The sudden shock of being fully submerged in freezing water woke me instantly. I almost gasped, but as the salty water filled my mouth, I managed to snap my mouth shut and hold my breath. For a terrifying span of seconds, I wondered which way was up. I forced myself to calm to stillness and waited for my natural buoyancy to pull me in the right direction. It seemed to be working, but the seconds stretched unnaturally long as my lungs began to burn, and I thrashed desperately towards what I hoped was the surface.

My face broke water. I gulped hungrily at the sweet, crisp air.

I was never the strongest swimmer and I needed some moments to orient myself, so I relaxed, allowing myself to float on my back. My mind grasped at the last things I could remember. I had boarded my flight home after visiting with my father and his new wife. Did the plane crash? I couldn’t see any signs of a wreck nearby, and besides… I was flying from Ohio to Nevada. We shouldn’t have been above the ocean. Or at least, what I assumed was the ocean. I stared up at the undersides of dark clouds stretching across the sky, but despite the stormy appearance the water was calm. The confusion I felt was physically dizzying for a moment, and I closed my eyes against the vertigo that threatened to overwhelm my senses.

None of the questions I had were going to be answered quickly, nor would they solve my current problem. After several moments and three deep breaths, I had calmed myself reasonably enough and shifted back to treading water so I could take in my surroundings. I turned in a full circle to see if I could see something – animals, boats, land – anything. To my surprise, there were lights – close enough to give me hope, and they appeared to be moving in my direction. Tentatively, I shouted, “Help!” but it came out weakly, so I cleared my throat and filled my lungs and shouted again, much louder this time. I thought I could hear shouting in the distance.

---

I grasped desperately at the rope that was lowered into the water for me. My limbs felt clumsy and leaden as I wrapped it around my waist and positioned it under my armpits, my fingers so numb and frozen that maneuvering the rope into place seemed to take longer than it should have. Just as I wondered dully how I was going to manage the strength to pull myself up, I was instead yanked bodily from the water. At the other end of the rope were several men, and they easily pulled me up and over the railing, where I immediately slumped to my knees on the floor of the wooden deck. I couldn’t bring myself to stand. My mind felt foggy from the cold, which shocked me to some degree because I felt I hadn’t been in the water long enough to be so affected by it.

Someone wrapped a blanket around me quickly and lifted me bodily and I was taken inside. A cast iron stove stood on one side of the room and I was deposited on the floor near it. Normally I would have been appalled to be picked up and carried anywhere, but the heat wafting off the stove drove most other thoughts from my mind. I moved close to it, almost close enough to touch it, desperate for the warmth it emanated.

Soon the noise died down as the group was ushered out of the room, leaving me alone with a tall barrel-chested man, with a thick black beard streaked through with gray. He wore a baggy blue shirt that laced up the front, the sleeves rolled up, the color faded from sun and salt water. I stared at him blankly as he began to speak, wondering how addled my brain had been from the freezing waters because none of his words were making sense to me.

I shook my head, attempting to clear it. Frowning, he spoke again, and I realized it was a completely different language that I was hearing, and not one that I recognized at all. I responded this time with, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” I half hoped that he would recognize English, but he only frowned harder and tilted his head. He walked across the room slowly, grabbed a flask from inside a cabinet of some sort built into the other corner of the room, and then walked over to hand it to me. He was very slow and deliberate in his movements, and when he spoke, he spoke in a calm soothing tone. I couldn’t understand the words, but I did understand that he was trying not to appear threatening.

I accepted the flask and opened it, sipping cautiously at first. Whatever it was, it was strong and I almost coughed, but the flavor was sweet and the burn of the alcohol was warming. I took a harder pull from it before handing it back. He chuckled appreciatively and slipped it into his waistband.

A moment later another man entered. This one was not as tall or wide as the barrel-chested man, and he wore very plain tanned robes that looked almost like a long tunic or a simple toga. From under his clothes and climbing up his neck were a series of intricate tattoos, that rose to just under his ears and along the right side of his face and around his head in delicate designs that seemed to frame his features. He had short cut silvery blonde hair and very pale skin. He kept his eyes trained on the floor as he approached me.

The barrel-chested man was speaking to him as he came close and knelt to leave a pile of clothes and another blanket near me. Then he turned back toward the other man. Something was exchanged between them – a smooth black stone hung on a leather strap. Then he turned and faced me, the stone clutched in one hand that he held before him, the other hand gesturing as he spoke. His voice was clear, stronger than I had expected it to be from his demeanor, and the words sounded very different than the language I had heard so far – more than that, his voice took on an eerie echoing quality. He made direct eye contact – his eyes were a pale gray-blue, but for a moment they took on a fluorescent hue. A light shimmered around me.

