Gaia Sinclaire sat on a metal floor, legs crossed underneath herself with her hands resting on her knees. She breathed slowly in and out, and almost could have been meditating if her eyes hadn’t been obviously focused on the leatherbound, clearly handwritten book floating in front of her. It hovered there, the pages turning now and then to flip to the spot she needed. Those pages weren’t only filled with words, but sketches as well. It was one of several tomes of rare magical spells she always kept on her person, gifts from her old mentor. She had been scouring them over these past few hours, ever since she and her new companion had found themselves stuck on this star vessel so very, very far from their own world. Gaia had hoped that there might be something in its pages that would help them get back to where they belonged without needing to wait through the entire long journey back.


    That shark-man with technology embedded inside him, Fahsteth, had said it would take at least six months to return that way. Six months, so much could happen in that time. They had to at least look for a better, faster way. No matter how impossible that man continued to claim it was while they had been locking him up in one of the prison cells this ship had. His control over the vessel had been stripped away, along with all of his embedded weaponry. His pet monster (Jacob had called it a raptor despite it very clearly not being a bird) was being kept in another room until they worked out what to do with it and whether it was possible to strip his control away.


    “Any luck?” As he asked that, Jacob stepped into view. She had sensed him coming, of course, but still started just a bit at the sudden voice. As soon as she did, the young man winced and took a reflexive step back. His voice was softer. “Damn it, sorry. I’m not used to--I mean every other time I…” He trailed off, his reaction making it clear that he didn’t know how to explain himself without admitting that he knew her in the future. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Guess I should wear a bell around my neck or something around here.” The self-deprecating words were accompanied by a faint smile before it faltered uncertainly. “I’ll leave you alone until you’re ready to--”


    “No, it’s okay.” With that, Gaia slowly pushed herself back to her feet and stretched out. She had been sitting like that for over an hour. “There’s nothing in my books that could help us travel that far.” Admitting that with a wince, she stopped in mid-stretch to look over at the boy so she could judge his reaction to the words. What she saw was a deep blush as he quickly turned to look away from her.


    “I uhh…” He coughed audibly, squirming on his feet. It was rather cute, drawing a slight smile to her face before she too found herself blushing as he continued. “Sorry, I guess it was a longshot that there might be a ‘teleport across the galaxy’ spell in there. But hey, it didn’t hurt to check.”


    “Indeed not,” Gaia agreed before raising an eyebrow that way. “And what of your own efforts in the meantime? I pray you’ve had more luck than I have, or we may be in even more trouble.” She kept her tone light, but given Jacob had been searching the ship for potential food supplies and the like, it really was an important question. Especially given this Fahsteth clearly hadn’t intended to be out this far from civilization for so long.


    To her relief, Jacob gave a short nod. “Don’t worry, I think we’re okay on that front. He’s got enough food and water stored in the supply room to take care of a full crew complement for at least a couple months. So we should be fine for seven.”


    “Seven?” Gaia echoed. “The man claimed six.”


    With a shrug, Jacob replied, “Well I was hardly gonna take his estimate as the gospel truth. I checked with the computer. The uhh, artificial brain thing. It plotted a course back and, with the engines in the condition they are, it’ll take seven months to get back there. But like I said, we’ll have enough food and water to make it. Oxygen’s a different story, but there are planets we can uhh… scoop some off of on the way. The ship can plot those courses out too. So we just fly down in the planet’s atmosphere, take in enough oxygen to fill our tanks, then move on to the next planet on our way back t--aaand this is all a lot for you, isn’t it?”


    “It is… certainly not easy to take all of it in,” Gaia agreed before giving a soft sigh. “But I am doing my best. I believe I understand the gist of what you''re saying, despite how extraordinary it seems. And yet, you speak about it as though it''s normal, as though you grew up in such an environment and something like this is just another day like any other.” She couldn''t quite keep her curiosity, and a not-insubstantial amount of admiration, about that out of her voice. Was this just something that people of the future tended to get involved with on a regular basis?


