Air worked itself in and out of Mizuko’s lungs in shuddering gasps and heaves.  Her legs wobbled like gelatin, and her head felt like it was going to split open from the pounding sensation within her skull.  Her chest felt like it was on fire.

Mizuko staggered to a stop by the half-decayed remains of a small tree and lowered herself onto the felled trunk.  Living trees were a rare find on the plains that made up much of north-central Drayhadal.  The winds grew quite harsh when storms swept through, and the harshest gusts found within had the strength to uproot or downright snap the trunks of any trees foolish enough to grow anywhere on these plains outside the most ideal, sturdy, and nutritious ground.  This tree was one of those foolish ones, though it had survived longer than most, long enough to grow thick enough that its trunk could be used as a seat in a pinch.  Still, like all the others in the end, it had overreached and paid the ultimate price.

Her body trembling as feeling slowly seeped back into her numb limbs, Mizuko felt a kinship with this tree; it seemed that she, too, had overreached.  Though revitalized to the point where she felt as she remembered feeling in her early seventies, her body was still over a hundred years old.  There were limits to how hard and long she could push her body, and she had overestimated how long it would take for her to reach those limits.  In just a few hours, she’d already driven herself to the point where she felt like she could barely move, and she could feel exhaustion lurking like a stalking predator just out of her vision.

Still, what choice did she have?  The time when the guards surrounding the manor where she’d lived since coming to this world would wake up from their involuntary sleep fairly soon.  She and Vura had to get as far away as they could before then.

Speaking of Vura, the comely elf stood to her side with a massive pack filled with food and other supplies on her back and an expression of concern on her face.  Though covered in sweat, her breath was steady and strong.  All those days spent on her feet running about the manor to finish some chore or fulfill one of Mizuko’s selfish requests had done her good.

“Madam, allow me to carry you!” the girl desperately pleaded once again.  “I fear you will not last like this!  You must preserve yourself!”

“I will be fine in a moment,” Mizuko replied, her words coming in bits and pieces as she tried to get her breathing under control.  Needless to say, her delivery betrayed the lie that was her claim.

“Please, Madam Mizuko!  Look!”  She reached out and grabbed Mizuko’s hand and sandwiched it between her palms.  Vura’s hands radiated a pleasant warmth.  “See how cold you are?  You must stop this!”

“It’s not time for that yet.  You’ll be too tired when Pyria’s troops show up later.”

“I will manage; you are lighter than you realize.  Otherwise, we’ll have to slow down too much and we’ll be found too quickly.”

Mizuko sighed.  Being carried around reminded her of her final years on Earth, where she’d been too weak to walk and had needed to be wheeled or carried anytime she needed to leave her bed—even just to use the facilities.  Stubbornly, and perhaps stupidly, she’d wanted to avoid feeling that helplessness again for as long as possible.  Right now, however, she had lacked the luxury for stubbornness nor stupidity.

“If we must, then I will allow it,” she reluctantly conceded.

So much of her behavior these days seemed driven by aversions to the experiences of her final years.  This entire escapade was a perfect example.  Her final years had seen her confined by her own failing body to her family home or the local hospital, and that was it.  A feeling of being trapped had grown inside her over the years to the point where it made her want to cry, but there’d been nothing to be done about it.  Her body would not permit any sort of travel.

Now, however, she possessed a far more able body, and a world filled with wonders to see.  Was it any shock that a similar feeling of confinement had taken root inside her after a while?  Sure, she’d been able to travel around much of the Esmae clan territory, from her manor to Esmaeyae and all of the surrounding towns, but she wanted more—much more.

And so, her and Vura’s secret planning had begun.  Finding the opportunity had proven trivial.  Every night, all the manor staff would leave and head for their homes in the quaint little village several kilometers away.  Meanwhile, the night shift guards would set up a large perimeter far enough from Mizuko that her dreams wouldn’t reach them.  Vura, ever the loyal and wonderful girl, was always the last person to leave, meaning they already had plenty of time to conspire each night away from prying eyes and ears.

Once Mizuko had decided to leave, the first question had been, obviously, what her destination—no, their destination, as Vura vehemently insisted on accompanying her—should be.  Unfortunately, it turned out that good options were scarce.  The other clans of Drayhadal were right out--too close, and liable to spark a civil war.  As much as she would have liked to see the Casm’s laketop capital, or the Astr clan’s great city built into the side of an active volcano, she couldn’t justify the potential blood on her hands.

Stragma was out for similar reasons.  Assuming the forest dwellers didn’t simply try to kill her for her past deeds, her relocation would probably spark another war between the two nations.  As much as she wanted to get an up-close look at the fabled tree that towered over the rainforest, it wasn’t worth the likely harm.  Oh well, she’d never dealt well with humidity, anyway.

That left only Eterium.  The state of that war-torn nation remained unclear; Drayhadans typically cared little for the affairs of the “barbarians” outside their borders.  The attack against the invading Ubrans had changed this for a time.  The returning soldiers had come back to Drayhadal bearing stories and experiences, which had spread all across the public, including the manor staff, and then finally to her ears.  Unfortunately, these stories were now months old, and no new information had come since.  The eyes and ears of the Drayhadans had turned inward once more.

