Synchronicity

Chapter One: Serendipity

As the seasons changed from a sunny, green summer to the crisp, cool air of autumn, the Oxenstierna siblings traveled to London. Though she had never been to the large city before, Linnea did not feel more than the slightest hint of excitement; she had always preferred the quiet atmosphere of their family's home in the countryside to the raucous stories her brother, Mathias, told about his many visits to the city.

Unfortunately, Linnea did not have a say in the matter of her travel to London. As her mother often made a point of reminding her, Linnea could be considered an old maid in certain social circles; twenty-four years old, and with no marriage prospects. As such, Mr. and Mrs. Oxenstierna had insisted that Linnea accompany her brother to London so that she could officially meet and mingle with the most important members of London high society, forming close acquaintances with rising influential powerhouses, and hopefully snagging herself a husband in the bargain.

Mrs. Oxenstierna was confident that Linnea would have little trouble finding a respectable man to marry; though her daughter was not a skilled conversationalist, she was beautiful, accomplished, and, most importantly, wealthy. Linnea, however, had no such designs for her time in the city. She had little interest in attending balls and holding dull, superficial conversation with virtual strangers, and even less interest in the prospect of finding a husband. Entering into a marriage would change many things in her life, and she was already quite content with things the way they were. She was allowed a great deal of freedom at their family home in the countryside, and did not relish the idea of giving up the life she was accustomed to by joining the household of somebody she had never even spoken to before.

The idea that her husband would be a stranger was also an unwelcome one. A stranger who would be able to exert a great deal of control over her daily life.

Linnea resolved to do nothing to make holding a conversation with her a more pleasant activity.

Her time in town would, at best, merely tolerable, seeing as the faster pace of city life was thoroughly unappealing to her. It wouldn't be entirely intolerable, because their family's close friends, the Bondeviks, would also be in town. Though he often denied having any feelings of fondness for her brother, Lukas Bondevik tended to keep Mathias occupied often enough so that living in the same house with the man would not drive her completely up the wall. Emilia Bondevik, Lukas' younger sister, though several years younger than Linnea, was her closest friend.

Once the siblings had settled into their family's small, but elegantly decorated London home, invitations began arriving, written on expensive paper that hadn't been common in the countryside. It seemed that Mathias did indeed have some friends of the respectable variety who were quite interested in meeting his mysterious younger sister. Linnea could not admit to possessing quite the same enthusiasm (or any enthusiasm at all), but resigned herself to attending the social events of the upcoming weeks.

Today had been spent in the quiet company of Miss Emilia, since their brothers had spent the day together calling upon mutual acquaintances and attending to business matters, and Linnea had no energy or interest to accompany them. She would much rather have been back at their family's home in the country, reading or studying languages, practicing music or drawing the portrait of anyone in the household who would sit still for long enough (therefore: anyone but Mathias). Sometimes, she would even be able to sneak out into the toolshed on their property (convincing anyone who saw her to quickly forget about the matter with a well-placed glower) and spend a few hours carving little figurines out of wood. Carpentry was something she thought she might have an interest in, if it were an activity that well-bred young ladies like herself were allowed to partake in. It was not something that she would be able to get away with here in the city, and certainly not after she had married her new husband, she thought bitterly.

Emilia's company was well-appreciated in this new setting. The two ladies understood each other well after long years of acquaintance; Emilia knew well Linnea's discomfort in holding shallow conversation and so only occasionally ventured to bring up conversation on topics of interest to them both, leaving them sitting together in comfortable, companionable silence much of the time. In turn, Linnea understood how to read the subtle emotions behind Emilia's composed exterior that escaped notice by most people they encountered. Today, Emilia's hair was done up in a fanciful braid, something that Linnea had never allowed done to her hair. Any maids that tried were quickly turned away.

Their companionable atmosphere was interrupted by a soft knock at the front door.

A moment later, the door to their sitting room was pushed open slightly, "Mr. Bondevik is waiting in the downstairs sitting room," the maid said, standing at the door for a moment before quickly departing.

"I suppose he has come to collect me," Emilia said, without inflection of any sort, her face also remaining passive and still.

"'ll walk y' down," Linnea offered shortly, putting a page marker in her book and setting it on a side table before accompanying Emilia downstairs, their skirts brushing against the wood of the stairs.

Lukas sat waiting on an elegant sofa in the sitting room, his posture straight and composed. He did not look out of place in the impeccably decorated waiting area.

"Dearest brother," Emilia greeted him, with only the slightest hint of insincerity evident in her voice to those who knew her well. Linnea had a distinct memory of Lukas trying to convince a younger Emilia to call him 'dearest brother' and not just 'Lukas'.

Lukas didn't react to her tone, only greeted both of them in kind.

"Where's M'th'is?" Linnea asked. The two of them had spent the day together, so it was odd that her brother had not also returned. She could only imagine the catastrophes he could instigate in town, unsupervised.

"I have not seen him," Lukas answered, following a small moment of confused hesitation, "He's not here?"

Linnea shook her head, as Emilia intoned, "No."

"He did not meet me in town as we had planned," Lukas explained, "So I went about my appointments myself."

