I couldn’t help it. I squeaked.

“It’s all right, little fishy. Dooooon’t worry. Everything’s all right,” singsonged the dragon. So much for his regal act. Raising me to eye level, he studied me through his claws. “Aren’t you a pweedy weedle fish?”

No, no, I really wasn’t. I was scrawny and had bulbous eyes and an oversized jaw, and on top of that, I was still stuck to a yolk sac. But then again, the dragon was on the weedy side himself, with bulging eyes and gnarled, yellowish horns like a hag’s fingernails. His scales weren’t the gleaming black of polished jade, either, but the dull, greasy shade of a peasant’s unwashed hair.

“It really does look like a completely normal catfish fry,” he mused. Still coiled up on the ground, Nagi practically quivered for him to solicit her opinion, but instead, he asked me, “Do you have a name, little fishy?”

Well, I certainly wasn’t telling him “Piri.” Even if the Goddess of Life hadn’t banned me from discussing her boon, I couldn’t see any advantage in letting other spirits know who I was. I was, after all, notorious. No, Your Majesty. It would be an honor if You were to bestow one upon me.

His eyes lit up. Up close, the rings of red and blue around the black pupils reminded me of archery targets. “Awww, who’s a cute weedle fishy? Who’s a cute weedle fishy? Yes you are!”

Great.

“Hmmmm, what should I name you? What’s a good name for a fish?” He gazed across the audience chamber as he consulted his mental archives. “Fishy? No, no, that’s too boring.” (But appropriate. There was something odd about me.) “You’re a catfish so…Cat? Catty? Kitty?”

Well, I supposed I had eaten my fair share of fish.

Unable to contain herself any longer, Nagi spoke up. “Perhaps a name that is more dignified, Your Majesty? A name that is worthy of the Dragon King of Black Sand Creek?”

The dragon blinked. “A dignified name. Uh…. Let’s see…. Are there any good poems about Black Sand Creek?”

Poems, almost certainly. Good ones, most likely not. As I’d seen in Cassius’ court, humans loved to attend garden-viewing parties where they would compose poems on the sunset over the mountains or the wind that rustled the willows or other such worn-out imagery. And then they’d recite them to one another. For hours.

I’d banned these parties on and off, mostly for the sake of my ears, but also because reform-minded scholars sometimes hid political protests in their verses. Inconsistent censorship kept them in a useful state of ferment.

Anyway, Flicker had mentioned a baron in a castle on the banks of Black Sand Creek, which meant that the local nobles would have generated their fair share of “poetry.” I’d bet a lot of it centered on the moon’s reflection in the river.

And indeed, the next sentence that came out of the dragon’s mouth was: “Isn’t there that one poem about the moon breaking through the clouds and reflecting on the river?” Clearing his throat and lifting his chin, he declaimed, “A strip of moonlight breaks through the clouds/And spreads across the surface of the water/Half the river is silver, the other half black/I love the fifteenth of the Harvest Moon.”

Oh, this kept getting better. This wasn’t just a bad poem – it was a bad plagiarism of one of Marcius’ poems. The dragon, however, did not seem to be aware of that.

“Moonlight…clouds…. Got it! Mooncloud! Your name will be Mooncloud!”

Shockingly, that wasn’t such a bad name. I bobbed my head before he could come up with something worse. I love it, Your Majesty.

“Mooncloud it is. Mooncloud the Talking Catfish. Nagi, make it a nametag and find a nice cage for it, will you?”

A cage? I recoiled, banging into his claws.

At my distress, the dragon brought me close to his face again. “Don’t worry, little Mooncloud, it will be the nicest, prettiest, comfortable-est cage a fish could want. It will be so much better than living on your own in the wild. Here, you’ll get as much food as you can eat – well, as long as you don’t become overweight, because that’s unhealthy – and you’ll be safe from predators and fishermen. You’ll like it here, won’t you?” Without waiting for my response, he crooned, “Yes, you will.”

I didn’t.

