Chapter 3 - Deference for Difference

Perhaps due to exhaustion, bafflement, or just general lack of perceptiveness it took a shamefully long amount of time of lying there, staring at nothing in particular for my eyes to focus on the two dimly visible spheres that hung in the blue sky. Moons. Honestly, something so mundanely unusual was in some way comforting. I was on a different planet. That was conceivable, though how I had got here was anything but. Still, the prospect of trying to fold magic into my worldview only mildly dampened the elation I felt as I realized I was the first human to set foot on another planet. My whole life would change if I got home. When I got home, I corrected myself. In a situation like this, optimism wasn't optional.

It was one moderately sized predicament for a man, but truly a giant leap for mankind. To find out not that we were not alone in the universe but that there were other humans on other planets that could wield unknown powers was perhaps the most significant discovery in history. That was of course, assuming that this was all real. I chewed my lip. That was unproductive thinking, if this was some kind of coma dream or glitch in the matrix, I would suffer little harm by operating on the assumption that it was real. Certainly I would suffer less than if I erroneously assumed this was unreality.

As for this "magic" I chose to remain convinced there was a rational explanation but conceded it was eminently unlikely that I possessed even a fraction of the knowledge-let alone expertise-needed to derive it. For the time being, I'd take it at face value. Why did that sound familiar? In any case, my priority was getting home. Once that was dealt with, someone could come over and earn themselves a Nobel prize in physics or chemistry explaining what the deal was.

I lay there in a peculiar state between terror and elation, overly conscious of the rate at which my heart was beating and idly wondering if this was what a panic attack felt like. Slowly I became conscious of the uncomfortableness of my position. The hard mass of my wallet was uncomfortable to lie on for any duration. I removed it from my pocket and instinctively removed my phone as well and moved to place both on the nightstand the room had been furnished with. My phone! I felt like slapping myself. Its omnipresence in ordinary life had led it to be forgotten in this crisis. Its presence increased my spirits. I had a small miracle of my own.

Now, there was the small matter of its battery. Even if I turned it off entirely I had no idea how long it would be before the battery simply dissipated. At this point it was by far my most valuable possession, but unless I could figure something out, it would become little more than a black reflective rectangle. I removed the magnetic battery pack I had on my phone. While the charge it actually held would be little help in keeping my phone functional, it did provide a safer avenue for testing means of charging a lithium-ion battery using nothing but guesswork and magic. I rolled back onto my back. I had a plan, at least, and that contented me for the moment.

I rooted around in my backpack and thanked my habit of rarely emptying it. An old powerbank with a solar panel on its front was still there. I walked over to the window and left it where its LED indicated it was receiving charge. I doubted its efficacy. I'd had it for years and was pretty sure it had never actually gotten any charge from the panel. It'd always been easier to charge it conventionally. It was a cheap chinese product, but a lot of my hopes rested on its efficacy at the moment. Between it, my magsafe charger, and my laptop, I had three things I could experiment on getting a charge onto. Not great, but not terrible. I returned to my collapsed state on top of the covers, and tried to convince myself this was a dream.

As I lay there I wrestled with a mix of fatigue and restlessness. The room had a cozy appeal to it, despite its decisive resemblance to a museum and the bed I had been provided was more than comfortable. In fact its very softness provoked a contrarian desire for action. Earth-shattering events were afoot, this was no time to lay about! But rationally I knew there was nothing to be done except wait. I could guess that at some point I should expect the girl from earlier-Louise-to arrive, hopefully to give me some good news from the infirmary. Speaking of. I sat up for a moment and took the time to look to my left and right, testing to see how my head felt. Nothing out of the ordinary. Yet. I exhaled in exasperation. No illness seemed to have manifested, but there was little chance of that this early in any case. There was nothing for it but to wait.

