"Strange, I am not eating a tuna sandwich for dinner again," Wong protested while reading a romance novel disguised as an old spellbound book. The tall man was not sure if the Sorcerer Supreme was trying to deceive somebody in particular or just himself.
"You have money for something else then?" Doctor Strange mused from the other side of the table, he needed to get up and stretch those sore muscles.
"Use your charm and funny jokes," the Nepalese deadpanned as he pointedly opened the next page of the book and continued reading.
"Somebody is feeling witty today," the tall man stood up, the cloak instantly attaching to his back. "Buddy, I do not think the bagels in the bakery would be of any threat to me."
The Cloak of Levitation clung even tighter to his body. It has been like that since the Blip, the first few days it followed him even while showering.
"A lovers' quarrel, Strange?" Wong mocked with expressionless face.
"Still a better love story than what you are reading, Wong," the Doctor smirked before exiting the room.
He had just paid for the sandwiches when it hit him.
Everything around him turned black until it started rebuilding a completely different room.
First were the green walls with golden details, then deep red draperies partially covered the windows, followed by a large crystal chandelier which hung from the ceiling, its light catching the gilded vintage furniture. It appeared to be an old English home, or at least that was how he pictured an old Victorian manor to look like. Something definitely ending with Abbey.
A white-haired little girl was sitting in an armchair the flames of the fireplace throwing dancing shadows over her. Her attention was fully immersed in an old leather-covered book, while an aged man clad in a dark blue drape suit was positioned at the wooden table, reading the daily newspaper with small spectacles at the tip of his nose.
"Rosamund, your teacher is here." An older woman walked into the hall in brutal resemblance of the woman he met a few days ago in the New York Sanctum.
"She has nothing further to contribute to our lessons," the little girl said absent-mindedly, her attention completely absorbed in the book.
"I find your abilities lacking, therefore you will keep on with your lessons," before the woman could say something more, the man raised his arm to halt her while still looking at the newspaper in his other hand.
"Charlotte, leave her be."
"She cannot keep avoiding her lessons, because she deems her teachers ignorant."
The woman continued walking towards the girl, until she stood right before her.
"Rosamund, I will not repeat myself."
The girl continued ignoring her.
"You brat," the woman hissed as she reached and grabbed the leather-bounded book out of Rosamund's tiny hands.
"No!" The girl yelled and quickly stood up, hand extended to take it back, but the mother turned around and started walking away. "I refuse to be whatever you wish of me. I am more."
Strange could feel the temperature in the room dropping down.
"You are nothing, do you understand, girl?" The woman hissed and raised the book. "Those scribbles your grandfather gave you will ruin your future!"
She threw the book into the fireplace.
"The teacher is waiting at the library." She loudly closed the door after herself.
"Rosamund," her father started as he saw the expression on the little girl's face while she stared at the burning book. "Go take your lesson."
The girl abruptly turned towards Strange as if sensing his presence. She stared with eyes so empty they looked like dark hollows.
Suddenly, the Doctor was being roughly pulled away from the memory.
"You alright there?" A dark skinned woman stood before him, her branded green apron catching his attention, helping him normalise his breathing and focusing in the present.
"Yes, thank you," he said and barely remembered to throw a smile for good measure.
"Do you need me to call someone for you? A wife, friend, relative?" She offered not truly convinced by his half-hearted way of assurance.
"No, there is no need, I will be going now," he stood up to his full height. "I apologise for the caused inconvenience."
He left the fast-food restaurant in a hurry. Thank god, he had convinced the cloak to remain at the Sanctum in order to change into civilian clothing.
But what had just happened?
Emergence of memories not belonging to him, but at the same time his astral form had entered the dream realm. Thousand of question littered his mind, but he had no answer for any of them.
His stomach rumbled in hunger, his pondering put to a halt.
The Doctor entertained the idea of consulting with Wong, but that meant explaining what had happened between him and the Master of the London Sanctum.
What had he done?
Graphite eyes opened in disturbance, Master Astor's meditation cut short.
Those memories had not emerged for years.
The platinum-haired woman took a deep breath to calm her escalated pulse. She could still smell the burning book, although the temperature in the room was freezing cold.
But what was more startling, was the intrusive presence of Doctor Strange in it.
The Sorceress stood up, her black robes pooling at her legs. She looked at the old wooden clock on the wall of her cabinet, it showed half past two after midnight, which was around half past nine in the evening in New York.
Such a perplexing predicament.
After a few more pondering thoughts, she decided it would be for the best to ignore it. There was a possibility to have been erased from the Doctor's memories the moment he had been thrown away from it.
