Chapter Text
Arthur’s robes glided across the stone steps as he marched towards his study, his cat familiar at his heels. He shifted the bundles of books, trying not to drop the ancient bottle tucked under his arm. His cat hissed at him as he moved, his voice resonating in Arthur’s head.
“What a terrible mistake! You know this, right? Oh why don’t you ever listen to me.”
“I listen enough, Fen, but I really thought I could make it.”
“And if you’re too late it makes a terrible impression, you know. It will not aid your research. And certainly not in the other thing.”
“I’m friends with the man, Fen. I doubt being a couple minutes--”
“Ten minutes! Ten minutes late. Impressions matter.”
“I do not need your feline wisdom.” Arthur said. They had rushed up winding stone staircases, for his study was in the highest (and oldest) one in the college.
He stopped at his door, now panting hard. He fumbled for his key, dangling at his neck, the wine bottle slipping uncomfortable down his other arm, its neck catching against one of the books. Arthur cursed his own foolishness then.
It was only a lecture, and he could have left early. If he had left the professor’s dissertation only a few minutes, maybe even just five, he would have had time to grab the books and wine separately before his meeting. He could have even cast a spell on the wine to safely glide upwards ahead of him.
As it was, Arthur had stayed late. He was immersed in the young professor’s findings. Quantum Alchemy, he called it, a new way to optimize spells so that otherwise complex spells, the kind that takes decades to master, could be learned by any layman. It would change the common people’s lives. With this novel idea, one that Arthur hardly followed despite being a Master of Physical Magic, as per his certifications. He even lingered and asked for a copy of the bold young man’s thesis. The man’s familiar, for all magic professors had one, bristled its feathers. The man was foreign, with a strange, twanging accent Arthur had heard only a handful of times before. His blond hair was swept to one side, exposing his beaming face and wire-framed spectacles. The young professor, despite pecking by his bird familiar, handed a copy over to Arthur.
Arthur hastily cast a quick gliding spell on the papers, sending them up to his study. Now, before his door, he wrangled his key forwards and shoved the door open. Dust floated in sunlight over his desk, illuminating the oak with gold and honey. He breathed in the air of ancient books, letting his burdens tumble on to one of the three couches in his study.
“You look like you could use some more exercise, Professor.” A cool voice interrupted his thoughts.
Arthur looked up, his heart thumping. “Oh, oh I do beg your pardon. The new professor had such marvelous ideas, I’m sure you’ve heard? Yes, these right here.” Arthur pointed towards a floating stack of papers held together with a ring of wire. Arthur flicked his fingers across his thumb, as though brushing off unseen lint, and the spell dispersed. The papers landed softly on his massively cluttered desk.
On one of his couches, his favourite one with the soft cushions and the red corduroy backs, lounged Professor Francis Bonnefoy. Francis smiled at him warmly, dressed in his ever elegant, deep blue robes. He still had a flaxen stubble cradling his chin, but his hair was longer than Arthur remembered it to be. The end of his queue must have reached to his shoulder blades when it wasn’t tossed over his shoulder. Arthur began to apologize for his tardiness once more, moving items on his desk to lay out the books.
“I heard a word or two he had to say. Don’t worry. I only just arrived.” Francis’ pale eyes slid towards the bottle of wine, dangerously close to falling off the couch. He murmured under his breath, and the wine acquiesced, floating towards his outstretched palm. He glanced at the label once it landed “My, they let you have this. Even after last time?”
“Let me have it? That’s assuming far too much, Francis.” Arthur finally slumped against his desk chair, letting Fen hop on to his lap.
Francis stood and rummaged for a pair of wine glasses. “Let me guess, you swiped it from the kitchen maid in exchange for bewitching the dough to roll itself out?”
Arthur shook his head as Fen lifted his, pink nose sniffing.
“Do you think we can get it out of him this time?” Fen asked softly, a deep purr only Arthur could hear. Arthur only shrugged in response.
Once the wine had been poured and Francis settled himself on the other side of the desk, Arthur took a deep breath and took a chance. “Francis, will you help me? With the grant? The new research?”
“Which one?”
“I only have one now, thank you very much, and it’s the main one. The big one. Your magic and mine are so different, and I think it’s having that different, well, flavor is what will cut it. I think this way we can get to an answer. The big answer to the big question.” Arthur leaned in, for dramatic affect, but the wine was already starting to haze vision. He tried to focus. “Why is there magic at all?”
