The Storyteller: The Chain of Pearls
Nov. 25th, 2018 01:04 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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yrae
Three years into living as the Orana’s crew, three more years into Tu’s impossible plan for the Pirate Isles, and Tu’s exuberance was only building.
Since the pirate war eight years ago, the pirates and residents of the Pirate Isles had spoken reverentially of her defence of their home. Sen was surprised to learn that the pirates had been no clearer on Tu’s whereabouts during those years than the rest of the world had been. Most had believed her dead, drowned or killed during the war, and looked on her short time as pirate lord as a small ray of hope, but that they would never see someone like her again. They fell back into their lives before the pirate war. Some few had believed Tu captured, taken back to Ryas and imprisoned with nothing in her future but a noose. The true believers decided she had faked her death and had been living among them, or back in Ryas, waiting for her moment to strike.
Now she was back, her proud Orana floating in the bay, and the locals cried for her to take leadership once more.
Tu did so more publicly this time, standing on the roof of a Tsaythi-style white dome that overlooked the largest of Freetown’s plazas.
‘I want these islands to be free,’ Tu cried, then shook her head despondently. ‘But not the way you thought I did, please. I don’t want these to be the Pirate Isles anymore. When we are to draw them on a map—and we will, they’ll become part of every map in the world—these islands will look like a delicate chain around a lady’s neck. I therefore rename these islands the Chain of Pearls.’
The crowd made general ‘ooh’s and noises of interest. They liked the sound of that.
‘I declare us a new and independent nation,’ Tu went on. ‘Freetown is a legitimate trading port, open to the world and just as free of taxes as ever we have been. We have the best, most varied goods in the world. We have the clearest gems, the roundest pearls, the most plentiful seafood, the softest, thickest furs, the most delicate embroidery and the strongest steel, all in one place. The Chain of Pearls is a destination in itself, and when we open ourselves to the world, we will be the envy of it.’
The noises of interest continued, but nobody was cheering just yet. They wanted to know how their lives were going to change from this massive upheaval.
‘I’m not asking you to go legit,’ Tu said with a laugh, and the crowd laughed—a little nervously, a little relieved—with her. ‘I’d encourage it, but I sure as shit won’t enforce it. That won’t change, ever. Neither will the taxes, but do understand just what taxes have paid for in the past, and that is predominantly protection. Ryas has paid those taxes back to monster hunters and bounty hunters to protect their tax payers.’ Here she shrugged. ‘Raykin, Llayad and Kazin have done a little of that in the past, but their interests in the ocean aren’t as vested as Tsyath’s. As such, with no taxes of our own, I can’t offer you that same level of protection. Tsaythi bounty hunters will still come after you if you continue to operate as pirates, but I can promise that the Chain of Pearls will remain your safe haven.’
Here she did earn a cheer. Their lives wouldn’t change too much, they’d just have more people to trade with.
Sen folded her arms. Tu had all but declared piracy legal in her shiny new island nation. She could try and change the name to be as glamorous as she wanted, but if its citizens were all pirates and its leader advocated piracy, they would still be known as the Pirate Isles.
‘Of course,’ Tu said, spreading her hands with her cheeky grin, ‘It does make good business sense to not rob the ships who do opt to trade with us, and I really, truly implore you this time around to please, please not attack the envoy ships? That’s what started the war last time. This time, I’m going to Ryas. I want a small fleet with me—enough to show we mean to make a stand, but not so many as to look like we’re declaring war. Zest, Smallfry, Red Cacao; you’re with me. Zest, chart a complete map of the Chain of Pearls, including currents, reefs, spits, all the danger spots. Smallfry, I want Cocoa Black with us, so get a message to them. Red Cacao, come and see me. We’re a legitimate trading port, guys. Let’s start acting like one.’
As the people cheered and applauded their new lord, Sen saw Kes purposefully weaving her way through the crowd towards her and Kaiji.
‘Come with me,’ she said, then turned away, expecting to be followed.
Sen exchanged looks with Kaiji, who shrugged and gestured on. Sen shrugged in reply, took Kaiji’s hand and followed the first mate through the crowd.
Kes took them down to the beach, away from where ships docked to where there was a collection of granite boulders worn smooth by sand and salt. The three of them each picked a boulder to sit on, the waves rippling in and twisting around the passages between the rocks.
‘You’re not impressed,’ Kes said, short on words as ever.
Sen bit her lip. Kes must have been watching her through Tu’s speech. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘How can a nation built on piracy ever be seen as legitimate? No nations will want to trade here.’
‘We don’t need nations to trade with us,’ Kes answered, ‘only ships.’ She sighed. ‘Tu wants you on her side so strongly that I think she really feels she needs you. You’re special to her, you know that, right?’
Sen shrugged, awkwardly. ‘Yeah, but I don’t know why. She’s never been overly forthcoming on that.’
