A/n: Hi everybody!! Sorry this took so long. Let me know what you think!
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Office 516
1601 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA, 19103
United States of America
The packing had gone well. As had the diapering, providing he’d put the clean one back on in the correct direction. Which was precisely a fifty-fifty chance. The bus…was a bus. Not exactly complicated. But now he was in front of Office 516, on the fifth floor of a tall, squarish building on Market Street, with everything he owned and everything Lliannan had given him in a suitcase in one hand, a Moses basket in the other, a backpack on his back, and his strange medallion around his neck. Fed and in the baby carrier thingy on his chest, Moriyana was finally quiet, but still quite noticeable in front of him. All in all, he had to look like a strange sort of pack mule. The few office workers who’d passed by had given him strange looks. He had better be in the right place or he was going to look like an idiot.
And the door he was looking at was not at all promising.
Rhodera Travel Services, it proclaimed, Your fantasy realized. One did not usually bring one’s suitcases to the travel agency.
Taking another deep breath, Marius steeled himself before reaching out and opening the door.
Inside was…an office, sort of. Except it was more like an airport in microcosm. Everything was blandly gray and official-looking, and to the right was a short line of people waiting to talk to one of four office workers sitting behind a tall counter. A sign indicated in English, French, and Spanish that if one was looking for a visa one should join this line. To the left was a single man sitting at a podium in front of a door. The sign indicated that it was the area for those who already had a visa or rank identification to show. One of the pictures underneath looked just like medallion around his neck. So apparently I have my visa already. Didn’t you have to get those in person, though? But then, why did he need a visa in the first place?
And the office he was in really didn’t look like a travel agency. In fact, from the official government/airport look, he’d guess it was more like some sort of consulate. And travel agencies didn’t issue visas. But why would a consulate be pretending to be a travel agency? And why would Lliannan have sent him to one for help? Maybe they just forgot to take the travel agency’s sign down? That still didn’t explain why Lliannan had sent him to some consulate, though.
But whatever. He had his medallion thingy. He could presumably figure out more once he talked to the man at the podium and went into the office behind. Still weighed down with too much stuff, Marius moved the twenty feet necessary to the serious-looking man at the podium and pulled the medallion from around his neck to hand it to him. The man took it and squeezed it briefly in his hand. There was a brief, deep blue flash of light, and then the man returned his medallion.
“Welcome to Rhodera, your Highness,” the man said, opening the door for him and bowing low.
Marius just stared, looking at him and then at the medallion in his hand. It hadn’t changed at all – just a metal disk with an image and symbols on either side, like a giant coin with a hole punched in it. Certainly it didn’t have any LEDs attached or anything. So what had caused the flash? Or had he just imagined it? And had the man just called him highness? He was definitely bowing…
But the man clearly expected him to move on through the door. Giving him a distracted smile, Marius walked past him through to the office on the other side. There was a slight lurch, like he’d stepped off of a moving escalator, and he looked down to find that his foot had landed on muddy cobblestones. Cobblestones? In an office?
The sudden bray of a donkey startled him, and he became abruptly aware of other sounds – voices and animal sounds and a fiddle being played somewhere, all punctuating the general cacophony of a large number of people in a space that was just a little too small.
Startled, he looked around to find that his eyes only confirmed what his ears had already told him – he was somehow no longer in an office. He was, in fact, quite definitely out-of-doors, in a narrow alley between two buildings off to one side of a cobblestone circle. Stranger than that, the donkey proved to be real – it was tied to a small cart full of clothing that a very short man was apparently selling on the other side of the street. But- Marius did a double take. The…’man’… selling clothing… were those his ears? Surely not. Unless he’d had them stretched, or something? They were down past his shoulders. He was outside, on a cobblestone street, and the man across that street was a dwarf with ears stretching down past his shoulders. Curiouser and curiouser.
Confused, but intrigued, Marius hauled his stuff a little further out from the alley, and peered carefully out onto the busy sidewalk.
For a moment, it was all he could do to hold onto the suitcase and basket and stare. The alleyway had apparently protected him some from the noise. Now he got it full blast, along with such a wave of colors and smells and activity that his brain didn’t want to process it. All he could see were people and all he could hear was noise. Finally, though, he realized that there was a certain organization to the chaos. The sidewalk was circular, and traffic moved in one direction on the inside of the circle, and the other on the outside. On his side of the sidewalk – the outside of the circle – were permanent buildings, but on the other were portable stalls and wagons, grouped around a large central fountain. Apparently, he was in some sort of doughnut-shaped marketplace.
Other than that, it was just somewhat crowded and quite loud. A man at one of the stalls was shouting something about a discount on some sort of fruit, while a woman argued with his assistant over a blemish on one of the apples. At first, he thought that they were both wearing strange bodysuits, but after a moment he realized that what he was looking at was their skin itself. It was a funny color – almost more green than brown.
