Sensation assailed her from all directions, and she felt the sun's heat on her exposed back. An incredible force was pulling her somewhere, air blasting at and around her as it did.

She opened her eyes for the first time, causing information to rush through her. Her mind chugged as it tried to deal with its first attempts at comprehending the flood of it all.

Suddenly there was light and a vast expanse that seemed unending in the glimpse she had of it, immediately followed by her first sensation of pain as the wind clawed at her eyes, she closed them.

Where was she?

She squinted her eyes to take the sting from the swing and turned her head to shield them.

It wasn't dark. It couldn't be, not for her. Her eyes created light, and so she saw everything.

It was all... well, it was all something. She couldn't quite place what it was, but it felt rather empty. And she was moving very quickly through it like something was pulling her... downward?

Yes, downward, she was heading towards something blue that seemed to stretch out forever.

Well, that didn't help at all. Everything was blue!

But the blue thing she was falling through was a much lighter shade than the one below, and she could see great white fluffy things moving through it and wondered faintly if they too were trying to figure out what they were in.

Well, that solved one mystery. She was in a great big blue, heading towards a different blue.

Now, who was she? And what was she exactly? Besides a 'she,' that is.

She closed her eyes and thought, then frowned. The sound of her falling was somewhat distracting.

"Atapa" The word came to her just as she stopped thinking about it. She was an Atapa, a person.

Another 'a' sounding word tickled her tongue. She was...Auriga- yes! That was her name! It came to her as she thought of the need for it. Auriga...She felt like there should be more, but there didn't seem to be.

Just Auriga then, that was fine, she liked it.

She was moving towards the other blue awfully quickly, and she experienced worry for the first time as she wondered if she was moving a bit too quickly.

She seemed to have an idea that moving too quickly, and then hitting something, would not go very well for her.

She reached out and spoke, "Fvulfvuer Fam."

Her descent suddenly slowed, the magic of the spell she casted stealing the momentum away from her fall. A pool of something inside her grew a little bit smaller when she did, like water being drained.

Oh, water! That must be the great dark blue thing she was heading towards! And once she landed, she was...

She had to do... something, when she landed, didn't she? And yet she couldn't quite remember what it was that she was supposed to do.

She found herself lost in thought, trying to find the reason why she was here.

And she was still falling.

She huffed in frustration, crossing her arms as she did.

She couldn't figure it out, and it was bothering her, not to mention the wind seemed to be growing wet and stung at her.

She turned her attention to the vast body of water growing ever larger as she fell towards it.

It had a name too, didn't it? Just like she did, it was...Môn!

No, wait, she was from- no not from, of. She was of Môn, and wherever she was now was somewhere else.

It was... Dirt! But that didn't make any sense, she didn't see any dirt for which it could be named after, just a vast expanse of water, so surely it should be called 'Water'?

And the closer she got, the more obviously water it appeared to be, dissuading any theories she might have had about blue dirt.

She could also spot a pair of brown and white things floating in the water, small but getting closer to each other and her.

She tried to angle herself toward them, if only because they were different from the rest of the great lake, or perhaps, the ocean she was falling into.

As she grew closer, she began to pick out moving figures upon the brown...thing, a vehicle for them?

She felt a wave of energy coming off the larger of the two vehicles, which seemed to be following the smaller one.

As the energy wave reverberated through her body, she saw the sky begin to darken, and the air grew wetter. She could swear she tasted something metallic in it now.

She angled her descent for the leading object, and while it had appeared small from a distance, the closer she got to it, the more revealed it was something far larger than her.

She was half tempted to try and calculate how many hers could fit in it, but put aside such thoughts for some other time.

Auriga quickly realized she would fall short of landing on it and seeing that it was traveling forward, instead chose to angle her fall in front of it where she could meet it as it headed along its path.

She began to hear shouting from the ship and saw one of the figures aboard looking at her, but even with her eyes, she was unable to make too much of them at this distance with what little time she had as moments later, she crashed into the water, the impact knocking the air from her lungs.

—-

"All hands! Roll up the sails! They're brewing a storm ahead!" The man, a human from the region of Kaka'mori with frog-like eyes, yelled out.

