Nura's life savings left her hands in a peaceful trade. The smiling night shaded elf before her couldn’t guess the heartache clawing at Nura's chest behind her pleasant expression. One of the first things Nura mastered was displaying emotions she did not feel and obscuring those she did. She eased into any crowd so long as they could look beyond the thick, pointed, purple tail that swayed behind her and the numbs of round horns her dark hair was parted by on her forehead. As she was not the only devil blooded person in the Deep Lands, far from it, belding in was easy across her homeland.
Including the high society of those who frequented the Moon Wall, an island coveted by the wealthy and yearned for by the modest. Nura saved for two decades to afford this trip. Now she stood among women and men who spend that same money in a month just to enjoy the island scenery. She had not wasted twenty years only to see the clean water and clear skies of Moon Wall though. The island was just another blockade she had to overcome before she’d reach her true destination. As she kept her heart calm despite wanting to run into the sparkling waves and swim for her goals prematurely, her eyes were drawn to the black misted isle beyond the Moon Wall, beyond where any citizen of the Deep Lands was allowed to go, where she would find herself before the night was through.
“First time, my dear?” A clay colored devil born woman spoke to Nura as if they were already well acquainted.
“Am I so starstruck?” Nura laughed in mock embarrassment. It was better to play the innocent fool than seem focused.
The woman standing beside her was dressed far better than what Nura managed. Nura's dress was finer than anything she'd touched in her life and just as uncomfortable as something so expensive was bound to be. Yet the woman beside her confidently wore a tight floor length gown that looked as if the sea itself had carefully washed its waves upon it. Blue and white mixed so indiscriminately that it appeared to truly wave as the wearer moved.
Her red skin made her entire appearance one of sunrise over a clear shore. In comparison, Nura couldn’t help feeling like a dull night after a storm. Deep purple skin she had no control over did not contrast or match well enough with the black dress she’d chosen. While appearances were only to get her on the boat and to the island, her goal requiring function over beauty, she couldn’t help feeling disheartened at how easily others looked better. It was a fleeting worry.
“Don’t be shy. It happens to all of us our first time. Moon Wall is unlike anything the mainland has to offer. I hardly believe even places like Bexfil, that green little country so far south, can compare to the beauty here.” The woman laughed and Nura attentively nodded along.
“That’s so far away! Have you been?” Her question was for politeness alone. The answer was obvious. No one left the Deep Lands. If they did, they certainly wouldn't risk coming back.
“I fret the cold wouldn’t agree with me.” The insistent stranger shook their head as they took Nura’s arm into theirs, leading her into the glittering hall filled with colorful drinks and elegant people throwing their money away on this temporary distraction. “Moon Wall has so much to offer though. There’s no need to go further south.”
“Would you recommend anything? I’m anxious to watch the stars tonight. I’ve heard Moon Wall’s crowning jewel is the pure unhindered brightness of its nights.” Nura expressed a blip of real anticipation.
“You’ve heard well.” The woman, still unintroduced, led Nura away from the door she'd been linger at and to the wall of glass that overlooked the beach. Bright purple and fading blue sky suggested she’d not have to wait long to see the night. “This one here has the best view. It gets incredibly packed though. Would you like to come up to my room on the upper floors? I’ve got a balcony. You’ll have a first night to remember with me, my dear.”
There was an innocent desire to accept the offer budding in her chest. Nura silently crushed it with her harsh reality. She knew innocent was not a word to describe Moon Wall. As kind as this offer sounded, and as happily as other newcomers before her had likely accepted, Nura could not enjoy this scandalous temptation. It was unsaid in the strangers close stance and honeyed words that Nura was being offered one night of fake romance under the full moon. Her goals were much less pleasurable in comparison, but far more tempting.
“Oh that sounds lovely.” Nura said as she took a single step away from the woman. “I was hoping to go moon bathing though. I can’t well feel the waters from a balcony.”
“Moon bathing? On your first time?” The woman laughed and reached to brush some of Nura’s short black hair off her shoulder. She let it happen. “Quite ambitious. Well, once you’ve had your fill of the riff raff on the beach and get cold enough in the water, you can find my room by spotting me on my balcony. I’ll make sure you can see me.”
