Work Text:
“You are telling me that you can do magic? And this baby dragon is your pet?”
Neil couldn’t believe he was asking these questions, maybe he hit his head too hard and now was hallucinating because it just can’t be real.
***
He woke up to the feeling of something wet touching his face. His whole body froze in fear, did Lola find a new way of torturing him? But it didn’t hurt, at least not yet. His thoughts got interrupted when something heavy jumped on him and Neil’s eyes flew open. Breathing heavily he threw the thing away and quickly stood up, a huge mistake on his part. He got dizzy, head spinning like crazy, his ribs hurt, probably broken. His legs gave up and he fell to his knees.
“Oh, he is awake,” said a voice. “King, I told you to stay away from the body, look at this guy, he is clearly feral and probably insane.”
Neil was too shaken to understand what was going on, he barely managed to lift his head and look in the direction of a voice.
He saw a man, rather short one, with blond curly hair and pensive golden eyes. Maybe he’s got a concussion because it seemed like the stranger wore a peculiar pointy hat with dangling mushrooms and weird flowers, his shirt and trousers were covered in sparkling dust and tiny vines were wrapped around his gloved hands. The stranger stood 5 feet away from Neil, leaning on his wooden stick.
“What…,” Neil tried saying, but got interrupted by heavy coughing, his throat was hoarse. He swallowed the little saliva he had left and tried one more time. “Who are you?”
The man tilted his head and stared at Neil even more intensively.
“So he speaks, wonderful. But I think we should start with you. Where did you come from?”
Stranger pointed his stick at Neil and started mumbling something incoherent. Neil realized he didn’t know this language. The end of the stick started sparkling and a fist size fire ball appeared seemingly out of nowhere, it got dangerously close to Neil’s face.
Neil was too stunned to speak. And that rarely happens. Meanwhile the stranger stepped closer to him and lifted his hand, Neil instinctively flinched and the guy immediately put his hand away.
“I won’t ask again,” was all he said.
Neil closed his eyes and tried to calm down, counting to 10 in his head. When his heart rate slowed down he slowly lifted his gaze to look at the man in front of him once again. He has to start thinking.
“I don’t understand your question. And I have no idea where I am right now. So if you want answers you better start giving me some information about this place.”
One day Neil will learn how to filter his words in dangerous situations, if he survives today.
The man took a careful look at Neil, like he was examining a newly discovered creature, then made a gesture with his right hand and suddenly something resembling a flying lizard appeared in front of him and swallowed the fire ball.
Neil froze for a second time in a few minutes.
“What the hell is that?” he managed to whisper. The flying thing opened its mouth and Neil saw dozens of sharp teeth. Just as fast the creature closed its mouth and flew to sit on the stranger’s lifted arm.
While Neil was struggling to control his astonishment, the man opposite him was studying his reaction. Then, as if coming to some sort of conclusion, he patted the creature’s head and stepped away from Neil.
“You don’t know who King is and your clothes look weird, your hair smells unnatural too, so i guess you are not from this world,” declared the man in the same calm voice like he didn't just set this monster on Neil.
And then his words suddenly reached Neil. ‘Not from this world’ .
Neil looked around. He was in the middle of a forest, everything looked pretty normal but upon taking a closer look Neil realized that the trees and flowers surrounding him were weird. He was not a botanist but after traveling around the world for years and having at least basic education he knew that these plants were not normal. He had never seen such flowers and berries. Then something shifted in the bushes and Neil saw a small white fur, it looked like a typical rabbit but then the whole body showed up and Neil saw its long tail and pointy ears, and its eyes were unnaturally purple.
Swallowing a lump Neil turned his head toward the only other human in this forest.
“What is this place?”
“Do you have a name?” asked the stranger instead.
Neil contemplated for a few seconds, was it safe for him to give his new but very important name? Is there a chance of his father’s people finding him here?
“Does the world you came from not have a concept of names or what?” added the man with a slight irritation in his voice.
“I’m Neil..Josten,” he begrudgingly admitted.
The stranger just hummed in acceptance and pointed at the creature that now moved to sit on his shoulder.
“This is King, he is a dragon. Do you know what a dragon is?”
A dragon…a mythical creature that he only ever saw in a couple of old movies his mother allowed him to watch.
“Dragons are not real, they only exist in fantasy stories.” Belatedly Neil realized how stupid this sentence sounded, considering he was looking at a dragon with his own eyes. He had all the features of a typical fairy tale dragon.
“Fantasy, you say,” the stranger stretched out the words thoughtfully. He inspected Neil with his eyes once again and then said: “You must be from Earth.”
Neil could only nod to that.
“Well I don't have all day, and since you are from Earth you pose no danger to me or my people, so follow me and I'll explain everything. You're not the first weirdo from that place here.”
The man turned around and headed deeper into the forest expecting Neil to silently follow him. And Neil, not seeing any other better options, went with him.
“Andrew,” the stranger suddenly said, “that’s my name.”
