THE KEEPER: Tales from the Fringes of Reality. Episode 7 – Welcome to Hollow.
THE KEEPER: Give me the next one please Minerva?
Min. The next one please.
MINERVA: (violin plucking)
Minerva I really need to get back to work and I know we still have a few people out of place so if you could just–
MINERVA: (violin plucking)
THE KEEPER: I know, I know. Work life balance and whatnot I just… Maybe this one will clue me in on what I need to do to get the wanderer home. Or maybe it will be them and I can get them home. Either way I just… I need to keep working, Minerva. People are missing from their realities, who am I to rest while that’s still the case?
MINERVA: (violin plucking)
THE KEEPER: …I’ll stop for a break after this one, Min, I promise. Just… I’ve gotta keep going for now, okay?
MINERVA: (violin plucking)
THE KEEPER: Thank you, Minerva, I appreciate it. Let’s take a look and give you another story, shall we? Who’s memory file do we have right now? Benjamin Weathers, ze/zir, from reality 370. Alright, Mx. Weathers, let’s figure out where you fell to, shall we?
Ben’s magic felt a bit different in zir chest when ze awoke. The magic was still there, of course it was, but instead of coursing like fire through zir veins, the magic billowed like the wind instead. There was no burning heat ready to be called upon or smoldering rage to be displayed at Ben’s fingertips; instead, ze found a calm, gentle magic that wrapped around zir like a hug and pulled zir close in a loving embrace.
This was the first sign that something was wrong.
For all of zir life, Ben had felt the heat of fire in zir soul and used that heat to power zirself, used it to cast magic and manifest brilliant and beautiful displays across the sky. Ze had made a life as a pyrotechnic, casting bright and vibrant displays of magic that shined even across the brightest skies. Without the familiar feeling of zir fire thrumming through zirself, ze didn’t know how ze was going to do zir job. Looking around, Ben realized that ze had bigger problems, though.
This was not zir home. Zir home was painted a calm green, used to help quell the fire that surged through zir at every moment of zir life. The room ze awoke in was a dark, burnt orange that reminded zir of zir usual magic and the way it burst against zir skin, but ze didn’t feel that magic right now. What ze felt was…
I wonder, wanderer, did you have magic where you were from? I suppose you would still have magic here if you did, I mean, this is the place closest to the source of all magic. If I knew that, I could at least narrow the field some. It’ll be different to try and cast here, I’m sure, but… Do you want to try? You’ll have to feel for the plane of magic first, which might take some time to recenter yourself but maybe… Would you be open to trying that? Trying to call the magic to yourself and casting for me? If you were a caster, of course, I don’t want to assume… You’re smiling! You were a caster! Alright, wanderer, try calling the magic to you while I work on this job and maybe that’ll give us some clues as to where you were from. Now, where was I… Oh! Here we go.
What ze felt was a different kind of burning, like magic trying to make itself stronger by playing off the color. Where zir green cooled the fire, this orange ignited the wind that was dancing in zir veins. Ben reached up, curious, and cast, sending the magic from within zir very being out into the air and creating a wave of colored wind that wrapped around zir. It wasn’t the pyrotechnics ze was used to, but it was still beautiful and vibrant and something ze could work with.
Ben got out of bed, finding clothes that were much more flowy than the sturdy jeans ze was used to wearing. “This may as well be happening,” ze muttered as ze pulled on a loose fitting pair of pants and tunic like shirt. “I’ll have to remember to return these clothes to… whoever actually lives here.”
The thing about magic, wanderer, is it does make it a little easier to believe in worlds other than your own. Or maybe I’m just projecting because I can see all of the worlds in front of me, I’m not sure, but the amount of magic users I’ve had who simply accept that they must be somewhere else is… It’s almost comforting, really. To know that they’re not terrified out of their minds to wake up somewhere else. I guess it helps when you can still feel magic in your body, even if it’s not necessarily the magic you’re used to feeling. When magic users fall into other magical realities, they tend to be pretty calm about it. There’s comfort in magic, a comfort that I think you know given the fact that you’re trying to cast right now, but I digress.
As Ben exited the bedroom, ze found that the house was empty save for a surprisingly large array of houseplants. “Whoever lives here must be some kind of gardener…”
“Why yes! I am indeed!” a voice called from behind zir. “And you’re not from here, are you?”
The person standing behind zir was short, much shorter than ze was. They wore the same kind of flowy clothes that ze was wearing, though it almost seemed to engulf the person whole. Ben couldn’t help but notice how calm they seemed about finding zir in their house, as if they were used to this kind of thing happening and had grown to expect it. “What’s your name, stranger? And what kind of magic are you used to?”
“I’m, um… I’m Benjamin. Ze/zir. Fire magic usually but it feels… different here.”
