Seafarer’s vs Dragons

Chapter 1 : First one then many

“There weren't always dragons in the Valley…”

“si, si I know, first one then many and now all of humanity is forced to live out at sea while the dragons control the land. Seriously Mari, She doesn’t need to be reminded every night. You’ll give her nightmares. Can’t you tell her an actual bedtime story?” Raul looked concerned, but he’s always concerned about everything.

“Bueno hermanito I would, but all other bedtime stories were written before the dragons, so they really don’t make sense when you’ve lived your whole life on a ship island.”

“Tio you said it wrong. Its first one then many, lose the land and out to sea.” my daughter laughs amused by the adults fighting, and I wonder what kind of life she will lead out here. I knew the ground beneath my feet, the smell of grass, the shade of trees. She will never know these things. Raul wants to move on and forget what we’ve lost. He was one of the ones who would say the dragons brought prosperity. He would celebrate the giving day, and repeat dad’s saying how important it was to give to the dragon since the dragon always gave back more than it took. He didn’t have to give birth while at sea. I noticed myself getting angrier at Raul. I breathed in deep and let go of the frustration building up. There was no point in explaining it to him he wouldn’t understand.

He gave my daughter a quick kiss on the forehead and tucked her in. “well, while your mother is gone, I’m going to teach you some better nursery rhymes and bedtime stories, but for now both you and your mother need to go to sleep. You don’t want your mother to be sleepy on her voyage do you.”

“I’ll be good and I’ll sleep.” And she closed her eyes and began imitating snoring sounds. I knew she would stay up reading after we were gone, because I used to when I was her age. I think tonight I’ll let her read a little longer than normal.

Raul and I walked into the common room. Before this ship was weaved into the ship island this would have been the captain’s quarters. It is incredible that in 12 years we have expanded out from a few ships to 100’s of ships all interconnected. That there are farms and live stock and children who have known no other life. 12 years ago, I couldn’t have imagined this would exist.

“And you couldn’t convince him to stay?” Raul interrupted my thoughts.

“No, he said it’s too important of a mission. Ships aren’t coming back and if we don’t get more supplies; it wont be long before everyone starts getting scurvy.”

“what about you? Can’t you stay? For her?”

“I’m doing this for her!” I started to yell but pulled my voice back while looking in the direction of Emma’s room. “The council asked for me specifically. This is my first voyage as captain. He should stay behind for our daughter, but he wont so I’ll just have to make sure we both make it back alive.” I made a great show of confidence, but that night I could barely sleep. There have been hushed rumors spreading ever since supply ships stopped coming back. Before, the dragons seemed content to drive us off when they saw us. There were very few injuries and even less deaths, but now… we wondered what new phase in their plan they had entered. Have they decided to eradicate us? Those who had propped them up and provided them with wealth food and homes? The next day at early light the mood on the ship matched my uncertainty at night. I tried to stir up the crew, and use some more of that false confidence. And while they bucked up and got to work; I could still feel that uneasiness persevere in the sea breeze as we sailed off. Our ship was a Schooner with a crew of eight. I called in the crew for a meeting on the third day when we were an hour’s ride from our destination.

“In a few hours it will be high tide on our target island. our goal is to time our arrival with the tide in order to clear the sand bar. There is an inlet to a river; once we get a bit of distance in the river, we lower the anchor and split up into four teams of two. One team will stay on patrol at the ship and sound the alarm. If the alarm is heard make your way back to the ship returning home safely is of our upmost concern. There should only be two dragons staying in some towns far north of where we are landing. Our highest value targets are limes, oranges, or any citrus fruits. Any vegetables that we aren’t already growing are also important. Remember that the most important part is to get the seeds, but if you find green ones that will last longer than three days that would be ideal. We have about 5 hours if we are to clear the sand bar so we must be quick. Are we all clear?”

“Yes Captain!” they all said in unison.

