Thank you so much for all of your reviews! They give me life.

Admission time: This story came about because I wanted to see if I could merge the three most common DP fanfic plots into a cohesive whole Its Field Trip + Into the Mind + Ghost King Danny.

Great: Yup, gotta love dramatic irony.

Tenuem: Dad Clockwork is the best. (Insert shameless self-promotion: If you want more you should check out my other story, Grandfather Clocks.)

Drake771: You're too kind. I'm writing this with very little plan in mind, I'm just glad that I haven't outright contradicted myself yet.

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Chapter 60: Encounters

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The evacuation to the Deeps was orderly. The people of Harmony had known that there was nothing to fear from them except for getting lost. Now they didn't even have to fear that. What they did have to fear was whatever was waiting outside their door.

So they left.

A few did stay. The young and brave, or the old and immobile. They hid on the outskirts of the town, where the lambent mists of the skies met the cornices of a finely carved, and impossibly tall, gray wall. The young stayed to fight, to buy time. The old stayed so that they wouldn't slow down the others.

There were arguments, of course. Not everyone was happy with the idea of leaving their home at the say-so of a stranger. Still, that wasn't an issue for long. A few minutes of conversation with Mirror was enough to make even the most stubborn citizen feel like they had known him for years. The younger children adored him. Frida 'I'm from Germany' Weber had ambushed him with cookies. His 'brothers' (and Anthony did not know why he put 'brothers' in quotation marks when the three of them were all but identical) Shade and Umbra had managed to ingratiate themselves with the more militant and military-minded members of the city by bringing odd, glowing-green weapons with them.

The ghosts had no issue with him whatsoever. In fact, they seemed to love him. They went out of their way to do whatever he wanted.

Honestly, if Anthony hadn't just spent the last two and a half years of his life living in some kind of pocket universe... But he had, so...

The real problem was simple chaos, an inevitable result of moving so many people so suddenly. Mirror was the only one who knew where they were really going, and he was only one person.

(Oddly, Anthony found himself doubting this proposition.)

So, Anthony wasn't particularly surprised when a pair of children, an eight-year-old and a three-year-old, sisters, went missing. However, he wasn't terribly alarmed, either. The Deeps, despite their uncanny and occasionally impossible dimensions, and apparently perilous drops, did not feel dangerous. At all.

"Mirror," said Anthony, weaving through the crowd to reach the odd maybe-sort-of-ghost at the front. The boy paused and turned, sky-colored eyes wide.

His smile faltered, turning into a reluctant frown. "Is something wrong, Mr Trent?"

"We've misplaced a pair of children."

"Ah. Well, I don't think that they could have gotten into too much trouble. Just give me a minute to find them..." The boy's eyes took on an abstracted, unfocused look, sparks of green swimming through their depths. "Oh, heck." He pointed at Anthony with both fingers. "Stay here."

He disappeared.

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Charlotte and Emily Thomas were two of the younger citizens of Harmony. Charlotte, at least, was also one of the more curious citizens. When she saw something interesting, she just had to go check it out. An unfamiliar ghost, one that looked a lot like the boy who was leading the way down into the Deeps, was definitely something interesting.

"Gosh," said the white-haired, green-eyed ghost. "You two are just so cute." He was floating cross-legged and upside-down, dressed like a character from one of Charlotte's story books. "Vous etes trop mignon."

Charlotte giggled. "Et tu," she said, as little Emily chased after the fluttering corners of the ghost's cloak.

"What's your name?" asked Emily, lisping, once she finally got hold of the piece of fabric.

"My name is Mirage," said the ghost. "You have been taught not to talk to strangers, haven't you?" he asked, kindly.

"Maybe," admitted Charlotte, feeling coy. "Mais, tu n'es pas, un etranger."

Emily frowned up at her sister. "Lottie," she complained, her brown eyes briefly flaring gold.

"Aren't I?"

"Hmm," said Charlotte, miming thinking, her own eyes glittering. "No. I don't think so." She bounced, excitedly, on the balls of her feet. "You're the real one, aren't you?" she asked. "In the ground? Like in King Arthur's Quest?"

"The Fisher King!" exclaimed Emily around the handful of fabric in her mouth. Emily hadn't yet grown out of that habit. Their mother was working on it, though.

Mirage tilted his head. "My, you are sharp eyed. I'm not, I'm afraid. I guess that you could say I work for him, though." He smiled, rotated, touched down. "I did not intend to waylay you two fair maidens, however. I think that you've been missed."

"You'd better believe it," said Mirror. His arms were crossed as he glared at Mirage, but his expression softened as he knelt down to speak with the children. "Your mom and dad are looking for you," he said. "They're worried. Mirage will be able to take you on an adventure later. For now, though, won't you stick with mine?"

