My lady came up out of the water wearing exactly what the water gave her — which is to say, nothing at all. The sea keeps no wardrobe, and has never once apologized for it. I fished her out as I fish everything out: patiently, and mid-sentence. She stood on the deck of the Silver Surfer dripping like a kingdom that had just abdicated, and before I could offer her a blanket she informed me she knew why she was needed. I gave her the blanket anyway. Knowing is no substitute for wool.
The floods took Midlandia, and Midlandia, by her accounting, had it coming. A palace is a very large room a small life is kept in; the water unlocked hers, and carried the key downhill. I have ferried queens before — the water remembers them heavier. This one came up light.
She is bound for the city now. I am told she hunts. I am told she smells what is coming before it arrives. I have not told her that both of those are also my job description — she will learn it the way everyone does: slowly, and then all at once. — L.F.
A princess who hated the palace. Married to a high prince, waited on by servants, treated like a queen and spoiled — and she hated her life and desperately needed adventure and change. The floods that washed Midlandia away and carried her down the mountainside were not her tragedy; they were her jailbreak.
Her gift: visions of the future, triggered by smell — a keen nose that is also the trigger. She does not know everything that is coming; she knows what the nose brings her.
Her hands: a huntress — gun, bow-and-arrow, and her own words on the matter. A fine crossbow would not go amiss.
Her arrival: she steps into disputes and works them out, and she arrives claiming purpose — “I know why you needed me! Now what?”
Fiona has never been to the city — or perhaps any city. She comes to Atlantis with the outsider's clear eye: everything the crew takes for granted, she gets to see for the first time, and to ask about out loud. That is not a handicap at this table; it is a seat's whole privilege. The record listens hardest to the newest voice.
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