Taylor Rose Hebert groaned as she slowly crawled back to consciousness.

Soft smooth sheets, a soft bed, a faint smell of lilacs and... fur?

The humming of some tune she didn't recognize?

Taylor tried to remember. Where was she? What had happened?

Normal sort of day, she'd gone to school. The bus had been the usual grimy bus where she'd been trying not to be noticed.

Got to school, crossing in the crosswalk, there'd been a... crossbow bolt. She'd been hit. She dropped down, and fell and kept falling and there were quasi-organic and crystal structures where strange lights played/strings-of-Earths strung out in some crazy cat's cradle/directions that went into angles that shouldn't be/lizards playing chess/tentacled monstrosities playing marbles/a cat looking at the ripples in a well/a giant woman who was a spider from the waist down who reached for her and missed/a group of dragons, one of whom said "there goes another one"/a yellow submarine sailing a sea of strangeness.

Landing on a patch of gravel and sand next to a swiftly running river, covered in some sort of slime she'd picked up somewhere along that way. Followed by darkness.

"What the hell?!"

Taylor sat up, eyes open.

"Well, if you're openly awake now, do you need anything child?"

The room was wood and plaster and looked like something out of a Renaissance drama. Taylor's eyes tracked to the feminine voice that had just spoken.

Large brown eyes blinked back at her. The nose below those eyes quivered, sending movement through her long whiskers.

Someone screamed. It took a moment for Taylor to realize it was her.

There was a mouse in front of her. A four foot tall, mostly anthropomorphic, mouse. Wearing a blue blouse and a white apron-skirt combination. And a very well detailed belt consisting in four pouches, one of which was decorated with a blue cross on a white field.

Those long expressive ears had folded back and the mouse's expression was one of annoyance. "Are you done?"

"I'm sorry?" tried Taylor. "Is this Redwall?"

"Redwall? Is that a monastery in the western part of the Kingdom? It has that kind of sound to it," said the mouse. "Now, how do you feel? Are there any body parts missing? Do you remember your name?"

"What?" asked Taylor.

"I'm the healer assigned to you, Adell Chambers. Nurse, Healer, Body Fixer, whatever the term from your culture," the mouse made a shoo-ing gesture with one hand. "Honestly, I know you're not missing body parts. I treated you for two diseases, a shoulder wound, a spiritual malaise, and some environmental damage to your genetic material. The nutritional problems I have to get some potions for. The twins should be bringing those by."

"So... I'm not in Brockton Bay anymore, am I?" asked Taylor, thinking Redwall or Narnia maybe?

"You are in, child," said Adell, "the House of Healing in the village of Helsford in the Kingdom of Shadar on the Shadaria Continent in the world-plane of Aramar."

"I don't recognize any of that," said Taylor.

"Your name for my records?" asked Adell, the mouseling's voice carrying a bit of irritation.

"T-Taylor. Taylor Hebert."

"Do you know the date you left your world-cosm?" asked Adell.

"May 3rd, 2010."

Adell's ears flicked a few times and she scratched her chin. "Is that in the First Age of Man?"

"What's the 'First Age of Man'?" asked Taylor. Something about that phrase sounded ominous.

"Ah, she's awake," said an unfamiliar voice, a deep baritone that sounded almost musical.

Taylor looked, and stopped almost as if she'd turned to stone.

Elves. Lord of the Rings sort of elves. Gorgeous elves.

One had muscle but not bodybuilder defined muscle. He had the shoulders and look of someone who had worked for that physique as opposed to working out. His partially open shirt revealed an expanse of bare skin that also confirmed that whole strength thing going for him. He even had the moving forward like some jungle predator.

The other twin, there was enough facially in common that this was obvious from the mouse's comment earlier, gave off a completely different vibe. Much more slender, with a sword strapped to his side, but he looked a lot more studious and cautious in his approach. Bright blue eyes scanning the room and looking over her before a smile lit up that near-perfect face.

finished rebooting, initiated , and wanted to pull the blanket over her head.

"H-hi?!" squeaked Taylor, immediately regretting how that sounded.

"I'm Amres, this is my brother Armes, Whiteoak," said the one in the blue tunic with the sword.

There was a very awkward pause before the mouse spoke up. "While she tries to find her voice again, her name is Taylor of the line Hebert of the city of Brockton Bay. I suspect she's of the First Age. Translation charm is working but I suspect there's few things that aren't making it through."

"That's how they work," said Amres. "Common concepts translate directly, terms not familiar to the wearer come across as the most literal translation."

"Eh?" managed Taylor, still quite a bit flustered.