"Calum! Eyes on deck!" A crewmate of the same subrace beside him shouted out.

Calum, a 'Spellborn' human with ebony skin, tore his eyes from the sky as he'd been commanded and swore as he went to help his crewmates.

Fear was palpable in the air. The magic worked by the pirates pursuing them had robbed them of the possibility to retreat, as their ship's cargo hold was full, and they were sitting too low in the water to brave the storm.

They'd have to fight- or surrender, and despite their fear, Calum knew they wouldn't surrender.

He was aboard a trading vessel; The Kana'Ku, and very little was unusual about it for the region. It was a small brigantine, a boat with two masts, and it was presently filled to the rafters with trade goods- namely, valuable spices and a mix of herbalist and alchemical components.

However, what did make it different from other vessels was the flag it flew that signified the nature of the ship's ownership—a red flag with a streak of darker red running through its center.

It was a symbol that spoke volumes on the sea, as it announced that the crew aboard the vessel would fight and die to safeguard the ship's continents.

All permanent sailors aboard, from the captain to the cabin boy, had a partial stake in the boat.

This meant that unlike most other vessels Calum had sailed upon, the goods they were transporting were bought by the crew, and sold by them. It was their livelihood, and Calum knew they'd not surrender it.

Calum was not a permanent member of the crew, nor was the terrified sailor beside him. In fact, nearly a third of the ship crew were temporary hires like him, who owned no portion of the ship and were instead paid a wage. And Calum was positive thoughts of mutiny were passing through their minds, for fear of the alternative being death.

But such an attempt would not take place, no one was foolish enough to attempt it with the numbers so set against them. Particularly without the assurance that the pirates pursuing them would reward them with their lives for doing so.

He, however, was not afraid. Not due to any great courage on his part, or even foolishness, no.

He was unafraid because he was too busy being bewildered.

He looked up again, to make sure he hadn't been seeing things.

She was gone, but he could have sworn when he'd looked up at the now cloudy sky that he'd seen a woman with pale skin, golden hair, and glowing eyes.

"To arms! Palaka, get the pikes!"

The man beside Calum tore off, as did a dozen others who responded to the captain's command.

"To port! Load the Ballista!"

Now it was Calum's turn to run, joined by the other two men as they prepared the ship's weapon for battle.

Calum pulled the winch back as the ship turned, and he was granted an eyeful of the vessel pursuing them.

A galleon; light in the water. There were three ballistae on its deck from what he could tell, most of them larger than the one he was presently preparing for combat.

He could just barely spot humanoid figures swarming over them, and they were flying a flag of two bones crossed with a skull in front.

Swallowing, he banished whatever flights of fancy of the sky raining women that had invaded his mind. The enemy vessel oozed menace to him, and it was made all the worse by his own ship dead in the water, the effect of turning the boat and the weight it was carrying, having slowed it considerably, and making him feel as if they were stuck awaiting death.

"Drums!" The captain spoke once more, no fear could be heard in his voice.

A beat of drums began to sound from out Kana'Ku as it turned to face the bigger ship.

Calum's hands shook as he wrenched the winch back and tied it taut.

The permanent crew of the ship and natives to the region were comforted by the war-drums. Or if not comforted, they allowed the beat to turn fear to courage, Calum suspected there was some type of magic to it, but he was too unfamiliar to be sure.

Calum found no increase to his moral from it, it reminded him of the great war marches of his homeland, the weeping king's domain, from which Calum had run to escape the unending draft to war.

A sudden clang reached his ears, followed by two more, and he looked up to see three great bolts heading for the ship.

He dropped to the deck seconds before hearing the trio of splashes of them missing.

"Get up! And get a pike!"

Calum stumbled to his feet, looking around and realizing he had not been the only one to drop when they'd seen incoming projectiles. The Kana'Ku wasn't even in range yet!

Of course, perhaps neither was the pirates' ship if the bolts falling short was any sign of their proper range.

Calum looked around, spotting the crewmate from earlier, now carrying a bundle of wooden pikes and handing them out to the crewmen. Behind him, he could see another crew member handing out bows and quivers of arrows with a little more scrutiny of who was taking them, both were handing out red armbands alongside the weapons.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Calum moved forward, grasping the weapon and feeling sick to his stomach as he fumbled while tying the red strip of cloth around his arm.

