"And then, as cool and calm like he's the friggin' Terminator or something, Dad says into the radio "I am being pursued by pirates."

Alejandra chuckled along with the rest of her family's laughter as Isabel told her portion of the story about how they had first arrived in this world. The elf, Seeker Tempest, had asked about it, and the children had been only too eager to share the tale.

And it was the first time, as she thought of it, that they had actually retold the story in total.

"Wait, he said that?" Luc piped up, eyes wide and staring at Dad. "You knew they were pirates that soon?"

"Tu mama told me to look for another boat out there," Matty said easily, "and when Bel saw it and gave me the binoculars–"

"When you ripped them out of my hand, you mean," Bel said, arching a brow at her father.

"Listen, it was a very tense moment," Matty shot back. "But yeah, when I got a look at them… I saw the lightning glint off of a bunch of metal shapes in their hands. They were either weirdly heavily-armed fisherman driving right into the teeth of the storm of the century, or…"

"Pirates~," Olivia said, grinning and drawing the word out with relish.

"Pirates?" The word was echoed by Seeker Tempest, the elf girl's eyes were wide as she listened. But even as she listened, her spoon was working, slurping up her third bowl of Frankensoup in almost as many minutes. She ate like… Well, like she'd been starving. "You were chased here by pirates?"

"Yeah!" Olivia leaned forward excitedly. "Why, is there like some ancient prophecy about that? Something about the chosen ones coming to liberate the world will be chased through a storm while pursued by evil-doers or something?"

"Uhm… No?" The elf leaned away from Olivia's intense gaze. "I do not think so?"

Olivia's smile immediately collapsed into a scowl. "Figures. Stupid world." She grumbled and leaned back, glaring at her surroundings in general. "Can't even do a decent Promised Prophecy for us. What a crock."

The elf blinked her slightly overlarge eyes at the girl. "You… You thought you were summoned because of a prophecy?"

"No!" Olivia threw up her hands. "But would it kill this stupid world to actually give me something that it's supposed to? I'm a freaking genre-savvy protagonist here, and like nothing is the way it's supposed to be!"

Isabel leaned in from where she sat on the other side of Seeker Tempest and murmured out of the corner of her mouth; "when she gets like this, I usually just give her a cookie."

"Or put a bag over her head," Lucas said, leaning in from the other side.

Seeker Tempest looked even more confused, staring first at Olivia, then the others, then hunching over her soup bowl.

"So… What happened next?" she asked after a moment.

Alejandra Albright leaned against her husband's shoulder and watched and listened as her children told an elf the story about how they had been transported to her world. It was the first time she had actually heard the tale from her children's lips, and she had to admit they did a fine job of telling it.

But she listened with only half her mind. The other half was too busy mulling over the other story her husband had told her in quiet whispers as their children entertained the elf.

A New Rome, built literally upon the bodies of those it had conquered. It… Made too much sense, really. She had known men like that, back in the Desert. Small, vicious, and devoted to nothing save their own power. Other people were tools, to be used up and spat out in the pursuit of accumulating more and protecting what they already had.

And of course, there was the obvious comparison to certain figures from Earth history, as well.

"What I don't get," Matty rumbled quietly so as to not disturb the others, "is how Toraline could possibly show any semblance of loyalty or devotion to a man like… that."

Alejandra considered that for a second, before realizing that her husband probably didn't understand. Not truly.

"That at least," she murmured back, "is easy."

"Huh?" Matt blinked and looked at her. "Come again?"

"You are thinking about it in too short a time frame, mi corazone," she said simply, looking up into his narrowed eyes and smiling at his beetled brow. "You have heard the entirety of the man's history, from his vilest crimes to his noblest deeds, in mere minutes. Of course, hearing it like that, you are able to see the monster he was."

"Well, yeah," Matty said, frowning. "Is there another way to see it?"

"Si, over the course of years and with the weight of trust and love placed upon it," Alejandra said simply. "You see only the end result. What you do not see are the hundreds of hours the two of them must have spent together, learning from one another, training with one another, developing with one another. You do not see the number of times he saved her life, or the number she saved his. You do not see the fears they shared, the tears they shed, the blood they bled, the failures and the triumphs and the stalemates, all together."

Matty blinked at her. "You're not seriously condoning what they did," he said, and she appreciated that he didn't make it a question.

"Of course not," she said, shaking her head. "It is beyond despicable. But I can see the scenarios where Toraline remained loyal and faithful even as Caesar descended more and more into depravity. I have seen similar things myself."

Another blink. "Really?"

"Si," she nodded, her eyes unfocusing as she looked back across the years. "There was a man in my first tour. Jackie, we called him, though it was not his name."

"So why did you–"

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"Not important. What was important is that he saved my life, and I saved his, and more than once for both of us. We sweated in the desert together. We killed men together. We ate and drank together. We were as brother and sister. But Jackie, he did not handle the stress of war well. And I could see him getting closer and closer to breaking. So did the rest of my squad. We did not know which way he would break, but we could see it coming. We tried to help as best we could, but Jackie was one of ours, one of us, and we were sure that if something happened, we could handle it."

Alejandra took in air through her nose clear down to the soles of her feet and let it out again slowly.

"One night, on a mission to a small village in the desert, Jackie snapped. He was tasked with covering civilians while the rest of us cleared the house. A mother and her two children. We all ran when we heard the first shot. We ran harder with the second and third came. And when we got to the room where Jackie was…"

She swallowed and closed her eyes. "He said they had weapons. We found none. I suppose a good person would have taken Jackie's gun and put him in handcuffs. But… He was Jackie. He was one of ours."

