“Hey!” The voice rolling down from the escarpment made me jump, and I slammed myself back into the rock wall, not taking my eyes from the roiling waves. The voice came again. “Hey! You going to stay there all day, or what? Storm’s not done yet.”
It wasn’t? I looked up, then, inspecting the sky. I’d not taken much notice of the day, and the swim remained one water-sodden, gray-lit blur, except for a frightening splash of gemstone green and blue.
Looking up, I noticed the sheet of light gray clouds overhead. Light flickered through them, and sullen rumbles stated that the thunder hadn’t truly gone. The owner of the voice didn’t care for my observations.
“Not up here. Out there!” he called, for the voice was definitely masculine.
And now I shifted my gaze to look for the source of that voice, the one above me, and to do that I had to take a second step away from the rock wall.
“And just hope you don’t cop an arrow to the face,” my unruly internal voice snarked, as crisp salt air curled around me. “Because I don’t think this version of your game’s ever heard about respawning.”
“Not that I’d want to respawn out there,” I told it, not sure I liked the sharp ozone layer I could scent. “I need to re-set, before I die, again.”
“Don’t know how you’re going to go about any kind of spawning,” the voice put in, sounding exasperated. “But this world isn’t much into any kind of resetting, so if you’re keen on the not dying part, then you need to move your furry ass. The next wall’s going to hit inside a turn.”
A turn? I wondered. What kind of timeframe was that? And what wall? And my furry what?
I took another abrupt step away from the wall, all thought of the impending storm forgotten.
“What did you say?” I asked, catching sight of well-tanned face, unruly brown hair, and worried brown eyes.
“The storm wall’s—”
“No, not that.”
“Resetting?”
I shook my head.
“Not dying?”
“No, my…um…” I glanced around nervously, not sure who might be listening. “You said something about furry?”
The man above me slid forward, worry turning to puzzlement, then embarrassment.
“Yeah, well, I mean…”
“Mean what?” I demanded. “I’m as human as…”
I stopped, because now I got a good look at him, he wasn’t really human. He was elven…maybe. Angular features, that brown hair worn long, and only as unruly as the rising wind made it.
“Yeah, well. Human’s not exactly a good fit for either of us, is it, Kitty?”
Kitty? I raised my hand to my face, noting nothing unusual about it. The skin covering my fingers was its usual color, my fingers their usual shape. No claws. I touched my face.
No fur there, either.
Or whiskers.
Exasperation replaced embarrassment, and Wild-Haired-Elf-Guy took a nervous glance out to sea.
“Sure, you’ve got the human-skin thing down pat, Fuzzy,” he sniped, “but your tail’s a dead giveaway.”
“My…”
I couldn’t help it; I looked back and down…then twitched said tail a couple of times just to make sure it was real. My mind rebelled at its presence, but couldn’t deny it’s iron-gray length or the almost black tuft it sported at its end.
“Looks like you came off a slave ship,” he said, before I could reply. I scowled up at him, but he ignored me, his attention once again caught by something out to sea, “And I don’t think the siren’s given up, yet.”
The what? I followed his gaze, and saw the emerald and sapphire bulk rising from the ocean, its details blurred by the rising waves. It was definitely turning in my direction, and it looked to me like something that needed more than bare hands and a soggy nightie to deal with.
“Grab my hand.”
And Elf-Boy chose now to get bossy?
I glanced back at him, and almost copped a hand to the head.
“Sorry.”
At least he apologized, even if he followed it with another order.
“Grab hold, and I’ll pull you up.”
I hesitated, and he lunged forward reaching down to grab my bicep.
“Move, Kitty! Or that thing is going to eat us both!”
It was? From there?
I wanted to look back at it, but he had a good grip on me and was trying to haul my unresponsive bulk up the rock face. When the DM, or the game, or whatever was currently in control of my world got this persistent, it was best to listen.
