Somewhere in a vast sea, under a starry night sky, a galleon sailed along calm waters in time with a subtle music. The sails whipped forward as they caught the whispering breeze. The galleon's wooden planks creaked as the vessel swayed like a mother carrying her child. A small, rolling wave caressed the ship's hull with a shushing sound.

One of the galleon's rowboats had been lowered to be closer to the water. In the rowboat was an elven woman with hair like a wild, golden fire. She had long, elegant features and copper-toned skin. Her clothes were simple and sturdy, the garments of a traveler. She held a lute made from dark wood and was plucking a soft, somber tune. The elf was without words, but not without company. Beside her, in the water, was a woman with blue skin accented with fish-like scales. She had deep red hair framing a face with round features. She held on to the side of the rowboat, her arms crossed with her head resting upon them. She seemed pensive and lost in her own thoughts.

"I really am sorry, Naunet," the elven woman offered. "It was a tasteless joke, but I didn't mean to offend you."

The mermaid raised her head and looked again in to the elf's eyes. "No, miss Badger, it really is fine."

Badger couldn't read the mermaid's expression. She felt like she was missing something in order to fully understand Naunet. At times she was pleasant, her facial features and smile exuding an almost child-like glow. But other times, like she was now, she was somber, distant, and unreadable. When she frowned, she seemed much older.

Naunet's face brightened a little. "Are you ready to continue your story, miss Badger?"

Badger took a moment to regard Naunet and decided not to ask the question which had bubbled up in her mind.

"Of course."

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Within the brothel where I grew up, there was only one room that was truly off-limits to me. I was standing in it. There, in my matron's chambers I was frozen with mortal fear as I stood in front of the open doorway to the hall. My matron was there, framed by the door's threshold. She stood in the hallway and glared down at me with a scornful face. For a long moment, neither of us said a word. Finally, my matron spoke.

"Foolish girl. You mock me. Did you think I wouldn't know of your trespass?"

I looked down at my feet. The response I had mustered seemed caught in my throat. My lower lip quivered and my vision grew blurry from tears.

"Sniveling will not earn you grace, whelp. Is this how you repay me? After taking you in as my own? After feeding you, clothing you, and sheltering you?"

I knew where this was going. By the end of the one-sided conversation I would once again be reminded of how terrible, worthless, and ungrateful I was. She would bemoan her wounded heart, lamenting at my disobedience. I closed my eyes tight. I didn't want to hear it. I couldn't bear it. In that moment I wanted nothing more than to disappear and no longer be standing in front of her bawling like the child I was. I didn't want her words to cut me down anymore. I balled my fist and clenched my teeth. Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be in the attic where my bedroll was.

I felt a rush of hot air around me, and suddenly I couldn't hear her voice anymore. I opened my eyes and looked around in confusion. I was in the attic. The whisp of warm air around me dissipated into the dusty, stale air of the attic.

"What?" I blurted out, dumbfounded. Had my matron banished me there magically? With all I had seen within her room, the idea didn't seem farfetched. I could hear my matron begin shouting my name beneath the floorboards of the attic. She was just as surprised as I was. It wasn't her who had caused this. It couldn't have been me, either. Could it? I wondered to myself for just a moment before I heard her quick, heavy footsteps leaving her chambers. I snapped to. I needed to leave, now. I quietly snuck to a nearby window and made my way onto the roof of the brothel. It was a regular escape route for me, one I used whenever I wanted to go about town without being seen leaving through the front- which was often.

I ran across the rooftops of town toward my safe place. It was a secluded kind of loft that had been crudely constructed on the roof of a two-story warehouse, and its existence had apparently been forgotten. The loft was out of view from the street level, and only feasibly accessible from the roof of the neighboring building. It offered no protection from the elements, and I often had to chase off gulls trying to perch or build nests there. It was the one place in this port town I felt I could truly be myself.

Finally making it to the warehouse roof, my small feet pattered along as I approached the loft. Velan was already there. Other than the whores of my brothel home, Velan was my only friend- and certainly the only one my age. He had short brown hair that was probably well-styled when he wasn't with me. He had prominent freckles along his angular face and cool blue eyes. He was observant, educated, and extremely intelligent on top of being a mage's apprentice. He was a stark contrast to the low-class orphan girl I was. Why he chose to remain friends with me was a mystery I never put much effort into solving.

"You must be in trouble again, you usually greet me when you approach," Velan stated, not even looking in my direction. His perceptive abilities were exceptional, I could never seem to sneak up on him.

"Sorry, Vellie. I didn't mean to be rude, it's just been a helluvah day." I hopped onto the loft and sat near him, crossing my legs.

"Do you want to talk about it?" His voice showed genuine concern. He looked up from what he was doing and met my eyes. If I fancied boys, I'd have likely harbored an infatuation for him.

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I fidgeted. "Where do I even start? I got into the matron's chambers while she was out to market."

Valen smirked. "You finally worked up the nerve."

"Yeah and let me tell you she has some weird stuff in there." Using my hands, I described everything I had seen to the best of my memory. I described the odd trinkets which filled her bookshelves. "She also had this." I produced the small green pebble I had taken and held it out to him. His blue eyes lit up in the way they do when he's fascinated by something. He took the pebble in between his index finger and thumb and began to inspect it closely.

"What a pretty stone. I like how the marbling seems to... wait, the marbling is swirling within it!" He looked even more fascinated now.

"It is pretty. But it's not just that. When I first laid eyes on it, somehow I knew it was mine. It's like it called to me."

