Marius’ story chapter 4

Note: There is a short addendum to the previous chapter that you should read before continuing. It got posted around the time I posted chapter 3 of Riah’s story, so if you read it after that you’re fine.

A/n: Hello everybody!! Here’s Marius chapter 4!! Hope y’all like it!

BTW: If you commented on chapter 3 or on Riah’s story, I answered back on Blogger. For future posts, I’ll answer on the blog the comment was posted on.

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Harlot wasn’t in the kitchen or the common room, but a quick question to Bighana provided the information that she was probably still in the basement, packing up raw materials to bring upstairs for the next day’s meals. The entrance to the basement was off the common room, he remembered: he’d seen it when he’d first gotten there that morning. The common room was moderately full, despite it being between meals, and Marius found himself wishing he’d kept his shirt on, or just put it back on wet. But people here seemed to go shirtless pretty frequently, even the women, and at any rate nobody stared as he headed for the narrow staircase that led down to the basement.

At the bottom, he was relieved to find Harlot where Bighana had told him, hauling a heavy burlap sack to the base of the stairs.

The room wasn’t small, but it was packed, largely with crates and sacks the like of the one Harlot was moving. It smelled of beer and dust, but was surprisingly well-lit. Looking for the source of the light, he found a bright light that looked like it floated freely in the air, though it was probably attached by a wire he couldn’t see. A wire that small, strong enough to hang things from, and it provides power? That was more advanced tech than he’d expect to see in his world. Weird. There was also a small creature crawling around on the ceiling – a bat, he realized a moment later. And it’s awake in the day? That was a seriously bad sign, where he came from, but Harlot didn’t seem concerned. He’d never heard of bats actually crawling around on the ceiling before, either. It was definitely a bat, though – wings and all.

“What do you need, Lad?” Harlot asked him, leaning over to pick up another heavy-looking burlap sack.

He stopped staring at the ‘bat’ to look at her, steeling himself. “Cash,” he said bluntly to her back, before realizing what it sounded like. “I mean, a job that pays cash. And paperwork, unless somebody’d hire me without it.”

“You leavin’ us already?” Harlot asked him, reaching the steps with her burden and putting it down.

“No,” Marius said quickly. “Or I hope not. But I need real money or I’m not going to be able to feed Mo.”

Harlot straightened up to face him and talk. “Mo’s the child?” she said.

Oh yeah. He’d told Bighana her name, but not Harlot. “Yeah,” he said. “Moriyana, really.”

Harlot raised an eyebrow. “And you took her lovely, feminine name, and shortened it to Mo.”

“Isn’t your name Rosalind?” he asked her. Realizing what he’d said, and to whom, he blushed and almost apologized, but Harlot grinned.

“Touché,” she told him. “Mo it is. And you need a job that’ll pay for her necessaries.”

“Yeah,” Marius said.

“Alright,” Harlot said, speaking slowly as she thought it over. “I don’t know of anybody who’d hire illegally, but nobody’d probably report you for asking. Papers is harder – usually they’d ask you for your birth papers or at least some sort of immigration documents, and you don’t have those.”

“They’d deport me?” Marius asked hopefully. That would be a way home.

“Nah,” Harlot said, shaking her head. “Not that. They’d make you pay a fine, just like if you’d lost them. Thing is, you ain’t got the money and won’t for quite a while, way you’re going. I’m not sure what they’d do, to be honest. They might even put you in the debtor’s prison, make you work off the fine.”

Woah, Marius thought. He’d better not get caught, then. “So you’re suggesting I just go for the job, then?” Marius asked.

“Yeah,” Harlot said, still thinking it over. “I guess I am. Though you won’t get paid as much without papers. Anyone who’s hiring you is taking the risk of a substantial fine, and most’ll take that out of your wages. Though you won’t be paying taxes on it, of course, so that’ll help some.”

“Fantastic,” Marius told her. “Any suggestions for where I should try, though?”

Harlot winced. “The nightclubs,” she said hesitantly. “It’s how I got my start. And you’re a pretty kid. You’d have to tell them you were eighteen, though.” She grinned cynically. “You don’t look eighteen, but they’d believe you anyway. You just need to give them plausible deniability.”

“Plausible-” Marius asked, not understanding.

“They need to be able to claim that they didn’t know you were underage,” Harlot said. “They don’t actually need to make you prove you aren’t. Quite the useful little loophole, for those of us in the business. I got started when I was younger than you.” She frowned. “Not the best period of my life, but I survived it. You can, too.”

Marius swallowed. “Anywhere else?” he asked her.

Harlot frowned further. “Don’t dismiss it offhand, lad,” she said. “You sound like you’re in pretty desperate straits, and if dancing’s your problem, the nightclubs need waiters, too. Otherwise…” she trailed off. “Maybe other bars or restaurants? Waiting tables for dinner wouldn’t interfere with your work here, probably.”

Waiter, Marius thought, relieved. That, I can do.

But Harlot was still frowning. “The babe’s going to be a real problem, though, anywhere you go. I only hired you ’cause Bighana already had Ran, and wouldn’t mind watching an extra now and again.”

Great, he thought. So nobody’ll hire me. Maybe a different goal would be better. “What would it take to get me deported?” he asked Harlot.

Harlot furrowed her eyebrows, but seemed to think about it. “A lot,” she said finally. “Mostly, they’d just jail you, ‘specially if they couldn’t prove where you came in from. Gates are expensive, and they’d need to set them up where you wouldn’t be noticed coming in the other side. Far as I know, the only permanent two-ways are in the gate hubs, and a ticket’d cost you your first-born.”

Marius took a breath. I am starting to hate being poor, he thought. “Gate hubs?” he asked her. Hadn’t the satyr he’d met mentioned the same thing? He couldn’t remember.

“Lots and lots of gates to and from various parts of the world and even some to yours,” she told him, “all put together in a building with far too many people and far too much bureaucracy.”

An airport, Marius realized. Or close. But he was getting distracted. Getting a job was not going to work, and neither was getting deported. I have got to find this kid’s family. “Who do I talk to about having found a missing child?” he asked.

“Found?” Harlot repeated, sounding genuinely surprised. I guess Bighana didn’t talk to her. “This anything to do with why you didn’t know if you had a carrier or not? An’ why she’s fae and you at least look human?”

“I am human,” Marius said. “And yes.”

“Tell,” Harlot ordered him.

He took a deep breath, and told her.

“And so you’re hoping that if you report her found, somebody else’ll have reported her missing?” Harlot clarified at the end.

“Yeah,” Marius said. “I mean, she’s got to have family somewhere, right?”

“Likely,” Harlot said, once again sounding thoughtful.

“She told me to go to the ‘Elite’,” Marius told her. “Does that mean anything?”

“Only that the babe’s family has some money,” Harlot said absently. “The Elite refers to the uptown guard, especially those that work at the palace.” She stopped for a bit, considering, before continuing. “It does lead to another problem, too, though. Has it occurred to you that if somebody’s looking for her, they’re likely looking for the mother, too?”

Marius blanched. He hadn’t thought of that, at all, actually. Her body. I walked away from a body carrying her baby and her possessions. He fought to keep his voice steady against his sudden terror. He could be charged with murder, and in a country he knew nothing about. Jesus. “I’ll just tell them the truth,” he said. “Lliannan gave her to me.”

“And just keeled over and died,” Harlot stated.

“Yeah,” Marius said decisively. “I don’t know why.”

“And so you took her baby and everything of value from her body,” Harlot said, following the logic. “And took off through the nearest gate.”

Marius swallowed. “She gave them to me,” he said.

“Just before dying,” Harlot said.

“Yeah,” Marius said weakly.

Harlot just gave him a look.

“Okay,” Marius said, regrouping. “So I don’t tell them the mother’s dead,” he said. “I just found the baby…on my doorstep, or something.”

“Oh,” Harlot said sarcastically. “So you just kidnapped the baby, and you have no idea what happened to the very wealthy mother.”

“I didn’t kill her,” he protested. “And she shoved Mo at me. Why would I kidnap her? I don’t even know who to ask ransom from!”

“Easy, lad,” Harlot said, holding up a hand. “I believe you. If you had killed the mother, your story’d be better, and you wouldn’t be so frantic tryin’ to take care of the kid. But you’ve got to realize, the city guard are good men. They do their best. But they are not miracle workers, and they have all the evidence in the world that you killed that woman, ‘less they get a witch on retainer to tell them different. Which would be expensive.”

Marius rolled his head back on his neck, staring blankly at the cracked ceiling. The bat thing had gone off somewhere. “Someone up there hates me,” he said.

“Nah, the Maker’s not got it in for you just yet,” Harlot said. “But he does have his opinions. Perhaps he wishes for you to keep the child.”

“Oh, hell no,” Marius told her. “No, no. There is no way your God wants a sixteen-year-old human boy to take care of a five-month-old fae baby. And if he did, he’d damned well better provide some damned money. I am finding Mo’s family.”

Harlot raised both hands, as if to fend him off, or show herself unarmed. “Relax, lad. It was just a theory, and one that some, at least, would find comforting. But how are you planning on finding her family, barring turning yourself in to the guard?”

Marius closed his eyes, nearly in tears with frustration. “I don’t know,” he told her. “Maybe they’ll put up fliers? Missing child? Maybe I can explain what happened after I return her?”

Harlot shrugged. “Maybe. You better hope they don’t report you, though. Whoever you find, they’re going to want to know why Lliannan died.” She frowned. “If I were you, I’d plan for the long haul, kid. If they’re looking, and you’re watching for fliers or the like, they’ll find you. But if they ain’t looking for you, I don’t see that you’re going to find them.”

The long haul. “How long?” he asked desperately.

Harlot just gave him a look.

He closed his eyes. “I know,” he said. “Stupid question. You couldn’t just tell me they’ll find me sometime next week?”

When he opened his eyes, Harlot was frowning at him. “You said her mother gave her to you. How exactly did she word that?”

Was that important? “Umm…” Marius said, closing his eyes again to think. “She was looking specifically for me, somehow,” he remembered. “She handed me the baby. I objected, tried to hand her back. She said, ‘she’s yours, now.’ I objected again. She gave me the diaper bag and a book. She said Mo had to be with me. That she’d die, otherwise. She seemed to believe it, but I didn’t. I was still arguing when she died. Voilá me in an alley with a dead woman, carrying her daughter and her possessions.”

“She said that specifically, ‘she’s yours, now,’? She handed you the baby intentionally, and said you were to keep her?” Harlot clarified.

“Yeah,” Marius said. “Why is that important?”

“Because adoption law is not complicated, here,” Harlot said, shrugging. “She gave her to you, said the right words, the baby was in your possession when the mother died. By every law we have, she’s your daughter. If they believe your story, anyway. If you were a citizen, you’d be able to collect welfare.”

“Papers,” Marius said again.

“Papers,” Harlot agreed.

It wasn’t until after that that the true import of Harlot’s words hit him. “I’ve adopted her, by your laws?”

“Yeah, if you wanted to claim it,” Harlot said. “And unless you in turn drop her in an orphanage or the like, that holds regardless. You have her, the mother wanted you to have her, she’s yours. No matter your reluctance at the time. It’s a good thing, lad,” she said, seeing his expression. “It means she can’t be taken from you, even if you do find her family, unless you want to give her away. Once you get your citizenship, it’ll be a really good thing. We have some serious protections for orphans and single parents, societal stigma aside.”

“Stigma?” Marius asked.

“Child out of wedlock?” Harlot returned. “Does your society not have a stigma?”

Marius felt himself color, more aware than ever that his chest was bare. “I did not-!”

“I realize that, lad, but you won’t get a chance to explain, with most people, and that’s the assumption they’ll make, after awhile. If you can, your best bet is to claim you’re a widower. That’s preferable, and not less true, than the story that you were messing around and Lliannan abandoned her child, is it not?”

“I can tell you which sounds more likely,” Marius said. “I’m sixteen.”

“Not that unusual that you’d be married, here,” Harlot said. “And nobody’s going to believe that you willingly adopted a child not your own.”

“I didn’t,” Marius insisted.

“You’re going to drop her off at the Grover’s Street Children’s Home?” Harlot asked, meeting his eyes challengingly. “I can tell you where it is. Problem solved, and the child’s chances to find her family are about as good, at least if she survives.”

“If-?” Marius asked reluctantly. Bighana had already told him that Lliannan had probably been correct, but he’d still hoped Harlot might tell him differently.

“If,” Harlot said, eyes still challenging. “The likelihood the child’d die is pretty good, if that’s what Lliannan said. Stranger things have happened, and I don’t know why she’d’ve been looking for you specifically, otherwise. You willing to take that risk?”

“You’re asking me if I’ll just drop her off and let her die?” Marius asked her incredulously.

“You’d never have to know if she did,” Harlot pointed out. “Not if you didn’t ask. You could assume she survived. And there’s at least some chance she’d live.”

Marius swallowed. That sounded horrible. “Yeah, clearly the solution is to expose her on a hill somewhere,” he said bitterly. “Maybe she’ll learn to survive on her own.”

