Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Newsies!
Author's Note: And heeeeere's chapter two!
Chapter Two: Counting Continents
Noa opened her eyes groggily and rubbed a hand over her face, brushing away the dark brown hair that tickled her nose.
Slowly she peered about at her surroundings, taking in the small and barren room with its unpainted wooden walls, the simple blue curtains that blocked the sunlight from entering through the windows, and the blond boy who sat beside the bed, watching her steadily.
"Hello there," he greeted her softly.
"Hello."
"I'm Dutchy," the boy said, as if that explained everything, "And if you'll excuse me I'll have to tell Jack you're awake now."
Noa nodded despite her lack of understanding, and Dutchy leaned his head out the doorway, rasping out in a tired voice, "Jack…Jack I need you in here, I don't think I'm doing so well."
He smiled back at the perplexed Noa and winked. Moments later Jack entered the room, shutting the door softly behind him.
"Good evening, princess," Jack said with a slight bow.
"Please don't call me that," Noa responded quietly, shifting her eyes away from his.
"Ah," Jack spoke, leaning back against the door, "I figured that there was little chance of you retaining your title after you'd lost your magic."
Noa winced at his words from the sitting position she had pulled herself into.
"Mind telling me what you're doing here?" Jack asked, "Or how the princess of Mora managed to lose her powers?"
"I…" Noa began, feeling as if every word just twisted the knife in deeper, "I made a deal with a wizard…to—to save a life."
"Whose life?"
"A child," Noa lied, knowing she couldn't yet bare to reveal the painful truth to anyone, let alone a complete stranger, "I had gotten into a fight with my father," she decided to add in a little reality to the mix, "And I ran into the woods surrounding the castle. I was walking and walking until I heard someone call for help, and I followed the voice until I found a little girl. There was a wizard, and he said that her mother owed him a debt she couldn't repay, so he was going to take the girl's life instead."
Jack nodded, such atrocities were not completely unheard of in the magical world of Enara.
"I begged him to let her go, and I told him that I could give him riches beyond his wildest imagination from the palace. But he said all he wanted was the power he would get from killing the girl, and that the gold meant nothing to him," Noa paused, shocking herself at her ability to create a lie so quickly, "And so I told him he could have my power instead. Since I'm an adult he could drain me of my magic without killing me. He agreed, we signed the contract in blood, he took my magic, and he let the little girl go."
"And how did you end up here?" Dutchy joined in.
"I ran to the nearest portal, which was in Clorum," Noa explained, "I'd never been to the human world before, and the only place I'd ever heard of was Dane Street, in New York. One of the maids was talking about it one day in the castle."
"You mean Duane Street," Jack corrected, giving her an odd look.
"Right," Noa shook her head as if to clear her thoughts, "Right, no, sorry, I meant to say that, I'm just really tired."
There was an awkward pause as all three of the room's occupants studied each other.
"You gave up your magic—your title—your entire life—for someone you didn't even know?"
"She was a little girl!" Noa burst out, tears stinging her eyes for reasons entirely unknown to the boys, "She was just a little girl."
The three fell silent again as Noa struggled to regain her composure.
"And what about your family? Do they have any idea where you are?"
Shaking her head Noa replied, "No, part of the contract was that the wizard agreed to send a message to my father, telling him that I had run away and I wasn't coming back. I didn't give him a reason why," she waggled the bare ring finger on her left hand, "And I gave him my ring with the royal seal to deliver with the message, so my father would believe it."
"Huh," Jack grunted unintelligently in response.
A thought occurred to her as she eyed Jack, "You're gatekeepers, right?" She asked suddenly.
Jack nodded slowly.
"Well I—I can't go back through the portal, we all know that. And even if I could, I'd just be banished back here anyway…" Noa bit her lip, "Do you think…Do you think I could stay here, with you?"
"I don't think harboring run away princesses is quite in my job description," Jack said dryly.
"Please," Noa pleaded, "I can pay you, I brought plenty of money with me, and when that runs out I'm sure that I have things you could sell back in Enara."
Dutchy and Jack looked skeptical, but Noa plowed forward, "I don't know anyone here, I've never even been here before, I don't know anything about this place, I'd die out there!"