Oh, it wasn’t that I lacked for food or care or even entertainment. Delighted with his new pet, the dragon had his crab servants carry my cage everywhere he went. At night, he slept with it hanging from a stand by his bed. In the morning, he ate breakfast with it next to him on the table. While he sucked the spiritual essence from a bowl of seed pearls, I crunched through my own dish of plump water bugs. Afterwards, when he headed to the audience chamber, which apparently doubled as his study, the crabs set my cage on a little table next to his throne, so he could glance at me whenever he needed a break. And, of course, so he could show off this amazing, talking, unawakened fish to all his visitors. That was annoying, but once we got the obligatory oohing and aahing out of the way, I got to hear about Black Sand Creek politics, which was surprisingly dramatic. I didn’t even mind being caged all the time, since as I grew, the crabs kept transferring me into bigger cages so I always had room to stretch my fins.

No, what I really couldn’t stand was the way the dragon treated me as if I were an ignorant fox kit. Sometimes it reached truly humiliating proportions, such as the time the Black Sand Creek Pearl Farm’s superintendent came to petition for relief from bandits.

“The duck demons are back,” complained the freshwater pearl mussel spirit. “They keep diving down to dig out the mussels. We’ve confirmed that they’re selling them to humans both for the pearls and as food. But every time the frog guards give chase, the ducks just flap across the border into Baron Claymouth’s fief, and then we can’t do anything!”

Donning a grave expression, the dragon intoned, “That is serious indeed, Nacre.”

Coiled on his right, Nagi hissed. “This is an outrage! Your Majesty, we must act quickly and decisively. Shall I send for the captains?”

“Do so,” ordered the dragon.

She waved her tail at a young crab messenger, who scuttled off down the tunnel.

By now, I’d learned that pearls played a critical role in the underwater economy. Not only did their essence provide food for water spirits, but, once drained, the larger pearls served as emblems of authority and the tiny ones as currency. That meant that the duck demons’ actions were the equivalent of human bandits attacking gold mines. How would the dragon king deal with this situation? How would I deal with this situation? As I ran through options in my head, Captain Carpa arrived and made her bow.

The dragon frowned. “Where is Captain Carpio?” he asked the crab.

“Apologies, Your Majesty,” she chirped, clicking her claws together. “I was unable to find him.”

Straightening, Captain Carpa spoke up. “It is regrettable, Your Majesty, but my colleague is often difficult to locate when there are urgent matters at stake.” Her tone insinuated that he spent his shifts frolicking on the surface or carousing in underwater pubs.

Nagi hissed again, and Captain Carpa’s thick lips curved into a smug grin.

“Well,” fretted the dragon. “Well, I suppose that can’t be helped. Find him and tell him to come here at once,” he ordered the crab. As it scurried off, he turned back to the carp. “Captain, the duck demons are robbing the pearl farm again. I thought I told you to double the guard. Why is it still happening?”

Hmm, yes, doubling the guard was a good first step. That’s what I would do too, just for a few weeks. After that, I’d report to Cassius that our splendid show of force had driven off the bandits like the cowards they were, so now it was safe to decrease the guard. Paying them was so expensive, and we mustn’t waste money, isn’t that right, Imperial Treasurer…? The Imperial Treasurer would glare at me but swallow his counterarguments, Cassius would agree, we’d transfer the guards elsewhere, and then of course the bandits would return and we’d repeat the whole cycle. Fiscal uncertainty worked wonders for the economy.

Oh, wait. The goal here wasn’t to destroy the Water Court. Right.

Captain Carpa was sweeping another bow. “Regrettably, recruitment has been down this moon. Perhaps if we offer additional inducements – a salary increase, for example – we might be able to make the position more attractive to young spirits.”

Nagi reproved her, “That’s what you said last moon too, when you requested extra funding. A request that we granted, may I remind you.”

Captain Carpa waved her fin in a helpless gesture. “Alas, it appears that the inducements were insufficient.”

I had my own suspicions about why that had been the case. Captain Carpa was exactly the sort of oily, corrupt creature that I used to employ.

Nagi was about to interrogate her further when loud, swooshing sounds from the tunnel interrupted. An agitated Captain Carpio burst into the audience chamber. Catching sight of his colleague, who looked as if she’d already been here for some time and was deeply involved in a very important conference, he blustered, “Your Majesty! I was escorting the courier down to the Eastern Sea. I came as soon as I heard!”

Him, I actually believed.

“Nacre informed us that the duck demons are robbing the pearl farm again,” Nagi summarized for him. “Captain Carpa reports that she has had trouble with recruitment and hence cannot double the guard. What do you know of the matter?”

