Admiring her beauty, Evelyn's mouth was ajar. "Who is this sexy ass woman and where the hell am I?" Evelyn's first thought was.
"You're confused, yes?" The woman who said her name was Freya asks.
Focusing on the beautiful hue of her light green eyes like a leaf in the spring that just sprouted from a tree. Evelyn slowly nods yes.
"Well if you take a look around you can see we're at a temple at the bottom of the ocean. My temple to be precise. Volgma Temple."
Finally able to speak Evelyn replies, "At the bottom of the ocean?"
Freya smiles, "Follow me inside please." And she turns and begins to walk inside through the giant copper tan cylindrical pillars with a flame lit torch positioned on the side illuminating the entrance of the temple.
Evelyn stands up and looks back at the ocean outside of the dome. She watched the whales and fish swim by. Then she saw all the fish scatter and a dark massive figure swam by and swallowed the whale whole. A shiver of fear ran up Evelyn's spine and she quickly ran after the woman in the temple.
"You are quite beautiful," Freya complimented Evelyn once she caught up, "Your hair is really quite pretty."
"No kidding," Evelyn said. "Well, I mean thank you. But we kind of have the same type of hair. But we have similar tastes," This was Evelyn's subtle and poor attempt to compliment the woman in a sort of flirty way.
Evelyn wasn't only interested in men, just Jackson. She admired women of all types. Her preferred woman would have black hair and beautiful blue eyes. But she wasn't too picky.
She started to admire the interior of the temple from the inside. It wasn't copper tan like the outside of the temple. She's read about too many temples in books where authors weren't too concerned with going into detail on the inside as if the temple wasn't really important. Whoever this woman was, she made the inside of her temple important.
Ash gray baseboard with red and fold accented walls. On the walls were paintings of places, no people. They were in beautiful metallic silver and chrome frames. Brandished or brushed to look a little like vintage. Unless they were that old. The carpets laid upon the light travertine flooring had beautiful designs. They accented a hint of fire clashing with water. Warm colors against cool colors.
"So love, wondering how you ended up here?" Freya asks, clicking Evelyn back into the situation at hand from admiring the beautiful temple. They enter a hallway that just went along well to the front entry of the temple.
"Well, yeah," Evelyn says shyly.
"Not sure if you caught your broken raft when you woke up just a bit ago, but a storm came by and you went down," Freya answered.
"Wait a minute!" Evelyn gasped, "DID I DIE?!"
Laughing, Freya answers, "Not at all. No. I often overlook the sea above me when storms come by. I'm looking for someone specific and if that certain someone comes by and the storm comes, I can summon them to my temple. At least hoping they come by."
"So I'm just some 'random' you decided to save on a whim?" Evelyn says sarcastically. "Can't say I feel all that too important with a response like that," she then thinks.
Freya glances at Evelyn with a grin and then stops. She fully turns to face Evelyn directly. She walks to Evelyn with a serious look until she is inches from Evelyn's face and gazes in her eyes.
Evelyn doesn't know what's going on, but she feels entranced by Freya's beautiful light green eyes. Like they're drawing her in.
"I see," Freya finally says. "They're blue. So, it is you."
"Excuse me?" Evelyn stops. "Do you know me? Because I've never met you before."
Freya continues down the corridor as Evelyn follows again. "You have," Freya continues. "But to not remember me makes perfect sense. You were only a baby after all."
"WAIT! WHAT?!" Evelyn shouts.
Freya turned her head to Evelyn's outburst.
"Are you saying you're my mother?" Evelyn asks with an unsure tone in her voice.
Laughing and continuing to walk again Freya responds, "Oh god no! As desirable as a man your father was there no way I could possibly take him away from your mother. You can't break or interfere with a bond as strong as they have. Plus, I have no desire to be a mother. It seems exhausting."
"So you know who my mother and father were?" Evelyn asks excitedly. A question she had been wondering her whole life.
"Are, and yes, yes, I do. But no, I can't really tell you," Freya replies turning down another corner. "At least not right now."
They turn down another corner and Evelyn could she an archway covered with a navy-blue tapestry. They go through it, and Evelyn sees a large bath with elegantly pure steam rising from it. She feels the misty steam that's encasing the room confirming just how warm the water most likely is.
"You slept through a violent storm when a wave crashed into you and took you out. You can inspect your body and you'll see cuts and bruises. As a matter of fact, you have a cut on your leg that has been bleeding since you got here. Please go into the small bath on the side of the large one opposite of where we are and submerge yourself completely and then crawl into the big one and submerge yourself again. Please take all the time you need to relax. I will come back for you shortly," And Freya exited through another archway on the other side of the bath.
"Are there other people here besides her?" Evelyn thought to herself watching Freya's butt specifically when she was walking away.
She looks down at her leg and she winces noticing Freya was not lying about the cut in her leg. She made her way to the smaller pool and took off all her clothes He foot from the cut down was crimson red. "I really hope I'm not contaminating this water with all this blood" she thought as she crawled in. It was surprisingly warm. She inspected the rest of her body noticing the bruises and additional cuts before she dipped her entire body under the water and came back up like Freya instructed. She could feel the warming sensation all over her body. Specifically, all over the injuries. She pulled herself up and then slid into the larger bath which was much warmer but had a sensational feeling all over her body to her. She dipped her entire body in and swam to a ledge and just sat there basking in how the water felt.
