"Fairy tales are for children, Kai..."

That's what elders had always told him.

"It makes you weak, vulnerable, like a child. And you are not a child anymore! Besides, it gives you a false ray of hope and hope is not for people like us..." is what they had retorted, when he had countered them with an obvious 'why?'
But for a thirteen year old boy, more so for a fragile bondslave, Kai-e-nan was pretty much gritty and thick skinned yet. So, he never gave up; even if it meant a handful of ridicules, every now and then.

Our story begins on one such warm and windy nightfall of a summer solstice, when Kai was narrating and enacting his adventurous story, like he had done the previous day and the day before that and so on, to three kids with amused and wide open eyes who were seated cross legged on the wooden deck of the RMZ-1588 ship.

"Then I plunged my silver dagger right through the beast's chest. Its grey furred gigantic body shuddered in pain and it screamed, like a hurt lion, snarling and baring its sharp saber teeth at me. Its eyes burned ember red and mouth reeked of rotten stench. But I didn't dare to steal a blink!" He stopped, scanning their faces as their tiny bodies swayed a little with the rocking ship and then returned back righting themselves, as the ship's hull slit through the crashing waves with a burbling roar.

"And...and.."
After a brief pause to let the ear numbing roar fade into the ocean's chaotic silence, Kai continued; but stuttered anyway to witness a lonely seagull as it flew across the windy sky. Flapping its white wings, it perched on the rigging rope that was tethering enormous white sails to the mast. The bird cocked its head scanning the ship eerily and squawked its heart out, interrupting Kai's flow. He fought with himself to try and ignore it, but his preoccupied mind couldn't of course. Well, how could it?

"Shoo...shu!"
In an attempt to shoo the bird, he pulled and shook the rope, sending waves of jolts along its lengths. But it barely helped, as it made the bird get angrier, instead of startling it away. The larid gull squawked even louder and aimed a blob of its dropping towards Kai, from which he barely escaped by ducking his head down. 'Phew!'

But oddly enough, the squawk it had made wasn't merely a bird song. It was more than that, a mockery of Kai's fable, like every other person onboard had derided him since years.
'Lame lies!'- He had heard, in it's disgusting squeaky tone. Of course he had been hearing and seeing other things as well, far weirder than that of a seagull's squawk. He had seen a star-fish dance on its two legs. He had also heard a dying fish speak to him, conveying its death wish- to be eaten by the wealthiest man alive, so that it could die rich. He had shaken his head back then, just like he did now, wondering whether sea-madness was getting him harder than ever.

"Then, what happened?" Little Chip squealed snapping him wide awake. She expectantly uncrossed her legs and sat on her knees, pulling down the lacy edge of her soiled white frock, to cover her dirty calloused knees. Her golden hazel eyes widened with a glint of excitement, "Did you kill it?"

"Tell us, Kai. Did you kill the beast?" Squealed the other two boys, echoing into each other. After all they were just an army of gullible seven year olds, who did nothing but play around and prank their grown ups, who toiled day and night for the wealthy Ramirez, a prodigal pirate and a renowned slave trader, best one in the whole of land beyond the 'Carnage sea'.
And those stories of fantastic beasts and fairies, always fed their esoteric imagination, boosting their naughtiness to a whole another level; and they loved every bit of it.

"Uh huh!" He nodded, reluctantly looking into his dirty splintered nails, a feeling of pride was plastered on his freckled face. He slowly dangled down a leg from the edge of the deck he was sitting on, leaning his back to the mast behind; the cold air grazed his leg, making it tense and quiver. He swiftly turned his face and continued his dramatic narration,
"The dagger had struck the beast's heart, the gooey black blood from its chest spluttered out of the wound. I saw straight into its swirling crimson eyes, the merciless beast was himself pleading for MY mercy." He thumped his hand on his puffed up chest and hopped down in a trice, to approach his little sister ChuChip, while her pouty mouth was half open in an utter awe.

"Then?" The other two boys sitting beside her urged him to continue the story.

"Then what? I rose to my feet...and spat on his ugly face...'you deserve nothing less than what you do, you ugly monster!' I said, slashing the dagger deeper into its thrumming heart, sinking and twisting it into its mighty flesh, slicing its soul into two little halves."

Kai suddenly poked his index onto Chip's chest. "Sheek!"
She gasped and flinched away from him, stumbling on her skirt to get on her feet.

"Come back, you Scaredy cat!" Kai teased and pulled her towards himself, holding her bony wrist. "Come on Chip. Beast won't get you, until I am by your side. Come, sit." He tapped on the wooden deck with his palm and smiled deviously, winking his left eye.

"No Kai. You always scare me!" Chip wailed pulling her hand off of his grip and crossed her arms. Other two boys who were patiently listening to the story, got up dusting their bottoms off.
"Yes Kai, you always scare us." They scoffed, almost mimicking her tone and stood beside her as wingmen.

"Okay, so you don't want stories from now on? Fine."
Kai sprung upright, stuffing his hands into his pockets of ragged khaki trousers, which covered his scrawny legs, until just below his knees. He turned around shrugging his shoulders, "I thought you guys liked them. Meh...your loss."

"No..." The seven year old battalion exchanged a look with each other -that only they could understand- and ran after him, all wailing together. Their tapping foot steps banged and vibrated the wooden deck,
"Stop!"

Tibby, the boy with all-time-grumpy face was the first one among the three, to walk past and block Kai's way, stretching his arms wide. "If no stories, don't expect us to clean your filthy lobsters, either!" He threatened, deepening his already frowned eyebrows.