He'd done everything he could to escape fighting. He was afraid of death, a fear of dying himself, and dealing death out.

His legs felt weak and clutched the side of the ship.

Nausea clawed at his throat, and he tried to force down the bile, but it was too late. Chunks of partially digested salted pork and ship's biscuit spewed out of his coughing, choking mouth.

Rain began to fall on them, the storm now created was roaming free and torrent striking the ship, creating a secondary tempo to the war-drums, both of which were suddenly interrupted with yet another clang.

His eyes went up, face paling as the enemies ballistae fired again, and this time he knew they'd hit.

He dropped down and crouching into the side of the ship as the bolts slammed into the deck, wood crunching and shattering as they did.

He looked up as the cacophony ended, one had slammed into the side of the vessel, the second smashing into the main deck but hitting nothing of importance.

The third, however, was skewered into the crewmate who was clutching the pikes he had been handing out, the bundle of weapons now either splintered and ruined or tossed about the deck.

He heard the familiar clang of his own ship's ballista as it returned fire and saw his crew's bowman preparing to fire.

The enemy ship was close enough that he could make out the men aboard, scurrying about and reloading the great ballista that stuck like the punch of a storm giant.

He shook himself, and stood, quickly rejoining the men reloading their own ballista and ducking behind it as it was fired.

They had managed to load their own before the pirates could reload theirs and took the first shot of this exchange.

He jumped up and began reloading the ballista once more, watching as the bolt they'd fired slammed into the firstmost ballista, causing a horrible screech of metal and wood, the sounds of men screaming accompanying it.

A pair of bolts immediately countered, one aimed too high, and the other joining the one who'd slammed into the vessel's side.

And then they were in the range of the bows.

Both sides seemed to be challenging the rain; the skies were suddenly full of arrows between the two ships.

Calum tied off the wench as arrows made a pincushion of the deck, then ducked low for the third time, unable to do anything else to aid in the combat at this range, even if he had the courage for it.

He saw ten of his crewmates go down screaming, and another four who fell silently. Most hadn't even been archers, but pikemen like him who were caught without cover.

He felt a moment of fiery anger, despite the fear. His people were trained for warfare as soon as they could waddle, they'd never be caught in a ranged battle of arrows without shields to defend themselves.

Another volley of arrows and ballista bolts bit into the deck, and more of his crew fell.

"Make ready with the pikes!"

Calum looked up over the ship's railing, the enemy ship was pulling across from them. He'd expected them to ram his vessel or continue to strafe and fire upon them. But clearly, the pirates intended to claim the Kana'Ku relatively undamaged in addition to the bounty it carried.

Pirates leapt aboard, scything down on men with blades, or running them through with their own pikes, a few carried hand crossbows, firing them as they boarded.

Calum stood, turning his eyes from the enemy vessel and looking towards his crew as they joined in a clumsy formation to counter enemy borders.

Then he stilled, not quite believing his eyes.

There was the woman behind the formation, pulling herself up over the railing and crouching atop it with a look of bewilderment and growing horror as she, in turn, looked on the scene.

He could tell, objectively, that she was a peerless beauty, even if he'd never felt much attraction to the fairer sex, or his own, for that matter.

She was also drenched in either rain or seawater, and naked, with a slight point to her ears that insinuated some very, very far-flung elven ancestry.

All that was secondary- yes even the nakedness, when compared to her eyes.

They were a fitting match to the two suns hanging in the sky; suns now obscured by a thick layer of growing clouds wrought by the pirates' storm mage.

And as she looked over the deck, with an expression of horror and confusion, and Calum could not help but shudder.

She wasn't even looking at him, but he could feel he hadn't escaped her notice. Like he'd been weighed and judged for his cowardice?

Then she shouted; almost screamed the words. "Chis gi Doal!?"

Her voice billowed out at an ear-piercing volume, too loud to be possible for such a small person to deliver, or even a large one, the cry echoed out above the sound of battle.

Calum's ears rang from it, heads turned, and people froze, not all, and many of those that did- while startled, immediately went back into the fighting.