"I literally just got naked and crawled into this stranger's bath with no questions asked," Evelyn just realized. "I guess I should just accept 'stranger danger' if I plan to be a pirate. I mean it's just a more aggressive type of 'stranger danger' if another pirate crew invade your ship on the sea." Evelyn caught herself giggling a little from that thought. She looks up admiring a illumination sensation on the ceiling like a clear view of the sky at night with a amazing array of all the stars in the sky. "I have no idea where I am. I have no idea who Freya is or what she knows about me. And for some reason, I feel fine." Evelyn bent down in the water to submerge herself to her neck level, "To be at ease like this, Did I really not die?" She sat in silence for a moment, "The pain of that cut felt all too real."
"I imagine you've had time to relax?" Freya says walking back in with a basket about 10 minutes later.
Noticing her Evelyn says, "Yes. It' been nice."
"Lovely," Freya smiles. "I bet it feels nice, but I don't think you'd want to prune with your delicate beauty so here I have a towel and underneath are some replacement clothes for you to wear." She places them on a table nearby where Evelyn was in the bath. "They're not like what you arrived in, but I think you'll like them. I'm not going to get too personal into things like your panties, so I included a few different ones. Whatever is not your preference, just leave in the basket. Unless you're a person who prefers none, I won't judge."
"Panties?" Evelyn replied. "You literally look like the person who would say something like undergarments."
"Is that bad?" Freya asks.
"I haven't called them that since I was six. It's just underwear," Evelyn says. "Panties is such a dirty word in my head. Not a word a lady would say."
"Panties, panties, panties," Freya says under her breath but still faint enough for Evelyn to hear. Then says, "Anyway, everything is here so I'll leave you to it."
"Are there any bandages for my cuts and bruises?" Evelyn asks.
Freya smiles and says, "What cuts and bruises?" And starts walking to the archway she came from again. "Come through here when you're dressed." And disappears behind the tapestry.
"The hell does she mean what cuts and bruises?" Evelyn says crawling out of the bath. She inspected herself and said, "The hell do I mean cuts and bruises? They're all gone!" Evelyn was noticing that everything on her before getting in the water was now healed. Including the large gash, she had on her leg that was bleeding profusely. There wasn't even a scar to tell where the cut was before. And all the bruises faded away. The parts where the bruises were weren't even painful to the touch when she started poking where she remembered where they were.
Wanting to know what happened to her, she quickly made her way to the basket and grabbed the towel and dried herself off to the best of her ability and then went for the clothes in the basket as well. She pulled out light gray pants that were like sweatpants and some slip on black shoes without laces. The shirt she pulled out was red like the one she showed up in but was a long sleeve shirt. The underwear, she stared at. "Grandma pants or a thong?" She said out loud to herself. "She gave me night and day options. I've had my fair share of bad experiences going commando, so I guess the thong. I'm more of a brief's girl?" She slips on the underwear and gasps, "Boxer briefs underwear can kiss my ass!"
She finished getting dressed then took the towel and put it around her neck for her hair the sit on as it continued to dry. She passed through the tapestry and saw a door. She walked through it and saw a great large room with a table in the center covered with food. The walls had ceramic windows and the ceiling was high vaulted with a beautiful design on it that looked like a symbolism of fire.
Freya, standing next to a chair she had pulled out for Evelyn asks, "Are you hungry?"
Evelyn eagerly rushed to the chair and sat down and admired everything on the table. She hadn't seen this much food for her to eat. Back on the island the food that was ever put in front of her was for her to cook. And she would have to make herself her own food with whatever was leftover once the kitchen closed. The kitchen was a little too efficient so at the end of the shifts, there was little to no food left over. The other people got to go home to have dinner with their families.
"The hell if I'm going to let this moment go by!" Evelyn thought as she grabbed a large slab of a rib-eye steak and before shoving it into her mouth glanced at Freya.
"No," Freya answered reading the look on Evelyns face, "I don't care for saying a prayer before eating nor to care for proper table manners. Hungry is hungry. Eat your fill."
Evelyn dug in and filled her plate several times. The poultry, cow, pig, lamb, and some mystery meat she indulged in. She also bit into the breads and fruits, more specifically the citruses, and the roasted vegetables like brussels sprouts and corn. She was devouring whatever she could get her hands on. She had been on that dingy for several days and, due to her poor planning, she didn't bring any food or water with her.
Freya was seated in chair nearby her and just watched Evelyn like she was studying her while sipping on a bottle of red wine.
Once Evelyn noticed Freya was just watching her instead of eating she looked and her and with a piece of bread in her mouth that she ripped out and after chewing asked, "Why are you crying?"
Freya was shocked and touched her face and realized she was indeed tearing up and wiped her face again until they were all gone and said, "I'm sorry. It's been so long since I've had any company down here and it to be you of all people." She said with a bit of a weary tone in her voice, "I'm actually quite happy."
"I mean, you said you knew me," Evelyn said. "And knew my parents."
"Don't think of me rude when I correct you like I did earlier," I didn't know your parents like you're saying. 'Knew' isn't the right word. Stating as if they're gone, or dead. No. The right word is 'know'. I KNOW your parents. They're quite alive. Very much alive."