"Uhh..." Kai scratched the back of his head, squeezing his hazel green eyes in a thoughtful look. Although, cleaning lobsters and prawns wasn't that big of a task, considering his other daily chores in the overpopulated and underpaid ship, with majority of its workforce solely depending on slavery. Kai-e-nan was no different than others, an underpaid slave. He made kids do the cleaning job anyways, to avoid them creating one hell of a prank on the grown-ups, hindering and slowing their chores every other day.
"Now that's a big problem, isn't it?" He said, rasping his index to the chin.

"So, you do your thing, and we'll do ours. Deal?" Chuchip darted ahead, pushing the Tibby boy aside. She chewed her empty mouth, pouting her lips and spat a glob of sticky saliva on her palm, before lending it towards her brother.

"Ew, that's gross..." Kai's face turned pukishly green after seeing her outstretched hand. "What was that?"

"Come on. Say 'deal' and shake my hand. That's how real deal is done, that's how dad does it."

Kai rolled his eyes and groaned cussing under his breath, as he shook her hand, completely unaware of the fact that his strong fingers were squeezing her tiny hand. The word 'dad' always gave him a sense of rage, angst and a feeling of hatred.

"Fine." Chip reflexively withdrew her hand and rubbed it with another, sheepishly hiding it from her other friends.

"Now, off you go. Go do the cleaning." Kai shooed them off, waving his hands away. The last one of the three kids, swiftly turned around, before he left the place. His blue eyed pale face beamed up, scanning Kai's.

Kai furrowed his thick brows in confusion, "You'll get your treats only after the work is done." He urged, poking the little boy's forehead, with his fingers.

The boy slapped away his hand and eyed his bare feet like a sly fox, almost pursing his thin lips. Within a blink of an eye, he had forcefully stomped his torn shoe on Kai's right foot.

"Ouch!" Kai shifted all of his weight to the unhurt leg, hopping and dancing on it like a drunk racoon. "Ouch. Ouch. Ouch!"
The boy flashed a naughty smirk and ran away, escaping his easy reach.

"That was for squeezing Chip's hand and also for scaring us." He spat, before he slid in between a group of workers wearing dirty clothes, sorting out fishes from fish nets.

"Bo! Come back here." Kai yelled after him, wincing his face in pain.

"That must really hurt!" A familiar sweet voice giggled from behind. He placed the foot back on the deck and turned around taking support of the rope beside to face her. Her bronze face was alit with yellow evening light, her black eyes twinkled and reflected the orange of dusk.

"No. It's not that bad." He chuckled, rubbing the nape of his neck, although a tingling pain was still clawing inside his hurt toe.
"These naughty kids!" He added shaking his head; raven black curls of his hair bounced and waved on his forehead, in the direction of salty cool breeze.

"Let me see."
She leaned, lowering her turbaned head down. But before she could completely kneel down to take a better look at it, he had already limped and jumped a mile away from her.

"I am fine, Sheila."

"You are bleeding. Your toe nail, it's split." She pointed her index towards his right leg and crossed her arms, giving a finicky look. "Don't be stupid Kai, let me see it."

"Thankyou. But, I am really... just fine." He blurted, back walking for a few steps and then slowly turned around, only to sprint away. He always had felt that heebie-jeebies inside his belly every time he was around her, ever since he had boarded the ship five years back, at his tender age of eight.

"Knobhead Jerk!" Sheila cursed, uncrossing her arms and twisted her lips into a poker face. She watched his tall figure disappear into a facade of similar silhouettes, all dirty and soot smeared. The sight reminded her of a mundane smell slithering into her nostrils - a smell of rotting dead fish, although she was standing at a fair distance from the work-bay. She scanned herself, partly in disgust and partly in pride. She smoothened her crisp and clean, pale-blue skirt that almost touched her heels and straightened her white turban headdress. She chinned herself up and left the place with a sigh, holding her shoulders stiff. Being a Shaman healer's daughter was not what she had wanted, but she was indeed by fate's choice, and she respected it enough to oblige the etiquette.

Kai turned and scanned behind his back, to see whether he had lost her. He let out a brisk sigh of relief and instantly winced his face again in pain. It was not even a moment before an empty basket was shoved into his hands. He swiftly rose his face to see the tall figure - which stood much taller than himself- blocking his way.
"Where the hell were you gone, Kai?" The tall boy huffed, "get to the work, now!"

"Yes, Zaren." He nodded, keeping his eyes down.

"Say that again. And I'll slit your throat!" Zaren warned, towering and closing his face in on frantic Kai, with an irked flush on his cheeks.

"No 'S..Sir'?" Kai stuttered, tightening his grasp around the woven basket he was holding. "I mean yes, Sir!"

"See...That's better!"
Zaren chuckled, a subtle snobbish sneer peeked through his parted lips. He yanked Kai, holding by his nape and thrusted him towards workers. Kai tripped on a dirty blue fish net which was lying on the mossy wet floor and fell down, hurting his elbow.

Chip giggled cupping her soggy tiny fingers on her mouth, while she and the two boys squatted at the corner, cleaning lobsters with brushes. Pails of lobsters, crabs and sea-cucumbers, were arranged infront of them, some of them still alive, clenching bristles of the brush and edges of pails with their sharp pincer claws.

Kai got up, stroking his elbow and crouched at the pile of crumpled fish nets with several types of fishes clinging on to them, some still wriggling and gasping for one last breath, still fighting and holding on to what was left of their lives. Kai started plucking the fishes off unforgivingly, and threw them piling into the basket beside him.

"Faster." Zaren urged, jabbing Kai with the hilt of his long sheathed sword and made him lunge forward on his palms. Kai nodded again and sped up his task of picking-plucking-and piling fishes into the basket to match the pace of grown-ups.

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Word count-2265

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