Archive of Our Own

In her dream, Sofia walked through a thick mist. Sometime ago, she might have been scared, but Sofia Lee wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore. She trusted herself, and, so, put one foot in front of another, braving through what she couldn’t see. 

There was a giggle behind her, and she whipped around. It almost sounded like a little gnome. “Rowan? You there?,” she called, but heard only the echo of her own voice. The mist was fine to walk and breathe, but it seemed to go on forever, without anything ever stopping it. There mustn't be anything there, right? It was a dream, was what it was. Why should she even make an effort? There were no real consequences of this.

Sofia rubbed her temple, trying to focus. Not everything was the top of the Empire State Building. She decided to close her eyes, really hard, so she could maybe wake herself up. On the count of three, she would do it. 

One . She looked around one last time, seeing figures in the mist. She could swear she saw a girl, in combat boots and a leather jacket, with a long braid and… Was that a bass guitar? It didn’t matter. It was just the mist and the dream, playing games on her. She reached out a hand, touching the girl’s palm Tarzan-style. In her formless state, Sofia could sense the girl smiled deviously.

She sighed, smiling a little as well. Two . A strange sensation went up her body, starting on her toes. Her legs were suddenly covered in fishnets - Christ, it had been so long since she last wore fishnets. Strange bit, subconscious. She felt many belts suddenly squeezing her waist, many piercings on her ears, and, all at once, a sharp pain on her forehead. Sofia swayed. She had almost forgotten what it was like to be dizzy. She put her hands to her head for stability - were those… Horns?

Her breath became ever-so-slightly quicker, more shallow, as her focus slipped away. Everything about concentration, about meditation, everything she’d learned at the Order of the Concrete Fist slithered into the most obscured part of the mist, until she could barely recall her forms. She tried to assume a fighting stance, kata number four, but a stick on her back threw her off. Why was everything slightly out of proportion? What was happening? She was counting. If she could finish counting, and… Shut her eyes?

Sofia opened her mouth - should she say three? -, but, before anything came out, she felt a warm presence behind her back. The kindest flames licked her skin, wrapping her arms and nuzzling against her neck. It brought her… Calm. In the chaos and agitation, this was tranquility. A name, a name, she knew a name for it - she had only once known this comfort, only once known such comfortable wings around her shoulders, wings that would take wherever she could wish to go. Why couldn’t she remember it?

“Fig?” A voice called, and she looked around wildly. That… That was her, right? She was Sofia just a moment ago, though. “Fig, wake up.”

With a big gulp of air, she did. 

“Fig.” The voice said, and she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see a beautiful young woman, with dark skin and fiery hair - literally. Her wings were pulled in, mostly over herself and Fig, and she caught her breath. It felt… Right. “Fig. Are you okay? You were moving a lot.”

“Ayda,” was all she managed to say, knowing this was, indeed, Ayda Aguefort. Her girlfriend. Her safe haven. Was it all? Why did everything feel so blurry? It was Ayda, that was for sure, but it was something else as well. Fig looked at her wings. They were literal flames, since Ayda was the daughter of a phoenix, but there was something else about them, too: the slightest of auras, golden and humble, floated around them, marking Ayda as someone special. Fig was mesmerized.

“Fig, is there something wrong? Did I - I can leave,” Ayda said, moving uncomfortably on the bed. Fig blinked hard before holding her arm.

“No, wait. Stay,” she said, swallowing hard. “I’m feeling a little weird, is all. But please stay.”

“Ok. Yes,” Ayda said, relaxing slightly. “But do I have to stay as in not leave? Because I can heat up some hot cocoa from last night. Clear up your head.”

Fig smiled. “You are the best.”

“Not the literal best, I do hope,” Ayda said. “That would be extremely problematic.”

“And you’ll be right back?” She asked, half-joking. Ayda seemed to catch that she half meant it, so she kissed Fig’s forehead before standing up from the bed and disappearing.

As soon as she left, Fig laid on her back, staring at the ceiling. Had she drank alcohol last night? No, she couldn’t remember her mom being pissed, but she had a headache all the same. She closed her eyes, and, instantly, a landscape formed in the black of her lids. She saw a skyline, tall and thinner than any in Spyre, with blinking lights. There was a warm cup of coffee on her hand. A dirty, heavy breeze went out to sea. She knew it would be returning at night, just as she knew New York.

New York. New York! That’s how the song went, right? Fig sat up quickly, and reached for the instrument closest to her bed - her bass. It felt natural in her hands, but, as soon as she went for the chords, the melody escaped her. She looked at the strings, and again, but nothing came to mind. She had been playing forever, and, yet, her fingers were instantly numb. It was as if the body wasn’t her - as if her soul was speechless.

Fig let go of the bass, then threw herself onto the bed. She shut her eyes tightly, focusing on her breath. Something about focusing on her breath, right? She couldn’t remember, then, all of a sudden, a pop announced Ayda was back in the room.

“Sorry. I’m a little off this morning,” she said, not looking out.

“It’s okay,” Ayda said back, and Fig heard her setting two cups by the bedside table. The bed shifted as she took a seat. “Here, let me.”

Fig let her muscles relax as Ayda ran a hand through her hair. It was rarely loose, but, this morning, her waves were sprawled across the bedding, the long frosted tips almost reaching the edge. They stayed like that for a while, resting in the silence, and Fig tried to just feel her girlfriend’s hand. It was nice, and soothing, and for some reason seemed to keep the strange thoughts at bay. Ayda took one strand of her hair, and twirled it around her finger. She made a little huh . “It’s so strange - I expected your hair to be tougher, somehow.”

“What do you mean?” Fig asked, slowly shifting to her elbows and looking at Ayda. She tried not to stare, because she knew Ayda didn’t always love it, but it was hard. “You seemed to recognize it just fine last night.”

“You - you’re a devil,” Ayda stuttered, blushing, and Fig smiled. She tapped her horns, and felt her forehead heat up slightly as a pentagram appeared in red lighting.

“Damn right, I am,” she said, and Ayda rolled her eyes. “No, I’m sorry. Please tell me.”

