Kouhei/Introduction
nce upon a time....
That is how the Western fairytale begins, isn't it? Once upon a time, there lived a dragon in Japan. When it came time to find a mate, he couldn't find one in his own nation. He was matched to a saltwater crocodile, as was fitting, kept in a farm in Korea. After he had mated with all pomp and ceremony, the mother crocodile laid several eggs. These eggs were taken by the Kin watching over them and, after various magical things had been done over them to see who would have what, they incubated accordingly. When the time came, they hatched out, and one of those who hatched out that spring was feisty. He had been marked as Mokole, to the great honor of both parents, and thus he was fattened up and returned to the pens with his other Mokole brethren. Those who were not Kin were sent to other places as stock for breeding saltwater crocodiles. And this was how "Ikasu" was born to the Mokole, though he wouldn't take on a proper name for quite some time yet.
At the age of ten, or adolescence for male salties, "Ikasu" underwent his Dreaming. Soon after, he changed and found himself in human form. The Kin were waiting for this. It was a long time coming, but they had a new Tung Chun; a new warrior of the Spring season. He was brought in and housed, fed, and communicated with by the Mokole who knew the speech of Dragon's that he now knew.
Life was sweet for him. As part of the Zhong Lung, he had a Deed name: Scales-of-Gold. He had the homid Kin who taught him how to communicate with them in Korean, slowly but surely. They taught him how to use a pencil and write with it, how to eat with utensils. They taught him about humanity and how to fit into it, while the Mokole taught him of his heritage and the crocodiles taught him of the wild. He spent the next thirteen years living this life.
But all things must come to an end. Had he been a sixteen year old crocodile, he'd have reached maturity and would be looking for mates. The Korean Kin were much like their Japanese relatives in the Zhong Lung - they had lost the dragon and had to find their mates sometimes far afield. He was told, while in his prime, to go to Indonesia and let them match him appropriately. And so, he began the long swim south to the tropical islands in order to do his duty and produce his own Mokele children - he hoped. It would be a great honor.
They made their kennings. They matched him with a female who was vivacious and had the highest chance for Mokole. They courted and danced in the ceremony and at the end, tragedy struck: Scales-of-Gold was seen to be sterile and therefore unsuitable for a mate. In fact, to many of the Mokole, they thought he was tainted by the Dissolver and wanted nothing to do with him. He was shunned before he could even mate for the first time, and though he tried to find some way of fixing his shame, it wasn't to be. He couldn't go back to Korea with this hanging over him. He swam far, with Rokea aid, to find somewhere that he could begin anew and not take a mate. He would hide his sterility.
Hawaii seemed perfect. And it was, up until the children started coming and looking exactly like him over the next couple of years. He was challenged and won several times, protecting his honor and that of the female involved, but even humans have their breaking point. A non-Kin man finally tried to kill him one day, and the Mokole who called himself Kouhei Tsukino as a human fled further northeast.
As the shore of California loomed ahead, the water turned colder and colder. It took all his strength and skill, and some sweet-talking of the Rokea, to get him through it alive. By the time the breakers showed up in the sunlit distance, Kouhei just couldn't swim much father. He shifted into a naked human form and headed in, unable to care anymore what he might look like to the beach-goers he was sure to scandalize.
