They were lost. Absolutely, completely, lost.
The Genie, whatever a "genie" was, could at least have sent them somewhere inhabited! Instead, they had ended up on this stupid island. Trapped.
The first day it hadn't seemed so bad. They had traversed the coast, expecting to find a city or village somewhere, but instead it gradually curved, until, in the end, they were right back where they started, standing on the shore and looking out over more water than either of them had ever imagined could exist.
They had done the same again the second day, just in case they'd missed something, and on the third day, they had explored the rest of the island, still coming up with nothing. All there were trees and berries and ocean. On all sides, ocean.
The amount of water around them was mind-boggling. From atop the mountain back home, they had been able to see what they thought was the whole world. They had imagined that the horizon was the edge of everything, and the world was all made up of endless green. They had heard of the ocean, but neither of them had imagined they would ever see it. They'd heard it described as "A large lake of brackish water, rich in fish and plant life", and they'd never thought any more about it.
They had lakes, in the gullies and valleys and hidden in caves, but the sheer amount of water. And it wasn't even drinkable!
At the end of the third day, Pearl had clambered to the top of the highest tree they could find, and from up there, she said, she could see the whole island. The ocean surrounded them on all sides, and even from that height, she could see no land.
They were lucky that the cave they were in had a small spring in the back. It looked like it may have once been a place similar to the complex they'd found under their own mountain, now gone to ruin. Scratching in the dirt had revealed chunks of worked stone mixed in with the sand and gravel of the floor, but if it had been such a place, it was long, long ago.
The two of them had been there almost a week, scrounging for roots and berries, gradually getting hungrier and hungrier, when the storm came. Pearl noticed it first, scenting the magic in the air, but even Health could tell something was brewing. They had huddled in the mouth of the cave and watched as it began. A sprinkling of rain, rapidly transitioning into crashing thunder and torrential sheets of water.
It had felt like the end, and they had sat together at the back of the cave and listened to it roar.
When the people had staggered in, shouting in their strange voices, the accents and intonations all wrong but oh so human, they had been too tired to question it.
-
"You think they're friends, Health?" Pearl whispered, as if they could understand her.
Health shrugged from where they were huddled at the back of the cave, watching as the people carried in boxes and barrels, shouting the whole time. The two of them hadn't been bothered much. After the initial questioning and discovery that neither party spoke a common language, the invaders had decided that they had more important matters to attend to.
"I dunno," Health finally answered, pausing to wipe their face on their knees, hiding their tears, "I don't think it matters?"
They laid their head sideways on their knees and looked over at her, watching her expressions. She said a lot without words, and it was easy to miss if you weren't looking for it.
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Pearl considered this, in the way she often did. A biting of her lip and a furrow of her brow. She was taking this much better than they were, listening to the people speak and taking it in, her eyes bright and moving.
"Maybe," sniffed Health, wiping their nose again, with their sleeve this time. "Maybe they'll help us get off this stupid island."
Pearl didn't look round, her eyes still following the newcomers, with their strange, rain-rotten outfits and their loud voices. "Let's hope so."
-
Over the next few hours, some overtures were made and some basic communication was established. The tall… Man? Pearl and Health had had some debate about this and decided to revert to just guessing based on physical features, something which wasn't easy to conceal with him appearing to have spent more time in the storm than any of the others. The tall man seemed to be the leader of the group. He wasn't so much shouting orders as giving small nudges here and there, but he was obviously in charge.
He had tried to communicate with them in various ways, and in what sounded like three different languages, none of which Pearl or Health knew.
They had picked up some things, though. The culture which had stumbled upon them had both long and short names, and whatever those names were, they were utterly unable to get their mouths around even half of it. At least not just yet.
They had established some words at least. 'Water' and 'Rain', but they were exhausted from a week of little to no food, and the new people weren't in a much better shape, so it was mostly left there.
-
It took another week before both the storm ended, and rescue arrived. Food wasn't an issue, after the blessing of the storm, and Pearl and Health learnt a lot during that time. Words. Foreign words for everything. For 'Tree' and 'Rock' and 'Cave' and people and, unfortunately, 'Rice'.
Health had tried to bite one of the sailors after they had learnt that word and discovered that they were being referred to as "negative-rice".
Ok yes, it was a negation of rice, but even here, thrown to some unknown part of the world, they couldn't escape it! It was a curse that would follow them until their dying day and then when they died somebody would carve a rice stalk on their stupid gravestone.
They would probably carve the stone to look like terraces or something, to flow the rain down, knowing their stupid luck.
"You're exaggerating," Pearl shook her head from where she was clinging to the trunk, or 'mast', of what had apparently once been a boat of some kind. Neither of them were sure how it worked, but they insisted it was the boat that got them here. Health thought it might have curled up like a giant leaf, Pearl suspected something more complicated, but for now, it was just a huge mass of branches and flowers, the perfect playground for two bored kids.
"Just pick a new name in their language. It's what I'm gonna do." Pearl shouted down again, her bare feet gripping the mast as she tried to shimmy her way up further.
Health grunted, pulling themselves up the sides of the boat tree, balancing on the edge of the "deck" so that they could see out over the ocean. There sure was a lot of it. "I gotta learn more of it f-"
"There's something out there!" Pearl interrupted, squinting into the evening sun, and Health tried to do the same, not seeing it. "Huh?"
"Ship!" she called out to the two kids in the sea, and then again, holding onto the mast with one hand and pointing when they didn't get it. Words were hard and there was something tonal in the language that was eluding them both.
The younger kid, Health wasn't sure if they were a boy, girl or neither, that quirk of language also seemed to elude them so far, shouted something utterly incomprehensible, and set off at a run back to the cave, as the other, older one pressed their hands against the hull of the ship, and Pushed.
Even Health could see as the magic rippled through the structure, strengthening the branches and causing the wilting flowers above to burst back into full bloom.
Above them, Pearl laughed, and they saw her press her own magic into the ship, swirling and combining it with the person's below until the whole ship sang of it, the flowers blooming and fading and blooming again in all of those not-colours they had seen in the Genie's atrium.
Maybe Growth wasn't so bad, they grudgingly considered, watching the ship bloom above them. It was kinda pretty at least.
In the distance there were shouts, and the 'ship' started to draw closer, the mangled shape of the thing they were standing on starting to make sense when presented with a non-mangled example.
Watching it sail closer, Health let out an inward sigh of relief. Hopefully, wherever they ended up, they could find somebody who spoke their language!