Ayda took a deep breath, and played with Fig’s hair some more before saying anything. She looked at it carefully, almost as if she was trying to figure something out. “I don’t know. I mean, I do, I know your hair, and I know it so well a composite artist would be impressed.”

“All things my mom would love hearing,” Fig mumbled.

“But,” Ayda paused, “I think it was curlier, too. I know it wasn’t, but I can’t stop thinking about it. That and the smell of… Hairspray.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I...” Fig said, nodding enthusiastically. Hairspray. If she could just get a can in her hands… “Did you have a dream? A weird one?”

Ayda stopped her handiwork, looking back at Fig. Her face was slightly stoic, but also confused. “I don’t dream much. I’ve always put it onto my unique DNA, but maybe… Maybe this is it, Sofie.”

“Wait,” she said, sitting up in a whip. “You called me Sofie.”

“Yes,” Ayda nodded, “though I cannot tell why.”

“Because… That’s my name,” Fig said. She looked to Ayda, then her own hands, then Ayda again. Her eyes were, as always, beautiful - two rolling pits of fire, with the blackest of pupils darting around, but there was something beyond them. There was a sweet, golden glow, a protective aura, wings shaped like an angel’s. A dorky smile. It hit Sofia. “Dale?”

Ayda looked confused for a second, then blinked. She smiled a shaky smile, and when she hugged Sofie, the flames of her hair licked her neck - whoever she was, this felt like home. “Sofie,” she said, softly, and Sofia could hear it now. She could hear, in Ayda's voice, every inch of Dale’s willpower, every bit of his wish to do good.

“Kickass wings,” she said in their ear. “It’s like when we were sixteen, and Paul Rosetti thought painting flames on his dad’s old bike would look cool.”

“You’ve chosen to retain Fig’s sense of humor, I see,” Dale said back, and then held her by the shoulders to take a good look at her. “Fig. She’s a great girl.”

“Ayda too,” Sofia said, putting her hand to his. “I have no idea what she is and Gosh I forgot how hard teenage years can be, and I have no wish to stay in their bodies, but still. Good kids, right?”

“Very good,” he said, then put his hand to Sofia/Fig’s cheek. It was still warmish from the pentagram, and Dale smiled. “On the getting out part, though, the Ayda part of my brain says someone called Adaine might be able to help.”

Sofia couldn’t help but smile back. She and Dale weren’t old - in fact, they never got to be -, but they weren’t this young anymore. Standing in a remote room of a dark manor, in the body of a sixteen year old bass player with horns on her head, she could feel the rock and roll running through her veins. The adrenaline in her body. Her eyes met Dale’s, and she remembered what it was like to be young and in love, letting your leather jacket flap off someone else’s motorcycle on your way to a night of red solo cups. Adventurous. She was adventure. She got on Fig’s tiptoes to press a kiss to Dale’s cheek. 

“Fig agrees. Lets go.”

***

Gorgug woke up to the dissatisfying, if unsurprising, vision of having kicked through his room window. It was common enough an occurrence that he would have barely paid attention to it, wasn’t it for the funny feeling about his body - his limbs seemed long, even more freakishly than usual, and the closest metaphor that came into his head was a michelin man. Fair to say that, after mending the window with a cantrip, he had to repeat the process many times around the house as he smashed his head, legs and arms alike in trying to get out of the Thistlespring tree.

Outside, he quickly found his parents working away at the breakfast table and some new craft of their own at the same time, the small hands flying from one thing to the other. They welcomed him, all smiles, and he smiled back. Digby and Wilma Thistlespring working away by seven o’clock was as in character for them as anything could ever be, and it felt rightfully familiar to sit at the table, but, as the fuzzy feelings in his fingers rose up to his head, Gorgug started feeling it might not be right for the right reason - and, with that realization, knocked down a carton of milk.

“Is everything okay, buddy?” His mom turned to look at him, and found Gorgug rubbing his eyes. “You seem a little bit ruffled.”

“Just the bit, I’m sure,” Digby added, pushing himself out of whatever kind of engine he had been working on. After popping down on the grass, he quickly cleaned his hands on the apron he was wearing, and walked around the table to put a hand on Gorgug’s back. “And remember, you can always talk to us!”

Gorgug hesitated, but gave his dad a small smile. Digby was satisfied, and went ahead to get himself some milk. The three of the Thistlesprings sat down quietly for breakfast, as they sometimes would, with the whirring and humming of the many machines all around the tree for background. In peace, Gorgug let his mind wonder - he was sure something was off, but he couldn’t point to what, and he wasn’t surprised considering how there were many things he felt that lacked the same rightness. He thought about waking up. He’d done it in a fright, a jump, similar to the start you get from waking up from a dream that feels very real, but he could hardly remember what he had dreamt about. Trying to think about it wasn’t of much help. Every time he tried to focus his thoughts, a mist would spread through his head, and, in the redundancy only dreams allowed for, it was so thick he never seemed to be able to walk through it. Something had been waiting on the other side, he was sure. This was the endzone, but the disturbance had happened before.

A sudden change in the whir caught his ear. The machine his dad had been working on clicked once, then again, and, in the half second he foresaw it, Gorgug scooped both of his parents and got the three of them underneath the table to avoid the explosion. A loud boom echoed through the field, and he felt the heat skimming his skin. It happened in a split moment. He lay on the grass for a second, breathing hard with the adrenaline of it all. It was like a shot, immediately coursing through his veins - a sense of purpose that seemed so familiar. His head became clearer by the moment.

“That was close,” his dad said, standing up underneath the table.

All Gorgug could do was nod, so his mother slapped his dad’s arm. “You silly man, you must have forgotten to turn off the accelerator!”

Digby laughed. “I must have! Thank goodness Gorgug’s here to protect me from myself, right?”

“Right,” Gorgug tried, with a smile. “It’s what I do, right, dad?”

“It sure as heck is!” Digby said, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Now come, we’ll get you out from under here. Are your feet okay?”