Her unexpected and beautiful companion walked off to find someone else to take to bed. Nura was not given a chance to breathe before a server approached her with offers of drinks she’d never heard of and food that looked far too fresh to be real. They were like pieces of a painting with how firm and colorful they were. She accepted a small plate of things she did not know the names of and ate the sour fleshy bits as the sky quickly darkened.
She reminisced briefly whlie going to wait among the others slowly filtering out onto the far shore of Moon Wall. The things Nura had to do to get where she was were not clean. People died, others injured, and a few got away with things she’d never tolerate if only her position were different. Thus she felt no shyness as she stripped her dress on the illuminated beach under the bright blue moon and its lightly starry sky.
Other newcomers were inspired by her while some remained hesitant and considered moon bathing in their expensive attire. A few of the guests who did this regularly were impressed and thought to approach her. Not wanting to wait any longer, barely containing her anxieties and eagerness for what was to come, Nura dove into the freezing water.
Ice filled her lungs despite the water being firmly kept out. Her thick skin crawled with the cold and her muscles tried to stiffen and force her to drown in the shallows. If she’d not snuck to the shores and swam in winter nights before, her plans may have fallen apart right there within distance of the beach. As her head broke the surface a few onlookers cheered as their worries for her washed away. She gasped in much needed air, distorting the sound of anyone that might have called for her attention.
Careful not to swim too far out, she made a point of never staying in one place. Others swam towards her for conversation and other activities but she never let them reach her. It was not long before the couples and daring singles were enjoying the second benefits of moon bathing together and she was forgotten in their activities. For the first time since setting foot on Moon Wall, Nura was finally ignored and alone.
Her body adjusted but the cold was not something so easily adapted to. She sank slowly into the water instead of making a splash, the chill stabbing into her like knives. Nura swam away from the muffled noise, into the deep darkness of unexplored ocean, through gentle tides that seemed to be on her side as they drifted her away from shore. The air in her lungs would not last forever but it would last long enough to get her away. Until she felt the throb in her temples as her body begged for air, she continued swimming down.
Salt stung her eyes. A blip of fear nearly made her exhale in the dark water. She adjusted course and held on only through practice. Nura was prepared for this. Her life was on the line and she had made herself ready with that thought deep in mind. With her arms growing heavy, her chest heaving without air escaping, vision blurred by water and a lack of oxygen, she began to fear she’d not reach the surface in time.
I should have started up sooner. Such a thought did her no good. What was done was done. She was in danger of drowning. The sky was gone under waves of dark ocean. The full moon was distant to the point of nonexistence. Her sense of direction was lost. But Nure struggled on regardless. If she was still swimming down, it was her own fault. Death was another form of escape, though not the one she sought.
It was a painful miracle as she broke the surface. Air escaped her and didn’t return before a wave sent her head back under. She took in the bitter salt of the ocean and sand, coughing and sputtering as her naked body clawed towards the shallowed. Vomitting the vibrant treats from before and the blackened water that nearly choked her, she reached land. Nura couldn't tell what water on her face was from the sea or her tears.
Thankful to be alive, cold to the point of numbness, Nura didn’t take in her surroundings. Her limbs shook as she crawled up the blackened sand. Rocks and shells dug into her skin that was soft from the ocean. Breathing was akin to stabbing her chest. Even hugging her torso as she collapsed in the sand did not bring her a semblance of warmth. The only part of her that seemed to be working were her eyes. She made use of what she could while trying to regain some strength.
She’d reached her stepping stone. Far in the distance danced the lights of Moon Wall, white with dim moonlight. The stars were nowhere to be seen around Nura. They were lost beyond black clouds that barely let through the moon. Nura was alone in the dark on the outer Crescent Isle, beyond Moon Wall, at the very edge of the Deep Lands.
Death seemed like a cold concept. Nura lived among droughts, brittle ground that could swallow bears if they took a wrong step, and searing winds that snaped healthy trees in half. Given that her miserable life was surrounded by fire, she’d believed her ending would come in frost. So the warmth that suddenly surrounded made no sense.
Her heavy eyes that she did not remember closing now opened to an obsidian room. Everything was shiny and black, much like the dress she’d lost on the shore of Moon Wall. A fire quietly consumed nothing as it floated alone in a hole centered on a wall. She laid naked but covered with a blanket of black fur darker than any night she’d endured. Despite her drowsiness, the cold ache of stiffness across her bones, and the darkness of everything around her, the fire illuminated everything as if it were day.
