"Spooky! Creepers are going to come after you!"

"Belt up, Lila!" Oliver spat, walking as fast as he could down the sidewalk without breaking into a run. He had a new dislike for running, and the lack of leg muscle to fuel it. The sky was becoming an ominous dark purple, urging him to seek sanctuary from the cold and night before creepers do come after him.

Two figures posed at the front gate, and did not speak or move against the fence. Oliver skittered, hanging in the darkness to stare with wide eyes. One shifted away from the wood, gawking back at him. "Don't shit yourself," a raspy voice emitted from the shadow. "It's me, Matt."

Lila giggled, "Too late!"

Oliver nonchalantly drew a hand over his hair. "Why are you lingering outside? It is getting late and cold."

"Same to you. I'm used to it." The other figure drew up to Matt, and clung onto his arm. A car zipped by, illuminating both his and Siegmund's faces for a quick moment. "We have nothing better to do, and besides, we're still a group, even without most of our pals."

Siegmund released his bicep to sign. The blond translated, "He was worried..." he glanced to the mute with a questionable tilt of his head. "He was worried those...weenies tried something."

"Did they?"

"Not yet, but with a lot of us gone, they're bound to do so." Matt jerked his head to the gate. "We should head inside."

"I would not mind that," Oliver claimed, but the pair already swung the gate open, not acknowledging his banter. It may been a tad awful to think it, but he was grateful that Matt and Siegmund were not the ones arrested. If Luciano or Kuro were left behind, he may have been left to his own devices once more. Besides, he gave the current pair baked goods; they should remain on friendly terms.

Oliver asked, "Have you seen any of them around?"

"Of course," Matt stamped up the porch steps. "They creep and watch in the cracks and crevices. You'll see them. It's only a matter of time, especially how Crookednose's bedroom is next to yours."

Miss Warden asked when the trio stepped inside, "Not causing trouble, are you boys?"

Matt turned away without answering her, and Siegmund followed his steps. Oliver glanced between them and the elder. "It is more closer to trouble effecting us."

Miss Warden seemed unimpressed, but her never wavering frown deepened. "I would expect you to not get tangled with those buffoons."

"Matt and Siegmund?"

"The others. Not that it matters anymore."

Oliver's face inflamed with irritation. Without another word, he headed for the staircase. Lila murmured in worry, sensing how his usually bouncy steps turned into more jagged movements. "Ollie? She's just an old, angry wasp."

"They were not bad kids!"

She patted his head with a small hand, only managing to make a clump of auburn askew. "It will get better! Vines always twist and curve around obstacles blocking their way to what they need."

"There is only so much twisting I can do in this place," Oliver grumbled so grumpily.

"Then let's go somewhere where you can."

~.~

~BOING~

~.~

Oliver had to admit his mind had been on other things as of recent, rather than the Realm of Spirits. However, when he opened his eyes to the endless fog, it welcomed him. Lila flew from the grass, buzzing excitedly to be back home. "Come on!" She lifted one of his fingers that were still resting in the blue-green grass. "The others have been wanting to see you!"

"Why wait, then?" Oliver rolled around to push himself from the ground, floating to his feet. The fairy zoomed toward the valley, leaving behind a bright trail of glitter from her wings. "Hey!" He called with laughter in his voice. It felt like nothing could harm him in the Realm as he pushed forward, sailing over the grass with one bound in place of several steps.

The other fairies were not good at hiding. Despite their small size, they loved to giggle a lot. After a large slope, a vast patch of flaming orange and pink flowers spread along the mountain side. It was the obvious place were Lila disappeared to. "Oh, where could my dear fairy friend have gone?" Oliver asked aloud, glancing to the forest of green with a thoughtful hand under his chin. Not even biting the side of his mouth stopped a smile creeping on his face from the titters and "Hush!" rising in the flora.

The stems rustled, and many, tiny beings leaped from the petals. Oliver gasped, and spun around to be overwhelmed by a hoard of fairies. They pulled on his clothes, and pushed him to the flowers with their collective might. The boy laughed in delight, and let the plants take him as he settled. "Yes, yes, hello," he greeted each of the excited creatures.

The fairies plucked some of the flowers, and left others to bloom. They chose the most open and brightest ones to take, which must have been a difficult decision, since all of them were beautiful. The small beings weaved the stalks together to create a long (and apparently heavy) strand of flowers. The ends were joined, forming a wreath. Oliver gasped when they drooped the crown on his head.

"Huzzah!" Lila declared, landing in the boy's hair. "King of the fae!" Her companions cheered, bathing him in a shower of leftover flowers and glitter.

"Really, you!" Oliver could not help but laugh. "Thank you. Thank all of you. These flowers are wonderful, and very well grown!"

"I would hope so. They have been working on them since the solstice."

Oliver twisted around, eyes widening at his blond look alike. "You again!"