She felt Matty's arm wrap around her shoulder and pull her closer against him. A piece of her, one that thankfully had been quiet since they had landed on the island, wanted to fight out of the grip. But the other part of her, the one that she had had longer than the first, told her to lean into the grip, that he would not hurt her, that she did not need to defend herself from him.

"We agreed to cover for him," she was whispering now, her eyes focused on a scene fifteen years in the past. "Because we loved him, because we'd bled for him, and he for us."

Her husband didn't say anything for a long moment. And when he did, it was a simple question, without inflection or judgement in it.

"What happened?"

"Jackie was killed by an IED coming back from the mission," she said. "I remember being relieved, like God had spared us from having to suffer the consequences of our decision, and of his. And... I remember being ashamed for my relief." She let out a shaky breath. Going back into memories always hurt, especially ones like this.

"But," she continued after a moment. "I say all this to say; I understand how one can get to where Toraline is. I understand how loyalty and deference can be given to a man who becomes a monster, and not knowing how to proceed. And how choices made lead to other choices, and each one of them on that road becomes easier to make."

Matty was silent, just holding her until the shaking stopped. She was grateful. The story had taken a lot out of her.

"You don't usually talk about your time in the desert," he said, his voice still quiet. "You used to tell me I couldn't ever understand."

"I was wrong," she whispered. "This place… It is another Desert. You and the kids… You are another of my Squad. We have fought beside each other, bled together, triumphed together. I was wrong. And a part of me wishes I had been right, because I never wanted any of you in this life."

His arm tightened around her. "We can talk about that later," he murmured. "Looks like the kids are finishing up the story. And… Thank you," he added, his voice suddenly heavy. "When I go to talk to Toraline, would you come with me?"

"Of course, mi corazone."

"Gracias, mi amore."

* * *

Seeker Tempest was still confused, but at least her belly was full and her limbs were not shaking and her bones no longer ached.

She had watched the Sojourners, warily at first but with slowly increasing ease as they handed her a bowl full of the most delicious substance she had ever ingested and told her to eat her fill.

Which, to her shame, she had. Readily, greedily, and without hesitation.

And as she ate, she had watched. And her confusion had only grown.

The histories described Sojourners as ravening beasts, bloodthirsty and violent. But around this campfire, sharing a meal with Sojourners, she found them less monstrous and more… Annoying. The younger ones reminded her of nothing so much as her own cousins, squabbling and scrabbling with one another at the dinner table of their meek hovel back in the Community.

One of the older females shoved the young male hard enough to knock him off the log. And instead of flying into a rage, he had laughed and retaken his seat. And then, moments later, had sprinkled dirt into the older female's food bowl.

He had caught her looking, and had winked at her. Playful, conspiritorial, but not malicious.

And then they had drawn her into conversation. They asked her questions about herself, her name, her people. She answered what she could, wary, wary, always wary. But none seemed angry at her short answers or incomplete stories.

And then, overcome by her own curiousity, she had asked how they had arrived on the island.

And what a tale. Magical storms, a boat made of tech beyond the Elders' wildest dreams, pirates, and then a final devastating collision followed by waking up on the beach.

When the tale was finished, each of the young ones was grinning and her heart was racing as though she had experienced it herself.

And through it all, the older ones had merely watched, content to let their children tell the tale while they remained in quiet conversation with each other.

This was not how the histories said Sojourners were supposed to be!

And then the older daughter had called out to the parents, drawing them into conversation at last.

"Hey! You two love birds wanna come and get in on this discussion?" Isabel interrupted their quiet conversation loudly, beckoning the two of them into the conversation. "We're finished with lunch and trying to figure out what comes next."

"I think we should take the rest of the day off and go swimming," the boy, Lucas, said, grinning.

"And I want to do some combat training," Isabel said, glaring at her little brother. "You know, do something useful in case we're attacked by monsters again?"

"And I say," the middle daughter, the one named Olivia, interrupted. "That we should stay here and keep working on the house and the home. We've got a lot to build still!"

"Well, much as I hate to disappoint you all," the father said, leaning into the conversation and not looking at all like he regretted what he was about to say. "But you're all wrong. We're headed to the Dilligaf after lunch. And Luc, Dinah, you're bringing Harry and Onesie along too. We're gonna go in and loot as much useable stuff as we can from her before the sun goes down. And besides, your mother still has to claim the territory for us."

The word was a strange one, but… Dilligaf. That was the name of the boat the children's tale had mentioned.

Seeker Tempest's eyes grew wide.

It was here? On the Island?

"What about, uh…" The other girl, Dinah, said, motioning to Seeker Tempest.

The father frowned. "Well, she's more than welcome to stay here if she wants. Billy is under strict orders not to mess with her. But, I'm sorry," he said directly to her now. "We do have work we need to get done, we can't just hang around the clearing all day."

"Hey," the boy, Lucas, said, leaning in to look her in the eye. "You wanna come with? I mean, it's just a boat, but it's got some cool stuff on it."

Go with them?

To a Sojourner's boat?

A boat that carried them across the divide between their worlds, that came from the Sojourner's home, that was filled with their tech and their history?

Seeker Tempest took a deep breath, steadied herself, and called upon every ounce of self control she possessed.

"Iwouldlikethatverymuch!" she squeaked.

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