Some turned to her, unsure if she was friend or foe. One of his crewmen, likely assuming enemy, lashed out at her with a pike.

She yelped, danced back on the railing of the ship, and pinwheeled her arms to keep from falling into the ocean from whence she comes.

In the middle of her hectic motions, she clapped her hands together and called out again, in a voice far quieter than her first cry, yet still a shout. "Thunn!"

Auriga cried out and felt a dip at the well of magic. The spell had the intended effect. She saw the men around her visibly calm, fear, and anger being replaced with stillness, the magic spreading out like a ripple around her, reverberating through them.

Unfortunately, it did not work on everyone, some wills were too powerful or rages too hot to be coaxed into slumber.

Those that resisted fell upon those that didn't, two died in the confusion of the forced calm, and she felt her spell fight back her own surge of guilt and panic as they did.

Why were they doing this? A dozen appeared dead, and many more were screaming in pain, even those under the effect of her spell. And that was just on the brown thing she was on, it could be even worse on the larger one! Though she hoped they'd suffered fewer casualties.

Men began to leap off the larger vessel, and she called out again, feeling another dip in her well. "Sethse Atapa!"

One of the men attacking froze, his body becoming stiff, and his momentum carrying him over to fall like a knocked over statue.

The man who he'd been trying to attack looked down at him, bewildered, before ducking under the attack of another.

It wasn't working, even calmed they were still fighting, as they'd still defend themselves and even preemptively attack those who'd resisted. For the sailors may have had their rage and fear calmed, but for some, that only made them into more lethal fighters, whose focus on self-preservation was above base emotion.

She dispelled the calming spell on all but herself, it seemed to only be making things worse.

She called again, feeling yet another pull on her well and stopped, it was growing too small too quickly. Instead, She reached out, touching a wounded Apata- a human, and spoke softly. "Hwouptheem fvue Dyal."

Unlike the previous spells, this required no significant investment of her energy. It was a spell that pulled from the target's own natural magic to close said target's wounds. It did not truly heal, but it could keep her patient on the cusp of life and death for some time.

A man charged her; from which vessel he originated, she didn't know, she was not even entirely sure who the attackers were, though she suspected the larger two big wooden vehicles.

"Sanctuarva!" A lesser version of her first spell, and yet more powerful in some ways, but the well grew smaller still.

The spell forced a level of empathy upon anyone who tried to attack the one who cast it, and most would struggle to follow through with such feeling crashing into their minds.

The sword fell upon her, then slowed before it struck, the man looked almost pained, before snarling and striking down at her ward.

Unlike her, the patient she was working on had no such protections.

The sword found purchase, plunging through the man's neck.

Auriga stifled a wail, horrified, looking at the man and almost begging-

"Flinm?" Why?

The man eyed her, still unable to make himself attack her and carried on to another target.

She wept as death came down like the rain around her, unable to understand why any of this was happening.

Another man approached her at a run, carrying a long wooden weapon with a pointed end.

"Who are you?" he called, looking around and flinching as an arrow flew by him, aiming for another target.

Calum swallowed, it was chaos, any formations had gone to the wind when this woman had started throwing her magic about, and now the storm mage was blasting men with lightning bolts.

At first, he'd thought her an enemy, but her attempts were clearly trying to de-escalate conflict, not start it.

He was unsure if she even spoke Trader’stongue, but he called out to her all the same.

She wept but did not shy away from him, and a small part of him cried for him to turn away, the tears of the woman hurt him to look upon.

She looked at him, eyes splendorous and terrifying, and watched her wince with the sound of every other strike.

Then she spoke, her voice so confused and mournful.

"Why, why are they doing this?"

Her accent was strange, and the words came out of her mouth clumsily, if correctly.

He didn't know what to say to her. Instead, he looked over the ship before spotting his target.

A rowboat, and with a thought, he reached to try to tug her up and bring her to safety of some sort. He was a coward, yes. But he could not let such a clearly well-meaning person die in this mess.

She pushed him away with surprising strength, disentangling herself from him and running to another wounded man, calling out in her strange magical chant and closing his wounds.