In the end, even given how unclear the state of affairs was there, heading north towards Eterium remained the only viable option.  Unfortunately, they were not the only people capable of coming to this conclusion.  Pyria would know their general heading the moment she learned of their disappearance in a few hours, and the Esmae army had the trackers and scouts to confirm her suspicion with swift ease.  That was why, when Vura and Mizuko talked about upcoming events, the framing was never if they would be found but when and where.  In the end, the success of their unannounced journey would come down to brute force and an unwanted confrontation.

It wasn’t the best of plans, but she’d learned long ago that if you did not enter the tiger’s cave, you would never catch its cub.  What’s more, knowing what was coming meant a narrowed focus for her power training.  Ever since that first disastrous night, Mizuko had been trying to find a way to better control her ability.  Every evening, she would devote the period between when the servants left and the start of her bedtime routine to training her control.

Progress came slowly, perhaps glacially.  The biggest reason was that she had little actual sense of the extent of her ability, especially the aspects of it that she wanted more control over.  To truly know if she was making progress in her control of factors such as the size of the area affected or the intensity of the effect, she needed volunteers—people to get hit by her visions, report, and then do it again later.

Unsurprisingly, few were eager to volunteer for such punishment.  Not even offers of money were enough to entice the more destitute locals to stick around after experiencing her ability once.  Only Vura possessed the right combination of loyalty, stupidity, and a lack of self-preservation to willingly sign on for repeated abuse.  She claimed that each subsequent mental assault affected her less than the last, and that experiencing “her Madam’s” memories helped her connect to Mizuko on a deeper level.  Clearly, Vura needed to get out more and meet other people.

Still, Mizuko was always glad for Vura’s near-constant presence.  The elf was ever reliable and made pleasant company.  After all that had happened to her, up to and including being mutilated by jealous rivals, Mizuko would have expected Vura to be a bitter husk of a woman, but she was not.  That was a kind of strength that Mizuko herself did not possess, and she could not help but sometimes envy the younger woman’s ability to smile so brightly.

It was thanks to Vura’s assistance—only once every week, at Mizuko’s insistence—that Mizuko had developed even the modicum of control she now possessed.  She could contract or expand the area a bit now, which was how she’d managed to disable the guards, who would normally be safe outside her supposed maximum range.  She’d also managed to develop one other technique that would be crucial should they be caught.  However, the one thing she wanted the most, the ability to sleep and dream without hurting everybody nearby, still eluded her.

*     *     *

“How did they find us so fast?” Vura panted, staring out at the ring of soldiers encircling them.  There were hundreds of them, all spread out and making sure to keep a far distance, well away from Mizuko’s maximum known threat range.

“I don’t know.  Perhaps she was waiting for us to make a move this whole time,” Mizuko suggested.  She began to climb down from Vura’s grasp, and her companion did not resist.

“What do we do?”

“We wait.”

“But what about the plan?”

“Pyria will want to talk first, I’m sure.  It is what she is best at.  Out of respect, I will give her one more chance to make this right.”

Sure enough, they soon spotted a small party consisting of a Many, a handler, and their escort slowing heading their way.  Vura valiantly placed herself between them and Mizuko, even though, as nothing but an average Feeler with no combat training or experience, she wouldn’t stand a chance against any one of the soldiers protecting the Many.  Mizuko appreciated it all the same.

The party came to a halt near them, but not close enough to feel threatening.  While the soldiers all had a massive combat advantage, Mizuko noticed how incredibly nervous they seemed, from their movements to the glints of sweat beading on their foreheads reflected in the moonslight.

They were afraid of her, she knew.  Their mannerisms matched how she imagined a bomb squad would act when tasked with approaching and disarming a live explosive primed to go off at any second.  And what better metaphor was there for her but a bomb?

Everybody here had heard of her and what she could do; perhaps some of them had even experienced it firsthand.  With luck, the other soldiers further away were just as anxious.  The fear her ability generated was one of the two cards in her hand, the other being the ability itself.  Hopefully, playing the former would remove the need for playing the latter.

A hazy image appeared in front of the party, quickly solidifying into the upper half of the woman Mizuko once called a friend.

“Is this the thanks I get for all I have done for you?” she asked instead of greeting, as if she were a parent addressing a perpetually disobedient child.

The woman’s manner brought forth a flash of indignation within Mizuko.  “Do not talk to me as if I have betrayed you suddenly.  You have known my feelings for months and have done nothing.  After our last ‘discussion’, I stayed true to my word and gave you more than enough time to work something out.  Instead, all you have done is stall with excuse after excuse.  You have no intention of letting me go anywhere.  You want me here not as a friend, but as a weapon under your control.”

Pyria snarled with barely controlled rage.  “How dare you speak to me that way!”

