A/N: Welcome to my 24th novel-length work of fanfiction. 2021 marks my 15th anniversary of fanfiction, which began with Gods of Dark and Light in the force dot net Jed Council forums. Review responses to chapter 1 and future chapters are now available in m QoaQ forums in the link on my profile page.

And with this chapter, those familiar with the TV show will know exactly where and when Taylor landed.

Thanks for joining me on yet another journey.

Chapter Two: The Old Man and the Sea

"Lo! Wreckage to starboard!"

Ser Barristan Selmy looked up from his book more for something to break the monotony than out of any real interest. This far into the Summer Sea, with the slavers of Slaver's Bay to the north and the pirates of the Basilisk Islands to the south, wreckage at sea was nothing unusual.

It was of note, though, for the possibilities of salvage. Captain Groleo might have received a handsome commission from the fat merchant in Pentos for this voyage, but he'd have mutiny on his hands if he didn't at least swing by the wreckage to check for possible salvage.

The Saduleon was a single-masted great cog-a lumbering leviathan of a ship that could have easily carried many hundreds of men in addition to its crew of forty men and boys. It had a smaller fore mast as well, but for some reason the crew insisted it didn't count. Barristan was sure it had to do with docking fees being higher for ships with more masts in the Free Cities.

Up on the aft castle, the captain himself stood near the helmsman, who had the ship's tiller firmly gripped in both hands. Groleo looked like the typical sailor-bedecked in gold earrings and baubles to pay for his funeral when the Stranger finally came for his withered old soul. He wore a tricorn hat of oiled leather and a leather bandoleer for his curved, wicked sword and throwing knives. He also had a Myrish lens that he lifted to his right eye to peer across the waves.

"Aye, I see it," the man called. "Helm, twelve degrees starboard! Brace the mainsail to be aback on my mark!"

More orders were echoed across the ship as Groleo's crew prepared for a brief break in their months-long journey. In the grudging mundanery of ship's life, the mere promise of something different elicited excitement from the crew. Barristan slipped his little book-a gift from a beloved but long-dead queen-into his leather jerkin and stood to see what the fuss was about.

As the ship heaved south a few degrees, the wind changed, slowing them down. Which meant Barristan had plenty of time to see what caught the crew's eyes. What he saw was a blob of yellow floating on the surface, likely a piece of tattered sail. Barristan had never seen a shade of any color quite so bright as the material he stared at now. The glare of it under the scoured sky from the previous night's blow left his eyes watering a little.

Closer, he saw a thin black line in the midst of the yellow. Closer yet, he realized the line was a body. Someone had draped themselves across the sail, likely in a last-ditch effort to stay afloat. On the castle, the captain called, "Heave too! Hookmen at the ready!"

Two of the crewmen rushed forward with long poles that had hooks on their ends. Each of the men draped ropes around their waists, while their fellow sailors tied the other ends off on the main mast. Thus secured, the two men leaned all the way over the side of the hull with the hooks at the ready.

The first man grabbed the bright yellow sail and brought it up with a grunt at its water-logged weight. The second had a harder time. Two others came to help him, and eventually they pulled the black-clad figure onto the deck of the ship.

"Heavy, that'n," the first hookman explained to his fellows.

The crew gathered around the figure, but made way for first Barristan, then the captain himself. The two men, veterans in their respective fields, shared a long look before staring again.

The figure was female, of this Barristan had no doubt. Though the black...uniform showed not a trace of skin, it hugged the wearer's body in an almost obscene fashion with thicker bulges almost like plates at various points about her body. Thus he saw the slight curve of feminine hips and the slight rise of a modest bosom.

The woman's head and face, though, were covered in a helm of a material he'd never seen-black and slick such that even the ocean water beaded off it oddly. Low about her hips he saw a wide belt of the same odd, slick fabric as her costume, with strangely shaped packets spaced about.

"The fuck is it?" one of the crew asked.

"Woman, is what," came the answer from another. "Too bad she's dead."

Barristan sighed tiredly. "With all of you staring at her bosom, I'm stunned you don't see it rise and fall." He pushed past a couple of the men and knelt down beside her. His hands were calloused from years of wielding a sword, but he felt the odd lining about her neck easily enough. It had almost the texture of the large palm fronds one could occasionally find in Dorne-oddly slick as if waxed, but without any wax to peel away. What he did find, though, was a little metal lever on the side of her neck, just under the edge of the helm.

