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[Y] Fisher Girls
[Rated G]

Fisher Girls N/A Views 1789 Votes 2 Comments 1
[1][2][3][4][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] Print PDF New Window Apr27/09, Modified Apr27/09
The story of Grey, Leaf, and Atoll.
[Y] Fisher Girls
Fisher Girls I keep visiting this other world in dreams. Well, I visit a lot of worlds in dreams. But this one's a regular, like Earth. It's a warm ocean-world, with only one real continent, and that's polar. So the only decent-sized habitable land is a forested finger like a big Malaya or Kamchatka, stretching all the way to the subtropics. Still, the warm seas swarm with atolls, reefs, and islands. Green isles, with flocks of flowers. And the people are friendly, playful, good-natured, beautiful, and loving... So I keep going back. But on my last dream trip I got myself born there 

Home

 I grew up in a fishing village on the southeast coast. My people are loving, but so traditional! I felt stifled as I grew older--good girls obey the elders; good girls are modest and quiet. In revenge, I'll draw myself tall bold and glamorous. I'm not quite sure how we looked. Long noses, ears, legs, and tails, gray fur and grace--but were we feline, canine, or more like lemur people? My visual memory's even fuzzier than we were. I think our eyes weren't shape-oriented. Glitter and motion drew me, like a cat. Sound and touch and smell... This tale is true.So here we are. I'm the one dancing of course. You can call me Gray. I guess you can imagine why--plain tan-gray and white coat, except a few flank dapples, sigh. Who said beauty is but fur deep? The best volcano goddesses always wear gray and white--fertile ash and precious rainclouds--but tell that to your agemates and see how many prawns it gets you.The others are my two best friends. “No, dive all the way down, Gray!” My only friends.Leaf is up in a tree, hiding behind her tail as usual. She’s the youngest of us three, small, thin, and very shy. But she’s the only person I know that’s smarter than me. Under the tree, playing her ammonite harp (it's made from a big Nautilus shell) is our best friend, Atoll--because her spots are hollow swirls like atoll-maps. She's, I don't know, our big sister I guess. The wise one. She's not even a total misfit. She gets invited to some parties, even if they just want her there to sing. Of course they don't want her songs, just traditional dance tunes. They don't know what they're missing! She composes these outrageous new ballads from her dreams. Mystical one verse, absurd the next. She gets lost in composing for days sometimes... like Leaf in her maps and stars.It's up to me to drag them back into life and adventure. A volcano's job--to spice the soil with ash, spice life with a little chaos.I don't apologize for how plain we are. We don't wear fine ornaments. No flash and glitter. We're unpopular girls. No one to impress. You might conclude we're poor. You might be wrong. Our village is metal-poor, so things look stone age, but don't be fooled: we're good biologists and ecologists. Other species are lovingly tended (especially if they taste good). Finding a new species wins you a lot of respect--and we three plan to do it. For months, Atoll and Leaf and I have been doing crafts and odd jobs, saving up to outfit our own boat, so we can explore the Edge of the World--not a real edge of course, we know the world's a ball (though my grandma tells me the Forest Folk two days inland still have a secret society called the Flat-Earth Cult. No surprise, they're all dumb as frogs in there). We want to sail unknown tropical seas--and incidentally get away from our relatives.
Coming-of-age quests are nothing unusual, in our town, for boys. If you return, you're a man; if you find a new species or island or fishing bank, you're a hero.If you don't come back, well, better to lose you now, before you have dimwit cubs. The science elders call it "The survival of the fit test." But they make fun of us girls for wanting to sail! We're "unfeminine" to work so much and save up our credit--we should spend it on ornaments and dances like normal girls.One reason we don't go to their parties is that our age-mates snub us--we're below their tideline. But they buy Leaf's featherweaves and my shell jewelry! Even Atoll--when she plays at their dances some people actually tip her a pearl or two like she's not a guest! And she swallows her anger and takes that! It's for the boat. The boat out.
We finally saved enough to buy this beat-up old fishing boat. The boat-wrights wouldn't give us advice, like they give the boys. "Girls can’t sail all the way to the Tropic Edge. You're hard-working cubs; we won't help you die."So we fix it up ourselves. I don't mind. It's best to know every hair of your own boat. Some of the boys come out and taunt us. I think they're scared: if we come back with news of a new island or species, it's one less for them to find. We're competitors now--I wouldn't even put it past a few of them to sabotage our boat. Still... it's pleasant working out here under the sky, away from the old termite mound and all its gossips.Scraping off limpets I feel like a nursling cub again.The popular girls would claw my daydreams to splinters if I were stupid enough to tell them.But they're wrong. Dreams keep you working when there's tar on your fur again, and some boy laughing at you up a tree.Or at least they help me. We righted the hull, retied the deck, stepped the mast, and the old beast floated, stable and seaworthy. The village gossips just retreated one step. Now it's "Girls are too weak for deepsea sailing, and they can't do the math to navigate on such a long journey." Right. Leaf's only better than Master Glasseye.We stock up for the voyage as best we can. nervous, hearing their judgments we're sick, suicidal cubs. Funny how physical things all cooperate, as if Sea Mother welcomes us. The only difficult headwind blows from the mouths of our agemates, and their elders... It's hard to ignore everyone saying you're doomed. And then, one day, there's no more delaying. Leap in the water, risking death, or live here, safe, in shame.We untie the rope and raise the sail... As we cross the inlet, the village never looked so good. I feel pretty charitable toward the old fish barrel, now that we're leaping over the lip. Then I hear my own Aunt Ragged shout from our stilt house "Come back! You're going to die!"Thanks for your support, I think. What a relief to leave you all!Some cubs throw rotten mangos. But... most don’t. I thought all our agemates hissed at what we're doing! Maybe we have silent friends--just with more to lose than we do.

