About

Kuraoko Natausmati For the first seven years of his life, Kuraoko’s world was very small. There was only the boat, his mother and the endless drifting waves of the shallow water that they floated through, always just in sight of land, but never close enough to dock. Occasionally, Kuraoko’s mother would raise the roughly torn sails of the long narrow vessel and start a course toward some unknown point in the deeper ocean, but she would never do this for long and would steer the boat back to the shallows within an hour or two. These days were the worst, for his beautiful lionfish mother would then curl in on herself and stare blankly at the water, tearless and silent. This was Kuraoko’s exposure to the concept of being “dead to the sea”[1]. In these times, the child would attempt to comfort his mother, doing anything he could to make her respond, and smile. Sometimes, he would wrap his small arms around her and hug tight, despite the poisonous spines on her body. This never failed to get her to rise from her stupor, to tend to her crying child and give him remedies for the poison running through his veins[2]. She would hold him in her arms and sing the happy, haunting melodies of her people, who considered her dead, whispering in his ear about how he was her beautiful treasure. These were simple times. When the food ran out, Kuraoko’s mother would tie a rope to her foot and go diving in the shallow waters, bringing back the bounties of the sea – pearls, shellfish, sea sponges and grasses, and they would feast, drying the leftovers for later use and throwing the pearls into a small hole in the back of the boat, which gradually filled up with the shiny, white pebbles. Sometimes, she would steer into a sheltered bay and the two of them would strip naked and wash with the crystal clear salt water, the boat’s deck wet from the rinsing of their bodies. His mother would fill a precious steel pot with water, which she distilled for drinking. Soon after Kuraoko turned eight, the filleting knife they used finally snapped in half, the shiny blade tumbling deep into the water. It was then that Kuraoko got his first taste of being on land for real. The small port town they docked at was crowded and busy. Though the locals gave them strange looks, they did not refuse his mother’s beautiful pearls and the starpuffs of the town were not averse to playing with him. Soon, their boat was laden with the many goods they needed to survive many months at sea – new knives and containers, fresh sails, fresh fruits and vegetables and… the most important of all, a small spear of Kuraoko’s very own[3]. Under his mother’s watchful eye, Kuraoko learned to catch and spear fish[4]. Though he lacked his mother’s capacity for underwater breathing, he still learned how to hold his breath for long periods[5] and dive for pearls in the shallow waters.Something about the village drip changed something in his mother and she began docking at port towns regularly, letting Kuraoko mix with other starpuffs, though she always insisted that he return to the boat before the sun set. It was around this time that Kuraoko learned that he was a “Shooter”. When he asked his mother about this, she merely shook her head and said firmly, “You are Walaka Zaarn, one whose soul is bound to the sea, as I was before I died.” Despite his mother’s words, Kuraoko continued to wonder at his heritage.This feeling only grew as he did.After all, no matter what his mother said, it was achingly clear that he didn’t have the same physical characteristics as she did, but the more he pressed her on the issue, the more she shut him off, refusing to talk about his father or the tribe they came from. In his fifteenth year, it became clear that his mother’s little boat was no longer able to sustain them both. Kuraoko’s mother steered them to the nearby fishing village and presented him with a small chest of pearls, ones he had earned throughout a lifetime of diving with her. There, on the docks, she charged him with the acquisition of his adulthood ship[6], stating that if he did so, he would then be ready to care for himself. He left and returned several months later with an impressively large vessel, a huge beast of metal and wood that had plenty of space for sleeping and storage – enough for a whole family, in fact. Over the months, he had traded boat for boat, starting with a small rowboat and working his way up through to the beast he brought home. He had also followed a rumour about strange new “engines” that allowed a vessel to “fly through the water as a bird flies through air, despite the direction of the wind”. He found the strange crafter that made them and immediately bought a pair for his boat[7]. He was ready. His mother presented him with a pearl bearing the symbol the Nataus family; and a beautifully carved whalebone spearhead, which told the story of his life. It was then that she told him the story of his birth, of her forced breaking of the Law of Darkened Earth, her Indigo tribe fiancée and of the Shooters who temporarily took her captive. She declared him an adult in his own right, free to do as he wished. Now, Kuraoko travels throughout the land, looking for answers about his heritage, about the Walaka Zaarn and the Shooters. Perhaps he will find answers, and perhaps he will not. Either way, his story will certainly be interesting. [1] A rule of the Walaka Zaarn.The “Law of the Darkened Earth” states that one must never set foot on land after the sun has set, or one’s soul will be corrupted by the soil and they become “dead to the sea”. [2] This happened so often that the Kuraoko developed an immunity to his mother’s poison, not that he ever told her.The remedies were often quite sweet and he loved the attention. [3] The fruits were the second best thing of that trip. To this day, Kuraoko will still drop everything he has for a fresh lemon. [4] One of his earliest catches was way bigger than he was, surprising both himself and his mother. The caviar that they harvested from it was absolutely delicious. It is one of Kuraoko’s best memories. [5] 8.5 minutes is his personal best, though he didn’t manage to find any pearls on that particular diving trip. [6] Another of the Walaka Zaarn’s practises. Children who come of age must prove themselves worthy of joining the clan by building or acquiring an adulthood boat without breaking the Law of the Darkened Earth. [7] Though cunning and luck played a part in this acquisition, Kuraoko’s willingness to stay onshore after dark allowed him to travel inland to get the engines. That being said, he wisely kept this a secret from his mother.