Flicker, of course, had no intention of letting me brainstorm in his office before he shuffled me off to my new life. He, as he’d informed me so many times, was a busy clerk who had an actual schedule that he had to stick to unless he wanted to pull unpaid overtime, which he didn’t. But did all the time anyway. Usually thanks to me.

Since I only saw him every twenty years or so, I considered that a gross exaggeration. Still, he seemed disinclined to help concoct ideas for catfish charity work, meaning that loitering was pointless.

Okay, okay, fine, fine, let’s get this over with.

His expression said that we were in complete agreement for once – and he didn’t like it nearly as much as he’d thought he would.

As soon as I woke in my egg, I started thinking furiously. How in the world could a regular old catfish perform services for humanity, apart from letting humans eat it? What did humans even do with catfish, besides eat them?

Keep them for pets? That seemed wildly unlikely. Anyone who had the spare change for a private fishpond would prefer koi, while anyone who lacked aforementioned spare change would rather steam me or stir-fry me than lounge on a bench under a willow gazing languidly in my general direction.

Did humans study catfish? Some eccentric scholar might happen to come across, capture, and keep me for research purposes…but that also seemed unlikely in the extreme. Serican rivers were packed with catfish. They weren’t some rare, prized species like that butterfly I’d reincarnated as back in White Tier, after I kept pestering Flicker about what kind of caterpillar I was.

After I kept pestering Flicker…. Now I was positive that Glitter spied on her clerks. Knowledge to file away for later. Right now, I needed altruistic activities to pad out my curriculum vitae.

As I glared at the watery world around me, I finally admitted that the obvious place to start was the local Water Court, because dragons controlled the rain that was critical to human agriculture. The most important of them ruled from crystal palaces deep under the Four Seas, lakes, and major rivers, served by mermaids, fish, crabs, shrimp, and other aquatic creatures that had awakened. (Guess those spirits were never advancing past Green Tier, poor things.) Lesser dragons oversaw creeks, inlets, marshes, swamps, ponds, and so on. Although we called all of them “dragon kings,” in most cases, the title “king” was about as appropriate for one of these glorified water snakes as it was for a human bandit-turned-warlord on the fringes of the Serican Empire. The dragon king of this particular river dwelled in a humble grotto that I’d seen many times in my many lives.

I’d always swum straight past it.

Whenever I thought of dragons, I saw the hard, unblinking stares of the Dragon Kings of the Four Seas as they watched my trial. Not a single one of them had spoken up for me.

I hated dragons. All dragons.

And now I was going to ask one for help? Go as a supplicant into his court, kneel and kowtow before him, and beseech him for meaningful work?

At the image, I recoiled so hard that I knocked my egg into my siblings’. All around me, their thin, silvery forms twitched and wiggled around their yolk sacs until dozens of pairs of eyes were glaring at me.

Those eyes, those blank, black eyes –

In a flash, I was back in the Hall of Purple Mists, watching as Lady Fate’s Three Cadavers handed her the documents she needed to condemn me. They’d stared at me afterwards, knowing what would happen to me, not caring.

A shudder convulsed me all the way down the length of my body. Don’t stare! I shrieked. Don’t you dare stare at me!

The eyes continued to regard me with no emotion whatsoever. No pity, no mercy, no remorse.

I had to rip them out – rip all of them out! Now! I thrashed as hard as I could, and my egg bounced and jerked crazily, but I was trapped between my egg sac and my egg membrane and I couldn’t break free. I couldn’t break free!

Stop staring at me! Stop staring at me! Stop staring at me!

Eventually, as the eggs bobbed and rotated, the eyes turned away, and I came back to my senses. Curved around my yolk sac, I floated, limp and worn out.

This must have been what Flicker meant when he said that erasing souls’ memories allowed us a fresh start. After all, these eyes belonged to tiny, harmless baby catfish that hadn’t even hatched yet. Plus the dragon king of this river probably hadn’t attended my trial. Probably hadn’t even gotten invited to my trial. I should go talk to him, see if he needed an odd-job fish in the rain department. Maybe he’d be the reasonable, helpful, generous sort.

Yeah, and maybe the Goddess of Life would be content once she got her own department. Somehow, I doubted it.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to scout out the Water Court. It wasn’t like I had to go inside. All I had to do was hang around the entrance, observe the dragon’s visitors and vassals, and extrapolate his personality and potential usefulness. I didn’t even have to see him if I didn’t want to.

