The Storyteller: The Origin Story

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Twenty-First Birthday

Back when Sen and Kaiji had first joined Captain Gendas’ crew, he had admitted he—and just about every other bounty hunter at the time—had greatly admired Captain Tu and the Horizons. Even when she continued to evade him, there was still a begrudging respect in his words. When Sen saw him standing at the prow of Cocoa Black, floating alongside the Orana without so much as a bad word between them, she knew he had always planned this. He’d always planned to meet Captain Tu.

The Kazinian trader and the bobbing little Raykinian Duck were sent on their way. Both crews of the Orana and the Cocoa Black were invited to the desolate little Raykinian island where Tu recounted her story once again to her full audience. Sen found herself swept up in the tale, though even on the second telling, she didn’t know if she wanted to believe it or not. She knew she didn’t trust Tu anymore, knew that she weighted every word in her mind, but it was hard not to get wrapped up in the captain’s words.

By the end of it, she had Captain Gendas convinced enough that he offered her a proposition. Let him see the Pirate Isles, he suggested. If he saw its potential, as Tu did, then let them be allies. Tu would need them if she were to convince Ryas that piracy was never her intention. Tu agreed, but with conditions. They would sail together for a year, alternating each other’s targets so they could take each other’s measure. During that time, and assuming Tu then agreed to take him to the Pirate Isles, forever afterwards, Gendas would answer to her. Finally, she wanted to trade five crew members, just to be sure everyone was playing the same side. She was looking straight at Sen as she said this.

And so, a year later, Sen and Kaiji found themselves on the deck of the Orana, becalmed on the way to the Pirate Isles, with Cocoa Black floating motionless off their starboard.

Kaiji sighed and nestled her head into Sen’s chest. ‘We’ll get there eventually,’ she promised, and Sen felt as though she was talking to herself as much as Sen. ‘Then we can get back on Cocoa Black and get on with our lives.’

Sen gave a short, voiceless laugh through her nose. The reality of that, of leaving Tu behind again, made her feel nostalgic for her childhood.

‘What?’ Kaiji asked, suspicious.

‘I don’t know,’ Sen answered, uncomfortable. Throughout the year, Tu had regaled them with tales from her adventurous life, unsanitised as they never had been when Sen was a kid. She retold the leviathan’s attack and the hunt to bring it down with far more blood and horror than Sen remembered. She told of Kes and the raunchier parts of their marriage. She told of the pirate ships she had taken, of the treasures she had found, and of the Pirate Isles themselves. In all of it, Sen heard nothing but joy and honesty. This was Tu the adventurer, the woman she had idolised as a childhood, still alive, still dreaming, still adventuring. And yet, there was still one story she refused to tell in truth.

‘You want to stay, don’t you?’ Kaiji said. Sen could hear disdain and anticipation in equal measure in her words.

‘Maybe,’ Sen answered sheepishly, truthfully. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

Kaiji sat up to kiss her full on the lips. Sen would follow that kiss anywhere. ‘I’ll follow wherever you go,’ Kaiji reminded her, and Sen had to bite back a smile, ‘but I don’t trust her. She’s still only telling the stories that make her the hero. We still don’t know why she saved you in the first place. She doesn’t do guilt. She must have had a plan back then. How do you fit into her pirate lord dreams?’

Sen shrugged, awkward. ‘That’s the bit that makes me say “maybe”.’

Kaiji straddled Sen’s thighs, intense grey eyes staring into her, latching onto that doubt. ‘And what about Tranquilo? We don’t know anything about that. Even if she had nothing to do with that, just imagine it. It’s like if we went home—to Jita, I mean, not to Cocoa Black—and everyone there had their throats slit. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t want revenge. You sure as shit can’t tell me Tu wouldn’t want revenge for Tranquilo, even if she didn’t get on with her family. Why hasn’t that story ever come up? Someone slaughtered that crew. If not Tu, then who was it?’