Charlotte looked down at her feet. She hadn't thought that she had been gone that long. "Okay," she mumbled. Emily just frowned.

"I was with Lottie," she said. "Just like I was told."

"I know, and that was very good, but you have to go back, now. Do you mind if I take a moment to talk to Mirage before I take you back."

"No," said Charlotte. Emily shook her head.

"Okay, good." Mirror stood up, and pulled Mirage a few feet away. "Mir-" he started.

"I can't help it if someone wants to follow a mirage," protested Mirage.

"Oh my gosh. That's why you picked your name? Really?"

"You're just jealous that you didn't think of it first."

"Eh, I'll stick with mine. Anyway, what do you think?"

"About the kids?"

"No, about whether or not we should paint the walls pink."

"They're definitely liminal."

"Both of them?"

"The younger more than the older, but, yeah, and they know it."

"How much?"

"Amity level, but with more access to ectoplasm. They know how to work with it."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. But find a different way to check next time, okay?"

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"What do you think, Lottie?" asked Byron.

"I think you should paint your room pink when we get back."

The teen snorted. "Yeah, yeah. You're hilarious. But do you agree with me, or with Alice?"

The little girl shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, he said he wasn't, but he could be? He feels right, but so does Mirror. I kind of think Ada's idea is cool."

"Thanks, Lottie," said Ada, "but just being cool doesn't mean that it's right."

Alice, for her part, asked, "You think that there's a third person? Well, I guess that it's better than Byron."

"Hey! My theory is valid."

"Mirror is human. He couldn't do this," she gestured at the lair.

Byron's eyes flared angry gold. "He looks human. That doesn't mean that he is human. Remember, it took us weeks to notice that Inky had died. Besides, he could be like us."

"Occam's razor, Byron. Besides, Inky is an all black cat with green eyes. Humans change a bit more than that."

"I just don't think that they'd lie to us," input Ada, jumping over the last few steps to the landing.

The other thirty-odd children voiced assent, followed by the bell-like chiming of the wisps.

Byron sighed. "I wish you guys could talk," he complained, petting one of them. "I bet that you'd tell us what's really going on."

The wisp purred in response.

Ryan, who was two years older than Charlotte, sighed. "I don't understand why we don't just ask one of the other ghosts."

"Because they just smile and pat our heads and tell us how cute we are. I don't think that they've even told the adults anything yet," said Byron, sulking. "I think that they like being mysterious."

"I don't know, Byron. When was the last time you asked, anyway?" Sonia technically wasn't a kid anymore, she'd celebrated her eighteenth last month, but she was still cool. Her boyfriend, Teddy, was seventeen for another three months, anyway.

Byron mumbled something unintelligible.

"I thought so," said Sonia. "Maybe they'd tell us now. We're closer to them than the adults are." Sparks of red swam in her pale gray eyes as she spoke, beneath her hand, the vine wrapped around the banister began to wilt. Noticing this, she quickly pulled back her hand.

"Control issues?" asked Byron, a little slyly. "I know that's common with older people."

Sonia rolled her eyes. "I don't need that from you, Byron."

"I'm wounded!" gasped the boy, miming being shot.

"Okay, so, the question is," said Alice, "are we going to go off-path and get answers once and for all, or do we wait until we get to our destination?"

The question was greeted with forty pairs of bright eyes, and just as many sharp, white smiles.

"Do you even have to ask?"

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"... Okay, now," said Danny, "if someone wants to give you something weird, or sketchy, like, alcohol or whatever, or do something weird and sketchy, just tell them that in your culture, it isn't allowed for someone in your position."

"That will work?" asked Valerie. She'd been increasingly skeptical as the day went on.

"Yeah, I mean, there are so many different cultures here, if you don't want to constantly be in a state of total war, you need to be able to make those kinds of allowances. Any ghost old and friendly enough to try and give you something weird is going to be familiar with that necessity. Younger ghosts will have grown up with drinking ages, and, uh, more similar laws. Just be vague about why exactly it is you can't accept or do something, and be polite." He cast an eye over his classmates. Some of them were starting to fade, not to mention his parents, who had been exhausted before they had started.

"I think we should take a break for lunch, now, if no one minds?" said Fractal. "We have a nice little balcony with seating just a flight down, it is a bit off our path, but..."

"Yes! Let's go!" shouted Rebecca. "God, my legs..."

There were other cries of assent. Fractal smiled, and practically danced down the steps.

It took a few minutes for everyone to settle in and break out the sandwiches. The view was marvelous, in Danny's opinion, but many of his classmates chose to sit facing away from it. Danny didn't get it. He would probably never get it. If he could get it, then it wouldn't be in his lair.