Gorgug related his sneakers had been a little bit caught in the flame, but, otherwise, he was all okay. As they worked to move the table, he let the adrenaline slowly pour out of him, leaving behind a clear impression of what was happening. When he thought about his dream, he saw, beyond the mists, the skyscrapers and yellow taxis becoming clear. His life, his real life, trickled back into his brain, and he remembered his job, his family, his friends - his friends! Were they here too? Were they a part of this? He needed to find them. He searched in Gorgug’s brain for an alternative, for someone who could help him figure out - Adaine, Riz, they must know something. Maybe Ayda. Zelda. Whoever helped him get back home. Back to Esther.

When Ricky stood up, he understood why his body had been feeling so numb - Gorgug was taller than he would be in stilts. He felt a little sorrier about the banging and bruising upon realizing it wasn’t his body he was messing up, but couldn’t bother to be caught up. He had no time to waste.

“Well, champ, off to school with you,” Wilma Thistlespring said, as if on cue. She had her hands out to him, holding out his backpack, which Ricky gladly took. “We’ll see you later, hopefully by a time when your father has cleaned all this up. Have a good one, okay?”

Ricky smiled at her as she walked back towards the tree, sighing and putting her hands at work almost immediately. He didn’t know why he was here, but it seemed right that it was Gorgug. Digby and Wilma worked hard and took no crap about it, because it was what they knew to do to give Gorgug a better future. The immigrant’s dream, he remembered, with a warm glow spreading across his chest. Slinging the backpack across his back, Ricky got a head start.

He let Gorgug’s muscle memory guide him through town, following him eastward and across the river. Though this must be his everyday view, Ricky was astounded, looking everywhere and noticing how different this was. Was it another world altogether? Maybe a different dimension? He had heard quantum physics could prove there were around twenty of them at least , but he was never a guy for anything physicky or quantum, to be honest. It seemed like, here, they used arcane energy instead of common electricity and the internet seemed to exist in a kind of crystal network, in spite of the town looking a lot like one of those movies from the 80s that Esther really liked. Ricky wondered whether that caused less fires, and, then, whether they could do the same thing in his own world. Magic was dangerous, but perhaps using it as electricity could be safe, in a way?

He made a mental note to ask Esther when they got back, then got distracted by other details. Since Gorgug was himself a tall, long, green half-orc with tiny gnome parents, Ricky figured out he might be seeing all sorts of crazy humanoids, and he wasn’t wrong. Some of them, the elves and half-elves, reminded him a bit of Rowan and the fey back in New York. They were just as small, as lean, and, if he tried, he could picture them quite similarly featureless to what Rowan had looked like when Misty died, which made him repress a giggle when passing a fancy store downtown. The tieflings made him raise a brow, as, honestly, did so many other things. He was still overwhelmed as he got off a bus on Skull Cleaver Elementary, and, as Gorgug had told him he would, found Zelda ushering her youngest siblings into the school. 

He stood at the stop, looking at her before she spotted him, and it felt almost weird to find her really attractive. The green hoodie, the horns, the hair over her face - she looked punk, and like the cutest girl he ever did see. There was just something about her energy, even just the way she stood, and then she noticed him. The electricity in her eyes made it evident, and Ricky was so stunned that, when he noticed, Esther was already right by his side.

“Okay, what the hell?” She asked, Zelda’s sweet tone turned determined. “It’s you, right, Ricky? Please tell me it’s you.”

Ricky blinked. “Esther!”

She hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be mean to Gorgug.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Ricky chuckled, and hugged her too. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“How are we here?” She asked him as she pulled back. “All I know is I woke up from this weird dream, and I thought I was Zelda, and I was just filled with so much rage that my mind became clear and I found I had furry legs .”

“I didn’t remember the dream, but I had one too,” Ricky said, and elbowed her, “and at least you’re still a human colour.”

When Esther laughed at him, it was her real laugh - the moments of vulnerability she learned to allow herself, the ones Ricky cherished most of all things. He smiled wide. “I mean, I’m not saying I don’t prefer your regular self, but I don’t know… For a sixteen year old tall green kid, you’re looking pretty tight, babe.”

Ricky felt Gorgug’s cheeks heat up slightly and tried to chuckle to hide it, but it was too late. Esther giggled at him, getting on the tip of her newfound hooves to pinch his cheeks and call him cute, which made him both laugh and blush even more. After a moment or two of it, which he endured because Esther seemed to thoroughly enjoy, she quieted down and they decided that, since Esther seemed to have lost her touch with magic at the moment, their best shot at getting home (“ and rid of the furry legs! ,” she insisted) was trying to find the others, who, by Esther’s logic, must be at school at this point. 

They walked hand in hand towards the academy, watching as people went by. After picking on his current height for a moment or two, Esther’s eyes seemed to be turned everywhere around them. Ricky listened attentively as she explained to him that, mathematically speaking, there were definitely much more than 20 dimensions, but also that she had never imagined a different ‘dimension’ to be a whole other world like this seemed to be. She pointed out the funny details he had already picked up on (though using much fancier words, like anachronism ), but also things Ricky didn’t even think to look for. A lot of people, especially as they drew closer to Aguefort, used magic about the streets, showing the fundamental difference between this world and their own, and Esther whispered to him about how some of them looked mathematical like her own magic, used through understanding of arcana, but also had to be held back by Ricky upon seeing dragon-people and elves with leaves sprouting from theirs heads walk past them in the street. After all the time they’d been together, Ricky knew it was fine to laugh at her bursts of curiosity, but that made the glare Esther gave him none the less terrifying. He had not a single regret on how his being intimidated by a goat girl who must be more than a foot shorter than him would look: he was not getting on her bad side, especially not when, here, something told him Esther would be able to hit back in a very literal sense.

At last, they saw the shape of the school emerge in front of them. In one way or two, they both realized the Aguefort Adventuring Academy actually resembled the public library in New York: it wasn’t just big, but grand, with elevated architecture and something almost transcendental about it. The quad was full, as usual, but, right as the two arrived, all students turned towards the main building: a big beam of light crashed through the ceiling, making the very ground shake heavily. Esther widened her eyes and grabbed his arm. “Ricky, that’s gotta be us, right?”

“It has to,” he agreed, then looked at her. “You stay here, I’ll go check it inside.”

“Are you crazy?” Esther said, holding him back so hard that Ricky took note of how much stronger she seemed. “You’re not going in without me!”

