Hey! Sorry, I know the chapter is a few hours late. Here you go! enjoy!
Fetch. Amy was trying to play fetch with her. Nope. No way. Sorry, wrong number. I refuse. Amy had picked up a stick, thrown it, then looked expectantly back at Helena. Well, the wolf form of Helena. Because, yes, she had been forced to continue pretending to be a dog. And yes, it was humiliating. Amy picked up another stick from the vast collection around her feet and threw that one too.
"Look! Go get the stick! Fetch." Amy gave Helena puppy eyes desperately, "Please."
Helena looked away to where the stick hand landed. Yeah, no. Helena was not going to fetch. But she was supposed to be acting like a dog…did all dogs fetch? Maybe she could get away with doing something else. Helena looked back to Amy, then to all the sticks littering the ground around where they stood. Bingo. Helena grabbed a stick by Amy's feet with her teeth and held it up to the other girl.
Amy facepalmed, "I meant the… never mind." She took the stick from Helena and threw it. Helena dropped her head to grab another. Amy rolled her eyes and started humming a song, "Ain't got a crumb dog. Hmm…"
Helena's ear twitched when she heard the song. Should Helena be offended by that? Helena did not recognize the song and therefore did not know if that was an insult or not. Still, Helena kept right on handing Amy sticks as she threw them and hoped she looked innocent enough to get away with it.
"You are a weird dog." Amy shook her head at Helena, then lay in the grass.
Helena watched her for a moment. What is she doing now? Helena decided to try and get Amy to tell her. Sometimes she would just start narrating to the wolf-version of Helena when there was nothing else to do. So, Helena moved to nudge Amy's cheek with her nose.
"Hey, Puppers." Amy scratched behind her ear and moved to her chest because Amy was too lazy to reach further, "Where did they go, Sirius? They just left me and Helena. She said they'd be back. What if…" Her voice choked and her eyes watered hopelessly, "Zach? James? Evelynn?"
Helena wanted to sigh, she probably let out a weird huff or wheeze sound as she dropped her head to the grass beside Amy. this was not the first time Amy had voiced confusion about where everyone else had gone. Though it was the first time they had been voiced to Helena in either her human or wolf form. Helena wished there was something she could do to make Amy feel less abandoned, but she did not think trying to tell Amy everyone had just been illusions of her own making would go over well. Amy was still nowhere near her right mind.
"Ugh!" Amy groaned in frustration, "What am I missing? He just left me and took our kids with him! I thought he was different. Why would he leave me? What did I do? We were fine, we were having fun. We enjoyed each other's company, why would he just leave? I thought our marriage was fine. What? Why?" Helena noticed Amy's hand was shaking as she put her hands through her hair, "I don't understand. I thought he was better than Dylan. Sirius, what did I do?"
Helena wanted to groan and go die. Why did she have to listen to this? If Zach had actually left Amy after several years of marriage Helena would have been happy to listen. And then go kill her brother, but that was beside the point. The point was that none of it had been real. Amy and Zach were not married, they were not living in a castle, and they most certainly did not have kids yet. Last Helena checked they were still staring creepily at each other across the room. And Helena could not decide which was worse to watch. On some level, Helena knew she should try to help, but she did not know what to do.
"I want to go home. I want to see my family. I just want someone to love me and not get angry every time I speak! To not lash out and then give a half-apology or worse blame me for his actions! Helena? Who am I? Where did I live?... Wait… what did the wedding look like? Also… Anthony and Sabrina, aren't real right? I created them." Amy shook her head, "Then why did I meet them?" Amy lay for a second then got up suddenly, hitting Helena accidentally, "Sorry." Amy mumbled, "Let's go inside. I need a distraction. I'm going to go find Helena."
Helena felt like using the word 'trippy' even though she never talked like that, it still seemed an apt description of the confusion going on here. Sometimes, Helena wondered if the human mind could really work fast enough to cover all this craziness, or was she attempting to in vain. Whatever that was an issue for another time. Right now, she had to go switch back to human form. Ugh, this was somehow worse than babysitting.
Helena let Amy wander around the castle for several minutes, thirteen to be exact, before letting herself be found in the library. She had grabbed a random book off the shelf and was pretending to read it when Amy walked in.
"Hélène! Distrais moi!" Amy stormed in plopping herself next to Helena, "J'en ai marre d'écouter mes pensées et mes émotions stupides!"
Helena! Distract me!
I'm tired of listening to my stupid thoughts and emotions!
Helena was completely lost. It had been only thirteen minutes! How had Amy switched to a whole other language? How did she even know another language? Amy had not known any before coming here. At least not fluently and she was certainly fluently yelling at her in some language. Probably French. It sounded like French at any rate. Not that Helena understood French. Even without her eyes changing to gray, her confusion was plain on her face.
"Hélène? Écoutes-tu? Donnez-moi quelque chose à faire!" Amy glared at Helena clearly exasperated with her for not understanding.