The person whose home ze had woken up in nodded enthusiastically, reaching for a notebook behind one of their houseplants and jotting down scribbles in a language Ben wasn’t quite familiar with. “It’s nice to meet you, Benjamin. I’m Willafred, but you can call me Willa! He/him works lovely for me today, but I’m prone to changing that so I’ll let you know if that comes to pass. You said your magic is usually fire, is that right? What does it feel like here? Hollow has a way of messing with people’s magic.”
Ben blinked once. And then again. And then again, staring at Willa as he stared right back at zir, an eager smile on his face. “Has this… has this happened before?”
“Not to me! But it has happened to a couple folks around Hollow and while they usually forget, I’ve been taking notes! Folks are usually happier not to know about the notes, but it’s interesting to me! We keep getting people from other places with magic in their bones that doesn’t quite line up with Hollow. Our magic is often the gentler sort, as opposed to the harsher, more powerful magic of Clearing. Clearing is on the other side of the border, by the way, so if you wanted to get your magic back to that fire you’re used to, you’ll probably have to head there. That’s if you’re sticking around, at least, most of the folks who show up in Hollow seem to disappear after a day or two.”
Ben took a moment to try and wrap zir head around everything Willa just said. “If everyone else forgets, why don’t you?”
“No idea!” Willa replied brightly, pulling out his notebook and showing Ben all of the notes scribbled down inside. Ben couldn’t read them, but judging by the amount of pages filled in, ze guess that it had to have happened at least five times now. “I think something in Hollow wants me to remember these people have been here. That people have fallen into Hollow, maybe even fallen in love with Hollow, and have been pulled away before they could truly settle. I don’t know how or why this happens, but I’m grateful to remember! It means I can try to figure out where these folks are coming from and maybe someday I’ll be able to figure out how to get them home. At least I would be able to say goodbye to them this way.”
It struck Ben in that moment that Willa had probably become fast friends with whomever else ended up in a situation like ze had, waking up in an unfamiliar bed in Hollow with a different magic bubbling beneath their skin. Ze already liked Willa quite a lot, and the thought of having to leave without saying goodbye to him was already causing the slight stirring of pain in zir chest. Ben could feel zir face falling, the thought of belonging in a place like Hollow with a friend like Willa being taken from zir just as quickly as the opportunity had entered.
“But enough about that, Benjamin! I don’t want you to be worried about goodbyes and whatnot, okay? Not when you’ve fallen into my house in my Hollow. Just… If you wouldn’t mind spending the time with me, I’d love to make some actual progress on this project. Maybe learn a bit about how your magic is now and maybe teach you a bit about how to use it?”
The thought of simply abandoning Willa to his work and trying to make zir own way around Hollow had never occurred to Ben, so ze nodded, quietly confiding in Willa that ze couldn’t read his notes. “It doesn’t look like any language I’ve ever seen.”
“Well it’s the language both of us are speaking, isn’t it?” Willa asked, tilting his head to the side in a way that reminded Ben of zir wyvern Hyacinth. “That’s something I’ll have to note down for sure. Never did end up showing those other folks my notes, but judging by this I bet they probably couldn’t read them either. Fascinating… I wonder why we can talk but written language is a no.”
I… I actually don’t know the answer to that one, wanderer. It honestly never crossed my mind why this would be possible. I knew we had a language filter here on the fringes, and I guess we must have one out in reality too? I’ll add this to the list of things to ask Alasdair and Guillermo when I get a chance, I suppose… Usually I’d just message them but they haven’t been replying and it’s becoming almost impossible to even bother reaching out. That’s not important now, though. Min, can you start running a check for Hollow while I finish up our story? Thanks dear.
The first thing Willa asked zir to do was cast. “Any spell, any feeling, anything in you that’ll create magic. You said it’s usually fire, I want to see what it becomes here now that you’re in Hollow.”
Ben reached down into their soul the same way ze had that morning, grasping at the new magic that had taken the place of zir fire. Fire, for Ben, had always felt like an embrace. Like zir mother holding zir close and whispering reassurances into Ben’s hair, like Hyacinth curled up in zir lap, gently digging her claws into zir jeans. This magic, the wind that had flowed from zir this morning, felt like falling. It felt like being thrown over the ledge knowing someone would be there to catch you, like running to the edge of the waterfall to jump in after zir friends. It felt distinctively familiar in every way it felt unfamiliar.
The wind that left Ben’s fingertips looked different this time. It was still colorful, still bursting to life from zir outstretched hands, but this time it was also gentler, like a summer breeze rather than a winter storm. It seemed that the color of the room had given zir magic strength, just like the color of zir room at home helped give it stability.
“It’s beautiful,” Willa breathed out as the wind danced around his head, leaving the slightest streaks of color in his hair. “Do you do this with fire as well back where you’re from?”