***
In silence they reached a small meadow with a wooden house in the middle. It looked like a picture from a children's story book Neil once saw in the library when he was 10. Flowers were spread across the meadow and there was a little pond near the house with plants resembling water lilies. It looked peaceful, and Neil against his will relaxed.
He got so distracted looking around and enjoying the view that he didn't notice Andrew entering the house, so Neil quickly followed him inside. The smell of freshly baked bread filled his lungs, stomach grumbling unexpectedly. He didn’t remember the last time he ate something.
Andrew cast a glance at him and pointed to the table.
“Sit, I'll get you something to eat,” he ordered. “And don't you dare touch anything here.” Then he opened a wooden door to another room and disappeared.
Neil did as he was told, taking a place near the window and looking around. It was a nice house, even Neil who never had a place he could call home knew that this place was loved and cared for. The floor was covered with a fuzzy carpet, there was a sofa with lots of pillows in the corner of a room and lots and lots of cupboards, bookshelves and cabinets. Neil was tempted to take a look inside but Andrew’s murderous glare prevented him from doing something spontaneous.
The door opened, and Andrew appeared without his hat and vines, instead he was holding a tray with a cup of something steamy, a bowl of soup and fresh bread. Neil felt his mouth watering.
“Eat, and we’ll talk after you are done and look like a person and not a dead man walking,” Andrew put a tray in front of Neil and sat opposite him with a thick book in hands. The dragon, about whom Neil had already forgotten, suddenly appeared out of the air and curled himself in Andrew’s legs.
Neil, not used to savoring the meal, quickly finished everything offered to him and with a full stomach stared at Andrew.
“Don’t blame my cooking for your indigestion later on,” he remarked and put away the book he was reading.
“As you have hopefully already understood, you are not on Earth. We call this place Verona and you are currently in Mage’s Lands. To make it simpler for you, magic is real here. All stories you read about dragons, witches, fairies and other creatures are real. We don't have all your myths collected here in Verona, but most of them do exist in other places. Verona is a land of mages and dragons and you have already encountered one.” Andrew stopped his monologue as if giving Neil time to process everything.
Neil had so many questions, but it would be better to start with something more simple.
“So that means you are a Mage?” he asked.
“Mage, witch, warlock, choose whatever sounds better to you. We don’t have a difference between all these names here. We are just humans.” Andrew shrugged and continued staring at Neil.
“So how did I end up here? Did I die?” he finally asked.
It was the only logical (in these circumstances) conclusion he could come up with. He heard about stories where people traveled from their modern world to a fantasy land of books and movies. And the reason for traveling was death most of the time. Besides his last memory was of Lola, he doubted he survived it.
“That’s nonsense. When you die, you die. You don’t travel to a different world and get a second chance in life. What kind of stories does your world have? Ridiculous!”
It looked like Andrew was seriously annoyed by Neil’s question. But Neil couldn’t understand his reaction. What other reason for his sudden relocation there could be?
“I don’t know universal reasons or rules for traveling between different worlds. The only other traveler we had here said he saw a portal and since he is a dumb idiot he stepped into it, he’s been bothering me for the last 3 years already,” Andrew sighed and rubbed his forehead.
“Wait, you are telling me I'm stuck here?”
All previous thoughts and questions disappeared out of his mind. His vision got blurry, breath more rapid and hands shaking. No, it can’t be real. What am I supposed to do now? What about my father? And Lola?
“Neil”, he heard. “Neil, snap out of it. You are in Verona with me, Andrew.”
“Come on, take a deep breath..one, inhale…two, exhale…three, inhale, yes good follow me…four…”
Neil came to his senses. He was sitting on the floor, his hands ripping his hair out, but Andrew’s voice was unexpectedly soothing and Neil managed to let go of his hair and look up. Andrew was crouching in front of Neil, but he didn’t touch him and King was flying in circles around them.
Andrew noticed that Neil was back to the real world and sat on the floor.
“Why am I so lucky for pretty outlanders with issues?” he murmured to himself.
Then he stood up and ran his hand over his face.
“I’ll get you some water and then lead you to this guy I just told you about. He’s annoying, but since you are from the same place it will be easier for him to explain everything to you.”
Neil, not allowing his voice to be loud, whispered: “And then what? Where should I go?”
The thought of getting stuck here scared him, but returning to Earth felt even more nerve wracking. He didn't think he had any strength left to continue running away from his father’s men. But his desperate will to survive did not allow him to give up on living.
“I have a spare room, it belonged to my brother. You could stay there for some time. And when you are ready, you can decide what to do then. There’s also always an option of finding a way to return. Maybe it does exist, who knows. But leave it for later. Let me take a few things and we’ll get going.”
Andrew turned around and went to another room, probably his bedroom. Neil was left standing in the middle of a now empty room, and for some reason, his anxiety subsided.
Andrew said earlier that you don't get a second chance in life, but maybe he was wrong.