‘I know,’ Kes agreed. ‘She hasn’t to me, either, but I have my own theories. She got drunk once, back in the later days on the Ruby. She said afterwards that it was a horrible experience, like what she imagined seasickness to be, but she looked a hundred times worse than that. The crew constantly harangued both of us, trying to guilt trip us for never having children, mocking us that the only children we could ever bear would be bastards. It didn’t bother me at all, but when Tu was drunk that night, I learned just how heavily it weighed on her. She always had leadership set in her sights, and it was obvious even then that a ship’s captain wouldn’t be enough for her, even if she couldn’t see it herself.’
Kes looked aside at Sen. ‘You’re the same age now as she was then,’ she said, almost as an aside, then shrugged and continued on. ‘Without ever having raised a child, the crew all said Tu was incapable of captaining a crew. She could never know people if she hadn’t seen one grow up, could never care for people if she hadn’t held the fragility of one so young in her arms. I thought when she was confessing this to me that it was just what the crew was saying, but I think after so many years of hearing the same thing, she honestly believed it herself. By that stage they were just reinforcing what she knew to be true.’
Kaiji lifted Sen’s hand to kiss her fingers. ‘You’ve never heard any of that, have you?’
Sen shrugged one shoulder. Kes seemed intent on her answer, too. ‘A little bit,’ she admitted, ‘but not as much, I don’t think. Doesn’t bother me, anyway. I’ll be—’ She bit her tongue. She was about to admit she would make a brilliant captain, but she couldn’t say that to the first mate, not yet. ‘You think that’s why she saved me?’ she said to cover her slip. ‘To prove she could raise a child?’
Kes narrowed her eyes curiously, but ignored her earlier slipup. ‘When we bought Horizons, she decided before our first voyage that she would save any baby she came across and claim them for her crew, just to have the chance to raise one as her own.’ She laughed and shrugged. ‘We didn’t know anything about babies; obviously never planned on having any ourselves. You weren’t the first. There was one before you, a little boy, not so newborn, but try as we might, neither of us could produce milk for them. The women on board informed us then that breasts only produce milk when the body they’re part of has made a baby that needs to drink from them. We didn’t make it to port in time to find such a mother before that little boy died of starvation.’
Kes fell silent. Sen squeezed Kaiji’s hand and rested her head against her shoulder. She almost felt she could guess the rest without Kes telling it.
Tu would have seen that boy’s death as her own fault. It wasn’t guilt that would have wracked her, but failure. Tu could brush guilt aside, but her inability to have and raise a child was seen as a failure in the world’s eyes. The boy had been her chance to prove otherwise, and in front of her whole crew, she had failed.
Kes cleared her throat. ‘When you came along, she wasn’t going to fail a second time.’
‘Are there any others?’ Sen asked.
‘No.’ Kes shook her head. ‘There were three other babies we saved on Horizons, but those all went to ships with weaning mothers and she never needed to revisit them. I think she only needed to prove herself once, probably just to herself. She’s never admitted any of this to me, mind.’
Sen smiled. ‘But you know her better than anyone. Better than she knows herself.’ She snuggled into Kaiji’s shoulder. Kaiji hugged an arm around her, hand resting warm and rough against her side. ‘Thank you for telling me.’
She felt as though a frantic bird had finally settled in her mind. Maybe Tu didn’t even know what made Sen special to her, but Sen felt she understood now why she was saved. After such a vicious life, her torture on Tranquilo ended by slaughtering the crew, her life hunting monsters and fighting pirates, finally acquiring the ship of her dreams only by killing her captain and half the crew, Tu only wanted to prove herself human. She wanted to be capable of caring. If there was anything in Tu’s life that Sen could trust implicitly, it was her love for Sen. That much, she realised, had never been in doubt.
‘I want to captain a ship,’ she announced, on an impulse. Kaiji’s grip tightened. They had agreed to keep that secret until they were financially ready to leave. Sen felt now, though, that she could tell Tu everything. She only wanted to run it past Kes first, just to be sure that was the best path to take.
Kes nodded, a small crease of thought on her brow. ‘Will you be in Tu’s fleet?’
Sen chewed her lip. Honesty or safety? ‘No,’ she answered, and saw Kes’ frown deepen just a little. ‘I’m no pirate. I can’t be part of a nation that supports it.’
Kes nodded again. ‘Tell her,’ she advised. ‘She’s likely guessed already, so tell her, and hold nothing back.’
She slid from the rock and dusted sand from her hands. ‘She loves you and she trusts your judgement. If she were to give anyone a reprieve, it would be you.’
STUFF
o Zest is my favourite café in Glenelg. Smallfry is a Japanese-inspired fish and chip shop in the city that I've been wanting to go to for aaaages and haven't gotten around to cos they're only open weekdays/weeknights and that's awkward when I work outside the city. Red Cacao is a chocolate café in Stirling that I do oh so much writing at and is definitely my favourite café in the world ever.