Oookay…greenish brown skin. And the man with the crazy ears was still there, too. He hadn’t imagined that. After a moment, though, Marius realized that the clothing and fruit sellers were the least of it – the fruit seller’s current customer sported spikes down both sides of her spine, looking like they cut through her clothing, and the man behind her in line had pointed ears that stretched out six inches to either side, along with what looked like – horns? – growing out of his forehead.
Maybe it’s some sort of holiday? It wasn’t even close to Halloweenyet – but no, that wasn’t right, he’d been in an office before, he was sure of it! And nobody had been dressed weird until he went through that door, and now suddenly everybody was, and he was outside and there were farm animals in the street! No festival could adequately explain that. I’m hallucinating. I have to be. Somebody slipped me something. And he had no idea what it was or when it had happened. That was bad.
Okay, breathe, Marius. You’ve gotta be able to figure this out. He’d come in from an office. A normal-looking office, remarkable only in that it was labeled as a travel agency and looked more like a consulate, complete with bored government workers. The fifth floor of an office building in the middle of Philadelphia. Now – now he was outside, on street level of a loud, smelly, cobblestone marketplace full of – well they weren’t human, whoever they were. What the hell? Who are these people? Was nobody here just – normal?
The man selling fish, with the waist-long dreadlocked hair – also had fingernails so long they were better termed claws. One of his customers had a crest of hair that grew in a mane all the way down her back. She also wasn’t wearing a shirt, and Marius found himself blushing and looking away as she turned around. But the customer behind her – he looked normal…if a little short. Okay like way short. And he was a she. Just with a beard. Damnit.
Looking around, Marius finally looked back behind him and discovered that, as he’d half expected, the door he’d come in by had disappeared in favor of this new…world…he’d stumbled into. Specifically, instead of an office door he was looking at a narrow gate that lead to an equally narrow alleyway between stone buildings. Turning back around and craning his neck, he finally looked at the building closest to him and saw that it had a sign with a picture of a plate and beer mug under a roof, and the name “Harlot’s Bar and Inn.”
Harlot? Really? Was that a name, or an occupation? The building on his other side, though, was a shop, one with meat hanging from the ceiling, and an absolutely enormous man carving thin slices from a huge chunk of very purple flesh…with just a little help from what definitely looked like a prehensile tail. Aren’t drugs just supposed to make you see pink elephants or something? What the hell is this?
Calm. Breathing. Figuring things out. Oooookay…I’m tripping, somehow. And currently responsible for the welfare of a three-month-old kid. Not a good combination. Malcolm would obviously be no help. Drunken asshole was really no better a guardian than seventeen-year-old kid, even if he was high off his ass.
Still, he’d gotten into this…hallucination…through a door. A door that, perhaps, he could go back through. And he’d much rather be high in his world than in this one. If he wanted to, he could come through again later to explore. He knew where the office was, and the man at the podium had handed his medallion back to him without seeming to change it. In the meantime, home would definitely be better. He could get a hotel room, or something, and figure things out.
Oh yeah, Marius, that’s logical. I’m high, and I can go through the door to come down, and then I can come back through to get high again if I want to. All he had to do, really, was eat from the other side of the special mushroom. Yeah, that would be the drugs talking. Still, though, he’d feel like an idiot if he didn’t at least try it.
Decision made, Marius turned back around and pushed open the little gate, walking all the way through before realizing that nothing was changing – he was just walking through the tiny alleyway towards the back of the two buildings.
Err…maybe with the medallion thingy? Oh bloody hell, what was he going to do if this didn’t work? Trying not to panic, he went back through the gate, this time taking the medallion off and holding it in hand with the Moses basket as he went through. Still the same view.
Breathing starting to pick up, he was going through for the third time when a woman’s voice stopped him.
“It’s a one-way.”
“Excuse me?” he asked, turning towards the voice before backing a step as he registered that the woman wasn’t wearing a shirt and was very…curvy. Moments later, that hardly mattered as he realized that the pretty, very freckled, very curvy woman also had goat legs and horns.
“Aww, poor kid,” the –I guess it’s –she’s- a satyr?– said to him, “got in on accident, did you? How’d you manage that? Anyway, the door you came through is a one-way gate. You’ll have to get to a consulate and get a visa out, and then get to a gate hub. They don’t let many people through, though. I really have no idea how you managed to come this way.”
Marius just stared at her. Was that supposed to make sense? It sounded like English, but the meaning of her words totally escaped him. And he was still stuck just staring, trying to take in the horns and the goat legs and the bared breasts all at the same time.
“And you have no idea what I’m talking about. Not that you were listening anyway,” the satyr said, sounding exasperated. “I have eyes. They’re blue. Up here, kid.”
