“Look to the future,” her mother used to say. “Look to the future, Kat,” her eyes soft and concerned. “If you don’t look ahead you will stumble, will fall. Your energy is beautiful. But every now and then you need to stop and plan.”<br/><br/>And yet here she was, on the precipice of the greatest adventure of a lifetime laid out before her and she was looking back, back to her mother, back to all she was leaving behind. This wasn’t like her. She shook her head.<br/><br/>And there she was-the ship, sitting regal at port, dipping and rolling with the gentle tide. Would It feel too confined in the limited space? Would the deal-with-the-devil she had to make, the acceptance of superiors, chafe? She savored the uncertainty, leaped into the metaphorical abyss. This was her. As she grew nearer she reached out, her fingers falling meters short of being able to brush the ship’s wooden edge. Ahead a cloak, which presumably contained someone, mumbled something about hunger. “Looking to the future,” Katarli smiled quietly. Absentmindedly, she flipped a small coin to a vendor in payment as she speared an apple with the point of her epee stretching it out in offering to the cloaked one with a slight bow. “Apple?”<br/>