She surfaced from dreamless depths slowly, like a leviathan rising from gloom into shimmering blue before breaking into sunlight. She became aware of the ground beneath her, a thick loam mixed with dead leaves and a bed of ferns crushed beneath her body. It was unnatural for her, that much she instinctively knew. She didn’t lay on the ground, not like this with her head in the dirt.

She gasped as she opened her eyes, dragging her body up to a seated position. She was in a forest. That was obvious - she was surrounded by trees, sitting in thick undergrowth. She looked up - the sun filtered through an abundant canopy. Whistling birdsong, the buzzing of insects, rustling leaves and nearby the low roar of moving water filled the air with an ambient chorus that drifted through the sticky, humid air.

She looked at her hands - her long fingers were familiar. She had a rush of knowing that she knew a number of ways to use them. Using a fork, obviously, a knife, a spoon, chopsticks if necessary, she could sew buttons, use a crochet needle if she kept the pattern simple. She could write in two languages - well, one language proficiently. She knew what a ball felt like in her hands though if she thought of playing games with balls she was more familiar with how to kick one around than how to throw one.

These were all things she knew from simply looking at her hands. The problem was, she did not know how she knew these things. As she tried to come up with the names of the languages in which she could write (and read and speak, she realized), all that appeared in her mind was an emptiness. 

Her breath quickened as she realized that she could not remember her own name, either. She was sure she had a family, but who was part of it was just as blank. And the clothes she was wearing were strange to her, though she could not explain why. She simply knew that this long, cerulean blue robe with a wide collar that tangled in her legs and belted right below her bust was wrong.

A groan nearby startled her. She dipped her body down for a moment, surveying the forest floor. Not far off, about ten feet away, the ferns rustled. She pulled the robe up around her knees and carefully crawled to the moving undergrowth until the long form of a sleeping man became visible.

She paused. He was dressed in a robe as well, deep garnet, trimmed in black, belted at the waist, and hitting his knees. Wide black trousers covered his legs. He lay on his back, eyes closed, shifting now and then while crinkling his brow. His black hair had just enough length for each lock to curl loosely against his head. 

And he was handsome. That knowledge was certainly not a blank. He had high cheekbones, a tapered chin that squared off before it came to a point, and she was almost positive that if he opened his eyes at that moment, they’d be dark pools of ink that she’d fall into. 

They snapped open as she stared and she cried out and fell back into the brush. As the strange man groaned and lifted his head from the ground, she hid her face in her hands, embarrassed. If he was experiencing the same disorientation as she was, the last thing he needed was some strange woman watching him sleep. 

“Excuse me?” The man’s voice croaked, and he cleared his throat. “Excuse me, miss? Or…or ma’am maybe?”

She turned and looked at him.

“Am I a ma’am or a miss?” she asked, not knowing why she was a little wary of the former title. 

“I…I think it would depend on my age, right?” The man stared at her for long enough that she had time to realize she was right - his eyes were a brown too dark for light to reflect off of (while realizing that she also knew that light existed, and that it reflected off surfaces). “I think to me, you’re a miss. I don’t feel particularly old, though.”

“You aren’t,” she said. “I’d say you’re somewhere in your late twenties or so. Maybe early thirties?”

“Same to you. I have no idea why I know that.” He looked at his hands as well. She wondered if that was the natural thing to do when you did not know what to do. “I assume you’re the same as me, then? Your memory is blank?”

“I know a bunch of information,” she said. “Like that we’re in something called a forest, and that we’re wearing what’s called clothes, and that somehow we both speak the same language. But if you asked me my name right now, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know where I live, I don’t know who my parents are, I don’t know how I got here, and I don’t know why being here right now feels wrong.”

“I’m the same,” he said. “I know…I know if you asked me to drop a feather and a ball at the same time on the moon, they’d land at the same time. I think I could even give you the math for it, if I thought about it long enough. But I sure as hell can’t tell you why I know all that, or who taught me.”

“Since the moon has barely any atmosphere, the feather wouldn’t encounter any lift from the air as it fell, so there would be no need to consider it, so of course a ball and a feather would fall at the same velocity, which is distance divided by time.” They stared at each other for a moment before she cried, “How do I know that??”

"Maybe it's one of those common knowledge facts that people who want to sound smart pull out at parties when they're drunk." He grinned.

She felt her face grow hot. His smile was dangerous - his two front teeth overlapped slightly, and somehow that imperfection made it all the more charming.

"Ha, maybe," she said, standing suddenly and busying herself with brushing out the folds of her robe. "You know, I know what a party is, but if I try to think of just what happens at one, it all gets blurry."

The man laughed. "Probably from all the alcohol." He joined her in standing and shaking out his clothes before running his hand over the cloth. "Also, I don't think I've ever worn something like this. The pants feel weird. Really loose. I don't think I wear loose pants. Also, I'm not that afraid right now, and I know that isn't normal."

