Ricki Tarr (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rickitikitarr) wrote2015-05-12 10:09 pm
rickitikitarr) wrote2015-05-12 10:09 pm
5. voice
[Ricki has been passed over in this week's event- he isn't nearly trustworthy enough for the powers this week to have to begun to reflect his way. So, in the absence of any other mayhem or hysteria, it's been sort of a dragging week for him.
His answer had been to ensconce himself firmly in one of the library back rooms, and to tear his way voraciously through another shelf of the history section. Which leads, quite late one evening, to him activating his feed to explain, in the hushed tones most appropriate for the small hours of the night;]
Some time in the early 1600s in Japan, a young woman had a rather illicit relationship with a Chinese pirate lord. The unlikely pair had a son who they christened Zhèng Chénggōng.
[His accent is so adept as to be potentially noteworthy.]
Our story finds him in the waters between Xiamen and Taiwan. At that time, Xiamen was a young port city, whose traded goods included silver, imported from Spain into China. This trade route was a ripe target for local pirates, in particular, for some reason, the Dutch. They snuck their boats in among the myriad of little islands at the mouth of the Nine Dragons, the Mekong River, or Cửu Long, we called it, where I was growing up. Zhèng Chénggōng, also known as Koxinga, succeeded in fighting about the nastiest kind of warfare you can imagine, for that era. The battles were nasty, but eventually the Dutch fled Taiwan, and the man himself had accomplished this while embroiled in some of the ugliest dynastic struggle imaginable.
A Ming loyalist, he had narrowly survived his own father's terrible betrayal to the Qing family- which I believe, though I haven't been able to ascertain this as being completely true- ended with his father's imprisonment and the then-Emperor being thrown into a well. Zhèng established a small province in the South of Taiwan, where his family held the territory for a little over twenty years, until some business with an illegitimate heir resulted in too much political instability, and the little province was reabsorbed into Taiwan proper.
Oh, here it is- it is rumoured that Koxinga's death was the result of a sudden fit of madness. He had ordered his guards to execute his son. The young man had apparently had an affair with a wet-nurse... of some relative or another, it isn't specific, and when he was disobeyed, Koxinga flew into the sort of rage that could stop a man's heart. He was only thirty seven. That's what one source says; the other just bluntly states malaria.
There was a statue of Koxinga in Xiamen when I was there last, though it may very well be torn down by now. I remember seeing the stonework, but never being aware of the proper story.
[And, now he is, and so is anyone else up late and listening on this drowsy, slow-drifting spacey night.]
It was whispered to me then, somewhat illicitly, that the man had been raised by freed Muslim slaves, and may have practiced that faith in secret, though the books all mention Confucianism.
I do wonder.
[He always feels most imaginative during the very witching hour of night.]
His answer had been to ensconce himself firmly in one of the library back rooms, and to tear his way voraciously through another shelf of the history section. Which leads, quite late one evening, to him activating his feed to explain, in the hushed tones most appropriate for the small hours of the night;]
Some time in the early 1600s in Japan, a young woman had a rather illicit relationship with a Chinese pirate lord. The unlikely pair had a son who they christened Zhèng Chénggōng.
[His accent is so adept as to be potentially noteworthy.]
Our story finds him in the waters between Xiamen and Taiwan. At that time, Xiamen was a young port city, whose traded goods included silver, imported from Spain into China. This trade route was a ripe target for local pirates, in particular, for some reason, the Dutch. They snuck their boats in among the myriad of little islands at the mouth of the Nine Dragons, the Mekong River, or Cửu Long, we called it, where I was growing up. Zhèng Chénggōng, also known as Koxinga, succeeded in fighting about the nastiest kind of warfare you can imagine, for that era. The battles were nasty, but eventually the Dutch fled Taiwan, and the man himself had accomplished this while embroiled in some of the ugliest dynastic struggle imaginable.
A Ming loyalist, he had narrowly survived his own father's terrible betrayal to the Qing family- which I believe, though I haven't been able to ascertain this as being completely true- ended with his father's imprisonment and the then-Emperor being thrown into a well. Zhèng established a small province in the South of Taiwan, where his family held the territory for a little over twenty years, until some business with an illegitimate heir resulted in too much political instability, and the little province was reabsorbed into Taiwan proper.