He flicked it up, then fell back in surprise at the startling, bestial hiss that burst forth from around the woman's' neck. He began to wonder what horror he'd find within the helm. Could this creature be one of the Others? Some demon or witch from darkest Asshai?

From within the helm, he heard a faint sound. A moan. "Help me remove the helm," he said.

Groleo's second, a weathered seaman named Nargus, knelt down opposite him. Together the two men pulled the oddly shaped black helmet away. They had to turn and twist it, such was the tight fit of it, until at last they revealed the face within.

Pale skin, curly black hair. She looked young to Barristan's eye-a maid of or just past marriageable age. She had the beauty of youth, and likely would be a worthy addition to any man's household, but Barristan doubted any poems would be written about her. He'd seen the most lovely flowers of the Seven Kingdoms, and this girl was more Florent than Tyrell.

"She's ours, right capt'n?" one of the sailors asked. "Salvage, right?"

"If you serve who you claim, you'll stow such language," Barristan growled. "This child is no slave. You, boson, you look like a strong back. Carry her to my quarters. I can sleep on the deck if I must."

The captain's harsh look quelled any complaints from the men who might have thought Barristan was claiming the woman for his own. The boson's only complaint was a grunt as he lifted the girl. Only as he did so did Barristan realize the maid was far from a petite flower. She was slim, to be sure, but if the skin-tight cloth was any measure, the girl had meat on her bones and an unusual size about her.

He and the captain both led the boson below decks to the tiny cabin Mopatis had gifted him. The cabin held two bunks, so he needn't actually sleep above decks other than for the girl's modesty. He quickly used his striker to light the cabin's sole lantern. Shifting the bronze mirror within to better direct the candle light, he hung it by the head of the bed as the boson placed the girl on Barristan's bunk.

The boson was replaced a second later by Nargus. "Capt'n, look at this."

Barristan and the captain both turned as the second officer put down the large bundle of bright yellow fabric, held a flap up it up to the door, and then tried to drive his knife through it. He pulled the fabric against the point of his knife while still held against the door frame. The yellow fabric pulled, but would not tear or cut.

"Cloth that won't cut or tear," Barristan said. "Surely that's worth something."

Groleo looked down at the unconscious woman. "Aye, perhaps. But she'll have to be off the ship at Qarth. Mopatis isn't paying me that much. Still, I'll have Druff come check her out."

"Fair enough."

With that the captain left Barristan alone with the strangely dressed woman. He stared down at her helm he'd placed on the floor, so unlike anything he'd ever seen. He lifted it up and looked inside, startled and even impressed at the padding he found within. As he studied it, though, something impossible happened.

A small red light flashed at him. It startled him so badly he bobbled the helm and dropped it to the floorboards. The sound of it had the fortunate but unexpected result of waking the young maid. Her eyes popped open and she sat up with surprising speed and strength, which just made the impact of her head onto the bottom boards of the top bunk that much harder.

She fell back with a startled cry and a sharp word Barristan had never heard before, and clasped gloved hands over where she hit. Barristan waited for her to drop her hands and speak; when she did not he took it upon himself to do so for her. "Are you hurt, my lady? Do you require assistance?"

She lowered her hands from her face and looked up at him with demonic, pure black eyes. Barristan jumped to his feet and pulled his dagger with an exclamation of "By the Gods!" on his lips.

The demon girl didn't attack. She sat up more slowly and swung her legs over the edge of the cot while rubbing at the large, angry red splotch on her forehead where she hit herself. She stared up at him with those pure black eyes of hers. In all his life Barristan had never seen the like, but he'd read of something similar. From the far north was a legend of the Night Queen, a pale beauty with pure blue eyes who seduced a Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

"Are you an Other, then?" he demanded. "Declare yourself!"

When she opened her mouth to speak, however, only gibberish came out. He recognized the sounds as words, but no words he'd ever heard before.

The girl was not bleached like the White Walkers of myth. Rather, she had the chapped lips and ruddy coloring to her cheeks that spoke of many days at sea. Her hands shook as she removed her odd, perfectly formed gauntlets to reveal not bony, demonic claws, but normal looking hands. She reached across the small span of boarded floor for her helm and put the gloves within it before turning those demonic eyes back toward him.