“You have no magic, Esther. I’m not gonna let you get hurt,” he said, holding her eyes and grabbing Gorgug’s axe. He gave it a double take: it was nothing like the Questing Blade, but the way it just fell perfectly into his grip must be a feat of physics or something.

Esther put a hand to his face so that Ricky would be looking at her. She smiled softly, so that Zelda’s brown eyes peeked at him sweetly from under her bangs, and shook her head slightly. “Don’t you get it? Ricky Matsui, I can’t let you get hurt."

It was almost as if Zelda's body glitched for a second, and Ricky saw Esther standing before him, plain and certain. Ricky saw her tenderness, and felt like the luckiest man alive because he, and no one else, got Esther to hold his hand and look into his eyes like he was the only thing in the whole universe before her. He saw, too, what scared him most: the bad luck that was the certainty of her goodness, and her love for him. Beyond the first layer, Esther's message was clear, but, because she had been making an effort towards clear communication and vulnerability, and because she was badass like that, she said it anyway: "You won’t sacrifice yourself again. I won’t let you."

Ricky swallowed hard, then kissed her briefly. "A dangerous life together, right?"

Esther gave him a smile that he could only describe as devious. "Time to discover the magic of these hooves, baby."

***

Kingston Brown was not having a good day. From the moment his eyes blinked open, he knew this was wrong. Straight up a bad, indeed very bad day.

It wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen, and, in his fifties, Kingston had seen a lot. One moment he was in New York, tucked into bed by Liz’s side, and the next, all was a thick, dense haze. He could almost hold the damn mist, with how dense it was, and he had also immediately noticed it didn’t behave like regular mist - it had no smell, for instance. It was magic, it had to be. The instant he knew he was in some kind of trouble or other, though, was when a boy showed up next to him in the mist.

The very look of him estranged Kingston. He was tall, almost as tall as Kingston, and black with white hair, but his build was a swimmer sort of lean as he carried a sheet and a sword, wearing both an eyepatch and an air of superiority which almost made Kingston step away. The boy let the sheet unfurl, and, as its tip fell right into Kingston’s hand, he felt the clear magic coursing through it. Oh, no .

The next thing he knew, he was seeing the world - or this world , anyway - through the eyes of Fabian Aramaris Seacaster. How most absolutely infuriating he was. Kingston half expected to be lost, but being fully aware of the abyssal distance between this reality and his own must have even heightened his lucidity. Kingston tried his voice and immediately stopped, flabbergasted at how ridiculous he sounded. Goddamn. He was awake in a different dimension, in the wooden bed of a wooden bedroom of a wooden mansion of a paper boy, and he was not happy about it.

His first thought was to get out - get clothes, food, and scram on Fabian’s motorcycle, but Fabian’s consciousness, somewhere inside him, agreed with that idea far too quickly for his liking. Kingston sat on the bed, and looked around the room. It was neat, which was not what he usually expected from sixteen year olds, but still kind of full of trash in its own way. By the bedside table, he found some portraits: one of the Seacaster family, with Fabian’s father holding him up as a young boy, and two of Fabian’s friends and party. In the first picture, he looked younger, standing by a dragon with a bloody face and a fully different sword in his hand, and, in the second one, they were all posing by a van with - was that a satellite tower on top? Either way, his friends. They must be important, right? There was no way he’d ended up here by himself, was there? 

He looked around the room for Fabian’s crystal, and dialed his friends one by one. Fig was nothing right away, as if her crystal was out of charge, which, honestly, didn’t exactly seem out of character. Kristen’s haziness, he thought, was not what he was looking for. Think, Kingston, think. He dialed Adaine, but with no response. The last contact on the list made him raise an eyebrow. Riz (The Ball) had green skin, a wide smile, and soft hair Fabian ruffled in the picture, plus a lengthy flow of messages concerning pretty much any subject Kingston could pluck from Fabian’s mind. He must have something. Kingston rang him.

***

Adaine's mind was hazy. She had woke in a pang, crashing her forehead right against the bedboards and waking her sister as well in the process, who had then proceeded to jump down and check on her. Her breathing had been fast and hard to control, but Aelwyn held her until she felt better. They had changed together, and Aelwyn offered to make the two breakfast. With the faintest feeling of wrongness in the back of her head, she had agreed, and now sat in the kitchen of Mordred Manor, watching her sister bouncing her head to a song while she flipped pancakes. 

"There's just something," she said, straightening her glasses for what felt like the hundreth time that morning. 

"Yes, you've said," Aelwyn said, putting a chocolate chip in her mouth, but her tone wasn't particularly discouraging. 

"It's like walking a tight rope, except I can see the edge," Adaine continued, taking the clue to just keep going. She reached out, accidentally casting a mage hand along with her gesture, which made her frustration grow exponentially. "I just know it's there, you know? I can feel myself tipping over, but I have no idea into what."

Aelwyn furrowed her brow in amusement. "Doesn't that mean you should just fall?"

Adaine blinked hard. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Exactly that," Aelwyn's smile widened, and Adaine started protesting, but she put her hands out: "No, think about it! If you fall off the tight rope, that's like tricking your consciousness into telling you what's going on, isn't it?"

Adaine scoffed. "It's just a metaphor, Aelwyn."

Aelwyn shrugged. "You are thin as a stick and can suckerpunch like a bitch. We've seen weirder shit."

Some more obscenities came out when she realized the pancake on the fire was burning, turning to take care of the batter and leaving Adaine to her thoughts. Contemplating the fact that her sister might be hard felt like too much on her plate, so instead, she methodically played yo-yo with the bright mage hand. In what felt both like a moment and eternity itself, Aelwyn brought the pancakes. 

"Ignore the burnt bits," she said, giving Adaine the top one, where she observed the chocolate tips were organized in a smiley face and tried to smile to Aelwyn in gratitude. Another moment went by in quiet. Adaine could see, by the corner of her eye, that her sister was looking at her. "So?"

"Well, you know me, I can't just fall !" 

"I was asking about the smiley face," Aelwyn blinked, but put on something of a kind smile, "but let's unpack that instead."