Marius startled, eyes snapping up to the satyr’s face, and felt his face redden. Panicked, he found himself unable to think of a single thing to say. The satyr sighed. “Just come on, would you?”
She gripped his arm and pulled him out of his alley before turning him physically to face across the square and pointing.
“You see that tower, with the bells?”
Shaking his head to try and focus, Marius looked where she was pointing. At first, he could see only people and the vague outline of roofs on the other side of the square, but finally he realized that there really was a bell tower sticking out behind them. “Yes, I see it,” he answered the satyr finally, trying for a normal tone.
“That’s the local bells and guard station. If you’re real lucky they might help you get back out of here. It’s damned difficult, though, so don’t get your hopes up too high.”
Guard station. Like guards. They could get him out of here. But she’d said they wouldn’t help? Suddenly much more focused, Marius stared at her wide eyed. “What the hell am I supposed to do if they don’t?” he asked her. Bloody hell this had damned well better be a hallucination.
“Find an inn,” the satyr told him bluntly.
“An inn,” Marius repeated, disbelieving.
“Yeah,” the satyr told him. “An inn. There’s no way you’re getting out of here tonight without the guards’ help, so an inn. In the meantime, you might want to learn politer ways to talk to those who help you.”
“Well sorry, but you’re a hallucination,” Marius told her, trying once again to fight down his own panic but hearing it in his voice anyway. “This is not actually happening.”
The satyr raised both eyebrows and suddenly smiled, to all evidence highly amused. “Well then you won’t need the guards’ help, will you? You might want the apothecary, though. He’s on the next street over.”
How is the imaginary apothecary supposed to help me more than the imaginary guards?
Abruptly, Marius realized the full absurdity of his situation. He was carrying a baby – apparently his baby – and talking to a satyr in the middle of the street trying to get help to get out of this ‘world’ he’d stumbled into when in fact he was probably on a street corner somewhere, rocking back and forth and mumbling to himself, or wandering around in Philadelphia traffic. Why did he even bother? He really ought to just go sit somewhere until whatever it was passed.
But then…if Moriyana was part of his hallucination, then maybe he’d be okay in another couple of hours, but if she wasn’t then she needed him to be more active than that. Hallucination or not he needed to be making decisions and getting things done. And the guards actually sounded like a good idea. On the off chance that he wasn’t hallucinating – okay, so yeah, wildly unlikely – then he’d need help to get out. And if, more likely, he was hallucinating – then hopefully the guards would just be his new and improved vision for the Philadelphia police department.
Despite himself, though, he once again found himself just staring, both at the naked satyr and the world around them. The woman with the…mane…was talking to the butcher, now. She eats meat, then. Huh. So clearly not a horse. And wasn’t that about the dumbest thought he’d yet had. Guards, he told himself again. Focus.
“Thanks,” he told the satyr finally, focusing back on her face. “I’m sorry. I just-” but once again he found himself explaining himself to a satyr. He shook his head and refocused. “Never mind. I really wish you could tell me what was going on, but-”
“-but I’m a figment of your imagination,” she finished for him tolerantly. “Go to the guards.”
“Yeah,” Marius said, taking a deep breath, “I’ll do that. Thanks…I guess.”
“No problem,” the satyr said. “You amuse me.” She walked off into the crowd and Marius stared after her. Great. My problems are amusing. Suddenly reminded of Jeremy, Marius smiled just a little. It was actually reassuring to realize that the people here were…people. Then he frowned. No, Marius. Not here. The people in your head are people. Because this was not real. He was not stuck in some strange world where satyrs acted like real people.
Looking down, he found that the baby was asleep, but had meanwhile manged to get a hold of his shirt. There was a distinct soggy spot where she’d pulled it into her mouth. Great. Now she’s happy, and so instead of screaming she’s slobbering on me in her sleep. Bloody fantastic. I hate babies.
Guards, he thought again firmly, holding Moriyana carefully to him with the hand not already carrying the suitcase. He needed to go to the guards.
Looking around, he realized that the buildings on both sides of the street were short, no more than two stories tall, and made of stone and wood, roofed with something that looked like actual slate. Philadelphia wasn’t as built-up as New York was, but you still had to look up to see the sky in most places. Here, it was just there. It was a gloriously beautiful day, he realized. The sky was that deep blue color that only seemed to show up on chilly days in late October. Which is interesting, considering it’s supposed to be late April. It was chilly, though, and very dry, too, in a way that early spring in Philadelphia was not – it felt like October. Alright, so my hallucination is in the Southern Hemisphere. Great. He’d have to see if the toilets turned the other way. If they had toilets.What was he going to do if they didn’t have toilets?
