A/N: My apologies, folks. I'm on vacation, so I wasn't able to update yesterday.

Chapter 10

Consciousness— blooming, tangible, painful consciousness— came to her in bits and pieces, like dust carried in on the fragrant breeze wafting through the high, glassless windows. It settled on her in waves— first, her arms, heavy and leaden. Second, her legs, sore and stiff. Third, her head, throbbing and pulsing, and then her chest, burning and sharp. Her fingers felt like ice. Her ribs felt like fire. The pain in her back felt like a hundred stinging bees and reminded her of that time, so long ago, when she'd played on the sandy shores of the California coast with her mother, their fun interrupted by the untimely arrival of a great and slimy jellyfish.

Through the blackness behind her eyelids, Bella saw red— the telltale herald of the blazing sun— and she kept her eyes clenched shut. Last time she'd opened them too quickly, and the light had pierced her like a laser. Last time, she'd been too hasty. Last time, she'd been blind.

Last time.

Her memory was like a sieve. Thought trickling away like water down a storm drain, Bella struggled to remember what she'd seen— what she'd heard— when she'd last been awake. She remembered her arm— how it had been wrapped, and had done her some injury when it had fallen, heavy and stiff, to her chest. She remembered the face of the grey-eyed man, babbling unintelligibly at her until her panic had risen and made her sick. She remembered the woman, though not well, and she thought she remembered crying.

And somewhere in her past— whether distant or close— she remembered drifting. She remembered floating. She remembered tumbling and spiralling and flipping through endless blackness, unable to find the shore, or the sand, or the beach…

And her mother… how had she heard her mother's voice?

The air around her felt foreign— damp and hot upon her face and arms. Bella gave an experimental wiggle of her toes, tenting the fabric at her feet as she tried to ascertain exactly where she was. She did not know, precisely, but she knew she was not where she ought to be. She knew very well where she should be— in a small rental apartment in Beijing, right next to the school at which she'd been hired to teach— and yet…

"Mia Damo?"

A different voice than the one she remembered— this one high and gentle— jolted Bella back to the present with all the grace and subtlety of a freight train. The voice confused her. Its cadence was unfamiliar and its owner, a mystery, and all at once, a barrage of questions struck her— Why could she hear the calling of gulls? Why was the air so hot and humid? And why, in all hell, was she in bed, when she knew she should be in a classroom, surrounded by a bunch of Chinese six-year-olds?

The sound of her own nervous breathing interrupted her as she lay, immobile, slowly coming back to herself. The bed, to which she'd paid no mind to until now, was soft, though the light, airy fabric covering her was unfamiliar and strange. She could feel it wrapped around her legs, no doubt tucked in beneath the mattress, and though no such thing bound her arms, Bella found them inordinately hard to move. She was sunk deeply into the cushions, cradled snugly on all sides, and the feeling threatened to lull her back to sleep. Warding off this threat, Bella squirmed, each movement bringing her closer to the surface. She fought, desperate and determined to find her way out of this haze, and there was a talking voice in her head. It was an incessant, desperate, and almost commanding voice that demanded that she wake, and rise, and figure out just what had happened to land her here, in bed, rather than out there,where she belonged.

Because, for the life of her, she could not remember.

She snapped her eyes open.

At once, her eyes began to water. The sting of sunlight was overwhelming and Bella, groaning, blinked her eyes shut almost as soon as the light accosted her. The red behind her eyes seemed to grow brighter and fiercer, and before long, the glow was almost as bad as the light itself. As soon as she moved, Bella felt the mattress dip and a hand on her cheek, and with a great, startled effort, she forced herself to look.

The room appeared in sharp relief, as if a cool, morning fog had been wiped from a window. She could see, bothersome though the fierce light was, the rafters on the ceiling, obscured only by the light, gauzy blue of a canopy hanging above her. Both sides were open, pulled back to let in the breeze, and Bella could see the mysterious mural on one side, the high windows on the other.

The room was still for a long moment before a flicker of movement caught her eye and she turned her head experimentally to the right, catching sight of a long, black braid and a pair of wide, grey eyes. She ignored the pull in her muscles— she had already known that they would not thank her after their disuse— and blinked up at the girl, who watched her with mingled concern and curiosity.

The child was small, but pretty, with a narrow face and a thin, shapely nose. Her face still held some of the roundness of youth but she was no toddling baby, and Bella placed her somewhere between childhood and adolescence. The girl looked young, as she was small and slight, though Bella held a sudden and silent suspicion that she was older than she looked. She was skinny and short, lacking any telltale shape of womanhood, and Bella could not help but notice the dancing merriment in her eyes that outshone even her worry. When her slender fingers came up to touch Bella's brow, as if checking for signs of fever, Bella felt her little hands trembling.

"You're cold," said Bella gently, and the child blinked confusedly at her.

"Ĉu io doloras?"

Bella stared.