Noa gripped the sheets until her knuckles turned white, and Jack considered her thoughtfully.
"I'll tell you what," he said after a few minutes contemplation, "You can earn your keep here. You help clean up, you help cook, and on top of that you pay a small monthly fee from the money you brought with you."
"In exchange for—?" Noa prompted.
"In exchange for a safe place to stay and a few lessons in how to live in the human world. You'll work outside in the world with us and we'll help you get set up here; teach you what you need to know. And when you're ready and able to leave, you can go."
"And you won't tell anyone I'm here?"
"Your secret will be safe with us," Jack assured her, "All of my boys here are trustworthy, and if anyone unexpected comes through that portal we'll make sure to hide you before you're seen."
"Thank you," Noa whispered after a pause, locking eyes with Jack.
"Don't mention it. All right," he said, glancing down at his pocket watch, "It's almost dinner time, so lets get you downstairs to meet the rest of the guys."
"Can I…" Noa fidgeted on the bed, "Can I change first?"
Jack told her to knock herself out, and him and Dutchy quickly exited the room. Noa appeared a minute later, and Jack gave the simple but very classically Enarian dress she wore a once over.
"Yeaaaah," he said laughing, "We're definitely gonna have to find you some new clothes. Nobody dresses like that here."
"Okay, sure," Noa agreed, "What do people wear?"
"We can talk about that later," Jack waved away the question with a hand, leading the way through a bunkroom then down two flights of stairs and into a large dining hall, where a few more than a dozen boys had gathered around a long table.
"What exactly do you do to cover for being gatekeepers?" Noa had heard enough about their occupation to know that all gatekeepers had to have a human job in order to avoid suspicion of their existence in the non-magical world.
"We sell newspapers," Dutchy answered with a wide grin.
"Oh." There was a pause. "What's a newspaper?"
Dutchy smacked his forehead and Jack groaned, "This is going to take a while…"
"Sorry," Noa shrugged sheepishly, her cheeks heating up a little.
"No, no," Jack said apologetically, "It's not your fault."
"Hey Jack!" A small boy with a cigar dangling between two fingers called out from the table as the trio entered the room, "Who's the girl?"
As Noa approached the table the boy realized who she was and immediately stammered, "Oh, princess, I'm so sorry, I didn't recognize—that is, I didn't mean to offend—"
Jack made cut it motions with his hand, "Don't bother, Racetrack."
"Please," Noa held up a hand, "Don't worry about it," she sighed deeply and gave him a hollow smile, "Besides, I'm not a princess anymore."
The boys gaped at her in shock, and Jack spared her the discomfort of retelling her story, filling in his boys himself and telling them of the arrangement he had made with Noa.
Noa took a seat beside a dark boy at the table as a boy sporting an eye patch strode in from the kitchen, carrying four plates at a time.
"Faaaantastic," the boy who had introduced himself as Specs whistled from Noa's right, "It was Blink's turn to cook…"
"Hey, it's better than the stuff you make," the dark boy said, nodding to Noa, "Honestly, elves have got no manners at all."
Noa managed a weak smile against the painful constricting in her chest.
"Aw, shuddup Boots, stupid pixie," Specs muttered darkly.
Boots turned to Noa, "So, do you know anything about being a newsie?"
"I um—what's a newsie?" She asked sheepishly.
Jack blanched, realizing her he hadn't even told her the slangy job title of their occupation.
"What's a newsie?!" A curly haired boy across the table exclaimed, "Jack, what are you gonna do with her?"
"Oh she'll learn," Jack smiled reassuringly at Noa, the corners of her lips quirking up slightly in response.
"Yeah!" Blink smacked his friend upside the head, "Try to be a bit more encouraging, Mush."
"Sorry," Mush grumbled, rubbing the back of his head.
Amidst eating their meal the boys went around the table and introduced themselves and their magical origin, and Noa tried to hide her discomfort when the boy named Skittery openly exposed himself to be a lycanthrope. Noa found herself equally surprised by Dutchy's revelation that he was a shyra, and she couldn't help but wonder if the boy she saw before her was indeed the shape shifter's original form.
Noa had to admit, she had never been in such mixed company, but she reminded herself that beggars can't be choosers, and if she treated a single boy unkindly merely because of his race than she would be no better than her father.