Harlot watched him seriously. “That’s what most would do, lad. It’s not your fault you got into this situation.”

“I can’t do that,” Marius told her, shaking his head frantically. “I can’t. I couldn’t stand not knowing. She’s a little person.”

Harlot raised her eyebrows. “Well, then, she’s your little person,” she said matter-of-factly. “Congratulations, you’re a Dada.”

Marius shut his eyes once again, trying to process. In the end, all he came up with was something stupid. “I hate this country,” he said finally.

Harlot snorted. “Widows and orphans have lived on charity or the lack of it for time immemorial,” she said. “No government is going to be able to fix that entirely. Ours does try, but they have to know you exist, first.”

Marius snorted, hearing it come out as cynically as Harlot’s. “And the meek shall inherit the earth,” he told her.

“These you will always have with you,” Harlot countered.

“Don’t know that bit,” Marius told her. They have the same bible, here?

Harlot just shrugged, apparently unconcerned.

“What sort of connection do our worlds have?” he asked her, curious.

“A complicated one,” Harlot said slowly. “Mostly we just exist in parallel, but there’ve been some major crossovers.”

“Crossovers?” Marius asked.

“Migrations,” she clarified. “Or just simple moves. We get refugees and other immigrants from your world once in awhile, and occasionally people here will visit your world just as tourists. But we’ve both been around for a long time, with this going on, so you’ll find a lot of legends in your world are simple truth, here, and most of us know at least some things about your world. Some of the witches here were originally from your world. Our government brings them over, when it can. Witches are valuable.”

“They bring them over on purpose?”

“Yup. They send an official over to wherever the witch is, and bring them over. Not against the witch’s will, of course, but they’re generally pretty willing. Like I said before, witching’s damned profitable, here. In your world, it’s pretty typical for a witch to end up some sort of outcast. Witches tend to be a little-” she wiggled a hand. “-odd. Even in our world. At any rate, that, and the schools, mean that we have more witches in this country than anywhere else in the world.”

“Schools?” Marius asked.

“We have the wealthiest and most famous witching schools anywhere,” Harlot said. “Ritten Academy, here in the north, Darlinger way off in the East, and Karana down South.”

“Ah,” Marius said. But he had other things he needed to be thinking about. A job, for instance. It was roughly four o’clock in the afternoon. He could get paid that evening, if he figured something out quickly enough.

“I have to get back upstairs, now, Lad,” Harlot said. “Take a load on your way up?”

“Sure,” Marius said automatically. Fortunately, whatever was in the bulky bag she handed him wasn’t dense, and he had no trouble taking it up the stairs and into the noisy common room. Harlot was just behind him, and he got out of her way at the top so she’d show him where he could put the bag down. When she got to the top, though, she stopped and surveyed the room, a thoughtful expression on her face, and spoke.

“Put the bag down here, Lad, I think I may be able to help you out after all,” she said before turning back to the room. “Hey, Kahrn!” she called. Halfway across the room, a tall, proud-looking man looked up, saw Harlot, and got up to approach them. Marius put the bag down as Harlot had told him to, and watched the man approach.

“Mistress Harlot,” Kahrn greeted formally. He barely gave Marius a second glance.

“I’m calling in that favor,” she said directly, indicating Marius. “Boy here needs a job, preferably not on stage. No working papers, and he’s got an infant needs to come with him. You can take him?”

Preferably not on stage? Shit, she was talking about a nightclub. I need a job, he reminded himself. Any job. His little person. Jesus.

Finally the man deigned to look at him, looking him over from head to toe, and lingering on his face and still-hairless chest, a speculative look on his haughty face. “Will he work?” he asked doubtfully.

“Bighana says yes,” Harlot said.

She checked up on my work, Marius realized. Apparently he’d passed.

“Far be it from me to doubt Missus Bighana,” Kahrn said, still looking at Marius like he was a dubious side of meat. And looking at his chest as much as his face. Marius swallowed, but finally the man looked back to Harlot. “No papers, and an infant?” he asked, tone politely incredulous.

“All the more reason for him to do well by you,” Harlot countered.

“No need to convince me, Harlot,” he said, like something was sour. “He can come with me tonight at eight. Do not be late, boy.”

“Thank you,” Harlot said.

“Paid in full,” Kahrn countered.

Harlot just smiled. “Understood.”

He returned to his chair, and Marius stared at Harlot. Just like that, he had a job. Hot damn. “Thank you,” he told her. “I owe you one.” Proportional to whatever she’d been able to hold over Kahrn, come to think of it. That sounded like quite the favor.

“How old are you?” the woman asked him, ignoring that.

“Six-” he cut off when she frowned, abruptly understanding. He swallowed. “Eighteen,” he told her. “I’m eighteen.”

“Good boy,” Harlot said. “Don’t forget it. I ain’t getting you another job.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, watching as she picked up the sack she’d been carrying and brought it to the kitchen.

Shit. Nightclub?

His little person, he reminded himself again. He was responsible for her, now, as long as she needed him. If that meant missing his meals to get her hers, then he had to do it. A job waiting tables at a nightclub was the least of it. His gut tightened. Oh, God. I can’t do this. Yes, yes, he could. Because if he didn’t care for her, nobody would. He was not going to just let her die.

So the baby lives. That’s what I’m doing. That is all. In a way, that was reassuring. It simplified everything. Mission: Impossible 10^8: Keep the baby alive. That might involve getting home soon, or it might not. That could not be the priority.

But he did not have to go for the ‘long haul’ at this job, he realized. He could keep it just long enough to find another one, if it was miserable. And until eight – he was done. He didn’t have to do anything at all. Well, other than take care of Mo. And eat dinner, if Bighana would give it to him before the scheduled time. So pretty much he had only the time while Moriyana was sleeping.

Now that he had the job he needed, though, he found himself anxious about leaving her alone. He went upstairs and let himself quietly into the room, once again holding his breath in fear of waking her. But she was still sound asleep.

Once again the sight of his bed called him, and this time he could afford to listen. Not bothering to even get under the blankets, he fell onto the bed. The quilt felt a little strange against his bare skin, but it felt like the mattress was leaching the strength from his limbs, so that he’d never get out again and never want to. His brain shut down almost as quickly, and he fell asleep.

He woke up in confusion, feeling like he hadn’t slept at all. Something was making noise – a high-pitched, anxious, unhappy sound- oh. I was really hoping that was a dream.

But no, he really was in some strange world where he had to take a job at a strip club in order to feed someone else’s baby. Someone else’s baby who was currently screaming at the top of her lungs. Growling, he rolled to a sit, twisting to put his feet on the floor at the same time and almost hitting his head on the sloping ceiling as he moved from the sit into a swaying stand.

Too groggy to really think, he picked the baby up from her basket and grabbed the diaper bag from beside it before heading down the stairs to the kitchen to feed her.

As it turned out, he’d only slept for an hour or so, and had plenty of time to change and feed Mo and get his own dinner before meeting Kahrn.

To his pleasure, he discovered that the dinner included meat, a thin slice of something he didn’t recognize but that tasted like some sort of poultry. He ate it hungrily and got seconds on the sides, learning from Bighana that he was welcome to seconds on anything except meat. Good to know, he thought.

By the time the bell rang seven he and Mo were both fed and he was feeling slightly better about the world. He returned to his room by default, laying back on the bed with Mo still in his arms. She was quiet, for once, chewing contentedly on a lock of his hair and her own fist.

“Hi baby,” he told her tiredly. To his surprise, she lifted her head to look at him. Purple eyes, he noticed. Strange. And she was drooling all over her own face and his chest. He’d left the diaper bag next to the bed he was lying on, so with a little straining he could get to a washcloth.

“Here, grossness,” he told her, drying her face gently. He came upon the earrings in her upper ear again, and put a hand to his own. They were still there, of course – two hoops to Mo’s stud and a hoop. He’d almost forgotten about them. It must have been some sort of magic to put them in, he realized belatedly. They really had no clasp, and Lliannan had given them to him with one hand.

But why had she even given them to him? Jewelry seemed like it should have been very low on the priority list, given the circumstances. “You’ll need this, and these,” she’d said. She’d been frantic, and she’d claimed that he’d need a book and a set of earrings. It was like the gold, frankincense, and myrrh of the Nativity story – could she’ve given him some more formula and diapers, instead?

“Go to the Elite,” she’d said. Just like they wouldn’t accuse him of murder. The woman was an idiot. Or had been. She’d left him with so few options that he was taking a job at a strip joint, and she’d given him earrings.

The thought of his job sent a new stab of anxiety through him. He’d never stepped foot in a nightclub, even in his world. What would be expected of him at this one? Sure he was supposed to wait tables, but… would he have a uniform? If so, what sort of costume would he be expected to wear? His imagination was not his friend at this point, and he fought off images of being asked to wear nothing but a bow tie and thong. Surely they wouldn’t ask that of him. Surely. But he would have no other options, if they did. This man Kahrn could treat him as badly as he wanted to…and he already resented him.

A squeel interrupted his thoughts, and he willingly turned his attention back to the infant on his chest. She’d lifted herself off his chest on little arms and was staring into his face.

“What?” he asked her. “Bored already?”

She grinned widely and gurgled, and he couldn’t help but smile back.

“Oh I see,” he told her, grinning. “I’m just the best thing since sliced bread, that’s all. Glad you noticed.”

She squeeled again, and collapsed back onto his chest, reaching out for his face with one hand. He picked up his head to capture her hand in his mouth, shielding his teeth carefully with his lips. She pulled back, and he held on for a moment before letting go. She squealed again and reached for his mouth, and he did it again. This time when he let go she reached up to pat his cheek, and he grabbed her hand in one of his, almost covering her fist in a hand that suddenly felt monstrously large. She gripped his fingers and pulled them clumsily towards her mouth, and he freed himself gently, not wanting her drool on his fingers.

He sat up, hand behind her head and supporting her neck. He set her lying on his lap, and she grabbed one of her own feet with both hands and brought it to her mouth.

“I have got to find you something else to chew on,” he told her, before frowning. Yeah, because you have so much money to buy it with, genius.

But she was still happy, and released her foot to reach both chubby hands up to him, kicking him in the stomach with both feet and gurgling at the same time. Unsure, he lifter her under the arms and stood her on his lap. Her legs held for a couple of seconds before her knees buckled, and he stood her back up, and they buckled again. She seemed to like it, though, and so he stood her up again. This time she bounced up and down a couple of times before falling onto her bum. He let her, studying her big bright eyes as she stuffed her fingers in her mouth.

“All for you, baby,” he told her. It didn’t seem quite so strange, looking at her trusting face. My little person, he remembered again. He’d keep her safe.

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That’s it!! Hope you liked!! Riah’s next chapter should be out soon, too.

Marius’ Story chapter 3

A/n: Hi everybody!! Thanks again for your lovely comments on chapter 2!! Hope you like chapter 3!! It’s a bit short.

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It was not enough, Marius realized only half an hour later, staring at the smiling, utterly helpless child on the table in front of him. He’d changed Mo’s diaper again and this time it was filthy, full of a uniquely foul-smelling olive green mess. He’d dug into his diaper bag to put her in a clean one and realized that he only had ten diapers total, and fewer washcloths – he’d have to wash the soiled ones today if he was going to have enough dry for tomorrow. The thought had sparked another, and he dug again in the diaper bag, this time looking for the little paper packets that contained Mo’s formula.

 

One,two, three, four, five, six, seven…eight. Eight. And Mo had gone through two already, and he was going to have to feed her again quite soon. At this rate he’d be through six of the ten by the time the day was out. And don’t babies eat at night, too?

 

He stilled, horrified. He needed cash, now, or the child would go hungry in less than a day.

 

Shit. He’d found the first job too easily, he thought, frustrated. Of course it couldn’t work out perfectly. Nevermind that it’s already the hardest job I’ve had in my life, and for the least pay.

 

Okay, think, he told himself. Think, think, think. Don’t panic. He needed another job. By tomorrow. One that would pay him without the proper papers, and that either didn’t interfere with this one, offered a bed, too, or paid enough that he could afford to pay rent and still buy food and baby formula. Oh, and that would either let him bring a baby along with him every day, or also paid enough that he could afford a babysitter.

 

In other words, I’m fucked. He couldn’t find a job like that if he was looking in his world, and had a month.

 

Don’t panic. Panic doesn’t help. Funny how thinking ‘don’t panic’ didn’t do a lick of good.

 

Harlot, he realized next. Maybe she’ll know where to start. But if he didn’t clean out the diapers now, they’d still be wet the next morning.

 

Okay, so I wash the diapers, first. By hand. Using well-water. You have got to be kidding me. He’d been able to sit down for a total of about half an hour since he’d left for school that morning. It was strange to think that that was just that morning. His problems were so different that it seemed like a different lifetime. Different world, he reminded himself. In this one, they had wells. Ones with a bucket at the end of a rope, probably.