"Pendant make you speak and hear goodly," tried Muscley One. Taylor immediately chided herself for that and decided she'd remember their actual names if she had to beat it into her head. Arm-something? Damn it, now he was shifting and stretching and she had completely forgotten what she'd been thinking about a moment ago.

"She doesn't talk much, does she?" asked the elf with the muscles.

"Might be information overload," said the other gorgeous elf guy. "If she's from the early First Age she may not have seen an elf before. Much less a mouseling."

"I can attest to that much at least," said the mouseling with a fair amount of snark present in her voice.

"Well, Taylor Hebert, as I said - I am Amres and this big lunk almost as handsome as myself is my brother Armes," said the studious-looking one. "First Age... did they have the class system back then?"

"You're the one who spent all his time studying, brother," said Armes.

"Depends on when in the First Age for a lot of this I think, History wasn't my strongest suite," said Amres. "I think the Class System went into effect mid-Second Age."

"You'll need to choose a class within a couple of months at least," said the mouse, her large eyes meeting Taylor's. "Or the system will choose one for you."

"'Class'?" asked Taylor.

"We'll have to deal with that later," said Amres. "Right now, you need to rest and recover. The airship will be arriving sometime tomorrow and we'll be able to speak in more detail then."

"Right," said the mouse, pointing to the door. "Leave the potions and you two get out of here. I need to complete an examination and I'll let you know if she has any runes showing she's got a Gift. She doesn't need two lunkheads like yourselves worrying her any more than she already is worrying."

"Ah, right, we'll see you later, Taylor," said Armes, nodding to her.

"You know, we could send a message to that nearby dragon," said Amres as the two walked out.

"'dragon?'" weakly asked Taylor.

"That's what he said," agreed the mouse. "Now, let's begin, shall we?"

"Ah, yes, I suppose?" asked Taylor as she continued to look in the direction the twins had left.

"They're moderately good looking aren't they?"

"Ah, yeah, I su... I wasn't?!"

Adell laughed a short high pitched laugh. "Ah, to be young again. They're elves, child. There are some good and some bad, some prettier than the twins and some more plain. Unattractive elves are few and far between. Now just sit there while I do the diagnostic cantrips I know. I may only be of the Fourth Level, but I am very well practiced at my craft."

* 7th Age of Man, the year 252 Post-Godswar, Wend 1, Day 13 *

She still didn't know much, but she'd asked a few questions and gotten some answers. Unfortunately none of the three she'd asked had really studied history that much, and what they mostly knew was lore of THIS world specifically.

This was the Seventh Age of Man and they were two-hundred and fifty two years into it. The First Age, which everyone involved thought was her time, was over twelve thousand years in the past. Maybe closer to forty thousand.

There was apparently a trail but the only one involved so far that could even determine there was such a thing was Amres and he didn't specialize in informational magic. Adell, the mouse, was a healing specialist. Amres was a 'change something into something else' specialist. Armes just hit things really really hard.

They'd been trying to give her what information they could, but apparently they were also concerned about too much info too fast when she hadn't even come to terms with the calendar. Wend was short for Winter End, which meant this was March or April? The 13th day and a festival called Emperor Day was coming up in a week to mark the day the former Emperor had united several warring kingdoms to survive something called the Godswar.

Just that there had been an Emperor and a very popular one was unexpected to Taylor, as the education in Brockton Bay and popular culture tended to look at Empires as something bad.

Taylor had been reeling from the idea that as far as the twins were concerned, it was regarded as something their parents had faced and was recent history. For Adell, it was closer to five generations removed.

That was one reason some of the races she could see from her window in this village tended to form communities of their own. Elves could live five hundred to eight hundred years. The oldest dwarf any of them knew was close to three hundred years in age. Mouselings like Adell were old at forty years, normally dead around fifty. Dragonborn lived close to century, while the mantis-folk died off roughly around thirty. Burrowers, rhiannon, tabaxi, and the occasional goblinkin all lived around a half-century. Reptine and tortles lived over a century.

There was more to it than just that, but the three she interacted with the most weren't entirely clear as to the questioning. Apparently there were hard limits to the little jade pendant that allowed her to understand the language they were all speaking. The translation pendant worked for a single language, something they called 'common' and was mainly used for people like those mantis-folk whose physiology didn't allow them to make the appropriate sounds.

That didn't get into things like food. Apparently some races had very different standards as to what was appetizing.

The mantis-folk fascinated her. Oh, they were scary in their way, but they were also intriguing.