    Jacob gave a soft snort, shaking his head. “Yeah, well, believe it or not, I spent most of my early life not knowing anything about any of this. I grew up completely clueless about the… wider universe. But I sort of had a crash course in the past couple years. It''s been a lot to…” Giving a heavy sigh, he met her gaze. “I''m sorry, I can''t really say anything about that. I can''t risk…” Yet again, he trailed off, looking uncertain and awkward before finally drawing himself up. “Okay, I need to tell you something. I can''t explain all of it, not even a significant percentage of it, really. But at the very least I need to tell you that I''m actually--”


    “From the future,” Gaia said right along with him, smiling at the way his eyes widened. “I worked that out some time ago, I’m afraid. But it was your secret to share or not. I wasn''t going to push you on the subject. And I won''t insist that you tell me anything you''re uncomfortable getting into. What little I''ve been able to pick up from your reactions tells me that you and I have a good relationship in the future, that we… that I am someone you trust.” She fell silent briefly, considering her words before pushing on. “After everything that has happened in the past, the choices I''ve made, I would not risk jeopardizing a future where you trust me to the extent that you seem to now. Whatever happens, I want it to continue into a future that is the way you remember it. This timeline must proceed the way it is supposed to, in order to eventually lead you back here.”


    Judging by the look on the young man''s face, there was a lot he wanted to say to that. His mouth opened and shut a couple times before he took a visible breath, letting it out slowly to steady himself. Whatever he had been about to say was clearly emotional, which raised her curiosity and anxiety. But she had meant what she said. No matter how much it seemed like knowing the future would help, there were too many risks. They could start out trying to fix one thing, and end up making everything worse.


    Finally, Jacob found his voice. “You''re right, it''s better that you don''t know any details. Either positive or negative.” And from the tone of his voice, there would be plenty of both. He seemed rather sad when he mentioned the bad things, but shook it off before offering her a weak smile. “But hey, we shouldn''t dwell on that. We''ve got plenty of issues as it is. Namely, we''ve got seven months to fill up, without exposing you to anything you’re not supposed to know about yet. Which means no video games or--uh, never mind. That’s a whole can of worms. You know what, I think there’s board games in one of the closets. Chess! You like chess, right?”


    Unable to help her smile at how awkward he was being, Gaia replied, “I''ve been known to play a game or two, though I do hope we aren’t about to sit through seven months-worth. That might be enough to make me request that you take another trip through time to eliminate whoever invented the game, timeline consequences be damned.”


    Her words made Jacob laugh, which brought a smile to Gaia’s face. Both of them reveled in that moment, before the man turned to start walking out of the room, his face slightly pink. “Uh, yeah, let’s go see what we can find for entertainment. And… there’s a training room we can put to use too.” he sounded slightly hesitant then, as though unsure about whether or not she would want to do such a thing. Did she not exercise in the future? Surely that would be absurd.


    Attempting to put the man at ease on that subject, Gaia immediately favored him with a smile. “That sounds very helpful. We wouldn''t want to become slow and weak during this downtime, would we? Your routines may be a bit much for me to keep up with, but I''ll do my best.”


    Together, they walked through the ship corridors, getting a better idea of the layout. They both knew they had quite a lot of time to kill, so neither was any particular hurry. Despite her earlier words, Gaia still had to remind herself a couple of times not to ask any questions about the future. Her companion might know now that she was aware of his secret-- or at least one of them-- but that didn''t change anything. Not in the long run. She still couldn’t be told anything about this future he came from. Not even a hint, nothing. She had to put every thought about finding out what was coming for her out of her mind and focus on simply… living here right now. No matter how hard it was. He knew. Jacob obviously knew plenty about what was coming. Every time anything bad happened, she would wonder how much Jacob knew about it, and whether he could have warned her so that she could be ready.


    And yet, she wouldn''t hold it against him. No matter what happened, no matter how bad it was, the simple truth was that she had obviously gotten through it. She survived--would survive, rather. Jacob was here now, he knew her in the future. Whatever happened, however bad it might get (and from some of the expressions she’d seen him try to hide, the answer was rather bad indeed), it would eventually lead to her being the sort of person someone like Jacob would trust implicitly. And that was a future she would do anything to reach.


    Still, that didn''t mean the temptation to get a cheat sheet about what was coming was exactly easy to resist. Knowing it was the right thing in the long run didn''t completely erase every thought of how simple it would be to find out more and make things even better than they already were. Which, obviously, defeated the point. Jacob trusted her. Violating that trust simply because it would make things easier would instantly make her not the person she was to him. She would be ruining her own future in her attempt to make it easier to reach that future. It was very easy to say that she didn’t want to find out anything that could change the timeline, but quite a different matter to understand that she had to completely and firmly stick to that decision every moment for the next seven months while they were stuck on this vessel together, with little to occupy them.