Kes sidled up beside them, arms folded as she rested back against the railing. The big first mate was the complete opposite of Teza; she rarely said much unless it was asked of her. She looked down with a curious expression, half hidden by the sun casting her face in shadow. ‘Tranquilo has really been weighing on you, hasn’t it?’

‘Ever since Mama used it as a weapon,’ Kaiji answered. ‘It was the first time I saw Tu angry. It left a mark.’

Kes sighed, then looked up to the prow with a whistle and a beckoning wave. Sen could never imagine Teza whistling Gendas over like that—though if anyone could, it was Teza.

As Tu strode across the motionless deck, Kes shrugged one shoulder with a grimace of apology. ‘Tranquilo still won’t go away.’

Tu’s expression darkened, reminding Sen again of the night she had left. ‘Fuck,’ she spat between her teeth, then threw her hands up. ‘Fine. I give up.’ She sat down cross-legged on the deck, casting a warning look across the crew. Somehow, Sen knew this story wouldn’t have an audience.

Kes lay down on the deck, head in Tu’s lap; Sen stretched out her legs so Kaiji could lay back between them.

Tu took a deep breath, her expression wild, cornered. ‘I’m a bastard,’ she admitted, her voice a low growl.

Kaiji sat up straight, her head banging against Sen’s chin, clacking her teeth violently together. ‘Ow!’

‘Sorry, I’ll kiss it better later.’

‘It’s fine. I’d’ve done the same.’ She frowned back at Tu. ‘But you knew them. Your father was the captain.’

‘I knew their names,’ Tu said. Sen had never seen her so embarrassed, so deeply shamed. ‘You need to understand my childhood to understand Tranquilo. I didn’t grow up on that ship. My mother, Tiseh, raised me alone in Ryas. I knew my father’s name, but I never knew him. I never had any prospects of setting foot on a ship, let alone earning a place on a crew. I just worked odd jobs in the city, serving food to foreigners at the food shops, selling oysters on the docks, running errands for the tax office on occasion, anything to keep food on the table. We didn’t even have a fishing boat.’ She spat the words, still bitter at her upbringing. ‘You’d think I’d left all that behind, but no, fifty fucking years later and I’m still dredging it up.’

‘Sorry,’ Kaiji said, voice small as she gripped Sen’s hand. ‘I know how you feel.’

Tu shrugged, a jerking, disdainful motion. ‘You don’t, but I appreciate the sentiment. You felt you belonged, because everyone in Jita was a bastard. In Ryas, at least three quarters of the population is legit. I had it rubbed in my face every day. It was while I was running errands for the tax office that I realised just how much money information is worth. So much money changed hands for one bit of information, so I listened to everything going on around the docks, in the food shops, in the tax office, until I got something useful: the whereabouts of a pirate ship. I looked it up at the tax office and discovered it was pretty high on the list, with a bounty my tiny little brain could hardly equate. So I looked into bounty hunters, and came up with the Tranquilo as my best bet.’

‘So there she was on the dock, waiting for us,’ Kes said, smiling up at her wife’s face. ‘Squiddy little kid, squiddy little arms, squiddy liph-pbb-ay!’ Tu’s hands over her mouth degenerated her words into muffled nothings.

‘Quite enough of that,’ Tu said, good-naturedly, then shook her head. ‘I was fifteen. Forgive me for being squiddy. Anyway. I went straight to the captain with my information, convinced him first that it was solid, then when he pulled out his coin purse to offer payment, I told him instead I wanted a place on his crew. He was reluctant, but greedy, as I knew he would be. This was a sizeable bounty, so he agreed to my proposition, and I was on board.’

Tu’s face had gone dark and shamed again, any earlier trace of humour diminished. ‘Kes was the only light on that voyage. I was spat on, kicked, had my face pushed in the slops daily. I was starved, kept in the hold for a full month, and they tried to convince me that this was all I was worth. I had asked for this, they mocked. This was what it was to be a crew member. All except Kes.’ Here she managed a smile. ‘At first I think it was pity—’

‘It wasn’t,’ Kes interrupted, in a way that made Sen think she had been trying to convince Tu of this for years. ‘It was because you were the sexiest piece of human to ever set foot on that disgusting junk.’

