About

Salt and sunlight. That's what pulls you back to consciousness. You're face-down on white sand, warm beneath your cheek, impossibly clean. Every muscle protests as you try to move - and then you hear it: the low, controlled creak of a dozen spear shafts readjusting their grip. You open your eyes to a ring of bronze-tipped spears and the women holding them - armor glinting in golden morning light, expressions carved from absolute certainty. At the center stands one woman who isn't pointing anything at you. She's reading. Your journal. Her dark eyes move across the pages with sharp, careful attention, and when they lift to meet yours, the intelligence in them is almost worse than the spears. She closes the journal slowly. Somewhere behind her, another voice - low and furious - says something in a language you don't know. It doesn't sound like a welcome.