I froze in place, unsure of what was happening or what to do about it. As the light dimmed and vanished, the barrel-chested man stepped closer. “Can you understand me now?” he asked.

I felt a shiver run down my spine, this time not entirely from the cold. I steadied myself by clutching the blanket around me tighter. “Yes,” I said, forcing my voice to be stronger than I felt.

He nodded, and gestured to the clothes. “We’ll leave you to some privacy. Get dressed, and then come find me on the deck.” I nodded. I looked back up at the man that had cast the spell, or whatever it was, but he had returned to staring demurely at the ground. As they left the room, the black stone was passed back to the barrel-chested man.

I stared at the door for a moment after they left, wishing he had left the flask behind as well. Then I stood and picked up the clothes that had been left for me. I try to dress as comfortably as possible when I go on long trips, so I was wearing leggings and a tank top under an oversized sweater. The sweater was heavy with cold water and I was glad to pull it off, letting it thump to the ground. I had been wearing slip on shoes, but they had been lost, either into the ocean or before, but I did still have my socks. I peeled the wet clothes off, and when it became clear that there wasn’t any underwear on offer in the pile of clothes, wrung out my underwear and sports bra and socks and held them as close as I dared to the stove. I did the same with the tank top, which was a light enough material that I figured it would dry quickly as well.

I wasn’t sure how long I would be given to dress, so the underwear was still damp as I slipped it back on, but at least nothing was soaked through as badly as it had been. I also pulled the tank top back on. The tanned breeches they left were simple, and actually fairly close to my size though still a bit too large. They buttoned on the side, and I found a folding knife on the table that I used to improvise a new buttonhole to close the pants a bit tighter. The shirt was red and baggy and much too large – it had been meant to lace up the front, but the laces were missing. It wasn’t that big of an issue with the tank top underneath, at least. I wrung my hair and my other clothes out as best as I could, then wrapped my damp clothes in the blanket that had first been given to me, which was also fairly wet at this point.

Wrapping myself in the new blanket and pulling my socks on, I started to leave the room. I glanced briefly at the little knife I had used to improvise the buttonhole, wondering if I should take it with me. After a moment of indecision, I folded the knife and slipped it into the waist of the pants.

It looked a little lighter outside now. The sails were billowing and the ship was moving along at a clipped pace. Glancing up, just behind the wheel I could see another individual dressed in the same tanned robes as the pale man. She held a hand out to the sails, and was enveloped in a faint glow, with wisps of light dancing around her. Her hair was also shorn very short, and I could just barely make out a series of tattoos along her temple and jaw that wrapped up around and came down low on her forehead.

She was the source of the wind, I realized.

The barrel-chested man was standing up near them, leaning against the rail. He waved a hand at me as he saw me emerge from the cabin. I walked up the stairs to where he was. “Allow me a proper introduction,” he said as I approached. “You’re aboard my ship, the Crimson Yeller. My name is Karl Wrasker, and I am both owner and captain of this vessel.”

“I’m Cassandra Murphy,” I said. “If you don’t mind, Captain… where am I? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a language like the one you spoke.”

He raised an eyebrow and studied me for a moment. “Could say the same,” he said, then continued with, “You’re lucky we were near enough this stretch of water as it is. Some say it’s a cursed stretch of ocean. Almost impossible to navigate without an elf to fill your sails,” he gestured at the glowing woman.

“Elf?” I stared more closely now. Sure enough, the tips of her ears came to gently upswept points. I turned to peer around and caught sight of the man that had cast the spell on me earlier, standing a few feet back from the Captain. He had been studying me curiously but as I turned to look at him, his eyes quickly averted, and he was staring at the floor once more. His ears also came to points.

“Yes, but no worries – these aren’t Empire elves. They’re properly tethered.”

“I… I see.” Tethered? Were they prisoners or maybe even slaves? “I don’t suppose you saw anything in the sky before you saw me?” I hoped the question didn’t sound too unusual in a world where there was magic.

“We saw a light, which is why we drew so close to where we found you. It was quite a flash – lit up the whole sky like dawn and then channeled straight down into the water. May have been something that delivered you to that spot.” He studied me again, very pointedly staring at my ears which he seemed to decide were suitably rounded. “Were you a prisoner of the Empire?”