“You’ve changed, Pyria,” Mizuko stated, her voice hard as steel, though on the inside, she could not help but mourn the apparent death of their relationship.  She would miss those days, filled with respect, friendship, and tea, but those days were over now.

“Silence!  Don’t speak of what you don’t understand!  If this is how you want it, then fine!  You are too powerful!  I will not stand by and allow you to fall under another nation’s control!  Captain, seize her!”

The captain—and the rest of the party—had progressively become more and more alarmed as it became clear where this short conversation would end up.  The captain nodded shakily and met Mizuko’s eyes with a silent, desperate plea for cooperation.

Mizuko returned his gaze with unwavering determination.  “Captain, know that I do only what I must.”

She could see the warring incentives dueling behind his eyes, but there was no doubt which side would emerge victorious.  The immediate danger that she represented would not win against honor, obligation, and the enduring threat of punishment to him or his family.

“My greatest apologies, Lady, but we can only say the same.”

“Then so be it.”

Mizuko closed her eyes.

*     *     *

Mizuko held on tight as she bounced against Vura’s chest and shoulder, doing her best to vigilantly watch their surroundings as they sped northward as fast as her companion could run.  Far behind them, maintaining a wide gap, were the majority of the troops who’d surrounded them an hour prior.  While Vura could run at an impressive clip—relative to Earth norms, at least—the soldiers matched their pace with ease.  Some groups even sped ahead, circumventing Mizuko’s threat radius with their vastly superior speed to lay ambushes ahead.  It was these fun surprises that Mizuko had to keep an eye out for.

As if on cue, she spotted a squad of elves leaping out at her and Vura from a nearby rocky outcropping, nets and what she thought might be a bola ready to go.  They were fast, far faster than Vura could ever hope to be, but not faster than thought.  Drawing up another experience from her deep well of memories—this time, the anguish she’d felt watching her favorite baseball team lose the championship in tragic, heartbreaking fashion—she focused with all her mind and let loose.  The attacking troops dropped like sacks of grain, their restraints still stuck in their grasps, as Vura sped by unmolested.

This was the special trick that she and Vura had discovered about two weeks ago, the technique that let them truly believe they could succeed.  On that night, while wrestling with her powers with Vura, she’d accidentally discovered that she could create a dead zone around herself where others would not be affected.  There were large caveats to it; at less than three meters around, the area was tiny, and it took every drop of concentration she had to maintain.  Still, it meant she could defend them both without disabling Vura along with everybody else, which meant they could keep moving.  And if they could keep moving, then they stood a chance.  All they had to do was make it across the border.

This was, she knew, still a long shot.  The border was not just over the next hill; they still had many kilometers of plains to go, followed by more kilometers of mountainous and hazardous terrain before they would find safety and freedom.  Vura’s stamina was her greatest strength, but she would begin to flag well before they reached the mountains.  They would have to stop periodically to rest, eat, and replenish their strength, during which time Pyria’s people would have ample time to do whatever they wanted, as long as they stayed out of her range.  And, of course, there could be no sleeping until they reached their destination, however long it might take.

That was the plan at least, though she was reminded of a quote she’d seen in an old war movie once which went something like “no plan outlasts first meeting with the enemy”.  How much longer would their plan hold?  Not long, it turned out.  Just moments after passing the last ambush, disaster struck.  Maybe it was because carrying Mizuko for so long had worn her out, or maybe it was nerves brought about by a highly stressful situation, or maybe she just couldn’t see her footing well enough with Mizuko partially blocking her view.  Whatever the reason, Mizuko felt the shock run through Vura’s body as her foot hit something hard suddenly and unexpectedly.

Unable to correct herself mid-sprint, Vura stumbled and fell forward.  Twisting desperately, she managed to avoid falling atop Mizuko with the combined weight of her body and the gargantuan pack strapped to her back, but in the process, she lost her grip on the old woman.

Mizuko tumbled uncontrollably from Vura’s grasp, and could only brace herself as the ground rushed towards her.  The left side of her head and body struck the hard ground like a sack of potatoes.

Mizuko couldn’t think.  Pain lurked in the background, somewhere, but she could barely even process that.  The world around her was little more than a mishmash of unintelligible colors in front of her eyes and a roaring in her ears growing louder by the second.

What was going on?  Where was she?  She’d been doing... something... with somebody?  And things were... significant?  She felt like she needed to do something, but what it might be was currently beyond her.

There was one set of sounds that seemed louder than the rest, one that kept repeating with increasing urgency.  Slowly, her mind focused on the sound.

“-up!  Please!  Madam Mizuko!  Wake up!”

Mizuko let out a soft groan and shook her head to clear her mind.  It only partially worked.

“Oh, thank the founders you’re awake!  They’re coming!  And that thing!  It’s almost upon us!”

That thing?  Mizuko followed the elf’s gaze upward toward the sky.  Something floated up above, growing in size with every breath: a muted gray oblong shape cast in the red glow of the imminent sunrise, its many propellers churning against the stiff breeze.  Belatedly, she recognized it as the craft they’d seen flying by, far off in the distance, some weeks past—the clear creation of somebody from her world.