"I, uh…" Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat, wincing at the dry, scratching pain. She was parched. The child, watching her expectantly, glanced nervously about the room before she settled on Bella's wrapped wrist, taking it gently in her hands.

"Doloro?" she asked, the upturn at the end of the word signalling a question. "Doloro?"

Bella's bandaged hand twitched, and the movement sent a shot of pain right through to her shoulder. Jerking it away from the little, curious fingers, Bella cradled it carefully to her chest, this time mindful of those bindings and the damage they might do. She held her breath as the pain subsided and the girl, looking satisfied and grim, gave a nod.

She hopped from the bed, lithe and quick as a bunny, and Bella watched her as she darted towards the far wall, parking herself at a long trestle table beneath the window. For the first time, Bella noticed a strange lineup of items laid out there, the sight of which made her stomach clench. Aloe plants, tall and spidery, reached up towards the ceiling. Vials of liquid— red and clear and amber and brown— rested on the window sill. Clay pots with rough-hewn lids lay in neat rows along the wall, and a selection of strange metal instruments— blades, rods, tubes, and tweezers— gleamed on a mat of strange-looking fabric that might have been leather. Baskets of bandages lined baseboards along the floor, and a basin, full to the brim with clear water, rested between the trestles.

What in the hell was this place?

The child, however, did not notice Bella's apprehension and turned her back on the bed, reaching out for a covered clay pot in the center of the lineup. Bella watched with mingled curiosity and nerves as she poured a measure of some mystery substance into a clay cup, adding a heaping spoonful of water from the basin. She stirred it vigorously with one of the thin, metal rods, and continued to add water until the small cup was full to the brim with a sunny-yellow elixir.

She turned to Bella with a hopeful smile.

"Kurkumo," said the child eagerly, and Bella bit her lip. "Trinki."

Bella, balking, turned her head sharply when the girl brought the cup to her lips, and the throb in her head felt like a gong struck with a hard, metal mallet. The child backtracked when she saw Bella's distress, but brought the cup hesitantly back to her mouth before Bella shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together. Bella, hazy though she felt, knew better than to drink a mystery concoction from a stranger— her Uncle Charlie, a policeman to the core, had drilled that into her before she could even walk.

"No," said Bella. "What is that?"

"Nur kurkumo," repeated the child. "Kurkumo…"

But when she tipped the cup again and the mixture touched her lips, Bella jerked her head away and scrambled, frightened, to the head of the bed. The child stared at her, hurt and confused, before she placed the cup on a small bedside table and stood awkwardly some three feet from the bed, shuffling her feet.

Bella's heart hammered in her throat.

The silence in the sudden stillness was deafening and Bella, fighting to keep her breath steady, waited until the sudden thrill of pain cleared from her head before she moved again. The child was staring at the floor when Bella swung herself up, and despite the frantic, almost pleading look on the girl's face, Bella forced her feet onto the floor.

She had to find her way out of here.

Her knees shook with bone-rattling tremors when she tried to lift herself up, her feeble, meager weight more than a match for her unused muscles. The feeling of tightness in her legs made her worry spike— she had no idea how long she must have been immobile for her body to grow so thin and her muscles so stiff— but the thought made her throat tighten, and she forced herself to stand with renewed vigor.

When the child saw, she froze, staring horror-struck as Bella tried to shuffle, awkward and hobbling, towards the window.

"Ne, Mia Damo… Benvolu!"

Bella, determined not to be touched, shrugged the girl away when she tugged anxiously on the strap of her dress. Bella heard the child sniffle as she scampered after her, her little hands fluttering around Bella as if to catch her if she fell, though what help this tiny slip of a girl would be Bella could not fathom. Her entire body— everything from her baby toes to the very last hair on her head— ignited in varying degrees of soreness when she forced first one foot, and then the other, towards the table by the window, stumbling and quivering the whole way.

She knew before she even made it the whole way there. She knew it when she saw the tips of trees— huge, foreign and swaying. She knew it when she heard the birds shouting their strange calls from those same treetops as they swooped, colourful and huge, through the air outside. She knew when she saw the yard— grassy, lush, and sprawling— and the red, stony wall that encased it. She knew when she saw the heads of strangers, nothing but pinpricks standing in throngs at the base of that same wall, and the riotous, raucous cheering that rose in waves when they caught her movement in the window. She knew when she smelled the air, so fresh and clean, and she knew when she saw nothing but the sprawling, wild grass and the dense, swaying jungle beyond the confines of that red, rock wall.

The child did not have time to catch her before she fell to the floor, landing hard on her backside.

This was not her home. This was not her land. This was not even the right foreign land— the one for which she had been preparing and planning for nigh on six months. These people were not her family. They did not speak her language. They did not understand her words, she did not know who they were, and she did not know what they wanted. She did not know how she had arrived here, or how long she had stayed, but when she felt the child's worried hands on her shoulders, trying to draw her out of her hunch, she jerked away and sat, crying and trembling, on the warm, wooden floor.