When the meal was finished and the dishes were cleared the newsies began the laborious task of trying to teach Noa all she needed to know about the human world.
After a few frustrating beginnings the boys soon realized just how little she knew, and it finally came down to Jack breaking out a map of the world and saying, "Okay, so there are seven continents, right? Well we live on this one here."
Noa had dutifully and interestedly studied the map until Jack interrupted, giving her a sideways glance, "You know, we're gonna have to call you by a nickname or something."
Noa shot him a quizzical look before peering back at the map, "Why's that?"
"Well, we actually get a few tourists from Enara here, and if someone recognizes you I'm pretty sure it'll blow your cover," Jack laughed, "Plus, it'll probably help you blend in a little, 'cause most of the real kids who sell papers like we do don't have any family or anything, or they're runaways. So a lot of them go by an alias so they can't be found, and some of 'em pick a name that they hope'll inspire fear, so people won't mess with them."
"Oh, huh… Okay, one of you pick, I'm not terribly creative."
"How 'bout princess?" Boots spoke up excitedly, and at least half the boys slapped themselves on the forehead, groaning.
"Oh brilliant, Boots, nobody'll ever figure that one out," Specs drawled sarcastically, and Boots scowled at him silently.
"Speaking of blending in," Racetrack piped up, "Don't forget about the accent Jack, there's no way in hell anyone's gonna believe she's from New York."
"What's wrong with my accent?" Noa asked.
"Nothings wrong with it, per se," Jack explained, "It's just that people here have all sorts of regional dialects, just like in Enara, and yours is particularly not Manhattan, New York. Okay, try to imitate my accent."
"My name is Jack, and I'm from New York," Noa said experimentally, attempting to copy Jack's vocal inflections.
Jack bit his tongue to keep from laughing while Racetrack just lost it altogether.
"…We're gonna have to come up with something else…Here, just say a bunch of stuff in your normal voice for me, okay?"
"Um, okay, my name is Noa, I come from Enara, I don't know what I'm supposed to be saying, blah blah blah—"
"All right, all right, that's enough, you sound like an idiot."
Noa glared at him stonily. Princesses were, for the most part, unaccustomed to being called idiots.
"I think she sounds west coast," Specs said, "She speaks very clearly, and they don't really have any sort of an accent there."
"Well there you have it, Noa," Jack told her, "You can be from California. Let's say San Diego."
"Why San Diego?" Boots asked curiously.
"I don't know, 'cause it's the first city I thought of in California! Why the hell do you care? Pfft, why San Diego…" Jack trailed off after giving Boots a solid shove.
"Right…San Diego, San Diego, where are you San Diego?" Noa mumbled under her breath, pouring over the west side of the United States on her map.
"It's right there," Dutchy pointed to the city's location on the map helpfully.
"Oh, thanks, I see it now."
"So, any other ideas for a pseudonym for our lady friend here?" Dutchy asked.
"We can figure it out later, it's not important right now," Jack said dismissively, and turning back to Noa he went on, "Okay, so the calendar they use here has a year zero, but then it has a bunch of years before zero that are all called B.C. for 'before Christ,' I'll explain later," he said at Noa's confused look, "And then all the years after zero are called A.D. for anno domini. We're in the year A.D. 1899. Does this make any sense so far?"
"Uh huh…" Noa lied.
"Good, so one of the things you're going to have to keep in mind is that people hear do talk about magic, and they write children's stories and stuff about it, but they don't actually believe that it's real..."
Hours later an exhausted Noa was sent off to bed, her head reeling with the effort of trying to keep hundreds of names, dates, and facts straight.
"I'm never going to get this," she complained to Jack as he made to shut the door to the sick room, which Noa had a sneaking suspicion was going to become her new sleeping quarters.
"You'll get it," Jack promised her, "You'll be selling with me tomorrow, and I won't let you do anything stupid, so don't worry."
"Thank you again, for helping me."
"Don't mention it."
He closed the door behind him and Noa drifted off to sleep, mulling over the new information that over loaded her brain.
Wait…She thought sleepily, Are there seven continents or eight?
Author's Note: Again, please let me know what you think!