The only thing which worried her was the notion of the memory. Was it simply an emerged reminiscence or was it a premonition? There was a possibility for her subconscious to be creating such premonition, but what was its impetus. Something was obviously about to happen and she felt even more unnerved due to the lack of recollection what had that old book from her grandfather contained.
The Master looked at the mountains of scrolls and books over her desk, a long sigh escaping her lips. She had other priorities to take care of first, before she could indulge herself in such futile examination of old memories.
"To say you look horrible would be a compliment," Idris Willmont spoke calmly from his place against one of the marble columns in the main entrance hall of the London Sanctum.
The woman just walked right pass him. Her long black coat was partially shredded at its ends and covered in dirt and dust. The only thing intact was that bloody hat.
Something poked him on the back of his neck as he jumped in surprise, turning around to see a black tendril withdrawing to the shadows.
"Not so cocky now," her gravely tone held a small note of amusement.
"Glad to be your entertainment victim," sarcasm dripped from his tongue while he rolled those dark brown eyes. "I assume the extraction went pretty bad."
"Now that would be an understatement," Master Astor tried to joke in her own stoic way. She had stopped at the end of the hall and had faced the dark-skinned man.
"Care to join me for dinner then? I was just about to get some Greek food, but if you tag along we could even sit at the restaurant," the sorcerer offered. Way too often he started to feel nostalgic for the times when he was still an archeologist - after a good dig he and his team would always pick a restaurant at random and would try the local cuisine wherever they were.
The woman contemplated his preposition.
"Lead the way then, Master Willmont," the platinum haired woman accepted.
The sorcerer raised his arm in invitation, knowing the traditional upbringing of his Master.
She walked towards him until the distance was short enough for her to lay her hand on his. Under her hat a tiny smile graced her lips at his antics.
With his other hand Willmont touched her shoulder with two fingers, the a Eldrich magic passed through it from the collar to the shredded ends of the demolished coat making it like brand new.
"You will be in big trouble if Madame du Bellay sees such trivial use of magic," the man chuckled in amusement.
"Wait until she sees the muddy footprints you left on the polished wooden floor," he winked at her hat, knowing fully well she could see him through it.
Master Astor tsked as she raised her arm making a circular motion with her fingers, the dirt was teleported to a grassplot far outside the city premises.
The weather was quite warm for the middle of October as both of them enjoyed a slow walk in Central London. The tall man used the time to talk about the normal things in life, he often missed those light conversations with friends and family. Spending more than twenty years of once's adulthood life in studying the mystic arts tended to do that to a person. Miss the triviality of life.
Master Astor listened to his stories in quiet contentment. She had never been much the conversationalist even before she came to Kamar-taj. She had no problem reading a deal aloud or discuss a work-related topic, but the awkwardness of the small talk was quite unnerving. Her traditional upbringing had taught her not to entertain trivial discussions as the old Mathew Astor often liked saying: "An authority is a bargaining chip, cheeky smiles and soulful laughs can only lower its value, dear." People would think she was a ball of sunshine and not the stoic outsider her mother loaded.
Soon they got to the modest Greek restaurant, which occupied the ground floor of a small white building. She took a bit longer to choose from the menu unlike him, which gave Willmont enough time to inspect the other customers who couldn't care less for their strange attires. Or at least pretended not to. He truly liked that about London.
"Would it be a problem if I-," she inclined her head, pondering for the right word. She had been trying to keep up with the new-aged slang, quite miserably if she had to be honest. "Bleat about today's predicament? Just while waiting for the food."
The only problem he had was her eternal unwillingness to remove the gigantic black hat.
"Please, do not spare me from any complaints, I was about to bring it up anyways."
The sorcerer always marvelled her politeness and thoughtfulness, something the current world lacked in spades. He knew Master Astor would be brief and try to spare him the needles details.
"We managed to extract minimal information from the artefact near the crack in Mendoza," the waitress brought their drinks to the table and only when she was a safe distance away, did the sorceress continue. "It belongs to Earth-14412. From what Master Luncasu had read in the Ancient One's journals of the Multiverse, he can validate it with almost ninety percent."
"The Necroverse," Idris Willmont furrowed his eyebrows in surprise. He thought that world had been destroyed after Loki, the God Butcher, eradicated the humankind there.
"Exactly, we have crossed it out of our database as an inhabitable universe after it went through the Incursions."
"It makes absolutely no sense," he murmured, rubbing his chin, lost in thoughts.
"The moment Master Luncasu deracinated the origins of the artefact both portals in Mendoza and Rosario vanished."