"Gvardio!" The girl's high, anxious voice squealed into the tense hush. "Gvardio!"

And at once, the door flew open, and Bella caught the briefest sight of a tall, armoured man, with a great, long sword at his waist.

The rushing in her ears drowned out the child's babble as Bella froze in fear, her heart hammering and her mind racing as she fought to make sense of what she was seeing. He loomed over her— tall, broad, and fierce— and when he spoke, he used the same, strange language as the child. He looked like something out of a fairy tale, or perhaps, a medieval nightmare: metal armour painted red and gold, a shield bearing an unfamiliar coat of arms, and his weapon— that long, sharp blade that swung with each loud step he took— drove her heart into her throat.

Her frightened cry made the man wheel around, and reflexively, as if sensing danger, he reached for the hilt of that great blade, his fist resting on the handle. Beyond reason and fearing for her life, Bella cried and scrambled desperately into the shadowy corner, her arms raised in terrible agony to shield her head. The man halted at once and the child, babbling desperately at him, sent him running back through the door with only a moment's hesitation. It was only when Bella saw his boots disappear and the door bang shut that she felt her last vestiges of control slipping, and the last bits of her sanity unravelled.

And she wept— great, heaving sobs— into the soft, brown skirt around her knees.

"Shh…"The girl hovered anxiously above her, but she kept her hands to herself. "Shh, Mia Damo, ĉio bonas. Ĉio bonas…"

The babble made Bella tremble and she fought, hard, to keep at least some of her dignity. The child plopped down on her knees before her, her lip between her teeth, and though she glanced nervously towards the door as Bella cried, it was only when it flew open again that she rose to her feet.

Bella, frightened and trembling at the thought of the returning soldier, did not look at this new face, but saw only a different pair of dirty boots peeking out from the cuffs of loose breeches. These breeches were made from brown cloth, not armoured steel, and they seemed to be made from a fabric similar to Bella's dress. These mystery feet rocked back and forth on their toes as their owner babbled with the girl and Bella, her lip pressed so hard between her teeth that she tasted blood, fought to control herself. She stared at those feet as if they might do her some further injury, and she dabbed anxiously at the wet tear stain on her rumpled skirt.

Bella only stopped her fussing when the newcomer stepped carefully forward, coming to rest not two feet away from her. Terrified at the thought of another sword— who in the hell even carried swords anymore?— she glanced up carefully, fully aware that her eyes would be red and puffy, and her lip, worn raw.

The boy— for it was only a boy— was alight with such mysterious and misplaced excitement that it took Bella a moment to place him. She stared at him, confused, yet with the distinct feeling of familiarity. She fought hard to sift through her panic to reach the realm of memory, where she was sure this figure was stored.

She saw long, gangling legs attached to a tall and skinny body. The calloused hands by his sides were tipped by long fingers and dirty, ragged fingernails. Hair as bright and golden as a honeybee's hive lay in thick curls about his head, and pale skin, tanned brown from the blistering sun, covered his face and chest. He had a handsome face— not quite a man's, but older and more shapely than a boy's— and on that face were eyes… eyes such as Bella had only ever seen once before.

They were eyes of bright, sapphire blue that plowed into her like a truck, the questioning worry etched there like it had been carved with a chisel. Those eyes stared worriedly at her as the mouth formed words, but Bella could not hear them. They stared at her when their owner reached down with tentative, outstretched fingers, and when he touched her, his hands were cool. The touch made her flinch— a violent, involuntary motion that drove away all rational thought, and all at once, to Bella's horror, the floor disappeared. Gone was the room with its high windows and blue walls. Gone was the floor beneath her, and the great, cushioned bed. Gone was the girl, and gone was the boy, and gone was her dress and his thick, muddy boots…

Her fists curled on the ground, and, like a memory come to life, she felt sand— rough, hot sand that snuck down her back to hide in her shirt, tangle in her hair, and fill her dry, parched mouth. Sun beat down on her back, blistering and hot, and she felt the seatbelt on her waist. She was falling… soaring, and screaming, and crying, and tumbling, headlong into a turbulent ocean…

The blaring sirens. The roaring engines. The screaming child— oh, how he had screamed— and the blood… so much blood, all over his hands. The world turned topsy-turvy in a halo of smoke, and the fire— that red, blazing, blistering inferno that roared just behind her— always too close. The bone-shattering impact. The water at her feet. And the pain— that aching, skull-crushing pain on the back of her head— before the blackness.

And those eyes— those sad and worried sapphire eyes— were the last thing she saw as her vision melted away, and she sank, petrified, onto the floor at his feet.

Translations:

Mia Damo?
My Lady

Ĉu io doloras?
Does anything hurt?

Doloro
Pain

Kurkumo
Turmeric

Trinki
Drink

Nur kurkumo
Only turmeric

Ne, Mia Damo… Benvolu!
No, My Lady… Please!

Gvardio!
Guard!

Ĉio bonas
All is well