Captain Carpio spat a stream of bubbles at Captain Carpa. “Prime Minister, I’ve warned you over and over that Carpa is incompetent. Plus everyone and their unawakened cousins know that she embezzles.”

“Says the bully who swaggers into pubs and expects free food and drink ‘for his service’,” she snorted. She even managed to make air quotes (water quotes?) with her fins.

“You – !” Captain Carpio flung himself at her, biting at her sides with his pointy teeth.

Whirling, she whacked him away with her tail, then lunged for his fins.

The dragon and Nagi didn’t even look startled, although Nacre did burrow partway into the floor.

What kind of court was this? No matter how much Marcius and his allies had hated me, none of them would ever have punched me in the throne room. And I would never have bitten them either. Not in the throne room, anyway.

I found myself swimming around and around my cage in tight, agitated circles and forced myself to stop. How about mercenaries? I suggested.

No one heard. The dragon was rubbing his temples, Nagi was flicking her tongue in irritation, and each captain was trying to maim the other into retirement.

Thrusting my head through the bars, I yelled, How about hiring mercenaries!

A shocked silence fell over the audience chamber. The two carp broke apart, fins torn, teeth bared. Nacre stopped burrowing and poked the lip of his shell out of his hole. The dragon and Nagi gaped at me. Had these water spirits never heard of mercenaries?

Umm, you know, they’re professional guards you can hire for money?

They kept staring.

Hmm, maybe it wasn’t because they’d never heard of mercenaries. Maybe it was the opposite. Clearing my throat, I elaborated, It sounds like Black Sand Creek has a cash flow problem, but surely this expense is a good investment for preventing future raids. Even if the presence of mercenaries tends to cause other problems, I’d still say it’s a reasonable stopgap measure, and I urge Your Majesty to – eek!

The dragon had swept up my cage. Cradling it in the crook of one foreleg, he stuck a claw through the bars and stroked my forehead. “Aren’t you cute!” he cried. “Aren’t you just the cutest, smartest, prettiest little catfish in the world!”

Uhhhh…. Did that mean he intended to implement my proposal?

He held up the cage so Nacre could get a good look at me. “Isn’t she just the smartest?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” agreed the mussel obediently.

“Mercenaries are a terrible idea,” Captain Carpio told the dragon without a glance in my direction. “They’re overpriced to start with, and they always demand more and more pay. And then they raid you if you don’t cave in.”

Not always – I tried to defend my idea, but the dragon cut me off by thumping my cage back onto the table.

Ignoring me, he turned to Captain Carpa. “And you? What are your thoughts?”

She hesitated for so long that I thought she was genuinely considering it. At last, she squeezed out a reluctant, “I agree with my colleague.”

Oh. She just didn’t want to go on record as agreeing with her rival on anything.

Wait, Your Majesty, I think you should –

He talked right over me. “Nagi? Thoughts?”

I stuck my fins between the bars and flapped them, trying to catch her eye, but the snake didn’t look at me either. “I agree with the captains. Mercenaries are too expensive and too risky. It would be more advisable to increase the recruitment budget for the next moon.”

If they were going to funnel more money into Captain Carpa’s metaphorical pockets anyway, then why not at least try to negotiate with a mercenary captain? It might be cheaper. And it definitely would be more effective. Your Majesty –

The dragon lifted his chin, letting the other spirits see his pearl. “Then it is decided. Thank you for bringing this matter to Our attention,” he told Nacre. “We shall see to the better defense of Our pearl farm.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Crawling out of his hole, the mussel galumphed out of the audience chamber on his one foot.

“Come up with a recruitment plan and present it to us tomorrow,” Nagi ordered the captains, who glared at each other. “You are dismissed.”

On the way out, Captain Carpio shoved ahead of Captain Carpa, who made a show of wincing and clapping a fin to her side.

As soon as the door closed behind them, I threw myself against the bars of my cage. Look, Your Majesty, I still think you should consider at least contacting a mercenary captain and getting a sense of their rates –

Sticking out a claw, the dragon tickled me under the chin. “Isn’t she so smart?” he marveled to Nagi. “How did she get so smart?”

She puffed up with pride. “I am glad that my humble gift is so pleasing to Your Majesty.”

The dragon scooped up the cage again and admired me through the bars. “So pretty too. Such a pretty catfish. Aren’t you the prettiest little catfish in the world? Yes you are!”

I gave up. At least I was earning karma for all the happiness I was bringing him, right?