 

“Bighana?” he asked, hearing his voice shake. “Where’s the well? And can you lend me a bucket? One you don’t mind getting gross?… And maybe soap?”

 

“Don’ use soap,” she said. “Stuff we have’ll hurt’er worse than somewha’ dirty clothes will. As for the bucket-” She pointed, and he saw a large, wooden basin tucked under the table. “I use it anytime I get ahol’ of any unprepared meat and am throwing out the inedibles,” she told him. “But it’ll work for you, too. The well’s out this door and at the end of the alley to the left. Bring the chil’ with you – I can’ be distracted from my cooking if she cries. An’ clean the basin out before you bring it back – I won’ have my kitchen smelling like that diaper does. If you manage to get a bit o’ coin, I’ll throw your things in with those that the laundress does so you don’ have to wash’em.”

 

Yeah, great. Cash always is the question. “Yes ma’am,” he told her. “…thank you.”

 

Lifting the more-or-less clean and content baby, he placed her in a basket before throwing both dirty diapers and the washcloths he’d used into the basin.

 

Damn it, I really do need a carrier, too, he realized. There was no way he could carry the basket and basin at the same time – the basin itself required two hands.

 

Breathing a heavy sigh, he picked up the baby in her basket and carried her to the door outside, then pushed the door open with his shoulder and set her just outside the door. Returning to the basin, he grabbed it and did the same thing. The alley was gross, he realized then. No shit running down the street, but piles of garbage outside each door, only some of them in bins, provided their own smell. Resolving to ignore it, he picked up Mo’s basket again and carried it down the alley towards the well, then set her down on a patch of earth that looked dry and returned for the basin, carrying it past Mo aways before going back for the baby.

 

Putting Mo down next to the basin after the second relay, he paused for a moment to breathe and heard a dry laugh. Looking up, he saw an old, tattered woman grinning at him from a chair where she sat, making some sort of fabric with a hook and yarn. For a moment, he just stared, taking in her wizened appearance before looking around her. She was surrounded by cats of all kinds, from a basket of tiny kittens and their mother to a skinny tomcat almost as gray and wizened as his mistress. Bizarrely, though the cats clambered on every surface, and her clothing was full of their hair, none of them interfered with her work as she pulled yarn from the balls and hooked it into her work.

 

And she was laughing at him. He scowled at her, but she just grinned.

 

“Need a couple extra limbs, don’t you lad?” she asked him.

 

He stared at her. Extra limbs? “What I need are a carrier, and cash,” he told her irritably.

 

“Ah, but you wouldn’t need a carrier if you had a couple more arms, would you?”

 

She’s crazy, he decided. And he didn’t have the time. Picking up the baby basket, again, he resumed his last relay to the well.

 

“Such temper young people have these days,” he heard the woman say behind him, perhaps to one of the cats. “No sense of humor.”

 

Telling himself to ignore her, he kept going, and finally made it to the well. And now to draw up the water. Which he knew, in theory, how to do. In practice – did one just drop the bucket in? Studying the thing for a moment, he found as expected that the rope had a hook on the end that attached it to the bucket, and wrapped around a thick plank attached to a crank, such that when one turned the crank one could raise and lower the bucket. He also found that the well was not nearly as deep as he’d expected, which would make his hauling easier. But if he just dropped the bucket in, he ran the risk of it falling off the hook and being lost.

 

Instead, then, he pushed the crank to lift the bucket over the well, then slowly let go of the rope. The bucket didn’t budge. Huh. He’d expected it to fall. He snorted lightly. Wooden well. Right. He was an idiot. Because a world that actually hauls water from wells and stores it in wooden barrels clearly ought to have metal ball bearings. Taking hold of the crank in both hands, he pushed and pulled, fighting the friction, and managed to lower the bucket down until it sank into the water. The movement irritated his already-sore back, but it was doable, and eventually he managed to pull the full bucket back up to the surface. Remembering a scene from a movie in his childhood, in which a weird old wizard had released the crank before grabbing the bucket and promptly and comically lost his hard-won water, he reached out for the bucket with one hand and pulled it onto the stone lip of the well.

 

There, he thought, panting a little. Yey for fresh water. It was even clean. Or well, as clean as one could expect from unfiltered well water. Unhooking the bucket, he started to pour its contents on top of the diapers and washcloths in his basin before realizing that if he did so, the filthy diaper would contaminate the merely wet and make his job that much harder. Setting the bucket down, he pulled the dirtier items out of the basin and set them aside before once again picking up the bucket and pouring it over the wet diapers in the basin. It was enough to fill the basin roughly one-third of the way.

 

Two more, then. Actually, one should be enough. He wasn’t going to want the carry a full basin all the way to the trench afterward. And he was going to have to do it twice, since he’d probably want to rinse, too.

 

Putting the bucket back on the hook, he repeated the process, once again pouring water into his basin.

 

And now for washing, he thought, staring down at the diapers floating in the basin. Oh, this is going to be fun. Steeling himself, he plunged both hands into the freezing water and started work on the cleaner items, swishing one of the diapers around in the water until it was soaked, then wringing it out again, before dropping it back in and grabbing a washcloth to do the same. Soon enough, the few items were as clean as they were going to get that way, and he wrung them out a final time before draping them over the handle of the baby’s basket and reluctantly starting on the dirtier items.

 

A moment later a happy squeal drew his attention, and he looked over at the baby to see that she’d pulled down one of the washcloths, and was chewing and drooling on it, clearly very pleased with her acquisition. He sighed, remembering that the cloth had just been cleaned, but in reality he couldn’t help but smile. She was just so happy.

 

“You realize that’s just a washcloth, right?” he told her.

 

Naturally, she didn’t respond, and abruptly his anxiety from before returned, threatening to turn his thoughts to a mindless panic. He had literally zero money. How in God’s name was he supposed to keep her alive? Shaking off the thought, he threw himself into the washing as he had with the dishes before, using the smell of feces and the painful cold and the tiredness of his hands and arms to drive out the unpleasant thoughts.

 

By the time he was done, the water was thoroughly gross. He really would have to rinse everything. Dump the dirty in the trench, he remembered. And he had to carry both basin and baby between houses to the street to do so.

 

“Me’n my cats’ll watch the lil’un for a minute or two, lad,” the weird old lady from before called. “You go dump that.”

 

Hearing the offer, he stood up to look at her. Her cats and she? And yet he was grateful enough for the offer that he couldn’t really care. Thank goodness. Picking up Mo’s basket, he carried her back to where the woman was still working with her hook, noticing as he did so that she’d changed colors from the drab brown she’d been using to a slightly more interesting reddish color.

 

“Just set her here,” she said, indicating the area next to her chair.

 

“Thank you,” he said, putting the basket down where she said. She smelled like cats and old clothing.

 

She grinned. “So you’re capable of being polite after all.”

 

He flushed, annoyed. She’s offered to watch the kid. Don’t tick her off.

 

She just grinned further. “You go on, lad. Granny’s got the lil’un.”

 

“Thanks,” he said, trying not to sound short. Granny?

 

But already he was focused on the next part of his task. The basin was heavy– almost too heavy for him to carry all the way at once. Worse, the water in it was filthy, and was going to end up all over him. His tee-shirt was already soaked with dish water, and splashed some with the laundry water, and no doubt full of his sweat, but at least he could try to keep it clean, if this was what it took to wash it. Removing it, he found that in addition to the water and everything else, the shirt smelled like him. Unsurprisingly, so did he. But the water was too filthy at that point to wash anything in. Laying the shirt over the lip of the well, he once again set about carrying the basin to the street.

 

Having emptied the basin, Marius brought it back, reclaimed Mo from the weird lady, and set about refilling it and rinsing everything. It didn’t take long, and soon he was ready to dump it again. As he was lifting it, though, he realized that this time the water, somewhat cloudy from rinsing, was still probably cleaner than his shirt. And he’d have to haul again to do another set of laundry, since he couldn’t pay for it. Hesitating a moment, he finally threw his shirt in, rinsing it out as best he could. Pausing for a moment before ringing it out, he shrugged and instead used the shirt to wash his face and upper body before rinsing it out once more, ringing it out carefully, and draping it over Mo’s basket with the rest. She’s getting wet, he realized suddenly, seeing some of the water drip.

 

But now he really did have to go dump the water. Once again, he brought Mo to Granny.

 

“Will you take her again, please?” he asked her.

 

She smiled again. “Yes of course,” she said. “Granny’s still useful, despite her age. I’m eighty-three, you know.”

 

Am I supposed to be impressed by that, or would that be insulting? Awkward, he smiled. “Cool,” he said. “I’m sixteen.”

 

“And a daddy already, I see,” she answered.

 

Oh, don’t call me that. “Uh…sorta,” he said awkwardly. “Thanks….I’ve got to dump the water.”

 

She nodded, an amused understanding in her smile, and he left Mo and headed off again to pick up the heavy basin and head for the street.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

When he got back from dumping the water, Marius found Granny cooing at a very fussy baby Mo. Groaning, he approached the two and picked the baby up under the arms to hold her up in front of his face.

 

“What now?” he asked her, frustrated. She seemed startled, and stared at him.

 

Granny frowned and spoke up sharply. “She’s hungry and needs a diaper change,” she said. “Would you want to be lyin’ in your own piss?”

 

Oh, and she blames me, Marius thought. “I’m just-” he snapped, before cutting off. Closing his eyes, he rolled his head back on his neck and took a deep breath, doing his best to release the frustration. It wasn’t Granny’s fault, and he certainly couldn’t blame a five-month-old infant, tempting as it may be. A bell somewhere had struck 4:30 while he was dumping the water, which made it something like three hours since the poor kid had eaten. “Point to you,” he admitted tiredly, pulling the baby into his chest to cradle her more carefully in his arms.

 

“You’re just exhausted,” Granny said more sympathetically. “Go on, Lad. You’ve a lot to do, I expect.”

 

“True,” Marius said, putting Mo back in her basket gently and transferring the wet laundry off of the handle and into the relatively clean basin where it wouldn’t drip on anything. “Thank you,” he said to Granny, realizing as he did so that it was too short to sound sincere. Whatever. He couldn’t do better. Picking up Mo’s basket, he started his relays back to the inn.

 

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“The basin can jus’ go back where it was, Lad,” Bighana said when he came back in. “And there’s a rack in the closet upstairs if you want to hang yer clothes up to dry.” She was at the table this time, kneading some sort of dough. Another batch was apparently baking – the whole kitchen was hot as a furnace, and smelled like bread. Ran had apparently gone off somewhere. Hopefully she was playing.

 

“Thanks,” Marius said, shoving the basin back under the table and heading back out the door to pull Mo inside. The diaper bag was where he’d left it in the corner by the door. He threw it over his shoulder and grabbed his laundry and Mo’s basket again before heading out of the stifling kitchen and dragging himself up the stairs.

 

As he got to the top, he realized that she hadn’t told him which room was the closet he was looking for. It proved easy to find, though, as the corridor was a straight shot and only two doors were not labeled with a number. The first was the privy – he could smell it before he even opened the door. The second he guessed was the closet, and he was right – it was full of clean linens and cleaning supplies, and had a rack that had to be the one Bighana had mentioned. He hung up his laundry and headed the rest of the way to his room.

 

The sight of his bed was almost painful. No, no sleep. Change and feed baby. Then talk to Harlot, hopefully obtain job number two, change and feed baby, eat dinner, change and feed baby, then maybe sleep. And you don’t get that job, you better hope begging is effective.

 

But once again, panicking wasn’t going to be helpful, either. Right now, he had to feed the baby. That was all. Feed the baby.

 

And he was upstairs, and he’d forgotten to get water for her formula. Groaning, he grabbed one of her bottles and a packet of formula and headed back downstairs, leaving Mo in her basket in his room.

 

The rice water by this point was cold, but Bighana already had some more on the stove for him. He made up Mo’s formula carefully before heading back up again.

 

Apparently his departure was the last straw, as far as the baby was concerned. He could hear her wailing before he got up the stairs.

 

“I’m sorry!” he called back to her. “I’m coming!” It felt idiotic, to be yelling at her from all the way down the corridor, but it was all he could do to cope with the wailing. God, I’m so not ready for this, he thought. And yet he had no options. There has got to be a way to find her family, he thought.

 

Finally, he got to the room and put the bottle down on the tiny table next to his bed before picking the squalling baby in both arms, settling her on his lap, and taking up the bottle again to push it into her mouth.

 

This time, she found the nipple of the bottle and quieted instantly, sucking down the warm mixture as fast as she could. He breathed a sigh of relief and readjusted her so that one of his hands supported her head and another held the bottle.

 

Both of her tiny arms had been curled to her chest, but as he watched she reached out and patted the side of the bottle with one tiny hand. Lifting a finger from his grip on the bottle, he stroked the hand gently. The fingers closed on his in a strong grip, and once again, she looked like an angelic being, completely innocent and utterly incapable of causing mayhem.

