Chapter 3 - Down the Rabbit Hole
Pain, was the first thing Leina noticed. The second thing she noticed, was heat. The fact that she was feeling anything at all was a very good sign. It meant that she was alive, which was something at least. The pain was explicable. The heat, less so. So, she opened her eyes. And promptly panicked. Her entire field of view was filled with flames. She tried to backpedal and succeeded only with colliding with some object behind her. Now that she had retreated some distance from the fire and the after image of the flames began to fade from her retinas, she managed to take stock of where she had ended up.
The fire was in fact fairly small, nothing like the raging inferno she had initially thought it to be. Inspecting herself, she seemed to be in pretty good condition. She did not seem to have any open wounds or anything broken. Considering what had transpired in the Pyramid, Leina considered herself lucky. She was wearing her armor, her shield was still strapped to her arm, and her sword...wait, she clutched her side, where she normally kept it, where was her sword?
"Missing something?" She looked up, a man was standing on the other side of the fire, leaning her sword.
"You'll forgive me if I found it prudent to disarm you as I know neither your identity nor your intentions."
The man was wearing some kind of mirrored glasses that ominously reflected the flickering firelight. He wore a sleeveless duster that had traces of a reddish dust, not typical of this climate. He was tall and heavily muscled yet his face betrayed his youth.
"Who are you? Where am I?" Leina asked, confused by her surroundings.
"I'll answer the former after you answer the latter." Said the man
"What?" said Leina, still confused.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"How should I know? You brought me here."
"Not exactly. I found you floating down this river. Not one to leave someone to freeze to death, and in need of information, I retrieved you and built this fire. I'm hesitant to admit this, but I have absolutely no idea where I am. Suffice to say, it was a result of some very strange circumstances. Therefore even the most broad information you can give me about our location would be extremely helpful."
While he was not dressed in any standard of elegance, the young man spoke with elegance Leina had never seen outside of nobility. His story, while vague, was odd. He seemed to be a stranger in a strange land. Not the first she had encountered.
"This land is known as Cathay. Far to the east lies Hinomoto. I was heading to the capital of Gainos before well…"
She just then thought back to the series of events that had led to her floating down a river for the second time in as many days. Her journey was not going exactly as planned to say the least.
"Well then, my name is Markus, Markus Friedrich."
"Leina Vance. Thank you for saving me."
"Think nothing of it."
The Courier was confused as all hell. While "Cathay" sounded familiar, he knew that there was no old world state by that name. Hinomoto sounded Japanese. Yet, it did not look or feel as the far east should. Nor was the woman he had fished out of the river asian. Furthermore, Vault-tec did not operate in the far east and China lacked the technology needed to rejuvenate the land like this. The Lone Courier was beginning to doubt the accuracy of this woman's information. He could tell that she was not lying, he could read people like that, but that did not dismiss the possibility that she believed what she was saying, but what she believed was simply incorrect. Insanity was an entirely possible explanation.
She seemed harmless enough, so he tossed her the sword. Not that it would give her any real advantage if she attacked him, but rather as a gesture of goodwill. She caught it with enough ease to suggest she was practiced at handling it. That brought up a host of questions.
"Why are you wearing...that?"
"It was my mother's. Besides, I need something to protect me."
Evidently she was totally oblivious that what she wore covered maybe a quarter of her body and left virtually nothing to the imagination.
"And why a sword?"
"It was also my mother's. Besides, maces and axes are too cumbersome."
Well, insane it was. She seemed to totally miss the point of all of his questions. It wasn't that she was stupid, he speech was too refined for that, but she simply did not comprehend what he was asking. The Courier gave up on that line of questioning.
Insane was perfectly acceptable for him. He had spent large amounts of time among people with varying degrees of sanity. As long as she could help him get to a settlement of group of more sane people, she would be good enough. Even if she wasn't insane, and this was a place where everyone had been reduced to using medieval era weaponry like the Legion, he needed confirmation of that.
However, before he could ask the question, Leina had run to the water's edge. He followed suit. A younger girl appeared to be floating down the river, this one more ridiculously dressed than the last. Markus stopped next to Leina.
"Nanael!" she said with concern. Markus presumed it was the other girl's name.
"I'll get her," he said resignedly. Leina looked like she was going to protest, but he went ahead before she could.
The most striking feature about Nanael, as she was apparently called, was her blue hair. That was strange by itself. Combined with her strange apparel, it made everything that had happened since the transportalponder incident an enigma. Once the Courier reached her, he stopped, preparing to lift her more ceremoniously than he had Leina, purely for the sake of friendly relations. As he moved to do so, his world shattered. She had wings.
AN: Strangely, the Continent Queen's Blade takes place on has no canon name. Since it looks similar to China I used an old name for China for the purposes of this story.