It was not easy to sit up. The shiny floor was slick with the sea water that had yet to dry off her. Nura didn’t falter but did slap her other hand down as the first slid out from under her. A myriad of questions made her head spin. Only the ones that mattered would meet her lips.
“Did I make it?” Her voice was hoarse and nearly unrecognizable as her own.
“That depends on where you meant to make.” A stranger replied calmly.
A person stood where one did not exist the moment before. Nura looked up into her own eyes. Instead of seeing wet black hair pressed to her skin she saw flowing raven locks that reached down her back. While she was naked, the self before her was dressed in a tucked white shirt and clean smooth brown pants. Her skin, wet and purple, reflected in the stranger as dark and nearing black. While the figure was her in all shape and size, nothing but the eyes were the same. Grey and pupilless.
“The outer isle.” She croaked nervously.
“Then yes.” The stranger stood still.
“I want to leave the Deep Lands.”
Nura desperately voiced her desire without fear of consequence. This was the outer Crescent Isle, out of reach of the ruler of the Deep Lands, far from the Queensguard who might hang her for attempting to flee. And this person, if they were a person at all, was no more loyal to the desolate Deep Lands than she was. She could not justify her suspicions, but Nura felt this stranger was not from the Deep Lands at all. Them being on the outer Crescent Isle felt like chance rather than something ordinary for the cursed area.
“Why should I help with that?” The stranger did not mock her. There was no back and forth of if it was within their power, who they were, who she was, why she wanted to leave, or any other unnecessary reasoning. Straightforward, like her singular name, Nura was gifted blunt responses.
“How can I convince you?” She stood on trembling legs. The black fur blanket was clutched tightly around her for warmth, but she considered tossing it away to show her bare sincerity.
“You’ve given up many things.” The voice became ethereal as the alternate version of herself remained still. “A life of medicine. A chance at wealth under the Empress’s rule. A family with someone to care for you.”
“I gave up nothing.” Nura felt a familiar fire in her chest. It was a burn of passion that did little to warm her skin but much to heat her words. “I ran from a life of servitude. I didn’t give those things up, I refused to take them at the price of my freedom.”
“What freedom?” The disembodied voice mocked.
What freedom indeed. Nura asked herself many times over the years. Was paying a lifetime of savings for a chance to nearly drown considered freedom? Could she really consider slaving away for her goal different from slaving away for the benefit of another when she now had nothing to show for her decades of toil? The answer was always the same. This was a type of freedom. These were her choices. Not choices made for her.
“The freedom to strive for what I want.” She was resolute, firm in her answer, saying aloud for the first time what she’d thought to herself endlessly before.
A life of medicine. Nura had been told to make poisons for the Queen of the Deep Lands. A chance at wealth under the Empress’s rule. She’d have been the best herbologist the Deep Lands had ever known. As it was, Nura had yet to hear of anyone who could find and use the plants she readily worked with. A family with someone to care for her. Nura didn’t need anyone to care for her. The lovers who left her alone in the daylight, the parents who sold her to Queenstown for their own benefit, the men who wanted to marry her so they’d have someone easy to tie to a bed. None of them were caring in the sense she needed. A roof and money were not enough. Nura had ambition and self worth they couldn’t afford to care for.
“What do you want?” A chill filled the room. Her already cold skin felt like winter had breathed across it anew.
“I want to go to Martina.” Nura cleared her throat and felt it closing against her words, as if refusing to let her speak. “I want to study the plants there. To make medicine, practice true alchemy, to learn without restriction in those lands.” Every word dried her mouth and weighed her tongue. She forced them out even as her voice began to whisper. “I want the freedom to chose what I do.”
“What will you pay for it?”
The voice was no longer disembodied. Her alter form, the her that was not quite her, stepped forward. It tore the blanket away and tossed it into the starving fire that sprang to life to consume it. Obsidian walls shined so bright, Nura raised her arms to hide her eyes. She was stopped by a firm grasp from the stranger. They held her forearms up and wide, forcing her to squint to see them.
“What will you pay for it?” Their question roared in the room.