Francis took a long drink and stared into the crimson depths. “No wonder, the Masters would never allow you to do something so bold. So you must come to me, the vagabond.”
“The Masters you speak of made this huge taboo.” Arthur said, “Which, unless they know something, means that there is something to be learned.”
“Asking to research something like that is going to raise some eyebrows with the fundamentalists. It’s like asking why is there a world at all? Why is there sea and storm and wind?”
“But we have answers for that! We know the Clockwork theory. We know that wind is due to pressure. We know that each creature has evolved from a past one. We know all this. What I don’t know is why there’s magic in it all. Why we have different magic from you. It’s like having language, but far more mysterious.”
“Your next question is why I’m so good at magic, even though I do not have a familiar of my own?” Francis said, eyeing Fen. Fen blinked his large amber eyes in response. “I can ask similar questions. Why do you study magic so fiercely? Why are you who you are? Why are you Brit and I’m Gallic? Why won’t you sleep with me?”
Arthur flushed a red as deep as the wine. “I refuse to give that a response. Please, stop skirting around the question and tell me: will you help me?”
“You’ve asked me how many times in how many years?” Francis said, raising his glass. “I suppose it’s worth a shot.”
Arthur smiled. Fen nuzzled into his abdomen. “Well, first thing’s complete.” He mumbled wordlessly. Arthur reached his own glass out, clinking their glasses together.
As the glass made contact with the other, an electric bolt of pain exploded in Arthur’s arm, racing up his shoulder, his neck, and to his head. His fingers let go, the glass slipping through and crashing on his desk. Wine spilled out and stained the books. Arthur grasped at his head, as if squeezing the pain out. His fingers dug into his blond scalp, his vision swimming in and out of focus.
“Arthur? Arthur!” Francis called out, a million miles away. Arthur’s forehead met the wood of his desk, his vision flashing until it went dark.
For a few, horrifying moments, Arthur thought he was lost at sea. When he was a boy, he remembered suddenly, he had gone to the Channel and taken a ferry boat. His father, magic-less, worked many odd jobs and fishing in ports happened to be one of them. Arthur remembered his father’s broad face, one he had not thought of in many years. He remembered the ruddiness of his cheeks from working at the ports. Arthur had been playing by the docks, chasing seagulls, trying to make little tidal waves and failing. Arthur had stood at the very end when he thought he saw something in the water. He leaned closer and closer… He remembered that face again when Arthur’s head broke the surface of the water, his mouth open in an empty scream. The face came close and large arms embraced him. He was wet and cold and frightened and half-drowned, but had made it now.
Now, Arthur kept swimming through this mysterious, infinite ocean, kept waiting to see that face. But he felt himself drift farther… and farther… Deep, azure blues. Darkness punctuated by only one pinprick of light. Arthur latched on to that, forcing himself to swim and swim and swim--
He woke with a gasp, yanking his head back and rocking back dangerously. The chair he had was not stable and shifted back. Far too easily, he thought, but he was only just breaking through and gulping air. A faulty chair was the least of his concerns.
He saw Francis’ face before him, coming into focus. Arthur reached out, his fingers brushing against Francis’ shirt, which was rough and grainy.
“Francis--what happened?” He managed to say, his vision still hazy.
“You got drunk is what happened!” A brash, familiar voice boomed to Arthur’s left. Arthur rubbed his eyes.
“I only had one drink, thank you very much, where is--” Arthur’s vision finally cleared, the last dregs of the water resolving like a dream. Arthur looked around him, seeing faces he did not know aside from Francis, who sat directly in front of him. He was no longer in the velvet blue robes, but wearing a strange, thin-looking shirt and light blue breeches. “What in the world happened?”
Arthur looked around, wondering why there were so many people around, and, more importantly, where was he? He was clearly no longer in his study. The room was too well-lit and spacious. It did not smell of his books, but of spilled wine and other unknown scents. Arthur reached for his lap, grasping for Fen but meeting only empty air.
“Fen?” He asked weakly, looking down at himself. He found he, too, was no longer in his favorite robes. Despite this, his hand hovered over empty air. Of all the strange things, missing Fen was the worst. He felt as though his own heart had been emptied from his chest and hidden away from him. He felt tears prickle in his eyes.