Since the pirate war eight years ago, the pirates and residents of the Pirate Isles had spoken reverentially of her defence of their home. Sen was surprised to learn that the pirates had been no clearer on Tu’s whereabouts during those years than the rest of the world had been. Most had believed her dead, drowned or killed during the war, and looked on her short time as pirate lord as a small ray of hope, but that they would never see someone like her again. They fell back into their lives before the pirate war. Some few had believed Tu captured, taken back to Ryas and imprisoned with nothing in her future but a noose. The true believers decided she had faked her death and had been living among them, or back in Ryas, waiting for her moment to strike.
Now she was back, her proud Orana floating in the bay, and the locals cried for her to take leadership once more.
Tu did so more publicly this time, standing on the roof of a Tsaythi-style white dome that overlooked the largest of Freetown’s plazas.
‘I want these islands to be free,’ Tu cried, then shook her head despondently. ‘But not the way you thought I did, please. I don’t want these to be the Pirate Isles anymore. When we are to draw them on a map—and we will, they’ll become part of every map in the world—these islands will look like a delicate chain around a lady’s neck. I therefore rename these islands the Chain of Pearls.’
The crowd made general ‘ooh’s and noises of interest. They liked the sound of that.
‘I declare us a new and independent nation,’ Tu went on. ‘Freetown is a legitimate trading port, open to the world and just as free of taxes as ever we have been. We have the best, most varied goods in the world. We have the clearest gems, the roundest pearls, the most plentiful seafood, the softest, thickest furs, the most delicate embroidery and the strongest steel, all in one place. The Chain of Pearls is a destination in itself, and when we open ourselves to the world, we will be the envy of it.’
The noises of interest continued, but nobody was cheering just yet. They wanted to know how their lives were going to change from this massive upheaval.
‘I’m not asking you to go legit,’ Tu said with a laugh, and the crowd laughed—a little nervously, a little relieved—with her. ‘I’d encourage it, but I sure as shit won’t enforce it. That won’t change, ever. Neither will the taxes, but do understand just what taxes have paid for in the past, and that is predominantly protection. Ryas has paid those taxes back to monster hunters and bounty hunters to protect their tax payers.’ Here she shrugged. ‘Raykin, Llayad and Kazin have done a little of that in the past, but their interests in the ocean aren’t as vested as Tsyath’s. As such, with no taxes of our own, I can’t offer you that same level of protection. Tsaythi bounty hunters will still come after you if you continue to operate as pirates, but I can promise that the Chain of Pearls will remain your safe haven.’
Here she did earn a cheer. Their lives wouldn’t change too much, they’d just have more people to trade with.
Sen folded her arms. Tu had all but declared piracy legal in her shiny new island nation. She could try and change the name to be as glamorous as she wanted, but if its citizens were all pirates and its leader advocated piracy, they would still be known as the Pirate Isles.
‘Of course,’ Tu said, spreading her hands with her cheeky grin, ‘It does make good business sense to not rob the ships who do opt to trade with us, and I really, truly implore you this time around to please, please not attack the envoy ships? That’s what started the war last time. This time, I’m going to Ryas. I want a small fleet with me—enough to show we mean to make a stand, but not so many as to look like we’re declaring war. Zest, Smallfry, Red Cacao; you’re with me. Zest, chart a complete map of the Chain of Pearls, including currents, reefs, spits, all the danger spots. Smallfry, I want Cocoa Black with us, so get a message to them. Red Cacao, come and see me. We’re a legitimate trading port, guys. Let’s start acting like one.’
As the people cheered and applauded their new lord, Sen saw Kes purposefully weaving her way through the crowd towards her and Kaiji.
‘Come with me,’ she said, then turned away, expecting to be followed.
Sen exchanged looks with Kaiji, who shrugged and gestured on. Sen shrugged in reply, took Kaiji’s hand and followed the first mate through the crowd.
Kes took them down to the beach, away from where ships docked to where there was a collection of granite boulders worn smooth by sand and salt. The three of them each picked a boulder to sit on, the waves rippling in and twisting around the passages between the rocks.
‘You’re not impressed,’ Kes said, short on words as ever.
Sen bit her lip. Kes must have been watching her through Tu’s speech. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘How can a nation built on piracy ever be seen as legitimate? No nations will want to trade here.’
‘We don’t need nations to trade with us,’ Kes answered, ‘only ships.’ She sighed. ‘Tu wants you on her side so strongly that I think she really feels she needs you. You’re special to her, you know that, right?’
Sen shrugged, awkwardly. ‘Yeah, but I don’t know why. She’s never been overly forthcoming on that.’
