This is a Sons of Thestian / I Belong to the Earth (Unveiled) crossover fan fiction. I DO own half of these characters (Those belonging to the Unveiled Series) but they are used here in a non-canonical sense, in a setting that never happens in the actual series. In addition I identify M.E. Vaughan as the author of all characters and worlds belonging to The Sons of Thestian and The Harmatia Cycle, which I have borrowed for this story.

This takes place a few months after the events in I Belong to the Earth but also pre-events in The Sons of Thestian. Yeah. Go figure the time/space continuum on that one ;)

Story rating T. No known offensive content but potentially more adult themes such as drunkenness.

Madeleine.

M. E. Vaughan

In Other Worlds

It was the knife edge of twilight. That point where the sun had not yet dragged all colour from the sky and the stars – so familiar to him since his earliest childhood – were still the faintest pinpricks rather than the fiercely cold and frosty-bright spears of light they would become. Notameer and Athea were at that fragile point of balance before the dark goddess took ascendance, and he was already drunk. Drunker in fact than he could ever remember being though surely if he could sit...well... lie here contemplating his inebriation, then he must have had blacker nights?

Rufus could not remember how he had managed to get outside the wall. It struck him as deliciously funny that despite the increased security and the regular patrols of the Night Watch, that all one had to do to leave the city was drink enough rot-gut to become too fiendishly clever to get caught and too stupid to remember one's schemes. He laughed until he was forced to roll on his side and cough for breath.

The breeze was pleasant, bringing the scent of wild herbs and the fragrance of a flower he didn't recognise. Something sweet. Rufus leaned back and shut his eyes. It had started with Jionathan of course. When did it not start with the prince? But the lad was getting good at giving Rufus the slip, or Rufus had lost his edge. He didn't much care at the moment. There wasn't much left to care for.

He peered blearily up at the sky again. Then rubbed his eyes and stared. There was something wrong. The sweet, unfamiliar, floral scent was stronger. And the stars...the stars were gone. Rufus could have pointed to any constellation blind folded in the dark. But the celestial gatherings that reigned in the sky now, were not his stars. They were alien. Unknown to him. Rufus reached a hand out skyward. He felt as if the earth were tilting beneath him. Trying to shrug him off as the unfamiliar stars wheeled over his head. He shut his eyes against the dizziness, the swooping sickness roiling in his gut, and somewhere in the middle of trying to fight off the fugue of alcohol and puzzling out where his stars had gone, the ale had its way. Rufus passed out. His last thought was that he was lying on the source of that strange scent. A springy bed of flowering plants.

O_0_O

Lots of people get up early to walk on the moors, especially if it's summer and they have dogs – Arncliffe has quite the population of springer spaniels for a start. And it's not as if people don't camp out on the moors too in good weather. I mean you're mad to do it in the winter but July is fair game. So that had to be who that prone figure was. Just a camper, I told myself. Just someone out camping. Enjoying the stars last night, unfiltered by light pollution. Without a tent. Or a sleeping bag. Wearing what looked like medieval period costume and...oh hell. This was going to be another weird thing wasn't it? I had stopped by the stream when I spotted what I thought was a bundle of clothes and then I'd realised that the bundle had a foot...a hand...a head, with a mop of untidy dark hair,... poking out of the bundle.

For a moment I had a creeping, paranoid sense that somehow it was my fault he was lying there. Which was daft. Guilty conscience, I told myself but my attempt at levity made me wince. I really shouldn't have been doing... what I had been doing. But then that's the trouble with someone – in this case Aunt Mary – telling you that you should leave something well alone; that you're not ready for it; that you lucked out before. Eventually you have to see if you can do it again or just go stark raving mad with wondering.

So I'd come out here - at 5.00am no less - where there should have been no chance of involving anyone else if something just happened to go a teeny bit wrong. I'd behaved responsibly. I shied away from looking too hard at my motivations. It had absolutely nothing to do with being ... well, bored. I took a few steps closer to the young man – I could see it was a man now – and the nearer I got, the more authentic his costume looked, mud splashes, wines stains and everything. Either he was some kind of seriously die-hard method actor or...

Or I've really bolloxed up this time...

I took a deep breath. It was no good. If I had accidentally summoned one of the dead with my experiment, then I was just going to have to fix it. At that moment the man mumbled something and rolled over, pulling his cloak over his face. There was no sense of death-cold. Just the crisp early morning air and the dew soaking into the hems of my jeans. He was alive.

"Eh-excuse m-me?" I said tentatively. "Er...Mr...er s-s-should you be... I mean..." I swallowed and tried again. "Eh-EXCUSE ME?"

I jumped back as the man lurched into a sitting position.

