Marissa wandered the forest near her home rather than sit in the creaky old building she called a home by herself, enjoying the company of the small forest animals that she didn't get from her fellow humans. The critters had grown to recognize her in her decades of living here, giving her a wide berth but not otherwise running from her; she greatly appreciated this, taking in the beauty of a native bird's green feathers that shimmered in the fading light, shuffling and shaking as it preened itself. It made a small noise, a sigh, before it flew off to its nest. The sounds of other creatures continued, a melody of the forest that could only be appreciated by someone who had lived within it for over fifty years.

She sighed, continuing her walk.

Marissa couldn't remember how many times she'd walked this path with her parents, now so worn down that the plants were pressed tightly into the ground to make a visible trail. But it had been several years since she'd last walked it with someone else. Her daily walks had been reduced to once or twice a week, and her mother came with her to less than half of those.

The woman wasn't certain she could consider her family "whole" any longer.

For one, her father was now gone. He had been for quite a while. Who knew where he went, or if he was even still alive; the man certainly had not been in the best of states the last time she saw him four or five years ago. She longingly remembered that he was the one who enjoyed their family's walks the most. He loved being outdoors and observing the native wildlife, but most of all, he loved being with his family.

Marissa's mother, on the other hand, was still around, but often left for weeks at a time to fetch more supplies for the two of them. Her mother was getting on in the years now, though she still made the journey fairly regularly, despite Marissa's constant offers to help. But, for some reason, her mother absolutely did not want to let Marissa go to any of the nearby villages, and who was she to disagree? She still brought back all sorts of goods on her way back, like books, tools, and whatever small devices she thought Marissa was interested in.

Hopefully, she would be back soon. It had been almost two weeks since her departure, and Marissa was starting to grow lonely once more.

Still, her body naturally followed the path towards the small clearing at the end, staving off the worst of it. She could walk it with her eyes closed, habitually stepping around or over every rock, root, and snare that laid over the trail. They may have impeded her when she was young, but now, she was tall and had long legs; nothing was going to be able to snag her anymore.

The birds suddenly paused. Marissa immediately felt her body tense.

There were very few predators that lived in this forest, and the ones that did wouldn't alarm the animals in this way – they are the type that no one saw coming. For the usually-lackadaisical birds to be startled meant that there was something there that they were unsure about.

This forest never had such visitors.

A hand rested over the knife's sheath at Marissa's hip, cautious, but not scared. She was a grown woman, and had full confidence in herself to defend herself if needed.

The sound of something falling reached her ears. She heard the distant sound of someone swearing, the sound of creaking and cracking branches, and finally, the dull thud of something hitting the ground.

Marissa crouched behind the trunk of an especially thick tree. She couldn't see the clearing where it sounded like something had landed, but she was close enough that she could hear the fluttering of bird wings as they took flight, startled. Even the green one that she'd been observing earlier flew into the sky, blending against the similarly colored sky.

Whatever had just landed was definitely not something that the birds were familiar with. What that meant, however, Marissa wasn't quite sure. Sometimes, odd things ended up in the forest. Parts of machines, rocks and stones that weren't from around here. Once, a strange animal had even crashed through the trees like a meteorite, startled, but otherwise unharmed.

When Marissa heard a low groan, she wondered if that had happened again. Instead of an animal, this time…

Wasn't that the sound of a human?

Marissa stared down at the bed that she'd placed her visitor in. If he felt her gaze, he didn't stir, even though it was an intense sort of stare that meant she was trying to figure out the mysteries of the world.

Because…

Not only was it a human that had wandered (though, really, "fallen" was probably a better word) into the little forest, he was also strangely familiar. No, not familiar – he was an exact copy of someone that she knew.

Marissa hadn't realized it at first. In the clearing, his blue hair had been splayed out wildly, covering his face. He was unconscious, too, so his eyes were hidden, and his face was entirely blank.

