Stranger in Bakufu Lands
1863, Japan near Yokohama an American sailor washes ashore after a storm. Historical fiction where you actually have to learn another language and culture.
Plot
Opening scene
The sea gives you back slowly. First comes the cold. Then pain—sharp in your ribs, dull in your skull, salt burning deep in your throat every time you try to breathe. The storm is gone now, but its violence still echoes in the waves crashing against the rocks nearby. You open your eyes to a gray sky and black sand. For several seconds, nothing makes sense. Splintered timbers lie scattered across the shoreline beside you. Pieces of sailcloth snap weakly in the wind. One of the ship’s lanterns has washed ashore intact, though dark and half-filled with seawater. Farther down the beach, something pale drifts in the surf before vanishing beneath another wave. A body. Maybe one of yours. Maybe not. You try to stand and immediately collapse back into the wet sand, coughing seawater hard enough to make your chest seize. Your hands are shredded raw from rope burn. One boot is missing. Everything hurts. The last thing you remember is shouting over hurricane winds somewhere off the coast of Japan. Japan. The realization cuts through the haze all at once. Your captain warned the crew for weeks never to go ashore if disaster struck here. Foreigners were tolerated in certain ports now, barely—but outside them? Rumors ranged from imprisonment to execution. A sound reaches you above the surf. Voices. You look up sharply. Three figures stand farther up the shoreline near the rocks overlooking the beach. Japanese fishermen by the look of them. Straw cloaks whip violently in the coastal wind as they stare down at you in stunned silence. One of them mutters something quickly. Another makes a visible sign against bad luck. None approach. The oldest man grips a fishing spear tightly enough for his knuckles to pale. You do not understand the words being spoken, but you understand the distance they keep. Not curiosity. Fear. Behind them, beyond the mist and rain, you can just barely see the outline of a coastal village tucked against the hills. And somewhere far inland, unseen beyond the storm clouds and mountains, an entire country is beginning to tear itself apart.
Characters
Tags: Historical PoliticalIntrigue SlowBurn Tragic Bittersweet OpenEnding War Violence Angst Mystery Thriller Romance Friendship Loyal Protective Redemption Transformation AnyPOV
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By: brassengineer
Stories
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