 

“Yeah, right,” he told her, smiling just a bit at the grip on his finger. “You and I both know the truth, don’t we?”

 

She just kept eating.

 

“Uh huh,” he said. “Totally innocent.”

 

Jesus, I’ve gotta keep this kid alive, he realized suddenly. I have to.

 

She was a burden. Lliannan had shoved her at him without so much as a by-your-leave or even a warning. Without her, he could have gotten by with the food and housing he’d already earned for long enough to find his way back out of wherever he was. He wouldn’t have to look for jobs based on the requirement that he brought a child on board.

 

She’s a real darling l’il thing, Bighana had said. But cute didn’t cut it. Puppies and kittens were cute, probably cuter, actually – they could play with you, and didn’t drool. But nevertheless if Mo had been a puppy or a kitten, he’d’ve left her on somebody else’s doorstep in a heartbeat, destined to die or not. Things die, and it wasn’t his fault if they did. But Mo was not a puppy or a kitten. Mo had little hands and feet, a little face. Two arms, two legs, opposable thumbs, facial expressions. Smiles and tears. She was a person. Someday, if he could keep her alive, she’d walk, talk. It didn’t matter that he didn’t want the responsibility, or that it wasn’t his fault. He had to keep her alive.

 

Focus. Don’t panic. For now, she was fed. Now he’d burp and change her, and then he’d ask Harlot about other job ideas. Pulling the empty bottle out of her mouth, he wondered for a moment if she was actually getting enough before dismissing the worry. There wasn’t anything he could do about it if she wasn’t. Well, other than run out of her food even faster. But he wasn’t going to run out of her food. He was going to get a job. And first, he had to burp her and change her diaper. Picking her up, he pulled a washcloth out of the diaper bag and threw it over his shoulder with one hand before positioning the baby on his shoulder and patting her firmly. This time, she didn’t spit up much, and he was able to just fold up the washcloth for later use and get started on changing her.

 

He’d shoved her changing pad in the diaper bag, and it was easy to find again. He laid it out on his bed before putting her down on top of it and removing her diaper. It was just wet, and he just rolled it up and put it on his bedside table.

 

Shoot. He was supposed to clean her off before putting the next diaper on, and he hadn’t gotten a wet washcloth when he’d gotten the formula. Just when I thought I was approaching competence. But he’d just cleaned some washcloths, and they’d still be wet. Leaving the old diaper where it was, he carried the half-naked baby back to the closet and fetched one of them back to his room.

 

Soon enough, Mo was clean and dry and fed, and he was ready to go talk to Harlot. Except that clean, dry, and fed apparently meant that it was time for Mo to fall asleep on him.

 

“You realize that that’s annoying?” he told her, shifting her a little in his arms. “You could show a little gratitude before deciding I make a good sofa.”

 

Sighing, he picked her up carefully and started to put her in her basket. At first it seemed to work, but as soon as his hands left her, her eyes popped open and she started to cry. He picked her up again quickly, but it appeared the damage was done, and she cried pathetically as he held her to his chest, bouncing a little like he’d seen women do with other unhappy children. Jesus, what’s wrong now? She was fed. She was clean. Two minutes ago she’d been ready to fall asleep. What did it matter if he put her down?

 

Fine. Whatever. If he had to carry her for her to sleep, he’d carry her. At least then she’d be quiet. Eventually.

 

Hearing the tone of his own thoughts, he sighed again, feeling guilty. He really didn’t want to be the type of person that would resent a child’s need for care. And he was all the kid had right now. If he resented her – there were other ways than poverty to make a child’s life hell. Adjusting her gently, he pushed her up on his shoulder and stroked her hair with a hand, rocking back and forth.

“Okay, baby,” he said. “Okay.”

I’m not keeping her, he reminded himself. I just have to keep her alive until I can find her family. In a foreign city that didn’t even have plumbing. Oh yeah, sure, he thought. I’ll just have them put her in the computer system. Maybe they’ll connect her with her parents in another district. What was he going to do, go door-to-door?

Go to the Elite, he remembered. What were the Elite? Maybe Harlot would know? Lliannan had said the word as if he should understand it, so maybe it was common knowledge, here?

As usual, thinking of the city he’d come in from was strange. I’m not hallucinating, he thought, finally. It had just been too damn long. The things he was seeing should’ve at least changed. Maybe, maybe, he’d still be able to find his way out of this place, get back to Malcolm- I can’t take a baby to Malcolm! Am I crazy? – take the baby to a police station, get back to Malcolm, and resume his own life, but he’d have to find his way out. He wasn’t going to just ‘wake up’.

Funny how this morning, he’d actually thought that he had problems; that his life was difficult. Oh poor, pitiful me. My mother abandoned me and her husband’s a drunk. Certainly it sounded awful, but it had nothing on his situation now. He stopped short, realizing. It had all sorts of connections to his situation now, actually. Mo’s mother was gone, leaving her with him – a man not her father, with no real desire to keep her. You owe me everything, you hear? I didn’t have to keep you! Your bitch of a mother-” He forced himself to smile. Clearly, the solution is to get drunk and blame the baby for the rest of my life. Unless his mother had left because Malcolm was a drunk? He’d always wondered which direction that went.

Focusing back on the baby on his shoulder, he realized she’d quieted. “Good girl,” he told her softly. “That’s a good girl. You sleep.” Sitting back down on the bed, he lay back himself, resigned to stay put for just a moment with her. Once again, he found himself messing with her hair, pulling the little curls out one at a time and watching them spring back into place. Purple hair, he thought irrelevantly. That’s different. Maybe I should dye mine.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A short time later, lying on his back with Mo sleeping on his chest, Marius realized that he was falling asleep himself. And he really couldn’t afford the time. Job, he remembered. Gotta get a job.

 

Careful not to jostle the sleeping baby, he hauled himself to a sit, nearly hitting his head of the sloped ceiling above his bed.

 

Try again, on the sleeping maybe? It was loud and hot downstairs in the kitchen. She’d probably sleep better here, if he could get her to do it. She was pretty thoroughly asleep, now. Maybe he’d get away with it? Tentatively, he leaned down, not pulling Mo from his chest until the last minute, and tucked her into the basket, finding himself holding his breath as he released her and stood up.

 

One second…three seconds…five seconds…Finally Marius let his breath out. He’d succeeded. Feeling like he’d jinx it if he stayed too long, he left the room quickly, careful to close the door quietly on his way out. Just outside, he realized that leaving the door unlocked with the child and all of his current worldly possessions inside might not be smart. The key was in the pocket of his jeans, and he locked the door before heading downstairs.

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A/n: That’s it for now! Thanks for reading!!

Marius’ Story chapter 2

A/n: Hello everybody!! Thanks for your patience!! Here’s the next bit of Marius’ Story.

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Madame Harlot’s inn was marked by a thick wooden sign over the door, with a painted image of a plate and a mug of beer. The thick glass window was small and scratched, but good enough to tell that the front room of the place was empty. There was a sign on the wall, though, that advertised ‘crappy job, pays worth shit, inquire within.’ Marius snorted. At least they’re honest. 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. “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.

“We’re closed ’till eleven!” a woman shouted. Hearing the sound from someplace downstairs, he realized that there was a staircase leading directly up into the room he was in.

“I know!” he called back. “I’m looking for a job!”

The job with the whore in the pub that the guy with horns recommended, he thought again. 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 lamppost or something.

“Alright, alright,” the woman said, emerging at the top of the stairs with a small wine casque carried in two hands. “You know we won’t pay worth shit?”

She was huge, Marius realized, staring at her as she emerged from the basement. At least a head taller than his 5’8. 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.

“Yeah I know,” Marius told her, meeting her eyes squarely so he wouldn’t stare. “I’ll take what I can get, right now.”

She grinned at him. “Good. That’s us, too. You got the job, if you want it. I pay four coin an hour, plus a meal if you do well by us. Let me see your papers.”

Papers. He closed his eyes, frustrated. Of course my hallucinated world would include tax law. Why the hell not? “Papers?” he asked her, hearing his voice come out desperate.

She snorted and shook her head a little, clearly as frustrated as he. “Typical. No wonder you’ll take this shit. I can’t pay you without papers, though. I can’t afford the fines.”

“I need a job,” Marius told her, pleading.

“And I need a grunt,” Harlot said. “But I can’t give you money. I can pay you in meals and a shitty bed, but that’s the best I can do.”

Relieved, Marius nodded quickly. “Yes, great,” he told her. “That’s better than I’ve got at the moment.”

“Good enough,” the woman said. “You’ve got the job. I’m Harlot. You work from ten in the morning ’til we’re done cleaning up after lunch. Bighana’s our cook. You’ll answer to her and to me and you’ll work damned hard. Meals are at six, two, and nine. You’ll take it?”

Well that sounds…bloody miserable. “I’ll take it,” he confirmed. “I may only be here for the night, though.”

Madame Harlot snorted. “Not like you’re on salary. You show, you eat and sleep. You don’t, you don’t. I’m assuming if you keep a shitty job like this one it’s ’cause you need it and you won’t skip.”

Marius winced at the truth in her words. This could be bad. This could be really, really bad.

No, he told himself, taking a breath. This is going to be fine. I’m going to wake up with a headache and find that I was hallucinating or dreaming before I even met the crazy woman with the baby and I’m going to call in sick to school.

“Where do I sleep?” he asked her.

“We’ve a room free upstairs for now,” Harlot told him. “You’ve got it unless we manage to fill it. If we do, you move to a pallet in the attic storage space. Now you’d best put your stuff upstairs and put the child in a carrier pouch, if you’ve got one. Otherwise she can stay in a basket in the kitchen. I’m sure Bighana’ll have extras. Will you need it?”

“I’m not sure,” Marius said. “I might have a carrier, but I haven’t checked.”

“You haven’t checked?” She gave him an incredulous look.

At least I’m not the only one who finds this strange. “Long story,” he told her.

“Alright,” Harlot said slowly, apparently accepting that he didn’t want to explain. “Anyway, I have to work and so do you. Get on upstairs, you’re in room four at the end of the hallway. If you want lunch you need to get to work quickly.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he told her, adjusting the baby in his arms so he could take the big iron key she handed him.

“Harlot,” Harlot insisted.

“Harlot,” he repeated with a shrug. Whatever you want, lady.

Leaving her, Marius hurried up the narrow staircase in the back of the room to the second floor. From there, he entered an equally-narrow hallway and found his door at the end. Struggling a bit with the key and the baby and his bags, he managed to unlatch the door, then winced as it cracked against something behind it. He maneuvered himself and his stuff around to get in, and found himself in a short corridor that led sideways into the rest of the tiny 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 in one direction. It was, in short, the tiniest, most awkward little room he’d ever had the misfortune of inhabiting.

The one perk was a decent-sized window that looked like it got good morning sun, and that sported a padded window seat that looked out over the street, so he could watch the goings-on below. Sitting on the bed, he discovered that someone had seemingly 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 of good quality. The room was also scrupulously clean, something he hadn’t expected from the look of the common room downstairs.

I’ll survive the night, at least, he told himself.

Relieved to finally be able to put the child down, he set her gently on the bed, one hand on her chest. Using the other, he put the supply bag her mother had given him down on the bedside table to dig though. Taking the hand off the baby and opening the main pouch with both hands, he found that it contained a pile of cloth diapers, several changes of baby clothing, a bottle of labeled diaper-rash lotion, several clean, folded, washcloths, and what he guessed from his very limited experience was a changing pad.

No carrier, damn. He hadn’t expected there would be – surely the kid’s mother would’ve been wearing it if she’d had one – but it would’ve been nice to have.

The smaller pouch held three glass bottles wrapped in silk and ten hand-labeled paper packets.

Moriyana’s formula, he read, mix one packet with a bottle’s worth of warm (not hot!) water and mix thoroughly (don’t shake it, she’ll throw up because of the air). She should eat a full bottle every 2-3 hours. Good until 10/20, longer if refrigerated.

Why so much? Keeping half his attention on the squirming infant next to him as he dug around, Marius noticed almost too late when what he’d figured was aimless wiggling turned into a roll, sending her to the very edge of the bed. He reached for her quickly, and caught her with one arm just before she went over. Holding her still for a second, he found adrenaline racing through his system, speeding up his breathing and heart rate even as he tried to calm them.

She’s fine. She didn’t fall. I’m an idiot. Don’t put the baby down where she can roll off something. Duh.

Eventually he managed to calm down enough to think again, and immediately sat down on the bed, pulling the baby onto his lap and running a hand through his hair. The infant fussed, apparently unhappy at having been jostled, and he rubbed at her gently, unsure what would help. She stared up at him, and finally smiled a little, fingers of both hands clutching clumsily at her mouth, slimy with her own spit. Staring at her, he found himself suddenly overwhelmed.

This is insane. I can’t take care of a baby. He had to find the kid’s family. And how the fuck am I supposed to do that here? He was in a pub, for goodness’ sake. And the world outside was insane.