Plus, she had other things to worry about – the man was feverish, face flushed, yet his hands felt freezing cold. It was as though there was no blood flowing through his limbs. Honestly, he had that chilly feeling that dead animals tended to have. She'd have thought him to be on his way out, too, if not for how pliable his limbs were and the shallow breaths that he took much too irregularly to be healthy.

Marissa knew she had to do…

… But there wasn't much she could do except bring him back to her house and place him into her parent's bedroom, tucked underneath enough blankets to hopefully bring back some warmth to his body.

And it was then, staring down at him to get a better look at the man that she'd picked up from god knew where, that she'd noticed striking similarities. Impossibly striking similarities.

For one, the blue hair she'd written off because of its normalcy in her life. How common was blue hair? And he had the blue eyebrows to match, ones that matched her own perfectly. Both were dead-ringers of her own.

It was as though the man shared her face.

The thought filled Marissa with dread for some reason.

Who was this man, and how had he ended up here? Her first thought, though she was ashamed to admit it, was that somehow, she had a brother that she had no idea about – a half brother, perhaps, because her father hadn't been around in a long time now, and Marissa thought she'd know if her mother had a second child.

But something continued to wiggle at the back of her brain, telling her that there was more.

Coincidentally, the man's eyes fluttered open momentarily while she studied his face. His mouth opened, gasping for air like he had just come from underwater while he struggled briefly to bring his hands to his throat – thankfully, though, the blankets were heavy enough that his weakened limbs couldn't get too far off the bed.

"Oh, you're –" Marissa started, but it became immediately clear that he wasn't very aware.

Not when his eyes glazed over, then shut again. After a moment, they fluttered open again, and a name she hadn't even considered fell out of his mouth before his eyes closed again.

"Chloe…"

How… had he known that name?

That was Marissa's mother's name – but she wasn't anywhere near the house at that moment.

And then it all clicked; The similarities, the familiarity… It was because she had met this man before.

This man was her father. He was Mercury.

Was Marissa going crazy?

Mercury was nothing like she remembered, she told herself. He appeared much younger, and his face was so childlike compared to the weighted look her father had. But his facial features were exactly as she remembered: a long, slender nose, high, blue eyebrows, and lips so pale that he looked like he'd been left in the cold. His hair and brow color matched her own exactly; she wondered how she hadn't realized until that very moment.

It was a passing similarity, surely. There was absolutely no way this man could be her father. There was one way she could check, though Marissa hesitated to actually do it.

What would it mean if this man was her father? How could he be here? Why was he even here in the first place?

Marissa's father was a loving man, but he'd… deteriorated in the last couple of years she had known him. They were alike in the way that neither of them really aged – the only one who had aged was her mother – but something in his head hadn't been quite right, and he was just so secretive about everything.

But something in her chest drove Marissa to check. She needed to be certain right there, before her mother came home, because that was not a conversation she wanted to have or experience.

The woman gently pulled down the fabric covering his neck. The three ridges were there – he had gills.

It really was her father.

Marissa pulled back, stunned. She leaned against the wall behind her as her legs went weak, pressing a hand to her eyes as though trying to wake the sleep from her eyes – because surely this was a dream, right? Her father was not the man on the bed in front of her. He'd gone missing out of the blue, and all that was left behind of him was a small note explaining that he had to leave.

Her mind swirled with possibilities, ways she could deny what was in front of her.

She didn't want to peek at her own father while he was barely conscious, but she wanted to check if he also had that black mark on his chest; the similarities in his body could have been manifested by a magic tool, she supposed, but he kept that brand hidden for as long as she'd known him. Marissa had only gotten to see it in his final years when it seemed as though his sanity was slipping through the cracks of his own mind, and he was sometimes barely able to take care of his own self.

She didn't check, though. Her head was telling her that this man must be her father, but her gut argued otherwise; he might have looked the same, sounded the same, and even had the same signature salty scent around him, but there was something distinctly different about him. She couldn't put her finger on it, and even if she could, she doubted it would have done her any good to dwell on it.