“Madam, we must run!” Vura shouted over the rising din, and only then did Mizuko notice the wave of Esmae troops closing in quickly.  They’d gotten quite close during her short period of discombobulation, and she could see the flush of imminent victory on their faces.

Mizuko tried to climb into Vura’s outstretched arms, but a sharp shooting pain lanced through her left shoulder and she dropped to her knees.  It seemed she’d broken something in the fall.

“Madam Mizuko!” Vura cried in alarm, her panic deepening.

It seemed she had no choice but to use her powers again.  But what of the people in the craft above, who were also close enough to be hit?  They could only be working with Pyria, Mizuko decided after a moment.  How else would they be here at this time?  Their involvement would even answer how the Esmae had found her faster than expected.

Yes, Vura would have needed to stop for a rest eventually anyway.  Why not now?  With many of the Esmae troops now within her range, she could disable a large portion of the force chasing her, rest for a spell, and hopefully figure out what to do about her shoulder before—

The earth quaked as a dozen massive metal forms slammed into the ground all around the pair, drawing a terrified “EEEK!” from Vura as the resulting tremors threatened to knock her off her feet.  Arrayed in a loose ring encircling them, the gray shapes unfurled, legs and arms extending, until the hulking machines towered over the oncoming elves.  Understandably, the Esmae troops hesitated over their sudden arrival.

Was she wrong?  Were the creators of these robots helping her?

As one, every machine turned to the pair.  Their fronts sported several large arms held out away from their center, each equipped with an equally large weapon, from what looked like giant guns to what were clearly brutal, oversized chainsaws.  Yet, what caught her eye were actually the smaller arms in the center.  Long and thin, with dexterous-looking, multi-articulated graspers on the ends, they each held something tight: a net.

They weren’t on her side after all.

Vura wrapped her arms around Mizuko and held her close, leaning over her so Vura’s body blocked the encroaching metal marauders.  “I-I’ll shield you, Madam!” she squeaked.  “Save us, quick!”

Vura was right.  She’d gotten so discombobulated that she’d forgotten what she should be doing!  Focusing through a steadily increasing headache, she pulled once more upon her the threads of her past.

The machines closed in.

*     *     *

Despite how hard Mizuko tried, she couldn’t filter out the drone of the propellers.  It had been this way for her on airplanes too.  She’d always hated this sound, ever since the war—too many bad, painful memories.  It didn’t help that, no matter how loud or quiet, and no matter where in the plane she might be, her ears always seemed to fixate on the engine noise and place it front and center.  It grated on her and fouled her mood—not that she needed the racket to be in such a mood right now.

Everything that could have gone awry had gone awry, plus more.  Instead of gaining their freedom, it seemed they’d been scooped up by another party, trading one jailer for another.  These new people, whoever they might be, had yet to show themselves, leaving her to stew for hours and watch the ocean through the large window slowly.  A few hours ago, for a moment, she could have sworn she’d glimpsed something beneath that sapphire surface—something so utterly massive that she could not grasp its full size—but that moment had been fleeting, and she’d spotted nothing else since.  There was nothing down there to see now except blue, blue, and more blue. 

Speaking of entities she could not see, it was possible they were not as alone as it seemed.  She knew there was always the chance that somebody else was actually on this aircraft and she’d rendered them unconscious, but she had her doubts.  Anybody on this thing would have been taken out when she’d used her powers back then, but the robots had continued to function even afterward—the ship, as well.  That suggested some sort of remote control.

Were her deduction incorrect, the affected person or people would be waking up right around now.  Then, perhaps, she’d get some answers.  What was the purpose of these people’s actions?  Why had they “rescued” her from the Esmae, only to whisk her off somewhere else?  She didn’t know, though she had to reluctantly admit that her lack of understanding could be laid at least partially at her feet.

In the center of the cabin wherein the robots had deposited her and Vura, there stood a small circular table.  On that table were several items: a covered metal pitcher of water and some metal cups; several small, lidded bowls containing snacks; and a sheet of paper covered with English writing and a drawing of a smiley face at the bottom.  It was a shame she couldn’t read English.

There’d been a time, back in the mid-seventies, when she’d been able to speak the language well enough to roughly understand her neighbor’s American husband, but that had faded after decades of disuse.  Reading, on the other hand, she’d never really learned; she’d never had the opportunity nor the need.  Her children and grandchildren, having grown up in a world far different than hers, were all better English speakers at their worst than she’d been even at her best.

That left only the smiling doodle.  It boded well, she supposed, but she was hardly feeling charitable at the moment—not after the day’s events.

The boredom, combined with that incessant drone, wasn’t helping much either.  There just wasn’t anything to do here except watch the scenery or sleep, and sleeping would mean hurting Vura.  The poor girl could be found passed out on the cabin’s single bed—more of a fancy cot than a bed, really, given how narrow it was.