Helena? are you listening? Give me something to do!
If Amy was an anime character, Helena imagined she would have her hair frizzed out and going in all directions. And she would have been standing in that special anime way that says "How dare you!". As it was though, Amy merely looked like the closest thing any human could get to that.
"Tu te moques de moi, Helena? Arrête de me regarder comme si je parlais une autre langue... attends tu es en colère contre moi pour quelque chose? Qu'est-ce que j'ai fait? Je suis désolé pour tout ce que j'ai fait." Amy paused for a second looking apologetic for whatever reason, "No? Then what is it? Can you tell me why you're looking at me like that? At least give me something to do if you don't want to talk, please?"
Are you kidding me, Helena? Stop looking at me like I'm speaking another language... wait are you mad at me for something? What did I do? I'm sorry for whatever I did.
Some part of Helena's brain informed her that Amy had quit yelling in French. Giving her something else to do was probably a good idea. Clearly, Amy had been in her head too much.
"Amy? Why don't you come and read with me? Pick out a book or something."
"Okay." Amy was clearly not happy with being faced with the decision of picking a book or, maybe she had already picked one and didn't know where it was because she looked at her hands sadly when the book didn't appear in front of her. Amy looked dejected as she turned to scan the library. She sent the most pitiful puppy eyes at Helena, "Can you just pick it? I don't want to find one."
Helena sighed, getting up. "Sure," She said, "Do you have any idea what kind you want to read?"
"An adventure novel with little to no romance." Amy decided.
Helena frowned, Amy not wanting romance was a bad sign. Even so, she set out in the maze of shelves to find such a book. Having spent significantly more time in this library without magic power Helena actually knew where to look for such a book. Obviously, she had not explored the whole library, which might take years, but she had found sections for all the basic genres. Unfortunately, these books did not come with sleeves that gave a summary of the story so even though Helena knew she was in the right section she still did not know if the books she was picking out fit what Amy wanted. She had to flip open each book and read a few pages before discarding them.
The first one she tried seemed to be mainly about sentient sea creators, which judging by the similar fiction in their world, would certainly have romance. The second was clearly misplaced because it was about cooking rabbits. Helena put that one under her arm to read later. The third was practically the story of Snow White and the seven dwarves, but much more similar to the fairy tale version Helena was used to. Another book was so very clearly a romance Helena had to keep herself from slamming the old book closed and throwing it away from her. Helena was exasperated by the time she saw a book titled "The Horrors of a land without magic" pulling it off the shelf Helena flipped it open and laughed out loud when it turned out to be a story about a world very like her own.
"What's so funny? Did you find one?" Amy asked with interest getting up from where she had been patiently sitting.
Helena simply handed Amy the book and returned to the chair she had been sitting in. "I think you'll like that one," she said absently as she flipped back to the page she had been reading.
Amy looked at her confused, "I thought…" She shook her head, "Nevermind. My brain." She laid herself on the couch and opened it. She silently read it and gave entertaining faces as she did.
Helena went back to not really reading the book in her hands. Pretty much all of her enhanced senses were focused on Amy. All except her eyes, she knew better than to look at the person she was paying attention to. Emma taught her that. If they knew you were paying attention to them they would act differently. So, Helena moved her eyes slowly across the page and let her dyslexia blur the words since she did not need to read them.
Amy's breathing was the easiest way to read her, as it was for most people, and judging by that she started off enjoying the book. The slight huffs of amusement or disagreement were fun to listen to as she read further into the story. There was also something that sounded like indignation in the mix somewhere plus the dramatic girly sigh that Helena only rolled her eyes at. She would never understand Amy's reactions to romance. At some point, Amy's breathing became heavier and her heart rate picked up, Helena could not see the expression on her face but she could guess that something in the book had started to click with Amy's real memories. 'Would the memories of Rosette be fake?' 'Not important right now' 'Right, yes, shutting up'. Helena was still in the process of deciding if Amy would ask her to clarify or if she would keep her confusion to herself when Amy suddenly closed the book.
"Skyscrapers? Where did I hear that word? Or did I just make that up?" Helena would likely not have heard Amy mumbling to herself without her enhanced wolf hearing. She took a chance and glanced up from her book for a second and knew right then Amy was not going to talk out whatever was going on in her head. At least not without probing. The face Amy was making was a face Helena had seen many many times. Amy was overthinking. Maybe giving her that book had not been the best idea.
Amy's face changed to the one she made when she was worried about what someone would think of something she had done. Oh great. Helena thought as she looked back down at her book. Yeah, giving her that book was not a good idea. It's too soon. When Amy got up from her couch and started toward the door Helena shot out a quick, "You alright?" and got distracted. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." in response.
As the library doors closed behind Amy, Helena closed and set down her book. A heavy sigh escaped her. She needed a moment to prepare for the conversation ahead. Another sigh and Helena got up to follow Amy out the doors.
