The universe operates in the constant shift and correction of a very precarious balance, infinite shades of grey between Black and White. Good and Evil. Heaven and Hell. Life and Death.

In a little cottage on the Eastern shores, a perfect tableau depicting said balance had just been painted by the hands of a skillful killer. A dark-haired woman lay stone dead on the floor of her kitchen, glassy eyes reflecting only the flicker of the nearby hearth, no longer bearing terror, sorrow, joy or laughter. She was still and she was silent, her skin was pale and cold. Her infant child, three and thirty days from the womb, raged and wailed in the nearby cradle, feverish and pink and damp from the heat of her efforts to be heard.

Every time the young widower clutched the babe to his chest, he held the balance near his heart. The budding life of the adored child, her fat cheeks, her sweet breath. Her eyes so like his. The rest of her was a tiny impression of his beautiful wife, taken without apparent reason in her own home. He found joy in his arms though it always mingled with the terrible pain in his heart. It numbed him so.

The world traveled on its wide arc around the sun almost twice before Riley MacNamara swaggered his way up to the front door of the little cottage, rapping on it with a fair amount of force. He was a big one, and he sounded that way. Heavy steps, heavy voice, heavy hands. The door opened, and the sight before him was something of a shock.

Liam MacQuillan had never looked so terrible, not in the twenty years he had known the man. He was haggard and hollow, a shell of the man who had helped him climb to his current position of notoriety and wealth. It did not take long for the captain of the Asteria to learn the full story from his best friend.

"I see only one course ahead. You get out of this house and you come back home. She's dead, Liam. I can't think of a single goddamned reason for you to stay here."

"I cannot leave her. I will not."

A long beat as Riley considered the toddler playing at their feet. Pretty, like her mother, but with that same razor sharp look her father had possessed before the hollowing. It was bad luck to have a woman on a ship, even a tiny one. He turned earnest brown eyes back to his friend, studying the lines on his face. Liam looked so old, so weary. He knew the man would die soon, if left there. Better to brave the bad luck than leave a man behind.

"Then you both shall come to sea."

And that was how it came to be that the only child of Liam and Idoya MacQuillan became the very first woman to live on the Asteria, the only mother she would ever know.

It was not uncommon, in some of the chaos that came as large shipments were being loaded and unloaded, for a ship to pick up a passenger or two. What was uncommon about this passenger was that he had no real intention to go to sea. All the same, Maia found the timid youth in the belly of the ship, when she had wandered down into the hold quite without supervision. He was a boy of perhaps thirteen years, though she did not know that at the time, and he was huddled in one of her own favorite hiding spots.

He smelled of sandalwood and spices, of fruit and summer days. His voice, though she barely understood a word he said, sounded like music. They did exchange names, and his was Lucien. Maia was careful with that name, speaking it slowly. It is safe to say that the little girl loved him almost instantaneously, with the all proper zeal and devotion of a child. It was Norton who eventually found her in the belly of the ship, laughing with the gypsy boy as he held her in his lap.

The minute he tried to separate them, she began to cry. The gypsy boy was smart, and held fast to four year-old girl who in turn clung to him. Naturally, the crew feared nothing more than bringing harm to the child of Liam MacQuillan, if for no other reason than the regard the captain held for the little lady. Not even that captain seemed to be able to convince the little girl to release her grip on the boy. He tried a les tactful approach.

?Boy. Unhand that child or I will put a bullet to you.?

?He don?t speak a lick of English, Cap?n, either that or he?s real smart at playing stupid.?

The captain pulled his blunderbuss and the boy understood that well enough. Lucien raised both of his arms, his own eyes welling up with fear. He felt like the big bad wolf when his adopted daughter wailed as he reached down and pulled her away from her new playmate. Maia gave in, wrapped her arms around Riley?s neck, and buried her face there, sobbing. Through the incoherent sounds, he could make out one sound.

?Please Riley. Please let him stay with me??

The captain looked a long while at the dark-eyed boy huddled on the floor at his feet. He didn?t belong on the ship.

Then again, neither did the dark-haired girl in his arms.

?Norton. Show him around. Find a way to communicate with him, and keep an eye on him.?