‘I know,’ Kes agreed. ‘She hasn’t to me, either, but I have my own theories. She got drunk once, back in the later days on the Ruby. She said afterwards that it was a horrible experience, like what she imagined seasickness to be, but she looked a hundred times worse than that. The crew constantly harangued both of us, trying to guilt trip us for never having children, mocking us that the only children we could ever bear would be bastards. It didn’t bother me at all, but when Tu was drunk that night, I learned just how heavily it weighed on her. She always had leadership set in her sights, and it was obvious even then that a ship’s captain wouldn’t be enough for her, even if she couldn’t see it herself.’
Kes looked aside at Sen. ‘You’re the same age now as she was then,’ she said, almost as an aside, then shrugged and continued on. ‘Without ever having raised a child, the crew all said Tu was incapable of captaining a crew. She could never know people if she hadn’t seen one grow up, could never care for people if she hadn’t held the fragility of one so young in her arms. I thought when she was confessing this to me that it was just what the crew was saying, but I think after so many years of hearing the same thing, she honestly believed it herself. By that stage they were just reinforcing what she knew to be true.’
Kaiji lifted Sen’s hand to kiss her fingers. ‘You’ve never heard any of that, have you?’
Sen shrugged one shoulder. Kes seemed intent on her answer, too. ‘A little bit,’ she admitted, ‘but not as much, I don’t think. Doesn’t bother me, anyway. I’ll be—’ She bit her tongue. She was about to admit she would make a brilliant captain, but she couldn’t say that to the first mate, not yet. ‘You think that’s why she saved me?’ she said to cover her slip. ‘To prove she could raise a child?’
Kes narrowed her eyes curiously, but ignored her earlier slipup. ‘When we bought Horizons, she decided before our first voyage that she would save any baby she came across and claim them for her crew, just to have the chance to raise one as her own.’ She laughed and shrugged. ‘We didn’t know anything about babies; obviously never planned on having any ourselves. You weren’t the first. There was one before you, a little boy, not so newborn, but try as we might, neither of us could produce milk for them. The women on board informed us then that breasts only produce milk when the body they’re part of has made a baby that needs to drink from them. We didn’t make it to port in time to find such a mother before that little boy died of starvation.’
Kes fell silent. Sen squeezed Kaiji’s hand and rested her head against her shoulder. She almost felt she could guess the rest without Kes telling it.
Tu would have seen that boy’s death as her own fault. It wasn’t guilt that would have wracked her, but failure. Tu could brush guilt aside, but her inability to have and raise a child was seen as a failure in the world’s eyes. The boy had been her chance to prove otherwise, and in front of her whole crew, she had failed.
Kes cleared her throat. ‘When you came along, she wasn’t going to fail a second time.’
‘Are there any others?’ Sen asked.
‘No.’ Kes shook her head. ‘There were three other babies we saved on Horizons, but those all went to ships with weaning mothers and she never needed to revisit them. I think she only needed to prove herself once, probably just to herself. She’s never admitted any of this to me, mind.’
Sen smiled. ‘But you know her better than anyone. Better than she knows herself.’ She snuggled into Kaiji’s shoulder. Kaiji hugged an arm around her, hand resting warm and rough against her side. ‘Thank you for telling me.’
She felt as though a frantic bird had finally settled in her mind. Maybe Tu didn’t even know what made Sen special to her, but Sen felt she understood now why she was saved. After such a vicious life, her torture on Tranquilo ended by slaughtering the crew, her life hunting monsters and fighting pirates, finally acquiring the ship of her dreams only by killing her captain and half the crew, Tu only wanted to prove herself human. She wanted to be capable of caring. If there was anything in Tu’s life that Sen could trust implicitly, it was her love for Sen. That much, she realised, had never been in doubt.
‘I want to captain a ship,’ she announced, on an impulse. Kaiji’s grip tightened. They had agreed to keep that secret until they were financially ready to leave. Sen felt now, though, that she could tell Tu everything. She only wanted to run it past Kes first, just to be sure that was the best path to take.
Kes nodded, a small crease of thought on her brow. ‘Will you be in Tu’s fleet?’
Sen chewed her lip. Honesty or safety? ‘No,’ she answered, and saw Kes’ frown deepen just a little. ‘I’m no pirate. I can’t be part of a nation that supports it.’
Kes nodded again. ‘Tell her,’ she advised. ‘She’s likely guessed already, so tell her, and hold nothing back.’
She slid from the rock and dusted sand from her hands. ‘She loves you and she trusts your judgement. If she were to give anyone a reprieve, it would be you.’
STUFF
o Zest is my favourite café in Glenelg. Smallfry is a Japanese-inspired fish and chip shop in the city that I've been wanting to go to for aaaages and haven't gotten around to cos they're only open weekdays/weeknights and that's awkward when I work outside the city. Red Cacao is a chocolate café in Stirling that I do oh so much writing at and is definitely my favourite café in the world ever.