[center][h1][color=crimson]Eliza Marie Lee[/color][/h1]

[h3][i]Year - 0

Location - ??? (Approximately near modern Okayama)[/i][/h3][/center]

It all began....in darkness. As if her body was suspended within a vast void of nothingness, deprived of sense and any way of telling up or down or what direction was where. Like being a leap upon the wind, in some vague sense of the word, but she couldn't quite put any proper words to it nor find a description for it all. Yet as long as she seemed to dwell inside such a feeling, her stream of conciousness not fully awake but more so closer to sleep, other sensations came along with it all. The taste of salty water spray, the creeping feelings of cold across the surface of her skin, the feeling of something like wet sand upon her back, and the feeling of damp hair as if she'd gone to bed after a shower without bothering to dry it much less brush it. 

Yet for some reason, she didn't awake at first. Her body, her mind, were coming to slowly...but at least they were doing so surely from the feeling of it. It was almost dreamlike initially, and yet even then it began to become more and more palpable the more she began to question what was going on. It had been only a couple bottles of beer, and wasn't the lightest of weights either. Nor was she a heavy drinker. Had Mei tossed something in there as a prank, to drug her or something? Hmm. No, that wouldn't likely be the case. Slip szechuan peppers into her food to get a kick out of it, sure, but she'd always make sure to help her clean up afterwards. Not drug her and rob her and toss her into the ocean or something like that. 

Ugh. Her head hurt just trying to think about things with what little yet growing awareness she had about her. All the same, the sounds of voices and the feeling of warm but weathered hands pulling her by her shoulders was certainly new. Kidnappers, perhaps? It would have made a chill run down her spine if she'd been awake enough, just at the thought of that much alone. Yet another set of hands would grab her feet, even if awkwardly, pulling them up after feeling herself being drug along the sand somewhat. Like she was being pulled away from the-...sound of crashing waves and the taste of salty water? Now that was at least something. 

Yet her mind would begin to fade oonce more to some extent as they moved along, time itself remaining somewhat of a blur alongside sensations of moving up and down and ever forward, until things like the sound of whistling wind through the trees and ultimately more voices and the feeling of something warm nearby and then another something warm being wrapped around her body became much more recognizeable. Her body clutched at the covering, trying to avoid shivering as best as she could, curling up tighter akin to a freezing child left out in the cold. 

...By the time she truly began to awake, then, her green eyes cracking slowly open as a sluggishness began to run out of her body bit by bit. What had come before remained as vestiges of fuzzy memory, though continued to be palpable in her mind as she tried to memorize the things she'd been feeling like before. As if trying to embed a vivid dream in one's memory before they let themselves fully awake from their dreaming slumber. 

And what remained before her eyes was something that seemed straight out of some kind of ancient history book. 

In the direction of her feet sat an open doorway, sunlight streaming in as if it was morning, yet it seemed covered from above despite the natural lack of a door in any case. Said light was the thing her eyes were first drawn to as they squinted at it all, before her head natuarlly turned to her right to look at the next most visible light- a proper, kindled fire that sent a trail of smoke up and out of an upper opening near the top of the roof on the inside. Like it had been opened up for air flow or something, but not directly allowing rain inside or something of the sort. Yet the walls, the roof, it was all made of...straw? Thatch? And beams made of bound logs of wood stretched out, embedded in the ground and supporting the whole thing in a rather complex but primitive-looking fashion. 

Heck, as she looked down she found her head resting on part of the apparently large fur pelt blanket lying over her that had been keeping her warm, and the floor itself was simply dirt to boot. Just what or where in the world was-

"Mom! Mom! The weird lady's waking up!"

A young voice cut through the air, vaguely female from the sounds of it, and as the waking eyes of Eliza looked sharply to the side she saw the blurry form of something small run up to the front door while shouting the same message over another one or two times. As her eyes began to better adjust, however, it became clear that this smaller figure was a child. A younger child at that, with dark hair styled into two small tails held by red-colored ties behind her head near the bottom of it that lay down on her upper back. Her legs were covered in a tan-colored form of knee-length skirt, perhaps wrought of animal skins, while her torso was covered in a similarly-colored and designed shirt. It was as much as she could make out, at any rate, before a few more figures ran over into the entrance of the somewhat pit-dug (upon further inspection of the floor at least) home's entranceway.

"Oi, Kimyo, we heard you the first time!"

A younger, but not as young, male voice cut through the air like an accusatory knife toward the former, who seemed to not take it lying down in any case. 

"Shut up! Mom said to say when the weird-looking lady woke up!"

Ah. Siblings? 

"Narasu. Kimyo."

The two younger voices went silent with a suddeness as an older, feminine voice cut through the air with a more than stern tone to it. Even she could tell the tension in the air had suddenly stopped between the two prior voices, and a familiarity crept in that she knew instinctively. Yes. When some moms got pissed, or raised their voice, you [b]stopped[/b] unless you wanted more than enough trouble to follow therafter. Or, well, at least that was her impression of it all on an instinctual level. 