"What?!" The other boy barked. "The Realm is open to all who can find it."

"I was not implying it was not!" The baker huffed as his doppelgänger sank amongst the flowers. "I am just a tad taken back how..."

"We look alike? Yes, that is strange." That may have been reason why he fled Oliver with little to no explanation the first time they met, but his look alike made no remarks of it then. The other teen plucked a flower from the bicolored patch, and spun it between his fingers. "Tell me, by any chance, is the grass blue where you come from?"

"Why, yes, it is!"

"I see."

Lila asked, "See what?"

"The grass is green on my side of the fence. Did you notice how blue it becomes the further you stray from that forest?"

"Is that were you came from?"

"That is where I wake up whenever I come here."

"That is weird," Oliver said. "What do you think that means?"

"They say the Realm of Spirits is the ultimate conversion point of all the universes and life." The boy's green eyes were distant on the flower he twirled. "The grass here is blue and green. If mine is green, and yours is blue..."

"Oh! You are from a different world?"

"As are you!"

"Is your name Oliver?"

"No, it is Arthur. Is yours?"

Oliver shook his head. "No, mine is Oliver Kirkland."

"That is my last name."

"Strange!"

"Very!" Arthur stared with more intent. "You know, I thought I was going mad, being the only one that can see them."

"The fairies?"

"Everything!"

"Too, right?! Everyone is the odd ball for not seeing those coal tars floating right in front of your eyes!"

"Hm, we do not have an abundance of coal tars," Arthur admitted. "We have them, but they only come out at night."

"No way!" Oliver exclaimed. "Some of the coal tars at my place can withstand the daylight, and follow everyone around. Most of them keep to dark and creepy basements."

"Just how awful are people in your world?"

Oliver grimaced, pulling his legs to his chest. "Well, for starters, every time I smile, and be genuinely friendly, most people look at me as if I have a third eye!"

"You're kidding! That is horrible!"

"Are people not like that in your place?"

"Oh, there are ungodly fellows, but that is everywhere you go. Even here." Arthur surrendered his flower to a fairy who asked for it, and copied Oliver's gesture with his knees to his chin. "I cannot forget the impossibly annoying twats, either, but humanity can be charitable, or greedy. It depends on the individual and their beliefs."

"Wow," Oliver murmured. "Here...err...in my place, it is expected to do things for yourself and by yourself. It may sound selfish to you, but it is completely normal to keep to yourself, mind your own business, and turn your head away to other's turmoil. Society is very closed."

Lila piped up, "That doesn't mean there are people who don't try to help others. Ollie helped one of his housemates when he was stabbed!"

"Oh really? Someone was stabbed, just like that?"

Oliver snickered. "No, that is a long story. I used a healing incantation with a birthing sigil."

"That sounds like Light Magic."

"It was."

"You do not use Dark Magic?"

"No, why?"

"I do," Arthur mumbled, and looked at his hands.

"You will hurt yourself!" Oliver lightly scolded. He eased his shoulders to whisper, "Does it hurt?"

"If I use it too much, but it is not like I try to tear a hole in the Earth or anything drastic like that!"

"Then what do you do with it?"

"Summon dark spirits," Arthur nodded, then shuddered. "I make idiots trip over their own shoes, but nothing too 'evil.'"

"Oh," was all Oliver said. He considered regretting not choosing Dark magic, but Siegmund may have not been alive if that were the case.

"Come on," the blond urged. "What do you do with your Light magic?"

"I can heal people, but I already said that. Apparently, I need it more than you do. Also, coal tars will not hoard around me, those pesky buggers. I have been trying to teleport, too. There is also the summoning of various objects, but that is Neutral."

"Does it hurt?"

"It drains me. At worse, I faint, unlike Dark magic. I heard it will make the caster start coughing up blood!"

Arthur stuck his nose in the air. "That was one time. I was being stupid."

Oliver giggled at how well his newfound acquaintance and him got along. "Do you have a job?"

"No, I am a secondary school student."

"S-school student?" Oliver echoed. "Oh, wow. We are not really big on public education in my world. You learn whatever you want to learn and when."

"Education is self-driven?"

"It may sound silly-"

"That sounds absolutely wonderful!"

Oliver gave his look alike an odd look. "You do not like school?"

"No!" Arthur scoffed. "I am sick of waking up at six in the bloody morning to deal with a bunch of morons for the sake of education! There are so many things I could be doing instead of sitting in class!" He stopped complaining to sigh. "You said you do not have schools?"

"Maybe for the very rich kids, but parents usually teach their children, or they teach themselves."

"So you do not go to school?"

"No, I work at a bakery."

"That is splendid!"

Lila said, "I know!"

Oliver waggled a finger at her as Arthur asked, "Can you cook?"

"Err...no, not really. I do not have a reason to right now. If I do not eat at the bakeshop, some kids line up food at the House for breakfast and dinner."