Yeah. That’s not going to happen. The kid could go to an orphanage, or whatever system they had here. Presumably they had some system for unwanted kids in this – world. Yeah great. For all I know they sell them as edibles. He winced, and suddenly remembered the beautiful woman who’d brought him into this fix. Damn it, woman, what am I supposed to do? How could you just hand your daughter to a complete stranger then- just up and die? You barely even looked sick; you couldn’t’ve held on a little longer? I can’t do this!

But the word orphanage resounded in his head with the same cold feeling he would normally associate with the word tomb or prison. The warm child squirming on his lap had nothing to do with such places. I’ll find her family, that’s all. A whimpering sound drew his attention back to the baby just as her face started to screw up, and she started to cry, a keening, mewing, wailing sound that seemed to fill the whole room.

Oh, shit, what did I do?

“No, no no no don’t do that you were okay like two seconds ago what the hell is wrong with you?”

Oh yeah, sure Marius. Blame the baby. She was probably hungry. Warm water. Presumably they had some in the kitchen. Grabbing up the diaper bag, he took the baby back up in his arms and carried her quickly down the stairs, wishing that he had an extra hand to plug his ears. Damn but that noise was irritating. The stairs took him into the common room, where he stood for a moment in confusion before a woman came out of a room behind the bar.

“Where’ the screa-oh. You mus’ be that boy Harlot jus’ hired.” The woman was tiny and dark, with the same crazy dark curls as the girl who’d answered the door before. She didn’t seem at all perturbed by the infant’s cries as she faced him.

“Yeah,” Marius told her. “I’m Marius. Please-” guessing she was the cook Bighana, he shrugged one shoulder to draw attention to the diaper bag. “I’m supposed to work but can I feed her, first? I think she’s hungry.”

Bighana frowned, but nodded. “Co’ with me,” she said, leading him back behind the bar and into a kitchen. “I have hot water on the stove f’ rice. You can mix some of that with cool to make warm. Mind yeh start work quick after that or Harlot won’ be pleased, though. I’ll make the li’l’un a basket while yer at it.”

Putting the bag down on the broad table that took up a large chunk of the kitchen, Marius pulled out a packet of formula and one of the bottles. Bighana pointed, and Marius went to the small wood-burning stove set off in one corner and found an enormous pot on top of it, apparently filled with water, and a ladle set just next to it. It was awkward, working with the baby on one arm, but he finally managed to open the bottle and pour a dipper full of hot water into it. Looking to Bighana for guidance, he followed her point to a large barrel of water in the corner of the room and mixed it with the hot until it was cool enough. He’d filled the bottle with too much hot, though, and he ended up pouring some out before he could get the right temperature. Then there wasn’t enough room for the powder, and he ended up pouring out more.

Great. Totally incompetent, as usual. And the whole time the baby screamed, the sound somehow making his hands shake with nerves. Still, he finally managed to finish the task, swirling the weird-smelling powder and water carefully so that he didn’t slop or shake any air into it. The bottle had fallen into three pieces when he’d opened it – the nipple, the bottle itself, and a ring that connected the two. He managed to maneuver the three back together, finally, but then he was stuck. Now what?

“Here,” Bighana said, taking the bottle out of his hands, “Si’ down and slow down. Whatever she’ sayin’ now, she’ not abou’ to die with those lungs. Ran, tend the stove, please.”

“I’m going to burn everything.” He hadn’t noticed the girl, but now he saw her, getting up from where she’d been preparing green beans in a corner.

“Yeh will not,” Bighana retorted, sounding amused. “Do as I ask please.”

“I will so,” Ran said, walking over to a second stove to stand on a stool and stir the gigantic pot that was cooking there. “Just you wait.”

Bighana pulled a stool out from under the huge slab table that dominated the kitchen and pushed him into it with surprising strength. “Hold her with her head by your left elbow.” Freeing his hair from the kid’s grip, Marius gingerly shifted her back onto one arm and looked up at the cook hopefully. She just handed him the bottle, and he took it, carefully putting the nipple of the bottle in the the squalling infant’s open mouth. The kid just screamed around it, and Bighana sighed.

“How’ve you kept her alive this long, lad?”

“It’s been all of two hours,” he snapped back in frustration. “She’s not even mine. Her mother just fucking shoved her at me. It’s not like I wanted the stupid helpless thing.”

“Watch yer language in front of my daughter please,” Bighana said calmly, effectively quelling some of his panic. “And relax. This ain’ that hard. She jus’ don’ know the bottle’s there. Run it around her gums gently. She’ll figure it out.”

Taking a breath, Marius did as he was told, and after a moment the baby did latch onto it, sucking happily and mercifully quiet.

“Thank you,” he said finally. “I’m sorry.”

“What’s her name?” Bighana asked him.

“Mo-Moriyana,” he remembered, trying to relax. “Moriyana, plus something too long for me to really remember.”

“Pretty name,” Bighana commented, looking down at the finally-happy baby. “An’ look at all that hair. She’s a real darling li’l thing, ain’ she?”

Finally actually looking at the tiny person he’d so inauspiciously acquired, Marius saw some of what Bighana was talking about. The child’s eyes were closed, as if her entire consciousness was wrapped up in the act of drinking from the bottle in her mouth, and it seemed suddenly strange that she could make so much noise or cause him so much trouble. There was something oddly beautiful about her tiny face.

Her mom’s dead. Dad, too, if the mom needing to shove her at me is any indication. Suddenly the fact seemed a tragedy. How are you going to survive, kid? he thought at her. Reminded of her mother’s assertion that she would die if he didn’t keep her, he bit his lip hard. It didn’t seem so unlikely, now. It could even be straight fact, in this world.

“Her mom told me she’d die if I didn’t take her,” he found himself telling Bighana. “Could that be true? Could there be a reason that it had to be me?”

Bighana frowned at him thoughtfully. “It ain’ likely,” she answered slowly, “but maybe. Mos’ littles need to be raised by their own species. I’ve heard tell that sometimes it’s more specific than that, but I don’ know the particulars.”

“Great,” Marius answered, going back to his inspection and trying not to think too much on that. It’s just a hallucination, he reminded himself. Nothing to worry about.

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. After a moment of staring, though, he realized that it was not black, as he’d originally thought, but really a very dark purple.

Swallowing hard, he carefully propped the bottle against his chest and gently examined the baby’s hands and feet and face with his free hand, looking for anything else strange. She apparently liked this, and released the bottle as she giggled and kicked the foot he was holding. The air rushed into the bottle as he caught it, making a strange bubbling noise. Oh. Vacuum. Whoops. He set the bottle back up for her, and continued with his inspection, paying attention this time to make sure he made her let go once in a while.

Her ears were just slightly pointed, he finally discovered, but other than that the only strangeness he found was a stud and tiny hoop in the cartilage of her upper ear, where he had two hoops. Exploring further, he found that they had no clasps. Reaching up to his own, he found the same thing.

Great. Yey for permanent body jewelry. Strange that a five-month-old would already have it. Her mother had said something, when she’d given him his – that he’d need them? Definitely strange. But he was relieved that that was all. Her mother was from this world. It wouldn’t have surprised him much, at this point, to find that her child had horns or a tail or something.

Bighana had found a basket somewhere, and was lining it carefully with some clean towels. “Umm…excuse me?” he said to get her attention. “Do- do you know why she’d have purple hair?”

Bighana snorted without looking up from her task. “Why shouldn’ she? She’ some kinda fae. They have the colorfullest hair you’ll ever see, and not a one of them quite alike.”

Fae. Like fairy? “You- you’re telling me she’s not human?”

Bighana turned her head to frown at him. “Yer from the other side, ain’ you?”

“Other side of what?” he asked her.

“Other side of the divide,” she said, apparently finishing with the basket. “Yeh got here through a gate? From the United States, or the like?”

Hearing the words ‘United States’ on her lips gave him a jolt, and he realized with a shock just how fast he’d come to take his surroundings for reality.

“Yeah,” he said. “I came in through the arch on tenth street.” It was strange to talk about it normally. I dreamed that I came through the imaginary gate on nonexistent tenth street. Except that it was increasingly hard, after two hours, to really believe that this wasn’t reality. Strange as things were, the world was solid. He could see and smell and touch things, and what he saw corresponded to what he smelled and felt and heard. No dream he’d ever had had been this…rich; perfect. Hallucination. Not a dream. Totally different kettle of fish.

“You a witch?” Bighana asked next, pulling some kitchen tools out of a cupboard.

Marius looked at her strangely. “No? I mean, I don’t think so?”

“You don’ know nothing, do you?” Bighana asked, sounding dismayed. “What idiot brought yeh through without making sure you go’ taken care of?”

“Same idiot as shoved a five-month-old baby into the arms of a sixteen-year-old boy,” he answered her. “Today is not being my day.”

“And it is not going to get better if I don’t feed you,” Madame Harlot said from the doorway, startling him. “She’s done eating and swallowing air won’t do her any good. Get to work, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he told her quickly, pulling the bottle from the baby’s mouth and putting it down on the table.

“Burp her,” Bighana said, taking over the work on the green beans as she watched him. Marius froze partway to standing and sat back down, unsure who to obey and worried about Harlot’s reaction. Bighana came to his rescue, turning to Harlot and saying, “and don’ yeh give him a hard time, Rosalind, the boy jus’ got here and there’s no point lettin’ the chil’ throw her food back up.”

Marius was tense for a moment, but finally Harlot gave him a nod. “Go ahead. But mind you get your babying over with before work on other days,” she told him. “I’m not running a charity.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Thank you.”

“The name’s Harlot,” Harlot repeated to him.

“Harlot,” he confirmed again. “Sorry.”

To his surprise, she grinned at him. “You’ll get used to it.”

Burping, he’d seen. At least on television. Looking to Bighana for confirmation, he shifted the baby up so she was leaning on his shoulder and tapped her back gently. It was Harlot that alerted him, though, as she didn’t attempt to hide her smirk.

He stopped. “What?”

Harlot just smiled broader, but Bighana explained. “If yeh don’ put a cloth on your shoulder, yer likely to end up with a wet shirt. And the chil’ won’t break. You can pat her pretty firmly.”

“Oh,” Marius said, glaring at Harlot before remembering that she was his boss and focusing back on Bighana. “Thanks.”

Reaching back into the diaper bag, he pulled out one of the washcloths and draped it over his shoulder before once again lifting the baby, one arm under her rump and another holding her up to his shoulder and patting. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes of this, the sleepy baby made a little hiccuping noise and urped up a small quantity of gross-smelling whitish baby formula onto the towel.

“Ugh,” he protested, pulling the baby off his shoulder to hold her up in front of him. “You’re gross.” The baby just grinned back at him, more of the white stuff still dripping from her mouth. Taking the washcloth back off his shoulder, he used it to wipe her face.

“Am I done, now?” he asked Bighana, realizing that Harlot had left and Bighana had returned to working at the stove.

She smiled over her shoulder. “For now. Her basket’s ready. Make sure she’ tucked in and warm enough and then come help with the potatoes.”

Bringing the diaper bag with him, Marius went to the basket and tried to lay the baby down only to find that she had once again latched a hand onto his hair. Pulling only made her grip harder.

“Come on, kiddo, let me go,” he said. Finally giving up on pulling, he instead put the diaper bag down and worked on her hand, gently opening her fisted fingers and working his hair out from between them. Finally, he could put her down, and he tucked her in as best he could. Sighing in relief, he got back to Bighana just in time to hear her start to cry again. He turned back toward her, but Bighana interrupted the movement.

“Leave her, lad,” she told him. “She’ fine.”

He hesitated, swallowing. She was not fine. She was crying. Somehow the sound seemed to communicate that nothing in the world was fine.

“Harlot really won’ feed you if yeh don’ work,” Bighana said more sharply.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, fighting to keep it from sounding hostile as he moved away from the infant and towards her. “What do you want me to do?”

“Wash your hands, first.”

There was no sink, he realized. Instead there was a basin of water, and a pinkish grey bar of harsh soap. He washed his hands in the freezing water as ordered, and Bighana set him to peeling potatoes with a knife. He focused hard on the task, using it to distract him from the baby’s continuing cries. He found that the sound put his teeth on edge, and he couldn’t relax at all. After ten minutes or so, though, the baby stopped crying and fell asleep, and Bighana spoke to him again as his shoulders relaxed.

“You should get a carrier,” she told him. “I’ve no problem with you caring for her and working at the same time.”

“Thanks,” he said, once again wrestling to keep his frustration out of his voice. His situation was not Bighana’s fault, and as Harlot had pointed out, this was not a charitable organization. He should just be grateful that he’d found the job so fast and had a place to stay for the night, instead of sleeping on the streets in the equivalent of a foreign country.

Just get through today, he told himself. Tomorrow will be better.

Today, though – there were a lot of potatoes, and he found quickly that his hands got tired and sore, unused to the repetitive activity. Even better, the potatoes he was peeling came out lumpy, and he knew he was wasting some of the flesh as he gouged them. He could type fifty words a minute, but apparently peeling potatoes was not his forte. And the likelihood that I can get a job in IT in a world where there’s shit running down the street? Not high. So far the only way his high school education had helped him was the Spanish.

