The Storyteller: A Ship's Tale

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Twenty-Second Birthday

Sen felt numb for days after Tu’s admission. She didn’t know what to feel and so opted to feel nothing. Kaiji recognised the conflict in her mind and just stayed close, holding her hand, hugging an arm around her stomach as she slept. She didn’t try to convince Sen of anything, not yet.

Their first fight didn’t come until they finally reached the Pirate Isles.

Freetown was a city swamped with so many foreigners it didn’t even feel like Tsayth anymore, but neither did it feel like a Raykinian or Kazinian port. It was vibrant, noisy, ripe with the smell of the sea and tropical fruit and dusty bricks and char-smoke and fresh fish. It was alive and wild, where children played in the streets, on the beach and in the clear river, dark-skinned Tsaythi kids with pale Kazinians and Llayans and golden Raykinians, and every mix in between. They prattled in what seemed a dozen languages, all of their own mixed in together and with a healthy sprinkle of words they had made up themselves. Fruit trees grew in the streets for people to freely eat from, and children hung from the branches offering to pick the higher fruit—for a small fee.

It was like no other city in the world. Sen loved it. She could see why Tu wanted to open this place up to the whole world. So, too, could Captain Gendas.

Kaiji couldn’t. ‘Why do you want any part of this?’ she demanded, voice shrill. ‘You know who she is now!’

Sen frowned, unsure how to put her feelings into words. ‘I know who she was,’ she said, ‘and I think I know who she is. Mostly, I know who she wants to be.’ She held her breath, chewed her bottom lip. ‘And I want to give her that chance.’

Kaiji shoved the table back and disappeared out into the city. When she returned, face red with tears, she said only one thing to end their fight. ‘I’ll follow you anywhere.’

‘Thank you,’ Sen replied, her own voice thick with emotion.

She didn’t go into this blindly, or so she hoped. She remained sceptical of Tu’s true methods. Over the year they had spent on the Orana’s deck, the crew had barely said a bad word about their captain. After Kes’ threat, Sen wondered just how much the crew had been forbidden from talking about. When Tu offered her and Kaiji positions on her crew, as she knew Tu would, she accepted with one condition, that the crew be allowed to speak freely. Tu agreed without hesitation, pointing out that they had never been silenced.

In a year, Sen promised Kaiji, they would re-evaluate.

They sat together now in the Black Beetle, the self-proclaimed first complete liquor house in the world, serving Kazinian spirits and cocktails, Raykinian beer and Llayan wine in equal measure.

‘They definitely all love her.’ Kaiji nursed a Kazinian cocktail called a black mountain. She promised she liked it, but the golden-brown liquid barely filled a quarter of the stubby clay cup and she had barely finished half of it. She had also coughed and spluttered after her first sniff of the stuff. ‘Weird sort of… you wouldn’t want to get on her bad side kind of love.’

‘Yeah.’ Sen had a straw-yellow Llayan wine, only because she hadn’t encountered much of it in her travels. She didn’t like it, but she had paid for it and decided to finish it. ‘Vicious, but only to those who deserve it.’

Kaiji took another miniscule sip of her drink and grimaced, though Sen knew she was grimacing at her comment rather than the drink. ‘Do they, though?’ she asked. ‘Yenji said on the Horizons that she used to use the captured crews for target practice. Tied them to the mast so her younger crew could fire arrows at them and get used to killing people. Sometimes she’d even throw them overboard to be a moving target.’

‘Yenji was never on Horizons, though,’ Sen pointed out, reaching out for another handful of nuts from the communal bowl on the table. ‘Bajo said it was only the very worst who she did that to, the ones who threatened and tortured their own crew. Rapists, even.’

Kaiji sputtered. ‘Really? Bajo’s your point of reference? Bajo, who absolutely got chased down and his crew robbed by the notorious Captain Tu?’

Sen grinned and lifted her shoulders. She was just glad Kaiji could joke about Tu’s piracy now, whether it was true or not. ‘Right, but the Osteria Oggi deserved everything it got.’

Kaiji grinned and nodded deeply. ‘Yeah. Yeah, they did.’

Osteria Oggi had been two ships, both identical. The crew had wrecked Osteria on the edge of a trade route not often used because of the dangerous rocks. They then used it as bait, pretending to be stranded on the rocks and luring in passing ships, traders and pirates alike, to help them. Oggi would then round the island and descend on the hapless trader, running them aground, killing their captain and crew. From the wrecks around the island, Tu estimated more than a thousand people had died at the hands of Osteria Oggi until Horizons caught up to them. Tu had decided prison was too good for a crew such as theirs, and instead threw them overboard in the deserted open ocean before towing the remaining Oggi back to Ryas for the ransom.

‘She’s vicious, I’ll give you that,’ Sen agreed, pointing with her wine glass, ‘but every one of her crew—those who were there at the time and those who joined since—they all agree to their core that she’s right.’

‘Including you.’ Kaiji pointed back with her clay cup. ‘Look, all I’m saying is that we’re getting two completely conflicting stories here.’