I inserted my headphones and took advantage of the fact that I kept my music in a mega-playlist stored offline. It may have been unwise to waste my phone's battery in this way, but mental stability had its own value. I didn't want to imagine the state my family was in, or what my ultimate fate would be, and I had few other means of avoiding it. My thoughts roamed with the music the shuffle algorithm brought me. Scandinavian folk-metal had me thinking of the Varangians that found themselves in a strange land a millennium ago, seeking gold and glory in Byzantium. They went willfully. I, on the other hand, was a castaway. My position was more akin to a random 11th century Greek being kidnapped and brought blindfolded to somewhere in Scandinavia and told to give it a try.

Songs associated with the Vietnam war made me think that in a way, my situation paralleled being conscripted. I wasn't quite that self-pitying, no one was trying to kill me at the moment. But I had been sent to a faraway land without my consent, and I needed to make it home in one piece. Of course, here I had no mission beyond going home. And perhaps to gain as much information as possible before I did so. That felt like the responsible thing to do. And after all, was this not the dream of every young man? To go into the unknown on a grand adventure?

But songs of the First World War dampened those notions. The dirt of Flanders is filled with the bones of those men, I thought. That brought me back to the dichotomy of Ernst Jünger and Siegfried Sassoon. The same experience, but opposed perspectives. I shook my head. The Great War was a poor analogy to my situation. I wasn't being called on to brave artillery fire or storm lines of trenches. More or less all I needed to do was go there, and get back ag-

There was a sharp knock at the door. I nearly jumped to my feet, hastily pulling the headphones from my ears. I slipped into my shoes but neglected to re-tie them, instead hurrying to open the door.

I opened it, and for a moment saw no one before lowering my gaze to see Louise in front of me. She was pretty short, somewhere around five-foot even, which was about a foot shorter than I was. This would not have made her literally below my notice, even momentarily, had she not-for whatever reason-been standing unusually close to the door when I opened it. It took me half a second to realize this was an unfortunate disposition. Given the concerns about disease, covid-style social distancing was the rule of the day.

So, I backed up. Unfortunately, Louise was not a pandemic veteran, and instead obliviously took my backpedaling as an invitation to enter the room. Before I could make up my mind whether to try and explain the situation, she began to speak.

"Professor Colbert told me to tell you that the infirmary found nothing amiss with us. Over the next week we'll reside here and be expected to report any ill-effects."

Her tone was clipped, but I didn't have the emotional bandwidth to deal with her problems at the moment. My own crisis was more than enough for any one person to handle. It was probably something to do with the school or professors, nothing to do with me.

"What's going to happen after that?" I said.

"I don't know, Professor Colbert didn't say."

I resisted rolling my eyes. Rather, I forced out something more appropriately insufferably polite.

"Then, if you would pardon my ignorance, I would appreciate it if you would do your best to appraise me as to what the likely next steps are to be."

She looked at me for a moment, hesitating before she slowly spoke.

"Headmaster Osmomd will certainly want to speak to you once it's safe, to see what he can make of this situation. After that…" she shrugged, "I expect if what you say is true the palace will want to see you."

"In the meantime?" I asked.

"I still have coursework to do. As for you…"

She trailed off and shrugged.

I let the silence hang, content to let this be awkward until she decided to be helpful. She made no move to leave, but started fidgeting. Her eyes met mine briefly before breaking contact just as quickly. Her lips parted slightly several times, but no sound emerged. I resisted a strong urge to speak just to end the uncomfortableness. I emerged the victor in this rather childish contest of wills when Louise spoke.

"The professor also told me to see if you needed anything."

I couldn't help but smile. The petty victory was more gratifying than the actual offer. Though, come to think of it, there was something I could use.

"If it is possible, I would like a supply of some paper or parchment. That way I may make notes about…this place, and prepare to elaborate on my homeland."

"That will be arranged. The maid will deliver it shortly. If you have any further requests, communicate them to her and she will either fulfill them, or pass them along."

