Chapter Text
A Story Inspired By [This Text Post] from magnaesquire on Tumblr
Dérive (n.)
Origin: French
Definition: A spontaneous and unplanned journey where the traveler leaves their life behind and allows themselves to be guided by the landscape and architecture. Literally translated as “drift”, dérive is the idea that even if you drift you will end up on the right path.
Manifest Destiny (n.)
Origin: English
Definition: The concept and belief that one’s fate is obvious and unavoidable; that one’s destiny is as clear as day and there is no stopping it, whatever that destiny may be.
Vagary (v.)
Origin: Latin
Definition: A whimsical or roaming journey. From Latin, vagārī meaning “to roam”, is an unpredictable idea, desire or action to travelling without knowing the destination, and not caring.
Sonder (v.)
Origin: Unknown
Definition: The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own – populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries, and inherited craziness – an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
Perhaps coming to the British Museum had been a terrible, horrible idea, Octavius realized. Of course, this thought didn’t occur to him before he got in the crate with Jedediah and the others, nor when the triceratops attacked. It didn’t even cross his mind when he and Jedediah tumbled from Attila’s hat, so focussed was he on the fall and where he might land. But when he followed Jedediah as he fell through the grate of an air vent, when the red fabric of his paludamentum caught at its edge, when the cowboy was clinging to his legs as they both dangled in a billowing cyclone, and when the wind tunnel that pulled unendingly at them was strong enough to make Octavius feel like he was being strangled by the tie that held his cloak in place - oh, regret and dismay certainly crossed his mind then.
He clung desperately to the fabric above his head, one hand tugging helplessly at the tie around his throat while everything else dulled to a buzz at the back of his mind. Jedediah was speaking, shouting something, but between the cacophonous rush of wind that filled the space and his pulse pounding rapidly in his ears, Octavius couldn’t quite make out what it was. Stars were popping up in his vision. That couldn’t be a good sign.
Octavius felt hands grabbing at his legs, at his toga, at the sheath that held his sword. After a few moments of struggling, there was a cowboy hat brushing against his arm and gloves fingers yanking at the decorative rope that Octavius had been struggling with since they had fallen. He couldn’t breathe. His fingers refused to work.
“Shift yer arm, ‘Tavius!” Jed shouted, his voice much closer than it had been a few minutes prior. “I’ve gotta getcha untangled!”
Untangled…? Octavius couldn’t quite process what Jedediah meant, but when Jed tugged at his elbow, he let his arm be guided by his friend’s hands. Fabric shifted. His armor scraped against itself. Fabric-covered fingers tugged at something near his neck...and then they were falling. They were flying.
Octavius barely had time to cough, to gulp down desperate breaths, before the rapid rush of wind dragged them along through endless metal tunnels. They hit a wall, bounced, ricocheted. Jedediah was torn roughly away from him - and as he reached out blindly to try and reconnect with the wayward cowboy, a brilliant light began to fill the space. Brighter, brighter, blinding in its brilliance–
“Ockie!”
“Jedediah?!”
“OCTAV–”
Silence.