    She had to distract herself from those thoughts. So, Gaia quite pointedly cleared her throat as they were walking toward what Jacob believed was some sort of ‘recreation room.’ “What about the young Necromancer girl you have imprisoned in that bag? You said there were supplies in there for a short time, but nothing close to seven months.”


    The man’s head gave a short nod, as he reflexively glanced at his own pocket. “Ah, yeah, I’m gonna have to let her out in a bit so we can see if she’ll behave herself. I''m hoping we can come to some sort of arrangement so I can let her out on the ship instead of leaving her stuck in there all the time. I don''t think she''s fanatically loyal to Fahsteth or anything. He said something about hiring her. And uhh, from that stuff she was shouting before, she’s really into the… aesthetics of this whole Necromancy thing.” A slightly amused smile crossed his face briefly before he shook it off. “Uh, anyway, I’ll talk to her and kind of feel her out. But later. I think umm, when I do…”


    “It’s best if I am nowhere around,” Gaia finished for him. “If she is from the same future as you, she must know things I shouldn’t. It would be a bad idea for me to be within earshot until you convince her not to say anything that might change that timeline.”


    “Yeah, and… um, well we might as well get this out before it actually becomes an issue.” Jacob turned, stopping in the middle of the corridor to face her. “Gaia, I uhh, I’m not completely certain I’m good enough to pull it off, but I might have a way to erase your memory if you do happen to find out anything you''re not supposed to. Before it even comes up, just in case, I want to know if you… uhh, you know, if you’d allow--”


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    “Yes,” Gaia immediately confirmed, reaching out to put one hand on his shoulder reassuringly. “I told you, whatever happens, I want to reach this future of yours. I want to be the person you know in that time. No matter how easy it would be to learn things I shouldn’t know, it’s far better that I experience everything as it was intended. If I do learn anything else, if I do find out details that would jeopardize that future, I give you my full and complete permission to do whatever you need to in order to erase those memories. Though…” She paused a bit indecisively. “Truly this would be easier if it was the other way around. I know a bit about changing memories myself. Wait, does your knowledge come from--” In the middle of that question, Gaia stopped herself, blushing faintly. Yes, that was the perfect example of just how easy it was to accidentally almost ask for information about the future.


    “Ahem, I’m going to turn around so I don’t see your very expressive face,” she announced, turning to face the opposite way. “Take your time in answering and keep your voice as even as possible. If it’s something you can’t answer without giving anything away, feel free to say so. But for the purposes of our… planning for such an eventuality, does your memory changing ability stem at all from my old mentor, Hecate?  That was who was taught me the spells necessary for those manipulations.”


    Her question was that with a long silence. She couldn''t tell what sort of reaction the man was having. Which was the point. If they were going to plan out what to do in the event that she did learn things she shouldn''t know, she had to know if he would be using the same spells she was so very familiar with. If he was, they would have to come up with a way for her not to find out about it. Because if she realized her memory had been tampered with but didn’t know why that tampering had happened and that she had agreed to it, she might end up undoing the tampering, which… would be bad.


    Finally, Jacob spoke in as even a tone as possible. “Okay, first, no, what I’m thinking of doing isn’t a spell. It’s more of a… power, sort of. But maybe you could teach me how that works? And second of all, Hecate was your mentor? Like, the old goddess witch or whatever? This might be changing things too, just to admit I don’t know, but what’s she like?” There was a lot more behind that question, as though Jacob had a more important reason for asking what sort of person Hecate was but couldn’t get into it.


    “They,” Gaia corrected, still facing the opposite direction. It was easier this way, if she didn’t have to try to ignore Jacob’s expressions while he was schooling himself after each of her questions. “Hecate uses the terms they and them.”


    “Huh. I guess that has been around for awhile.” Jacob sounded thoughtful before clearly shaking that off. “But sure, got it. They are Hecate. What’re they like? I mean, is that something you can share?”


    “I believe I can talk about them,” Gaia agreed, smiling a bit to herself at the thought. “But let us go and find this chessboard you promised. I’ll tell you about my old mentor while we play a game.”


    So, the two of them did that. Obviously, there were very important other things they could have focused on when it came to their long term survival and such, but that could wait. After all, they had plenty of time. The recreational room had a pair of astonishingly soft and comfortable seats in front of a metal table. The chessboard was projected from that table in some sort of solid light images, which fascinated Gaia as much as anything else on this strange vessel. Yet again, she couldn''t help but wonder just how much of this was completely normal for Jacob. He’d said that he had grown up in a household without any of these things, which meant the Bystander Effect must still exist in whatever time he came from. Indeed, it must have grown in strength considerably. But still, even if it was only in communities without that limitation, Gaia was astonished by the very idea that this sort of technology could be commonplace. At the very least, he didn''t seem surprised or confused by it.