Yes. I could do that. That was what I would do.

As soon as I hatched, I split off from my siblings and swam for the grotto.

“Are you looking for something? Are you lost?” asked a voice.

I pretended not to understand. I was drifting around the dragon king’s front gate, acting like a normal catfish fry. The opening was flanked by two posts that I hoped were decorative – if they were required for structural support, then the grotto was in big trouble – and topped by a small, curved roof whose tiles might once have been not-mud-brown. Below it swayed a driftwood board that said in crooked characters, as if it weren’t sure how much pride to take in the proclamation either, “Black Sand Creek Water Court.”

A pair of shrimp spirits was patrolling this stretch of riverbed, but they’d ignored me since I wasn’t a spirit. Not the sharpest of guards, those two. But it did mean that up until now, no one had harassed me –

Something cold and scaly nudged my side.

I jerked. Click click click flapped my fin. Danger danger danger!

Ugh, idiot fish brain. In dangerous situations, never show fear. True fear, anyway.

When I’d wrested back control of the fin and clamped it to my side, I turned. Two feet away floated an amused-looking water snake spirit, one that hadn’t lived enough centuries to sprout legs and horns and a mane and transform into a dragon yet. Under her chin dangled a seed pearl, a sign that she held some sort of minor post in the Water Court. “Are you looking for something?” she repeated. “I’m sure you can understand me.”

Oh great, a competent spirit who’d actually figured out that I wasn’t a normal fish. Time for some flattery.

N-no, I stuttered, feigning shyness. I arched my body forward in a clumsy bow. I – I just hatched today and – I was wondering what the ruler of this river is like…. Are you…the ruler, by any chance…? I made a show of gawking at her seed pearl.

It was irregular. Lumpy. Off-white. Barely larger than a grain of sand. Back in my Prime Minister days, I wouldn’t even have threaded it onto a string for a tassel.

The water snake preened, tossing her head to make the pearl gleam. (It didn’t.) “No, I am the Prime Minister of the Dragon King of Black Sand Creek,” she announced, making it sound like the highest honor achievable. Maybe it was, in this river. “He is served by two carp captains, a company of shrimp guards, and a company of frog guards.”

That…didn’t sound particularly impressive to me. In fact, it sounded as if she were the only minister in the Black Sand Creek Water Court, which meant that she was basically a glorified clerk.

Still, I nodded along and opened and shut my mouth like a goldfish. Wow! Prime Minister? Two captains? Two whole companies of guards? What a glorious court!

She arched her long, skinny neck even more. If she weren’t careful, she was going to tie it into a knot. “Isn’t it just? Come, let me take you on a tour.”

On instinct, I recoiled. My answer was an immediate, curt, Oh no, that won’t be necessary. When she looked taken aback, I hastily tacked on an insincere, I couldn’t possibly take up so much of your time, my lady. I know that as Prime Minister, you must be so busy….

“Oh no, it’s no trouble at all. Come, come,” she insisted, from which I inferred that she appreciated the chance to show off. “If you’re lucky, you might even catch a glimpse of His Majesty Himself.”

Oh, yay. Just what I’d wanted. But at this point, what else could I say besides a weak, Uh, sure, if you’re sure it’s not too much trouble?

“Excellent. This way, please.” And she curved her tail around me and swept me through the gate.

The further down the tunnel we swam, the darker it got, until my mortal eyes could no longer distinguish where the water ended and the walls began. In my newborn fish body, I couldn’t keep pace with the water snake, and she didn’t bother to slow down. Soon I was gasping and splashing weakly. Good thing catfish had good hearing, so at least I could swim after her swishing sounds.

After an eternity, a yellow glow began to light the tunnel, and the water snake finally stopped in front of a dull red door. Above the lintel bobbed a lotus-shaped lantern, similar to the votive lamps that humans floated down the rivers during the Moon of Hungry Ghosts. (Supposedly, their light guided the spirits of those who had drowned to reincarnation as humans. Pure superstition, as I now knew – reincarnating as a human depended partially on your curriculum vitae and entirely on the whims of the gods.) Was this dragon king so poor that he had to repurpose votive lamps as lighting fixtures?

“Behold, the audience chamber,” announced the water snake when I caught up.

