The plane’s Veil shimmered as Chaos winds blew against it. The barrier was much thicker than those of the civilised plane of Rumiga, or even its neighbour, Delovine, with good reason. This particular plane, named Kogasi by the few sapient inhabitants, was situated much deeper into the Chaos Sea than others of its kind.

The Veil shimmered with its usual vivid colours, flowing steadily while it kept most of the Primordial Chaos out, and the thick ambient Chaos so necessary for life, inside. A momentary glimmer, a spot of gold akin to that of the Radiant Sun, disrupted the pastel colours. It was gone the next moment, but in its place a golden bolt penetrated the Veil and careened into the plane.

The bolt flew in, bouncing against the waves of the Kogasi’s outer sea, until it plowed into a sandbar with a spray of saltwater and grit. Steam and motes of Primordial Chaos that steadily denatured into ambient Chaos rose from a golden bullet shell. A few minutes later, the shell dissipated and revealed an unconscious young girl with long golden hair and pale, alabaster skin.

Throughout the night, the waves lapped against the sandbar, the water just missing the girl’s boots. It was only when the Radiant Sun rose and its rays landed on her face did she start to stir. And a moment later, she groaned.

The first thing Yuriko Mishala Davar thought of when she woke up was that someone please stop rocking her bed. She felt nauseated and was about to throw up, but the strange sound she kept hearing was helpful, so keep that up. Why was her bed so gritty? And damp.

And why was her body aching as if she pushed her workout beyond endurance?

She bolted upright, eyes opening wide only to squint with the glare of the morning sun.

“Huh?’

Memories flooded in a second later and she could barely stop herself from jumping to her feet. Where was she and why was there so much water around her? Calm down, calm…

Where was the Seeker? What did Damien do? Last thing she remembered was when she shaped her Anima into a shell to protect herself from the Primordial Chaos…

Oh, Ancestors!

How? How did she survive that? Everything she learned in school told her that no one under Knight level could walk into the Primordial Chaos Sea. But here she was, alive and…well?

A sudden spasm on her leg nearly had her face eating sand. Shaking her head, Yuriko looked around her. She was on a sandbar? Yes, barely a couple of inches above the sea level, and with the waves lapping just a couple of inches from her. The land was only a few paces wide, and just a bit longer than that. The morning sun glinted off the blue waters, and the scent of brine filled her nose. It wasn’t something she’d ever experienced before, though Natural Science class had touched upon the varied types of environment that could be found in Rumiga.

A sea of water could be found south of the Imperial Territories, Yuriko recalled. Near the City-State of Uaran. As for her, Yuriko had only been near the Caradec River and its tributaries. She’d splashed on the shallow streams when she was younger and played in the ponds, but she barely knew how to swim…

Would she starve to death here, in a sandbar that could disappear under the waves at any moment? She recalled that seas had something called tides, too, and that they rose and fell.

Why wasn’t Damien talking to her now? And, oh Chaos, where was Fri’Avgi? She hurriedly envisioned her Facet and heaved a sigh of relief when she saw the artefact’s pattern lit up in the middle of the sunburst.

“Damien?”

Only silence answered her.

Fighting down tears, Yuriko channelled Animus into her eyes and scanned her surroundings. There! About a longstride to the west was land.

A longstride of open water.

She swept her gaze to the sides, desperate. If she had no choice she would have to take that chance. When she looked at the water, her gaze was just powerful enough to see the sandy bottom several paces down. The sunlight mottled the depths, and she thought she saw small colourful fish, corals, and seaweed. But from how the light rippled, the current was strong.

She saw another sandbar maybe a dozen paces northwest from where she was. She thought she saw another one further in.

Sighing with some relief, she let Enhanced Sight fade and took a closer look at her situation. She had a survival knife on her hip satchel, which contained about five ration bars. She had her backpack which had a couple changes of clothes, a small pot, a bowl, and a spoon and fork. She had her melter canteen, designed to turn snow into water, but that was patently useless right now. She should have brought her condenser canteen, but that wasn’t something she needed during the middle of the Season of Water.

Speaking of…what day was it? Was it still the Season of Water? The balmy atmosphere made that unlikely, but then again, she probably wasn’t in Rumiga anymore.

Oh, and her side-blade was gone. Her Plasma Caster and Lancet were still with her, thankfully, along with a couple of cartridges each. Depleted cartridges.

Focus, focus! She was still in the middle of the sea, and she needed to get to land. She got to her feet and measured the distance between the edge of her sandbar and the one that was closer to shore. She could think about what happened and what it meant after she wasn’t in danger of drowning.

Stepping close to the edge of the sand, she stretched her legs and body. Ten paces was an easy jump. Yeah. She just had to use Boost.

Whoosh.

The sound of the waves was quite soothing, actually. Yuriko took a deep breath, stepped back to build up speed, channelled Boost and dashed.

The sand near the edge, at her jump-off point, collapsed when her foot stomped down on it. It didn’t arrest her leap, but it did drain away her momentum. She barely had the chance to scream before she splashed down into the water, a few paces away from the bar.

The cold water went over her head and she fought the instinct to scream. Bubbles bursting from her nose and mouth told her she failed even as the water stung at her eyes. Her boots were heavy in her feet, her jacket and backpack dragged her down, even as the Plasma Caster interfered with her movements. She kicked and flailed, managing to surface.

“Gah!”