I jerked my arm free of his hand, then reached for a hand-hold.
“I’ll do this better if you’re not hauling me off-balance,” I grumbled, like me feeling off-balance was anywhere near his fault.
I’d have struggled to get to the top if he hadn’t ignored my obvious wish to do the climb on my own. He reached over to curl a palm under my arm and steady me, guiding me to the next hand-hold, and stopping me from falling back down when I slipped.
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“We need to get out of its line of sight,” he said, when I finally got to the top, and he’d pulled me a few steps from the edge.
I was about to ask him how he proposed we do that, when he grabbed my hand and hauled me further away from the sea.
“And you’ll need to run,” he added, as the wind picked up, tugging at my hair and chilling my soaked clothing.
“I’m gonna catch my death,” I managed, my teeth chattering.
“In more ways than you know,” he shouted back, jerking me to one side as something whistled over the cliff, and slammed into the rock at our heels. He didn’t give me time to see what it was, but yanked me forward and in the other direction, then dropped us both to the ground, as a second something whistled past my ear.
Before I could ask him what in all the world he thought he was doing, he’d hauled me close and rolled us both to the side and into a narrow gully in the terrain. For one dreadful moment, I thought we were falling, and then we came to a stop, and he stretched a hand past me to drag a thin sheet of rock over the gap above.
“Observation port,” he explained, as a hard thunk turned into a clatter and I realized the covering was metal, not rock, and that he’d rolled us into a smooth-sided chamber, and not the natural hollow I’d expected.
“What?” I asked, feeling as stupid as I sounded.
The clatter turned into a scrape that set my teeth on edge, and my tail swished in response. I glanced at it. I could swear that thing had a mind of its own!
We lay still for a moment, and then I realized several things at once. First, that I was lying on top of him. Next, that leather armor was a lot less comfortable to lean on than the movies made it look. And, last, that I really was lying on an elf.
One well-made, buffed to the sky and back, exceedingly unimpressed looking elf.
“You mind getting off me?” he demanded, after I’d stared at his face for a little too long.
Off. Right. Man had a good point.
I looked around, trying to find a space to get off into, and failing. He gave an exasperated sigh, and slapped the wall nearest us—once, twice, and then a staccato three-four-five.
Echoes bounced through a hollow space beyond, and died away. I tried to lever myself to one side, only to have him grip my arm.
“Give it a moment,” he said, making me stop. “There really isn’t anywhere you can move to, in here.”
Now he notices…and give what a moment? I thought, as we waited.
After another few heartbeats, he groaned, and slapped the wall, again, sending another pattern of knocks booming away from us.
Booming… I tensed.
“What?” he asked.
“That thing,” I started. “Won’t it hear us?”
“That thing,” he told me, “is called a siren, and anyone born on this coast knows the accursed creatures love hunting the storms.”
He let his head rest back against the floor.
“And they don’t like giving up on their chosen prey. Honestly, why couldn’t you have just…” His words died, but not before we both heard what he hadn’t quite been quick enough to keep behind his teeth.
I pushed up, lifting myself far enough back that my head brushed the ceiling of our impromptu shelter.
“Just let it catch me?” I demanded, my voice rising, because honestly that had its appeal. “Just…drowned?”
He was shaking his head before I’d finished.
“No,” he said, sounding tired. “Just not drawn its attention, is all.”
I blew a soft raspberry.
“It’s not like I tried to get it to chase me,” I told him, then shivered, my mind conjuring images of that shimmering bulk sliding in my wake.
“I know.” He banged on the wall, once more, and I scowled at him.
“How could you know?” I demanded. “You didn’t even know I was…out…there.”
I slowed, and stopped, cocking my head.
“Did you?”
He gestured vaguely to the little box he’d trapped us in.
“I was up here,” he explained. “Keeping watch. Those slave ships…”
He stopped, registering the look on my face.
“What?”
