Perchance to Be

Chapter Three: In Which Our Heroine Receives an Education (and a Protector)

The burn of rope on her skin woke Tamsin from her dreamless sleep. She groaned shallowly and wrestled against the bindings, which only tightened with every movement. 

“You won’t be able to escape, Lune.” A voice rippled out of the shadows cast by a low campfire. Tamsin could barely feel its heat. “That’s the strongest fae rope in Perchance.”

“Perchance?” Tamsin asked, fighting to decipher the silhouette of her captor. 

“Perchance,” the figure replied without inflection. It gestured out and about from its torso. 

“How did I get here?” Tamsin asked, looking up into the sky, at the ashen grass, the blackened trees. It was all just enough familiar to be disorienting, just enough the same to terrify her with its difference.

“Either you are an imbecile,” the shadow said, rising from the ground. “Or someone left out a significant aspect of your preparation.” 

“My what?” Tamsin shuddered, straightening against the tree trunk. “I’ve only ever been prepared for standardized tests.”

Her captor approached. Tamsin could see, finally, that the figure was female, with broad shoulders and a long, lean rib cage. A quiver of arrows bounced against her back, strapped against her chest with thin cord that stretched tight as she crouched in front of Tamsin. 

“You really don’t know, do you?” Her face was harsh and sharply structured, and her dark skin was covered with strange hand-stitched leather, like the costumes Tamsin had seen at the Renaissance Festival two years earlier. Her black eyes, flecked with fluorescent violet, bore into Tamsin’s brown ones, as if reading them for the truth. “Do you even know who I am?”

Tamsin shook her head, afraid to speak or look away. 

The girl – who Tamsin could now see was not much older than her, if she was older at all – ran her fingers through her thick, coarse Mohawk. 

“What am I doing here?” Angry, fearful tears accompanied a sudden, overwhelming panic. “How did I get here? Where is here?”

The girl raised her hand to Tamsin’s lips. “One question at a time.” 

'“Okay,” Tamsin whispered. “Who are you?”

Mohawk girl sighed, sinking to the ground in front of her captive. She lay her bow on the ground beside her.

“My name is Lowri,” she said. “I’m your twin.”

Tamsin scoffed, and the fae ropes tore into her arms. 

“I think my first judgment of you was accurate.” Lowri glowered. “Not that kind of twin. We didn’t share a womb. But we do share what you call a birthday.” 

“What do you call it?” 

“Not a birthday,” Lowri snapped. “Do you intend to inundate me with irrelevant questions all night or do you want to know why you are here?”

“Fine, sorry,” Tamsin said, grimacing. “Would you mind releasing me first? It’s hard to concentrate when I’m in constant pain.”

“You are bound for your own protection.” Lowri crossed her arms. “And pain sharpens the mind.”

She’s one of those people, Tamsin mused.

“As to why you are here,” Lowri began, but paused, looking up to the sky. “I don’t even know how to begin. The reason is generations in the making, and yet specific to you. Specific enough that even I do not know the total answer.”