God, this is weird. Were hallucinations usually this all-encompassing? This was incredible. The detail was beyond belief, down to the cobblestones under his feet, the backpack and carrier straps still cutting into his shoulders, and the combined smells of fish, food, and donkey shit. It seemed more reasonable that he had to find his way out again than that he would just wake up and it would be gone. No drug he’d heard of could come up with this shit. Guards.
Now that he saw it, the guard tower stuck out, towering above the surrounding buildings and featuring a large, dull-colored bell. Trying to ignore his crazy surroundings, Marius walked straight towards it, and soon found himself at an enormous wooden door at the base of the stone bell tower. The tower was bigger than he would have expected, as big as any of the other buildings at the base, and a lot taller. As he got close, though, he realized that inside the huge door was a smaller one. Both doors were labeled ‘office’, and unlocked. Well that’s easy enough, I guess…in a weird sort of way.
He balanced the suitcase briefly against the wall and opened the door, pushing his way inside.
Oh, good. The hallucination was somehow…thinner…here. The walls were still stone, and the floor wooden, but otherwise it looked like an office, with sturdy wooden desks and a bored-looking woman stuffing paper envelopes. Her uniform was a bit strange – a rough-cut tunic of a reddish woven fabric, belted at the waist over pants made of the same material – but she looked human.
Realizing that though she was dressed as a guard in his hallucination, she was probably just a receptionist at some business, Marius set down the suitcase and Moses basket near the door and approached the desk still carrying the sleeping baby and the backpack on his shoulders. They were starting to get heavy.
Polite. Right. His only hope was that she was more than a hallucination. He needed her to help him. “Excuse me, ma’am?”
The woman looked up with an air of impatience. “Yes?”
“Hi, my name is Marius Bataille. I – umm. This is going to sound strange but I think I’m hallucinating. Could you help me out? A hospital, maybe, or the police? Are you the police?”
The woman raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
Marius frowned. What hadn’t she understood? He could understand if the drugs made him talk funny, but the satyr had seemed to understand his speech…
“Umm…I said I think I’m hallucinating. Or, actually I know I’m hallucinating. Nobody looks very human, to me. Could you help me get to a hospital or something?”
The guard still just stared at him. “And that’s supposed to be a…joke, maybe?” she said skeptically. She seemed…strangely offended.
“No,” Marius answered her seriously. I wish. “I really am hallucinating. Nothing looks like Philadelphia anymore. There are…donkeys and things. I don’t know how I got drugged or whatever but I really think I need a hospital.” The baby shifted on his chest, pulling on his shirt, and he indicated her with a hand. “I might be okay, but I really wouldn’t want me caring for a child right now, if I had a choice. If she’s even real.” He closed his eyes. Well that sounded…idiotic. “I mean…would you just help?”
“Nobody looks human, you’re not in Philadelphia, and you see donkeys and things,” the woman repeated to him, raising her eyebrows.
“Yes,” Marius said, starting to get frustrated. “Look, I know it sounds weird, but-”
“Very funny,” the woman said abruptly, this time clearly annoyed. “Leave, please.”
Marius shook his head. He hadn’t expected that. “W-what? Look how long does it take to call a hospital?”
“Very little,” the woman said. “But you have already wasted enough of my time. Do you honestly think that the city guard has so little to do that we will find your prank amusing?”
“Prank?” Marius repeated, not understanding. “It’s no prank! I’m really seeing donkeys and shit! There was a woman with spikes out there!”
“Was there really?” the guard answered. “Very funny. Get out.”
The guard was fully part of his hallucination, Marius realized suddenly, feeling like a total idiot. She was not interested in his plight because naturally she saw everything, too. Illogically, he still wanted her to help him.
“Look, could you maybe just help me get a ticket out, then?” he asked her. “I came in through a – a ‘one-way’? I think it’s called that? – and-”
The guard only got angrier. “Do you really think I’m that stupid?” she asked him. “First hallucinations, and now you say you’re from the other side? The city guard has better things to do than deal with your bullshit. You want a visa, go to the consulate and get one. Not that it’s likely that they’ll give you one. That side is for the humans.”
“I am human,” Marius said, trying to stay polite. “And I really need to get back through.”
The woman snorted at him. “Yeah, right. Look, kid, nobody comes through the gates by accident. You need either a visa or proper rank identification, and the humans on the other side of the divide can’t get either without serious difficulty. Ergo, you’re lying to me. Get out, or I really will call for someone to throw you out, infant or no infant.”
“But I did come in by accident!” Marius protested. “Here, look!” Pulling the medallion off from around his neck, he showed it to her.
The guard’s eyebrows rose even higher. “Better and better. So now you’re clearly here on purpose, and you counterfeited or stole a rank ID. I could arrest you if I wanted to, Your Highness. Seriously, now. Get out of my office. You’re currently lucky I just don’t want to deal with the paperwork.”