She blew water out of her mouth and took in a gasp of air. Half remembered memories of swimming in a pond told her that she should keep her hands under the water instead of waving them above.

The sandbar was just a few paces away. She kicked and flailed towards it, even as the waves pushed her elsewhere. Desperate kicks, desperate gasps of air. An eternity of flailing.

Gritty sand underneath her fingernails.

She grabbed it, pulling herself out of the water. She’d lost control of her Animus the moment she started panicking underwater. She collapsed on the sand, coughing out water. She couldn’t tell how much of the wetness on her face was the seawater or her tears. She smashed her fist on the sand in frustration, creating a small eruption of sand.

“Urg!”

Bile rose up her throat and she dry heaved onto the sand. If she had anything in her belly, she would have thrown it up, but since there was none, she was spared the indignity.

She sobbed quietly in her arms, holding back cries of pain and frustration. Memories surfaced, playing cruelly across her sight. If only…

If only she didn’t listen to Senior Kale and pick Fort Aegermonth for her internship.

If only she didn’t listen to Gwendith’s griping about kitchen duty then the three of them would have remained safe.

A voice in her mind, not Damien’s or Fri’Avgi’s, said that she wouldn’t have tolerated kitchen duty either. And Kale only gave her options. He didn’t push for her to come north.

The Seeker would have eventually made her way south to the city and Yuriko would have been forced to confront her. Whether that would have been in the tunnels, or on campus, or maybe on a field exercise, Yuriko didn’t know. Who really knew of the workings of the Threads of Fate?

Either way, there was no use lamenting her past actions. She couldn’t change it. She could only do her best now.

With that sobering thought, she struggled to her feet, hiccuping every now and then. She was wasting moisture. The water around her was too salty to be good to drink. She scrubbed at her face, wincing at the gritty sand that clung to her cheeks. Her forceweave jacket and pants shed the water easily, but her camisole and panties were made of cotton. Feeling the ick, she glared out at the sea, looking for more sandbars or shallow areas she could use to get to shore.

The Radiant Sun had climbed higher up to the sky. The wind blew the droplets of water off her skin. For a moment, she felt an odd pressure against her Anima, but in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

There. Twenty-five paces or so away.

It was a tiny sandbar, barely wider than she was tall. She could see a trail of sandbars that led all the way to a shore. A few were more than a hundred paces from the next one though. That distance was probably too far for her to jump.

“You can do this!” she muttered to herself. ‘You can do it!’

She took another running leap, this time making sure that she jumped several inches before the sand edge. She landed easily on the next sandbar, knees bent to absorb her momentum. She reoriented herself, accelerated for a couple of steps and launched herself in the air. Three jumps later and she was at the gap.

The water was crystalline clear. Except for that shadow over there. Yeah. Swimming around.

Yuriko stared at it for several minutes until it disappeared in the distance. The waves distorted the light enough that she wasn’t sure what in Chaos that was, but it looked like it was bigger than she was. No way was she going into the water now. Brrr!

Well, now that she was here, she could actually see a better trail of sandbars a few islets back. If she jumped southwards a sandbar back, she could access another jump-off point that was roughly forty paces away from each other. That was still well within her reach.

Well, heading back.

By the time she was a hundred paces from the shore, the sun had risen halfway to its zenith and she felt comfortably dry. Well, she was sweating a bit, but the warmth was such a welcome relief from the cold that she turned her face to the celestial body and just basked in its rays. Just for a few minutes.

When she came to, she’d spent an hour just standing there and she was feeling a bit thirsty.

Grrrrgl!

And hungry.

“Let’s get to shore first,” she muttered.

This close, she could see a stretch of light brown sand and a tree line that stretched as far as she could see. Her melter canteen was full, but who knew where or when she’d find fresh water. She took a single sip, barely enough to wet her lips before she returned it to her hip satchel.

“Burning Moon!”

Her ration bars! She dug into her satchel and found the bars somewhat damp but none the worse for wear.

“Well, it would take several minutes of boiling in water before it even lost cohesion.” A little dip in seawater shouldn’t hurt it. Maybe it would add to the flavour too.

There were no longer any sandbars between her and the shore, but she could see that the bottom wasn’t that deep anymore. Still, she backed up and ran, pushing herself as much as she could in the three steps it took to cross the sandbar. With a grunt, she launched herself across the waves, flying roughly fifty paces before she bounced across the surface for another ten paces.

Then she was in the drink, kicking furiously while keeping her head above. The waves pushed her along. It was still too deep for her feet to reach all the way down, but if she sank under, she would probably panic. So, dog paddle!

One moment she was flailing in the water, the next, her boots touched the sand underneath. She staggered to her feet, dripping water all over, and she was finally on dry land.

Whoosh! Shhssssh…

The sound of the waves drowned out everything else. There were a few trees nearby, tall trunks with the leaves high above. Palm trees, she thought. The tree line was about fifty paces away, on a rise that was at least two paces high. The reddish-brown of the dirt contrasted sharply against the white and light brown sand.

Yuriko staggered up to a palm tree and sat with her back resting on it. Her heart was still racing from her frightening swim, but now that she wasn’t in danger of being stranded on a bit of land that was barely big enough for her to lie down, she could finally take the time to sort things out in her mind.

Later though. For now, she listened to the sound of the waves crashing against the sand and let herself… breathe. A dull ache inside her clamoured for her attention, but it could wait. It didn’t look like she was leaving anytime soon anyway.