“I have another question,” Dave says a little later. The formality with which he speaks is weirdly at odds with his muscular, barbaric visage. “Where’s the loo?”

We all stare at him. I don’t know what to think.

“You still think this is a hallucination?” James says acidly.

“You know, I think I prefer you when you’re smoking grass,” Dave bites back.

“Yeah, so do I.” James sulks a little, acknowledging the point, after a fashion.

“Oh shut up, both of you!” I snap. “You’re like fucking children.” It’s surprising enough that they both do actually subside.

“Maybe it’s down below?” Lee suggests.

“I looked before I came up,” Dave replies.

“Well, can’t you just pee over the side or something?” Lee follows up, then a realisation creeps over his face. “Oh shit!”

James starts giggling, but I poke him to make him stop. Lee buries his head in his hands again.

Dave looks confused. “I don’t… Oh, I see,” he says, getting Lee’s predicament a little late. “Oh man, I–”

“Oh fucking hell!” Lee wails. He looks at me, as if I might have some solution. I just shrug and mouth ‘I don’t know!’ I don’t know. I suppose, I think, smiling at the thought, it simply had yet to become a pressing issue.

Thing is, I’ve never peed standing up. I never could bring myself to do it, even as a child. So it was going to become a pressing issue sooner or later anyway.

“I was going to say,” Dave struggles back into the conversation, then gets shy as everyone’s looking at him again. “I don’t only have to pee anyway.”

“Ah,” James says.

“I mean, where do we go? What are we supposed use to wipe our bottoms?” Dave asks, rather plaintively. “What did people do before they had toilet paper?”

We’re all stumped by this.

I start giggling. I can’t help it, and I know it’s especially silly because I don’t have any better idea than anyone else. It’s simply the juxtaposition of this huge, rather buff, warrior type fretting primly about not having any toilet paper. I can’t help it.

“It’s not funny!” Dave protests.

“I know!” I manage through my giggles. “I know! I’m sorry…” It’s no use.

“Shut up!”

“I’m trying to…”

“She’s got the giggles,” I hear James say. All I can do is nod and try to hide my face.

“He,” Lee reminds him.

I sigh. Well, it stopped my giggling fit. I share a look with Lee for a moment. Even I don’t know what expression I’m showing. Finally I look away.

“Maybe you just use your hand,” James wonders aloud. That gets a chorus of horrified reactions, from myself included. “You’d wash your hands afterwards!” James protests. “With… something! I don’t know. Have they invented soap?”

“God knows,” Lee mutters. “Maybe you’re supposed to jump in the sea and do it. We’d pull you out again, wouldn’t we guys?” Big grin. Again, it’s so weird to see such a Lee-ish expression in that pretty face. “We wouldn’t sail away or nothing.”

“Yeah, and what if there are sharks?”

“Mmm, or tentacled sea monsters,” Lee elaborates.

“That’s not funny,” James and I say in unison. Then I ruin it by starting to giggle again.

“You’re getting hysterical,” Lee informs me, unnecessarily. “Stop being so girly.”

I stick my tongue out at her.

“Ew! Forked tongue!” Lee gasps, pointing.

“What? Bloody isn’t!” I object. But then I have to check, damn her; feeling inside my mouth and then sticking my tongue out again so I can feel it with my fingers.

“Haha, madeyercheck,” Lee cackles.

“Cow.”

We’re interrupted by the cabin door opening. A young woman climbs out onto the deck carrying a small woven bag of something. She has the flat features and complexion that makes me instantly think, ~Southern Islander. She’s a long way from home.~ I don’t know where that information came from. The same place as the shipcraft, I suppose.

“Good morning,” she says, a little formally. “I’m sorry I slept so late.”

“That’s all right,” James replies. “You’d been through a lot.”

~That’s not English,~ I realise. We glance between us quickly, absorbing that. James looks especially surprised, because his reply hadn’t been in English either, but the same language she had used.

The young woman smiles, then comes to the side of the cockpit next to me, climbs up on the seat, turns, hitches up her skirts and sits on the gunwale, her rear end overhanging the water… And right there and then does her business.

I’m frozen in surprise and embarrassment. I just look away quickly. Down. Anywhere but at her. I can see the others doing the same thing.

“Are we heading South?” she asks conversationally.

“Uh… yes,” I manage. “Up the Cat’s Tail into Jeodin.” The foreign words trip out of my mouth easily.

“I’m so happy to be away from that place I don’t care where we’re going,” she says. None of us have anything we can add to that, so she finishes what she’s doing in silence, opens the bag she brought up on deck and wipes herself with a clump of something off-white. It looks like wool, although I’m still trying to avert my eyes, without trying to look too much like I’m averting my eyes. It’s clear she has no taboos about this sort of thing at all. “We’re nearly out of bumwool,” she comments matter-of-factly, dropping what she just used over the side of the boat. She pulls the drawstring tight on the bag and stands up, letting her skirts fall. “I’ll see if there’s any more in the cabin.”