‘Yeah: those who know her, and those who don’t and only know the rumours and the reputation.’

‘Right, but do you know how she actually got the Horizons?’

Sen started and sat up straight. The mild fog that the wine had been settling on her mind cleared in an instant. ‘What do you mean? She and Kes saved up and bought it.’

Kaiji lifted her index finger from her cup and waggled it back and forward. She passed the cup under her nose, but declined to drink from it this time. ‘I give up. I need water.’ She sighed, put her cup on the table and reached for the nuts instead. ‘I’ve been saving this one up,’ she said. ‘Another one of Tu only giving you a little bit of the truth and letting you fill in the gaps. Sounds totally legit, right? Saved up and bought a ship then hired hew own crew? Didn’t happen like that. They saved their earnings from Shōbōsho and the Ruby, for sure, but they used it to buy the crew, not the ship. They talked their way onto the ship fair and square, but remember how she told us about the duel with Kes’ father on Tranquilo? She challenged the then-captain of Horizons, too, and the first mate. Because she had already bought the crew, they supported her in this challenge.’

Sen shrugged, somewhat defensively. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’

‘She incited a mutiny, Sen,’ Kaiji pointed out. ‘That’s how she bought Horizons with her hard-earned savings, by bribing the crew and inciting a mutiny. Guess what happened to anyone who wouldn’t take her bribe money and kept supporting the old captain?’

Sen didn’t want to.

‘All dead. Did they deserve it, do you think? Were they rapists who tortured their crew? Probably not, or else Tu wouldn’t have needed to bribe them.’

Sen hid behind her wine glass. ‘Did you ask Tu about it?’

Kaiji snorted. ‘No, of course not. She’d have some story lined up that would explain it all away, like she always does. The whole of the Horizons crew confirms it, though. They said they supported her because they were bored of their old captain, said he just lived day-to-day, feeding off the safe, close-by ships. Tu had an actual plan for the future, opening up more of the world like every sailor dreams of doing, but it was the bribes that tipped them over. They didn’t know she was going to kill anyone who didn’t take the bribe, though. A few more defected in Ryas—nobody knew what happened to them—and Tu had her core crew.’

Sen looked down into her wine glass, suddenly deciding that she, too, couldn’t be bothered finishing her beverage.

Kaiji sighed, braced her hands on the table and swung herself around to Sen’s side so she could sit close to her and nuzzle into her shoulder. ‘Look, I understand. But I don’t think she’s ever going to come clean on Bracegirdles. She clearly isn’t a woman to express guilt, not now, not then, so—’

‘That’s not it,’ Sen interrupted, then shrugged and set her half-empty wine glass on the table. ‘Well, it’s not just that. She’s just…’ She frowned. ‘I know my parents were both legit, but I don’t know them. They were never part of my life. But Tu—and Sula, and Nak. It’s not as though I don’t believe they can do no wrong, I just… they’re real. Tu is real to me. The adventurer she told us about, she’s real, she just sanitised it because we were kids. She would have told us everything if she’d been able to keep coming back, I’m sure. She basically has, now.’

Kaiji hugged her arm. ‘I know. You love her.’

‘Stop that.’ Sen repositioned herself, kicking her legs up on the bench so she could lean into her wife. ‘If you want to leave, then we’ll leave. Make port in Ryas, go back to the Cocoa Black.’

Kaiji sighed and shook her head. ‘I want a ship,’ she announced. ‘I want to buy it, properly and legitimately with money we’ve earned, I want you to captain it, and I want us to hire our own crew that we’ve chosen.’

‘Done,’ Sen agreed with a broad grin, then she turned Kaiji’s face towards her for a kiss. She could taste the sharp fire in whatever Kaiji had been drinking earlier on her lips. ‘I’ve already been saving what we’ve been earning on Orana just for that.’

Kaiji squealed and crunched her nose in excitement. ‘Fuck, I love when you talk like that.’

Sen kissed her again, soft and deep. ‘Good idea,’ she murmured against Kaiji’s mouth. ‘Let’s get a room.’

STUFF

o Idk WHY but this chapter was just not happening. It took me five hours to write the thing and it's still 250 words short of my average, but whatever. It got the job done, I'm happy with it.

o Osteria Oggi is an awesome classy pasta restaurant in the city. They have a solid concrete slab table that's like 20m long.

Comments

[drazzi.livejournal.com]

22 is my lucky number, WHAT WILL HAPPEN THIS CHAPTER??? Good shit I hope.

Fucking like towns that are where all pirates/sailors/etc meet up are always the fucking coolest. I love the description of this one.

Kaiji you are a precious and I love you <3

Also the girls need to swap the drinks they don't like and share the burden. First sign of bad marriage there.

Tu's vicious indeed, but that's what makes her sexy :3

Kaiji is such a protective wifey, asking around the crew for the truth for her Sen.

YES. GET YOUR OWN SHIP GIRLS. LIVE THE DREAM. Also have the nookie.

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Now you know why Tu wants to show off the Pirate Isles to the world :D