The source of the older feminine voice stepped inside, a taller shadow than either of the children at first until she got closer to Eliza and knelt next to her. Her face was...well...rather foreign looking, with her hair long and a dyed cloth headband tied about on the top of her head. Her clothing was similar enough to that of the younger child, with a knee-length skirt and short-sleeved top of similar tan coloration, eyebrows a little harier than she'd normally expect of another modern woman to keep, and yet her light brown eyes seemed to look Eliza over with a level of focus only to be had by a doting caregiver.

"Hmm. She's a bit slow to wake, but after where your father and his brother found her it isn't much a surprise. Tch. 

Kimyo, get your sister from next door and tell her to bring some water from the river. Narasu, go tell your father she's awoken. I'll stay here in the meantime to tend to our guest."

Two children would nod before running off, though small hints of noise would insinuate that there was one last brief exchange of words between them while they were mostly out of their mother's earshot. Er...mostly. Just mostly. Enough to elicit an eyeroll from the woman before Eliza, at any rate, as the American attempted to sit up with some difficulty and the woman would let a 'tch' escape from her lips as she moved to assist her. From here, the woman ensursed she could at least sit up on her own, well enough if nothing else, before wrapping the hide fur blanket tighter around her. 

"Don't mind the children, though my husband will soon be here I hope. He wished to learn when you finally awoke, at least after carrying you here from the shore this morning as he left to go fishing."

Fishing? The shore? A hand on her own back revealed some sand still stuck to it, of all things, alongside the new dirt. Mild surprise flicked over Eliza's face, ultimately, before the woman before her let out a sigh. But...wait, this had to be something strange happening. Like some strange primitive-living types just took her or something? But a beach? It made sense with what she remembered, with how knotty her hair seemed to be as she used the same right hand to feel it somewhat, and it fit with some of the sensations she'd felt and could still recall just enough from before. 

Even this woman, she seemed to be some kind of asian person while also seeming a bit...different too? It was odd. But at least they were all living people that were speaking English.  

"Do you not know how you ended up here?"

"I...I do not know."

As the words left the woman's lips, and then her own in turn, Eliza focused on how their lips moved and how the words [i]felt[/i] Yet none of it seemed to match regular English, even though she understood it all just the same and as plainly as if it were regular American English. Albeit English without an accent? Kind of. Somewhat? It was an alien sensation, such that she tried to somewhat put it out of her mind. None of this made [u]any[/u] sense, none of it! Had she been kidnapped, had she-....she could barely sit up with how groggy her body felt. Had she been set afloat in the ocean or something? 

"Tch. You must have come from far away to look as you do, set adrift in the sea and arriving near our village."

"V-Village?"

"Mmhmm. It is said our forebears moved from place to place, and yet our people live more and more together in places such as this. No longer need we follow the trails of game, but reap our bounty from the sea, tend to the groves of trees near to us, and some still seek the game that lives in our woods."

The foreign-looking woman lightly shook her head side to side, before pulling the blanket righter around her and taking her right hand in both of her own to examine for a minute. 

"Hmm. Hands that have seen much work, much labor, much like my husband's own. Yet not so much work as to bear the scars of too much, from what I gathered of your after they brought you into our home. No stranger to effort. Good."

The woman looked up at Eliza again, her face maintaining a sort of practical stoicism as she looked back into her eyes. 

"Tch. And you bear eyes that remind me of the stone my husband's brother brought from the nearby mountains once. Brighter though. Beautiful, in a way."

The woman was trying to get a read on her, like the intruder in someone else's home she apparently seemed to be despite the care being given to her. Eyes carefully scanning over her for potential threats, and looking over her before (apparently) to try to get an idea of her life without knowing anything about her. On one hand, Eliza almost felt offended that someone would suspect her of anything like such! She wasn't some thief, she wasn't...she wasn't anywhere or with anyone she knew, and if she panicked too much it would be more than a small amount of trouble. That was for certain. So she had to follow the steps of things. 

First...try to get an idea of things. Of these people. Of what in the world was going on, as she had no clothes, no cellphone, no anything. Yes. That would be a good start. 

"Do you happen to have a name, stranger? Something you go by?"

"...Eliza. My name is Eliza."

"Eriza? Not a name known around here. Very foreign sounding. Strange," the foreign woman commented without skipping a beat, before letting Eliza's right hand go and putting a hand to her own chest now before she continued speaking, "I am Kunne."

Kunne. Kimyo. Narasu. All weer names that sounded somewhat...Japanese to her? Ugh. It made her head spin. But even so, she seemed to be waiting for Kunne's husband to return before anything else. Not like she could get up and run if she wanted to right now anyways. Had to get a lay of the land, of the situation, before doing anything else. Though, well, at least they knew each others' names now to kick things off. 

It was a start, as small a start as it was, to finding out what in the world had happened to her.