After the potatoes were done, he was set to washing dishes, using the same soap he’d used for his hands, as Bighana cooked. The water was freezing, and no relief to his sore hands as he washed the dishes in a bucket of soapy water and dumped them in a basin of clean. When the second basin filled with dishes, he dried them and put them where Bighana pointed them, then returned to washing. Quickly, the water he washed the dishes in was filthy, and the rinse water was soapy. He pointed the problem out to Bighana, but she just shrugged.

“We’re a pub, not a hunt club,” was all she said.

Oookay, Marius thought, turning his mind from the thought that these were the dishes he’d be eating off of later and returning to his ‘washing’.

Seeming to sense his unease, Bighana smiled slightly. “It was only recently the government stepped in t’ help keep the sewage out of the drinking water, lad. There’ some plumbing uptown, but down here we haul water from the well. Yer just lucky my husband hauls it every mornin’ or that’d be your job.”

Ah. Marius just focused on his washing without responding. There was only so much of this ‘new world’ he could take in in a day. For now, he was washing dishes.

Dishes, too, were hard work in these numbers, he discovered, his back and feet starting to get sore. His skin had felt a bit rubbed from the knife, earlier, but now it felt dry, and the parts that had been sore were stinging. And he wasn’t making any headway, either, as Bighana kept cooking and producing dishes and then needing them clean for another step of the process. He became mostly numb to it, after awhile, but his head snapped up again when the baby woke up and started to fuss. Oh right. Baby. He’d almost forgotten she was there. How long has it been? An hour? Two hours?

“Go ahead and take a break, lad,” Bighana told him. “She’ll probably need a diaper change, and I can spare you for a bit. You’ll have to make it up later, but it’s not healthy leaving her dirty. Ran, take over for the boy for a bit?”

“Thanks,” he said, placing the remainder of the dishes in the dirty water to soak and rinsing his hands in the soapy rinse water. Straightening up sent a stab of pain to his back, and he twisted, hoping to ease the strain before needing to work again. Going back to the baby, he lifted her carefully to bring her to his chest, remembering his cold hands as he felt how warm she was. “Hi, baby,” he told her. No longer fussing, she grabbed his hair and pulled it clumsily towards her mouth. “Great, thanks,” he said, holding her securely to his chest. “It was just getting dry.”

“Where do you want me to do this?” he asked Bighana.

“Table’s good,” Bighana answered without turning. “It needs to be wiped down before I use it anyway, so as long as you set out a diaper pad it should be fine.”

That hardly seemed sanitary, but then that seemed to be SOP around here. “Thanks.”

Once more digging in the supply bag, he pulled out what he’d identified earlier as a diaper pad and laid it out on the table. He had no clue how to change a diaper, but surely it wasn’t that hard? As it happened, though, the baby’s mom had once again anticipated him: as he pulled the diaper out of the bag he found a neat note in the same handwriting as the instructions on the baby formula. Holding the baby awkwardly with one arm, he unfolded the note with the other and read:

Moriyana is sensitive to diaper rash. Make sure she’s really clean – without using soap – then wrap her in a clean diaper. The diaper goes short side to the front (marked with a blue dot), and is clipped with two of the little metal tabs in the smallest silk pouch. Use the clips to connect the side flaps to the part of the diaper that comes up between her legs. In case I didn’t get a chance to say it before, thank you for taking my daughter. I realize you don’t know me, and that I didn’t give you much of a choice, but I know you’ll take good care of her. Goddess bless, Lliannan.

Marius read the note twice, an uncomfortable feeling growing in his gut. You don’t even know me, woman. This ‘Lliannan’ either had a completely naïve faith in the goodness of human nature, or she was just so desperate that she was lying to herself. Probably the latter, he admitted to himself. How could she have felt, finally tracking him down and discovering that her ‘savior’ was only sixteen years old? Completely relieved, he realized. She didn’t have ten minutes to spare. Why him, though?

Realizing that he was staring at the note without moving, he put it down next to the diaper pad and got to work following its instructions. Clean, without using soap. He had washcloths, but they were dry.

“Bighana?” he asked tentatively. “Do you have any more warm water to spare?”

“Remainder o’ the rice water by the stove,” she told him. “Shoul’ be fine for washing, and I’ll be using it on the floor later so it don’ have to be perfectly clean.”

Marius nodded and, still carrying the baby on one arm, went back to the stove and to the pot of still-warm water. It smelled like the rice that had cooked in it, but otherwise seemed clean. He soaked the washcloth in it, squeezed it out as best he could with one hand, and went back to the table.

Don’t let her roll off, he reminded himself as he lay the squirming infant down on the table and worked at undoing the tabs holding the diaper on. Mercifully, it was only wet, not soiled. He put it aside and reluctantly wiped at the baby’s bum with the moist cloth.

“Grab her ankles and lift her,” Bighana told him, talking over her shoulder.

That did make it easier, he discovered, and soon enough he’d figured out the rest of the progress and had the baby back dressed. The diaper wasn’t as neat as the dirty one had been, but it’d do for now.

Finally. Now he’d be free for another couple of hours. Well, sort of, he realized as he wrapped the dirty diaper in the washcloth and put it away in the diaper bag, then gathered up Moriyana and put her back in the basket.

“Dishes?” he asked Bighana shortly.

“Switch out the water, firs’,” she told him. “Dump the dirty in the sewer trench and replace it with clean from the barrel. Then yeh come back and use the old rinse water to wash. We jus’ opened. Yeh wash ’til they leave and we’re done cleaning up, then yeh eat.”

Great. And he’d been hungry before he even started.

It felt weird, leaving the baby in the basket and walking away, but she was safe with Bighana, and he had work to do. Yey. Hauling dirty water. Even more fun than dishes.

As lunch went on, the dishes went out clean and came in dirty in enormous numbers. He was grateful for the close presence of the stove, though it made him sweat. With his hands as cold as they were, the heat was nice. It was about the only thing that felt good, at the moment. He was in pain. His feet and back were both really sore, and his shoulders had started to ache as well.

Finally the baby started to cry, again, and this time he just put his head down and kept washing. He was hungry, too. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, for either of them, until lunch was over.

“Ran!” Bighana called over the clattering of the dishes and the common room noise. It startled him, and he realized that the child had been there as long as he was, chattering to Bighana and constantly doing something. Generally smaller tasks, like shelling peas or slicing apples, but Ran worked.

She’s like nine! He thought, unsure whether to be appalled or impressed. The girl didn’t seen run down, though. Her chatter remained cheerful throughout, and she did her brainless tasks and joked with her mother without any sign of tiring.

“Mama?” Ran answered her mother.

“Take over the dishes please,” Bighana told her.

“Awwwww,” the girl complained, “I hate dishes!”

“Yes, please,” Bighana told her firmly before turning to him. “Quickly, boy. You’re making up the time at the end of your shift, remember.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he told her, unsure whether to be grateful for the reprieve. The fact that Ran promptly took over and proved to be more adept at the dishes than he was didn’t help. Once again, he went through the process of mixing cold water from the barrel with hot from the stove and then adding and mixing in the powder. He had an easier time of it, this time, and soon he found himself seated at the table, holding the baby carefully as he fed her. Sitting down felt amazing.

God, I hurt. He’d thought that track practice was bad, but that was just muscle-tired. That hurt, but it felt healthy, too. This did not feel healthy. And he still had at least a couple hours in his shift. I’ll live, he told himself again. Tomorrow will be better. And the break was good, even if it did add to the length of his shift. He could almost be grateful for the kid’s screaming.

Moriyana, he remembered. What a mouthful. It was just such a long name for such a small person. Mo, he decided. If I’m going to be stuck with her, I’ll call her what I want to.

Meanwhile, the kid was drinking from the bottle like she’d never had anything so good in her life. “Just wait ’till you’ve had chocolate,” he told her tiredly. “Way, way, better than instant milkshake, I promise you.”

“You do realize she can’t understand you, right?” Harlot asked, startling him. Looking up at her, he felt himself blush.

“I don’t talk to babies,” he told her.

“Clearly,” his boss answered, turning away from him and talking to Bighana. “Kahrn’s back,” she said. “Wants room two tonight ’til at least a week. Do you remember if the weres check out today?”

“They do,” Bighana answered her from her place at the stove. “Do tell him ’bout the l’il’un, though. I won’ tolerate him causing trouble.”

“Kahrn? Cause trouble? The man’s got a stick up his ass,” Harlot answered her. “He wouldn’t know how to cause trouble if you got him drunk and sent him to Mistress Buri’s. Besides, the kid’s all of five months old. He’ll be fine.”

They were talking about Mo, Marius realized, stroking her head with one hand. “Why would it be a problem?” he asked them.

“Kahrn’s an elf,” Harlot said shortly.

Oookay, Marius thought. Kahrn’s an elf. “And…?”

“And Moriyana is fae,” Harlot stated, face and tone clearly indicating that he was being slow.

“I don’t understand,” Marius finally said, shifting Mo as he realized his arm was falling asleep. She protested faintly as the bottle was pulled briefly away from her, then settled again.

“He’s from the other side,” Bighana explained over her shoulder to Harlot, cutting some sort of fruit into thin slices. “Came in through the one-way on tenth.”

“On his own?” Harlot questioned, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

“Kid don’ know jack,” Bighana confirmed as Marius looked between them. Was his situation unusual, then? Come to think of it, they’d probably come up with some system if people like me showed up all the time, wouldn’t they? The guard had genuinely believed that he was trying to cheat her.

Harlot seemed impressed. “You got screwed over but good, then,” she said to him.

“Yeah,” he replied, once again looking down at Mo, and feeling a sense of panic growing in his chest. What the hell am I doing here?

“You a witch?” Harlot asked.

“No,” he answered, before stopping and thinking. “Actually, I don’t know. As Bighana pointed out, I don’t know shit.” Which is interesting, considering I’m going on the assumption that I’m making all this up myself.

“You’d know,” Harlot told him. The certainty in her voice alerted him, and he looked away from Mo to look at her face. “Even in your world, it’d be obvious by now. Tough luck. Witching’s damned profitable. Better than this, anyway.”

He was still just trying to process the fact that they were casually talking about witches as if they existed. “You- you mentioned weres earlier. You meant werewolves?”

“In this case, yes,” Harlot told him. “They’re most common, and the others usually have their own group names.”

Yes, clearly. Werewolves, but also others. “Like what?” he found himself asking.

“Hmm…,” Bighana said, “the Amazons, in South America, they could be called were-jaguars… and there’re a couple of different species of were-cat around…Rajas, those are tigers…were-cats are the next most common after the wolves.”

“Not a lot of others, actually,” Harlot continued. “Were-rats? Maybe? Were-hyena?” She looked to Bighana for confirmation and the latter frowned.

“Maybe,” Bighana said. “Around here all we get are the wolves and the occasional cat, though. The others are real exotics, and you can’t really be sure what’s real and what’s legend.”

Funny how statements like that were starting to sound like normal conversation. Oh no, those are the real exotics. Not nearly so common as your average werewolf.

Finally, Mo was finished eating, and the note on the formula had said she’d throw up if she swallowed air. He pulled the bottle away with a sense of relief and dug in his bag for the same washcloth he’d used to burp her before. He knew what to do, this time, and soon enough she was back in her basket and he was taking the dishes back from Ran, the pain in his back reawakening as he bent over the sink. He almost welcomed it as a relatively normal distraction, after the confusion of the previous conversations.

Harlot had left when he stopped talking, saying something about being needed in the common room, and Bighana didn’t bug him as he focused back on his task. Quickly his world narrowed to the repetitive grab-scrub-rinse-stack pattern, driving unpleasant thoughts from his head, until Bighana finally touched his arm to get him to stop. “Marius,” she said, looking him in the eyes when he looked up. “Yer done, lad. I’ve food for you.”

Oh, shit, how long had he been working? “I- what?” he asked, suddenly feeling the strain of the last hours. His feet had gone from merely sore to feeling like his heel bones might just poke out through the bottom of them. He’d thought his back was sore before, but now he felt like he’d be permanently incapable of standing up straight. His shoulders and biceps were exhausted, too, but that at least didn’t feel like he’d injured anything. “Is the kid okay?” he finally asked, realizing that he’d been ignoring her, too.

“She’s asleep,” Bighana told him. “She’ll need a diaper change after her nap, but for now you can sit and eat your lunch.”

Right. Lunch. He was so tired that, hungry as he was, he couldn’t muster much enthusiasm.

Bighana was already holding out a plate for him. “Take it into the common room,” she told him. “I’ve still work to do, but I’ll hollar if the lil’un does.”

“Thanks,” he told her, taking the plate. The food was strange, he realized dimly. It looked like porridge, and he recognized the potatoes he’d peeled right next to it, but the porridge was a strange, decidedly grey color, flecked with purple. Weird.