Tu bent over to kiss her. ‘Whatever. You kept me sane, kept me with a purpose. So when they finally caught that pirate ship I had promised them and turned it in for the biggest bounty of their pathetic lives, I was ready when they tried to throw me overboard. Instead I challenged the captain to a duel.’

‘Captain was my father,’ Kes pointed out, matter-of-fact. She was trying to lighten the mood, Sen realised. ‘Disgusting man. Sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen was you, squiddy little fifteen-year-old, laying down the challenge to him. That, right there, was when I knew I wanted to marry you.’

‘He and Tranquilo were made for each other,’ Tu agreed, still dark. ‘So I challenged him, and I won. He was old and only had one leg, but he was arrogant and greedy and didn’t reckon on the squiddy little fifteen-year-old. I killed him and his first mate, too.’

‘My mother,’ Kes added with a smile.

‘I took his place as captain. Anyone who disagreed,’ Tu said with a shrug, ‘I killed. Anyone who so much as mentioned my bastardry, I killed.’ She cast her eyes aside. ‘It was no way to run a ship, with tyranny, but I didn’t know how else to do it back then. They’d shown me that was how you make people follow you, by force. I was fifteen. The only way they’d show me any level of respect was if they recognised I was a threat. Kes at my side—she was twenty, much more imposing. She helped. But it was no way to run a ship. It didn’t work out.’

Tu fell silent. Sen didn’t want to fill in the gaps.

‘You slaughtered the crew,’ Kaiji said instead. ‘Every one of them.’

Tu gave one, stiff nod. ‘We said we’d wash our hands of them, get married, pretend I was legit and never look back. Then the fucking ship drifted into Ryas and that fucking… It’s still following me. That rumour is still the basis for everyone’s opinion of me. Never mind all the good we did with the Ruby, it all comes back to the thoughtless desperation of a fifteen-year-old who just wanted her torturers to go away.’

Kes rolled over, propped her head up with her elbow on the deck. ‘Safe to say,’ she said, all trace of humour gone as she bared her teeth. ‘Not a word of this goes anywhere. Not to the crew; not to Gendas. Because we’ll know.’

STUFF

o It's 11pm and I was up at 6:30 to get the car serviced I'm going to bed.

o Tu and Kes might just be inspired by Tyb and Thadd. Little bit.

Comments

[drazzi.livejournal.com]

Tu isn't a wind witch, she's a WORD witch. I have done it. I have sorted it out and solved it. I win.

She told of Kes and the raunchier parts of their marriage.
SHE TOLD THEM PORN. SHE SMUTTED MY PERFECT LITTLE OTP GIRLS. Good on her.

How do you fit into her pirate lord dreams?
Because she can't have a baby and she wants one. She looooves Sen T_T

Bastard is worse than pirate, surely. SURELY.

Kes and Tu are also OTP by the way, and I love them. I love them more with this backstory too.

I feel bad for poor little Tu T_T SHE WAS SO ABUSED I mean its not wonder she started her life with fighting back like a scared dog.

Tu and Kes might just be inspired by Tyb and Thadd. Little bit.
dngdfubgdfubgdfubgdf I mean I did make the Tyb/Tu remark before but still
THEY ARE THE TYB/THADD THAT CAN BE

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Tu told them ALL the porn. I mean, she had to explain how to use the Llayan dildo, right?

Bastard and pirate probably about even pegging in the weird ways of the Tsaythis.

Kes and Tu are smexy ladies and I love them. Even if they are possibly a bit AU gender-swapped Tyb/Thadd. I ONLY REALISED IT THIS CHAPTER I SWEAR I WASN'T COPYING THEM.

[drazzi.livejournal.com]

I DON'T THINK YOU COPIED I love the comparison XD

[annarti.livejournal.com]

THANK GOODNESS.