Mizuko couldn’t help but feel guilty for involving her in Mizuko’s scheme.  The elven woman could have lived a perfectly decent life had she just stayed back at the manor.  Now with serving experience, she could have gotten another job elsewhere in the Esmae territory and made a decent living as a servant in some rich household.  She might even have been able to leverage her designation as the Mother of Nightmares’s attendant to wrangle a better-paying position or spark a bidding war between wealthy households eager to snatch up as status symbols anybody favored by the hero who’d saved the land from the barbaric Stragmans.

Instead, she’d decided to throw that all away and help Mizuko escape, even though there was little for her in even the best of the potential outcomes.  She’d pushed herself to the absolute limit, risking life and limb, all for Mizuko’s sake.  Now, as Mizuko studied the elf slumbering like the dead and drooling into the pillow, the gratitude Mizuko felt was deeper than the ocean.

A twinge of pain hit her as she twisted too far in her effort to check on her sleeping companion.  She was fairly certain that the fall had given her a hairline fracture.  The level and character of the pain reminded her of the time she’d suffered a similar injury in her leg back in ninety-four.  She could handle the aching for the most part if she just kept weight off her shoulder and didn’t move much, but that was about her limit.

Mizuko spent a few moments probing the limits of her shoulder’s motion range, finding the points where the pain became intolerable so that she could make sure to avoid them later.  The people responsible for this craft slowly pushing through the sky would not leave them alone forever.  At some point soon, they would meet face to face; perhaps it was her pride getting in the way, but when that time came, Mizuko did not want to let the others see her pain.  A samurai pretends, even when he is hungry, by holding a toothpick between his teeth, as the saying went.

As she probed, she considered her surroundings once more.  This place was not meant for the both of them, that much was clear.  A single bed, a single chair upon which she currently sat, and enough food for one person to consume over the course of several hours.  Looking at everything there, it was hard not to think that the people who’d taken her had not planned on Vura coming along for the ride.  What would have happened had the elf not protected Mizuko with her body, saving her from much of the force of the nets?  Would Vura have simply been left behind to face the incensed Esmae soldiers and their irate clan head alone?  Mizuko shuddered to think of how that might have turned out.

No, she had enough to reckon with without adding already avoided hypothetical scenarios to the mix.  Trying to realign her thoughts, she returned her gaze to the sea.  The water and sky had adopted a hint of golden hue since she’d last looked outside, as the sun was starting to set somewhere behind the dirigible.  Her gaze wandered for some indeterminate amount of time, until, as the now orange world beyond the glass began its transition towards scarlet, she noticed something else far off in the distance: land.

As this landmass grew nearer, she saw in the dimming light a landscape that reminded her of Greece and Crete, one of the few international destinations she’d managed to see back in her old world.  Though the plant life here retained the multi-colored appearance of Scyrian foliage, rather than the simpler greens of the Mediterranean, the ecological patterns appeared largely the same.  Rocky hills spotted with short bushes and lesser plants dominated what she could make out, with few trees, at least this close to the shore.

She noticed something else, as well: the droning was deepening.  They were slowing down.

“Vura,” she called.  No response followed.  Rising from her seat, she strode over to the slumbering elf and poked her on the cheek with her pointer finger.  “Vura, wake up.”

With a massive gasp, Vura shot upright, panting and looking around at the cabin in a momentary panic.  It wasn’t until she turned and spotted Mizuko that she seemed to remember where they were.

“Feeling better?”

Vura nodded.

“You sound thirsty.  Have some water before our hosts arrive.”

“Madam?” Vura asked, still rather confused.

“The engines are easing up and we’re slowing down.  That means we’re close to our destination, and to the people who put us in here.”

“What should we do?”

“We wait.  As it is now, we’re at a disadvantage.  They’ve already shown that they can deal with us from a distance I cannot match.  We must handle this with care.”

Vura nodded.

Soon enough, they were no longer above open water.  Yet strangely, as the ship slowed to a crawl, they could not spot any signs of habitation nearby.  A moment later, to her consternation, Mizuko found herself looking out at an empty beach while the zeppelin hovered motionless over the shore.

Vura’s ears twitched.  “Madam, I hear something,” she said, pointing towards the zeppelin’s rear.

Mizuko strained her hearing, but she detected nothing.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes, the timbre of the acoustics changed.  It sounds more open now, like I can hear the wind better.  There’s also something else, like an... unwinding?  No, it stopped now.  I’m not sure what it—wait!  It’s back.  But it sounds different.  Slower, now.”

A few tense moments later, a loud “chunk!” reverberated from the same direction as Vura’s gaze.

“The timbre went back to before, more closed off,” Vura reported.  “I—!  I hear footsteps!”

“How many?”

“...one.”

Only a single person?  Such confidence!  Whoever dared come to visit her alone was surely a powerful person in their own right.  What sort of person would they be?  A towering knight, perhaps, able to turn themselves to stone?  A poised lady of noble bearing, capable of summoning lightning?  Or maybe the creator of this craft himself, the supposedly brutal dictator of this nation?

