Some­thing bur­bled in the seafoam. A shad­ow swam over rough stone and wav­ing clumps of anemone. A flash of mot­tled cinnabar flesh dart­ed to cov­er.

Dirty fin­gers plunged into the foam and yanked a writhing ver­mil­ion octo­pus. Ten­ta­cles sped up the tanned wrist, seek­ing pur­chase for escape. Swift­ly, Ofe­lia brought the crea­ture to her mouth and bit down hard on the salty bulb of its head. It seized, limpened. The red drained from its flesh.

Ofe­lia tossed it into her bas­ket with the oth­ers. She picked over wave-tossed crags of shore, squint­ing under a blar­ing sun. Sweat and spray plas­tered her white tunic to her thin shoul­ders. Her rough palms and feet scraped and clam­bered over a ridge.

Over that rise, there was an expanse of white beach. Ofe­lia shad­ed her eyes and exclaimed: A squat boat with a square sail had washed ashore, rest­ed lev­el on the sand. Bar­na­cles and green locks of weed clung to the hull.

Clutch­ing her bas­ket, Ofe­lia clam­bered down the rocks to the hot sand. She crossed to the boat, and, pick­ing around the side, found a hang­ing rope lad­der. Some seag­ulls yam­mered from the rail of the craft, eye­ing at her bas­ket. Ofe­lia scowled at them, tucked it under an arm, and began to climb.

The gulls shrieked and depart­ed as Ofe­lia came aboard. She found the deck quite desert­ed, save for tarps and coils of rope. A hatch to the hold hung open. The girl con­sid­ered it and jumped down.

There was a musty, sweet smell in the hold, like sweat and burn­ing sug­ar. Com­pared to the glar­ing beach, it was pitch dark. Ofe­lia stood still, wait­ing for her sight to adjust.

Shapes clar­i­fied in the dark. Crates, bun­dles of wood. A pot­bel­lied stove. A tiny light, red like the cher­ry of a cig­a­rette. Ofe­lia focused on it. It bright­ened, flared, reveal­ing a pair of lam­bent eyes.

Ofe­lia jumped, then screamed a lit­tle as two more sets of eyes appeared. A rusty laugh sound­ed in the dark. Three fig­ures had resolved, sat on low stools about a squat table. Thin, lank crea­tures wrapped all over in cross­hatched cloth and leather strips. One held a meter-long pipe. Pink, sweet smoke curled from the bowl. * Dice and clay jugs lay on the table.

One, the laugh­ing one, grinned, dis­play­ing crooked cat’s-teeth. It spoke fast to the oth­ers in a flat and flow­ing lan­guage. Ofe­lia backed away. The crea­ture looked at her expec­tant­ly and spoke again. “No Fir­lesé?” it said, switch­ing to Alagóri­an.

“No,” mum­bled Ofe­lia.

Anoth­er crea­ture, on the right, spoke. “So it is a lit­tle Alagóracrab that has scut­tled onto our boat.” Many shiny buck­les showed on her swad­dled face and tex­tile breast.

The first spoke again. His eyes were orange discs around tiny pupils. “We heard you com­ing, lit­tle Crab,” he said. Ofe­lia clutched her bas­ket, frowned.

“Come, now, don’t be afraid,” said Orange Eyes. “It is dead sun­ny, and we have fresh water to share.”

“You are not going to eat me?” asked the girl, lick­ing her sun-chapped lips.

The third crea­ture, the one with the pipe, gig­gled to her­self. Smoke spilled from her nos­trils. 

Orange Eyes ges­tured to a free stool. “Sil­ly child, trap­er­os do not eat peo­ple. Sit.” He point­ed about. “These are Dido, Parai. They are harm­less enough. Myself, I am Yosh.”

Ten­ta­tive­ly, Ofe­lia sat and placed her bas­ket beside. She took up a jug of water, upturned it into her mouth. Drib­bles poured down her chin. There was a raspy laugh. “Thirsty crab.”

Ofe­lia low­ered the jug, swal­low­ing. “Thank you,” she said, sheep­ish.

“Our plea­sure.”

The buck­led Dido leaned close, sniffed her shoul­der, grinned. “How old is the lit­tle Crab?” Sharp, white teeth showed in the wrap­pings of her face.

Ofe­lia looked askance. “Twelve.”

Yosh slapped at Dido’s leg. “Give it a quit, wretch.” He looked at Ofe­lia, smiled. “What are you doing on this painful­ly sun­ny strand, Crab?

Ofe­lia shift­ed. “Octo­pus,” she said, show­ing the con­tents. Parai, the one with the pipe, licked her clothen lips. “Hmm, fried pul­pos.” **

“I sell them at the mar­ket.”

“You are a fish­er?”

“I can catch lots of fish.”

“Your fam­i­ly are fish­ers, yes?” said Yosh.

Ofe­li­a’s eyes drooped. “Don’t real­ly have a fam­i­ly.”

Parai made a sym­pa­thet­ic sort of hum, blew smoke, pat­ted the girl’s shoul­der. Ofe­lia coughed. “No home?” said Yosh.

The girl shook her head.

“Nobody to tell her not to talk to strange trap­er­os,” said Dido, grin­ning. Yosh swat­ted her again.

“Lis­ten, lit­tle Crab,” said Yosh, lean­ing for­ward.

