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pauraque_bkThe setting here is my original fantasy world, which is called Jingree, and it's a story I've had in mind for a while, though this particular version was inspired by the 30 mph winds in San Francisco yesterday wtf...
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Blue Hands Telling of the Dragon
She spoke:
I am Blue Hands. My mother is Closed Poppy, my wife is Honeybee, my daughter is Lightning. I am telling what happened in the season of Earthquake last year, so that the memory can be kept.
It being the time when the yellow fish are abundant in the channels, and the old singer of the boat having died earlier, and I knowing some songs that call the fish -- I was going to sail with my wife's brothers. I am not a sailor. I know those songs only because they are similar to the songs that call a child. I don't think those men wanted me on their boat in the first place, but only asked me because they were afraid to go without singing.
As the men readied their boat, as the sun was rising, I sat on the beach among stones because there was nothing else useful for me to do. A hungry dog was there, digging up the things that live in the sand and eating them. I thought it was strange because that is the work of birds, and not a dog who walks on the land. She looked at me sidelong, protecting her food from me with her body, so I didn't approach her.
At last the men called to me and I went to them, and the boat went into sail. It was a clear morning and the wind being already high, the men had to be very careful that it didn't catch into the sail in the wrong way and send us in a bad direction. The gulls struggled too in the wind, seeming to hover in place beside us.
I sang for the fish, and I sang quietly, that they would hear but not be frightened. And I thought how sad it was that I was calling them not to be born, as I called my daughter, but to die. And they died, they died writhing in nets. It is said there are not so many yellow fish as there were in years past, but there seemed to be a lot to me.
When we had sailed on so that the shore was hidden, when we had got out beyond Tells Lies Island, that is when the wind grew angry. It came with no warning. The men were seasoned sailors, but they saw no signs of such a wind coming. It blew so hard that we could barely stand upright on the deck, let alone pull the lines. I particularly could do nothing, for I was not as used to keeping my feet while on the water, so I crouched down along the rail and tried not to get in the way. The boat rocking, and the loud sail snapping, and the men's voices and feet around me -- I sang to the wind in fear to ask why it was angry, though it isn't my part of knowledge to do that, and I heard no answer.
I don't remember falling from the boat. I don't remember if they tried to help me.
I remember waking up on a beach I had never been to before. I was in pain. My head and jaw were bruised, and my shoulders were deeply scratched and bleeding as though clawed by an animal. Still, my bones weren't broken, and I could get up and walk around. I washed my wounds with sea-water.
Walking around, I realized it was a small island, not so small as to see all of it at once, but perhaps the size of Eating Rats Island. It was sunny, and very hot and still. From nowhere could I see any other islands or land. There was no grass, and no animals but for some nesting terns, who looked at me without alarm. There were some strange plants I had never seen before, and I didn't know if they were good to eat.
It was near the terns' nests that I first saw the dragon.
She was like a very large albatross, standing upright as a sea bird stands, and as tall as me. She looked at me with her head turned to one side, looking with one eye.
I stayed very still at first, as one would not make sudden movements to a bear. But the dragon only looked at me with one eye and then the other, and opened her wings a little and then settled them.
I tried to speak to her, but she didn't answer. At last she tired of looking at me, and walked down to the water. She looked clumsy when she walked on the shore, but then she took a running start and jumped into the sky, and she was graceful there.
When night fell I tried to go to sleep, but it was difficult as I was afraid I was going to die in this place, and it was heavily silent, with no sounds of frogs or insects.
As I slept, I dreamed of the dragon, and in my dream she spoke to me. She made calls like a sea bird, but I could understand her words. She told me she found me in the sea, and asked me if I wanted to be able to fly home to the dry land where I came from, and I said yes.
I woke up because I felt something sharp sticking into my arm, and when I looked, the dragon was beside me, holding one of its feathers in its mouth and putting the quill end of it into my skin. I screamed in fear and scrambled away on the sand, but when I looked again I realized the expression of the dragon's eye was the same as it was in my dream.
The dragon made wings for me. It took a long time, it took days and weeks. It hurt to have feathers put into my arms, it hurt to have my skin grow and knit over it. I ground my teeth together and cried out in agony but the dragon was not disturbed. She did her work.
I had to eat the eggs of the terns to stay alive, though I didn't want to do it. The terns were never afraid of me, and didn't fly away when I approached; I had to touch them and move them bodily off their nests.
When I had wings like the dragon does, I didn't know how to fly. I watched the dragon take off and land, and I gathered courage. At first it seemed hopeless, many times I ran along the shore and flapped my wings and could not jump into the sky. I fell down. But at last I caught the wind like a sail and I flew.
As I floated on the warm air above the sea, I could hear the dragon's voice in my mind as it was in my dream. She told me she could lead me towards my home, but she could only take me to the shore. Dragons never can fly over the land, because the sea is where their magic comes from. I tried to say it was all right and getting to the shore was good enough, but my words were blown away by the wind.
But as we neared there, feeling the sun on my wings, feeling the sea spray on my belly, I began to have the mind of a dragon. I forgot my family and that I was a person. My heart didn't want to go back to the land anymore, I felt pulled back out to sea.
As I flew, a whale swam below me. I heard the whale speak.
The whale said, "You should go back to the land. You don't belong here."
I said, "I don't belong there either."
The whale said, "I know."
Then the angry wind came again and began to pluck the feathers from my body. In fear I turned towards the shore, drifting downwards so I wouldn't fall into the sea and die. All the feathers being stripped from my arms by the wind, I fell onto the shore, bleeding all on my arms from where the feathers were torn out. I fell unconscious, and later I was found and taken to doctors, and so I lived.