He stared at her. Fantastic. Bloody. Fucking. Fantastic. ‘Get out, or I’ll arrest you.’ That was even worse than the satyr’s ‘get an inn’. Frustrated and ready to give up, he bared his teeth in a smile. “Understood,” he told the guard. “Thanks for the help.”
I better damned well hope this really is a hallucination, he realized, turning away from the unhelpful guard and picking up the Moses basket and suitcase. If not, then the satyr’d been right – the best he could do was find an inn and hope to figure things out tomorrow. Which didn’t seem likely. Visa, and they’re unlikely to give me one. And from what the guard said, the medallion he had – the only thing he currently had that could possibly get him out – was not a visa, but a rank ID, and could get him arrested if he waved it around because he didn’t have the proper rank. He shook his head. That’s okay. I don’t need to ‘get out’, I need to wake up. Because this is a hallucination. Satyrs don’t exist, remember?
Outside, he took a moment to stand just outside of the door and stare back at the street. Nothing had changed – same strange, wood-and-stone buildings and crowded street full of donkey carts and strange creatures. Even the few people who looked human dressed strangely, and he had to wonder if they were really as human as they looked.
Dude, they’re figments of your imagination. If they look human, they’re human. It doesn’t matter. What mattered was finding a place to stay for the night, preferably someplace that would also feed him. And – he’d already seen an inn. He could go back there for the night. Provided, of course, that he could find a way to pay for it. He somehow doubted the place would take his debit card.
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Once again, Marius found Harlot’s Inn by the thick wooden sign over the tall double doors. Looking in through a small, thick glass window, he could tell that the front room of the place was empty. There was a sign on the wall next to the door that said:
Breakfast at eight, lunch at noon, dinner and bar from five. Wolves welcome, no cats. Ring bell for a room.
Wolves, Marius thought. Okay…they let wolves into the inn.
There was a string running through a hole at the top of the door. Strange doorbell, maybe? Figuring it couldn’t hurt, he pulled the string and heard a bell ring just inside the door.
A moment later he heard a woman shout. “Ran, get the door, please!”
A little girl opened the door, shoving her mass of curly black hair out of her eyes with one grubby hand. “Who’re you?”
Marius felt his eyebrows rise. “Well hello to you, too,” he told her. “Can I talk to an adult, please?”
“It’s some boy, Mama!” the girl yelled, turning her back on him completely and going back inside the pub. “He needs t’ talk t’ Aunt Rosa!”
Feeling awkward, Marius followed the girl in and closed the door, remaining just inside it in case his presence wasn’t welcome. The room was dim after the sunshine outside, but he could tell that he was in a decent-sized room, with a bar and round tables, all of the same worn wood as the floor. It looked like pine, maybe. A fireplace on the wall to his right was blackened brick, with an equally black iron grate and a couch set up in front of it.
“No food ’till noon!” a woman shouted. Hearing the sound from someplace downstairs, he realized that there was a staircase across the room leading directly up into the room he was in.
“That’s alright!” he called back. “I’m looking for a room!”
A room in Harlot’s inn, next to the butcher who’s really a monkey and across from the man with the claws who sells fish, he thought again. Really. And yet, somehow, his mind wanted to see this as real. It felt – sharp, in that way that dreams didn’t. He didn’t have to pinch himself to know it would hurt. Hallucinations are probably just different, he realized. I’m probably talking to a street lamp or something. Somehow DARE had not prepared him for this one.
“Alright, alright,” the woman said, emerging at the top of the stairs with a small wine cask carried in both arms. “How nice and for how long?”
She was huge, Marius realized, staring at her as she emerged from the basement. At least a head taller than his 5’8. No wonder the door was so tall. But her height wasn’t all of it – she was a good bit broader in the shoulders than he was, and the barrel she carried was evidently heavy, as he could see the muscles standing out on her arms. If she’d looked feminine at all before, the disfiguring scar over one eye and down her cheek effectively killed it. She wasn’t beautiful, for certain, but she was…interesting. Her voice, though, was unexpectedly attractive, smooth and feminine where nothing else about her was. And I’m staring again. He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. Pulling his thoughts together, he remembered her question and tried to answer it.
“Cheap, and only for the night,” he said, before wincing and revising his statement. “Hopefully only for the night,” he said instead.
“Cheap is good,” the woman told him, putting the barrel down behind the bar with a grunt. “The only room I’ve got free is an overgrown closet. I charge seventeen coin a day for a normal room plus two meals, but for that one – let’s go with sixteen coin sixty-five. If you decide to stay longer than two nights, it’s sixteen-fifty a night, including laundry services. You won’t get a cheaper offer in the market district.”