Now we have to come back alive--to find out.

Oh squid guts! It was easier thinking they all hate us!

Hunting new lands is easier than new friends. When you find an island, you know: you can't dance on water! But silent cubs--what are they? Shifting sandbars, soft tidal mud? Or a rich reef, hiding just under those surface girls with all their flash and glitter--a reef of support I never noticed?

The Voyage

We sail southwest through the settled isles. Joyous days! Pale blue sky, green water, clouds reflecting the land- and sea-colors on their shaded bellies, white as shells above. I can breathe free, swing my tail without some boy grabbing it.I can plant my hind legs far apart and stretch and howl, and my mom's not here to hiss and bat my whiskers and tell me I'm unfeminine.Cares drop away under the horizon, with the mainland. Tired at night, but a good tired. Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!Leaf and Atoll seem happy too. Atoll sings like a spirit all day--new songs! I curl up happy next to them in the hut at night, or on deck if the stars are out. When the moons are up, the mast shines like a wish-bone. Why can't I sleep? What's my secret wish? I love sailing with them. I wish I could forever, but I still wonder what I would miss. The village, my parents, and getting married to my own mate.Do I want to marry at all, is that the root of my rebellion? I carefully paddle around that snag of an idea--unthinkable in our village. To marry is our sacred duty. We have to have our four children--one for sickness, one for the sea, and two to carry on. Even though sickness takes so few, now that we know biology. We'll smell as popular as citrus if we find the ruins--enough to choose our own mates, not settle for arranged marriages. I want that more than anything--not that there's a boy I love, but I have to find one who'll let me travel and break custom and do things with my girl friends too. The freest life I can imagine... with the mind-tools I was given. Until we found... what we found.As the ocean turns so blue it's almost black, miles deep, and the swells stretch so far apart they're like horizons, we get a bit subdued: it really is a small boat to go so far into the deep. Most explorers sail much larger, better-crewed ships. But we gambled a tiny one was better for our quest: we're stalking an old myth of a labyrinth of reefs and channels, whose heart hides a secret: huge, alien ruins rising from the water--an ancient, drowned, high-tech city! Weeks pass. At last, far to the southeast, we find a promising tangle of reefs, never charted. We squirm through narrow turquoise passages for two days, mapping carefully. On the third day, great rocks rise from the water. Shaped rocks. Eroded concrete columns! The legend's true. What a find, what a find! Many walls are still intact, rising from the shallows. One great hall's nearly complete, though it's open to the sky. Its oval wall cups a wide pond, like a sky-pearl in the Queen of Clams. The ancient gate is now a cliff-lined narrows. We glide through the arch with just paws to spare--glad now our boat's as small as a clitoris. No boy-size ship could have gotten in. We chose right!
The pond is rain-fed: brackish but drinkable. It's choked with a green weed we've never seen. Round leaves. It smells like a giant watercress. Tastes sweet and spicy--real crop potential! Is it a feral survivor from an ancient alien garden? We put samples in a water-gourd. A new species as well as a new land! One of my sandals falls overboard, but the leaves are so thick it can't sink. Bladders on the stems make them nearly as buoyant as kelp-trees. The sandal bobbing on the water's face reminds me of that old legend of a shaman who could pull fish from the air and walk on water. Here, the soup's so dense you almost might. Could the old myth have been handed down from this place?Motion in the water! I panic for a moment. Wait, I'm an explorer, a biologist... Be brave. I lean out over the weed and look closely. It's a creature nearly as big as Leaf, with wrinkled skin, pale periwinkle-blue. A freshwater porpoise--and a second new species! Its shape is very strange: instead of a sleek smiling spindle with a tail, its dwarfed body splits into long flat eely legs twining thru the pondweed. It looks like a chromosome, so we name it Blue Genes.  