“I do.” Ben called the magic back down to zir, feeling it lap like waves at zir soul. Zir bones felt lighter, freer than they had when fire had coursed through them. “I… I make fireworks. Never really liked the destructive nature of fire so I always tried to show people that it could be beautiful.”
Willa nodded sagely, gingerly taking one of Ben’s hands into his and tracing the lines of zir palm. “People often think that the powers in Hollow can’t be destructive because they’re a bit weaker and a bit more on the lighter end of nature. But they can hurt just the same as magic in Clearing. I was a bit worried that your power was going to burst from you and hurt the plants but… But you’re a creator, aren’t you, Benjamin? You heal, not through traditional means, but through your care and devotion to your art. I think that’s why Hollow called to you. It always tries to seek out the healers living in places where they don’t know they can heal.”
Very few people Ben had known in zir life had ever seen the beauty that could come with fire, and yet this stranger that ze had met this morning had laid out zir entire life and view of magic as if he had known zir all along. Ze felt drawn to Willa, drawn to Hollow, drawn to making this place zir home and…
And ze couldn’t.
Willa had said that people who fell into Hollow only ever stayed a couple days before disappearing again. From the way he said it, it seemed like he believed that they went back home. And while Ben had liked zir life just fine, seeing what ze could do in Hollow made zir want to stay. Made zir ache to live in this place, to have a friend like Willa, to… To belong to a place that felt like ze belonged in.
“Am I going to forget you?” Ben asked, feeling the weight of the world collapsing in on zir shoulders. “Am I going to forget this place and… and all that you’ve taught me in these few short moments?”
Willa didn’t quite look at zir when he answered. “It’s… hard to say. I know the folks around Hollow always forgot, but I’ve never been able to ask the folks on the other end of it. By all rights, I should forget this too, but I don’t want to. It feels like we’re meant to know each other, to be friends. Don’t you think? I’ve been studying the people who appear and disappear from Hollow for a little while now and… And the fact that you appeared in my house has to mean something. There’s no way it doesn’t. I don’t want to forget you or for you to forget me, but…”
“I suppose we don’t get to decide.”
“We really don’t.”
…Minerva, what’s the status on your search for Hollow?
MINERVA: (violin plucking)
THE KEEPER: Just a handful for once, huh. How many of those have repeat hits in our files?
MINERVA: (violin plucking)
THE KEEPER: Search that one for a Willafred, please? …Yeah, that’s the one. 44 Y. You see Benjamin Weathers’ file in there, right? Leave it for a sec, Min, I… I need to think something through.
Would you believe that I’ve never had a case like this before? Usually people are scared or uncomfortable or have something tying them back home that they can’t live without. But this… Fate isn’t– Well, it’s complicated, but fate isn’t really a thing, wanderer. Not in the way most people would understand it. Alexandria didn’t write the stories of every person who has ever and will ever live in some big book somewhere, people in reality aren’t following some prewritten destiny that they believe they are fated to follow. People make their own choices, find their own way, build their own lives. Alexandria always wanted it to be like that, always wanted people to have the chance to create and build life in the way she had.
This means that whatever feeling Ben and Willa were having… it just doesn’t exist. They weren’t meant to meet each other, at least, I don’t think they were? There are– Marigold has a whole thing, we can talk about it later, but they don’t have that connection. And even then that connection only blooms between people who have met, it doesn’t occur between people who were existing in different realities. They aren’t tied in anyway and yet they feel like they are and…
And isn’t that enough?
Minerva, can you pull up the file for reality 370 please? And do a search for Hyacinth the Wyvern. You got her?
MINERVA: (violin plucking)
THE KEEPER: Great, I’m going to move her to 44 Y.
MINERVA: (violin plucking)
THE KEEPER: Ben… Ze wants to stay. And Willa wants zir there. Gods, Alexandria and Guillermo will probably kill me, but– I’m not taking zir from a place that ze wants to be. I’ll monitor the situation, I promise, but for now… For now ze should stay. It’s what ze wants. Let’s get Hyacinth moved so ze has zir friend. Zir parents are gone right? No remaining family?
MINERVA: (violin plucking)
THE KEEPER: Good. Not much we have to do in terms of memory alteration.
I’ve… I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s always been my job to put people back and usually that’s what they want but… But ze didn’t. Ze wanted to stay, felt more at home there than ze had in the entire life ze lived in zir own reality. I don’t want to destroy zir comfort, not when ze finally found it.
Plus, who knows. Maybe this’ll get me some messages back from the Council for once. If they call to reprimand me, then that means I’ll be able to tell them about you and get you home. Min, keep the call lines open, okay? And wake me if any come through. I’m gonna go take a nap.
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