"This isn't good," Emilia said, her voice calm, her violet eyes not. The girl had a talent for understatement.

"No," Lukas said, shaking his head. His eyes too betrayed a worried urgency that the rest of his demeanor did not. A family trait, perhaps, or something learned, "I have an idea of where he might be." He turned and started for the door again.

Linnea didn't know much about the criminal activities of London, but of the things she did know, none of it was good.

"'ll get m' coat," Linnea said, hurrying back up the stairs, hitching up her heavy skirts to move quicker.

"No," came Lukas's firm voice from by the front door and followed her up the stairs.

"He's m' broth'r," Linnea retorted, turning on the steps to stare back down at him.

"It is not a proper place for a lady to go, Miss Linnea."

"Won't b' a lady, th'n," she turned and rushed as quickly as she could up to her brother's room, Lukas and Emilia quick on her heels.

The carriage ride was silent, not awkwardly so, but still tense. Lukas stared out the window at the darkened streets of the city as they rolled by, his eyes fixed on the blackened sky. He was worried, Linnea knew, though she also knew he would deny it if asked, so she said nothing and stared at the sky as well.

She had dressed herself in some of Mathias's spare clothes, since they were of a similar height. Linnea had worried that her ample figure would not be well concealed by the change in clothing – a concern that had been confirmed by a dry remark from Emilia – but Lukas had simply told her to find the largest coat she could and to glare at anyone who gave her a second glance.

Neither of them had been keen on wasting time.

They exited the carriage, Linnea checking to ensure all of her long hair was pinned beneath the hat she wore and closing the long, bulky blue coat around her body. Shortly after, the two of them slipped past a shabby, nondescript storefront into what turned out to be a lively bar. The air was murky and filled with tobacco smoke, the stench of beer, and sweat. The room was packed, rowdy with the laughter and yelling of drunken patrons from all walks of life. Men of all ages, dressed in varying degrees of scruffiness, drank, laughed, and fought together - some flirted with young women who were very unlike the refined society ladies she was used to socializing with, their makeup stronger, with more pinks, and they held themselves very differently than how she had always been taught to. Others brawled sloppily wherever they could find open floor space, throwing punches and kicks with arms trained only through experience. She studied the room and its occupants curiously, having never been in a place anything like this before, but Lukas strode purposefully towards another seedy-looking doorway at the back. Linnea hurried to follow him, glaring at the uncoordinated drunks who crossed her path and adjusting the dark blue coat.

They exited the building onto a narrow alleyway filled with trash and a stray cat. Winding their way down a rickety staircase, they entered a very different place – here was eerily quiet compared to the liveliness they had just left, at least until Lukas pushed open another door. The air was slightly clearer in the new room they had entered, but it was just as loud. Most of the people here were gathered, cheering and yelling, in the center of the room. Linnea had a bad feeling about whatever it was they were gathering around, judging by the way Lukas's demeanor subtly darkened as he started to push his way through the crowd.

It turned out that the crowd was pressed up against a makeshift ring-shaped barricade constructed out of what looked like bits of broken furniture and scrap lumber – a fighting ring. The loser of the previous match was lifted out of the ring as the short blond announcer lifted the winner's hand aloft, a comical sight, considering that the fighter was the taller of the two, and the winner, a middle-eastern man, by the looks of him, had to bend over slightly.

"Our champion, Sadiq Adnan!" he shouted as sections of the crowd burst into applause. Linnea noticed that his voice was pitched slightly too high for a man, but thought little of it for the moment, "The next challenger is fighting to uphold the reputation of a lovely young lady," he crossed over to the crowd and kissed the hand of a woman with long, loose brown hair and a small scar on her forehead, "Please welcome… Well, I didn't catch his name, but we'll call him the Tulip Crusader."

"You don't know a damn thing about tulips," slurred the challenger, jumping clumsily into the ring.

The challenger was Mathias, and he looked to be quite drunk.

Somehow, Linnea wasn't very surprised, but she still had to suppress the urge to bury her face in her hands and groan.

"Good luck, Tulip Crusader!"

Almost immediately, Mathias took a couple of heavy punches to the chest and stumbled backwards. His arms came up to block the next few blows, but he was still losing ground, being driven towards the barricade. The Turk had advantages in speed, coordination, and sobriety; jeers were beginning to come from the crowd, particularly those who had bet money on him, as the odds did not look good. Mathias seemed to have a natural affinity for pissing people off, and it was a dangerous quality to have in the situations that he seemed to gravitate towards.

Linnea frowned as he took a heavy punch to the jaw and toppled back against the barricade and the young woman whose expertise regarding tulips had been called into question – she ran a hand over Mathias's shoulders, her hands remaining on his shoulders for a bit longer than was strictly necessary, and helped him back up. Lukas's posture stiffened, possibly out of disapproval, though Linnea suspected there was another emotion in the mix. She didn't say anything; what was there to say? But, as much as she wished her brother would get some sense smacked into him one day, she wasn't very partial to the idea of watching his brains get knocked out all over the floor.

