A scream was the first thing that left her mouth, followed by her doing her hardest to make herself as small as possible. For a time, she stayed like that, waiting for a moment of death that had already passed. It wasn’t until she felt her overalls, the lack of a bullet piercing her chest, and the absence of pain that she realized something was off. Daring to end what she still thought could be a wishful dream, she found the strength to open her eyes and prepared to see her life end in a flash.
Instead, she was met with blades of grass prodding at her right eye, and a black rose before her. Confused, the girl sat up, looking around to see herself in a field of flowers for nearly as far as the eye could see. A gentle breeze blew against her back, her burnette hair not long enough to reach in front of her face. This was easily the most beautiful thing she had seen in years, or possibly ever. Yet none of it was home.
None of it was her Kiev.
Confused, the girl tried to figure out how in the hell she had ended up somewhere so beautiful when she should have been home, her flesh torn apart by bullets from her peoples old allies. As far as she knew, she was tossed aside by her fellow Ukrainians, put to gun point by Nazi soldiers, and gunned down. None of it explained how she would end up in a place straight out of a painting.
“Is this… is this the Eden Christians speak of?” She asked. The wind once again blew against her as if to answer no.
That would assume she was dead. The feeling of wind against her hair and the rubbing of her overalls against her body told her that was not the case. That was to say nothing of her shoes, whose horrid shape continued to discomfort her as she sat. Looking at her right hand she was met with yet another mark that she saw as confirmation this was not the afterlife: the lack of a ring and pinkie finger. She had lost it to a factory machine some time ago, and she personally believed they should have returned if she was truly dead.
She then proceeded to clench said hand into a fist, her mind racing as it did its best to make sense of where she was. Looking out among the field of flowers, she wondered how far she was from home. She wondered if the Soviet army had pushed the Nazis back. Given the state of things from when she should have died, she feared the worst.
“Did they succeed? Are… are my people hunted down like all others?” She asked herself, only to shake her head after realizing what she was saying. “No. There is no way that happened. They have made it through worse hardship, Sofie, remember that. They will make it through this too.”
Keeping to that one thread of hope, she stood up and looked herself over to make sure she was still all there. She was still in brown overalls with a white shirt underneath, shoes worn from running and hiding, not to mention the hours spent working inside a Soviet factory. It was for that same reason her hair was as short as it was, neatly fitting under a hat that she had realized was not near her person. That, thankfully, seemed to be the only real casualty of this misplacement she had found herself the subject of.
She peered at the skin on her chest, thankful to see nothing resembling a bullet hole. It seems that, whatever brought her to this meadow, had whisked her away before she could be harmed. The sound of the submachine guns still haunted her ears, and her brain tricked her into thinking she heard them in the distance. Staring off into the horizon, she waited to hear the sound again, but heard nothing. She sighed, hoping she was as far from the battle as humanly possible.
Then, out of the same horizon, she spotted what she at first believed to be a bird flying, though the closer it got the less correct that seemed overall. Squinting her eyes, Sofie tried to make out what the figure truly was, but the more clear the shape became the more confused she became. She knew what it was but… the paws of a lion, wings of a hawk, head of an eagle, it could only be one thing yet that one thing it also couldn’t be. It was only after rubbing her eyes, thinking she could be asleep, that she realized what she saw was not a trick of her mind.
It was a gryphon, a creature of old legend.
She barely had time to let her mouth drop in shock before it passed overhead, creating a gust more powerful than any living creature should be able to. Sofie had no choice but to shield her eyes from the harsh wind, turning her head in the direction the gryphon flew in. Urged by curiosity and the sheer shock of it all, she found herself giving chase to the creature.
Not that she was chasing more than a spec in the sky after a moment or two, Sofie collapsed under a lone tree in the field of flowers, an emptiness in her stomach reminding her of just how little food she had had in the past week or so. She was alive but she felt weak, energy drained so much quicker than she knew was good. Taking a look at the tree she was under, she swore under her breath at the lack of anything edible on its branches.
She swore again as she wondered why she thought kicking a tree was a good idea.
With her foot in pain she sat down against the tree, looking out at the great expanse and wondering exactly where she was. She doubted this was Ukraine, and even less that it was in any of the war-torn countries of her time. Though, with the knowledge of gryphons existing wherever she was, who was to say if she was even on Earth anymore? That brought with it an entirely new barrel of worms that she would rather not think about. She figured it was probably better to pretend like this was all normal.
Any hope of forgetting the hunger that cursed her had long faded too, her stomach and dry mouth begging her to give them something of substance to eat. It wasn’t a horrid one, she had eaten some time before her supposed demise, but for her to be as hungry as she felt meant she had to have been lying in this field for a long time. Once she found a road, assuming that one was even nearby, she would take it to the closest town. With any hope there were locals who spoke Ukrainian or Russian.
Though, until then, she would give herself just a little bit of rest before heading out.