The man – Marissa absolutely could not bring herself to think of him as her father – stirred slightly in the bed, face twisted in pain. He gripped at his shirt mercilessly, fingers clawing at something underneath as he groaned into the unused, dusty air.

She would have to wait until he awoke to get any sort of answers, though. For that to happen, she'd need to be sure that he was actually going to wake up. Dead men tell no tales, after all – and she wasn't entirely certain if the one in front of her was dead or alive.

In less than a day, her father's (?) condition stabilized, deteriorated, then stabilized once more until he was simply laying in the bed as still as a statue. It was hard to watch. He writhed in pain before settling back down for a couple of hours, until finally he'd become still.

Marissa knew it was only a matter of time until he woke up. Her real father's episodes hardly ever lasted more than a couple of hours at most, and this man's experience was breaking past the six hour mark by the time he began to look less like he'd been stabbed and more like he was just sick in bed.

The waiting was killing Marissa. Almost literally.

Her heart thundered in her chest as she repeated the questions she wanted to ask over and over again in her head, the words threatening to violently spill as she had to leave the room to stop herself from violently shaking him awake.

But, awaken he did. Eventually. Slowly. He was groaning all the while, cold hands shaking either from the cold or from the fit, but he did awaken – even though he was clearly very out of it.

Mercury's eyes fluttered open several minutes later, flickering shut for a couple of minutes before his mind returned once more. When they finally did open, Marissa nearly cried – his eyes were the exact same as her father's, though the heavy bags underneath them were gone.

He must have been in a much better condition than her father was.

Oh, god, this was confusing.

"Are you awake?" Marissa could finally bring herself to ask when he blankly stared ahead at the ceiling above him instead of saying anything. The man's eyes flared, shooting over to her as though he hadn't even noticed her presence.

He seemed to be quite feverish, his face flushed and eyes not completely seeing her, or perhaps being unable to accept what they were seeing as his eyes aggressively traced the outline of Marissa's body. She felt like she was being examined.

Maybe he was experiencing the same sensation of being dumbstruck as she was.

Mercury's face flashed with several emotions at once. Confusion, because he had no idea where he was, and then disbelief at what was in front of him, before ending in a gut-wrenching, unreadable emotion, his eyes wavering and narrowed. His breath hitched, and for a minute, it seemed like he wasn't even breathing.

Marissa worried for a moment that there was something wrong with him physically, though when she reached out to grab his wrist and check his pulse, it was actually his hand that found her own wrist.

"Don't," the man in front of her hissed, then said nothing else, simply staring.

His grip was tight. Too tight.

Mercury's fingers dug painfully into the soft spot below her hands, fingernails pressing even harder. He might have drawn blood.

And Marissa found that she didn't have the strength to pull away.

"Let go – I won't touch you, just, ow, stop."

It took a second before he listened to her, but when he finally did release his death grip, the imprint of his fingernails remained, and the meat of her wrists were already bruised. His grip was unexpectedly painful. Marissa wouldn't have thought that the man who seemed to be on his deathbed in front of her just hours ago would have the strength to not only injure her, but overpower her.

Even her own father had never used such strength on her.

The blue-haired man slouched a moment after he let her hand go. Another groan. He must be light headed, dizzy – the version of him who was her father sometimes experienced similar things when he woke up after fits.

"Am I fucking dead?" He asked no one in particular. Mercury pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets so hard that the woman watching him thought his eyes might simply pop.

"No."

He did not look up to stare at her again. Instead, he kept his eyes screwed shut. "Well, if I'm not dead, then I'm not sure which of us is."

"I'm not dead, either."

"Yes. You are."

For the first time, Marissa flinched – the bitterness in his voice touched her heart like lava through her veins.

Mercury might have thought her a phantom, then, in the same way that she had thought that he was – though it definitely pained her to hear in her father's voice that she was dead. Marissa's father, Mercury, was not dead. But apparently, whoever she was to him was.

"Is your mother dead?" The man's voice was hesitant, as though he could hardly bring himself to ask the question. His voice waved as he said "mother." Was it painful for him to say it? Was it painful for him to be here? It certainly looked to be, Mercury's shoulders tightly tucked as he absolutely refused to even glance in her direction, eyes still covered.