Sixteen ‘coin’ sixty-five. Great. God knows what that is. Could he even afford it? Lily had said she’d provided ‘what money she could pull together for him’. Who knew how much that was. “Umm…,” he said finally, digging in his pack for the strange coins he’d found earlier. Surely, if Lily had given them to him, they had to be from here? And isn’t that something to think about. Had Lily actually sent him here on purpose? It certainly seemed that way, what with the medallion and all. But he needed to focus on the money, right now.
“I’m sorry,” he said, finally finding what he was looking for, “but I’m…not from around here. Could you tell me how much ‘coin’ this is?” Embarrassed, Marius pulled out the two strings of strange coins that he’d found earlier.
For a moment, the woman just stared, at the coins and then at him, and Marius thought he’d made a mistake. Were they not coins? Or not from here? But then finally she returned to normal and started to explain.
“It goes by number of sides and by size,” she said, touching the biggest of the coins. “This big round one is our biggest denomination – twenty grand. It ought to be twenty sides, but I guess it was cheaper to make them round.” She looked at him again and frowned. “Really I don’t know why,” she admitted finally, once again openly surprised. “To be honest I’ve never seen one.” She seemed to hesitate, then went on. “The rest really do go by sides. The decagons are called ten-grands. They are each ten thousand coin. And these pentagons are five-grands. One thousand coin per side for the larger coins, and that’s fifty thousand in all.”
Marius nodded his understanding, mind starting to turn. Fifty thousand coin. Apparently the woman’s reaction was not to the type of money, but to the amount. How much had Lily given him?
But the woman was still speaking.
“Then these smaller decagons,” she continued, “these are each one-grands, and these pentagons are half a grand – one hundred per side, see?”
Marius once again nodded, and she continued, pointing to the smallest set of coins on that string. “These are a little more reasonable – ten coin per side. So you’ve got your hundred-coin and fifty-coin.”
She sat back from the table and looked him in the eyes. “All in all,” she said, “this string alone is about sixty thousand coin.”
“Ah,” Marius said, trying to cover his own shock. That had to be a lot of money. Apparently Lily hadn’t been any poorer than Malcolm was. “Okay…”
“The other string is a little more reasonable to carry around,” Harlot said finally, leaning forward again to point to the smaller coins. “The smallest you have is an eighth-coin, and these bigger round ones are ten-coins. To me that makes more sense – just one side, ten coin. And the rest are in between – quarter and half coins. So that’s all about forty coin. And like I said, your room is sixteen coin sixty-five for the one night. And a liter of milk costs about one coin.”
Marius took a deep breath. He could have a room and two meals for sixteen coin fifty a day…and he had more than sixty thousand coin. Apparently, he’d be alright for a while.
Not surprisingly, the woman was looking at him funny. “I…inherited it,” he lied. “My… grandfather was keeping it… in a box in the backyard. Kind of a…strange type.”
“Uhh huh,” the woman told him, her skepticism obvious in her voice. But just as obviously, she wasn’t going to ask him about it. Good. He’d’ve had no idea what to say, anyway.
“You eat human?” she asked him abruptly. He frowned. Strange question. “Excuse me?” he asked, confused by the abrupt change of topic as much as by the question itself.
“Cooked meat, carbs, veggies?” she clarified.
“Uhh…yeah,” Marius said. “I guess.” Yeah, yeah I guess I eat like a human. “Yes,” he said more definitely.
“Good. Breakfast and lunch are communal, and served in the kitchen at 8:00AM and 12:00PM, respectively. Dinner’s whenever you want it, in the bar. Drinks are extra. Get on upstairs, you’re in room four at the end of the hallway to the left. Do you want help with your bags?”
“No, that’s fine,” he told her. He’d been dragging them this long, he could bring them upstairs.
“Alright,” she said briskly. “Here’s your key, then. You’ll want to lock the room when you leave, I can’t guarantee against theft. Lunch is when the bell rings, and Bighana’s in the kitchen if you need anything. You met her daughter, Ran. I’m Harlot.”
“H-Harlot,” Marius repeated, putting down his suitcase so he could take the big iron key she handed him. Apparently it is a name. And the woman gave him a lot of information all at once, jeez.
“Oh that’s ridiculous,” Harlot told him abruptly, looking at him and the baby and the suitcase and the basket. “There’s no way you can get everything upstairs in one trip without help. You go upstairs with the baby and the basket, I’ll call Belle to bring your suitcase up, and you can pay for the room tomorrow when you leave.”
“Oh,” Marius said awkwardly. “Thanks, then, uh…”
“Harlot,” Harlot insisted.
“Harlot,” he repeated again. Okay then. Whatever you want, lady. She’d really been incredibly helpful, though, for all her brusqueness.