Audience…chamber? I wheezed. My muscles were floppy. My fins sagged. My whiskers drooped. Tired. So, so tired.

“Yes. Through this portal.” She waved her tail at the door.

What a…beautiful door…. If I kept praising it, could we stay here longer? I could barely move. Love…the color…..

“Isn’t it a resplendent shade of red? His Majesty selected it personally.” She made a show of pressing the side of her head to the door and listening hard. Then she stage-whispered, “You’re in luck. His Majesty isn’t holding court right now. Let me show you the audience chamber.” With a flick of her tail, she flung the door open – or tried to.

It stuck.

Bunching up her coils, she shoved it again (well, that explained the scratches on the paint). This time, the door creaked open. “Behold, the audience chamber of the Black Sand Creek Water Court!”

Across the room, a scraggly black dragon that was nodding off on a driftwood throne bolted upright. “What the – !”

“Your Majesty!” cried the water snake, throwing herself to the packed-earth floor so violently that the water currents tumbled me back out the door. As I fought to right myself, I heard her screech, “Forgive me! Your humble servant failed to realize that she was in Your August Presence!”

I swear, I could hear the capitalization.

“Oh, calm down, Nagi,” groused the dragon, slouching back down. His scales made horrible scraping noises across the wood. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“A headache, Your Most August Majesty! Shall I send for the Royal Physician?”

“What royal physician? Nagi, I just got rid of Captain Carpio, and before you know it, Captain Carpa is going to be here, pestering me about which one of them outranks the other when she knows I couldn’t care less. Also, it’s irrelevant. So, unless you’re here to tell me that you plan to sort out that mess, please let me have some peace and quiet.”

Nagi the water snake hissed. “Your Majesty, we have a visitor,” she scolded, sounding like a nanny or governess. “Do try to make an effort to act regal in front of outsiders.”

“A visitor? I don’t see anyone.”

Straightening, she looked around, which I took as my cue to paddle back in. “Ah, here it is. Behold, Your Majesty! The rarest of rarities – an unawakened fish that can talk!”

“Oh? A talking fish?” Curiosity piqued, the dragon raised his head. His shaggy, stringy mane parted to reveal the pearl under his chin that granted him authority over Black Sand Creek. It wasn’t a particularly impressive pearl. I’d worn much better.

I curved my body into a deep bow but didn’t speak.

“Come closer,” commanded the dragon. “Say something.”

I was tempted to parrot “something” right back at him, but thought better of it. Instead, I swam forward until I was a few feet away and inquired, What would Your Majesty like this humble servant to say?

“You’re right! It does talk!” he marveled, making Nagi arch her neck proudly. “But how?” Pig-like nostrils flaring, he scrutinized me from head to tail. “It looks like a normal catfish fry.”

“That is what I thought too initially. It is why I brought it to Your Majesty, in hopes of providing some amusement that can lighten the burden of ruling Black Sand Creek.”

Yeah. Sure. That was very much not the truth, and the dragon knew it too.

“Oh, drop the act, Nagi,” he complained. “It’s just a fish. You don’t have to show off for it.”

The water snake’s long body tensed. “It may be ‘just a fish,’ but if you get into the habit of vulgar speech, it will be that much harder to remember to speak properly in front of your peers. Do you want to humiliate yourself again this year at the Meeting of the Dragon Host?”

Whatever happened last year must have been devastating, because the dragon slunk down in his chair, ears and even horns drooping. Fascinated, I watched their exchange. The dynamics reminded me of my own interactions with Cassius, even if I’d been a lot more subtle.

“No…,” the dragon mumbled.

“Then practice!”

At that, he shot back up. “Silence! You go too far, vassal.”

“Well, I never – !” began Nagi, indignant, before she realized that he was behaving precisely the way she’d badgered him to. She sank into a pile of coils on the floor. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, if in my zeal to serve you, I have overstepped.”

Over-slithered? Over-swum?

“Just this once, in light of your many decades of devoted service, We will overlook it,” proclaimed the dragon. “See that you do not forget yourself again.”

That wasn’t half-bad, actually.

Nagi’s eyes gleamed with approval. “Your Majesty is ever gracious.”

He accepted that with a slow, arrogant nod. “Now, as for this tribute that you have brought Us – ”

Before I could react, his hands flashed forward. Four long claws closed around me, forming a cage.