Finding Amy was not hard. Similar to Helena's own favorite coping methods, Amy had gone outside. Though, Helena was semi-surprised to find her running laps around the castle grounds. Or she looked like she was planning to at any rate. At the speed she was running Amy would not have made it a full lap yet. Helena waited for her to finish the lap and, predictably, Amy stopped after the first one. Helena took a deep breath before walking over to her. Still unsure of how to start the conversation she waited for Amy to catch her breath.
"I feel like I'm going insane or have an extremely vivid imagination for things I haven't seen. Does the word 'skyscraper' mean anything to you? Or boats? Like silver and metal ones? I don't understand… they seem awesome! But they're not from this world, but I am. How do I have any vivid memories… I think they are. Also, have you ever seen a guy with dirty blonde hair and a smug look on his face? Okay, yes that's very vague. Um… like very athletic build… how do I know that? Never mind… um… muscular. I have memories of him and me playing basketball and soccer. Also, are those things of my imagination or what? I'm extremely confused."
Who the heck is she talking about? That's such a generic description.
Amy huffed in annoyance, "Ugh, I don't know. He just kept appearing. Older and younger, I think. I remember him sticking his head upside down through the ceiling when he was working on some plumbing or something. Whatever that is. My brain is telling me it's metal tubes that transport water to buckets that are called sinks, apparently. Anyhow, there's also this cute little girl also with blonde hair who is continually running up to me excited, and I end up picking her up. I'm also older and you're there. How old am I?"
"Amy…" Helena started and then stopped, she still had no idea how to go about this. Amy seemed to be confused about the reality of their world and the people in it. So what was the easiest way to convince her that it was all real? That they came from such a world with metal boats and plumbing? "Start with the thread they have and weave their reality back together from there." Helena knew that probably was not the actual quote but it was close enough that it helped. The question that now needed to be asked was 'what was the thread or tether to reality that Amy still had?' Helena really did not like the answer.
"Amy," She started again. "Can you tell me how long we've known each other?"
Amy's face contorted in thought, "Nine years…but, wait… I'm ninete- no fourteen. Right? Helena?"
"You're nineteen and we've known each other about a year now. But in this world, you're fourteen, at least, your body is."
"A year? Wait… how can my body be a different age than my mind?" Amy asked then her eyes brightened, "Is this like Dr. Strange? Where his body can sleep while his ghost form studies? … What? Where in the world…" Amy shook off her sudden fangirl moment that she clearly did not understand.
Helena snickered, even without her memories Amy was still a huge Marvel fan. "It's not quite like Dr. Strange, it's more like a mirror dimension. Kinda like Narnia. Do you remember what that is?"
"Narnia?" Amy asked more to herself than Helena, "Isn't that the story with Cor and Bree? Except Cor's name was different in the beginning."
"Yes, that's right. The boy's name was Shasta for most of the book. And he was traveling with the talking horse Bree."
"Oh, and Aravis! I loved Aravis!"
"Great, now do you remember the part with the four children? Kings and Queens from a different world?"
"Edmund was one of them, right? He had the Turkish delights that Queen Jadis gave him. Except she wasn't the real queen. Aslan was returning to save Narnia and he put the king and queens on the thrones. High King Peter the Magnificent, Queen Susan the Gentle, King Edmund the Just, and Queen Lucy the Valiant." Amy was bouncing up and down with childish excitement from remembering.
Helena was mildly shocked Amy knew all that. She was not sure she could list all their official titles like that and her memories were not even jumbled. Still, she nodded along. "Yes! That right! Now, you know how they came from a different world at first? And how when they were in Narnia they aged differently from when they were in their world? What we have going on is something like that. We're not in the world we were born in. We came here several months ago, but we are aging differently. Do you understand?"
"Which is why I'm older in these memories? And you're younger?" Amy asked, processing the concept.
"Yes, that's right."
"Okay… so how did we get here? Not through a wardrobe clearly. Didn't Lucy or someone wish themselves there at some point? Did we get here like that?"
"That's the tricky part, we don't know how we got here. I came looking for you so we could figure it out together, but when I got here you were sick and you couldn't remember."
"Right…okay." Amy nodded, "Wait. Last question, is Zach real?"
"Well, yes, he is. He's my brother, but he did not come to this other world with us."
Amy had a momentarily depressed look on her face before she nodded reluctantly.
"Okay, well, we've been at this awhile and now it's time to go in and eat something. Come on." Helena said as she turned away. Use the one tether to weave reality back together… Huh… Helena will have to try that next time she loses her grip on reality.
Well, this Chapter was certainly an interesting one to write. we decided that since Belle is French, Rosette should be too. Which would mean Amy knows how to speak French without knowing it.
Let me know if how I did the translations is wrong or if I could write them better for you guys to understand. Full disclosure: Nither Amy or I know how to speak French IRL so if the translation it wrong we are sorry!
Hope y'all have a good day! Leave a comment!