The Sea God’s gaze shifts from Shin to me. “My soul tells me you are my bride.”
I blink in surprise.
“You are suitable.” He tilts his head to the side, dark hair falling across deep-lashed eyes. “I like the way you look. Your hair is like the warm bark of trees, and your eyes are like the sea at night. I can see the moon in them. Two moons. Two seas at night.”
I swallow thickly, unsure what to say. This is the first time we’ve spoken. “You are very romantic, Sea God.”
“Not really,” he says. Turning from me, he walks to the edge of the pond. He places one slender finger into the pond, and ripples splinter across the water. “Just lonely.”
I don’t know where to begin. Just as in the throne room, I’m struck with an overwhelming feeling of protectiveness for this boy, caught in nightmares and shrouded in sorrow. It doesn’t seem right to start making demands of him. Save my people. End the storms. Wake up and be as you once were, whole and happy.
In my lap, Shin groans, though his eyes remain closed. Gently I sweep his hair to the side from where it’s plastered to his brow.
“He’s fighting it,” the Sea God says. “He wants to wake.”
I look to the boy-god, torn between staying in this moment with him and helping Shin. Somehow I know even now time is running out, and soon the boy and the dragon will disappear, and I’ll be forced out of the dream.
“You could tell him a story,” the boy-god says.
My heart stills. A story? Convincing a god to wake after a hundred years seems impossible, but a story I can tell. I’ve told hundreds of stories to my brothers and the village children. A story for the Sea God, and for Shin. But which one should I choose?
Shin shifts in my lap. My eyes drift from him to the Sea God and back, lingering on Shin.
Shin, who protects the Sea God from those who would harm him, even as he resents the god for abandoning him, and the story comes to me, as if it were waiting all along.
Taking a deep breath, I begin. “Once upon a time, there were two brothers. The younger brother was poor and lived in a shack, but he was kindhearted and good, while the older brother lived in a large house and was rich, but he was cruel and filled with greed.
“One morning, the younger brother heard a pitiful sound echoing through the wood. He followed the sound, finding a baby swallow that had fallen from its nest, crying out in pain from its wounded wing. Taking the swallow back to his home, the younger brother rubbed medicine into the swallow’s joints and made a little cast from sticks and string to keep the wing from bending. He then placed the swallow back into its nest, and when winter came, it flew away to the south.
“The following spring, the swallow returned and dropped a seed into the younger brother’s garden, where it grew into five large gourds. When the younger brother cracked open the first gourd, mountains of rice spilled out, more rice than he could eat in his entire lifetime. The second gourd held gold and jewels. The third held a water goddess, who then cracked open the last two, one which held small carpenters and the other timber. In a day, they built the younger brother a magnificent mansion.
“The older brother, having heard of his younger brother’s fortune, came to his brother’s mansion and asked him how he could become so wealthy in such a short amount of time. To which the younger brother explained about the swallow.
“The older brother, thinking himself very clever, built a nest and waited until a swallow came to lay her eggs. He then proceeded to push one baby swallow out of the nest, where it broke its wing. Like his younger brother, the older brother put ointment on the wing and stitched a cast. In the winter, when the swallow flew to the south, he waited eagerly for its return. Just as he’d predicted, the swallow flew back in the spring and dropped a seed into the older brother’s garden. As before, five gourds grew from the seed.
“The older brother, joyous, cracked open the first gourd, only for an army of demons to issue forth. They beat him with sticks, berating him for his greed and cruelty. Still, the older brother thought there might be treasures in store for him, so he cracked open the second gourd, only for it to be filled with debt collectors who took all his money. The third gourd opened to a rush of filthy water that flooded and destroyed his house and swept the other two gourds away. He was left with nothing.
“Realizing his terrible mistake, the older brother ran to his younger brother, begging for help. Now, never has the older brother been good or kind to the younger brother. In fact, he had gone out of his way to be openly cruel and vindictive. But when he arrived at his younger brother’s home—expecting to be turned away, as he himself would have turned away his brother had their circumstances been switched—the younger invited the older into his home, saying, ‘You are my brother, and what is mine is yours.’ He split half of his wealth with his brother, and the older brother, realizing the depth of his brother’s love, knew for the first time true remorse and shame. He became a humble and good man, and together, the brothers grew old and happy, surrounded by their families and loved ones.”