news for you there than here,’ he said. ‘Ryas is huge. In five years, someone has to have seen it somewhere. And you know the best questions to ask.’
Sen brightened at that confidence boost.
Kaiji nudged her quietly. ‘Even if we don’t find anything, you can ask about crews to join there. And it’ll be fun. Come on, let’s wash up and go ask Mama and Papa.’
Sen agreed with a shrug. She dumped her knife in a bucket and wiped as much of the gunk from her fingers as she could, then climbed to her feet and followed Kaiji away up the beach. Maybe, in Ryas, she could learn the truth.
STUFF
o It's midnight I'm going to bed.