And back down into the cabin she goes, leaving the four of us unable quite to look at each other, stunned.

Lee’s the first to find her voice. His voice. (Whatever.) “Okay, there is no way I would have dreamed that.”

“There you go then,” James says to Dave.

“It’s all right, I found some more!” the young woman yells up from inside the cabin.

“I’ll wait until we hit land, thank you,” Dave says stiffly.

“That could be a few days yet,” I point out.

“Why? I thought we were going there?” He points at the rocky island lying about a mile to starboard.

“We can’t, there’s no-where to land. There’s nothing there but birds and cliffs,” I point out.

“How do you know? We haven’t been all the way around–”

“I know!” I insist. “I remember. I don’t know how, but I’ve… I’ve sailed around here before.”

“You might as well get it over with,” James says to Dave, not being sarcastic this time. “Look, there’s going to be ten thousand things that are going to be weird as fuck to us, and this is, like, two on the list. We’re on a boat, there’s no private loo, so you go over the side and you wipe your arse with bumwool.” He used the word the girl had used, in that language. “Get used to it. All of us. And no joking or making fun, alright?”

“Yeah,” I murmur. Suddenly I realise how tired I’m feeling. And I can smell… “Can I smell cooking?” I ask aloud.

“I think our friend has found something to eat as well.” It smells like sausages, of all things.

“She did wash her hands, didn’t she?” Lee asks, suddenly.

None of us know the answer to that. Maybe there’s something to wash them with in the cabin, but I suspect we’re all thinking that number three on the list might well be reduced expectations of personal hygeine.

Oh, but the cooking sausages smell good. “There must be some kind of barbecue arrangement down there,” James speculates. “It’s not like there’s going to be gas.”

“Tell you what, I’ll go down and find out,” I say. “I’m tired anyway, I might see if I can get a little sleep.”

“See if she’s making enough for all of us, or just herself,” Lee says. “I’m starving.”

I get up and go down, leaving the fur with James. There is indeed a barbecue arrangement; a small curved-bottomed tray on a gimbal with charcoal burning in the bottom. The girl is standing by it, tending the meat with a wooden spatula.

“I’m sorry, Miss; I could only find this in the stores,” she says. “Perhaps we can catch some fish today, and I’ll cook it for you.” She smiles brightly in the gloom inside the cabin. “The others will all eat meat, won’t they?”

“Um…” I begin, dumbly. I don’t eat meat? That’s a bitter blow. “As far as I know they do. I’m not hungry anyway,” I lie. The smell of the lamb sizzling is doing things inside my stomach, and for a moment I’m actually not sure if I’m hungry or nauseous. And if I don’t eat meat, then, is that religious or biological? I did define the character as a sea-elf after all. “I was just looking for somewhere I can sleep for a while,” I finish.

In answer, she points toward the double-berth I can just see in the bows. There are, as James had mentioned earlier, plenty of furs, and it’s looking increasingly inviting. “You should sit. You’re in the way,” she tells me, but she smiles too.

“Okay,” I say, and edge around her and head toward the berths at the front.

“There is some fruit,” the girl says, then. “It’s only dried but it might be better than nothing.”

“I’m really not hungry,” I say. “Is there some water somewhere though?” I’m glad she seems to have taken it upon herself to ‘keep house’ as it were. Her simple competence in these little things while the four of us are floundering around is so reassuring. It’s the classic role of an NPC dragged onto an adventure of course, which makes me think: Is that just her destiny now? If Dave hadn’t been anal enough to slow the game down by checking belowdecks on that other boat, would she even exist?

But she seems like a whole, real woman. The play of expressions on her face speaks of simple reality. The texture of her skin, the freckles, the way she shoves her hair behind her ears carelessly before she reaches to pull a leather flask off the small shelf over the barbecue. She hands it to me.

“Thank you,” I say, and I take a few sips. I had intially thought to take a good long drink, but an instinct stops me. “How much have we got, do you know?” I ask.

“I think we have enough for about five days,” she says, taking the flask back from me.

“We should make landfall before then,” I say. Then, “What is your name?” I ask, impulsively. “In the rush last night no-one got around to telling me.” I try an apologetic smile.

“I’m Jalese, Miss,” she replies, looking at me a little curiously.

“Jalese. That’s pretty. I’m Taniel, by the way.”

“Yes, I know,” she says.

Damn. Obviously we did have some conversation where names were exchanged the previous night — in her memory anyway.

“I won’t forget again,” I promise. “I’m very tired. We’re all… We’re all a bit disoriented,” I explain. “Something happened to us back there, while we were escaping. I don’t understand it yet. Our memories aren’t quite… all there.”

“I understand, Miss. Perhaps we should just rest today,”

“Yes,” I agree. “Maybe that’s a good idea.”

“I’ll wake you if we need you,” she reassures me.

“Thank you. Have you spent a lot of time on boats?” I ask. She squints at me, slightly comically. “I’m sorry, that was a stupid question,” I say. “I’m having a very strange day.”

“Go to sleep, Miss.”