?Cap?n, we already have a cabin boy.?

?Then make him another, or take him to the galley and teach him to cook. Find something, and get him to do it.? MacNamara turned his eyes down to the lad again, addressing him with authority. ?You earn your keep here.?

With that, he turned, carrying the weeping little girl back up to his cabin that she might calm down. Riley heaved a long-suffering sigh and chided himself as he made his way to his quarters.

MacNamara, you are going soft.

She had long admired him in fleeting moments, in stolen glances. Christopher Ryan was a sailor through and through. He was strong and lean, with dark skin and golden hair. His colors were all the more beautiful for having been washed in the sun. Ryan reminded her of the sun, of the Apollo of myths.

He had such a boyish grin.

Maia kept her head down, worked hard. She was friendly with the crew but never overly so. She never went carousing when they made landfall, but rather, she studied, always on that quest to make a name for herself. Ryan was a terrible influence.

The tomatoes were always so beautiful in Almeria, and Maia loved to watch the dark haired children running through the streets. Sometimes, she wondered if they could be her cousins. Ryan found her there at the market on their first day of leave, buying some fruit for herself. The tall young man wielded that boyish grin with all the skill he could muster.

?Come, d?Thalia, just this once. It shan?t be the death of you to have a pint with us.?

His charm worked, and despite her best efforts to ignore it, Maia could not deny how she thought of him. Not when she looked at him, and certainly not when he asked her to come away. In a flurry of youth, passion, and the sweet impetuousness of a dying summer, their lives entwined wildly for the two landlocked weeks that followed. They explored the rugged coastline. They slept together day and night, beneath the stars, in haystacks, in the occasional bed. They laughed hard, and long, and often. She could not remember a time in her sixteen years when she had so much fun.

Ryan was a dreamer, and a storyteller, like so many who answered the call of the sea. As they held each other one rainy summer night, listening to each drop drumming against the roof over their head, he dreamed a dream for them. It was a ship without politic, one that they could sail together, one where they be so free and open as they had been for days. Their last night in port together, he carefully put needle and ink to one of his very favorite parts of her, that sleek place where a woman?s leg and side connect, just below her hipbone. The indelible mark he left upon her was his rendering of that ship of dreams.

Ryan was not with the crew for much longer. Smuggling had never held much appeal, and when he found an honest job, he took it, despite that she could not follow. Maia was envious and she was sad for his leaving, though what good did it do her to have a lover aboard if she could never touch him? His last night on the ship, in a darkened galley, they stole a kiss goodbye. It left an imprint on her no less real than the ink she wore forever after.

Mister Selkirk never did report back to the Mad Mary, and it left Captain Lewis in a tight spot. They had ?acquired? a hold full of perishables, due to move elsewhere, and not too many of his sailors had a personality fit for command. The ones that did lacked the education to navigate properly, and were likely to make them late, make them lost, or run them aground.

It would have to be her. The crew wouldn?t likely take to it well; a woman (and a young one at that) was a strange thing to put in charge of a ship full of men. They might despise it, but they would likely be even more resentful when their cargo spoiled and nobody got paid, so Lewis made the call, and he would leave her, for the most part, to hold her own.

It did not escape his attention that occasionally, she would end her watch in a foul temper with bloodied knuckles. In a way, though, it did tickle him. The dissenter on whom she had bloodied those knuckles, more often than not, wound up with a blackened eye or a fat lip. Within a few weeks, the dissent quieted. Despite her youth, her size, and her laughable sex, the acting first mate stood up against adversity, and even Lewis had to admit that she did a very fine job with his ship. Still, he wanted someone he could really trust as his second-in-command, and he would look for that someone in port.

They delivered their cargo to Bermuda, and the plan was to head back across the deep blue, apply for a letter of marque, and pillage the Spaniards for the crown. Or perhaps pillage the English for another crown- Lewis honestly did not give a fuck either way. The idea of working without the constant threat of arrest, then a long drop and a short stop was one with appeal. He had everything planned out.

Planning is priceless. Plans are useless.