"Wha...?" He peeled his eyes open.

"Er...a-are you o-okay?" I wasn't keen on getting any closer now I'd caught a glimpse of the long knife in his belt. A prop, right? It couldn't be real. It wasn't legal to walk around with a dagger stuffed in your tunic, was it?

The man ignored me. He grasped a clump of heather and pulled a handful of flowers up in front of his face. I watched in bewilderment as he whipped his head from left to right, a growing expression of panic blooming on his face as whatever he was looking for continued to be unlocatable.

"Y-you ruh-really don't belong h-here, do you?" I had that cold, sinking sensation again. Grimly I clung to the hope that he was the victim of an elaborate prank. A stag do or something. He did smell like a brewery – I could tell that from where I was stood.

His gaze snapped up to meet mine. Eyes too blue to be called merely blue, but defied comparison with tired clichés like sapphires or speedwell. He stared at me with a strange mixture of curiosity and repulsion. I noticed idly that he was quite nice looking. A bit skinny maybe, but his features were fine and his eyes were piercing under that disordered, dark tangle of hair. Too bad I'd been ruined on male beauty by cheeky, Irish good looks and gold flecked eyes. Not now, I told myself firmly. Concentrate. I wondered for a moment if he understood English.

"Where have you taken me, witch?" His eyes blazed alarmingly. "Return me on the instant! I have duties and no time for your petty games."

"H-hey! I'm n-not a wuh-witch!" I bristled. That was what you got for stopping to help strangers who'd clearly been out on the razz.

"Then explain how came I to be here?" He looked around again. "This is not Harmatia..."

"N-no it's Y-Yorkshire." My scowl slipped. "Wuh what's Harmatia?"

He merely fixed me with that intense gaze again.

"I c-can't explain huh how you got h-here. B-but it m-might...just m-might be my f-fault..." I hunched my shoulders. "I w-was tr-trying something out and...s-suddenly there you were..."

"You pulled me out of my world," the man said flatly. "Are you sidhe?"

"Wuh what's that? L-like the f-fair folk?"

"Some call them so."

This was becoming too hard to follow and he kept knocking me off topic. "You r-r-really aren't d-d-dead, are you?"

"At this moment in time I am not ruling anything out. But I would say not. No one who is dead could have such a vile headache. The gods are surely not so cruel."

I noticed the empty flagon lying on its side next to him. "Luh looks like it was suh-self inflicted." I tried very hard not to smirk. And failed.

"Yes, well that's beside the point..." he muttered, rubbing dew over his face.

I nibbled my lower lip. Ok it was possible that I had made a tiny – like really tiny – tear in our reality. Would that really have pulled him through? I didn't think so. It hadn't been easy to push resistant spirits through before. What were the chances that I had actually pulled someone living through from another world? I raised a hand, letting my fingers trail over the edges of dozens of realities on the air. Soft like moth wings, stacked like laundry in a cupboard. Maybe I had knocked one over or open or something? No, I decided. I couldn't have done this entirely by myself. So what was the most likely option? I just happened to snag on a stray thread of another reality while someone on that side also happened to be reaching through.

I looked at the man again and sighed. With my stammer it was going to take a really long time to explain my theory. Best start at the beginning.

"I'm E-Emlynn. H-hi." I was trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, after all it wasn't aimed at him. "Luh looks like y-you're having a cr-crappy morning."

I reached out a hand to help him up. He looked at me for moment, then grasped my hand. His skin burned. I flicked a sharp look at him. Under the hangover he didn't look feverish or ill. Which made me wonder exactly how human he was.

He swayed slightly on his feet, rubbing his head. "Rufus. Rufus Merle."

"N-nice to m-meet you." I winced. How incredibly stupid and little-girlish.

"And you, Em-lynn." He peered at me hopefully. "What now? Are you a magic wielder?"

"A w-what? Er n-no. I er j-just t-talk to the d-dead." No need to give him the full supernatural CV right now.

"Hmm..." Was that a faint hint of disapproval in his expression? Never mind. We were wasting time. I cringed when I thought of the tongue-lashing I was going to get from Mrs Cranford when I explained what I'd been up to but there was no help for it.

"I th-think you n-need tea. Or c-coffee. M-maybe breakfast. Th-then we need to work out what h-happened so we can suh-send you back."

"A sound plan thus far."

"Come on," I sighed. "W-we n-need Aunt M-Mary." I took hold of his sleeve and pulled him into a stumbling, unco-ordinated walk across the heath.

I was in so much trouble.

"Emlynn?"

"Hmm?"

"While I applaud this plan – especially the breakfast part – has it occurred to you that the gods may have sent me here for a reason?"

I gulped and walked faster.

So much trouble.