Oliver and Levi spoke little over the course of their walk home. Glancing at each other. They had been apart for under a week. It didn’t feel longer than that, but it was too long, somehow.

There would be talking to do when they got to the apartment. There wasn't much to hold back, each were the other’s most trusted confidant in the place they found themselves.

A decade between them, but almost a relationship of equals. Still strangers, but they were without a doubt on the same team.

If someone were to ask, had they changed since coming to this world? The answer to that was a bit hard to articulate.

Oliver believed himself to be very much the same man who had entered the world a month prior, having only accentuated his features along the way.

An outsider might have much else to say, but a person is only who they were in the moment. Did it matter all that much, the change?

Levi believed he had become more resilient, or at least resolved to act as such.

He certainly had been holding it all together, but how much pressure he could stand was still anyone's guess. Resolve is only judged after it is acted upon.

Neither of them thought they had changed very significantly, but when they casually made their way through the streets. When they gave the right of way for a man on horseback. When they dipped their heads at elderly passers-by.

They did not look at all foreign.

—

Under the not-so-dark starry sky, they arrived back at the apartment.

Oliver set down the two cases of Levi's stuff, but when he sat down on the couch, the release of weight wasn't the relief he felt the most keenly.

Back on track. That's how he felt, subconsciously. He knew, to an extent, how tomorrow would go.

Who would be where, et cetera.

Levi sat next to him.

Oliver turned his eyes to Levi, “Who were you chatting to? Why would you go chat in some private area… Ever heard of stranger danger?”

Levi bristled, but then became guilty as he responded. “He was a good kind of stranger. He noticed the way I did math and pulled me aside.”

Oliver started, but Levi held up a hand. “It was an old man called Stephen, he is from home… I forgot you were waiting.”

Oliver stared for a little bit.

Of all the reasons…

“Uh, fair enough… I'll have to meet him, where is he staying?”

I feel like I should be reacting more strongly.

Levi nodded, “He's in the student dorm at the Scholarium. I think he wants to meet you too.”

Oliver nodded back, filing that away. “Alright, what were you doing with the little Lady then?”

Levi brightened, “Well, when you were taken away to jail and I stayed at Emilia's place, Emilia's dad took me to the uh, the Lord's house.”

“Why would… he do that?”

What a strange and random thing to do. That man is an odd character.

Levi shook his head knowingly, “Something to do with my age I think… But, yeah, since then I've been going to the Scholarium with Lady Mia.”

Oliver sat forward, keen for a lighter subject. “What kind of stuff do you learn at the Scholarium?”

Levi grinned for the first time in a while, “Well, it’s pretty funny actually. We’ll do practice exercises by copying the teacher, but Mia and I always seem to finish before everyone else…”

—

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Her voice was scratchy, parched. “This is terribly uncomfortable.”

The soldier sat across from the old lady, legs crossed.

She had slept between the trees the night before. Rubbing her back, she gratefully accepted the food, seeming only a little bothered by her circumstances. Maybe he should have brought a pillow.

She saw his suspicious expression and huffed. “I’m assuming you want to hear more about it.”

He looked at her levelly. “I… I can’t really wrap my mind around you being a terrorist, so I’m giving you this chance. Otherwise…”

“Ha! I wouldn’t think you could just turn me in, you’d probably lose your head!”

He frowned, “I can stop bringing you food if you like.”

She rested her elbows on her knees, “Yeah, yeah. Well, what’s confusing about what I said. I’m from another world.”

He sat forward, “What’s not confusing about that?!”

She shrugged, “Shit happens.”

He groaned.

— 2 days until evaluation —

‎

Oliver and Levi had talked well into the night, enough such that Oliver struggled to heave himself off the couch as the sun lasered directly into the back of his eyes.

“Uuughh”

He blinked blearily at the sight of Levi and River sitting across from each other at the breakfast table. How long they’d been awake, Oliver had no clue. He’d explained to Levi about River, but they were seeing each other without a mask between them for the first time.

Not… talking though.

Oliver cleared his throat, “Morning, I see you’ve, uh, met…”

They both looked at him, then behind him. Oliver turned to look out the window, the sun was getting pretty high in the sky.

“Oh, shit. Give me a second and we’ll get moving.”

Levi gave River a look that said. This is what he’s like.