She spoke again. Her words did not ring in his head or bring dread to his heart, as the Septons warned demons would. It just sounded to Barristan's ears like a foreign language. Not as harsh and brutish as Dothraki, but neither as refined and lyrical as Valyrian.

"I don't understand that tongue, demon," Barristan said. "Do you speak the Common Tongue?" He switched to his few words of High Valyrian, then a little of the Summer Tongue he picked up in his youth, before he took the White.

His words were to her as hers were to him; that is to say, neither understood the other.

The narrow door to the cabin opened and Druff, the ship's cook and barber, stepped into the room. Old, with a low-hanging pot of a belly and weathered lines in his face deep enough to hide half the scrolls of the Citadel, the man showed no more interest in work than he did in medicines. Even so, he carried with him his barber's kit in a leather satchel, and a bowl of the day's brown with a fish roll dipped in it.

The maid stared at him with startled fascination. No, Barristan corrected. She was staring at the bowl of food.

Druff, meanwhile, looked from Barristan to the demon maid, and screamed in an appallingly high-pitched wail. "Demon! It's a demon!" He dropped the bowl and turned to scramble out of the narrow hall.

Barristan stood to go after the man, only to freeze in place.

The bowl of food never hit the floor. It hung there in the air, as if held by invisible hands, until it floated gently across the cabin to the demon maid's waiting fingers. She sniffed at the bowl suspiciously, then lifted the roll of sticky Volantine rice, dried spinach leaves and cooked cod to her lips and took a bite.

The sound she made was somewhere between a groan and a growl as she quickly finished the rest of the roll. Her hands shook as she ate it, and when finished she all but shoveled the day's soup into her mouth. She ate as if she'd not had food for days, so eager to get the victuals in her belly she barely paused to chew.

She just finished when Captain Groleo returned with Nargus and two more sailors at his side. They came with knives and a crossbow in Nargus's hands. The demon maid dropped her now empty bowl and stood in alarm. Her hand quickly pulled something metallic from a cleverly designed holster connected to the belt at her waist.

"It's true," Groleo hissed. "A demon. Nargus!"

The first officer stepped forward into the room with his crossbow. Barristan called, "Wait!"

Before Nargus could fire, though, the demon herself struck. A length of blue fire, as cold as the Others' hearts, hissed into existence in her hands where before she held only a metallic cylinder. The blade was long enough to cover the space her arm could not, and slashed up clear through the crossbow so cleanly the weapon might as well have been made of butter. The arms snapped, sending the bolt flipping up into the air and the pieces of the now severed wooden arms slapping into Nargus's face. He dropped the ruined weapon in alarm.

"Should we charge 'er, cap'n?" one of the other sailors asked.

Barristan ignored the sailors, and instead studied the demon maid herself. The uncertainty, hunger and strain he saw in her when she woke was gone. Instead, she'd positioned herself in a clearly trained fighting stance, her dominant leg slightly forward. She wielded the demonic glowing blade in both hands with a sure grip. It was her face more than anything, though, that convinced Barristan. It had gone completely blank, all emotions lost. Black eyes stared at them with a keen, alien intelligence.

This girl was a fighter. That demon blade of hers was not for show, of that Barristan was sure.

"Captain," he said with forced calm. "That blade cut through the crossbow like butter. Now imagine what else it could cut through in close quarters. Look at her feet, man! She knows how to use her weapon. You can't win."

"The gods will strike us down for carrying a demon aboard!" Groleo said. "She has to be off the ship!"

"The demon girl will strike you down if you try," Barristan said. "Though in truth, I'm not sure if she is a demon. She ate the brown and day's fish roll with relish. Her language is foreign, but it's a language nonetheless. Is she so different from the Ibbenese or Summer Islanders? She's foreign, not demonic."

Groleo was many things, but a fool was not one of them. Though he wasn't a fighting man per se, one couldn't captain a ship in this world without having wielded a sword a time or two. At Barristan's direction the captain too noticed how the girl stood. In the Summer Seas, where the islander women sailed with their men and fought just as hard, the idea of a woman with a blade was not so foreign.

No, it was the blank look on her face and the relaxed, confident way she held her blue fire blade that made Groleo understand what Barristan knew from a glance-this girl, demon or not-was a fighter.