Are its skinny twining legs an adaptation to the dense weed-forest? Our distant relatives the treecats are smaller than us, the better to climb and slip between trees. Their cramped environment leads to a cramped brain, too--small thoughts! I've always suspected that ports and shores, where worlds and eco-zones meet, places with choices and elbow room, are the richest niches for big brains and new thoughts. Here we're on a shore of time, where the present meets a deep current upwelling from the past. Fertile water! I suspect if we stay here long, we'll find things to really stretch our brains. Yet the ancient storypatterns nag me--the deadly quest, the forbidden castle, the frightful guardian... so I tense for the white explosion. But nothing attacks. Yet my dragon-bell keeps bonging--I'm sure there's a monster hiding here! Is this only fear? Or... memory? Did I dream of this place? I do dream the future, now and then. Maybe I know it's a dragon's lair. I don't have intuitions this strong for nothing.

We might want to head back to the mainland!

 

                          BACK

I purr with pride as we present the Elders with the ritual samples of two new species. Just finding the legendary ruins is a huge coup, but those two species... it's lemon on our oysters! Sweet vindication, after they swore we'd sink an hour from shore. Atoll and I overhear two fans of her music whispering "Why'd she get involved with them?" I feel a sudden surprise, realizing that all along, she may have played down her popularity, for our sake: but the truth is, she, like me, could've dumped her friends and had another life. The judges glare skeptically, as I present our finds. They order the ritual halted! This is unprecedented. The ritual is our time, not theirs to interrupt! But they do it. The three confer, in low growls and mutters, for a long time... Behind me, I can hear the debate-storm rising, already... The oldest of the Three Judges stands and howls for silence. Slowly, the arguments subside as he glares at us all. Only when the silence is absolute does he declare the Elders' Decision. These three have broken our laws of gender and there for they are not true women.”“There for we cast them out.”Now I feel like this was a bad idea.Shall I sail meekly off into exile? No. I shall fight off there words.Shouts of disapproval came from behind.I noticed a tear run down Leaf’s face. The tear sucked the happiness from me. Atoll sat calmly. Anger filled me and I stood in protest but nothing I could do would help. It was over! Over I tell you! I had never been so angry in my life. It wasn’t fare. I felt cheated.We stay that night in Leaf's house, for her father welcomes her back (her mom is dead). He's always supported her; I've always envied her a bit, having been raised by Aunt Ragged and her mate, who hardly seem to know my name. Leaf's dad cheerfully defies the ban, saying half the village disagrees with it, and it'll take time for the pot to boil over. He suggests we move into the old stilthouse just around the point--technically outside the village, but within an easy paddle. They bred us to obey. That's why I came back, you know--I was a good little fisher girl. I brought back my catch to share. Now they'll have to learn to live with it.

And me.

   By: Wolfheart