With that cold kindness, she turned on her heel in a very dramatic about-face, and left the room without waiting to hear my thanks. I closed the door and rested my head against it. I couldn't tell whether it hurt or if it was just tension. I exhaled deeply. Why did she have to be our main point of contact? I didn't have any reason to hate Louise, but the attitude she brought to the situation was, in my opinion, more than a little childish. Obviously I didn't know what her problem was, so she may well have had legitimate grievance. But I really wished I had direct access to someone more willing to take this seriously.

For the time being, I banished thoughts of Louise from my mind. The girl was the least of my problems. All I needed from her was to send me home. If all went well, I could wash my hands of her in short order. Whatever interpersonal problems existed, they were far down the priority list. At the moment, my whole being was preoccupied with attempting to reckon with the situation. Once again, I dropped onto the bed. Initially, I closed my eyes. I found my blood pumping too strongly to endure the lack of stimulation, and so settled for staring at the ceiling while I sorted out my thoughts.

On the one hand, I was aware that this sounded like the fantasy of the average fifteen-year-old, but there was a reason people frequently grew out of it. Adventures make good reading because, even if they end tragically, they go somewhere. A protagonist is not going to find himself the victim of a stray round on page eleven or find themself impaled on page forty-one. And if they were, they could count on some kind of Deus ex Machina to bail them out. I had nothing but unthinking chance, and whatever my own efforts amounted to, to guarantee my survival. If I made mistakes, I would bear the consequences. And if I was just plain unlucky-well, that alone could spell the end of me. So far things seemed relatively civilized, but if this place continued its resemblance to the 15-1600s, and abundant and barbaric executions remained the norm, death was closer than it might seem.

I realized that my hands were trembling. It was funny, I enjoyed operating under pressure, and privately believed I did my best work that way, but my physical responses wouldn't suggest such a predisposition. As literally nightmarish as this was (I truly expected to wake up in my own bed at any moment), the thrill of it all was undeniable. Assuming this was all real, this was one of the most exciting things to happen to anyone, ever. Small wonder the adrenaline was pumping. Whenever I got back, my name was going in the history books next to Neil Armstrong and Ferdinand Magellan. Hopefully closer to the former.

Setting aside, for the moment, how bizarre the concept of being inadvertently magically kidnapped was, the immediate future portended nothing particularly dramatic. Everyone I had met seemed reasonable. If that trend more-or-less held, my sojourn here would be nothing more eventful than pleasantries with my hosts while their keenest scholars worked with Louise to get me back home. Figuring out how to get people from here to earth and vice versa would have monumental consequences. As the first person to make the journey, I would undoubtedly garner a lot of attention when I got home, but the adventure would be over. It would be the world's issue to deal with.

I held back from speculating on the consequences of contact. For the time being, the fact that all I could do was sit tight was sufficiently comforting to allow me to relax. I noticed I was breathing more deeply, and slower. I hadn't been stranded in a warzone to fend for myself, I was the guest of a powerful organization actively engaged in bringing me home.

With that resolved, I laid on the bed with my eyes closed, doing my best to keep myself grounded in the face of the impossible. This continued for an indeterminate amount of time before I heard a knock at the door. I couldn't tell whether I had dozed, or if my mind had merely wandered. A glance at the window showed the last light of the day keeping the horizon crimson. Whatever the case, I once again slipped into my shoes and went to the door.

It was the maid, Siesta. I had figured as much. I hadn't thought about it, but her knock had been different enough from Louise's to be distinctive. Unsurprisingly, she presented me with paper. I considered myself lucky that paper had been invented and that I was not reliant on parchment or vellum. It was a generous ream of it. Either the academy had no shortage of the stuff, or someone was trying to make an impression.