River pressed her lips together.

Levi questioned Oliver loudly as he disappeared into his former room to get his work gear together. “What’s River going to do while we’re out?”

Oliver replied through the door. “Uuuh. Hold on, gimme a sec.”

After a minute, he appeared.

“Alright, this is what I have in mind. I’ve thought a bit about what needs doing when it comes to our ultimate goal of finding a way back.”

He looked the boy and the teenage girl in the eye, “Obviously, we’re in considerable danger, I think both of you understand that. But this recent situation has really… put things in perspective.”

He opened his hand, and closed it tighter.

River shifted her eyes, she asked, “... What did you have in mind?”

Oliver faced her. “We’ve been picking things up as we go. I’ve got a job, a foot in the proverbial door. Levi’s learning things at the Scholarium, magic and the way this society works. But we still know very little. So, how would you feel looking into the history of this world. Great balls of fire, I don’t even know what it’s called.“

Levi raised a hand. “Why’d you say ‘great balls of fire,’ that was so out of place.”

Oliver waved dismissively, “Levi, is there a library in the Scholarium?”

“Not a public one.”

Oliver tsked. “We’ll buy books then. Would you mind studying some alternate world history, River?”

—

River felt very lost – that’s not to say that she was the only one, but she was more new to this environment than the other two, even if she had been in the world for the same amount of time. She felt her only real choice was to go with the flow, go where the current took her.

She wasn’t a fan of the feeling, it’s just what she had been doing. The behavioural pattern bared it’s face in her commitment to the undercover act, but to some extent, that felt more like a personal choice than this. This felt more trivial, like an assigned chore.

She had free will, but she didn’t have any better ideas. She nodded, although begrudgingly.

—

They walked through the streets like a group of stacking dolls.

Large, medium, small. A professional young man heading to work, a masked teenager up to no good, and a bright little boy unknowingly debuting in high society.

They drew eyes, to say the least. Nothing Oliver could do about it, but he wasn’t unaware of how they looked. Their differences somehow cemented their image as a group.

After giving Levi and River some money for food, he had little left. They would save the book shopping for whenever he next got paid. River had wanted to come out from the apartment, though. Who was he to stop her, Levi was doing just fine– and he was nine.

Oliver left Levi at the Scholarium, gave River the key so she could get back into the apartment whenever she wanted, and made his way to the department of finance.

When Oliver entered through the doors of the building, it was not with a smile. He looked pointedly at people he recognised and disliked. They avoided his eyes, now.

He was late, but Emilia didn’t look troubled when he entered. There was little of their usual work left to do, but as it turned out…

Emilia laced her fingers on her desk as she sat forward, “This grunt work is all part of the job description, but there’s always been additional responsibilities.”

Oliver made a blank face.

Emilia smirked, “Don’t worry, there’s a reason they’re not exactly compulsory. But it’s my opinion that it might help me in a couple days’ time.”

Oh right, the performance evaluation. The cause of much of my suffering, a small event blown out of proportion.

Oliver exhaled through his nose, “Alright, so what are we doing?”

Emilia stood, “Officiating some disputes, I volunteered today.”

—

River didn’t buy lunch. She bought flint, steel, and some of the city’s prime export – paper.

You guessed it.

The market street was busier in the daytime, ironically it became better cover than the darkness of night. She folded the paper shakily around a rock as she leaned against the wall, but steadied herself. She wasn’t hurting anybody – if anybody was smart.

She was in an alleyway nearby the target, which saw some but not very much traffic. Not ideal, but she had to be within a certain distance. Discreetly, she fumbled with the flint and steel until the paper-rock had the barest of embers.

Instantly, she was among the masses. Not the only hooded person on the street by a long shot, not suspicious at all if you didn’t have any reason to suspect her. Everybody was going about their own business.

River clutched the rock through her fireproof sleeve, close to her body, out of sight. She gave it room enough to breathe and grow, affecting her not at all, not yet conspicuous in its early stages.

She walked by the wagon, tripped, and kept walking.

People noticed the trip, they didn’t notice the object rolling below the wagon and into the covered boxes stacked on the other side.

Five minutes later, as she was exiting the street, she heard the shouting.

Saw the smoke.

And kept walking.

That wasn’t so hard.