Divine Ordainment

sorry ive been gonePart 3

She wakes up slowly on a beach, her face in the sand, and Aquis notes that she feels... weird. Then it all comes back to her, the ship, the fight, her crew. She feels a complicated mix of emotions sadness, denial, grief, anger, and... calmness? As she blearily picked her head from the sand she saw her sword, tip buried in the ground, then as she tried to pick herself up Aquis's head started to spin and her arms gave out. She fell back now her chin resting in the sand looking at the sword, again her vision started to swim and she half thought she was going to pass out, whether it be from the lack of drinkable water for who knows how long or from an overwhelming tiredness that was washing over her body. But the feeling passed after a few seconds, while her body was still sluggish Aquis managed to reach the sword and used it to pick herself up fully, taking a closer look at the sword she found that it had received little to no damage which was... odd, shed have to take a closer look at that later. Observing her surroundings more she found that the beach turned into a gentle slope that leads to what looks like a forest. She staggers over trying to get a semblance of where she ended up, at first Aquis thought she had ended up somewhere secluded her hope slowly trickling out of her like sands in an hourglass, then as if the glass was flipped over hope flooded back in as Aquis spotted a beaten dirt trail, presumably leading to a village or kingdom of some sort, she approached the path sheathing her sword in the process. Aquis made her way down the path, hope fueled her steps quite possibly being the only thing between her and the inevitability of her passing out, Though each step was a little more draining than the last she held strong. As she walked the path she spotted through the trees a pond, the pond was surrounded by all sorts of vegetation, vibrant flowers, magnificent trees, even the grass was vibrant. Aquis looked back at the path that seemed to go forever, she looked back at the pond and thought "surely a look wouldn't hurt? It may be fresh water." so she hesitantly stepped off the trail and towards the pond, stepping closer to the pond she noticed that the ground was slightly muddy, the water was the same blue as the sky. When she reached the edge of the spring Aquis cupped her hands to drink the water when a small voice in her head told her to stop, as the water could contain any amount of dangerous diseases but the much louder voice of dehydration and dilution said that it would be fiinne. So with some doubts Aquis plunged her hands into the water and scooped it up, she took a sip as the water started trickling out, her throat which had previously been dry and scratchy now felt blissfully less sour, then glancing down at the river Aquis saw her reflection. Her eyes widened and she rubbed at them to make sure she wasn't seeing wrongly, when that didn't work Aquis pinched herself though some part of her knew she wasn't dreaming, and of course it wasn't a dream. Aquis moved her head closer to the water, examining her slightly warped reflection the whites of her eyes now black, small corals on her head and slightly luminescent floating halos that crossed over each other. There was a war of emotions going on in Aquis's head, the main ones being intrigue and panic, but her mind's war was put to a stop, her hands now holding the side of the pond slipped and she fell in.

water flowed around her small bubbles like tiny beads rushing past, at first she panicked then Aquis was distracted by what looked like a giant fish behind her, but as she turned so did the "fish" and like a dog chasing its tail this went on for a few more seconds before she mentally facepalmed releasing that this tail was hers, it was like the pictures she'd seen a while back in the library where she first meet her crew, she was reading a book on the extinct...helipe, yes that's it. The pictures were marvelous. Then something else distracted her from the current predicament. A gleam at the bottom of the pond was what caught her eye, as she swam closer Aquis saw a gem, deep sapphire in color but still clear, then after picking that one up she saw another, this one a sea green instead. Then another, and another, and so on, until her hands filled up with sparkles, that's when she released. She'd not gone up for a breath once...