Chp.23: Prejudice

Darbi was lying on the deck of the ship, looking out over the river. In the distance he could see Brenno' fleet approaching, finally catching up with them. Which was good: finally they could leave again. But despite the promising situation, Darbi was still tense.

His siblings had communicated to him that tonight they planned to implement a plan to finally free Rhaegal. Darbi was beaming at the news, but he was also very worried: he knew how easily things could go wrong in a rescue operation. He wished Haku had thought of everything as usual, but still he couldn't help but feel anxious.

If the rescue was successful then everything would be fixed. The family would be reunited again and the king would be screwed good, and everything could go back to normal. Of course, most likely they would have decided to implement new measures to ensure their safety, but that's ok.

But if the rescue went badly, then it wasn't going to be such a pleasant situation. At best, the king would have become angry and put forward further conditions. At worst... Rhaegal could have hurt himself being taken out of his prison. Darbi didn't even want to think about that possibility.

He was so deep in thought that he almost didn't notice Gord stomping up to him. "What are you looking at?" the lizardman asked him.

Darbi turned slightly towards him. Gord was carrying two mugs of beer in his hands, as he usually did when he or Brenno were depressed. Apparently it was his way of helping friends. "I was looking at Brenno's fleet. They will be here by tomorrow morning"

"Brenno's fleet? Where would it be?" Gord asked confused. Of course, the lizardman saw nothing but a streak of water ahead of him. Then he realized the problem. "Oh, right… your eyesight is better than mine. How far apart exactly are they?"

"Right now they are at the zig-zag inlet that we crossed right after we set sail from the labor camp where the lizardmen were being held" Darbi answered. "Brenno is on the bridge flexing his muscles in front of a group of lionmen. I think they are all boys"

"Tsk. Typical of Brenno. He's such an exhibitionist" Gord laughed, then he offered one of the mugs of beer to Darbi. "You know, sometimes I wonder how can you live with such acute senses. I think I'd go crazy"

"Misune asked me a similar question. My body and brain are simply made to tolerate such senses" Darbi answered, taking the beer and gulping it down. The amber liquid quickly disappeared down his throat.

Gord watched the scene with a little envy. Sometimes he wished he could drink like Darbi, who could swallow as much beer as he wanted without feeling the effects of being drunk... or rather, he couldn't drink as much as he wanted, but still he could drink tons of it without getting drunk. "Since you have such sight, hearing, smell and touch, I assume your sense of taste is also different. What does beer taste like to you?"

Darbi thought about it for a moment. "It's hard to explain... I can still taste it, but I taste it both in its entirety and in all its components. It is as if you cook a steak with salt and spices and you can taste both the final dish and in the same time the separate taste of the some meat, some salt and some spices. I don't think there's a clear way to describe it"

Gord had to admit that Darbi was right: there was no way he could really understand what Darbi meant. It was a concept too far beyond his usual conception of the sense of taste for him to imagine. "You dragons are truly extraordinary. You have abilities that I can't even comprehend. Why do you have such a sophisticated sense of taste?"

"Well, thanks for the compliment. And about your question, the sense of taste is important when you live in the wild. Some animals can be toxic or poisonous. When I hunt, I just have to taste one of them to know if there is something strange in its flesh and understand if I have to spit it out right away" Darbi answered.

'Yeah, sometimes I forget that he and his family are survivalists' Gord thought feeling a little guilty. By now he was so used to considering Darbi an ordinary person that he no longer paid attention to certain details. Sometimes by mistake he ended up awaken sad memories in his friend's mind. He hoped that wasn't one of the cases. The problem was that Darbi was so much like a normal person in personality that even continually seeing his gigantic body Gord often ended up forgetting what he really was and what life he had lived.

While he was thinking this he also remembered the reason he had gone to talk to his friend. "Yesterday you caused a bit of a mess. They talked about you for hours all over the ships. I guess that's why you're a little in a bad mood right now..."

"Huh? No, it's actually for another matter" Darbi replied realizing that his behavior had probably led his friend to fall into error. "I'm just worried because tonight my siblings are going to do something dangerous. I don't really care what the tigermen are thinking of me"

Gord was dumbfounded. He had expected Darbi to be disappointed because he had tried to do a good deed and no one had thanked him. Instead it seemed that the problem was another. "Well... there is no need to be worried, we're talking about your siblings!" he exclaimed trying to cheer him up. "With them there is Haku, the great family planner. I'm sure he's already thought of everything and that no one will take unnecessary risks"

"I know that too. But still I can't help but be a little tense" Darbi replied.

"It's normal, it's your family we're talking about" Gord said. "The only advice I can give you is to find something to distract you. After all, worrying wouldn't help. I'd tell you to down a whole keg of beer, but… we both know that wouldn't even make you stoned, and if I know myself I probably wouldn't be able to hold back and join you, and as a result you'd just have a stupid friend in a full-blown coma"

"Well, preventing you from falling into the river while throwing up would also be a good distraction" Darbi laughed.