Adaine rubbed her temples, looking down at the smiley face and feeling so very unlike it that her appetite was almost gone. She reminded herself that this was a kindness her sister was doing her, though, so she took a bite of it before starting up again. "I don't know, Aelwyn. How would that even work? Would I be at the risk of actually falling? Breaking something? Does this have anything to do with my magic? Because that's kind of everything I've got going for me."

Aelwyn shrugged. "Sometimes you just have to trust, Adaine."

Adaine sighed. "It's just so much easier if it's one of those silly brain itches that give you a dejá-vu three years later."

"Please don't suggest you'll be disturbed like this for three years, it really kills the vibe."

Adaine made a face at her, mocking her tone, and the two shared a chuckle as they kept tearing into the pancakes. Before long, Fig and Ayda joined them in the kitchen, both wide-eyed. 

"So what's going on here then? Are we laughing at Adaine for being completely unable to let go?" Fig started enthusiastically, and smiled when Aelwyn raised her mug in agreement. "Good, that's a great way to start a day. Know what else is a good morning ice-breaker though?"

"What is?" Adaine asked in a bored tone, but, as her eyes met the sparkle in Fig's, she realized this might be important. 

"Interdimensional out-of-body travel." Fig said, with a devious smile, making Aelwyn struggle for a moment with her drink. 

"She doesn't mean literally," Ayda added, standing in the corner with nonchalance like Adaine had never seen – it was almost wrong to see her chickeny legs stood that casually. "It actually happened overnight. We started the morning with confusion.

"Hold on, interdimensional out-of-body travel?" Adaine said, putting both palms onto the table, just at the same time as Aelwyn said: "Adaine won't tell but she's super confused too."

Fig and Ayda shared a quick look, then smiled at the Abernants. "Well, yeah, right? If we both ended up here, of course Rowan would too."

"You live here, Fig," Adaine said, feeling a tickle she couldn't make the slightest sense of in the back of her head, "you didn't end up in the manor, you slept in.this house and woke up in it this morning."

"No, that's the thing!" Fig said, also putting her hands down. "I went to sleep in New York City!"

"New York City sounds like a preposterous name for a place," Aelwyn mocked, but Fig turned to Ayda instead. 

"Come on, it has to be Rowan, right?"

Ayda shrugged. "Maybe, sweetie. Rowan and Adaine are very different people though."

"But only her ears are this pointed!"

"Okay, horns , leave our ears alone," Aelwyn joked, and, though Fig had a snarky reply to throw back at her, Adaine felt too spaced out to pay proper attention. Ayda intervened to explain the details of interdimensional out-of-body travel, saying something about the city with the ridiculous name and their friend named Rowan. Rowan, Rowan, Rowan - the name spun inside her head. Was that right? It felt like she had heard it so many times that she couldn’t tell anymore. It was too much.

All of a sudden, she stood up and walked out of the kitchen, leaving her friends’ babbling behind. It had been a while since Adaine moved in, but the big halls of Mordred Manor were as daunting as if it were still haunted. Turning a hard left after crossing the living room, she lost herself in corridor after corridor, her breathing getting quicker as her sense of space escaped her.

Eventually, she entered a windowless hallway. It was dimly lit by the adjacent ones, and had but one quiet door. She knew what dissociating felt like, and this was it: she felt like she was in a completely separate world, almost a different dimension. Adaine put her back against the doorless wall, and let herself slide down into a sitting position. Breathe, just breathe. Had she taken her meds this morning? No, she remembered doing that, so this couldn’t be it. She lay against the wall, her thoughts spinning, and tried to make her pulse slow down before it got worse.

For a moment, Adaine tried to listen outwards. That’d been why she got out of the kitchen in the first place, right? The lack of stimuli should help her get less overwhelmed, and it usually did, but something was different this time. It was so quiet here, it was as if there wasn’t another person in the entire house - maybe in the world. She was alone. Alone.

Her thoughts got louder. They felt like walking through heat bubbles, each pulsating and growing, and, if she as much as bumped one of them, the burns would be completely disproportionate. Their opaque membrane was repelling, and a bit disgusting if she was honest, and they prevented her from knowing what was inside. There was a reason they were like this, she remembered. If she couldn’t see, she couldn’t be curious, and if she wasn’t curious, she’d never be lured into getting burned.

You’ve gotta let yourself live, sweetie.

She let the quiet fill her in. Alone, she was alone. She was born alone, and, when she did die, she would die alone too. That Rowan Berry knew for sure and certain.

Rowan looked at Adaine’s hands and chuckled. What a sick trick to play. She spent a moment contemplating Adaine’s magic, family, everything - how they were so similar and so obviously different at the same time -, and, as she stood up to find her way back into the kitchen, the door opposite to her opened. Kristen Applebees, red hair all over the place and staff in hand, stepped out. She offered Rowan a kind smile and help up.

“Hi, Rowan,” Kristen said, tranquility in her voice.

“Pete?” Rowan asked after a moment. “Pete, is that you?”

Pete/Kristen nodded. “Yeah. And Kristen too.”

Rowan frowned. “What do you mean?”

They smiled. “Come now. Let's go save the world again.”

***

Kingston hated Fabian's motorbike. 

He tried to argue himself into not hating it, he did! It wasn't as if Kingston meant to be a grumpy old man, but it just came so naturally. Even as he tried to make an effort for his friends, or a case to himself for Fabian's need of shiny things to replace how he felt inside, Kingston hated it to the gut. I mean, an actual hellhound? In the shape of a motorcycle with flames painted on? There couldn't be anything less Kingston than that. 

Still, that's what he'd gotten, and that's what he'd work with. h.

After some time trying to convince the motorcycle not to call him master (and failing at it), Kingston decided to hop aboard and just go with the flow. It was odd and disorientating to not have to himself to where he was going, and he told the Hangman as much, but he also did realize he musn’t be very good at driving a motorcycle after a lifetime of public transportation, so he let it take the lead towards Strongtower Luxury Apartments and tuned into the city around him. It wasn’t New York, and it sure didn’t feel like it. Elmville, as Fabian told him, wasn’t a metropole, for starters. Sure, it was alive, and Kingston could kind of feel its energy around him, but the mansions of this part of town or the suburban houses he crossed later hardly felt anything like the concrete jungle where dreams were made. 