“Let me know if you want more,” Bighana told him. “It’s cheap, and Harlot told me that it and a bed are all we’re paying you.”

Thanking her again, Marius headed out to the common room. He knew in theory that it had been full earlier, but now the only occupant was a wrinkled, very sharp-faced…man…who smiled as he entered to reveal numerous small, sharp teeth.

“Uh…hi,” Marius said.

The creature just smiled broader without saying anything. Shivering slightly at the strange expression, Marius turned away, tucking himself into a corner off one side where he could see the room without being disturbed.

The food tasted nearly as strange as it looked. It wasn’t bad, by any means, but having faintly purple porridge that tasted more like a combination of almonds and coconut, and yet showed no evidence of either, was definitely odd. What he’d thought were potatoes were strange too, tasting stronger than they should have – slightly radishy, but with a texture still identical to potato. He had to wonder if they were potatoes at all. Certainly they were some sort of root, but he really didn’t know enough of plants to know whether they existed in his world at home, or if they were unique to this one.

As he was finishing the plate, and deciding whether he wanted another, a young man came in and headed straight back to the kitchen, then emerged again quickly with a plate of food similar to Marius’.

The man was…strange. Human-looking, but still nearly as strange to Marius as the other beings he’d met. Roughly 25 years old, very buff, and dressed in tight brown-leather pants and an even tighter sleeveless shirt, cut short to display some of his stomach. Straight hair cut long in the front flopped down into his face, giving him a strangely boyish look. His features were strong and masculine, but, strangest of all, accented with makeup. Eyeliner made his eyes exotic, and oddly feminine, while his lips were reddened just a tad with what had to be lipstick.

Marius wasn’t totally innocent. He’s a stripper, he realized after a bit. Or, well, a dancer, at least. Though men wearing makeup could be normal in this world, actually. As he looked at him, though, Marius suddenly realized that the man was staring back, a slight smile on his painted lips. “Like what you see?” he asked Marius bluntly.

Marius blushed. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking down.

“I am quite used to being stared at, boy,” the man said, then smiled a bit broader. “Though I’ll admit I’m used to getting paid for it.”

Teach me to stare, Marius thought dumbly, focusing carefully on his plate and fighting back his blush.

“Naw, don’t be like that,” the man said next. “My name’s Jordan, yes, I’m a stripper, and I sleep here. Now your turn.”

Marius looked up, feeling his blush increasing but refusing to stammer. “Marius. I work here.”

He half expected the man – Jordan, he remembered – to give the condescending, “now was that so hard?” reply, but instead he just smiled further. “Nice to meet you, Marius. Harlot’s probably quite pleased, she’s been looking to hire for awhile now but nobody would take what she was able to offer.”

Good to know he was the only one quite that desperate.

The young man cocked his head. “I certainly did not mean it as an insult,” he said curiously. “Far be it for me to blame a man for how he gets his money.” He paused a moment, then frowned. “Come to that, if you ever need to make more I’d be happy to refer you to my boss.”

Horrified, it was all Marius could do to control his expression as he shook his head vehemently. “No, thank you. I’ll take the dishes.” God forbid I ever get that desperate. He had food and a bed. That was enough.

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A/n: Thanks for reading!! Hope you enjoyed!! Please comment!

Marius Fic chapter 1

Hi guys!! As promised, this is the first chapter of the story that I’m writing loosely based on Outcast’s Alley/Bastard Prince. The first little scene at the beginning of the chapter is not my fave, and so may change a bit later, but for the most part the chapter has gone through a lot of editing, and won’t change. I need some help, though. I cannot for the life of me come up with a title for this story. Any ideas? I know y’all don’t know the whole plot line, but pretty much anything would be good. The only idea I have right now is to go ahead and call it Bastard Prince, but I’m not sure if I like that or not. Opinions on that would be good, too! Anyway, here it is!
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“…not your mother, and not me,” Marius heard despite his best efforts to tune it out. “That’s your father, boy. Through and through. No son of mine-”

 

“-would ever be this stupid,” Marius continued for him wearily. “And you don’t know why you kept me; it’s never done you any good-”

 

“You shut up, boy!” Malcolm shouted suddenly, face reddening. “You owe me everything, you hear? I didn’t have to keep you! Your bitch of a mother-”

 

“-ran out on you and left me behind, and she obviously knew what she was doing, since I’m just proof of how much of an asshole my father must have been-”

 

“Damned right, boy! Ungrateful little shit. I should’ve kicked you to the curb when you were four, and now you’re still here at seventeen?! The least you could do is show a little respect!”

 

Respect? For a man that was drunk at breakfast? “I’m sixteen,” Marius corrected neutrally, and Malcolm whipped around to glare at him, face going from red to purple and voice rising. Marius ignored him. It really didn’t matter what he said, and for whatever reason the man never actually hit him. The veins were starting to bulge in his neck, Marius noticed absently. That can’t be healthy. Somehow, when Malcolm was at his maddest, Marius only seemed to get calmer. Later, his hands’d probably shake with the adrenaline, but for now he could think and operate in relative calm. As a child, he’d done everything he could to appease the man when he went off like this, but at sixteen it just didn’t seem to matter anymore. “I have to go to class,” he told him finally. “See you.” Malcolm just kept screaming, but Marius just turned his back and walked out.

 

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Marius headed for the school, trying to put Malcolm out of his mind. He stepped out of the morning foot traffic to grab a bagel and a coke, shaking his head at the mothering woman behind the counter as she once again tried to convince him to get an orange juice instead. “I’m trying to get scurvy,” he explained, earning a look of confusion, then a big smile.

 

“Sir!” he heard a woman call. Nobody called a sixteen-year-old ‘sir’. He kept walking. “Sir!” it was repeated, and someone touched his arm. He pulled away from the touch but looked over.

 

“Can I help you?” he asked, hearing his own tone come out a bit brusk. He regretted it a moment later as he saw that the woman who’d touched him was only a bit older than he, and more than beautiful.

 

“Yes, please,” the woman said, strangely formal. “May I speak with you for a moment, please?”

 

“I am late,” he told her, noticing the infant she carried in her arms and the strangely desperate look in her eyes and walking a bit faster. He wasn’t late, really, but he would be if he let her stop him.

 

“Please – please,” the woman said, grabbing his arm with one hand. “You cannot understand how important this is.”

 

She was begging, desperation painfully clear in her eyes and in the tightness of her lips. It was strange; the woman was far too clean and well dressed to be homeless. And he’d never had even a beggar come up to him quite like this. And, Lord, she was beautiful. The stereotypical angel come down to earth to speak to the worthless mortal.

 

“Alright,” he heard himself say. “I don’t have a lot of time, though-”

 

“Just come with me to the alley there, please. I only have ten minutes.” He nodded reluctantly, and she pulled on the arm she’d grabbed. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the contact, and her grip was weak enough for him to pull away with no effort, but something about her manner was so urgent that he let her pull him with her into an alley.

 

“What do you need to pull me in here for?” Marius asked when she released him and moved to lean hard on the wall. “I need to-”

 

“Please,” she interrupted him breathlessly, holding up a hand. “There is no time.”

 

Annoyed, Marius waved an arm. “By all means, continue then, my Lady.”

 

Seeming not to notice his sarcasm, the woman started speaking, quickly. “My name is Lliannan Sheyananre Ardmohira-she. I’ve been looking for you for weeks. I should have realized that you could be here. Anyway, please-”

 

“You were looking for me?” Marius repeated. Strange name.

 

“Yes, I- I had to-” she bit her lip. “There is no time. Here-”

 

With no warning at all, she thrust her infant into his arms,forcing him to juggle a little bit to figure out how, exactly, he was supposed to hold the tiny thing. All he knew about babies was not to let their head loll and that they threw up all the time. Great.

 

“Wha-”

 

“Her name is Moriyana- Lliannanre-Ardbeijahn-She. She is five months old.”

 

“Mori-what?” he asked in confusion, holding the infant away from his body. “Take her back!”

 

She smiled, eyes very sad. “Mo-ree-yana Le-lianan-rey Ard-bei-jahnd-Shey. And I can’t take her back. She’s yours now.”

 

“What- no! What the hell are you doing?” he exclaimed, pushing the infant further away from his body.

 

“Here, you will need this,” she said, pulling a very large book out of a bag on her back and dropping it at his feet with a heavy thump. “It is the best source for information on how our society works.”

 

“What are you-” he tried again.

 

“Oh, and these.” She reached a hand under her hair to her ear, then reached out quickly to grip his ear. He yelped at a sudden, sharp, pain, and brought the baby back to his body to touch his ear, wincing as his hand encountered two small hoops lodged in the cartilage of his upper ear. “What the heck? How did you-? Ow!”

 

And finally she met his eyes. “I am dying. I have no more time, and I know no one better to take her. She must be with you, do you understand? If you give her to someone else, she will die.”

 

For a second, Marius’ mind refused to process what she’d just said, but then it came back online. Shit, she means it. He looked back down at the baby, who promptly gripped his hair in a fist and pulled it into her mouth. “Take her?” he asked, pulling his hair free. “You mean like, take her, take her? You- I’m sixteen! There’s no way-”

 

“Her supplies are in this bag,” she said, dropping it onto the ground next to the book. “She’ll need food and a diaper change every three hours or so. My family will help you, just go to the Friendship Gate in Chinatown and run your hand along the cement, then go and talk to the Elite and tell them I sent you. They’ll-”

 

“Stop!” Marius demanded, before taking a breath and trying to speak calmly. “What you are asking of me – it’s crazy, okay? I am sixteen years old. I am a junior in high school. There is no way in hell I am taking a kid. Take her to a police station or a hospital, they’ll put her in the system, she’s little enough that-”

 

“She’ll die,” the woman interrupted again, closing her eyes and breathing shallowly as she leaned on the wall. “Please. Please. She has to be with you, do you hear me?” she repeated urgently. “I’ve been looking for weeks. I know it sounds crazy but she’ll die with anybody else. Slowly, but she’ll die. I beg you, care for her?”

 

The woman was nuts, Marius finally realized, staring at her as she met his eyes. She actually, totally, believed what she was saying. She really thought she was dying, and really thought that if he, specifically, didn’t take her, her daughter would die too. And that didn’t make any sense at all.

 

His hair was in the baby’s mouth again. He looked down at her and pulled it back out, dripping wet. “Ugh,” he said. “Look, Lady, I’m not-” the words died in his mouth as he looked back up and realized that she was no longer listening. She lay at a strange angle on the ground, eyes staring vacantly. He hadn’t even heard her fall. As he stared blankly at the body, a sense of vague desolation growing in his chest, he felt a tug on his hair. He looked down to see his hair once again trapped in the small, slimy fist of a very alive baby girl.

 

“Stop that,” he whispered, “I can’t be your father, you understand? I’m a sixteen-year-old kid. I can barely take care of myself.”

 

Moriyana- Lliannanre-something-or-other just gave a big, mushy smile, and went back to chewing on his hair.

 

“Come on,” he said to her, pulling his hair back out of her mouth and feeling himself start to shake. “Your mom’s dead. You can’t be so- so happy.” She just gurgled and kicked her legs a couple times, and he readjusted quickly to hold her more firmly. “God, I hate babies.” She was reaching for his hair again.

 

Jesus, the woman had died so fast, one moment talking to him and the next – And the next I am standing next to a corpse and holding her baby. Shit. He had to get out of there. And…what? Take the kid to the hospital? Then he’d have walked away from a corpse carrying her baby. But then they weren’t likely to make the connection – and did he believe the woman that the kid would kick it, really? She seemed so sure – and she was dying. She was right. But no. Hell, no. There was no logical reason that the baby couldn’t be much happier and healthier with somebody else. He’d bring her to a hospital. They’d make sure she was okay and then the state of Pennsylvania could take her from there. God, that sounds cold. Hadn’t the woman said something about her family? Her family. They’re the ones that should take care of her anyway. They weren’t far, she’d said – in Chinatown? Surely that was better than the foster system?

 

Looks like I’m missing my morning classes, then, he realized as he packed the book into the diaper bag and threw the strap over his shoulder. Whatever. He’d make up some excuse. He was a good enough student that they’d probably believe him. The strap of the diaper bag was irritating over the heavier backpack strap on his shoulder, but he didn’t have far to go.

 

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The Friendship Gate was a heavily decorated arch that stretched over tenth street, marking the official entrance to Philadelphia’s Chinatown. Supposedly it was very authentic, down to the pig’s blood in the red paint, but Marius had no way of telling, looking at it. At any rate, it was here that the woman’s directions had sent him.

 

What was it that she’d said exactly? My family is not too far away, just go to the Friendship Gate in Chinatown and run your hand along the cement, then go and- and something about the Elite. Whoever they were. He’d cut her off and she’d never explained. Shit. He’d finally given up on keeping his hair out of the kid’s mouth, and it – she, he thought begrudgingly – was currently holding it in one slimy fist and contentedly sucking. Her other hand was clumsily groping at the fabric of his shirt, unable to quite grab hold. She’ll need food and a diaper change every three hours or so, he remembered suddenly. There were probably supplies for both in the big diaper bag he carried, but he had no clue how to change a diaper.

