NaNoWriMo 2007 The Legend of Aquia

Fresh Water Pirates- The Legend of Aquia

Many centuries ago, a beautiful girl named Aquia was born in a little mud hut far from all civilization.  Her father, Tregorn, made his own wine, but drank all of it before he could sell it in the city, so his wife and daughter had to plant and hunt for all their food, fix all repairs, and fetch all the water.  Tregorn, a wretched angry lazy drunk, would tear these hard-working ladies' throats out if the women prepared no meat for dinner.

While Aquia's mother, Pegala, tried to catch animals for dinner, such as birds, turtles, snakes, wild boar, or squirrels, Aquia was sent to fetch the water and tend to the garden.

Aquia was born with slight bones and thin muscles, which never strengthened as she matured, so her trips to the ocean were small and frequent.  Every day she walked the long narrow path she had worn through the years to the water's edge to fill two buckets with salt water.  She had to then filter the water before using it for gardening, cooking or drinking.  Her last trip to the ocean was always for the bathing water, as that did not have to be filtered from its salt.

One day, Pegala came home from her hunting late in the afternoon, empty-handed.  She ran to Aquia and cried uncontrollably.  "What are we going to do?  Your father will kill me if I do not bring meat to the table tonight!"

Aquia consoled her mother.  "Mother," she said while holding her sobbing mother in her arms underneath the sunflowers, "Tregorn will not kill you tonight.  We will cook mushrooms with the vegetables, and we will tell him it is meat.  He will be too drunk to notice, and he will sleep satisfied tonight."

Pegala looked uncertain, and knotted her hands in her apron.  "Aquia, if your father finds out we tried to trick him, he will certainly kill us."

Aquia shook her beautiful auburn curls and smiled at her mother.  "Come, I will show you where the big meaty mushrooms are.  Put them in your usual hunting sack.  I will pour father more wine, and save a glass for our cooking.  With the red wine, the ocean's salt, and the meaty mushrooms, Tregorn will sleep satisfied tonight."

And so the two women fixed a mushroom dinner with rice and vegetables.  Tregorn had drunk so much wine he could hardly keep his eyes open, and Pegala had to help him eat his dinner.  Before he could finish his plate, he passed out at the table, and the two women gladly put him to bed.  Pegala hugged Aquia.

"Thank you for saving my life, dear child.  I was certain I would be killed this evening."

The next day, Pegala and Aquia woke early to attend to their chores while Tregorn snored into midday.  When he woke, he approached his daughter in the garden, stomping on her beloved beets and carrot tops.  "Why were there no bones in my dinner last night?" he bellowed.  "I had no bones to suck on this morning.  Where are the bones?"

He staggered as he spoke and scratched at his groggy body, as if he still had to wake up his skin.

Aquia looked him square in the eye and told a lie.  "We thought the bones were too small and too dangerous, Papa, so we picked the bones to be certain you wouldn't choke."

"Well, what on earth kinda meat was it, then, if the bones were too small."

"Snake, Papa.  Do you not remember the fine bones of the snake, and how they hurt your throat?"  Aquia knew this to be true, that he hollered and cursed the last snake meal they had due to a bone stuck in his throat.  Aquia also knew that mushrooms tasted nothing like snake, so she hoped her father would not remember the flavor of the meal, or the snake meat from the past to compare the two.

Luckily, Tregorn got so upset remembering that painful experience he simply growled, "Ah yes, Ah yes.  Damn that snake bone!  It took two bottles of wine to get that confounded bone outta my throat!  Which reminds me..." and so off Tregorn went.  He returned to his wine cellar to bottle a new batch and to start another while drinking what is left on his shelf.

Later that day, Pegala came running to Aquia, again empty-handed.  "Aquia!  What is wrong with me, Aquia!"  Pegala sobbed and sobbed, her shoulders shaking with fear.  "I think the critters of the forest know my scent!  Or perhaps I am going blind!  I tried and I tried all day to find dinner, and I have not one animal to cook up for dinner.  Surely Tregorn is going to kill me tonight!"

