Evelyn stared back toward the distant coast, trying to make sense of it from the vantage of a toddler's body.
Should she feel anger? Sorrow? She did not know. She did not care.
What mattered now was what she would do.
Magic existed in this world, she knew that much. She had seen it. The queen had lifted her with nothing but a gesture, air itself bending to her will, and then burned her neck with it. Evelyn had observed it, catalogued it, memorized it. She could see the energy. She could feel it.
She touched her charred neck with tiny hands, tracing the memory of heat and resistance, but the force was gone now. Only the scar remained.
Drifting along the waves, she contemplated.
A new world. A new life. I… finally escaped.
The raft wobbled beneath her.
Something massive moved beneath the water.
Her mind instantly raced through possibilities. Should she panic? React? Counter? But before she could act, the motion steadied. The water lifted her gently. A whale-like creature emerged, massive and graceful, its great body cradling the raft.
"Whooooooooh ooooooooooh," it wailed, a sound foreign and strange, yet resonant in a way that touched something primal in her mind.
The whale didn't submerge. It remained, stabilizing the raft. Evelyn observed, storing every data point. Its behavior suggested intent. Benevolence. Curiosity. Assistance.
She let it be. She had learned that animal minds, even vast and alien, were far simpler than human minds. She deduced: she was safe.
As they moved, more creatures appeared — marine life, birds, and beings both familiar and utterly alien — all producing gentle, patterned sounds. They accompanied her without fear, as if acknowledging her presence.
Evelyn wondered at their friendliness.
But then she remembered… it had been similar on Earth after I…
Her thought was interrupted by land ahead: an island, its shores drawing her and the creatures like magnets.
From the distance, a figure appeared. Evelyn's mind catalogued shape, posture, movement, and proximity. Something had happened here.
As the raft neared the shore, her suspicions were confirmed.