Lewis had left the ship with her, and gone ashore to do what needed to be done. Most of the crew had returned, in expectation of departure, but the captain had not. It was at this time, as the sun dipped low in the west one summer day, that the smoke began billowing up from the village. The island was under attack.

From their place anchored in the harbor, Maia could see the pandemonium breaking out a few miles down shore. On the horizon, headed straight for them, the tell tale dots of ships. Maybe coming to help. Maybe coming to burn everything.

We are going to get sacked, or worse?

The same thought was running across the mind of the men on the ship, and she could see it in the restless way they were looking at her. It wasn?t right to leave the captain, but they could always circle around in a few days and pick him up. Better that than to wait around and see if they were getting attacked or arrested or both.

?All hands to deck! Man the capstan. Weight anchor. Cast off all lines! Now, now, bloody NOW!?

She ran and worked in spurts along side them on her way to the helm, barking commands up and down the ship all the while. Fear was a great motivator, and for once, she did not need to be the one inspiring it to get an inch of cooperation. They were underway, and the Mad Mary left Bermuda in a big hurry.

At the time, it seemed like the worst possible luck. They left without pursuit, which was certainly a blessing, but in her haste to put distance between herself and the battle happening at the island, Maia sailed them right into the nose of one of the strangest storms she had ever seen. Standing on the deck, trying to maintain order, she was soaked through by the wild rains and Maia found herself clinging to the wheel, so as not the be tossed as the ship bucked in the wild waves.

The clouds parted, and it was like coming to the eye of a hurricane. The skies above were perfect, though strangely bright. Despite that she was sopping wet, all of her hair began to stand on end. Maia felt a dread like she had not known since childhood. Her stomach turned. She looked up again, and the sky grew brighter, and brighter still.

This is the end.

For a moment, she felt everything.

Then, she felt nothing at all.


---


There is an abstract space in which the mind lives. It is aware of the passing of time, but can never be bothered with specific amounts. This was the first feeling Maia had as she regained her wits. It was later, and she was face down, on the deck of the ship.

There was sunlight at her back, and the sound of gentle water, gentle wind. She stood up, clothes still vaguely damp from the storm, and began to look around the ship. Maia found about half of the crew, splayed on the deck. Still living, but unconscious. She roused them.

The other half? gone.

Far towards the horizon she saw the murky ambiguous whisper of land. Just a dark mass. She had to wonder what mass it was. They snagged some of the wind, and though it was a great deal of work for the considerably smaller crew, they managed to keep the galleon running.

Closer grew the sight of land, and Maia was going through the charts and maps, trying to figure out where in the hell they were. It wasn?t an island. It was a bloody continent. She had no desire to be in Florida again. Coastline didn?t look like Florida, though. There were cliffs.

For days, the exhausted crew ran the Mad Mary along the coast, and Maia just prayed they would not hit rocks, or shallows, or an unfriendly navy. Or cannibals. Finally, a city, a harbor, a civilization came into view. They dropped anchor, and with her cutlass on her belt and more than a little bit of wariness, Maia had a few of the crew row her to shore.

?Welcome, m?lady!?

His hair was like silver cobwebs, coming from beneath his hat at odd angles. He held a ledger and he stood with a hunch. The man had strange fingers.

?She?s a beaut. Earth made??

?I pray your pardon??

?She looks Earth made. Flat sails, and ooooh, look at the gallery on her? Galleon, isn?t she? Haven?t seen the likes of her in a while! What?s her name??

?Sir. Where is this, exactly??

?Northport.?

?Sounds English.?

He smiled. ?Don?t hold that against us.?

?Not England??

?Not even close.?

"What bloody country are we in??

The look that crossed his face was one of deep sympathy and immediate understanding. The elder nodded, his lips drawn up in matter-of-fact line. He had seen this before, perhaps a hundred times. It never got any easier to explain.

?I see. You are one of those. M?lady?something has happened to you, to your ship.?

?What??

?You have come here from another world, likely through the Nexus.?

?What??

He was so patient, so strangely respectful. He duffed his cap to her then, and confused, Maia looked to the elder, only to notice that from his strange silvery hair protruded a lengthy, pointed set of ears.

?M?lady, let me be the first to say?Welcome to Rhy?Din.?