Aquia consoled her mother.  "Mother," she said while holding her sobbing mother in her arms underneath the sunflowers, "Tregorn will not kill you tonight. I will find some fish in the ocean to bring to dinner.  He will be too drunk to notice, and he will sleep satisfied tonight."

Pegala looked into her daughter's eyes with terror.  "You have never fished before, and the ocean always acts angry this time of day.  We do not have a boat.  You will need to build a net or a pole.  Please, let me help you."

"Mother," Aquia held Pegala's shoulders to steady them from the uncontrollable shaking.  "You are tired and weary.  Crying and worrying has also exhausted you.  I will find a fish for dinner, and Tregorn will be satisfied.  He will not kill us tonight."

Pegala held herself and tried to dry up her tears as she watched her daughter follow the well-worn path to the ocean.

Aquia had no idea how she would catch a fish.  All she knew was that she was willing to try to save her mother and herself from the violence of an angry Tregorn.  When she approached the ocean she, she saw of what her mother had spoken.  The once cool and calm waters she met in the morning were now thrashing and crashing.  Swimming looked near impossible.  Aquia looked around her.  She saw nothing that she could fashion into a net or a pole or a hook or a spear.  Then Aquia simply looked into the water, and she could not see any fish.  Her heart sank in her chest like a black sun-baked rock, and she started to wonder if indeed she and her mother would die that night.

As her lips quivered and tears welled up in her precious grey-blue eyes, she said aloud, "I wish I could have just one fish, just tonight!"

With that a lovely speckled fish jumped out of the water and landed in her lap, flapping and wriggling like a good healthy fish.  Aquia grabbed it immediately and laughed.  The last of her tears fell to the sand and held the fish in the air triumphantly.  "Oh Ocean!  You have been so good to me!  How can I repay you?"  Aquia thought she was talking to herself, but a large figure formed from the ocean water before her, and she saw a man's regal face looking in her eyes.

"I thought you would never ask, Aquia," the water spoke to her.  "Thank you for offering payment for my gift, but today, this fish is just that, a gift.  I want you to have it, as I have given you bucket after bucket of water each day."

"Thank you," Aquia replied, dumbfounded and relieved.  Her entire body tingled with both fear and joy.  "Thank you very much," she repeated and ran back home to her mother to show her the prize dinner for the evening that will keep them alive.

Pegala embraced her child and hugged her so tight Aquia could hardly breathe.  "Oh Aquia, I was so afraid for you!  How did you catch a fish in such terrible waters?"

Aquia looked her mother straight in the eyes and told a lie.  "Mother, I simply reached in the water and plucked one out.  It was the easiest thing."  Aquia held to herself the truth of her second statement to undo the lie of her first statement, but that gave her little comfort for lying to her mother.  How could she tell her that the ocean gave her the fish and spoke to her, and worst of all, that she did not have to work for the fish?
"It was a gift from the ocean," Aquia said.

"It sure is. My dear Aquia!  We are not going to be killed tonight!" Pegala rejoiced.

That evening Pegala presented the salted baked fish with lime wedges, rice, and roasted plantains in a coconut sauce.  Tregorn curled his lip a bit at the fish, preferring red meat to fish, but he only complained about the dinner the entire night.  He never got violent.  He slept that night mildly satisfied, and Pegala and Aquia were grateful to live another day.

The next morning the sky cast a grey light through dark clouds, hiding the sun.  Pegala took that as a sign that she would have a successful hunt that day, and took a light step into the forest in hopes for a wild boar after last night's success.

Aquia returned to the ocean along her path with her buckets for water.  When she reached the water's edge, the ocean stood still and clear, calm and blue.  She dipped her buckets into the water as she had every day since the day she walked, but this time she looked for the figure to arrive.  She filled her two buckets with no interaction from the ocean.  The same water simply slipped into her bucket as usual.  Nothing exciting, bucket after bucket, ever appeared before Aquia that morning.  She secretly felt disappointed.

As she worked in the garden, picking beans of various colors and sizes, she hoped her mother would finally catch some meat for dinner.  Tregorn woke up and approached Aquia in her garden.  His wild grey hair stood like a matted broom and his eyes looked saggy.  Aquia reminded herself to stay strong.  