He didn't know what to do at first. He felt a shameful urge to leap into the rowboat and save himself from this chaos, but instead found himself looking around for something else.

One of his own crewmen was bleeding out on the ground, and he reached down and gripped them underneath the elbows, dragging them to the woman while she worked on another.

He tapped her shoulder, gestured to the wheezing sailor, then leaped back into the melee, almost crawling to not be noticed in the chaos, before grabbing another man and continuing to drag him back.

By the time he returned, the woman had already finished and was watching him, then quickly casting her spell.

He turned back to the fighting, looking in bewilderment, unable to spot another wounded man he could reach safely.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and flinched. The woman was standing behind him, her face pointed as if she were looking beyond him, and yet he felt as if she were looking directly into his eyes.

"Follow," she spoke simply, charging into the melee herself, and he was surprised to find he was following her.

She weaved through the fight like she saw everything happening in it, and began to drag another man back to her impromptu field- or deck hospital, Calum could not help but notice that the man was one of the pirates.

He spoke no objections to it.

Auriga dragged the man back, watching as the one who had given her the idea pulled one with a red armband around their bicep like he had.

Her well felt nearly empty, but it was worth it for this, she called out "Sanctuarva" once more, and the same mental protection afforded her now guarded him.

She stopped the flow of life's blood of the first man, then reached out and did the same that her impromptu assistant had dragged back.

She looked at the fight once her work was finished, and with her eyes saw everything.

On one end of the ship, a sword cut slashed a man in a feathered cap, blood pouring out from his belly as his opponent moved on past him to attack yet another.

On the other end, a man angled some kind of contraption at another who threw lightning from his hands. Firing it and causing a wooden object to skewer the lightning mage, lift him off the ground and throw his corpse overboard.

She was moving before any of these actions had completed. Tilting her head slightly to the side and seeing the man with ebony skin who'd helped her following her once more.

—-

The battle ended not much longer after it had begun, and Calum's side had won despite odds set against it.

But both sides were decimated, a retreat had not truly been an option for either once the battle began.

The pirates could not surrender, as if they weren't outright killed after doing so- which was more likely than not, they'd still be handed over to the authorities in hopes of securing a bounty, which inevitably would lead to the noose.

Neither would the crew of the Kana'Ku, they could not afford the monetary loss or the risk that the pirates themselves would kill them to the last or force them to join their crew as slave sailors. Their families would starve during the winter if they did.

But, the deaths were less than they could have been, for both sides.

He and the woman had managed to drag three dozen of his own crew and work whatever strange magic to seemingly pull them back together.

Even stranger still, she'd been, in all appearances, indifferent in who she'd saved from the throng, as another number of a little over two dozen pirates were laid beside his wounded crewmates.

No one objected, no one had the strength too, hardly anyone was left standing, only a dozen of his own.

The captain was dead, as was the quartermaster, they'd saved the first mate- or the new captain now, he supposed.

Calum wanted to weep like the woman had.

She had wept as she saved the sailors, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

He envied her. He was vacant, vaguely noting the corpses of men he'd sailed with for some months.

He was below the decks of Kana'Ku, laying the men in cots under his watchful eyes, his crewmates aiding him as he did.

He'd just laid down the barely conscious body of his new captain, who had wounds that surely would have killed him if not for the woman's magic when he heard her voice.

"Why?"

He stood upright, looked at her, then looked at the pirates he'd helped save.

"They wanted what we had." He gestured to the crates of spices and alchemical components beyond the newly made medical bay.

"Why?"

"Because it's worth a lot of money." He looked back at her and saw the question on her face before she had a chance to ask it. "They could use the money to get through this coming winter, or maybe they just wanted money for brothels."

"Brothels?"

He looked at her with disbelief, then remembered she was naked and wondered where exactly she came from.

"I'll tell you about it some other time. Here, put this on."

She blinked as he handed her a blanket, before wrapping it around herself and looking slightly sheepish.

He sat down beside her, his back to the wall of the ship.

"Who are you?"

She shrugged. "I'm Auriga."

He smiled. "I'm Calum."

"Gôd de mvt Gi Calum."

He quirked a brow at her.

"Oh, right." she nodded. "It's nice to meet you, Calum."