Kingston saw what seemed to be the town’s train station as he crossed the tracks over to the neighbourhood of Ballaster, going further away from Downton Elmville. The motorcycle zoomed through the narrowing streets, picking up both litter and dust here and there as he approached his destination. Once the Hangman roared to a stop in Strongtower’s parking lot, Kingston furrowed his brow.

“This doesn’t feel very luxurious at all.”

“Ha! Good one, Master!” Was the motorcycle’s answer. Unsure of what to make of it, Kingston chose to trust the instinct that said a lot of people would agree. “Should I wait for you?”

Kingston looked around the shifty streets. “Won’t you be… Stolen?”

“Oh, Master, you are on a roll!” The Hangman said, then made his engine (engine? Was that what he had? An engine?) rumble. “Don’t worry about me. No one will stop me from serving my fierce master.”

“... Sure.” Kingston answered, then hopped off at last. He adjusted the sword and sheet Fabian’s muscle memory had him carry on his back and walked off towards the buildings, giving the motorcycle a good few last glances as he entered.

He picked up Fabian’s crystal, which seemed to be their version of phones, and opened the chat with Riz. Since he’d left Fabian’s house, Riz had sent a picture of his breakfast and accompanying text, as if to assure Fabian he was having a proper meal. From what Kingston gathered, Riz seemed a much better kid than the one in whose body he’d been trapped. Fabian’s memories of him showed him as hard-working and dedicated, even if he did overdo it at times, and, most importantly to Kingston, someone who cared. Not flaky Fabian, the rich boy from the mansion neighbourhood - a real kid with real world problems, like the barely functional elevator in which Kingston found himself. 

Kingston hesitated for a moment before knocking once he’d landed on Riz’s floor. He was irritated, of course, and desperate to get back to his own body, but some tingling that started at the very tips of his toes made him stop. His stomach churned slightly. What was this? He’d had breakfast just fine, after some persistence on Cathilda’s part. Was Fabian… Anxious?

The door swung open and, in a split second, Kingston had both sword and sheet in hand in a defensive stance, staring down a tiny green woman with elongated ears, sharp teeth and a what looked like an arcane gun pointing at him. He clocked her police badge along with a messenger bag on her shoulder. Sklonda Gukgak relaxed her shoulders.

“Oh, Fabian, it’s just you,” she said with a smile, and Kingston stayed silent. The woman, who must be Riz’s mother, rubbed her face. “Sorry about that. Riz didn’t say you were coming and I was up all night studying, so the elevator opening just ticked me off a little.”

Fabian opened this mouth in trying to gather a response, but little more than air came out. Sklonda furrowed her brow at him.

“Are you okay, kid? You seem off,” she said, taking a step closer. 

“I’m alright, thanks,” Kingston said, taking a step back from her. He swallowed. “Sorry. Could I just see Riz? It’s a bit time-sensitive.”

Sklonda seemed to think for a second, then nodded in agreement. She stepped aside to clear the doorway, even though she was too small for it to truly matter, so Kingston stepped through and tried to smile. “Yeah, no worries. Come on in, he’s in his office as always.”

He looked around for a moment as Sklonda closed the door behind him and walked back over to the table where she must have been having breakfast. The place was small, and something told Kingston it was not because they were only 4 feet tall. Right past the door laid the first small room, housing the small kitchen, a table and a small and worn out couch and TV set crammed up against the small door that led to Riz’s “office”: a small secret compartment originally installed by his dad in order to conduct his spy business. The kitchen/dining area led to a narrow hallway with two side-by-side doors for what he assumed were Sklonda and Riz’s rooms and a bathroom at the end. He knew the two were busy bees with little time for themselves, so it was no surprise the place was a little untidy and dusty, but Kingston realized the gray walls with humidity patches were of no help in making the place feel any more welcoming. He cleared his throat.

“Sklonda, I was thinking,” he said, turning to her and finding Sklonda pleased to be hearing him speak, “maybe I can help you and Riz give the apartment a hand of paint over the break. I’ll bring the equipment over from my house, and we can, you know, make the walls a little brighter. I’ve heard it really helps bring up an atmosphere or something.”

Sklonda swallowed her cereal and pointed the spoon at him. Kingston could feel Fabian's body at the verge of breaking a cold sweat – he was nervous! Why the hell did this little green lady make this posh boy so goddamn anxious? "You think our living room needs upbringing?"

"Well – not in a bad way!"

"How can you think that not in a bad way?" She mused, still pointing. "Is it positively moldy is what you're saying?"

"Just forget it," Fabian said under his breath, sticking his hands in his pockets. "I just wanted to help out."

Sklonda chuckled at him, which made Fabian's cheeks heat up. He looked at her, about to protest, when Sklonda stood up and walked to put a hand on his arm. "I'm messing with you, Fabian! That's a great idea, and help would be great. Riz and I never take time for anything, so maybe it's time we fix that."

Kingston felt a jolt of joy along with a chill down his spine at her kindness. He didn't mean to pry into Fabian's life, but he couldn't help wondering either – Sklonda was his friend's mom, so she must be a lot older. Did Fabian have a crush on her? 

"You really never do."

"Plus, how tall are you? Six feet?" She asked, then taking a step back to measure him up. "You'll be able to reach all the tricky corners!"

Kingston didn't need to look up to realize the ceiling was actually fairly low, but he decided he was better off just smiling. Sklonda gave him a pat on his forearm, still chuckling, and then the door behind them was swung open. 

"Fabian?" Riz's voice came from inside the room. "You said it was urgent, dude! come through!"

After an eyeroll from Sklonda, Kingston walked away towards the door. He ducked to enter the small and dimly lit room, and had to stay ducked once he was inside to find Riz sitting at the small desk, flatcap on the table as he scratched his head and looked over papers. He looked up when he heard the steps, eyes crinkled in the briefest of smiles. 

"Hey man. Tell me what's up, and then we'll get going. Aelwyn texted me that we should meet our friends at school ASAP, so we'll have to take the Hangman," he said in a string of words, looking back and forth from his files. After a moment of aghast silence, he paused to see Fabian. "Dude? Are you okay?"