“Well, I think this would be a good time to present you with the ceremonial anchor.” Ford signaled and a golden anchor was brought to me.

I knew this had to be hard for him. Even before the dragons Ford has wanted to be a ship captain. And when we had Emma together, he wanted me to join the agricultural committee. It’s why we couldn’t work, but even he had to admit I was the better Seafarer. I was surprised when I found out he had voted to approve me as captain. I looked at the ornate golden anchor. Its funny how valuable gold used to be. Now we use it to make these little trinkets to avoid using to much of the valuable metals. It’s tradition that the new captains throw these on their first voyage, along with the actual working anchor of course since the ceremonial one wouldn’t get the job done. After the first voyage they mostly gather dust in the captain’s quarter. It did have a decent heft to it. it was about as long as my arm and front of it was surprisingly sharp. “Thank you, I know there’s a lot of pressure on us for this mission to go well.” I pulled a bottle of rum from my desk and could already hear the crew get excited. “In a few hours we must be focused, determined, and fast. However, until then a toast to our success. Tonight, we eat fresh, hearty, and finish the rest of this rum.” The crew made sounds of agreement as a passed around cups with a reasonable amount of rum.

“How about we also toast to Captain Marisol Bolivar taking her first step in what will surely be an illustrious career.” Ford said as he lifted his cup. It was hard not to see the man I loved still in there despite our rocky past.

For a short while we laughed and told stories, and almost relaxed. But as the moment of our mission approached you could see the flash as the mood turned from jovial to serious. In an instant the crew was ready and wordlessly we preformed our tasks. As we cleared the sand bar we steered toward the inlet on the sandy shore. The ship was just lean enough to fit into the river. We went just far enough for the trees to cover the ship from all angles except above.

A little unceremoniously I threw the ornate anchor out and we lowered the real anchor. Quickly we broke off into teams since ford is first mate, he went off with a different member of the crew. And I went with another. It was just when I had found the limes that I heard the alarm go off. Frantically I grabbed a handful of limes and turned to get to the ship. That’s when I saw smoke rising from the ship’s location. Me and my partner rushed and as I feared, when I reached the ship, it was on fire. I saw a dragon half the size of the ship carrying ford and three members of the crew away in a net. Another dragon had captured the other two remaining crew members. This one was long with two horns. As if someone had taken a bull and stretched it out. When it saw us it wrapped the net around a tree and came straight at us. No human has ever killed a dragon. When they pushed us from the land we fought back with muskets, cannons, spears, swords, and nothing made any damage that the dragon didn’t immediately heal from. Still as fruitless as it felt I pulled my cutlass. Having the same hopeless thought my partner pulled out his bow and arrow and began letting a few fly. The dragon didn’t even bother dodging the arrows as the bounced off its scales. It lounged at me and I managed to dodge underneath and pierce through its wings at the thin part. We have in our skirmishes however, noticed that at the very least they do feel pain. It roared and swung its tail knocking me next to the burning ship. I began to stand up and I saw the look on its face. It clearly no longer wanted to capture us alive. Taking a queue from me my partner hit two arrows in the same wing area just as it was healing from my cut. This was bad timing on his part as its throat swelled and belched forward a ray of blue flames that engulfed my crewmate. Satisfied with its first kill it began making its way toward me. I got to my feet just in time for it to leap on me and knock me back down. I thrust my sword and it bounced of its chest and got caught by the dragon’s claw. it used one claw to hold the sword down and another to hold me down. It looked me straight in the face and opened its mouth. As I saw the mechanism in its throat preparing to burn me away. I thought about Emma. I couldn’t leave her. I had to do something. My arms flailed and I felt the clink as they hit something I grabbed it instinctively and swung it at the dragons mouth. I saw as the flame went out interrupted by an ornate gold anchor. The dragon was stunned as it fell to the side I tumble up on top of it and brought the anchor down like a guillotine. It took a minute to register what had happened, but for the first time a dragon had died.