Among the other revelations that had caused her some concern was the lack of humans. Humes was the usual term given. The First Race from which almost all others were descended. Which at least accounted for why most of them looked sort-of human. The term "the races of the Sons of Man" came up.

Humans were rare. Very rare. Some would say almost extinct. Not by being targeted specifically by another race. Rather they'd mingled with the other sorts of races over the millenia. The child of an elf and a human was a helf or half-elf. The child of a helf and an elf was an elf with a slightly shorter lifespan. A half-elf and a half-elf produced a half-elf.

The idea of her own species breeding itself out of existence, or nearly so, was something Taylor was still trying not to think about.

If she was stuck here, what would her eventual fate be? Having kids that would still look young a century from now?

The implications of that train of thought quickly derailed and left her trying not to look at either twin.

Everything was still awhirl in her thoughts, with the occasional side-trip of despair with the idea that she might never see her father again. Not attending Winslow was more of a plus, actually.

"What is THAT?" asked Taylor as they walked along the dirt path winding through several fields.

"That's a cow. You didn't have cows in your time?" asked Amres after looking up from a book to check.

"How is THAT a cow?" asked Taylor.

Amres gave one of those odd looks towards his brother before turning his attention back to Taylor. "How is that not a cow? Big animal grazing on the grass."

"It's got a tiny little head, a huge body full of slabs of muscle, and a tail that whips around nearly its own length. I'm pretty sure if cows looked like that I'd have noticed even if I am from the city," stated Taylor.

Amres shut his book and looked out at the beast and puzzled over her statement. "Translation problem?"

"I suppose," said Armes. "I know you prefer elven cuisine, brother. Some of us like a bit of meat from time to time."

"Don't even start on elven cuisine, I just prefer a portion of meat that is not so excessive," said Amres, turning his nose up as if he was offended at the thought.

"What IS 'elven cuisine' anyway?" asked Taylor.

"The salads you had yesterday and this morning, except far far more pretentious in presentation," answered Amres. "Usually in small portions with large prices outside an elven community."

"Oh, we had some stuff like that in some higher end restaurants," admitted Taylor. Not that she'd ever actually gone to one. She'd be more likely to go to Fugly Bob's or Chicken & Waffles or Sergio's little Italian place. "Actually, I could go for a pizza now."

"Oh, there's a couple of places in the city that do that," put in Armes.

"A pizza in sort-of Narnia?" asked Taylor.

"Emperor Mannin was from the First Age and he was big on 'comfort food' from his Era," said Amres. "It caught on. Well, some of it at least."

"That still does not look like a cow," said Taylor, going back to the original subject.

"Well, what about the sheep?" asked Armes, sounding curious.

"What... those are NOT sheep!" insisted Taylor, stopping in mid-step and making an "X" gesture by crossing her arms.

"I can assure you, those are sheep," said Armes.

"Sheep come in one color. One. They only have four legs. Four!"

"Weird," said Armes. Sheep were sheep, cows were cows.

A dog by the side of the road watched them pass by and whuffed inquisitively.

"At least the dogs are the same," grumbled Taylor.

Armes held a finger in front of his mouth. The dog nodded. Taylor decided she saw nothing.

Then a courier rode by.

"You are NOT going to tell me that is a HORSE!" insisted Taylor.

"No, that's a tryma. They're a bit more sturdy than a horse," said Amres. "Not quite as fast but they can do longer runs too."

"So the big brown bird there was a 'tryma'?" asked Taylor, starting to walk again.

"They're not that big," noted Armes.

"Bigger than you doesn't mean a tryma is particularly big," said Amres. "There's the ship."

"Where..." began Taylor, looking around before looking up. "How?"

"It's a hammership," said Armes, sounding as if that explained everything.

Taylor watched as the ship descended, quickly growing in size to her perspective, but she realized that when they'd been talking about airships she'd pictured something like a dirigible or something along that line. This looked a lot more like a sailing ship except for a few important caveats. For one, while it had sails - they weren't that many. For another, it was shaped like a hammerhead shark. Living in a coastal city, she was at least vaguely familiar with various fish and the prow of the vessel had two sections that extended out in a similar fashion.

It was also clearly flying despite every instinct she had saying the thing should be falling in the manner of a brick and not gently lowering to within a few feet of the ground and slowing to a bare crawl.

A rope ladder was let down.

"I'm supposed to climb THAT?" asked Taylor.

"No," said Armes, grabbing her and putting her across one shoulder. "You're hanging on. I'm climbing."

Taylor hung on and tried not to think about the feeling of the play of muscles beneath her as the monk effortlessly went up the rope ladder faster than she could have walked the distance.