Gord blushed slightly, not much from the joke, but from the fact that the scene described by Darbi had actually happened several times during that trip... although there had been more numerous times when the two of them had had to prevent Brenno from falling off the deck of the ship. "Considering the delicate situation we are in with the tigermen, I have decided that at least for the time being I must at least pretend to have some dignity. Since I am your mediator, I cannot be seen vomiting leaning against the edge of the ship. I should drink properly until we're out of this country, and especially not on a ship"

The dragon smiled slightly. "Thank you for the support" he said. "How are things going, by the way?"

Gord shrugged. "Tigermen are known to be a stubborn race... and sadly I've found such rumors to be absolutely true. A wall would be more open to dialogue than them" he answered as he drank some of his beer. "They keep saying they want a better guarantee, that they don't trust us, etc. Then after what happened yesterday..." He stopped, realizing that perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to continue.

But now the damage was done. "What happened after yesterday?" Darbi asked suspiciously, since in the last few hours, worried as he was for Rhaegal, he hadn't paid much attention to what was happening on the ship.

"Well, after you come back with that little girl with you… you know, people are dumb. As soon as the news became public knowledge, the most varied theories have begun to spread. Many were convinced that you wanted to eat the child but that you simply gave up because you saw her parents arrive" Gord explained. "And that child is also now the subject of discussions. Some think that a god took pity on her and made you docile to save her from your savagery, but others even believe that you kidnapped the child and replaced her with another one"

Darbi almost choked on his saliva. "Are you kidding me? Why on earth would I have to kidnap a little girl and replace her? Couldn't I just eat the little girl I already had? And where would I find a little girl identical to her? It doesn't take a genius to understand that this story doesn't fit standing at all!"

"I know, buddy. But I told you, people are dumb" Gord replied. "Luckily Tzegorn isn't superstitious and when I explained to him that you just wanted to help he thought my version was far more plausible than other people's... but he still remained suspicious"

Darbi slapped a paw on his face. That situation was really maddening. He didn't expect newcomers' prejudice against dragons to be so great. Had he known, he would have left the child alone some time before reaching the ships and would have confined himself to secretly keeping an eye on her as she returned to her parents alone. Gord noted her disappointment. "Dude, you know you can talk whatever you want with me. Are you sure you don't mind how they treat you, despite everything you do for them?"

Darbi didn't answer. In fact he couldn't say that he was totally fine: it was really hard for him to bear all that unjustified fear that the newcomers had for him just because he was a dragon. He'd known how newcomers viewed dragons... but experiencing it firsthand was another story altogether. Up until that point his interactions with the newcomers had been limited to ex-gladiators or people who in one way or another accepted that he was a dragon and treated him as a person. Indeed, most of those months he had spent with Gord and Brenno and partly Isaac, and only for brief moments had he interacted with the other ex-gladiators or with the freed slaves. All other interactions he'd had had been based on fights, so they didn't count. Only now that he was in the midst of ordinary people who willy-nilly had to stay with him did he really realize how deep was the prejudice newcomers had against dragons.

Darbi knew that the way newcomers saw dragons was that of cruel and destructive predators, but he never really understood what that meant until he experienced it firsthand. Any excuse seemed good to look at him suspiciously or to accuse him of something; sometimes it almost seemed to him that someone was following him continuously, waiting for him to make the slightest mistake before shouting: 'See? I told you that the dragon was bad!'. Even those who addressed him in friendly ways still had a lot of fear and suspicion in their eyes. And despite every day when he was hungry Darbi put himself in plain sight on the deck of the ship and ate only fish, he continued to hear from time to time someone asking: 'What do you think that dragon eats?', and there were many times that someone else answered: 'For me he eats people'.

Gord sighed and clapped him on the shoulder (or rather, on the arm since that was the highest point he could reach): "Look, you've done absolutely nothing wrong. Sometimes people just need time to get used to new things" he told him. "You are a good person, and both Brenno and I and all our soldiers know it. Sooner or later these people will understand it too. You just have to be patient. I know this sucks and it's completely unfair, but the mentality of the people can't change overnight"

"I know" Darbi grumbled. "But it still bothers me"

"I figured so. Well, here's my friend's advice: fuck people's opinion. They're just a bunch of imbeciles afraid to try to verify if what they believe is true or false. They don't deserve your sympathy" Gord said finishing drinking his beer. "Don't be afraid to take a little girl back to her parents just because they'll treat you like a monster. Someday people will understand. I don't know how long it will take, or if it will really be possible... but basically this whole adventure is based on believing in the future, right? A future all together"

Darbi smiled. Yes, in fact it was precisely on what his presence there on that ship was based. As the main person that desired that future, he had a duty to keep fighting to show those people that their prejudice against him was wrong. "Yeah, you're absolutely right. We have to believe in tomorrow" he said in a confident voice.

"Now you are talking!" Gord exclaimed, throwing a friendly punch on his friend's arm, who started cackling like mad. "Uh... was that so funny?"

"No... ha ha... it's just that... ha ha... Brenno just fell flat on his face on the deck of the ship while trying to show how quickly he could climb the mainmast!" Darbi answered, pointing to the horizon where, from Gord's point of view, the river continued until it disappeared. The lizardman was dumbfounded for a moment, then burst out laughing in turn, wishing he could see the scene with his own eyes, but even just imagining it was hilarious.