I found it strange that Siesta appeared about my age. The deferential way in which she treated me felt unnatural. Perhaps because of how frequently her genuine curiosity and enthusiasm broke through. I really did not want to be completely isolated for the duration of this quarantine. Ideally, I get her to be a bit friendlier towards me. I understood that fraternizing with the lower classes might very well undermine my standing in the eyes of the local nobility. But I really didn't have it in me to put on airs and feign superiority. My unassuming radical egalitarianism would have to serve as evidence of my foreignness. That was the hope, in any case. I didn't exactly have a wealth of options when it came to people. Louise didn't seem like the kind of person I was eager to interact with. From our limited conversations, keeping her at arm's length suited me just fine. At the back of my mind, I also understood it would be advantageous to have at least a vaguely positive relationship with someone who I was depending on to send me home, so I'd likely have to bite the bullet at some point.

In a more cunning sense, Siesta was an opportunity to get a subaltern perspective. From what I understood of stratified societies, "the help" was rarely taken note of. That didn't necessarily hold true here, but given how little I actually knew, assumptions were all I had to go in. My initial suspicion that she had been tasked to prise information from me had faded. Everything about her suggested she would make a very poor liar. In any case, I didn't intend to reveal anything I would consider compromising to her. With luck, her perspective would instead give me knowledge not just about the place I was in, but also the people here.

For the time being, I'd avoid sharing anything I didn't want public with Siesta. I didn't know her, so that was hardly likely in the first place. Siesta stood there smiling in silence while all this ran through my head.

"If you don't mind, could you answer a few questions for me?" I said.

Internally, I cringed. I sounded like I had watched too many cop shows. Fortunately, my gracelessness was inconsequential in a place without a concept of due process.

"Of course! I'm happy to help in any way I can. But I'm sure Lady de la Valliere would serve you better for anything you wished to know."

"I'd rather know a bit more before I troubled her," I leaned in conspiratorially, "She also seems a little prickly. Every time I speak to her, I half expect to be shouted at."

The servant giggled at that.

Returning my tone, she half-whispered, "All the staff feel like she's moments away from sending an explosion at them."

Then she shrugged, "It can't be easy being a noble that can't do magic, but she makes it hard to feel sorry for her."

"So, the explosions… Tell me more."

"There's not much to tell. They're more hard on the ears and we who have to clean up after them than they are truly dangerous."

"Lady Valliere is a strange case, even before she summoned you. A noble usually fails when they can't muster the power or manage the technique to do magic. Anyone who's heard one of her explosions knows she's not lacking in power. A lot of willpower for a small girl," she mused.

"Willpower?"

The word sounded strange. It seemed like the thing translating her speech (or allowing me to comprehend her language) was struggling on that word. "Willpower" wasn't a cogent word to express what Siesta seemed to mean.

"That's something you'd definitely be better served asking Lady de la Valliere about. From what we commoners understand, it's the power that nobles can put into their spells before they're exhausted."

My eyes sort-of glazed over as she said that. I understood her words, but the concept was too fantastical to be internalized.

"Honestly, this all feels like a dream. It's going to take a while before this sinks in."

She nodded sympathetically. I ran my hand through my hair.

"Hopefully this all gets sorted out soon. As much fun as it is to be somewhere new, not knowing whether I will ever return home rather ruins the experience."

Siesta stood up a little straighter, clasping her hands behind her back.

"The nobles are very powerful. Brimir ordained them our protectors, and I do not believe that they would allow you to remain stranded here."

I grimaced. The servile tone was discomforting. Whether she genuinely believed what she said, or was merely accustomed to demonstrating fealty, I couldn't guess. I did my best to return the sentiment.

"Thanks, Siesta. It's definitely easier with someone to talk to. Don't hesitate to come by if you're bored," I offered, "I'm unlikely to have much else to do while we're sequestered."

With that, she nodded, blushing, and left me to my own devices.

AN: Stay tuned for part II of "adventures in quarantine!" I hope this chapter communicated the tone that this story will be going for. I'll endeavor to play the premise as straight as possible, and keep everyone acting like humans. Let me know what you think!