The collection gray stairs, colorful flowers, and bright, ghostly lights reminded him of something. There was a pattern, like a fractal, but not one that he was familiar with, not one that he could easily pick out.

(A well, leading infinitely downwards. A black hole. A galaxy. A collection of galaxies. The path of lightning. Rain falling. The value of a life. The value of all lives.)

(A moment of peace amid screaming, terrifying pain.)

(His heart and mind opening, accepting something more.)

He just couldn't place it.

He leaned on the railing, looking down, enjoying his sandwich, and the feeling of peace. The center was down there, the heart, or core, of his lair. He would like to see it someday. (He would like to be enveloped, completely concealed, completely secure.) It would be lonely down there, though. He got the feeling that the place wouldn't be healthy for his human friends, or even his ghostly ones. (But maybe he was wrong. Maybe he could bring them with him. Keep them safe, and happy, forever and ever and ever.)

He shook himself out of his reverie. That was dangerous. That was really, really dangerous. That was... He didn't know what that was. He pushed himself away from the railing (what had happened to his sandwich?), and looked back, towards the class.

Fractal was staring at him, his entire attention focused on Danny. Danny blinked, and shifted his sight to an archway just a couple of meters behind Fractal. Two familiar faces gazed at him intensely from behind the lintel. The one was Echo, and he suspected the other was Mirage. Or Mirror. He could have been Mirror, but Danny thought not. Or one of the other two who were apparently floating around. Gosh, there were a lot of them now, weren't there?

"Is something wrong?" asked Sam. She had joined him at the railing, along with Tucker and Jazz. All three of them were looking at him with concern.

"I- I don't know," said Danny. "I-" he faltered. "I think that if... If you ever come back here, if I ever bring you back here... I think that you need to make me promise to let you you back out first."

"What do you mean?" asked Sam.

Danny shrugged, helpless.

"You think that you would be tempted to stay," said Jazz. "To keep us here?"

"Maybe," said Danny, fidgeting.

"Okay," said Sam. "If it makes you feel better, we'll do it. But we trust you, Danny. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, man, we're with you all the way. It isn't that bad here, anyway. Some connectivity would be nice, but..."

"Tucker," scolded Sam, elbowing the boy.

Danny smiled at their antics, until his sister started patting him on his head. He ducked out, complaining, but still grinning. He glanced at the shadows, who looked satisfied themselves.

Then Danny abruptly was overcome with the feeling that something was terribly out of place. The three shadows' heads snapped left, simultaneously. Fractal mouthed something that looked like a curse. Danny followed their gaze to a set of stairs, covered corridors, and furnished balcony, oriented orthogonally to theirs. Something was about to happen, something that would cause him a lot of trouble, and that he was totally unprepared to deal with.

Something that his shadows knew about.

Which meant that they were keeping secrets from him. Which- hooray- meant psychological problems galore. Why was he like this? That wasn't rhetorical. He really, really wanted to know, but he had a suspicion that he'd need several long sessions with Jazz to even scratch the surface.

In the meantime: Trust issues! Again, hooray! He couldn't even trust himself.

(Out of the corner of his mind, he felt the shadows flinch.)

These thoughts happened in the space of a second. Just barely enough time for a wisp to notice and brush consolingly against the back of his neck. They were getting close to the wisp clans' territorial boundaries, and they were nervous themselves.

Danny let the tiny ghost comfort him for a moment.

Then something like a dozen people emerged onto the other balcony from under one of the covered walkways.

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When the group from Harmony stopped for lunch, the teenagers snuck off. It was practically their job to sneak off, all things considered. A moral imperative. They were teens! Rebellious, curious, intrepid.

(They weren't buying it, either.)

They left the younger children behind. They'd be in enough trouble for sneaking away from the group, they didn't need to be lectured about endangering the little kids. They'd left a couple of their number behind to keep up the whole 'babysitting' ruse. Not that they'd ever, ever say that to their younger friends' faces.

So they went adventuring in search of the Fisher King. Well, not really, the Fisher King, but whoever was in charge here, the person who had made this place. More than that, they were looking for answers. They wanted to know why they had changed. If they had been changed. If there was a purpose behind it all.

Also, this was fun! Even if they couldn't find anything, well, the views were great, and walking down a path that twisted like this, so that some of them were oriented in the upside-down with relation to the others, wasn't something that they could do every day. Gravity was weird here.

But Byron was sure that they would find something. Alice wasn't as good at tracing as Emily was, the children who were born in Harmony had more of whatever this was than the others, but she was more focused, and she had help.

Then they came out onto a kind of balcony. Wow, that was a view. It gave him more than a little vertigo, even after the twisting corridor, and the staircases that they had already traversed.

Byron's sharp ears caught a gasp from above. The dozen teens tilted their heads up. Wow. He had not expected that.