Kaǎrie swam in a pristine lake. Normally, this would put his mind at ease.

In any other situation, the lake would have been the perfect sort for camping, like those lakes his Father and the Academy took him to stay overnight back home.

And this lake’s qualities were numerous. It was neither too big nor too small. The water was clean and it did not clog his budding gills with scum and trash.

The lake was abundant in fish, which Kaǎrie roasted and ate as he needed. They were delicious and adequately nutritious.

Kaǎrie enjoyed swimming, but his time in the lake on this day was too much even for him. He would tire out eventually in mind and body, and he could not sleep in the water. Even if his gills were fully grown, he would drown eventually.

He had seen a group of four-legged creatures come from behind nearby trees to attack a larger, flighty animal in a nearby clearing. He had never seen any creatures like those before, but he knew he would be an easy meal if they saw him.

There was no way a chubby Katlan boy could escape creatures like the ones he saw on his clumsy flippers and tail.

“Perhaps,” he thought, “I could levitate myself with my invisible hand.”

He had seen his Father do this in the presence of nobles looking for his services. Logically, he would hold himself up with his own psychic prowess.

His psychic prowess was not so resilient, so his attempt to levitate was ended with a splash. He landed back into the water with a small and short-lived headache.

In the water, he could speed himself up by reducing drag with his telekinesis and manipulating himself sparingly to make sharp turns. This never came up much, since the lake was somewhat deep and decently sized and he had not seen any especially large fish.

On land, he would be at risk. But in the water, he was uncatchable. So, he stayed in the safety of the lake.

Under normal circumstances, he would return home among boats and swimmers through the canals of his hometown. He would meet with Father and they would eat civilized food and discuss the wonders of the world from their pier…

If only such canals were in sight. There was his problem – he had no idea where he was. He found himself stranded with only his school uniform and a satchel full of school supplies on his person.

Now, Kaǎrie was no fool. He was swimming around the lake in the hope of finding salvation. And he was somewhat successful. The lake was surrounded by thick turquoise forest, so anything beyond the lake was mostly obscured.

No forest could obscure the mountains in the distance. Kaǎrie noted that one of them had a hole at its top. He saw nothing leave or enter it, but he noted its existence for later.

However, he found two things of interest: a small, barren islet and a stronger current that may have signaled the existence of a stream that flowed out from the lake. If it existed, he did not see it.

Eventually, the sun set and Kaǎrie had almost tired himself out in his searches.

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When he was tired, he swam quickly to the islet that he found. He sat his satchel next to him. Then, he tried to go to sleep.

And he found that he was critically uncomfortable.

So, Kaǎrie went to look for bedding. He propelled himself back into the water and picked up various reeds from the lakebed with the telekinetic finesse drilled into him with the fervor Katlan fathers reserved for the most ancient practical traditions.

“How are you going to work a project with imprecise prowess? You’ll spray everyone with the viscera of your failures, that is how,” Mother once scolded him; a crushed toy radio next to him leaked various substances onto the wooden floor of Mother's study. Later that week, Father took him to his workshop after school for "excellence camp" with his coworkers and their children.

And Father also taught him how to propel himself out of the water with his psychic prowess. It was to reach the tops of buildings that needed maintenance, which his father performed often.

It came in handy on the lake, however. While looking for reeds, he brushed against the nest of a very ferocious long creature that attempted to strike him. Kaǎrie was in the air by then to avoid the snake-strike. He guided himself back down safely to the lake’s surface before swimming back to his bed-hopeful.

And then he slept.

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The next day, he gathered rocks from the lakebed and sticks from the ground near the lake. He had to leave the water to get close enough to collect them from the ground with his telekinesis, but he had checked for any nearby sounds of potential danger for a good while beforehand.

He flopped back into the lake and collected reeds on his way back to his island base.

When he returned back to his islet base, he dried the reeds and wood by removing the water from them with his telekinesis. It took a while because he had to focus on one stick or reed at a time or risk water remaining in the material. His telekinesis was not infinite. It needed him to be close to the object he controlled, practically touching. So, it took a while to finish.

Eventually, he was able to construct his new firepit. And he had worked up an appetite.

He was able to quickly locate and capture some fish from the lake. The fish flailed around, but they could not jostle Kaǎrie’s hold.

Kaǎrie lit a fire in the firepit with a method he read in a book once. He rotated a stick with such high speeds that the friction of the stick against another piece of wood quickly heated the wood to combustion. He piled dried reeds on top of the new flame, Then, he impaled the now limp fish on one of the sticks and held them above the firepit.

These fish too were delicious.

He was tired from the exertion of the past days. So, he laid down on his reed bed under the afternoon sun. His mind was free to wander and it meandered quickly to an issue of great importance.

“Where am I?” Kaǎrie thought.

He knew, rationally, that he was no longer in Niani. He could not see the city’s spires in the distance, the ground was much too dry, and his current surroundings were inhabited by creatures that he had not seen before. He knew he took a risk with the fish. What if they were poisonous to him?

Of course, this still made no sense. How did he get here?

Was he kidnapped? That seemed unlikely. No one would dare kidnap a Katlan engineer’s son from the heart of Niani, under the Queen’s own aegis. Their ship would never have left the port. If they decided to swim, the Queen’s forces would reach them first or they would drown. Swimming away from the Katla islands would take far too long, even for the best swimmer. And if they were so bold and competent that they could manage this, they would not let such costly treasure lounge around a strange lake alone.

Kaǎrie wondered if he was on one of the southern continents. He had heard that the southern lands were dotted with thousands of beautiful lakes. Could this be one of them? No, surely, they would be well-inhabited by some village or town. One of their residents would have seen him and he would have seen townly activities. The southern lands were no haven of barbarity, despite their pirate problems.

The last thing that Kaǎrie remembered before he woke up on the lake shore was swimming to the Academy when a current came from a building, somehow. Undoubtedly, his parents were already worried. He struggled to comprehend how he could end up in what was not even the same continent.

Kaǎrie rose up, as well as his flippers allowed him, preparing to get answers. Because, all the answers were outside the lake.

But, he suddenly realized his tiredness. It was night once again, so he made a resolution. Tomorrow, he would figure out how to return home.