Leaving her, Marius headed up the narrow and dimly-lit staircase in the back of the room to the second floor, sticking to the left side where the ceiling slanted over the staircase. At the top, he found himself in a little living-room style space, with a couch, coffee table, and love seat set kitty-corner to one another. Walking past them, he found the hallway, and went left as instructed, following the hall past two rooms labeled ‘Private’ and another labeled ‘five’, around a corner, and past room eight and what looked like it was probably a bathroom before finally finding room four.
Struggling a bit with the key and the basket and the baby and backpack still hanging from his shoulders, he managed to unlatch the door, then winced as it cracked against something behind it. He maneuvered himself and the basket around to get in, and found that the ‘crack’ had been from the door running straight into the wall – he was in a short, very narrow corridor that led sideways into the rest of the tiny, crooked room, just big enough to accommodate a dresser, bed, and bedside table. The bed was tucked under the sloping roof such that he would only be able to sit up if he faced the wall. It was, in short, the tiniest, most awkward little room he’d ever had the misfortune of inhabiting. No wonder no one had wanted it. But Harlot had been totally honest with him – he certainly couldn’t blame her. Now the architect on the other hand…
The one perk was a decent-sized window that looked like it could get good morning sun, and that sported a padded window seat that looked out over the street, so he could watch the goings-on below. This, too, was not entirely a good thing, however – as well as he could see everything, he could also hear and smell it, and he was across the way from the fish seller. Closing the window would probably help, but then the room would be stuffy. Oh, well. It was one night.
Turning away from the window and sitting on the bed, he discovered that someone had attempted to make up for the room’s size by improving on the bed: the mattress wasn’t great, but the covers were soft and in good shape.The room was also scrupulously clean, something he hadn’t expected from the look of the common room downstairs. But then, all it had really needed was a sweep, too. For all he knew it’d get one later. For the moment, he could sit and be grateful for the chance to slow down and think.
A moment later, though, there was a crash and a curse as someone opened the door. “Oh, bloody hell I forgot about the damned door.” A girl squeezed in around the door, towing his suitcase behind her. She was pretty enough, if a bit skinny, but the scowl on her face was enough to scare just about anyone away. “Here’s your bag,” she said grumpily, looking up at him. “Anything else you need?”
“Uh…,” Marius said. But she was already halfway out the door before he even said anything, and then she slammed it behind her and that was it. “No, I guess,” he said to the closed door. That must’ve been Belle, he realized. Wow. Apparently sixteen ‘coin’ sixty-five didn’t pay for courtesy.
But things could definitely be worse. He was in his hotel room, with his bags, and the baby was asleep. And he had enough money to stay there for like ten years without ever needing a job. Apparently when Lily ‘pulled some money together’ she emptied the damned bank. Thank God for that, he realized. What would he have done, if he hadn’t had the money to pay for the room? Did they even have homeless shelters, here? For all he knew, all they had were the ‘prisons and workhouses’ of Dickens’ time. And he had to care for Moriyana –
Suddenly worried, Marius frowned and dug through the suitcase he’d packed for Moriyana’s bag. Hauling it out, he dug through it quickly, looking for the little packets of formula that Lily had given him, and his frown only deepened. As he’d feared, the tiny suitcase held no formula packets other than the ones he’d already found – only clothing, and a huge book bound in dark blue leather. And I’ve been lugging that around – why? He’d thought Lily had only given him things to help with Moriyana. So what was with the book?
But more importantly, the only packets he had were the ones he’d first found – a total of…seven. So he’d had eight, and the baby had gone through one already, and if the little he knew about babies was true, he was going to have to feed her again quite soon. If he fed her like every two hours – he’d be through half of what he’d had by the time the day was out. And don’t babies eat at night, too? Where was he going to get her more food? Here?
No, Marius, you’re not, because this is a HALLUCINATION. HAL-LU-CIN-ATION. Means it’s not real. So no baby stores. But he’d never heard of a drug that lasted more than a day, so by the time he needed more packets he should be ‘awake’, and could just get a taxi to the Babies ‘R Us. Oh yeah, well done Marius. By the time you have to worry about buying formula, you’ll be awake from the world where you need them. Like that makes sense. But then, what was he supposed to believe, when every sense was fooling him? Was he even hallucinating? Could this be real?
Frowning, Marius lay back on the bed, the baby once again warm and heavy on his chest, and tried again to figure it out. Either he was hallucinating, or he was not. If he was – then the baby had to be hallucination, too, right? He’d found her at the same time as the weird string of coins, and Harlot had accepted the coins as belonging to this world. Either the coins and the baby were both real, or neither was. And if they were both real, then so were the inn and the satyr and everything else, and he would have to worry about baby formula. Otherwise, no need to worry at all, other than for his own sanity.
The idea that he was hallucinating seemed more realistic, but – had he really dreamed that entire morning? Surely his actions in his hallucinations would have something to do with what he was doing at home. And this world seemed so real. Every detail fit – heavy things were heavy, fish smelled bad even from across the street, crowds were loud – so he really had no evidence that this wasn’t real other than the fact that it was strange. He didn’t even feel sick.