There could have been many answers to that question. No, he was sweating hot and cold. No, he'd woken up in the wrong body and still had no idea what was happening. No, he felt lonelier than he had his whole life, even counting the years after Liz and him broke up, when he’d learned to be alone in what was possibly the world’s biggest crowd. Yes, because he'd just offered to help paint the living room. No, because it was probably gonna be the whole apartment anyway. 

Kingston knew at once he was more than alright. Fabian was in love with one of his best friends. 

He shook his head. 

"Get your stuff. I'll tell you on the ride."

***

Pete walked through twilight itself. 

He knew shades of gray well. He'd been in gray areas – and oh so often as well –, but this? This wasn't even grayness. It was gray itself: the condensation of the very concept of in-betweenness. And it was… Purple?

He walked for a little longer. He was at the edge of a purple cliff, looking at the infinite purple of the sky stretch out before him. The patch of land where he stood was covered with lilacs, and a maybe a hundred meters of two inland a deep and dark violet wood grew. He was everything, everywhere – every season, every falling leaf and every blooming button; every diaphragm expansion and every sob. Everything was a lot, and nothing at once. 

Pete knew the feeling of transcendental from Nod, and Purple felt a lot like it. He wanted to say something, but a more thoughtful part of him told him to wait, so he did. After a moment, someone else materialized next to him. Their skin was like translucent glass, showing purple (how was he still surprised?) galaxies beneath a tie-dye shirt, shorts and wavy hair that kind of flowed into… Eternity? Nothingness? Whatever was in between. 

"Hi there," they said with a smile. "Remember me?"

Pete nodded slowly, a bit unsure of what he was doing until he did it. "Cassandra."

"That's me," Cassandra smiled, looking into the sky as well. "And you? Are you still Pete? Or are you Kristen?"

Pete scratched his head, looking into the horizon as he considered the question. The purple skies, he realized now, were hardly static: beyond lilac clouds afar, whole galaxies swayed and sparkled further and closer than he could gather. They undulated in a constant movement, as waves in the very ocean. Back and forth, he noted, back and forth until rejoining their source. 

Twilight sprouted from Cassandra’s hair.

“I think,” Pete started, looking at her, “I think I am something in between.”

Cassandra nodded. “Smart. I like in-betweens.”

“I know,” Pete smiled. “And I like twilights. A lot.”

“But you need to go,” they said with the most serene of complexions. “I know. I just wanted to remind you to enjoy the in-betweens, is all.”

Pete held her hand - the hand of a goddess. He could say he glimpsed into Kristen’s mind, but, in truth, Kristen’s mind was his own as he realized that the uncertainty of how to act around Cassandra was what was so special about her. Some things were unknowable, and that was okay.

“What a trip,” said Aelwyn, narrowing her eyes. Back at the kitchen, she’d let Adaine take her seat with Kristen on the table, and stood with her arms crossed against the countertop in the most skeptical of poses. “I mean, Kristen, I know you can be a bit hazy, but this is preposterous.”

“I’m not exactly Kristen,” said Pete, crooking his head, “and it’s not preposterous, Aelwyn. Rowan, tell her.”

“That’s not Rowan, you hippie. That’s Adaine,” Aelwyn said bitterly, and Fig tutted.

“Hippie was all you could think of?” Sofia said in a drawl, leaned against Ayda’s form of Dale. “Gosh, you wouldn’t last a day in Staten Island.”

“Good, because Staten Island doesn’t exist!”

“No need to be unkind,” Sofia muttered, though Pete could see he wasn’t the only one who found Aelwyn’s accusation a little bit funny. After a moment, Rowan decided to speak up.

“Aelwyn, I know this looks odd, but I really am not Adaine,” she explained in a sorry voice. “I’m in her body, and kind of in her mind too, I think, but I’m not her. Not really.”

Aelwyn’s long ears twitched as her nose flared open. The silence that befell the room was more and more fueled by her clear dissatisfaction. In her faltering breaths, Pete saw that she wasn’t just irritated: she was scared. Aelwyn had been through a lot and lost even more. The last thing she needed was her sister - the last bit of family she had - being gone from her body and nobody else in the room seeing the problem with it, and, as outlandish as that nightmare sounded, it was exactly what was happening. Luckily, Pete knew a thing or two about nightmares.

“We’ll get her back to you, Aelwyn. I promise,” he said as he spread his palms open on the table. “But we need to leave right now. Things are about to get ugly, and we have some work to do.”

***

Riz held onto Fabian extra tight as he tore through the streets of Elmville. He had promised to tell Riz what was happening on the ride to the school, but between the loud roar of the Hangman and the wind whistling as the Hangman drove even faster and more recklessly than his usual, Riz had begun to think Fabian didn’t mean to tell him much at all. 

Though Fabian was definitely weird today, Riz wouldn’t by far say this was a one-time thing. He knew Fabian had more issues of his own than he cared to admit most of the time, and so had decided to not give him a hard time on account of the estrangement, but those happened regardless of the situation - lately, Riz had noticed Fabian acting up specifically when the two of them were together, or rather, as they were together most of the time anyways, when they were alone together. He had his guesses as to why, sure, and most felt less wrong than he cared to admit. None of them, though, matched the guy who had been so decided to make Riz feel worthless that he still called him the Ball .

Riz sighed. Stop spiraling, you dumb idiot. No spiraling when we have a monster/god/definitely-something to kill. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt harder to listen to the little voice in his head when he was so close to Fabian that he could smell his aftershave. No, wait - Fabian wouldn’t have shaved that morning, not in the hurry that he was. Was it something bardic maybe? Or just his scent? Either way, there was something about it. Something magical. Something Riz had yet to put his finger on.

He pushed the thoughts to their usual corner of his mind as Fabian pulled up in the parking lot behind the school, marking the concrete with his almost literally burning tyres. Fabian put both his feet on the ground in a cool stance, even though the Hangman could probably keep balance if he didn’t, and waited for a moment as Riz hopped off. He took his flatcap off, stuffing it the right way and getting his hair in place from all the wind, and that was when Fabian crooked his head at him in the most un-Fabian gesture he’d ever seen.

