I never could abide the movements of a ship. The one time my family tried to sail along the coast to avoid the hardships of riding, I became so violently sick that we were forced to spend our summer outing languishing in a small town whose name I cannot remember, trapped at the shabby little inn until the merchant who brought us finished his business in the south and returned. That experience will never die - my sister never forgets to remind me, when we visit. And my mother wonders why I choose to remain away.

Yet even with that memory burned into my mind as a child, a fear of the sea and a queasiness at the sight of open water, I was once again on a ship traveling away from my fair city of Palanthas, and this time there was no option of disembarking. My sickness was an object of amusement among the Ergothian sailors, at least when my back was turned; the lady cleric, they said, had a stomach as weak as the color of her skin. More than once, I thought of returning a jibe or two, in good nature. Their jokes were no different from that of my family, and I was used to those. But I couldn't bring myself to talk to any of them. Mother's admonitions against talking to men I didn't know, and the intimidating bulk of the sailors that bustled around me both convinced me that I would be better off keeping to myself. The medallion of Paladine protected me and earned their respect, but years of conditioning were hard to overcome in a week's time.

Strangely enough, I found the ship's wizard to be far more pleasant company. He was a red robe - a sea wizard he said, but I never claimed to know much about the way magic-users ranked themselves - and a permanent resident of the ship. That surprised me - how could one live permenantly on a ship? I'd never be able to stand up again! Just the thought made me feel sick to my stomach. His amusement, too, was plain to me. I'd thought to refrain from speaking to him as well after that first meeting, but now I was glad for his presence.

He sat across from me now, bent over a red-bound spellbook with a quill in his hand, and a pale piece of parchment rolled out to the side. Every now and then he turned a page or whispered part of an incantation, searching - so he had told me when I asked to remain in the cabin with him - for a spell to copy to a scroll, so he would not be forced to clutter his memory with spells he might do without when the battles began. My work wasn't nearly so important; I had only come to this room to escape the noise of the crew so I could write the day's log in silence. I had my journal out, ready with my own quill and a bottle of dark blue ink, but writing the entry was the farthest thing from my mind.

The captain's goal wasn't so far off now. In a few days, we would reach the isle we sought, days west of Ansalon and Ergoth, and I would be thrown into my first battle - on the open sea. The idea of it, all of the open space, and nothing solid to stand on but the planks beneath my feet, was terrifying. I was here for the safety of the crew, to heal them and bolster their ranks while they fought to eradicate the pirates terrorizing the isles... My work might indirectly save lives, livelihoods. But would my faith sustain me, preserve my life? Would it preserve the lives of the men putting their trust in me?

The wizard looked up, almost as if he sensed the turn my thoughts had taken. His eyes were deep, velvet ebony, their shape reminiscent of the elves. "This is your first battle, my lady." There was no question - my discomfort must have been written plainly on my face.

"It is."

The line of his mouth turned up a litte - I got the feeling smiles from this one were rare. What had I done to deserve this one? "Even pirates don't have the balls to attack one of your kind. Focus on keeping your strength up - we will need you."

I doubted that, my morbid turn of thoughts giving me confidence, but I said nothing of the sort. It would be useless to waste words on my own petty worries, when there were so many other important things to say. "How are these battles fought?" I thought it was a silly question and maybe he would too, but I had no desire to end up like the last cleric who had taken a task like this.

"Any way we can, lady. Battles on the sea aren't much different from battles on dry land." He placed his quil on the table, folded his hands over the pages of his book and gazed intently at me.

I hated those wizard stares. It wasn't a stretch to guess just why our two orders - those of magic, and those of the gods - did not get along well. Ironically, the forces of evil were far ahead of us in that regard, having combined prayer and magic since the War of the Lance and beyond. There was a lesson to be learned from that.

Quill abandoned, I twisted my hands in my lap. The wizard's eyes were hard to read, and I had the distinct impression that they were trying to peel away my skin to see what was inside. And I wondered... he wore the red of Neutrality, but...

Once again, he spoke as if he'd read my thoughts. "You will be asked to remain here, inside. Your place is not in battle, but we will need you after."

Small comfort that would be, if the ship started to sink.

I nodded obediently, hoping to end the conversation there so I could concentrate on my own paranoia, and he spoke again. "Pray to your god, lady cleric - I will pray to mine."

I looked up at that, trying to search a gaze that had already turned back to its work with scroll and spellbook. What an odd thing to hear from a wizard - I wanted to say so, but the words died on my lips before they were formed. He paid me no heed, having dismissed me in favor of his work. But I watched him as he had watched me, noting the delicacy with which he formed letters on the parchment, and the fluidity of the words as whispered them, each letter glimmering red and dying to black in the bright candlelight.

'Magic' and 'gods' had never before belonged in the same sentence, to my mind. Simply put, wizards were believed to be ungodly - it was a belief carried since the days of the Kingpriest, still half-believed today. Elistan lectured against it, but until this moment I hadn't given his words much thought. Nor, it seemed, had I realized the truth that was always right in front of me.

The three moons that waxed and waned above Krynn were well-loved friends - or at least, two of them were. Solinari, Lunitari, Nuitari... I'd known their names since my childhood, never knowing until now that they were gods I'd loved, and spoken my dreams to when I snuck outside to escape my family. They never said anything, only looked back at me with their luminous eyes, as much a mystery to me then as they were now. A white robe told me they only spoke the language of magic, that I could learn if I but desired it... but my mother would never hear of it, and I was never allowed near a wizard of any color again. It was odd to think, now, that if my mother hadn't been so adverse to the idea back then, I might be walking the ways of magic now...

Lunitari... I wondered if she would answer his prayers swiftly, or at all. But, following the delicate, perfect lines he formed into arcane letters, watching them glint red as he spoke each one, I realized... she must answer every time he uttered a syllable of magic. His spells were his prayers, and his praise, his service to a goddess that - unlike the others - had never left her people, not even after the Cataclysm.

It was a heartening thought, and humbling at the same time. All these years, I'd thought of wizards only as faithless heathens, the sort who could be useful at times, but kept at arm's length for the rest. It was a firm conviction in Solomnia, a tradition many still clung to in the Temple of Paladine, and deeply ingrained in my blood. Perhaps it was Paladine's will that I cast off that chain, and find it within myself to exercise tolerance.

Picking up my quill and clutching my medallion in my other hand, I whispered a prayer to my god as I penned the date on the blank page before me. There would be fighting and killing tomorrow, and a very real possibility that the men on this ship might lose; no one knew the true extent of the forces they were about to do battle with. Humans or minotaurs, or gods forbid, both... But I believed the Ergothians were in the right, and I had faith that Paladine would answer my prayers. While the others fought flesh and blood, I would mend it, and pit my prayers against whatever dark god might be in the way.

Paladine help us... We had to win this battle - there was no other choice but sinking to the bottom of the sea, and that was not an option.