April 16, 1914

Theodore must've nodded off at some point, because when he woke again the calendar in the corner of the room had a few extra days crossed off than when he had last been conscious. Again, the midday sun woke the boy, piercing through the layers of blankets.

This time, when he next awoke the confusion still bubbled close the surface, but now he was aware of a few things:

1) His vera was dead.
2) At some point, he'd been placed with his fellow Garde, Lila Pitts, in this shared accomodation by their Greeter(s). They would remain here until further relocation.
3) The Garde were still in hiding amongst the terrans, but Lorien had not yet fallen.
4) The pug at his feet was a chimaera
5) Everything in his body hurt like hell.

Everything else was just conjecture. Time travel? Plausible, but laughable. Apocalypse? Long time coming, but none of his business. Family? Missing and-or-dead & unlikely to return. What a way to start the day. When Theodore eventually reemerged from the confines of the bed and the relative safety of the blankets, the strange noises & voices from deeper into the apartment were still there, but they had become somewhat subdued. Instead they sounded more muffled than before as if the people they belonged to were hidden behind a wall of some kind (which was entirely possible considering Theodore had no clue as to how big this place was or how it was laid out).

Motivated by his growling stomach & begging bladder, Theodore eventually emerged from underneath the blanket with slow & hesitant movements that were a stark contrast to the eager hops of the pug now dancing around his feet. Mercifully, no one was upstairs with him (aside from Mr Pennycrumb) when he awoke that second time, as they were seemingly still occupied with whatever they were doing downstairs and it allowed him to tiptoe down the hall towards the kitchen where he hoped to find something to satisfy his growling stomach.

Quietly searching for something to eat, Theodore pawed through the cupboards for something that he could munch on without needing to cook it. He knew that he couldn't cook anything if he didn't want to attract unwanted visitors, so it was either whatever was languishing in the refrigerator or whatever he could find hiding in the pantry. Thankfully, Theodore was able to locate some sort of green gelatinous concoction in the fridge; which wasn't hard considering how much room the thing took up. Although when he first bit into it, he found that it was not fruit encased inside, as expected, and instead it was ham. But he was hungry, and thankfully, not a very picky eater so he just ate around the meat in the middle and did his best not to think about the strange meaty flavour that the jelly had.

After stomaching as much of the meaty jelly as he could handle, Theodore shoved the half-eaten meal back into the fridge and then moved to inspect the apartment beyond the bedroom and bathroom he had searched before. Where the bedroom he'd awoken in—his bedroom—was brightly lit & colourful, the kitchen was painted in more muted tones that lent themselves towards a rather homely feel. It painted a nice sort of atmosphere for the heart of the house.

From the pale cabinetry that lined the walls, hugging every available surface in weathered wood, to the lime-green walls that seeped through any available crack. A small dinette sat tucked in one corner of the room—the one closest to the window—allowing the sunlight to bounce off of the slightly mouldy fruit in the shiny bowl upon its tabletop. Top-of-the-range appliances decorated the place and a certain chaotic organisation filled the room; from the jacket haphazardly draped over the back of the chair, to the pile of used tea bags sitting on the windowsil where they lay, staining a sorrowful saucer.

There was even this stink of lemony-fresh cleaner in the air that seemed to be trying to mask the smell of the bin and doing a very poor job of it. The adjoining sitting room was maybe a pace or two from the kitchen itself and held a couple of squat-looking armchairs that would look right at home in some antique store; all covered in tartan & paisley prints. It took a little bit longer for him to snoop through the rest of the apartment, as Mr Pennycrumb dogged at his heels the entire way. He found a few interesting things that caught his eye included a collection of empty bronze tubes piled up in the bedroom of which, he assumed was Lila's.

There were also a couple of conspiratorial articles about aliens & other such things littered about the place like some child's collage. It was there that Theodore had been quite surprised to find a couple of snapshots of what, looked to be, the old Loric shuttles from journeys long passed and the picture of a girl (presumably Garde) with her guardian (who looked suspiciously like A'Vera Katerina's Cêpan) as they met up with their Earthen representative. That is to say, if these people really did know about—or at least had a fascination with the Lorics—then that would explain how they had come into the possession of a chimaera. It made him wonder what else the little chimaera had seen in his short life.

With upstairs more than sufficiently "searched" Theodore knew that it was finally time to venture downstairs even if the thought of doing so turned his stomach and rankled his nerves something fierce. He'd never been that great with meeting new people—or people in general—hence his limited friend group (read: the one & only Milton Greene III) and not-quite-up-to-par social skills.

Usually, he'd do what most introverts would do & allowed himself to be "adopted" by an extrovert and then called it a day. It was much easier that way and you could use them as a preverbal meat shield in social situations, when things became too much because they loved people. But all Theodore had now was the teeny chimaera pup that was Mr Pennycrumb, a belly full of meat-flavoured jelly and a nightgown that was two sizes too big.

Theodore knew that he would have to go downstairs, eventually, but to be frank he was more concerned with the fact that the pain was getting to be too much. It was quite impressive that he had remained standing for so long. The pain of his Lien du Lorne was hard to bare, though it was made easier by the various distractions he had found throughout the place. But even those only lasted for so long before it came back with a vengeance to bit him in the ass, much harder than before.

Standing at the top of the stairs, Theodore grit his teeth as a huff of breath that made him sound like an aging dragon. Legs locking in place, he groaned low and pitifully as his fingers sank into the mahogany bannister like it was made of butter; his body was starting to tingle now and not in that pleasant way. If he closed his eyes now, he could pretend that he was back home in Broadview. If he strained his ears, he could pretend that Mr Pennycrumb's barks were actually Mrs Kowalski's yowling cats, that this dark staircase actually led down to the busy New York street, that Vera would be waiting for him, with arms open wide. Tears dripped down his cheeks and snot bubbled in his nose as he lied to himself, wishing with all his might that he was someplace else.