I have the scars from that. I have scars on my arms and shoulders. This is the proof of what occurred.
That is the end of what I have to tell today.
++
Blue Hands Telling of the Dragon
She spoke:
I am Blue Hands. My mother is Closed Poppy, my wife is Honeybee, my daughter is Lightning. I am telling what happened in the season of Earthquake last year, so that the memory can be kept.
It being the time when the yellow fish are abundant in the channels, and the old singer of the boat having died earlier, and I knowing some songs that call the fish -- I was going to sail with my wife's brothers. I am not a sailor. I know those songs only because they are similar to the songs that call a child. I don't think those men wanted me on their boat in the first place, but only asked me because they were afraid to go without singing.
As the men readied their boat, as the sun was rising, I sat on the beach among stones because there was nothing else useful for me to do. A hungry dog was there, digging up the things that live in the sand and eating them. I thought it was strange because that is the work of birds, and not a dog who walks on the land. She looked at me sidelong, protecting her food from me with her body, so I didn't approach her.
At last the men called to me and I went to them, and the boat went into sail. It was a clear morning and the wind being already high, the men had to be very careful that it didn't catch into the sail in the wrong way and send us in a bad direction. The gulls struggled too in the wind, seeming to hover in place beside us.
I sang for the fish, and I sang quietly, that they would hear but not be frightened. And I thought how sad it was that I was calling them not to be born, as I called my daughter, but to die. And they died, they died writhing in nets. It is said there are not so many yellow fish as there were in years past, but there seemed to be a lot to me.
When we had sailed on so that the shore was hidden, when we had got out beyond Tells Lies Island, that is when the wind grew angry. It came with no warning. The men were seasoned sailors, but they saw no signs of such a wind coming. It blew so hard that we could barely stand upright on the deck, let alone pull the lines. I particularly could do nothing, for I was not as used to keeping my feet while on the water, so I crouched down along the rail and tried not to get in the way. The boat rocking, and the loud sail snapping, and the men's voices and feet around me -- I sang to the wind in fear to ask why it was angry, though it isn't my part of knowledge to do that, and I heard no answer.
I don't remember falling from the boat. I don't remember if they tried to help me.
I remember waking up on a beach I had never been to before. I was in pain. My head and jaw were bruised, and my shoulders were deeply scratched and bleeding as though clawed by an animal. Still, my bones weren't broken, and I could get up and walk around. I washed my wounds with sea-water.
Walking around, I realized it was a small island, not so small as to see all of it at once, but perhaps the size of Eating Rats Island. It was sunny, and very hot and still. From nowhere could I see any other islands or land. There was no grass, and no animals but for some nesting terns, who looked at me without alarm. There were some strange plants I had never seen before, and I didn't know if they were good to eat.
It was near the terns' nests that I first saw the dragon.
She was like a very large albatross, standing upright as a sea bird stands, and as tall as me. She looked at me with her head turned to one side, looking with one eye.
I stayed very still at first, as one would not make sudden movements to a bear. But the dragon only looked at me with one eye and then the other, and opened her wings a little and then settled them.
I tried to speak to her, but she didn't answer. At last she tired of looking at me, and walked down to the water. She looked clumsy when she walked on the shore, but then she took a running start and jumped into the sky, and she was graceful there.
When night fell I tried to go to sleep, but it was difficult as I was afraid I was going to die in this place, and it was heavily silent, with no sounds of frogs or insects.
As I slept, I dreamed of the dragon, and in my dream she spoke to me. She made calls like a sea bird, but I could understand her words. She told me she found me in the sea, and asked me if I wanted to be able to fly home to the dry land where I came from, and I said yes.
I woke up because I felt something sharp sticking into my arm, and when I looked, the dragon was beside me, holding one of its feathers in its mouth and putting the quill end of it into my skin. I screamed in fear and scrambled away on the sand, but when I looked again I realized the expression of the dragon's eye was the same as it was in my dream.
The dragon made wings for me. It took a long time, it took days and weeks. It hurt to have feathers put into my arms, it hurt to have my skin grow and knit over it. I ground my teeth together and cried out in agony but the dragon was not disturbed. She did her work.
I had to eat the eggs of the terns to stay alive, though I didn't want to do it. The terns were never afraid of me, and didn't fly away when I approached; I had to touch them and move them bodily off their nests.
When I had wings like the dragon does, I didn't know how to fly. I watched the dragon take off and land, and I gathered courage. At first it seemed hopeless, many times I ran along the shore and flapped my wings and could not jump into the sky. I fell down. But at last I caught the wind like a sail and I flew.
As I floated on the warm air above the sea, I could hear the dragon's voice in my mind as it was in my dream. She told me she could lead me towards my home, but she could only take me to the shore. Dragons never can fly over the land, because the sea is where their magic comes from. I tried to say it was all right and getting to the shore was good enough, but my words were blown away by the wind.
But as we neared there, feeling the sun on my wings, feeling the sea spray on my belly, I began to have the mind of a dragon. I forgot my family and that I was a person. My heart didn't want to go back to the land anymore, I felt pulled back out to sea.
As I flew, a whale swam below me. I heard the whale speak.
The whale said, "You should go back to the land. You don't belong here."
I said, "I don't belong there either."
The whale said, "I know."
Then the angry wind came again and began to pluck the feathers from my body. In fear I turned towards the shore, drifting downwards so I wouldn't fall into the sea and die. All the feathers being stripped from my arms by the wind, I fell onto the shore, bleeding all on my arms from where the feathers were torn out. I fell unconscious, and later I was found and taken to doctors, and so I lived.
I have the scars from that. I have scars on my arms and shoulders. This is the proof of what occurred.
That is the end of what I have to tell today.
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