“I—” I paused. I’d been about to say I hadn’t come off any slave ship, but part of me echoed the truth of that as a point of origin.
“You what?” he asked, then his eyes narrowed. “You were about to say you didn’t come off the slaver?”
And it was his turn to push back, shimmying underneath me, until he sat with his back against the far wall, and I knelt facing him. His next words held both wonderment and accusation.
“You don’t remember anything before ending up in the water, do you?”
The look on his face made me want to deny it, but I waited too long, and realization lit his features.
“You’re a transfer.”
I shook my head. I didn’t remember being transferred anywhere.
“You’re not?”
I went to shake my head, again, then hesitated.
“What’s a transfer?”
He rolled his eyes, but then met mine with a steady gaze.
“It’s someone who’s just arrived in this world.” He leaned back against the wall, taking a moment before adding, “Well, this day just keeps getting better.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped back, because from the way he’d spoken, he wasn’t at all happy with the way the day was going.
A panel slid open in the side of the wall, and another elvish face appeared, smirking, if I wasn’t mistaken. She looked like Elf-Boy’s little sister, or something. Sure, they were both elves, but they had that family look about them…except there was mischief in her voice as she explained.
“He means he’s just realized he’s stuck with you until you decide.”
“Decide what?” I asked, but I was pretty sure I knew. “You mean, decide if I’m ever going back?”
A big part of me already knew the answer to that, but the part of me that didn’t remember the time before the big splash was already digging its heels in and swearing it was never going back.
Why? I wanted to ask it, but it was adamant.
Better you don’t remember.
The ferocity in that thought tore my will in two. On the one half the vehemence there made me not want to know, while the other half, the one that hated being told what to do or how to think set its sights on doing exactly that.
She-Elf snickered.
“You two are going to get along like an absolute house on fire,” she declared, and slid the wall the entire way back, revealing an opening as long as the chamber me and Elf-Boy were in.
He jerked his chin toward it.
“Out,” he ordered.
I thought about suggesting he go first, but one look at his face said I’d probably pushed him as far as I wanted…at least for now. I started to move.
“There’s a good kitty.”
Well, of course I stopped.
“You what?”
The she elf sighed. “Brel! Now look what you’ve done!”
“What?” he demanded, but she’d barely opened her mouth when the thunder of a thousand rain drops drowned her out.
I flinched, clapping both hands over my ears, then scrambled hastily from the chamber.
Observation point? I wondered if he told all the girls that, because I couldn’t see any point to observe from. It was only when I’d turned to watch him slide out of the narrow chamber after me that I saw it, a narrow slit of flash-lit darkness situated behind me.
The she-elf followed my gaze.
“He wasn’t lying when he said it was the observation port,” she said. “Thing is, it’s a point of vulnerability, and we need these tunnels to remain secure, so it’s always secured from the inside to prevent any access.”
“And to the dark realms with anyone who dares need a faster way out,” the male elf grumbled.
“Now, Brel, we’ve been over this…”
“You’ve been over this,” he grumbled, “And I still don’t agree.”
“Yeah, well you’re just a little biased,” the she-elf shot back, and it was obvious I was bearing witness to an argument that was older than my arrival and brief sojourn in the sea.
“And you’re not?” he demanded. “Given it’s your safety that would be jeopardized, if you gave the scouts half a chance?”
She reddened at that, and I watched as she gritted her teeth and smartly about-faced.
“It’s this way,” she told me, as she stalked past.
I thought the argument was over, until she looked back at Brel.
“Make sure your bias doesn’t make you forget to lock us down properly. That was a siren, wasn’t it?” She barely waited for the male elf to acknowledge her, before continuing, “And the commander doesn’t give a fine-feathered fluffing what you think! Come!”
That last was directed at me, and she didn’t wait to see if I’d do as I was told; she stalked right past me to a junction in the corridor. I followed, suspicion uncoiling in my gut.
Since when did elves live underground, anyway?