The footsteps became audible to her as they approached.  They moved slowly and lightly, coming to a sudden halt outside the locked cabin door.  After a fairly lengthy pregnant pause, a chime rang out from the door, followed by several polite but insistent knocks.

“May I come in?” a rather young adult female voice asked, muffled but still understandable through the metal barrier.

Vura and Mizuko shared a puzzled, yet trepidatious glance.  The elf once again stepped between her and the latest threat.  While her protection was likely superficial at best, Mizuko still appreciated the gesture of support.

“Enter,” Mizuko called back.

A moment later, the door slid open, revealing a startling normal-looking girl of European descent with long black hair and tired eyes.  The only thing of note was the strange metal collar wrapped around her throat, the function of which eluded Mizuko—a fashion statement, perhaps?  The girl stepped inside and held up a large wicker basket grasped with both hands.

“Hello!” she said, giving them a warm but nervous smile.  “I brought food!  I have plenty of meat pies and yellow partha leaf salad and gnotta—that’s fried dough paired with a dip made of fermented willow reed bulb.  I’m sorry, Otharian cuisine leaves something to be desired in my opinion, but I got what I could.  Hopefully, it’s enough for everybody.  I’m really sorry about grabbing both of you, but the commands aren’t that refined even without the delay and—”

“Child, it is considered polite to introduce one’s self first when meeting new people,” Mizuko couldn’t help but chide, her tiredness weakening her wall and letting her irritation break through.

The girl gasped.  “Oh!  Yes, I’m so sorry!” she blurted, putting the basket down on the small table.  She gave a slight bow and Mizuko noticed the weariness in her eyes.  Perhaps Mizuko wasn’t the only person worn out right now.  “My name is Sofie Ramaut.  It’s so good to finally meet you!”

The girl stepped forward and extended a hand.  Like a flash, Vura stepped in between, practically growling with pent-up fury.  With a startled “eep!”, Sofie stumbled back.

“Calm yourself, my dear,” Mizuko said, placing a hand on Vura’s shoulder.

“I don’t trust her, Madam.”

“Neither do I, but there is no need to be rude.”  She gave Sofie a slight bow.  “I am Yamanaka Mizuko.  This is my companion, Vura.  Please forgive her; she’s quite a delightful young lady when not being chased, captured, and confined against her will.”

“Yes, we’re very sorry about that.  Were you able to read the note I left you?  I tried to explain what I could there,” Sofie asked sheepishly, holding up the paper with the unreadable writing and happy face doodle.

“I cannot read English.”

“Ah... well, it was worth a shot.  I’m sorry again.  We just didn’t know how else to do it.  Negotiating with your country wouldn’t get us anywhere.  If anything, it would just tip them off, and then who knows what would happen to you?”

“And what would push you to go to such lengths?”

“It’s a long story,” Sofie began, letting out a tired sigh.  “How about I explain everything while we eat?  I haven’t eaten yet, either.”

“A fine idea,” Mizuko agreed.

Sofie pulled out the aforementioned dishes, along with a set of wooden plates and utensils.  The cot was too narrow to be a bed for two, but it made a decent makeshift bench with Sofie sitting down in the single chair.  Taking a plate, Mizuko helped herself.  Luckily, she had little issue placing the plate on the table and filling it with her good arm.

“I’m sorry the food is rather cold,” Sofie lamented.  “We used up too much stored energy tracking you down, so we had to run the engines at half-speed the whole way back.  We hadn’t planned on making you sit around for so long.”  She gave Vura a quick glance.  “We hadn’t planned on a lot of things.  Actually, that reminds me.  I’m sure you’d prefer we get to our destination as soon as possible, right?”  She stood up.  “I’ll be right back.”

Sofie left the cabin and, a minute later, Mizuko heard the drone of the propellers pick up again.  The craft shifted and they began to move once more.

“Alright, we have another hour or so before we’re in Wroetin,” Sofie said as she returned.  She picked up her meat pie and bit into it, which drew a less-than-pleased expression across her face.  “Wish Blake had bothered to work out how to make a microwave.”

Mizuko didn’t entirely agree; while cold, hers still had a quality savory flavor, along with a spice that reminded Mizuko of rosemary that she very much enjoyed.  But, while tasty, the food was a distraction from what she needed most—information.  “Well then, Sofie, let us begin with this.  If you know of microwaves, then you are from my world, yes?”

“Yeah!” Sofie replied, then paused, thinking for a second.  “Well, probably.  We can’t really rule out that there are multiple Earths with slightly different realities, I suppose.  Never really bothered to compare my history with the others, really.  But yes, there’s probably only one Earth and we’re both from it.  I’m from Belgium.  You’re Japanese, right?”

“I am.  How many others are there?”

“Well, there’s you, me, Blake from America, Gabriela from Mexico... that’s all of us here.  Then, there’s somebody in Stragma that kind of looked Indian to me?  Probably?  I didn’t get to speak to him and I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions.  There was one other we know about, but he’s dead now, and then there might be any number of others we aren’t aware of, though I kind of doubt we wouldn’t have heard something about them by now.”