"The...House?"

"It is a youth hostel, so there are not homeless children rampaging on the streets."

"Oh," Arthur frowned, scratching at his head in an embarrassed gesture. "Y-you do not have a family?"

Oliver took a deep breath, and slowly let it go. "No. My father is dead, and my mother is currently in prison."

His look alike whistled. "If you do not mind me asking, are the two results related?"

"Sort of...it has to do with magic stuff. I usually do not tell anybody about it because of everyone being blind to it and all."

The blond rocked back and forth on his rear a bit. "So, what did happen, if you are willing to tell me?"

Oliver saw that coming. "To keep things brief, my mum banished my father to this Realm, since he was becoming...malevolent. He wanted to take me away from her."

"Whoa, what? Your mum did that as a punishment?"

"He was being mean! He tried to get me to be like everyone else, to suppress my own emotions to be a blah like them. Mum wanted me to be happy, the way I am."

"So, she sent your dad here so he could learn his lesson?"

"So we could be relieved by his drunken stupor. He could not keep a job, and wasted any money he managed to get on alcohol. Perhaps it was supposed to be temporary, but someone tipped his disappearance onto her, and eventually, the police got her. She could not say my father was in some spiritual plane."

"I suppose jail is better than the nut house. Who would have ratted on your own Mum? Did she have any enemies of some sort?"

Oliver furrowed his eyebrows. "Hm, the only person I can think of is my father's mother. Every time she came over for her rare visits..." he shuddered. "She would not even allow her to come over to her house, either!"

"There you have it," Arthur pointed out. Oliver only gotten angry over the betrayal of his own family, but kept his shaking to himself, as much as he could with his inflamed cheeks. "The Realm easily takes its toll on unfamiliar beings. Is that how your father...?"

"Yes," Oliver seethed. "By the time I figured how to get here, his body was no longer his own."

"I understand," his look alike murmured. "You said that House place was for homeless blokes. Is that where you ended up after the bobbies nagged your mum?"

The baker nodded, and stiffened as he felt Lila clench onto his hair. "It was almost two years ago. A lot of things happened since then. I met new people, and done new things."

"You sound rather optimistic for someone who comes from a supposed cruel world."

"That's Ollie for you!" Lila chirped. She gasped as one of the speck of lights that littered the landscape lazily floated in front of her face, and shrunk into his hair.

"I would not call it cruel." Oliver lifted his eyebrows as the fairy thrashed, batting at the small ball. "Your world sounds like awful, too, how it expects children to learn what they are forced to."

"There is a lot to learn, too," Arthur mumbled. He gave himself a little shake. "To each their own!"

"Yes, what you said. Would you tell me something about yourself, too?"

The blond was taken back. "W-would you want that?"

"I asked."

"Hmph, you did. All right. I live with my mum. Just my mum, since my other brothers have moved out already-"

"Wait, brothers?"

"You sound surprised," Arthur keenly observed. "Do you not have brothers?"

"I am the only child...or I think I was..."

They gazed at one another, worried and afraid. "I would not be surprised if there are major differences in families. It is a different world, after all."

"I-I suppose..." Oliver trailed off, still not satisfied. He filled in the blanks with the excuse of it would be worse, based on the way things turned out, that if he had any siblings. His mother was even adamant of getting a family pet, let alone other children.

Arthur broke his spacing, "My father walked out several years ago, and we have been on our own since."

"Your father just left?" Oliver jumped back into the conversation. "That is horrible!"

"Says the bloke whose father was corrupted by the Realm! That is worse, if not as horrible," Arthur noted, squeezing his legs tighter. "I guess my father was sick of our...oh, what did he call it? 'Spirit talk' and 'magic nonsense.' I do not think he was ever interested in raising a family."

"His lost!"

"I know!" Arthur twisted to face Oliver. "I feel as if we get along so well."

Oliver grinned. "You think so, too?"

"I would enjoy it very much so if you would meet me here again."

"Same time?"

"Of course." Arthur rose to his feet, brushing off any stray petals and grit from his cloak. "However, I must be leaving now. School comes early. Goodnight."

"Good-what?" Oliver turned to watch his counterpart head to the verdant forest. "Nice cloak, by the way!"

Lila snorted with her laughter, and Arthur clamped his hands on his hood, hurrying beneath the trees. "It should be wakey time for you, too!" The fairy patted Oliver's head. "I'll come with!"

"You heard her," Oliver told the other fairies. "We are going to go now. Thank you for the crown."

"You look lovely!" One fairy said.

"Really," the boy felt a warm wave seep to his toes. He bounded back to his usual spot, and flopped onto the grass, startling Lila from her perch, but she obviously did not mind. She situated herself beside his ear, using the same position of her hands behind her head. So much had happened within the previous twenty four hours, but he could easily say that meeting a universal counterpart was the best thing that happened all day.