    Allowing Jacob to play white and make the first move, Gaia found herself relaxing in the soft, padded seat. It seemed as though it should belong to a king or an emperor. It was the sort of chair that she would have used magic to create in the old days, simply to show her casual power when others came for negotiations. But this one was simply here, a random seat in a random room, as though it was completely normal. Another thing Jacob showed no real reaction to. The future was awash in comfortable chairs, apparently. She could certainly think of worse things.


    Still, she turned her attention to the past rather than the potential future. That was a much safer subject for her mind to dwell on. “My mentor, Hecate… they found me after my second abduction. Do--” She frowned, looking that way while absently resting her finger on one of the chess pieces. “Do you know of my past?” Even asking that, asking if this man who clearly trusted her so much knew of her dark history, was enough to make her stomach twist. If he didn’t know who she had once been, would that taint everything? How would it make her feel to know that his trust of her had that sort of special notation next to it?


    “You were Morgan Le Fay,” Jacob confirmed, his gaze meeting hers as he put an end to her uncertain and anxious ponderings with those few simple words. “I know you were angry about what you saw as injustice, and that… spiraled further than you probably initially intended. You did some things you regret even now. A lot of things,” he amended that last bit softly. “I don’t know all the details, but I’ve read stories and seen--” Stopping himself, Jacob gave a soft, uncomfortable cough. “Let’s just say I know you did things you wish you hadn’t, and that you’ve worked to make up for.”


    It was a strange feeling, to actually be grateful that someone knew about her terrible past, but Gaia let it wash over her with a very slight smile before focusing. “Yes, and I suppose simply saying that I was Morgan Le Fay as though that is a very meaningful name says something all on its own.” A chuckle escaped her when the young man visibly blanched, and she held up a hand to reassure him. “Don''t worry, it''s hardly surprising that my name would be known. I did make myself quite the spectacle, opposing Arthur like that.”


    Normally, that would be a statement that would send a rush of pain through her. And yes, there was still some of that. There likely always would be. But there wasn''t as much as there would’ve been at other times. She knew now that it was something she could get past, something that could be firmly part of her history, influencing but not completely controlling her. And that was somehow more comforting than any verbal assurances could have been.


    Moving her chosen piece, she tapped it thoughtfully while continuing. “Before I was that, I was Morgana, bastard child of an affair.” She felt the faint stirrings of anger in her own voice when the memories of her time back then trickled back, and pushed that aside. “I waited outside that village, waited for my brother after he ran back in. While I was there, bandits came and took me. I suppose they were attracted by the attack, seeing it as a good chance to grab some panicked villagers fleeing from the dragon. It wasn''t as though the people there had much of a chance to organize themselves, or grab anything to defend themselves with. They were simply running in a blind panic. When the bandits saw me, they took advantage. I tried to fight, but it didn''t help. They took me and sold me to a very bad man, a man who… who did very bad things to a lot of people, myself included. At times, I wanted to die. Instead, I survived.” There was more she could have said about that, but it wasn’t something Gaia wanted to put any focus on. So she skimmed over it with a simple, yet pointed, “I escaped, and built a small life for myself in a city. It wasn’t much, just a shop. But… I enjoyed that shop. I enjoyed living there, I liked my customers. It was a nice shop. I still miss it sometimes. I miss my regular customers, the people who… who visited me every day.” A small, fond smile found its way to her face before she pushed on. “It was a quiet, yet moderately successful life. I think I could have been happy enough there, if that was all I experienced. But that life ended when I was taken yet again. This time it was Orcs. I was taken along with a couple other men whom you might know.”


    There was a brief pause before Jacob carefully replied as he moved one of his pieces, “I’ve heard that part of the story. Nicholas helped you escape and stayed behind.”


    “Yes,” Gaia confirmed flatly. “I was so angry with Bernlak for that, so-- yes, well, it seems anger has a firm place in my history.” She grimaced, then moved her next piece. “I was so angry that I chased him down. Which wasn’t easy to do, mind. He was very good at running away from things… always has been.” Pushing aside her thoughts about that, Gaia focused on the actual point. “In any case, I followed him all the way to another village, intending to have it out for the man for his cowardice. That was when the creature found us.”