“Why did you capture us?  Why are we here?”

“Well, first, I want to apologize again.  I am really sorry about all of this.  We’re all sort of improvising as we go along, and things did not exactly go according to plan.  But anyway... long story short, we discovered something terrible and we discovered it just recently.  The only solution we can find is to get everybody from Earth together and leave Scyria for good.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific than that, child.”

“As I said, it’s long and complicated, so it’s really better to just see it all for yourself when we get to Wroetin.  You will likely come to the same conclusion once you see everything we’ve found.  If not, well... that would be nice.  It would be better if we were wrong.”

“What if I don’t want to leave?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Do you know why you found me in the middle of nowhere, running from the Esmae army?”

“Tehlmar guessed you wanted to escape his sister.”

“Oh, that uncouth prince is alive?  I was told he died in battle.”

Sofie frowned.  “It’s complicated.”

“Well, anyway, you are essentially correct.  I don’t want to spend the rest of this new life I was given cooped up in a building.  I want to see the wonders of this world while these old bones still move.  I spent more than enough years stuck in a bed back home for two lifetimes.  Now that I am finally free, you wish to lock me away again?”

“I didn’t say anything about locking anybody up.  Nobody wants to lock anybody up.  We Earthlings need to help each other.  Heck, perhaps you might even be able to convince Blake to make you a vehicle to make your tourism traveling easier.  He won’t do it for free, though—just letting you know.  He’ll want your help with the project.”

Mizuko’s curiosity and annoyance grew in tandem each time Sofie mentioned this still-unexplained reason that had upended her life today.  By now, it had grown too strong for her to hold back.  “You are all quite intent on this goal of yours.  I would like to know why.”

“As I said, it’s complicated and it would be best if—”

“Simplify it if you must.  I promise I will look at whatever it is you want me to see later.”

Sofie shifted uncomfortably in her seat.  “Well, if you insist, I guess the simplest way to put it is... we’re all filled with massive amounts of Earth energy and, at some point, we’re going to break and explode and destroy the world.”

Mizuko hesitated, not quite sure she’d heard the girl correctly.  She had not been expecting something quite so... apocalyptic.  “So you believe that, by returning to Earth, we can restore the balance within us?”

“Exactly!  You catch on quick.”

“That would bring death upon me, I should think.”

Sofie’s expression grew grim, and Vura gasped in shock.  “Madam!”

“I was dying when I came here,” she explained.  “Something about this place made me healthy again, healthier than I’ve been in decades, but I would not imagine that will last should I return home.”

“Do not listen to her lies, Madam!  She is up to something, I know it!”

“No, Vura, she believes what she says, at least.”

“Then we’ll find another way!  Some solution that won’t end your life!”

“I would welcome that, my dear.  But if, in the end, there are no other options, I will not allow my selfishness to doom this world.  Sometime, Vura, I will share with you the tale of Hiroshima, a city from my homeland.  I will not allow that sort of horror to be visited upon this world if I can help it.  I will return.”

“But—!”

“Hush.  I have lived a very long life—far longer than nearly everybody in my world.  I can only be thankful that I have been given a life so full.  My time will come eventually, and when it does, I will face it with a smile.”

“We’re still working on finding a way home, so it’s not like we’re talking about leaving tomorrow,” Sofie chimed in.  “We just need you and everybody else ready as soon as we find it—and we could use any help you could provide, of course.  Still, I doubt anybody will try to stop you from taking the occasional trip.  I just hope you will be careful.  It’s...”  Her tired eyes dulled as she seemed to recall something.  “It’s not the best world out there.  I also got a tour of much of the continent, but there wasn’t much worth seeing, really.  Just a lot of blood and death and misery.”

“It sounds like you had it hard.”

“You could say that.  I arrived in this world in the middle of Kutrad, up north.  The first people I met chained me up and sold me to a brothel as a sex slave.”

“How horrible!” Mizuko gasped, horrified, and Vura, despite her opinion of the Earth girl, let out a low hiss.

Sofie chuckled, but the sound lacked any real mirth.  “Funny thing is, in many ways, that was a high point of my life here.  I escaped before anything truly terrible happened to me, but everything just got worse and worse from there.

“First, a dragon turned the city I was in into a crater.  Then, the king of Kutrad accused my friends of being responsible for it all.  Legions of bounty hunters stalked us across the continent, all the way from Kutrad to Stragma.  Everybody wanted to get their hands on us for the reward.  There was even this one time when a farmer drugged us all and then strangled me half to death.”

Mizuko couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  This girl, surely not more than twenty years old, was speaking of trauma that would scar anyone for life, but she was speaking of it with the glum tone of somebody who’d discovered that the leftover sandwich they’d planned to eat for lunch had gotten moldy.  Mizuko knew about trauma, far more than anybody should have to know, and this struck her as incredibly disconcerting.