Nothing further was needed to be said for Willmont to start regretting his own decision to not go with Master Astor to Mendoza, this was in his field of work after all. But they could not afford investing more than two of the Masters of the London Sanctum on a single tasks. And Constantin Luncasu was the one who detected the portals in the first place.
The waitress returned with their food, setting the plates on the table. Their conversation was put to a pause while marvelling the warm food in front of them.
Master Astor gripped the brim of the hat with her fingers, lifted it slowly and put it on the chair on her right. Then proceeded removing the glove from her right hand, leaving the left one gloved.
The sorcerer had rarely seen the woman without the hat on, so he was about to be respective about it and not stare until he noticed the hollowness of her features. Her skin had became so pale and thin, he could see the blue veins underneath, especially around her temples and cheekbones. Harold Edmund had warned her that binding her magic to that of the Sanctum in order to further shield it would be a high cost to pay.
He quickly reverted his attention to his halloumi souvlaki, not wanting to make her uncomfortable with such ill manners and obtrusive prying.
"Do not tell me you will not be eating the onion?" Idris asked incredulously as he saw the woman continuously ignoring the cooked onion in her kouneli stifado.
"It leaves bad aftertaste," was her simple answer. Willmont snorted at her absurdity.
"Cooked onion is what makes the dish," he objected.
"That's why I did not ask to be removed," the platinum haired woman said as she popped another potato in her mouth. He could literally see the approval in those graphite eyes although she sat so straight in that chair it must be truly uncomfortable. "Meat is also what makes the souvlaki."
"Touché," he raised his hands in surrender at her small playful smirk.
They carried on with their dinner in a jolly manner with Idris doing most of the talking and Rosamund most of the listening.
The deserts followed and just before Master Astor could proceed with her second piece of baklava when golden hue enveloped her vision, building a completely different room around her.
She was sitting around a large circular table in what seemed like a living room, furnished in American style. A dark-haired teenage boy sat across her, his face hidden in his palms in distressed manner, elbows pressed against the wooden surface of the table. His clothes were partially wet as if he had been swimming in them, muddy spots visible here and there. An orange sweater was left on the the table on his left.
She masked her astral presence as a shadow until she could find a way to return back to her body.
A middle-aged man walked into the living room, lost in his own thoughts. His resemblance to Doctor Strange was astonishing. The moment he noticed the boy over the table, he halted his steps, his features morphing into a pained expression.
"Son, you should get some sleep," the man said, his voice hoarse as if he had been crying.
The boy remained silent.
"The funeral will be early tomorrow," his father walked to him, putting an arm over his shoulder and squeezing lightly. "Please, your mother has enough on her plate right now."
"And I don't?" The boy slapped the hand away from him as he stood up angrily, the chair making obscene sound on the parquet.
"We all do," he said dejectedly. "One day, when you become a parent, you will understand."
"Parent is what I will never become," he hissed, pain and hatred laced through his words.
The man sighed, knowing that whatever he said would not be of any help to his son.
"All of us has to deal with our choices in life, but we cannot quit just in fear of future pain, because pain goes together with happiness, and happiness is what makes this life worth living."
He patted the boy's back and turned to leave.
"Happiness is a weakness and a fabricated hormonal lie." Stephen Strange murmured, but his father had already left.
The golden hue enveloped the room and the boy as she closed her eyes, the light becoming unbearable to her senses. When she opened them again Master Astor came face to face with the panicked expression plastered over Sorcerer Willmont's face.
He stood up from his chair, his gaze following the trail leading to the owner of the spell, he raised hands to form a portal, but she shook her head.
"I know to whom it leads," she said firmly.
"This is not a minor spell cast," he noted the tension in her shoulders, the way her hands were flatly pressed to the table, probably to not curl into fists. "But you already know this and it is not the first time to happen, I assume."
"Last night, but it was in reverse, my memories had summoned their mind," she did not wish to share the other participant was no other than the previous Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange himself.
"This is a bonding magic and not of the good kind," the dark skinned man warned.
She nodded, her plan was to leave it disintegrate by itself when it has nothing to feed off.
"If both magic wielders have polar cores, the bond will progress to feeding off each other's consciousness." Willmont provided as if he read her mind. As a tracker, his magic often developed bonds with inanimate or even animate magical objects in order to track them more efficiently. The moment the other end of the bond started feeding off him, he cut the connection. It took him almost a decade to learn how to do it without nasty repercussions.
"I will see what I can do," the part of if she was unable to destroy the connection, he would be the first one to look for was left unsaid, but the dark skinned man nodded in understanding.