"No good will come of this," Groleo said. "Mark my words, ser. No good will come of this."

"That's for the gods to decide, not us mortal men," Barristan said, relaxing now that he knew the captain had made up his mind. "I'll keep her in the cabin until we reach Qarth. I'll protect your ship from her, Groleo. On my life I swear it."

"Fine," the captain said, grinding his black-stained teeth. "Come on, lads. We've got work to do."

One by one, due to the narrowness of the passage, then sailors turned and left the room. Nargus lingered only long enough to pick up the pieces of what Barristan knew was an expensive crossbow, before he too left the room. When they were alone, Barristan lifted both his hands in a gesture of peace and closed the narrow door.

The maid watched him intently, her demonic blade still lit. With a sigh, he watched as the carefully hidden tension revealed itself, only to leak away. She extinguished her blade and placed it back into its clever pouch, before she sank back down to the bunk. When she ran her hands over her face, she looked like any tired or stressed person might.

Barristan also sat down upon his travelling chest, facing her.

She ignored him and picked up the helm where she'd placed her intricately fashioned gauntlets. Removing the gauntlets, she reached inside the helm and touched something, only to frown and sigh with obvious disappointment. Placing the odd helm on her bunk, she looked around Barristan's small cabin with interest. Her eyes dwelled on the lantern, then Barristan's travel chest that now held the entirety of his life-comprised mainly of armor and clothes. His great sword leaned in the corner, held in place by the chest itself.

With exaggerated care, she placed her hand to the odd armor of her chest. "Taylor Hebert."

A name, perchance? The girl appeared to be alert, inquisitive and intelligent. And Barristan could not dismiss the odd, impossible clothing, or the bright yellow fabric that could not be cut.

Her eyes might be demonic, but her demeanor spoke of intelligence and patience. If a man had drawn a crossbow on Ser Barristan, he was not so sure such a man would live to tell the tale of it.

"Ser Barristan Selmy," he said, touching his own chest in turn.

The girl's smile completely changed her face. No longer were her features awkward or disproportioned. Instead, for all their dark color, her eyes seemed to come alight and her too-large mouth seemed perfectly formed for such a smile. In truth, she reminded him in that instant of dearest Elia Martell, bursting with life.

Taylor Hebert was not content with names, though. She pointed to the lantern and said a word. He repeated its proper name. To his surprise, she took it and removed the wax candle within, and spoke another word. "Candle," Barristan said.

She repeated his name, and then the word "lantern," and then "candle", all perfectly mimicking his own pronunciation. Each word he spoke, she repeated perfectly. After a few minutes of this, he began to point randomly to objects that she would name. She seemed pleased that he did so; that he understood her desire to learn the Common Tongue as quickly as humanly possible.

However, within an hour, he realized that she was learning the language far faster than was humanly possible. In fact, within an hour she spoke almost as clearly as if she were born in the Seven Kingdoms, using words they had not spoken and sentences a new speaker should not have been able to use.

The more she spoke, the more certain he was that Barristan had been made the fool. To the maid's credit, she sensed his growing anger and stopped her own speech to study him. "Have I offended?' she asked, almost as clear as if they met in Oldtown.

"There is no way you did not speak this tongue when we met," he said coldly.

"I didn't," she said. Occasionally she tripped over a word-not because she didn't know it, but because her tongue seemed ill-practiced for the word. "You taught me, just now."

"How? When have I spoken the word 'taught' to you, that you'd speak it so clearly now?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but fell silent for the obviousness of her lies. "I'm not lying, Ser Barristan," she said, sadly. "I'm just not sure how to explain it so you would understand."

"You seem to have a firm enough grasp on the Common Tongue," he said.

"The Common Tongue does not have the words I need," she said. She stood from her bed, and doing so reminded Barristan of how tall she was. Why, she overtopped him by a finger's breadth, and he was accorded a man of good height!

"What words could explain you talking in a language you claim not to know?"

"There is a word for it in my language. It...would translate in the Common Tongue as 'Far Thought? Feeling?' I'm not sure. It is a...a type of magic." She glanced at his face, as if judging his reaction. After doing so, she nodded and smiled weakly. "Yes, magic. That's as good a word as any."