“And how could I forget about when we finally made it to Stragma, then hiked through a rainforest filled with bugs bigger than my head, only to be conscripted into a war against the elves the moment we arrived?” Sofie continued almost nonchalantly.  “Then there was the Drayhadan prison camp, followed by us getting captured and carted all the way back to Kutrad to be executed in front of the whole country.  Oh, and once we got out, I got to live in a city under siege and eat pest lizards while praying every day that my friend came back in one piece.  So yeah, Scyria is just a basket of puppies and flowers.”

Alarms kept blaring inside Mizuko’s head.  Just how strong did this girl have to be to not just live through all these absurdly deadly situations but do so seemingly unharmed?  The odds of her survival had to be minuscule at best!  Just what sort of obscene power did she possess to talk of this series of events like she were describing a bad day at work?

Mizuko didn’t say any of this out loud, of course.  She wasn’t stupid.  She’d long known on some level that Scyria was a world where the weak were meat and the strong ate, and Sofie’s tale had only underscored that.  However, it was also told her that this principle applied to her fellow world travelers just as much as it did to those born here.

Meanwhile, Sofie shrugged and took a sip of water.

“It wasn’t all bad, I suppose.  I got to see a few stellar sights, like Ruresni—that’s the mountain-sized tree in the center of Stragma.  I also made friends and gained a sister, Pari.  Speaking of Pari, I’ll apologize now in advance for her behavior.  She had a very... unique upbringing and isn’t exactly up to speed on matters of etiquette, so please forgive her when she sees you and yells out ‘Old lady!’ or something, would you?”

Mizuko chuckled.  “She wouldn’t be the first child to say something like that to me.  My great-grandchildren were hardly better when they were young.  Children these days...”

Mizuko had set her empty plate upon her lap as she conversed, and her laughter jostled the plate just enough to send it slipping.  The soft clank of the wood hitting the metal caught everyone’s attention.  Mizuko bent down to retrieve it, but Vura had the same idea.  In their uncoordinated efforts, Vura accidentally lightly bumped Mizuko’s injured shoulder, sending a stab of pain through it that forced her to wince.

Sofie gasped in horror.

“You’re hurt!  Oh no, I’m so sorry!”  Like a flash, the girl was out of her seat and in Mizuko’s face.  “Is it bad?  What happened?  Was it the robots?  It was the robots, wasn’t it?  I told Blake they needed to be gentle!  I told him, and he didn’t fucking listen, like always!  That’s it!  I’m going to sock him in the face again—no!  One punch isn’t enough this time.  I’ll beat his goddamned face in!”

The girl’s sudden transition to seething anger caught Mizuko by surprise.  It was as if a geyser of anger and frustration had burst forth from a seemingly peaceful landscape, long-buried emotions finally finding a crack and spewing forth.  It served as a timely reminder that she hadn’t known this girl for more than an hour, and that she couldn’t afford to be comfortable around her or her compatriots just yet—especially not somebody as powerful as this girl.

Mizuko kept these thoughts under lock and key, decades of experience coming through.  She decided that the most important thing she could do right now was to try to calm their host down before something unfortunate could occur.

“It is fine, Sofie.  It’s not too serious,” Mizuko assured her.

“It’s not fine!  And how can you say it’s not serious when you were in pain just from a light bump of the shoulder?!”

“I am not as fragile as I once was.  I will recover in time, as long as I receive medical attention soon.”

“I’ll get a doctor as soon as we arrive, but... if we hurt you—”

“You did not; I fell before your ship arrived.  If you wish to apologize, do so to Vura, who shielded me from your robots with her body.”

“Ah... I see...”  Sofie shifted uncomfortably, then turned to Vura.  “I apologize for any rough treatment you received at our hands.  Blake’s robots are not exactly delicate.  I told him to create some that would be able to take a person without harming them, but in our rush, I did not get the opportunity to actually check them myself.  I was so upset when I saw the nets...”

Vura crossed her arms and looked away.  “The bruises will be healed in a day.  I do not need your sympathies,” she sniffed.

“Oh... well, good.  That’s good.”  Sofie finally seemed to relax somewhat, her body drooping slightly from weariness.  “I’m sorry for overreacting.  This place... I’m just so sick of seeing people get hurt or worse.”

Mizuko nodded with an understanding smile, but behind her mask, she couldn’t help but wonder just what sort of situation she’d stumbled into.  It wasn’t just the nature of what Sofie said and admitted to—from her mention of castrating a royal sovereign to her comments about being sick of watching others get hurt “or worse”—it was the way she said it.  It sounded as if Sofie had experienced enough suffering in her short time on this world to match Mizuko’s entire life, yet she spoke of it as if she were almost numb to it all.  Mizuko had been given the luxury of decades to learn to heal, and she still had nightmares sometimes, especially when stressed.  Here was this child speaking as if it was all normal to her now—a terrible kind of normal, but still the standard state of affairs.  The only anger Mizuko had witnessed had been for Mizuko’s condition.  Everything else merely left Sofie tired.

What in the world had Mizuko gotten involved in?  It brought about a question Mizuko never thought she’d ever consider: would it have been better if she’d just stayed at the manor?