Where the upstairs apartment had been a rather nice & serenely quiet place to awaken in—like the sun patches of a warm midday morning with fluffy felines or princess & the pea-style blankets surrounding him—downstairs was not. The strange & unfamiliar voices that floated up the stairs as he quietly padded down the steps, one careful creaky step at a time. Mr Pennycrumb went first, pausing to wait for Theodore to catch up. The bannister remained gripped tightly in his hand, to the point that the singed wood & creaky grains grated on his ears in that silvery hushed voice that he couldn't stand. It was the kind of tone that some people used to talk down to you or like they were afraid that speaking any higher would make you break.

Despite this, the pug seemed almost gleeful as he jumped down the steps, his tongue lolling out as golden eyes watched the Garde descend the stairs like an elderly man with brittle bones. The pup's legs would get caught halfway between two steps with front legs crooked just so and back legs listlessly propped up behind him in a miniature attempt of the downward dog yoga pose as Theodore slowly followed after. In fact, had the steps been any ls he was sure that the dog would've been flipping end-over-end like a rubber man down the window; his tail wagging a mile-a-minute behind him.

Instead, Mr Pennycrumb found himself happily glued to the boy's side as he eventually came to a quiet stop at the bottom of the stairs. It was there that Theodore found himself confronted with such a domestically normal scene that he had to grip tight to the wall next to him (even as it smoke & burnt under his heated palm) just to keep himself upright. He told himself that it was because of the shock that had him so guileless, not the chronic pain that wracked his slight form.

The apartment complex that they apparently lived in was actually an old victorian house that had been split into the various apartments, leaving the larger entertainment rooms downstairs to be claimed as the common areas. From where he stood, Theodore could see a little bit of everything and sneaking closer let him see even more. Hugging the wall and whatever could keep him upright, Theodore decided to investigate further before his legs gave out or the lightheadedness got the better of him.

Each apartment had their own little kitchenette, but the common area in the complex was where the real kitchen lay, kitted out in every industrial appliance that you could think of. From the cast-iron stove to the lead-painted fridge in the corner. The best part? It was an open plan space that allowed him to see the dining room from the kitchen; a design which seemed more modern than the rest of the house and he could only assume that it had been built that way after the house had completed construction.

The windows that lined the walls were varied and many, of which they reminded him of display windows in a department store as they reached heavenwards and looked out onto the street & gardens. If some of them hadn't been frosted like they were, he would've felt like a goldfish in a bowl, proudly displayed for all to see. Sconces protruded from the walls at various intervals and some even held old candlesticks which had turned into globby messes of melted wax.

Across the way, there lay the only closed door in the hallway. Over there, where a ghoulish door knocker lay and supposedly led into the sun room, because that was where all of the strange voices were coming from. Though he could not see inside the room, he was sure that if he could, it would've seemed familiar thanks to him coming in through that way some days prior. If he strained his ears, he could hear the clinking of glasses and the chirping of birds on the lawn out back. It was also the room where those strange voices were coming from.

Inwardly, Theodore wondered if they [the other occupants of the house] were talking about him, how he had to be dragged in from the yard—what was he doing there—and when he would wake. Those would certainly be the kind of questions he would have if some stranger was suddenly living in his house. He wondered what this…Lila would've said, would she have defended him? Made up some sort of story that sounded plausible enough to let them be? Maybe they had called in a doctor and he just didn't know it? Or better yet, the cops or child services? The again, maybe they were worried that, since their living quarters were so close to one another, that whatever had taken him down would also spread to them? Or maybe they were worried that he would do something when he awoke in a strange place, amongst stranger people.

It was kind of sweet, when he thought about it like that, particularly for a strange boy that they found on their doorstep wearing even stranger clothing (for the time). Not many would have of done the same; bringing him inside & caring for him as they had, in fact they likely would've of called the authorities. Which wrought the question, since he hadn't woken up in a padded room or strapped to a hospital bed, why didn't they? Could there be some sort of ulterior motive? But—familial obligation, aside—then why taken him in? Why clothe him when it would've been so much easier to have him escorted off of the premises? So many questions whirled around inside his brain, twisting about with no answers to satisfy his curiosity; it was quickly becoming rather frustrating.

Shaking his head clear of those depressing thoughts, Theodore remained idling in the hallway as Mr Pennycrumb danced around his feet. Taking this all in, it left Theodore feeling strange. Even though he knew logically that he was in the past (although that was still up for debate) thanks to all of the numerous signs pointing to such, it was still an odd thing to swallow. Even when it was, quite literally, slapping him in the face the young Garde felt like he had stepped straight into an American history textbook.

Sure, the world wasn't painted in black & white like those grainy photographs had been or the sepia snapshots that depicted old timey portraits of unsmiling sycophants, and what he could hear of those muffled voices, they weren't speaking like old timey gangsters or Shakespearian poets. He couldn't say for sure, how many people there were because it was hard to tell how many heartbeats there were over the sound of his own hear thudding loudly in his ears. The blood rushing through them and the pounding in his chest was like a little drum circle, beating a mile a minute.

BUM BA—BUM, BUM, BUM!

The only thing that he knew to be true was the pug draped listlessly over his feet like an obtuse pair of socks and the stuffy-mushy feeling of his brain threatening to pour out of every orifice or topple him over at any given moment. Maybe if he went back to sleep, things would be better in the morning? Afterall, Vera always said that it was sacrilegious to refuse a nap!