"Curious," Velan muttered, almost to himself.

"When I went to leave her chambers, she was standing there in the doorway. Just as she started chastising me I just-... I don't know. I was there before her one moment and the next I was up in the attic near my bedroll."

Velan looked up at me. "Really?"

I nodded. He seemed to study me for a long moment.

"What did it feel like, being teleported?"

"Is that what it was?"

"Most likely."

I pondered that for a moment. "Well it wasn't her that did it. I could hear her shouting from the attic, she was just as surprised as I was."

"Describe everything about the moment it happened, everything you can remember."

It suddenly occurred to me that the event was difficult to recall. It was like a dream you would struggle to remember after you've been awake for a while. I described all I could- how I closed my eyes and tensed up. How I wanted nothing more than to be away from my matron. How I had felt something like a hot breeze when it happened.

"Look at me, this is important: in that moment when you were tensed up, what exactly were you thinking about? Any images, sounds, smells, or the like?"

I rested my face on my hand and wracked my mind. "The last thing I remember before it happened was picturing the attic and my bedroll."

"And that's where you ended up, right?"

I felt so stupid. It was like the pieces of the truth were coming together but I couldn't tell what it was yet.

"Definitely teleportation of some kind, but from what I understand that's not what a teleportation spell feels like to the subject of the spell." Velan was rubbing his chin now, his face twisted into a look of great mental effort. Then he looked me in the eyes again. "I've never asked because I've tried not to be rude, but this question is quite relevant now. Do you know what kind of elf you are?"

The question caught me off guard. I had told him before that I was an orphan, and that I had no memory of my parents. It wasn't that I thought the question wasn't natural to ask an orphan friend, I just didn't know what it had to do with how I got to the attic.

"Best I can tell, I'm a wood elf."

"You may be more than that."

I froze, unsure of what to think of his statement.

"There are several different ways magic can manifest from a person. I, for example, do not possess magic innately and must study the theory of the Threads in order to manipulate them. If I knew a spell that teleported me, I'd have to utter an incantation and make gestures with my hands in order to bring about the magical effect. Creatures with magic in their blood often don't need such things to make magic manifest."

He looked at me pointedly.

"Are you saying... I'm... magical?"

He nodded slowly.

"It certainly seems that way. The stone sure didn't cause it." He tossed the pebble back to me and I caught it. "I just finished studying its aura. The magic it possesses is still latent and unused."

I held the pebble in my hands and looked down at it for several moments, trying desperately to accept the possibility that what he was saying was true. I trusted Velan implicitly, so I didn't doubt his sincerity or accuracy. Yet I still found it difficult to accept.

"If that's true, what does that make me?"

"It would make you a mage, like me. Although to what degree, we can't yet know."

A mage. I'm a mage. Like Velan.

I looked up and into his deep blue eyes. As the concept began to take hold in my mind, for the first time I saw in Velan a peer. Until now, I had viewed him with a sense of inferiority- as if he was stooping low to associate with me. He was a special person, and I was not. At least, not until today. Today, he and I had something special in common.

Velan and I did not speak any more about the subject for the rest of our time. He read his books, and I spent the time pondering the infinite possibilities of what I had just learned. By the time the sun was setting, I had concocted dozens of fictitious scenarios of my future as a person with innate magical ability. It was as exciting as it was scary. As the sun began to touch the horizon my thoughts became more grounded in reality- I still had a very angry matron to return home to. Velan and I bid each other goodbye and I proceeded back along the rooftops toward the brothel. I went much slower this time, stealing every moment of freedom I could before eventually returning through the attic window.

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Badger sat up straight and stretched her arms and back. When her eyes fell again on Naunet, she saw that her round face was bent into a frown.

"Did you ever learn who your parents were?"

The question was a natural one. That wasn't what caught Badger by surprise. It was Naunet's tone. She asked gently, as carefully as one would carry a fragile vase. She also used the word were.

"I can bear it no longer," Naunet squeaked with a trembling voice. Two thin streams of black tears crept from her eyes and began to run down her cheeks.

Badger stared at the mermaid, her mouth agape. She waited wordlessly for Naunet to explain. Instead of speaking, between bitter sobs Naunet began to sing.

"Beware, beware oh daughter of the Fae,

the scion of summers dry,

her cradle burned, like her ship ablaze

as the crew around her died

Aware, aware, the mother of the babe

her family's end neigh

gave her child unto a fish-tailed maid

under moon and sky

Mother who could ne'er be

cradled the child still

and took her down in waters free

safe in the ocean's chill

Not fair, not fair the law under the waves

where walking folk can't be

the 'maid brought forth the child who couldn't stay

onto a nearby beach

Take care, take care oh orphan of the sea

I heard the mermaid cry

a song and stone was given somberly

before she said goodbye"

The mermaid's song came unraveled as she began to weep bitterly. "It's been so long, I thought I'd never see you again."

Badger recognized the melody. It was the one she held within her, but never knew from where she had heard it.

There was a splash as the rowboat rocked from the sudden movement of the elven woman within it. Badger leaned over the side of the rowboat and embraced Naunet tightly. The mermaid's song had awoken something within Badger as distant vague memories began to surface. She was the child. She could recall her mother's face. Her father's face. The panicked rush of the ship's crew who desperately tried to put out fires which surrounded her. Her mother's arms as they gave her to Naunet.

"You saved me."

Badger buried her face into Naunet's embrace. Together, they wept.