    “The Djehuti?” Jacob put in while sliding his next piece over a space. “That’s what gave you technology-manipulation and S--sent its biology expertise to Bernlak.”


    There was something in the way he stumbled over that word that told Gaia he had almost said more than he meant to. But she let it go and simply nodded. “Yes, it seems the being was ready to pass on, and wished to find someone to pass his power onto. There was a man in the village I followed Bernlak to, a very strong, kind man, from everything I have learned since that point. The Djehuti had chosen him to receive the power, all of it. I don''t know if you''re actually aware, but a Djehuti’s gifts are very unique. Only a certain specific amount of them can exist in the universe at any given point. They cannot be duplicated through Reaper machinations, and even normal human bonding will not take the power unless the Djehuti willingly passes it on. And it must be passed on, not duplicated.


    “In any case, this one had that person he wished to give his power to. They had a long relationship, one of mutual respect and friendship over many years. To this day, I don''t understand the full extent of it, but it was something close to family. The Djehuti was very old and meant to safely give his power to that man. But in the midst of the ceremony that would have accomplished that and peacefully passed his powers to his chosen successor, the village was attacked. There were those who were attempting to take that power for themselves. They interrupted the ceremony, bringing magic with them that would have forced the Djehuti to pass his power onto their leader, now that he had begun to give them to someone else. They killed everyone else in the village who could have accepted it.”


    Jacob was quiet for a moment before his gaze found hers. “But then you and Bernlak showed up, right? They didn''t count on a couple random people just walking into town.”


    Gaia gave a soft chuckle. “Indeed they did not. None of us expected what happened that day. Bernlak was simply looking for a place to get drunk so he could stop thinking about his fear about what had almost happened to him so recently. Not to mention allowing him to more easily drown out my words. And I wanted to chase him down to continue telling the man exactly what I thought of him. I''m afraid we were so focused on our own problems we failed to notice what was happening in the village at first. We made it all the way to the tavern before realizing something was wrong. That was when the soldiers found us. It was in the middle of their ceremony, the one to steal the Djehuti’s power. The being had begun his own ritual to pass his power, which was the only time they could use their own spell to interrupt and steal it. The power was out of him and had to go somewhere. It was being drawn to their leader.”


    She stopped talking for a few long seconds then, going silent as she thought about that moment so long ago now. A somewhat wistful smile crossed her face. “The soldiers could have killed us. They probably would have, but Bernlak did have a rather developed sense of self-preservation. He managed to push a rotten beam over into one of them, which made the roof of the tavern''s patio collapse. They were caught in the debris, and he took my hand. To this day I''m not certain what made him reach out to me considering how much I had been dressing him down, but he did. He took my hand and we ran. Perhaps everything would have been different if we had run to the right, which would have led out of the village. We never would''ve learned what was happening there, and I simply would have gone back to a normal life. But we went left, on a random whim, which took us directly into the center of town. The imprisoned Djehuti saw us, and thus saw a solution, a way to avoid its power ending up in the hands of that monster. He split the power, giving the instinctive understanding and knowledge of living beings to Bernlak, and the manipulation of advanced technology to me, just before passing on.”


    “I''m surprised you got out of there alive after that,” Jacob noted. “Something tells me the guy who went through all the trouble to try to steal that power probably didn''t react well to you guys coming in at the last second and snaking it out from under him.”


    “Snaking?” Gaia shook her head at that confusing term, but pressed on. “No, he did not react well. And he may well have attempted to kill us where we stood. Or, more likely, find a way to force us to give the power to him through another ritual. But before he or his men could do anything of the sort, Hecate arrived. They had been drawn by the aura of magical power that have been set up by the ritual intended to steal that Djehuti’s gifts. Somehow, they seemed to understand precisely what had happened. Those men never stood a chance.” There was fondness in her voice at the memory of her old mentor. “They killed that entire army with their magic. Then they took Bernlak and myself under their guidance. I had been through much up to that point, abducted by monsters twice in one life, nearly killed by even more in that very moment, and I had just been handed more power than I could come close to understanding just then. And yet, it was only upon seeing the way Hecate so casually destroyed an entire army of men that I knew my life would never return to any sense of average normality.


    “Or perhaps the better way of putting it would be that in seeing their strength, they were the one who convinced me that I didn’t want to be normal.”