Oh, here it is- it is rumoured that Koxinga's death was the result of a sudden fit of madness. He had ordered his guards to execute his son. The young man had apparently had an affair with a wet-nurse... of some relative or another, it isn't specific, and when he was disobeyed, Koxinga flew into the sort of rage that could stop a man's heart. He was only thirty seven. That's what one source says; the other just bluntly states malaria.
There was a statue of Koxinga in Xiamen when I was there last, though it may very well be torn down by now. I remember seeing the stonework, but never being aware of the proper story.
[And, now he is, and so is anyone else up late and listening on this drowsy, slow-drifting spacey night.]
It was whispered to me then, somewhat illicitly, that the man had been raised by freed Muslim slaves, and may have practiced that faith in secret, though the books all mention Confucianism.
I do wonder.
[He always feels most imaginative during the very witching hour of night.]
private
But he lets Ricki change the setting without comment, anyway. He doesn't especially need them listening in.]
Altru-what now?
private
[He explains, with a little shrug.]
The ones who just want to help.
private
You think there many of those left?
private
[He admits.]
I don't think any of them are cackling about what a wonderful opportunity they have to be in charge. I think they all believe that they're doing the right thing, and for the right reasons. Even the hard-bitten ones, who'll scoff and say they know they're no different from anyone else, there's a certain preachy overtone there- sanctimoniousness.
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You know ain't none of them like to be called Warden? I think it remind them that we ain't all just friends and family.
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Oh, indeed, they do. I seen that, too.
I never used to get so intellectual with the prison guards back home, but up here I thinks I get more traction starting a debate on civil rights than I would starting a riot. You feel me?
private
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[There's a pause, and then he brings up this conversation with Lydia.]
private
[Ricki says appreciatively. He's a little more indulgently amused than genuinely disgusted, before he remembers that there was a chance this girl could have ended up his warden, if Anya hadn't. That she is theoretically at least partially in charge of him. Then, the frustration comes, hot and familiar.]
Can I admit something to you that I'm keeping under the radar?
private
A'ight. Ain't no one I'd tell, anyway.
[That much is true, at least for now. He has no friends here anymore.]
private
[And he's telling him this now because he's paired up, because Anya has read his file- Eggsy is one thing, Anya is another, and with Iris and Cain working together and making some fairly sophisticated guesses... well, he doesn't have long to keep this secret, and he's going to bloody well share it on his own terms at least once more.]
The wardens love figuring it out. But one day soon someone is going to open their mouth about the fact that I was a British spy, that it was a cover, and that everything in life is a hell of a lot more complicated than right and wrong.
private
Except if that's the truth, then Ricki is also right that the rules up here are a whole lot more complex than anyone would want them to believe. He's been learning that more and more lately. What he had once taken for granted from the wardens -- that they were, he'd thought, more or less just decent people doing their best -- he's now quite sure is false. This throws another new wrinkle into his understanding of the place. Back in his little cubby in the library, he frowns deeply.]
You was a spy.
[Pause.]
I got to assume that whatever Powers that Be supposed to be up here -- let's say the Admiral -- that he knew that when he brought y'all on board?
private
[A little wince. He regrets that one, in particular.]
For the cause. Though in retrospect, I can see why there might be some moral ambiguity there.
[There were others.]
private
[It's not as though Omar is unaware that there are more shades to the truth than black and white. It's not as though he hadn't experienced plenty of the same back home: corrupt cops, dirty lawyers, all of that. People who play the same game he does and pretend not to.
But he has rules, very strict ones, and it bothers him when things fall into spaces not covered by them. What make of a man is Ricki Tarr, really? He finds he needs to know.]
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[Though he'd certainly believed it had at time time.]
That's unswerving loyalty, for you. And that kind of dogma is exactly why I'm afraid of the wardens.
Re: private
[Oh. He gets it now, he thinks. Ricki is a soldier, just as much as any corner boy. This makes sense to him; he relaxes a little.
Relaxes about Ricki, anyway. At the mention of the wardens again, he snorts derisively.]
They already drugging us. There plenty there to be afraid of.
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Drugging?
[He hasn't heard this.]
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[Trying to recall.]
The candies?
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[And as angry as Omar has been at many of the wardens lately -- at Chris, at Kara -- nothing makes him angrier than that, or the fact that everyone else was so busy fretting about Arthas that no one has seemed to care.]
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[He's way too used to expecting everything to be poisoned.]
What did they do?
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[Because he's sure Omar confronted her.]
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