“Fen--I don’t know what you’re talking about but you ate shit, dude.” The brazen voice Arthur now recognized as the young, foreign professor’s spoke again. Arthur turned to find the same man, but not quite. His glasses were different. “Are you ok?” He asked, smiling.
“Well, I’m not quite well, it’s a trifle odd…” Arthur managed to say, wrenching his gaze back to Francis, avoiding all the other new faces who watched him with mixed concern and amusement. Francis seemed surprised to find Arthur’s attention landing back on him. “Francis, my dear, please tell me what the bloody hell happened?” He grasped Francis’ hands, but the man who was and was not Francis seemed to spring back at the touch.
“I--I’m sorry.” Arthur let go, watching as Francis’ concern turned to outright worry. If Arthur was here, and Francis looked the exact same, he had to be the same man, right? “Ah, well, what just happened? Let’s piece the query together, shall we?”
“Ah, well,” Francis began, still looking at Arthur as though he were a ghost. He very well could be, Arthur reasoned, still trying to reach for a phantom Fen. However, Arthur was an erudite, and a Master of the Physical at that. These things were real. He could see, hear, smell, and touch them. Therefore, there was something to understand. He swallowed his fear, even for a moment, and reminded himself of who he was. Repeating his title, wondering if it meant anything in this world. Francis had stopped speaking, and the young man had taken over.
“We were really just shooting the shit, do you remember that? We were talking about something--”
“New infrastructure--” Another voice said, deep and gruff.
“Yeah whatever, and then we popped out the wine and tried to ease things up. It’s your birthday, after all. Sucks we had a meeting, though. Do you remember any of that?”
“My birthday?” Arthur mused. His birthday was today? He’d been so busy with his thesis he’d trampled right over the date.
“Yeah, and then you started to get real crazy. We toasted you, I had a great toast--”
“It was not that great.” Another voice, a softer one, said from behind the young man.
“You mostly talked about yourself.” The first strange voice said again. It belonged to a stocky man sitting just behind Francis, his arms stiffly crossed. He was watching Arthur with abject curiosity that made Arthur feel uncomfortably like a specimen under a microscope.
“Ok, whatever, but--but the point is you went raise your glass, met with Francis’, and slumped over. We honestly thought you were having a heart attack.”
“I see, Pr--Jones.” Arthur said mildly, looking at an assortment of ten or more people all around him. Were these his friends? Had Arthur somehow slipped into someone else’s body?
“Jones?” The man said, his eyebrows raised. He wore the same sort of shirt that Francis did, but his had a ghoulish depiction of an open hand with a mouth on its palm.
“Is that not your name?” Arthur tried. He remembered the floating thesis he had magicked into the air, ALFRED F JONES stamped across the top.
“No, it is my name. My last name. You just never call me Jones. You usually call me Alfred when you’re not calling me idiot or bastard.”
“I would call you such things?” Arthur said, then quickly realised his mistake. He looked down at his hands, now outstretched against the table. His upper arms were bare. “Well, of course I would! I’m sorry, you all, I think maybe the wine got to my head. You know, they say the inclusions in there cause systemic reactions in some people…”
“Maybe you can’t hold your drink.” Francis said back, looking still strange and holding a distance from him.
Arthur nodded, smiling as if he understood the hoke, wondering how to act. They all continued to regard him oddly. Arthur felt distinctly that he was up against an insurmountable challenge, and the fear of being swept by the ocean threatened him once more. He took deep, slow breaths, looking around him, absorbing what he could. In his mind, he began to construct a list of what he knew.
He knew this: He was not at the Master’s Institute. He was no longer in his study. In fact, he had no idea if he was still in the Brits. Next, he knew some of these people by face, and they seemed to share the same names as the ones he really did know. He also knew that was alive, and that meant that Fen was alive, too.
. . .
“You bloody idiot, where the hell am I? What the hell are you wearing? What did you do to me?”
Arthur had gasped awake, staring at Francis who was wearing an incredibly ridiculous outfit. To add to that, the frog was in the middle of a strange room, crowded with books. It was illuminated by lanterns hung on the stone walls and rogue sunbeams pouring through stained-glass windows. It was beautiful, but that was besides the point.
“Why are you grinning like that?” Arthur rubbed his face, finding it sticky with wine.
Francis was grinning at him, showing off a gold tooth Arthur did not remember him having. He shook his head, as if in disbelief. “It worked!” He said quietly. “It really worked!”