 

Stop panicking, idiot. Just find the kid’s family. What had the woman said? Run your hand along the cement. That was weird.

 

Looking at the base of the gate, he realized that it was, in fact, made of cement up to about five feet high.

 

Run my hand along- walking forward, Marius put his hand on the cement experimentally, and trailed it along as he walked forward. There was a slight lurch, like he’d missed a step, or like he was stepping off of an escalator, and he looked down to find that his foot had landed on cobblestones.

 

Surprised, he looked up quickly as he realized that the normal sounds of trucks, cars, and passerby had given way to the bray of a donkey and shopkeepers hawking their wares on the street. The donkey was real – it pulled a cart full of clothing that a man was apparently selling. Traffic pressed in on him, and after a moment of confusion he realized that he was on the wrong side of the street. Holding the squirming baby securely to his chest, he pushed the diaper bag up higher on his shoulder and pressed through the crowd to stand in the shelter provided by a column of the Friendship gate and observe.

 

For a moment, it was all he could do to hold the baby and stare. There was such an enormous amount of color and noise and activity, and everything was so strange, that his brain didn’t want to process it. A man nearby 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.

 

Strange. Maybe they’re sick? After a moment, though, Marius realized that the fruit sellers were the least of it – their customer sported spikes down both sides of her spine, looking like they cut through her clothing. Maybe they were all in costume? Is it some sort of holiday? It wasn’t Halloween yet, but this was Chinatown – maybe the Mid-Autumn festival? He was pretty sure one didn’t dress up for that, though. Mardi Gras was in the spring, and Pride was in early summer, and took place in a totally different part of Philly anyway. Plus nobody had been dressed weird until he got to Chinatown, and now suddenly everybody was, and the shops weren’t the ones he remembered, and there were actual farm animals. No festival could adequately explain that. I’m hallucinating. I have to be. That bitch slipped me something.

 

He’d come in from a relatively normal street, remarkable only by the fact that most of the people and businesses were Chinese. Here – there were a lot of people of various races, but the more he stared at them the more he realized that the people at the fruit seller didn’t look human at all. And they were just the beginning. Marius’ eyes darted around frantically, taking in the fact that a man selling fish had hair to his waist and enormously long, pointed ears. One of his customers had a crest of hair that grew in a mane all the way down her back. She wore no shirt, and Marius looked elsewhere as she turned around.

 

Looking around, Marius finally looked back through the arch and discovered that, as he’d half expected, the street he’d come in by had disappeared in favor of this new…world. On this side, there was a butcher’s shop, where an absolutely enormous man was carving thin slices from a huge chunk of meat for a man with what definitely looked like a prehensile tail. Plus-

 

He was awake. He knew he was awake, and yet as he watched the butcher he was startled by something passing in front of his view, just a little below head height. That’s a fairy. There’s no way that’s not a fairy. Everyone else could have been in elaborate costumes, or something, but that? Costumes didn’t shrink you down to a foot tall and make you fly. Aren’t drugs just supposed to make you see pink elephants or something? And how could Lliannan-what’s-her-name have possibly gotten them into him?

 

Calm. He could think this through. Okay, I’m tripping. And temporarily responsible for the welfare of a five-month-old kid. Not a good combination. Malcolm would be no help. Mori-whatever-her-name-was was probably better off with him, even tripping, than with Malcolm as drunk as he’d been that morning. Still, the hospital idea was looking better all the time. I’ll just tell them that she probably has family somewhere. They can deal with it.

 

Decision made, Marius walked away from the pillar and the rest of the way through the arch before realizing that nothing was changing – he was just walking towards the butcher’s shop he’d seen before.

 

I trailed my hand before, he remembered. Going back through, he tried again, this time trailing his hand. Still the same view. Feeling his breathing start to pick up, he tried again, with the same results. Going back again, 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 first 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 feet and horns.

 

“Aww, poor kid,” the –I guess it’s –she’s- a satyr?– said to him, “managed to get in on accident, did you? How’d you manage that? Anyway, the arch’s a one-way gate. You’ll have to get to a gate-hub and buy a ticket out. They’re damned expensive, though. And honestly I wouldn’t recommend it. If you’re here, it’s ’cause you’re supposed to be.”

 

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.”

 

Marius just continued staring, unable to think of a single thing to say. The satyr sighed. “Just come on, would you?”

 

She walked about ten feet before turning him physically to face up the street and pointing.

 

“You see that tower, with the bell?”

 

Shaking his head to try and focus, Marius nodded his head. “Yes, I see it,” he answered her as normally as he could.

 

“That’s the guard tower. If you’re real lucky they might help you get back out of here. It’s damned expensive, though, like I said, so don’t get your hopes up too high.”

 

“Well what the fuck am I supposed to do if they don’t?” Marius asked her, frustrated. Cool it, man. None of this is real. You’ll come down and it’ll all be okay.

 

“Well then you’re screwed,” the satyr told him frankly. “So I’d be a bit more polite if I were you.”

 

“You are a hallucination,” Marius replied firmly. “This is not actually happening.”

 

The satyr raised both eyebrows and 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 holding a 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. If the baby was part of his hallucination, then maybe he’d be okay in another couple of hours, but if she wasn’t she’d be getting hungry quite soon, and hallucination or not he needed to be making decisions and getting things done. The guards are not a bad idea, actually. If this is not a hallucination, I need help. If it is…going to the police still wouldn’t be a bad plan.

 

“Thanks,” he told the satyr finally. “I really wish you could tell me what was going on, but-”

 

“-but I’m a figment of your imagination. Go to the guards.”

 

“Yeah,” Marius said, taking a deep breath, “I’ll do that. Thanks.”

 

“No problem,” the satyr said. “You amuse me.” She disappeared into the crowd and Marius stared after her. Great. My problems are amusing. Looking down, he found that the baby had finally managed to get a hold of his shirt and was slobbering into it. Now I know that babies throw up and drool. I’m learning.

 

Guards. 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.

 

Weird. Were hallucinations usually this all-encompassing? This was incredible. The detail was beyond belief, down to the cobblestones under his feet, the backpack straps 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. Guards.

 

The guard tower stuck out, towering above the surrounding buildings and featuring a large, dull-colored bell. Trying to ignore his surroundings, Marius walked straight towards it, and soon found himself walking up to a small 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. The door was labeled ‘office’, and unlocked. Well that’s easy enough, I guess.

 

He balanced the baby carefully in one arm 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 wooden desks and a bored-looking woman stuffing envelopes. Her uniform was a bit strange – a rough-cut brown wool tunic 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 approached the desk and spoke, readjusting the baby so he could drop the diaper bag and his schoolbag onto the ground.

 

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

 

The woman looked up with an air of impatience. “Yes?”

 

“Hi, my name is Marius Batiste. I – 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. “Is this a joke?”

 

“No,” Marius answered her seriously. “I really am hallucinating. I see weird…creatures, and donkeys and things. I don’t know how I got drugged or whatever but I really need a hospital.” The baby wiggled in his arms, 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.” He closed his eyes. Well that sounded…idiotic. “I mean…would you just help?”

 

“You see weird creatures and donkeys and things,” the woman repeated to him.

 

“Yeah,” Marius said again. “I know it sounds weird, but-”

 

“Very funny,” the woman said, clearly angry. “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 the creatures, too. Illogically, he still wanted her to help him.

 

“Look, could you maybe just get be a ticket out, then? I came in through the one-way and-”

 

The guard only got angrier. “Do you really think I’m that stupid?” she asked him. “First hallucinations, and now you’re a switch? The city guard has better things to do than deal with your bullshit. You want a ticket, buy one.”

 

“I have no money,” Marius said, trying to stay polite. “I really need to get back through.”

 

“If you have no money, get a job. Nobody comes through the gates by accident. You need some sort of magic to use the gates, and the humans on the other side of the divide don’t have it. Ergo, you’re lying to me. Get out, or I really will call for someone to throw you out, infant or no infant.”

 

“I’m not lying,” Marius told her, wrestling with rising anger and fear. “I really think I’m hallucinating, but I swear, I don’t know how I got in here and I really do need help to get out.”

 

I better damned well hope this really is a hallucination, he realized. If not, then the satyr’d been right – he was screwed. He shook his head and addressed the guard again. “Look, you can’t just leave this supposed gate open and then not-”

 

“You came in through the gate?” the guard interrupted him finally. “Prove it. Show me your American coin.”

 

“I have no money,” he said again.

 

“Convenient,” the guard said coldly. “Look, kid. You want a vacation, you go get a job. It is not the business of the city guard to pay for portals to exotic vacation spots. Get out.”

 

Marius stared at her and spoke. “I’m hardly going on vacation, ma’am. I really have no idea where the kid’s next meal is coming from or where we’re going to sleep tonight, but thanks a lot for your help.”

 

Hauling his backpack and the diaper bag back onto his shoulders, he turned away from the desk and walked back out of the office. Once there, 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 humanoid creatures. Some of the people looked human, but he couldn’t be sure.

 

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. For free. Right. ‘Cause every hotel just lets people sleep for free. Homeless shelter it was. Lovely. But nothing for it; it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go.

 

Watching the passerby, he quickly found a mostly normal-looking man and reached out to touch his sleeve.

 

“Sir,” he said. “Sir?” Finally the man noticed, and turned to him hostilely.

 

“What?” he demanded.

 

He thinks I’m a beggar. He swallowed. He’s not far off. “Sorry sir,” Marius said quickly, “but I need some help. Is there a homeless shelter around here somewhere?”

 

“Workhouse is in Banesworth, I think,” the man told him brusquely. “Don’t think they’ll take you with a kid, though.” The man moved on, and Marius stared after him. Workhouse? Really? It was like something out of Charles Dickens. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

 

“Try th’ pub on 12^th,” a man told him, stepping sideways out of the crowd to talk to him. He has horns, Marius realized blankly before focusing on what the man was saying. “I think they’re looking for a grunt t’ wash dishes, and the cook’s a sweetheart. She won’t mind the little’un.”

 

“Thank you,” Marius told him, relieved.

 

“No problem,” the man told him. “Just find a side street to the right, walk two blocks, and ask for Madame Harlot’s. It’s a pretty popular place, n’ somebody’ll tell you where to go.”

 

Marius raised his eyebrows. Madame Harlot’s, really?

 

The man grinned and winked. “Owner’s an old whore. Bit of a bitch, but a good’un just the same.”

 

Marius smiled back, relieved even as his mind processed the fact that apparently ‘old whore’ wasn’t much of an insult, here.

 

Says strange things about the way my mind works, I think, that this is what it comes up with when it’s fucked up.

 

The second man continued on his way, and Marius set about finding a side street. Looks like I’m looking for a job, then. Better than a homeless shelter, at least.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Stepping out of the narrow side street he’d found, Marius found himself in a much quieter area, and evidently much poorer. It was only two blocks from the arch on 10^th, but the change was nonetheless visible – tenth had smelled strongly of animal droppings and fish, but it had had businesses. This street was just beat-up residential, with the addition of what might be the pub he was looking for. It also smelled strongly of human sewage, and covering his nose with a hand didn’t help. Looking around confusedly for the source of the stench, he saw a narrow trench that ran down the middle of the street. A man was walking down the street, sweeping what he assumed was donkey shit and other debris into it. Lovely, Marius thought. He’d found the slums. Which, let’s face it, is probably where I need to be right now. It wasn’t like he was looking for a four-star hotel.

 

Once again hitching the diaper bag higher on his shoulder, Marius approached the street cleaner and pointed towards the building with the sign.

 

“Is that Madame Harlot’s pub?”

 

The man stared at him a second before answering. “I’m sorry señor, es que no hablo ingles,” the man told him. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Oh, umm… lo siento. Es ese edificio el bar de Madame Harlot?” Marius tried again, pointing again before pulling his arm back for a better hold on the baby. His arms were starting to hurt.

 

The man smiled at him. “Que sί,” he said, returning to his sweeping.

 

“Gracias,” Marius replied, turning towards the pub.

 

“Nada, nada,” the man said, waving a hand at him. “Que linda tu hija!”

 

“No es mίa,” he answered him, slightly disturbed.

 

Not mine, Marius thought, once again removing his dripping hair from the baby’s mouth. What the hell am I doing hauling around a baby? The whole situation was surreal. I walked through a portal with a five month old baby and am going to a pub, run by a whore named Harlot, in order to get a job so I have a place to sleep for the night instead of on the cobblestone street. If he had half a brain, he’d just sit on the sidewalk until he woke up. Why do I bother? What was his body doing while his mind was off talking to satyrs? Had somebody found him, yet? Brought him to the police, or something? Was the baby in his hallucination, or was she real?

 

He was hungry, he realized. That much was real. Guess I’ve got to hallucinate myself some food, then. And that meant the job at the pub with the whore. Fine.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>