“Ofe­lia.”

“Ofe­lia” he cor­rect­ed. “We are traders. We depart to Empereaux with the night tide. Have you ever been?”

Ofe­li­a’s eyes went wide in inter­est. She shook her head.

“Would you like to?”

The girl nod­ded.

“You may come with us, if you’d like. There is bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ty in the City of Glass than in this swel­ter­ing fish­town.” † The oth­ers nod­ded encour­ag­ing­ly. Yosh grinned. “And we would ben­e­fit from the ser­vice of a skilled fish­er.”

Ofe­lia peered into the crea­tures’ red-dot eyes. Yosh, friend­ly. Parai, glazed. Dido, hun­gry. She nod­ded, slow­ly.

The rag-folk grinned col­lec­tive­ly.  “Excel­lent.” Yosh prof­fered a gloved hand. Ofe­lia shook it.

“What fun,” cooed Dido. She stroked the girl’s bare arm. “We’ll make a lit­tle rag­doll of you in no time.”

In the warm sea­ports of the South live a curi­ous swad­dled folk. Trap­er­os, they are called. “Rag-folk” who live their lives wrapped head to toe in woven cloth.

These tex­tile folk make an intri­cate art of bind­ing their frames. Count­less yards of mate­r­i­al are woven and hatched with such pre­ci­sion as to leave no gap of flesh, save for neces­si­ties such as sight and breath. These “trap­pings” are no mere cul­tur­al quirk—they are bio­log­i­cal­ly imper­a­tive.

The skin of rag-folk is translu­cent, thin, and prone to dis­solv­ing under the sun. In mere min­utes, a bare trap­ero in open day­light would be effec­tive­ly flayed. For the weak­ness of their hide, the folk are oblig­ed to weave a sec­ond skin. This weav­ing has become an art.

Trap­pings

While sim­ple cot­ton makes for basic and effec­tive trap­pings, it does noth­ing for style. Col­or­ful, lav­ish mate­r­i­al is far pre­ferred. Rag-folk crave soft, sup­ple ramie; desire fine twills of serge, her­ring­bone and chi­no; have no end of love for cool, lus­trous silk. They give drap­ers no end of busi­ness.

A rag-crea­ture’s trap­pings reflect their ori­gin and sta­tus. Weav­ing pat­terns, while based on cer­tain core con­cepts, often vary depend­ing on region. For instance, a trap­ero from Tevil­la can rec­og­nize anoth­er from Ille Phe by the weave of her arms. These region­al fash­ions are notably com­plex. Only very skilled weavers of trap­pings may emu­late a menu of styles, and those with the knack to cre­ate new styles are pop­u­lar indeed. †

Rare is a rag-crea­ture who does­n’t spend excess funds on cloth. For this rea­son, the mate­r­i­al of trap­pings is indica­tive of social sta­tus. Rich folk wear swad­dles of finest silk and cash­mere. Work­ing types may have a few embell­ish­ments of fine twill. Poor sorts have naught but burlap and raw linen rags.

The cus­tom of trap­pings has expand­ed into wider Lit­toran cul­ture. Design­ers on the Emper­oussin Rue de Cou­ture have embraced rag-folk, inspired by their wrap­ping styles and wil­lowy frames. Such cul­tur­al inter­ac­tion has giv­en rise to the moniker “rag­doll,” used to describe humans garbed in trap­pings or adopt­ed by rag-folk. ††

Con­verse­ly, it is not unusu­al for rag-folk to don typ­i­cal over­wear in addi­tion to their trap­pings, if weath­er demands. The mate­r­i­al from which these items are made, be it leather, oil­cloth, and heavy wool, are uncom­mon com­po­nents of trap­pings. They are too heavy, too restric­tive, espe­cial­ly for seago­ing folk.

Sail­ing

For what­ev­er rea­son, trap­er­os have a taste for the sea. They love the flesh of fish, the dan­ger of track­less waters, the cama­raderie and liba­tions of sailors. Whether this incli­na­tion is cul­tur­al or nat­ur­al does not mat­ter to the rag-folk, for they do as they please.

Any South­ern port fea­tures trap­er­os aplen­ty. Entire crews are com­posed of rag-folk, oft called pinkspit­ters from their habit of chew­ing coqueli­cish. These crews hold a rep­u­ta­tion as the row­di­est and most trou­ble­some avail­able to hire, but are doubt­less among the most skilled.

Trap­er­os are well-inte­grat­ed with South­ern soci­ety, though they cer­tain­ly hold a rep­u­ta­tion for their rau­cous­ness, their cat’s teeth, and a vague ten­den­cy for crim­i­nal­i­ty. Giv­en the preva­lence of humanocen­tric Aveth in the South, they do face a degree of prej­u­dice, but despite this, there are as many cap­tains look­ing for skilled sailors as there are big­ots. In the end, it is not the fol­low­ers of Aveth who are trap­er­os’ great­est soci­etal obsta­cle. Rather, it is the peo­ple of the North. 

In the Coast’s cold­er climes, peo­ple know not the art­ful­ly-woven trap­er­os. Rather, they know their horned, bloody-toothed cousins: Rag­wretch­es. The few rag-folk of the North ‡‡ face no end of dis­trust, faced as they are with over­com­ing the rep­u­ta­tion of mon­sters.

***