Through the Eyes of the Dragon

Chapter 11

Chapter 11 - Qui suis-je?

Strange images and scenes flashed through his head, disrupting his sleep and causing him to cry out in alarm. Curling up into an agonized ball, he clutched his throbbing head, tears streaming from his tightly shut eyes as he willed the horrors to go away. A man plummeting to his death, red water, angry screaming, people with weapons, people covered in red. Red, red, red... red flames, bad people burning the ports, a gentle, pretty face dissolving into sharp green. Dark green, moss green, blue-green, the vast sea. Water, salty water, drowning, drowning, loneliness, death. Red water...

In the end he had no control over his mind, leaving him to weep and whimper over these terrible things he could not comprehend. He didn’t know why these things scared him so much, especially after he had gone so many years without seeing them. It was all because of that stupid execution Tsuru made him see...

‘Once that evil pirate is gone, everything will be alright,’ she had told him just a few days ago. And he believed her; she who was his one and only friend, a girl who he could call his older sister with enough pride and a smile. He never doubted her judgment. Never...

Either way, this nightly torment continued for many days. He was allowed to wander about his daily life during the day, but was restrained to a terrible void of colours once the moon rose to take its place in the sky. Eventually, his nightmares became so disruptive that Tsuru rushed into his bedroom, flicked on a candle and cradled him in a warm embrace. Though her soft cooing was soothing to his ears, he couldn’t help but tense at her touch, her presence suddenly foreign and strange to him amidst the chaos wracking his mind.

“It’s okay Nao... I’m here, you’re sister is here... Hush, hush... there are no monsters here, you see? The pirates are gone...” she breathed in his ear, rocking him best she could. No longer was her little brother ‘little’, so his size being double hers made her attempts rather feeble.

“N-Nob-bu... w-why... did you have to goooo?” Nao was crying, head still tightly covered by his arms and his body trembling from his visions. Though after a while, he was able to gain some comfort from her embrace and simply waited for his tears to run dry, just as he had done the previous night, and the night before that, and the years preceding those...

The next day, Tsuru chose not to inquire about the previous night. Thus, he awoke, got dressed, ate some bread, and departed for the ports to work. There he carved, cut, whittled, shaped, and glued various pieces of wood, carefully utilizing his many knives and tools to construct the elegant ships that soared through the Acquan Bay.

“King of ship hulls. that’s what you are,” Tsuru had giggled to him a while ago after witnessing his painstaking craftsmanship.

Tsuru worked as a sort of sea doctor, always checking out the navy to make sure everything was safe and healthy. Occasionally she would also hitch rides on battle-bound vessels to aid the medical crew if said ship were to be attacked, so her job was not much easier than the sailors piloting them. Because of her job, Tsuru would have to drop by his warehouse to examine his finished products, checking to make sure they all met the necessary requirements.

Now that he thought about it, his whole family seemed to be very involved in Acqua’s naval affairs. His mother monitored commerce, specifically exports, always making sure the right amount of things were leaving the kingdom in a legal and orderly manner. His father, Yoshinao, happened to be a prominent naval officer with a spot in the Acquan parliament, as well as a sort of favoritism on Lady Evangeline’s behalf. It wasn’t that he was special or of a certain noble blood, but rather he was one of the few who was actually willing to cooperate with his Queen, even at the cost of his own position.