She stepped to him, close enough to touch his chest. "Because you are kind, and wish me to learn, I use this magic to learn. I sense words from your mind that you might speak, and I understand them as you do. I speak seven languages already because of this magic. That's how I learned yours. If you were not here, teaching me, the magic would not work."

A younger Barristan would have reacted to the idea of something pulling words from his mind with horror. However, the years had made him cautious in his reactions, if nothing else.

Ser Barristan thought of the bowl she made float through the air. Of the sword of blue fire that cut through wood and steel without effort. Then he studied the maid's face, and the smidgen of worry that settled between dark, elegant brows. She worried he would not believe her. That he would decry her.

"Where are you from, child?"

The smidgen of worry turned into a frown. "I don't even know where I am, Ser Barristan," she said softly.

"You're in the Summer Sea, just west of Qarth," Barristan explained.

She stared at him for a long moment, and in her gaze he felt an odd tickle in the back of his mind, as if he'd forgotten something important. When she smiled, it was a sad expression. "I don't know any of those names. Do you have any...maps? Is that the word?"

"The captain would." Ser Barristan thought of his promise to the ship, but then easily rationalized a trip to the captain's quarters as keeping her contained. "Come."

Groleo was not in his quarters when they entered. The captain's quarters were twice the size of Barristan's. That meant that they could hold at best a sea chest, a standing desk and cubby holding rolled maps and charts apart from his bunk. Barristan searched the cramped handwritten labels until he pulled out the one he sought. He unrolled a copy of a Corlys map of the known world, of a make and quality that bespoke a pretty copper spent.

"Where are we now?" Taylor asked.

"Last I heard, we are here," Barristan said. He pointed to a spot on the ocean still west of the great city of Qarth.

Lady Taylor looked to where his finger pointed, then leaned over under the dim light of the lantern. She reached past his hand to touch the city of their destination. "Qarth?"

"Yes."

"Sound the letters?"

Ser Barristan did so. Just as she learned the spoken language with frightening speed, he watched as she used the cities on the map to place the common alphabet and written language. Finally, she stood and looked at him.

To his alarm, a tear trailed down her cheek. Even so, she smiled. It was a brittle, sad smile. "I'm a fool, Ser Barristan."

"How so, child?" Barristan asked.

Taylor shook her head. "I hoped that...that maybe, somehow, this was my land. I wasn't expecting to find people. I thought I was alone, and when you found me, I hoped. I don't understand how people came to be here. But I know this isn't my land."

"This land you hail from, it's not on this map?"

She shook her head. Another tear fell, but when she said "No" it could almost have been a laugh, as if it were a great joke the gods played on her alone.

"Do others from your land have eyes such as yours?"

"Eyes...oh. Oh! Now it makes sense." She shook her head. "I forgot, Ser Barristan. That my eyes look strange to you. But no, they don't. Before...I gained magic, my eyes were green-the same shade of my father's. But I…"

She glanced back down at the make. "My mind touched something greater than myself. Greater than any one land or people. It filled me with a terrible purpose and power, but changed me as well. My eyes turned black that day."

Barristan felt his heart almost go still. "You speak like a sorcerer who has done terrible magic."

"Terrible? No, not terrible. Beautiful. Full of wonder. I touched the power of life itself, Ser Barristan. I touched the Force that binds all living things together. You, me-the fish in the sea and the trees on the land; we're all connected by the Force of life. And I was gifted the power to wield it, and be one with it."

"For what purpose?"

"To save my people from death."

She spoke the words with the resolution of a vow before the gods. He could sense the determination about her. "Did you?"

"In my own way, I helped," she said. "But that was a long time ago, and far, far away. Ser Barristan, I'm alone, here. I have nothing of value but myself and my magic. And you've helped me when you didn't have to. I cannot thank you enough."

She leaned over, and to his surprise, kissed his cheek. "Thank you for saving me."

A/N-So, something that became really apparent here. Starting with Quintessence itself, I started writing in Google Docs. I also noticed a slight increase in typos. When I downloaded this chapter, I realized the typos were even worse. It looks at first glance like downloading Google Docs into Word is not nearly as clean as I hoped. So, it's very likely this will be a typo-ridden story worse than normal. I try to catch them, especially knowing what I do now, but just be warned. You get to read a free novel, but it's going to suffer from typo-itus.