“I don’t know. I… don’t remember. I don’t remember anything about my life at all.” I glanced away, hoping he wouldn’t catch the lie. I wasn’t sure how to explain that where I was from, there was no such things as elves or magic. The description of the light that he gave didn’t sound like the fireball of a plane crash at least. I wondered what had happened to the plane, or to the other passengers. I wondered what my mom would think when I didn’t arrive in Reno safely. I stared up at the billowing sails, lost in thought.

“Well, you’ve had quite a night, and it’s barely morning yet. If you need some sleep, I’ll have Lyre show you to the guest cabin. It’s not a large ship and we rarely take on passengers. I’ll have him stay with you while you’re aboard – I think he’s the only elf we’ve got that can do the language spell.  He’ll have to recast it each morning, and he can show you about the ship when you wake.” Wrasker gestured to Lyre, who stepped forward obediently.

“Thank you, Captain,” I mumbled, tilting my head forward in acknowledgment, then turned to follow Lyre.

“Wait… you’ll be needing this.” I stopped and looked back. The Captain was holding out the flat black stone. I reached out and grabbed the leather strap that held it. “That’s his Focus. He’ll need it for casting, just make sure you take it back immediately after each spell, and don’t let any of the other elves touch it.” I nodded, and slipped the leather strap around my neck. It hung low enough to disappear under my tank top, and felt almost warm against my skin.

Then I was led back down and below the cabin I had been taken to warm up in. A small hall separated two smaller rooms of similar size and build. Inside there were two beds, each with a trunk placed at the end, and a small table set between them. A lamp sat on the table, glowing brightly. I laid my damp clothes out on the trunk to dry, and hung the damp blanket from the end of the bedframe, then sat on the thin mattress, pulling the dry blanket around me tighter.

My mind attempted to digest everything from the past hour. I felt that certainly I must be dreaming. I ran my hand over the blanket wrapped around me – it was soft, old and worn but not yet threadbare. The sounds of the deck were dampened here, but the ship creaked as it swayed on the ocean, and the occasional voice drifted down. I felt that these were details I would never have noticed in a dream.

After a few moments, I realized that Lyre was still in the room and standing at the door, his eyes trained on the floor, his hands clasped in front. I stared up at him, studying him in the lamplight. Slavery. That was something hard to digest. Disgust and pity and anxiety churned my insides. “You don’t have to stand like that.” Nodding, he began to sit on the floor in front of the door. “No! Don’t do that!” I cried out, probably louder than necessary. His head snapped up to look at me in alarmed confusion. Our eyes met briefly, and then he immediately focused his gaze back down on the floor and started to stand again. “I just mean… you can sit on the other bed.” I gestured toward it.

I felt the heat rising up my neck as he paused for a long moment before obeying me. With a flash of anger, I realized that of course slaves probably weren’t used to being invited to sit with their slavers. It all seemed awful. I was in a world with magic and elves, and they were slaves. And I had no idea how I had come here. I had been on a plane. What had happened to the plane? To the other passengers? Were they in this world too? Or did the plane get to its destination just fine without me? What were my parents going to think when I didn’t make it home? Would my mom keep my dog and continue to take care of him? When I didn’t show up for work in a few days, would I lose my job? My apartment? I was on a ship, in a strange world where likely no one spoke my language. I had a slave assigned to look after me.

I leaned forward and placed my forehead in my hands, feeling exhausted and sick, like a million centipedes were crawling over every inch of my insides and eating me alive. I forced myself to clear my mind. I could change none of this in the moment. I took three deep breaths. I realized how bone tired I felt.

Looking up, I caught Lyre staring at me curiously again. His gaze dropped immediately. Well, there’s something that’s going to annoy me quickly, I thought. I moved my hand up to my face to push my glasses up the bridge of my nose, or maybe remove them before sleeping – a gesture that felt so natural that I didn’t consider it until my hands touched nothing. No glasses. Frowning, I ran my hands down my face again, then pulled them away. Of course, there was no way my glasses would have survived through anything that had happened to me.

And yet…

I looked up at Lyre again, squinting slightly though there was no need. My vision isn’t the worst, but even at this distance I shouldn’t have been able to make out the details of his tattoos, or the pattern of the wood grain behind him. And yet I saw it all in perfect detail.

Like I didn’t need glasses at all.

“Huh,” I said. Then everything about my situation crashed down on me again, but instead of letting the anxiety build I started to laugh. I couldn’t help myself. Everything about this situation was utterly insane. Lyre frowned, but didn’t look up at me. “Well, what the fuck?” I murmured to myself, and then lay down on the bed, turning to face the wall of the cabin and pulling the blanket around me. From under the blanket, I slipped the pocket knife between the mattress and the wall, then closed my eyes to sleep.