Marina. That is what the Above People call me, since they do not know my name. Above People. My brothers and sisters would tell me stories about them to scare me when I was littler. Dry Landers. Filth Makers. Whale killing, sky dwelling, surface monsters who'd kill and eat me, or worse, eat me before I was dead. None of the scare-tales would have ever let me know just how weird the Above People really were. And they are very, very strange people. But they have been kind to me, and I consider some of them friends. I just wish I could tell my brothers and sisters how it really is under the burning circle. But I cannot go home. I do not know where home is anymore. Not since I was taken away. You have probably heard some of my story, but only I know all of what has happened. So I will tell you all that I am allowed to tell you. Joseph William McTaggert was the first Above Person I ever met. He was - as yet is - an officer on the military submarine HMCS Deamon Hunter, and he had just watched the execution of the other soldiers, of his friends. He was injured, angry, and not in the least bit as impressive-looking as the stories I'd been told. Two arms, two legs, one head, normal number of eyes and ears and such, no fangs, no claws or spikes. But he frightened me enough, even though beaten and rumpled. Perhaps the time spent before this fateful meeting had dulled my ability to be afraid. After all, there was only so much room for fear in my young heart, and the Master - piss on his evil-rotted corpse - had ensured by then that I was fully beaten into obedient submission. At least, that's how Eliea had quickly taught me to appear. Submissive. Stupid. Unaware of anything, especially the important things that occurred mere paces from where I was chained to the stones. In my heart, I'd killed every black-eyed bastard soldier in that fortress. But I was better at it then they were - I was fast when I pretended. Not slow, taking many cuts to kill, as they usually did. I knew, hidden deep inside myself, that I was better than they were, in at least a few ways. I would have killed some, too, if I'd had the chance. Or even a sharp blade - but after I tried to open an artery . . . my own, actually, before my soul grew strong enough to consider fighting back - I wasn't allowed near anything sharp unless an experienced guard held the better end. It had probably been years since I'd held that knife, but I had to way to tell time. The scar is there, always will be, but it has healed. So, if I spilled blood in my dreams, it was the Master's. I wanted to leave, to be home again, to be anywhere else that was safe, but the guards were so much faster than I was. I never got far enough away to hide, even, before they found me, beat me, brought me back and beat me again, beating away the blurry warm memories that where my childhood and my home. I hadn't tried to escape in many months. Years, probably. As I have said, I had no way to tell time. It just wasn't worth the treatment I'd receive when I was brought back before the Master. I was too important to let go. I was a Symbol. Even when a messenger came with ransom - I'd never seen such wealth displayed at one time, it made me cry to think that my family would consider my freedom worth so much - the Master refused, and sent the barrels back empty except for the messenger's headless body. It was a great dishonor, but even then the Master had too much power, too many soldiers, and too much arrogance to care about honor. I had, by then, become one of his toys, a doll to sit on a shelf: "Look! Here is proof that the city-state of her kind, clan, and family, with it's universities and libraries and scholars, is no match for my troops!" Not that he could actually overtake my home. Every Warlord and Leader in the Twelve Holy Realms would take up arms against him, for fear of their own losses. Even the people who lived in the unholy realms - what you would call 'fresh' water - know of us, who we were, and sometimes even came to study and be a part of the world we held together. Every single person who wanted to be great enough for History to name learned with us, or asked that a Sep'ath'nai travelling-tutor visit and teach their children, if not themselves as well. And those who refused one of my kind at a major negotiation was almost always attempting treason-of-honor. The Warlord whom I called 'Master' wasn't powerful enough to try to overtake my Father's City. Not even if he had a hundred willing allies, no-one would be that strong, ever. Or so I had thought, until the Above People came. Still, I had many reasons before then to hate the Master. And I hated my own lost innocence, gone on the day I had been foolish enough to have snuck out past the boundaries and been recognized and then caught by a raiding party who had sold me to the Master. Since then, several (at least so many) years had passed, and there had been no relief even to see the raider's heads on poles for later trying to betray the Master. I was still a slave, and few things comforted me. That was the far-past. I should now write of the near-past. Of Joseph, and how I met him.