DISCLAIMER: Bethesda/Arkane own Dishonored, Daud, Dunwall ... wow, a lot of these names start with a 'D', don't they?
THE WHALER'S TALE
I. Chapter the First,
in which the tale begins.
The island of Serkonos lay in the south of the Empire of Isles, under the hot tropical sun. At the southernmost tip of the island was the city of Karnaca, a sprawling area for the high-class Imperials, visited by bureaucrats, home to the Embassy of Gristol. Near Karnaca is the small fishing village of Rhinden, where our story begins.
In the time of this tale, there was a man by name of Garret Trask in the village of Rhinden. He was an old fisherman. In his youth, Trask had served in the Isles' Navy, and when he was discharged, worked onboard a whaling trawler in Serkonos. The man eventually grew tired of the seafaring life, and settled in Rhinden. By this time, he was thirty, and hardly well-off. So it came as a stroke of good luck when he soon married a Karnacan woman: Ariadne Contrada, a childhood friend of his. Some two years later, Trask and his wife conceived their first son, Carver. Then their second, Elektra. Their third and fourth child were born when Carver was six, and Elektra three: twin boys. In a fit of romanticism, Ariadne insisted one be named after the hero of a book she had once read, and so it was that the third-named child became Noland Trask. More practically, Henri Trask insisted on naming their fourth child after an ancestor of his, one who, he claimed, was a local hero in his hometown of Rhinden.
And the fourth of the Trasks was named Daud.
"Race you around the market," Carver challenged.
"Last one there buys me a round of drinks." That was Noland.
"You boys are so stupid." Elektra, cool as always.
The bemused shoppers looked on as the three youngsters spoke loudly - Elektra perched on a large, overturned casket and Noland and Carver gesturing wildly beside her. Nobody saw the thin teenager leaning against the wall opposite them: Daud had always been good at being unnoticed, a useful trick especially for escaping the wrath of his three siblings. He was just over five feet nine, a little short for sixteen, his brooding eyes brown - identical to Noland, his twin, in every way. However, there were the obvious distinctions to those who knew him. Both had dark brown hair, but Noland's was shaggy and always longer than Daud's, while his twin's hair was short and cut in the style of a navy sailor. Daud was lean and thin, while Noland was the more muscular, boisterous one.
As the two boys attempted to settle on a suitable bet, Daud sighed, observing his brothers and sister. Carver, twenty-two, had taken after their mother rather than their father. He had her rich coppery hair, her pale brown irises, and her dark skin. He was the playful one, always competitive, never serious. He was already working with their father as a fisherman. Elektra, like the twins, had hair that was a lustrous, dark brown, and much darker eyes. Her hair was cropped short, and she wore the traditional Serkonan attire of a male - a loose shirt, long pants, and an overcoat - making her easy to mistake for a boy. At nineteen, she was of the age when Serkonan women began working. She was the voice of reason, keeping the boys in hand.
Finally, they seemed to have worked out a bet. Noland and Carver leaned, tensing, as Elektra called out, "Three ... two ... one ... go!" At the start, both of them set off, racing down the crowded streets of the Rhindenian bazaars. Noland pushed and shoved his way past shoppers loudly bargaining with the fishermen, while Carver instead weaved his way in and out, sprinting past Noland easily. Elektra strode behind them, holding back her exasperation at their adolescent games. Daud silently rose, following her.
"Hello, Daud," Elektra greeted him without turning. "Where've you been?"
"Watching," he said simply.
She shrugged, and ran ahead to keep pace with Noland and Carver. When Daud finally caught up, Elektra, Noland and Carver were outside their house. Surprisingly, the two were not arguing about who had won, but instead were silently sitting outside. Daud cringed as he neared, hearing his mother curse loudly and his father roar back at her.
As with all the other shacks situated along the coastline, the Trasks' was a large three-room shanty, with cheap, moth-eaten furniture. The family's pride and joy, Garret's hand-built fishing boat the Lady Carmine, was docked outside at the seaside. Further down the busy beach was a huge wall, separating Rhinden from the docks of Karnaca, where rich nobles sunbathed as whaling trawlers pulled in.
"What's going on?" Daud whispered to Carver. His older brother shrugged him off, but Noland replied in a low voice, "Problems. Father wants to borrow money to repair the boat again." Noland and Ariadne both disapproved of Garret's occupation, and made it obvious that he did so. Daud wasn't quite sure why, but this had led to a certain distance being established between Garret and Noland. Thus, whenever Garret wanted money to repair the boat, he had to borrow it from moneylenders. Often, he couldn't repay it, and the four children awoke at night to brutal noises, as repossession men stormed the house, torturing Garret and taking what little the Trasks had. In the morning, Garret would have left early, to hide from his children his bruised and bloody body, and Ariadne would curse "your useless father and, Outsider's eyes, that boat!" But always Garret would find new lenders to borrow from, to repair the only thing he loved as much as his family.
Damn this all, Daud silently cursed. If only we could make enough money to get out of this hell's pit. But of course they couldn't, and Daud had to resign himself to more sleepless nights.
Later that night ...
The family had calmed down somewhat. Garret ate outside, in his boat, while Ariadne, glaring at the door and muttering to herself, heaped gruel on her children's plates. Daud couldn't remember the last time she'd looked so angry; he could only suppose Garret had borrowed an exceptionally large sum this time. He hadn't seen his father for a while: Carver and Garret had sailed up the coastline to the markets of Karnaca for a week, where fish sold at better prices and money was easier to come by. When they'd returned, Daud had been in the market with Noland, and was joined soon by Elektra and Carver.
It was night now. Everyone was asleep - except him.
Daud cautiously crawled to the door. He slept with all his siblings in one room. They didn't have many possessions of their own, but what little they had, they shared amongst themselves. But this was different. Daud had kept it to himself. He snuck out of the house noiselessly, and made his way behind the shanty. A small dark patch of earth indicated the place where he'd found it. Daud dug with his hands, burrowing a few inches until he found what he was looking for. He pulled it out, looking at the object in awe. It was once pristine, but now looked smudged and dirty. As he wiped the mud away, he uncovered a circular design etched in it, and strips of leather hanging off the edges, fixed to what he knew by the texture to be whalebone.
It awed him, and yet scared him. The day he'd found it, nearly a month ago, he'd slept with it under his pillow, and dreamt of grotesque monsters and beautiful, serpentine things, and a gigantic river, a river that cut through a city. He had woken in a cold sweat, chilled to the bone by the unspeakable horror of his dream. The very next day, Daud buried it behind the house, vowing never to touch it again. Lately, though, he'd stay awake at night, sneak out of the house, and, unclothed, lie against the cold metal of the shack he lived in, awake for hours, simply holding it.
It was like one of the monsters it had shown him: beautiful, hauntingly so, and enchanting; but if he misunderstood and misused it, he had no doubt that it would kill him somehow.
THE WHALER'S TALE: to be continued ...