Setting a foot on what might have once been part of a table leg, Linnea climbed up and over the barrier, jumping down into the ring. A tug at the back of her coat indicated that Lukas might have tried to stop her, but the suddenness of her movement allowed her to slip easily from his grip. She marveled momentarily at the ease and range of movement that wearing men's clothes allowed her compared to her usual layers upon layers of heavy fabric - sometimes she envied the simple freedoms that she as a woman missed out on - and stalked over to where the Turk was currently throwing punches at her brother.

A grip at her arm caused her to slow and turn briefly; it was the little announcer. Confused, excited shouts rang through the crowd as Linnea stared down at the shorter blond, her stern sea-blue eyes meeting with wide violet. Oh. So that was why the announcer's voice had seemed strange earlier – she was a woman, too. Now that she was close, Linnea could see some of the subtler details: the roundness of her face, the quick delicacy of her movements, and something about the way she was looking up at Linnea with a touch of raw emotion in those eyes. Was it worry? Concern? Something completely different? She was a pretty little thing, and had Linnea not been rushing off to save her idiot brother she may have stared just a little longer.

Whatever it was in the little announcer's eyes, it was sweet, but Linnea had no time to ponder upon it right now. Lukas was giving her a look over the barricade that she interpreted as bewildered fury, and she knew she had to get Mathias out of there before someone else jumped in to stop her. She broke out of the announcer's grip easily and made her way to the fighters, reaching out to push them apart.

Wham.

The Turk's fist connected with her shoulder, sending her stumbling into Mathias, which, with as drunk as he was, knocked both of them over onto the floor. He was drawing back a fist to strike again, but Linnea steadied herself to take it, holding her ground protectively over her brother. She waited for the impact from the next punch, closing her eyes as though somehow that could protect her from the pain.

The next punch never landed. Even after she waited, counting silently, it never landed. When she looked up from her place against the ground, she saw the little announcer had grabbed the other fighter's raised arm and was pulling him away. "Fight's over!" she shouted to the room, "Victory remains with our champion!"

Though there was some grumbling from the patrons who were expecting a good fight, and loud groaning from those who had bet and lost, the little announcer held firm on her conviction. A silver haired man frowned at her and she pretended not to notice.

Linnea wasted no time in dragging Mathias over to where Lukas waited by the barrier. "What were you thinking?" he asked as he helped lift Mathias out of the ring. She didn't answer.

The carriage ride back home was almost as quiet as the one to the underground bar had been. The only difference was that now Mathias was here, he was drunk, and he had discovered a lock of hair that had dislodged itself from under Linnea's hat, and was currently batting at it as a cat might. And he was humming. There were days that she wondered why in the world her parents ever trusted her brother, especially on his own.

Lukas's eyes were fixed, not out of the carriage window as before, but upon Mathias's bruised and disheveled figure.

"You are a disgrace to your family's name," he stated, clearly and coldly, "Keeping such company."

Mathias stopped humming for a moment to grin crookedly back, "You keep company with me," he reached over and ran bare fingertips down Lukas's cheek, "Is that not also a disgrace to your family's name, Lukey?"

Lukas's gloved hand swatted Mathias's away. "Then perhaps I shall no longer stoop so low," he turned to stare out the carriage window again. He was bluffing and they all knew it, but no one said a word.

Linnea sighed. She would save Mathias's lecture for the morning, when he would be hungover and miserable and more likely to remember at least half of what she said, as per usual. No sense in spending her words now, when she would only have to repeat them later.

For now, she too stared out of the window at the beautiful moon, dwelling on the even more
beautiful eyes of the little announcer.

Perhaps her time in London wouldn't be quite so dreary, after all.

Authors' Notes:

Characters and names (for this chapter):

Linnea Oxenstierna: fem!Sweden

Mathias Oxenstierna: Denmark

Lukas Bondevik: Norway

Emilia Bondevik: fem!Iceland

Announcer: fem!Finland

Sadiq Adnan: Turkey

Tulip woman: fem!Netherlands

Hello to our lovely readers! For those of you who don't know, this fic is being co-written by a wonderful trio of roleplay buddies - myself (Rargamonster) and the two awesome people who are going to add their own authors' notes below mine at some point. I don't know what else to say other than reviews are amazing, and if you're interested in roleplaying (shameless plug incoming) you can find the information for the board we RP on in our profile. Thanks so much, readers!

Hello there~ This is Sky, (BehindTheSky) who is also part of this co-writting fabulous who-ha~ Yes~Come join us and roleplay3 And (just for info and such) I'll always be bold ;D ...And, Rargamonster will be writing chapters one, four, seven, etc. I start writing at Chapter three~ (though we all edit and such3)

Yes..Reviews are much appreciated...And *shameless self-advertsising* Reviews are great on my own FFs too~ BehindTheSky~ 3

~~Sky

Hey guys- it's minn here. This is the first chapter of our amazingly lovely collab, and we've really had a great time with it so far. This chapter is Rargamonster's, and you guys should definitely give her some love~ I'm next in line for chapters, so the next time you're reading one of these it will be after my turn. Usually I have a lot to say but for now we're just starting out, so please be sure to review if you've gotten this far! It would be very much apprecited~ Thanks for reading!

-minn