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The room was large and ornate. Not as big as the grand hall but clearly very substantial, the kind you’d expect nobility to possess.

Alessio was looking for a window, and yes! there was one, curtained thickly rushing noises muffled outside. He swung it open with his full force as if to make up for being small and boney. ‘I’ll have that ready if I need to escap-whoa…’ It was glass. That was new, one of the “inventions of the North”. Did he fall back in time but into the future??

“Take a deep breathe.” Burn was clearly giving a satirical impression of someone…that they were probably about to meet. “Construct your sentence. Then speak it.”

Alessio chortled.

“I don’t need you channeling Oscar right now! I need you to explain why the magic pool spit us out here!”

Search and Burn were still grownups, Nithel was…a lot younger but still an adult.

“Why-?” Alessio blurted, pointing at Nithel. But then he caught himself, a very visible ‘ohh.’ across his face. Future-past him trusted Nithel and he remembered everything…did Nithel remember him? The boy darted over to him, determined to befriend him again even if he forgot him.

Also. He wanted to touch his hair. He’d never seen anybody with shiny gold hair before, it was something of a novelty in Casumbra.

 

 

Nathair buried himself in a corner away from the group, breathing heavily. He hated everyone, everyone here, he didn’t want anyone to touch him or even look at him. Rage – no, panic, flooded through him. Everything that had happened was rushing through him through the lens of the child he was now.

He had done…so much, to deserve being hated.

Everything was grey, he wanted to kill them all. They didn’t deserve to live, they were judging him. Of course, they were. He couldn’t hear anything it was all garbled. Ohh, it was bad. He took solace in the fact that he knew how this ended, and he knew this would integrate with him and it wouldn’t be as intense.

But maybe that was because…he stopped fighting it, and instead channeled it toward the people who deserved this.

Red flickered inside each person’s chest, where their heart was, like a target. Each one, as long as they’re alive. He couldn’t measure anything else, any living thing, immortal, mortal it was all red. Things that weren’t alive were grey. Magic was blue, curses were blue.

 

 

“OSCAR!” Someone roared, causing Alessio to leap back with a violent flinch, as a woman flung the door almost off its handle in her rage. “What is the mean…um. Actually. You can explain that later. What is the meaning of this?”

Alessio inched back, he didn’t like or trust either of the two new adults. Loud noises always meant trouble and ‘Oscar’s’ voice made his skin crawl it sounded too much like any number of manipulative grownups in his life.

“Burn? What did you do?”

“I’m innocent!” Burn yelped and nearly landed in the fountain trying to escape Oscar, who snatches his arm and steered him away. He was still yelling in a panicked voice. “I swear! I’m innocent! Nothing happened no-attempted-murders-and-I-absolutely-remember-everything-I’m-supposed-to-promise!”

“What?”

“He didn’t do anything!” Alessio blurted defensively, chasing after Oscar. “Uh, he, uhhh…”

Can’t go with the truth, no will believe the truth. But he couldn’t outright lie. He glanced at the window, and inched back a step, before he bit his lip and planted his feet determined not to dash away.

“Oh! We got lost and Burn’s going to help us” He better. “…until we…get back home…”

The boy cursed internally. Literally no viable explanation came to mind so…buy for time! Flattery and charm was the best defense because people didn’t hit you as often if they were laughing or didn’t see you as a threat.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.” Alessio attempted with his best supposed-to-impress-nobility bow. “We’re extremely grateful that you’ve allowed us to infringe on your hospitality this long, the grounds are exquisite and it was a pleasure to be graced with your presence.”

A pleasure, haha, so that was a lie. He was running out of things to compliment and calculating how fast he could make it to the window. Hopefully, Burn made it out now before anybody got hurt right?

 

@hannahrenner @kimlikesart @ragnarok