| rdfs:comment | - I was born simply Dax (our village did not use surnames) in the small western island town of Tsunami, so named for the freak wave that claimed the entire town having previously existed on those shores. When they rebuilt the town, they wisely chose to move inland a safer distance, and rebuilt everything in the treetops. Obviously, the docks and the like were still at sea level, but there wasn't much that could be done about that. Like most western island towns, we had little in the way of resources. Mostly just fish, kelp and timber -- rather low-profit and requiring long days of back-breaking work, just to get by. We did--however, have one resource that was quite profitable to some: hard workers. Pirate ships would occasionally stop at our island to fill holes in their crews. Many ships wo
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| abstract | - I was born simply Dax (our village did not use surnames) in the small western island town of Tsunami, so named for the freak wave that claimed the entire town having previously existed on those shores. When they rebuilt the town, they wisely chose to move inland a safer distance, and rebuilt everything in the treetops. Obviously, the docks and the like were still at sea level, but there wasn't much that could be done about that. Like most western island towns, we had little in the way of resources. Mostly just fish, kelp and timber -- rather low-profit and requiring long days of back-breaking work, just to get by. We did--however, have one resource that was quite profitable to some: hard workers. Pirate ships would occasionally stop at our island to fill holes in their crews. Many ships would pay good money for willing, able crewman. Many others, apparently less scrupulous than their brethren, preferred to take us as slaves. This is the fate my father, Dirk, met when I was no more than a babe at my mother's bosom. Thus, my mother, Elanoa, and I toiled on alone, forcing me to work ever the harder as I grew up, always trying to fill my father's considerably larger shoes. As I matured far more rapidly than my peers, I began to feel out of sync with the childish antics and games my friends found such enjoyment in. It seemed silly to me, when there was so much to be done. So I began to harden, stoically accepting the lot that life had dealt me, learning from an early age that emotions were to be kept to one's self. There were more important matters at hand. My mother, needless to say, was growing concerned by my apparent denial of my own childhood, and began to consider that perhaps a father figure was what I needed. Now my mother was a very beautiful woman, widely coveted by the men of the village and envied by the women. She'd certainly had no shortage of suitors over the years, but the grief she felt at the loss of my father had been too great, and she invariably sent them all packing. But now, she elected to set aside her own feelings in favor of my ultimate well-being. Elated at her sudden change of heart, the bachelors of the village lined up outside her door like begging dogs. She gave them all a chance, but after failure upon failure, it became clear to her that a degree of unavoidable island inbreeding had affected the relative intelligence of the men of the island, and, disgusted, she gave up once more. Meanwhile, I was having zero luck in the relationship department myself. Having recently reached the first stages of puberty, my body was a raging mess of hormones and teenage angst. Needless to say, this didn't exactly help my emotional issues. But I found release in the form of work and, more recently, I had begun to show an interest in the martial arts. Nothing else offered me such satisfaction. I began to try to teach myself to fight, absorbing new information and techniques wherever possible, vowing that, should the marauders return again, they would not take me or my mother without a fight. Naturally, living in the treetops forces one to learn to be nimble very quickly, and over many generations, this began to have a marked effect on the villagers. Boredom led to contests of speed, agility, and hunting prowess, specially tailored to our treetop lifestyle. Our village even began to develop a fledgling martial art, when one especially skilled, mysterious newcomer by the name of Darius started a dojo, and began accepting students. Thrilled, I eagerly signed up.
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