Nura saw a world flash before her star stuck eyes. Silence overcame the echoing voice and crackling fire. Her thundering heart was still as the grave. The shivering cold gave way to still warmth. There was nothing, yet everything she’d hoped for.
Nura saw the sky. Dark, as it always was over the Deep Lands. Yet bright, speckled with the stars she’d only ever seen so clear over Moon Wall. This view did not exist on the mainland of her home. The scene before her, yellow, white, and sometimes twinkling stars in the sky with a bright moon so crescent it was nearly new, all against a rich sky of colored lights she’d never though could exist in the night... this was a familiar dream. She’d read of the night lights across Martina, colors in the darkened sky that dance between stars.
Nura's work was with plants, but her dreams were in the stars. The passion she held for both was impossible to divide. One was not loved more than the other. But, if she had to pay a price, would she give up reality or dreams? Nura was always wishful. She wanted both. But the Deep Lands were cruel and she knew, if she knew anything at all, she would have to give up one.
“Will you pay it?”
The strangers question softly stretched across the beautiful sky. Stars began to flicker and fizzle out like snuffed candles. Whisps of smoke made clouds that began to dull the moon. Nura’s vision darkened. A familiar starless night spread before her. There were no clouds, no moonlight, not a single star in the black sky. Just the sky above the Deep Lands remained, uncharacteristic, void of anything.
“Will you pay it?” The voice whispered now, more gentle than before but just as firm. “Make your choice.”
“I’ll pay it.”
Tears did not sting her eyes. They fell without notice. If they were not warmer than her skin she would not have registered them at all.
Nura was suddenly drowning. The shock sent her into a frenzy as her body splashed down in iced water. Gasping through the salted sea, she thrashed for the surface. It came to her without warning. Air stabbed into her lungs. A sunlight harsher than the heat of summer made the waves feel pleasant in her eyes. Barely visible in the distance was a mountain, the colors lost in her blur of tears and sea.
Her conciousness fled abruptly. It returned in a voice she didn't recognize.
“Is she breathin’?” Nura gasped at the sound, sitting up in dull pain as air eased the throbbing in her skull. “Gods help me!” The same voice backed away in alarm.
Her body was weak with fatigue but strong enough to give her bearings. Nura sat on a beach, weighed down with a crusty black blanket of fur, dry and naked under a missing sun. It was still night, or it was night again, she could not tell. How she’d not drowned was a question she felt better left unanswered.
“It’s alright, you’re alright now. By gods. I don’t know where you came from but you’re alright now.” A plump human woman was kneeling in the white sand beside her. “Can you hear me? Do you understand my words? Do you think she speaks our language?”
“Let her breathe, Limmy. All these questions.” A man answered from a step away, nervously keeping his eyes anywhere but on Nura.
“I understand you.” Nura shakily breathed. Relief hit Limmy’s face and the man glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Nura asked her own question before they could pester her further. “Where am I?”
“These are the shores of Moonbright, girl.” The man answered.
“What ship did you come from? No one in their right heads sails so close to the Deep Lands.” Limmy chimed in gently.
“This isn’t the Deep Lands?” Nura’s hope made her choke. Limmy rubbed her bare back as she shook her head.
“No, Gods no. You’re in Martina, not those forsaken Deep Lands.”
Nura was not religious but her next breath was a thanks to the gods. Her silent thoughts were thanks to the altercation of herself that had made this possible, whether they were god or not. She wept for it greatfully.
“There now. Let us take you in the night. We got fish soup, lots of good things to get you warm. Gods know how long you’ve been out here.” Limmy helped Nura to her shaking feet.
“If it weren’t for the night lights and Limmy insistin’ we walk the shores to look for moon shells, we mightn’t have found you before dawn, girl. You’ve got some luck washing up on the shores such a bright night, makin’ you easy to find.” The man rambled as Nura was led towards a sea shack not far in the distance.
Nura looked back over the waves. The Crescent Isles were invisible in the distance, she didn’t even know if she was looking in the right direction to see them. The waves were dark with green and blue instead of the pitch she swam through. Moonlight reflected in the waves, pale and distorted. When she looked up to the sky, listening to the man talk about the night lights and how lucky she was to wash ashore under their brilliance, Nura only saw the familiar blank black sky she'd lived under in the Deep Lands.