Slowly she came back to consciousness, her boilers steadily lighting, stirring slightly from her slumber wracked her with the dull pain of her improvised concrete sleeping area.
Slowly she began to accommodate herself to her surroundings with groggy realization and yawned unsteadily before brushing her disheveled brown hair out from her eyes.
She rolled into a sitting position, doing her best to keep her composer and avoid wincing at the discomfort her sleep had brought her.
It was then the pangs in her abdomen hit her.
"Is something up in engineering?" She addressed her bridge, "something feels off down in my holds."
A tiny officer let out a worried squeak.
"Oh- hungry. But I'm a warship-" she glanced down at her hands with a confused expression, "or I thought I was a warship- I guess hungry makes sense, given all-this?" she muttered, flipping her hands over in close examination.
"Right!" She declared with finality "I guess task of the day is attempted resupply."
A squeak of approval.
"But first," she began, pulling her compass up with a grimace. The needle stood firmly anchored a short ways to the right of the entrance she had used. She sighed frustratedly, "Right, something tells me that's a bad choice."
A squeak of agreement.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," she smiled, "now thirdly, does anyone have a calendar? Or a clock? It might be nice to know when we are, even if we don't know where."
A squeak went up from her holds as the tiny sailors searched their living and working quarters for some sort of evidence of time, eventually a tiny seaman exited it's room, a bunch of paper held victoriously over its head.
"Oh? A calendar, does it have a year? Can I see it?" She asked enthusiasm evident in her voice.
A hesitant squeak, the fairy clutched the calendar protectively to it's chest.
"What do you mean 'no?'" she asked, confusion is her voice, "I just need to check the date, you can have it right back, I promise she reassured
The squeaks replied, the fairy now awkwardly balancing on it's toes and avoiding her gaze in a fashion that gave no small amount of guilty aura.
"I heard you." She answered exhaspirated, "is there a reason I can't see it."
A noncommittal squeak.
"What do you mean 'I won't approve', it's a calendar…"
The fairy began to make excuses. Hiding the offending document behind its back.
"Can I please see it? I promise I won't be mad." She asked, doing her best to reassure the tiny crewman
A hesitant hand reached out, reaching for it. The girl examined the tiny lump of parchment offered to her. Elicitng a bright blush once she brought it into clear view.
"This is me!" She cried with shock, pointing a finger towards the image in question, "where are my clothes!?"
A shameful squeak
"Yes there are technically clothes, but still-. it's the principle of the issue." She paused examening the image closer, "it is rather flattering though to be honest…"
She shook her head, attempting to regain her focus on the task, "right! The date!" She held the calendar up, rangefinders picking out the month and year below the scantily clad pictures of herself at dock.
"February of 42? That doesn't even make sense? I guess maybe someone put up the wrong month?" She asked confused.
A squeak of confusion.
"Because, I remember past it, admittedly not much past it," she shrugged, "but it can't be February, if I'm going by my gut I'd say it's at least a good six months longer."
The fairy gave the squeak equivalent of a shrug.
"Regardless, the Japs are out there! We may be a bit old, but our guns are-"
She paused looking down at her armaments.
"-our guns are ready." She finished with confusion.
"Why are our guns ready?" she asked.
A squeak.
"I suppose the question over being alive is- for more than one reason more difficult." She conceded standing up, her muscles painfully protesting all the while.
"Right." She announced, giving a wary glance at the entrance to the pen, before turning towards the exit, "task of the day: let's find some food."
Flicking on a searchlight, she descended again into the larger faucility.
The building was as sparse as she recalled, with little signs of furniture, let alone food. Coming to the rusty metal door that filled what her limited Japanese told her meant "entrance," she frowned. The handle mechanism and hinges were badly rusted, in fact, it was more accurate to say the handle and hinges were now misshapen chunks of oxidized iron.
She tried the handle shaped one, driving down hard enough that the handle flew off, driving her with great momentum into the door, denting it considerably and impacting her shoulder roughly.
"Ow!" She complained, rubbing her head where it impacted the door. "Everyone alright?" She checked.
She paused thinking, nodded, wound up and kicked the door square in the dented spot. The sound of protesting metal and the hinges flying off loudly echoed throughout the building. She let out an alarmed squeak, as the creaking falling door narrowly missed her.
As the dust cleared she sighed with frustrated defeat, a solid chunk of concrete filled he entranceway, though cracked heavily where the door was, it gave no indication of thickness or strength.
"Well. I guess things have never been easy in the past, why start now?" She pondered briefly, "let's try a pipe, that'd do it."
"huh? I was just going to take one from the ceiling, they're all over the place?"
"No I don't think whoever owns this place will miss it, it's been abandoned for years and besides it's clearly Japanese, they're our enemy!"
"Ah-" she paused, considering the remark. "How long has this place been abandoned…" she thought aloud. "Everything is pretty rusted." She paused addressing her crewmembers more directly, "are you sure it's 1942?"
The squeak sounded again,
"I know the calendar said so, but the rust, lime, and other stuff makes this place look really old." She called hesitantly. "I don't think "we'll find much here-"
She paused, glancing down at the compass, "maybe-" she began hesitantly, "maybe if we try and make a break for it under night's cover…" she announced, trailing off slowly.
"Right!" She announced firmly, before breaking into a yawn, "how long do we have until nightfall?"
A squeak answered, slightly dubious.
"Four hours? Really? Wow, no sense of time here." She answered, yawning slightly again with as much grace as she could manage. "Can never get too much sleep," she replied as laid down again on the stiff walls of the submarine pen. The tiny marines of her crew beginning to lay down their sandbags and razorwire with dedicated and angry high pitched squeaks.
She drifted off to sleep.
An explosion woke her, thundering her into a fighting position with only a moderate awareness at the pain such movement caused after a stiff sleep.
"Battle stations!?" She half asked and half declared, scanning the water that filled the pen with sleep-addled eyes. "Where are they?"
A second series of explosion, the sounds of naval rifles discharging echoed again from outside the entrance way.
"Are-" she began hopefully, "are our ships here yet?"
The explosions continued, naval fire of medium and small caliber guns sounding between forces whose location was made indistinct by the echoing walls of the concrete pen.
The fight continued for only a short period. Obvious trades of fire and distant indistinguishable voices sounding from the outside.
Eventually however she felt her compass vibrating slightly, noting with small relief that the arrow passed by and began to shake more, giving a feeling of the unkown assaliant fleeing from the field.
The girl stoop up, grinning wildly and readying herself to see a friendly face.
Until a sound came that gave her pause, stopping her in her tracks as she approached the water, her smile fading into a nervous grimace and eyes growing wide.
"Hello?" A Japanese voice had called.