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After what she assumed to be twenty to thirty minutes, Sofie got back up to her feet and made her way out of the shade. The sun was hot, but not to the point where walking under it was aggravating. It helped that the breeze continued to blow, though there wasn’t much to stop it to begin with given the general lack of trees in the area. Nothing but flowers, grass, birds, and whatever else showed itself in the air for as far as the eye could see.
It hit her just how obvious it was this wasn’t her world. The gryphon on its own was enough, and the more she walked the more she began to wonder what had happened between getting shot at and waking up where she had. Perhaps something took pity on her, seeing the war she had gotten caught up in and decided to save her. She could only hope, if that was the case, she was not the only one to be saved. The thought of some being of great power taking pity on her and her alone made her disgusted.
She figured it was out of her control though. After all, she was already wherever said being had brought her. She wasn’t exactly gonna argue about being taken out of the hell that her home had turned into. She just hoped that she could one day return, when the war was over and no fighting was left. She had had enough strife for one lifetime.
Her attention was drawn as her ear caught something in the distance: a voice. Two voices, she realized after a moment of listening. One was masculine, the other feminine, but that wasn’t the thing of overall importance. In the end, all Sofie needed to know was that there was someone close by, and they were speaking Ukrainian. Her pace picked up substantially, breaking off into a light jog.
After reaching the top of a small hill where she believed the voices came from, she found herself breathing out the biggest sigh she had ever held. It was a dirt road leading into the distant horizon, and on said road in front of her were three figures. One was a horse pulling a wagon, nothing much of interest there. What was of interest was the man alongside said horse and the woman he was talking to.
The man was human, skin pale and looking slightly sunburnt. His shirt was white and seemingly made with wool, something she couldn’t imagine wearing with the sun beating down on her. The woman he was talking to was… something was off about her. She seemed normal enough, skin even paler than that of the man next to her, wearing boots and blue shorts. Add that with a standard green t-shirt and she didn’t seem different to anyone else.
Then she noticed the woman’s ears, long and pointed. An elf, the solidifying stone in her mind that this was most definitely not Earth. Sofie’s jaw dropped, not knowing how exactly to approach them for a moment. She was expecting to see humans when she came over the hills due to them speaking Ukrainian, not to see an elf speaking the exact same language she had grown up knowing.
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She decided that it was perhaps best to not question it in the end. Humans, elves, whatever, if they spoke the same language then she didn’t care. She ran down the slope and kept her eyes on the human and elf, being cautious to not gain too much speed on her way down.
“E-e-excuse me! Hello!” She called out to the two travelers. Both turned around and watched as she approached them.
“Uh, hello there,” The elf lady responded, watching as the young girl did her best to stop herself before she accidentally collided with the man. The elf couldn’t help but find the young girl’s clothes to be odd; the material that made it up seemed different from any she knew. “Is everything okay?”
“One… one moment,” Sofie replied, catching her breath. As soon as she was not breathing as if she had run a marathon, Sofie continued. “I was wondering if either of you could tell me exactly where I am. I came from that direction,” She pointed back towards where she thought the tree would be from her position. “Woke up in the middle of the field, not entirely sure what happened.”
“Um, well if that is the case then you kind of ended up in the middle of nowhere right now,” The elf answered. She glanced at the man to her right for a moment. No words needed to be said, a common understanding between the two that if the stranger tried anything they would leave immediately. After all, what were the chances that this girl actually woke up in the middle of–
They were both met with a look of pure fear when they looked back to Sofie’s, pupils pinpricks and mouth open. Cautious though she was, the fear was so genuine, so clear, that the elf realized that the girl was somehow telling the truth. That caution was then wiped away as two sure words of pure dread left Sofie's mouth.
“Well.. shit.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, lady, what do you mean you woke up in the middle of a field?” The man asked, still not believing Sofie at all.
“I… I mean exactly as I said. One moment, I find myself on the verge of being killed and the next I’m suddenly waking up surrounded by roses and daisies,” Sofie explained, voice filled with worry. “The name is Sofie by the way. I’m guessing neither of you have ever heard of Ukraine.”
“Harper, and I can’t say I have,” The man replied as he crossed his arms. “Is it a country from across the sea? If so, I would question how you manage to get here from all the way over there.”
Sofie, while understanding the man's questioning of her, couldn’t help but see him as distrusting. It was more than okay if he didn’t believe her, she just wanted a straight yes or no answer to know what was going on. Instead he was questioning her as if this was an interrogation with a spy. That distrust did not lessen the sheer panic going on in her brain as it too tried to figure out how she had gotten there.
“Not likely. If I’m correct, it isn’t even on this planet,” Sofie told him, doing her best to hide the worry of being in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat. Eyes locked to the ground, she didn’t notice as Harper and the elf looked at each other with sudden fear. “Great, not only am I likely not on Earth anymore, but I’m nowhere close to civilization in hopes of getting food. Not that I have the coin to pay for a meal anyway.”
“You said your name was Sofie, correct?” The elf asked her. Sofie looked to the elf and nodded. Said elf then took a deep breath as she prepared to ask her next question. “Are you positive Ukraine is in another world?”