“What?” Riz asked, frowning slightly.

“Your hair, it…” Fabian started, then stopped to chuckle and subsequently recompose himself. “It looks like Timothee Chalamet’s.”

“Timothy Chala-what?” Riz asked, shaking his head. “I don’t get what you’re talking about, dude. Or what my hair has to do with this emergency you and Aelwyn both texted me over.”

Fabian looked at him for a moment more before rubbing his eyes, and Riz couldn’t help but blink. He didn’t mean to be over inquisitive, as he knew all of his friends found him nosy at least to some degree or another, but something was definitely off with Fabian. It was something of Fabian, undeniably, or else not even the Hangman wouldn’t have answered to it. It dressed like Fabian, talked in his voice, and mostly walked like he did - hell, it smelled like Fabian, and Riz did know what his scent was well-enough to say that. Was it his words, less pompous and more tranquil? His gestures, less grand? Or maybe was it just his eyes, behind what seemed like a thin but present curtain of daze?

Fabian opened his mouth to answer, and then a lot of things happened at once. A portal opened up right next to them, shining in blue and red, and a troupe of his friends, Ayda and Aelwyn even, walked out, all having a stronger reaction to Fabian than to him. Kristen took a big step ahead, hugging him tightly as she cried out for a “Kingston!” Riz stood there, invisible in his shock, and then, as he decided to remark his presence with a curse or two, the ground itself shook, making all of them grab onto each other. Their heads whipped together towards the school as the ceiling was blasted off, with a single bright column, seemingly made of pure energy, shooting up into the sky.

“Run that way?” Riz asked, and, without bothering to wait for the confirmation that must have been coming, got a head start.

***

He watched from above as they poured into the cafeteria, one after the other, weapons at hand, staring at the blazing light that came from its middle. He thought he had only been waiting for the six of them - the ones they called the Bad Kids - but each of the additions made sense, and, as an all-knowing being, he couldn’t exactly say he’d been caught aback. Seeing all of them together there, as they once had been, made him want to smile, but he knew his work wasn’t done just yet.

He floated invisibly over the room, watching as they countered the blasts that came from the light. Rowan seemed excited about the enormous fists she had been able to conjure around Adaine’s frail hands, and punched whatever came within her reach, and of course Ricky had gotten the kid with the enormous axe, ever-so-natural in his hands. A small satyr, whom he knew to be none less than Esther Sinclair, was in the most absolute of rages, smashing things left and right with her bare hooves. He smiled at all her passion. It wasn’t too long until Fig’s bass started blasting out either, the waves of rock ‘n’ roll crackling through space and time and, as corny as he felt about it, tugging nicely at his heartstrings. Riz and Fabian worked in synchronicity, taking turns with their respective long and short range weapons. Regardless of being in the wrong world and wrong bodies, they were a team. They would always be.

One person, however, stood back from the fight. An outsider looking in might think it was because she, with the big silver staff, was a support caster - not one to get her hands dirty -, but he wasn’t fooled. In spite of his ethereal form, barely even a shape, Kristen Applebees looked directly at him.

The sounds of battle dimmed slightly as she spoke: “Disciple of twilight and all. The meeting of realms.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

“You didn’t do this,” Kristen said, clearly stating a fact rather than posing a question. “But… You know how to get us out?”

Kugrash smiled. “Have you forgotten I know everything, kid?”

Kristen’s static image tremullated slightly, so that Pete became visible as if through a hologram. He had lost the cowboy hat, Kug realized, and gained a mustache that was interesting in the least. Kugrash smiled. 

He broke his gaze from Pete, but could still feel his eyes following him. The struggles and explosions from the other kids seemed to be in slow-motion as he passed by them, watching Gorgug swing his axe downwards as hard as he could and Adaine mutter something too complicated for him to fully comprehend, and then Fig spin on her heels in his direction with surprise on her face, as if she’d suddenly been alerted to his presence somehow. Or was that a moment later? Time might have slowed down, for all he knew. It didn’t take much time as an omniscient being to figure out time and space were more malleable than humans would like to imagine, and if he had ever doubted that to start with, his double-souled friends were breathing-walking-brawling proof that it was too true.

Kugrash appreached Riz, who had just landed by Fabian’s side after the two had performed an elaborate maneuver to keep some of the lights away. There was something off about him, and it wasn’t his sheer stock of nervous energy or even the strange directions he could see Riz’s train of thought going. His friends were both here and there - they had two shells for two souls, even if they had gotten all mixed up right now. Maybe it was that, rather than his semi-deity state, that had prevented him from waking up as if he had been Riz. Maybe, if he had still a body, he would have walked through a strange mist and woken up with a bittersweet taste to his mouth. Maybe, just maybe, he could have had this one last adventure.

Maybes and what-ifs were not made easier by being an omniscient being. It was just a few letters and yet worlds away from omnipotence.

Kug reached out the ethereal from that would have been his hand and touched it to Riz’s shoulder, making light shine from the point where their forms met. Things around them seemed to stop, though he couldn't tell whether they had actually stopped or time was playing another trick on him. He knew, though, that Riz looked at where they touched, blind to the rest of Kug's shape. He was there, for a moment filled with the stardust that once made him, and then, in the blink of an eye, he wasn't.

***

Ricky woke up with a gasp, and then another as Esther's gulp for air by his side surprised him. They were still facing the ceiling, taking deep breaths to calm down, when their phones started vibrating and chiming with messages that were sure to be from their friends. 

"This… Is not what I imagined when people said you could travel the world without leaving your house," Ricky said in a breathy tone, and Esther chuckled. 

"What did you have in mind? Books?"

"Most likely," he said, nodding slowly, then looked at her from the corner of his eye. "Or drugs."

Esther furrowed her brow. "Drugs?"

"Pete said it a lot," Ricky admitted, earning a tired laugh from Esther as he shifted on the bed to look at her properly. He stuck out his arm, and she snuggled into his side. 

"So…" She started in a softer tone. "You'd still love me if I had goat legs?"

"That's what you got from all that?" Ricky said, smiling, and Esther' face mirrored his happiness. She put a hand lightly on his cheek. 

"It's all I need."