"Aquia!" he hollered, even though he stood close so close to Aquia she could smell his rancid breath.  "Aquia why were their bones in my fish?  We talked about how dangerous bones are yesterday.  Are you trying to kill me?  Why did you leave bones in that nasty fish?"

Aquia looked her father straight in the eye and told a little lie.  "Papa, we were afraid you wouldn't believe us that we brought you a fish from the ocean, so we left the bones in the fish to prove that the fish was a fish.  We thought it was a special treat."  Although she and Pegala indeed thought the fish was a special treat, they did not intentionally leave the fish bones in the meat to prove it was a fish.  By the time Aquia came home with the fish, Pegala had no time to ensure there were no bones in the fish.  She quickly cleaned and prepared the fish as fast as she could to put dinner on the table in time.

Tretorn scratched his groggy head and took that as enough of an answer for the morning.  He said nothing more.  He turned around, squashing Aquia's leeks and cilantro, and stumbled back to his wine cellar for the rest of the day.

Aquia took a deep breath and felt lucky until she saw her mother limping towards her.  Her mother sobbed and sobbed, holding her hands in her bloody hunting apron.  As Pegala got closer to Aquia, she saw what had happened to her mother, she had severely cut her left hand and it gushed blood incessantly.

"Mother!  What did you do?" Aquia grabbed her mother's wrists to survey the damage, and nearly passed out to see so much blood pumping from her mother's hand.

"Oh Aquia!  I had it, I did!  I had our dinner in my hands, but as I tried to cut its throat, it bit me and my knife lunged into my hand instead of the neck of the rabbit.  Oh Aquia!  I cannot do anything right!  What are we going to do?"

"First thing first, we need to take you to the ocean to rinse your hand.  I already used my bucket of salt water, and you need the salt water to heal your cut.  Come, let's go to the ocean.  Hurry!"  

Aquia led her mother along her narrow worn path to the ocean.  As they walked the trail, the clouds in the sky lowered and darkened to deep purple.  A warm eerie wind pounded on the two women on their walk, and they could hardly see where they were going.  Luckily the path was so worn they could find their way.

As Aquia approached the water's edge with Pegala's bleeding hand, the large figure formed from the water again.  The man's face more clear to Aquia now, the face of a King with a coral crown and a long flowing beard.  His voiced thundered as he spoke.

"Aquia!  What do you propose to take from my waters now?"  His chest looked large and majestic, and his face frowned in the most handsome anger.

"Ocean, my mother has cut herself very badly, and we would very much like to cleanse it in your healing salt water, Sir," Aquia felt his power holding her from allowing Pegala's hand to touch the water.

"I'll give you a choice, Aquia!  You may have all the fish you want for dinner, so she will no longer have to hunt, and she may heal her hand in my ocean, but only if you give yourself to the ocean as my servant.  If you decide to never take from my ocean again, you may live with your mother and father, but you may not have any more fish, nor water for your bleeding mother.  You asked how you can repay me, and these are my demands."

Aquia looked to her mother's gash and looked in her mother's eyes.  She thought she would be selfish to leave her mother to her drunken father, but surely Pegala would be killed if she did not bring meat to the table.  "Mother, I must go to the ocean now."  With that, Aquia swam to the figure without looking back, and he took her deep in the ocean with him.

Pegala screamed, "Nooooooooooo!" and sobbed and sobbed while she cleansed her hand in the healing salt water.  A large beautiful healthy fish landed in her lap.  With a heavy heart, Pegala returned to her drunk husband and took the time to ensure there were no bones for his dinner meal.  He would sleep satisfied tonight, and the next night, and the next, while Pegala would wish for her daughter back.

From then on, Pegala would walk to the water's edge every day for her fish, and she would see a beautiful maiden smiling to her from the ocean.

To this day, many a sailor swear that they see an auburn maiden, swimming in the deepest of the ocean waters, fish jumping around her.  If they are nice to her, and they haven't been drinking, she will grant the sailors fish as a gift.  But legend has it that if a drunken sailor dare ask the maiden Aquia for her fish, she will take them into the water and drown them.