Nameless

CHAPTER TWO | BROTHER TO A DRAGON

"Ah zai!" His father's familiar, harsh tones rang in Zhou Jin Qian's ears as he got up from his makeshift camp bed. When he emerged from the tent, rumpled and clad only in his nightclothes with bare feet, he was greeted with the smouldering embers of a campfire and his father's dark glower. "Why are you still not dressed? We have to be on the road soon."

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Jin Qian suppressed the urge to glare at his father. "Forgive me, Baba, if I didn't rise bright and early after spending all night on the back of a dragon."

His father didn't even think of honouring his witty retort with a reply, instead gesturing toward the iron pot that sat on the coals. Jin Qian's stomach gave a less than hearty grumble upon seeing the meal of congee without even a sprinkling of green onions or pork floss to liven up the white mush.

Hurriedly bathing himself in the frigid spring waters of the Yellow River, he tried to ignore the omnipresent, almost omniscient eyes of the Huáng Lóng. Still, it was difficult to pretend he didn't notice immense behemoth of a creature that, until only a few weeks ago, he had believed was entirely mythical. The great Yellow Dragon, creator of the world, had seemed to him only a legend for children's fables and old wives' tales. Yet there it was, looming over him, whiskers gleaming in the early dawn sun. His pearlescent eyes seemed sorrowful sometimes, but at other times, filled with wisdom and philosophy beyond the comprehension of any scholar or tutor.

Certainly beyond Jin Qian's or any of his tutors' understanding. He had not received much higher education, being the son of a poor fisherman (though his father was now a magician and an aspiring war general, apparently), and what little schooling he had learnt was merely his numbers and how to read and write. There had been no time for dwelling on any great writers or thinkers, besides the obligatory teachings of Confucius and others like him, who always taught the same thing. Duty. Filial piety. Obligations to one's family and country.

He hurriedly tugged on a clean shirt and trousers, braiding his hair into a queue before donning his bracelet, one of a simple jade bead on a knotted cord of red thread. It was a match for his youngest sister's. He and his sister-Mei Yu, though she despised the frivolously feminine name meaning beautiful jade and had always gone by her nickname, Nai-had been given the pair of bracelets by their father five years ago. Before he had drowned in a fishing accident.

Or so they'd thought.

"Ah zai, we don't have any time for dawdling," his father snapped.

It seemed the years apart from his family had not given him any time for reflection nor taught him any patience. Before he'd promptly dropped out of their lives and off the face of the known world, Jin Qian's father had always been short-tempered, but he had been quick to balance it with a smile, a laugh, a kiss on his child or wife's cheek. Now, without his wife or daughters there to soften him, he was harder. Crueler. His anger less of a sputtering fuse and more of a consuming wildfire.

"I'm ready," he responded just as he collapsed the tent and folded it into a more easily portable shape. "Where are we going today?"

His father was always one to make Jin Qian feel like he was doing something wrong simply by breathing. He gestured wordlessly toward the dragon, who had uncoiled himself from his watchful position, and was now preparing to launch off into the skies.

His churning stomach, still queasy from hunger after their meagre breakfast, tied itself into knots at the thought of being so high up off the ground again. At least he knew the dragon wouldn't drop him.

Sometimes, he even thought that Huáng Lóng might even like him.

Then again, he was likely insane for thinking so.