“I know I sound crazy, and I probably am. As far as I’m aware this could be some death dream that I’ve ended up in,” Sofie admitted, face turning dour as she rubbed her fingers against the palm of her hand. “Yet there is too much I can feel for such a thing to be true. As for being from another world, well we don’t have… your people are elves right?”
“Indeed, but how could you know what we are if we do not exist?” The elf replied. She was still cautious to believe the girl, but if things lined up like how they looked to be, she feared for what looked like such an innocent soul.
“Legends and mythology. To my people, your kind is but a fairy tale… no offense,” Sofie replied, unable to help but feel a little rude for her wording. It was then a means came to her mind, one which would sort out if she was on Earth or not once and for all. “Wait, do you all have tanks? Aircrafts? How about guns and grenades? Where I am from, they are the main form of military equipment and weaponry.”
“Can’t say I’m familiar with any of those things.” Harper replied. “I’m a merchant, and have done business all across the continent. Would have heard about them in some aspect I’m sure,” Sofie sighed at his response. “However, with everything I’ve heard, I’m willing to hold the slight chance you are in fact from another world.”
Sofie’s mind stopped for a moment, having expected every possible outcome but that. Somehow, despite the absurdity and craziness she no doubt spoke to them, they believed her. They had to be faking it, she told herself, they had to be. No one would actually believe something so insane, but if they were going to fake it she might as well use it to her advantage.
“Harper, you do realize…”
The elf’s words were stopped by a side glance given to her by Harper, and she promptly nodded in understanding. Sofie didn’t know it, but a pit had formed in the elfs heart.
“You said you were hungry, right kid?” Harper asked Sofie, who gave a nod in response. He worked his way to the back of the wagon as he continued to talk. “Give me one second. I can’t offer you much, but surely some fruit would help, right?”
“Honestly, I would take anything right now. My country was not exactly in the best place,” Sofie explained, the sudden talk of food caused her hand to clench where her stomach was. When Harper appeared from behind the wagon moments later, he tossed an apple in her direction. She caught it easily. “Thanks.”
“Of course,” The merchant replied with a faux smile as he made his way back to the elf. “Enjoy it. I’m gonna just talk with my wife about something really quick.”
Before the elf could speak, Harper turned her around and brought her a decent distance from the wagon and Sofie. Sitting down on the slight slope that was on the side of the road, he waited for his wife to do the same. Sofie watched it all, her distrust of the two only growing at the incredible secrecy that the man had shown. She told herself to stay on guard, ready for if they tried to pull anything, though not quite sure what she would do in the face of steel or, if it also existed in this world, magic.
“I’m more than aware of who it is we could possibly be speaking to, Elenise,” Harper told his wife. “The talks of differing technology, a country that doesn’t exist, possibly being from another world. Matches with word of the Lord of Terror’s revival.”
“Yet you choose to help her, knowing full well it could put a target on both of our backs,” Elenise replied, looking at him judgingly. “Apologies hun, I’m just confused as to how you are going about this. You question and give her reason to distrust us, but also offer food and say you believe her,” She let out a sigh and shook her head. “You know she is telling the truth as much as I do, don’t you?”
Harper nodded. “It all adds up too much, and I would have found an obvious crack if she was faking that fear she had on her face. If that is the case though, she did a really good job fooling me.”
As they talked, Sofie ravaged the apple that had been given to her, not caring for how messy she was. It was the best thing she had had in weeks, possibly months. It tasted like it hadn’t come out of a factory, which was to say that it had taste in the first place. Her home had been so low on food that something as delicious as this, no matter how small it was, tasted like heaven.
Gripping it with only three fingers was definitely not easy though. The curse of being right handed and losing fingers on said hand definitely didn’t make it easier. It didn’t stop her from enjoying the sour taste of a fresh apple, her mouth firmly covered in stickiness when she glanced something out of the corner of her eyes.
Three people were watching her from a distance, or perhaps it was not her so much as the wagon. Harper had said he was a merchant, and surely unsavory characters in a world a good many centuries behind in technology would want to try their luck at thievery. Still, she wasn’t sure. She watched patiently out of the corner of her eye, refusing to turn her head completely to try and make it less obvious she was watching them. It allowed her to notice when they walked away, perhaps dissuaded or noticing her glancing in their direction.
“Sofie, you don’t know where you are right?”
Harper's voice brought her attention away from the horizon and back to the human and elf. They had returned to the wagon from their secret meeting. She gave a nod, immediately putting her guard back up in the process.
“There is a town about a two days trip from here called Taevenburg. It is sort of a crossroads for the trade here in Ellio. We’re willing to give you company till then, but are gonna have to part ways afterwards. Are you fine with that?”
“I would be a fool to pass up company and food,” She replied as she got up and walked over to the two. “If you wouldn’t mind telling me a bit about where I am, though, I would very much appreciate it.”
“We would be more than happy to,” The elf replied. “Oh, the name is Elenise by the way.”
Sofie smiled. “Pleasure to meet you two.”