But not a single thing seemed to have anything at all to do with anything he’d ever lived before. Every experience he’d had before told him that this one didn’t fit. He had to be dreaming it up.
But then – if, on the off chance, he was wrong – if he acted like he knew he was hallucinating, when this was actually real – then the baby would starve while he figured it out. And the baby – his daughter, supposedly – was… drooling on him. He could feel the wet spot, and he could hear her breathing as she slept. Well – not slept, actually. Her eyes were open, just a tiny bit. She was apparently awake, just very, very sleepy.
“Moriyana,” he said softly, trying it out on his tongue as he looked down at the tiny person that had spent the morning tied to his chest. His daughter, Moriyana. What a mouthful, he realized.Such a long name for such a small person. “Mo,” he told her. “You’re Mo.” If he was going to be stuck with a kid, then he’d damned well call her what he wanted to. With any luck, her mother would’ve hated it. She was his daughter, too. Shit. He was never going to get used to that.
Looking down at her, though, he suddenly remembered what he’d noticed earlier. Had she really had purple hair? It was hard to tell, in the dimmer light of his room. Touching her hair gently, he pulled one of the short curls straight and let it go. It sprang back into place, and he almost smiled. The hair was incredibly soft. And yes, it really did look purple. Well that confirms that, then. She’s definitely from this world.
But most of the people here looked stranger than just purple hair. Moving slowly, Marius gently examined her hands and feet and face, looking for anything else strange. She apparently liked this, and gave him a sleepy smile and a gurgle, hands opening briefly and then latching back onto his shirt.
Her ears were just slightly pointed, he finally discovered, but other than that the only strangeness he found was the embroidery and seed pearls on her sleeves and hem, and a stud and tiny hoop in the cartilage of her upper ear. Exploring further, he found that they had no clasps. Huh. Apparently, babies got their ears pierced, here. But why make it so that they couldn’t be removed? But that was it – no claws, fangs, horns, or tail. Just – a little tiny person with purple hair and just-slightly pointy ears.
She has my hair, I think, he suddenly remembered.
Had Lily had purple hair and he hadn’t noticed? Or was she just talking about the curls? Maybe she dyed it? And he could’ve missed the ears…huh. Maybe. Somehow he didn’t particularly care. There was only so much he could be upset about in one day, and somehow the fact that his daughter had purple hair and pointy ears didn’t really compare to the fact that he had a daughter. A tiny daughter. She fit on his chest, for goodness’ sake!
And apparently eats shirts, he realized suddenly. She was still sucking on his, and there wasn’t much he could do about it besides give her something else to chew on. Something that he didn’t currently have. Oh yey, more drool. My favorite.
What had happened? Everything had been normal until he left the apartment at seven thirty. Now it was not yet noon and he was lying on his back with a baby on his chest in a room surrounded by chaos and smelling of fish. A room he’d rented from a giantess using coins as big as his palm.
My room, he thought suddenly. That he’d rented. Without needing to provide any ID to prove he was eighteen, or any sort of credit rating. He’d never thought to just take a hotel, in his world. Presumably he could have. Certainly he could afford it.
No Malcolm, too, he realized. No drunken rants, no loud television, no piss to clean up in the bathroom from when the drunkard missed – no school, either, no Jeremy, but – my room. MY room. How long had he wanted a place of his own? And apparently he had a whole world of his own, now. One where Malcolm didn’t exist.
Screw waking up, he thought suddenly. What did he care? He apparently had enough money to keep him for awhile. Why not just go with it?
But – God, I can’t be that foolish. If the baby was part of the hallucination, then this needed to end. There was no way in hell he could be responsible for her welfare, sixty thousand ‘coin’ or no. She was not a puppy, that he could just ‘keep’ her and think that everything would turn out okay. What on earth was he supposed to do with a daughter? For now, he could just keep her alive, but later – did he really think he could be a parent? And did he really think that he could even keep himself alive, in this world? Bad enough trying to live alone in a hotel room in his! He was seventeen, for God’s sake!
Yeah? And that means what, exactly? It wasn’t like Malcolm had really been taking care of him. Marius even bought the groceries, half the time.
But a baby, really? He was going to take care of an infant, now? The very idea was absurd.
Well no,it’s not, actually, he realized then. He didn’t have a choice either way. Either the baby existed or she didn’t. If she did, then he’d screwed the fuck up and she was his responsibility. He might as well decide he didn’t mind as not.
But if he could find somebody else to take over with her, so much the better. He could figure out his own life from there. Tomorrow, he’d go to that second address and see if Lily’s parents couldn’t help him out.
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A/n: So??????
Trains of Thought 