She thought about it, and realized he was right. She woke up with no memory in a strange place wearing strange clothes, but apart from the initial bewilderment, she felt calm. As if this was as it should be.

"Well, we won't figure out anything if we stick around here," she said. "I hear water, and I'd rather be lost and hydrated instead of just lost."

He shrugged and waved out a hand. "Lead the way."

They both wore soft leather shoes with soles too thin to keep a small, sharp stone from digging into the heel, which she painfully discovered a few feet into their journey. Thus they tread carefully through the forest, watching for anything that could harm their feet or twist their ankles. As they followed the sound of rushing water, they picked up their conversation, listing between themselves what they could and could not remember.

Foods were the easiest, though there was a sense that everything existed in broad categories. Pasta, but no type of pasta, soup but no recipe came to mind, greens but not a variety of edible leaves. Simple physics was next - equations for how to measure the arch of a thrown ball, common names for physical properties, the four states of matter. 

She knew that she could go deeper in the subject of physics if she wanted to - she could start reciting much more complex equations, especially if she had something to write with. But she kept this to herself. Something about it felt close to the truth of who she was, and for some reason she felt shy about sharing this with a strange, handsome, seemingly kind so far, man. 

"Entertainment," the man said as he helped her over a fallen log. "Anything come to mind in that category?"

“I know what plays are, and books,” she said. She kicked through the underbrush, using her robes as a shield against anything thorny or stinging. “But I can’t name anything’s title. I know music exists, but I can’t sing because I can’t remember the lyrics or the melody to anything. Maybe because stories and songs are good for jogging memory, and whoever dropped us in the middle of the forest doesn't want us to remember anything important?”

“So you also think someone took parts of our memory deliberately.” He nodded as he walked. “It’s the only logical answer.” 

“No, I think we were walking in the woods and accidentally inhaled some strange mushroom spores that dissolved only parts of our brains before we passed out,” she said with a drawl. 

He chuckled. “Yes, you’re right, it’s pretty obvious. But I am really curious about why. Are we part of an experiment? Are we in some sort of strange contest? Were we kidnapped, or did we volunteer? And how many drugs are in our systems keeping us from freaking out right now?”

“It has to be a lot. I have a feeling freaking out is part of my natural state.” She stopped for a second. “No, wait. I think it’s something I deal with frequently, but not from myself. Huh.”

He looked back at her with a grin. “Good! See, talking things out, it may help with our memories. One of us might say the right thing, and then it will all click into place. Ah, look! I see a break in the trees ahead, and the roar is getting pretty loud now. Have you noticed we’ve been raising our voices?”

She had noticed, and had noticed how the wind had cooled. She quickened her pace, following the man past the tree line. A short prairie stretched in front of them, wildflowers waving in the wind. To the left some fifty yards away was a rushing river with rocky banks that cut through the prairie for about thirty feet before disappearing over the edge of a cliff.

“Well, that explains why the water was so loud - nothing quiet about a waterfall,” he said, but she was not listening. 

She walked slowly through the prairie, pushing aside the longer grasses, stopping a few feet away from the cliff. She did not bother looking down - she knew from the sound of the waterfall that the bottom of the cliff was quite a distance away. Instead, she stared out to the horizon at the forest that stretched off into the distance before breaking apart into farmland. Even further in the distance still was a set of shimmering white towers and domes, clear signs of a city. Finally, a set of mountains seemed to surround everything, a hazy purple line against the sky.

He slipped up next to her and whistled. Unlike her, he did look down first. 

“Why don’t you back away? You don’t want to risk falling.” He took her hand and pulled her gently away from the cliff edge.

“I don’t think we’re anywhere near what we’d call home,” she said faintly, still staring into the distance. “All of this feels wrong. Too different. What do you thin -”

As she turned she saw them - running full speed out of the woods, two giant beasts with wolf muzzles. She did not have time to react before one had grabbed the man and the other slammed a giant clawed hand into her belly, launching her off her feet. 

There was a moment like an eternity where she locked eyes with the man, who reached out at her helplessly. Then she was falling, air whistling past her ears. The fear that had been kept at bay since she woke filled her body then, and she screamed.

“NO.”

Her voice exploded from her, along with something else. Something that built inside her and released in a powerful wave. She stopped in mid-air, right above the canopy. Her head snapped back painfully, addling her. Then she continued to fall, her body helpless as it crashed its way through the branches. She felt her arm snap, but that pain was just one jolt among many. Finally, she landed in a heap of blue linen, her robes billowing around her.

“Distance divided by time,” she gasped, her mind swimming.

“By shadow and light, she’s over here!” She heard a voice call from close by. “Oh, and she is mightily injured! Come quickly!”

A face appeared above hers, concerned and reverent. 

“My lady and prophetess, do not worry, we will give you the best medicinal care in all of Medoreno.”

Prophetess. So that’s who I am, she thought muzzily before passing out.