"No."

He stiffened.

"Oh, fuck."

And then he leapt from the bed with more speed and desperation than Marissa had ever seen from her own father, tried to push past her, and then proceeded to make it two steps before succumbing to dizziness and falling into a heap.

It took Marissa a long time to get the man settled again after he'd tried to run out on her, but eventually, both carefully sat down at the table with two mugs of tea.

"You probably already know this, but I can't taste this at all."

This version of her father was a lot more blunt than she remembered.

He carefully refused to meet her eyes, staring down at the curling steam coming off of the mug on the table. He hadn't so much as touched it. Both of Mercury's hands were folded in front of his face, fingers entwined as the steam coated them.

And he didn't so much as flinch despite how hot it must have been.

"I know," Marissa said, waiting for a response.

Mercury hid himself in his drink. There was something off about how he was sitting, some anxiety that Marissa couldn't get him to let go of no matter how much she tried to ease the conversation away from… whatever was going on.

His reaction to the news about her mother indicated that he had been shocked down to his very core. The blue-haired man's foot still bounced endlessly, and the small rattle of the chair beneath him was the only sound as the conversation lulled once more. Marissa was sure he was soon going to unravel the loose thread on his right sleeve that he had been continuously fidgeting with.

But Marissa had to ask. She couldn't stop herself. Besides, he'd asked a couple of questions about her in the time since he'd woken, so it was only fair that she got to ask her own now that he'd mostly calmed down.

Right?

"Are you really Mercury?"

His foot stopped bouncing entirely, though he still didn't look up.

"Yes."

Conversation fell short once more.

How could this be? Marissa had been asking the same question to herself ever since she'd made the connection between their shared appearances, but nothing had come up in the way of answers.

Mercury – the one that was her father – had been gone for almost six years now. He'd simply up and left in the middle of the night, departing their shared home with only a note left behind, though he hadn't been in the best shape beforehand.

He had, for lack of a better word, gone crazy.

The man had often acted as though something was whispering in his ear, and try as they might, Marissa and her mother had never been able to get a straight answer as to what he was actually hearing. Sometimes he responded to it when he thought he was alone. The responses he gave… didn't make anything clearer.

'No, I'm not going back.'

'There's no point in trying to go there.'

'They won't leave us alone, so I'd rather be here.'

'It will all be over soon, anyway.'

He was clearly arguing. With whom, Marissa never found out. His physical state hadn't been the best, either, with his skin slowly turning black, starting with his chest and moving outwards to cover the more vital parts of his body – his lungs, his stomach, even portions of his face had been marred with what looked like charcoal. And on some days, he wasn't even able to wake up. The only sign of him still being alive was the faint rise and fall of his chest, and Marissa's mother rarely ever let her into the room while her father was in such a state, even when she was a full adult.

It was only when it was clear that Mercury could no longer make the trip to go get things like supplies any longer that Marissa got to learn to take care of him on the "bad days," because it fell on Marissa's mother to fetch things like food and other necessities in his place. She'd leave for up to two weeks at a time, and the house was alone.

Marissa had watched her father fade. He was always a rather emotional man, sometimes swinging through moods like a windstorm, going from sadness to anger or happiness to panic rather quickly. These shifts became even more drastic the longer they went on. They were accompanied with all sorts of symptoms, from headaches to lack of appetite and even days where he would quietly spit blood into the sink when he thought Marissa was not watching.

But, she supposed that the days where he was full of negative emotions were still better than the days where he seemed entirely catatonic.

The Mercury in front of her seemed a direct contrast to all of this. He was blunt, and seemed prone to lashing out, but Marissa was sure that was because he was scared. At least she was here, in her own home. On the other hand, he had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and neither of them knew how it had happened – or what he had left behind.

(Was there a Marissa where he'd come from, waiting for his return? She remembered his words – "I'm not dead either," "Yes, you are," and suddenly realized that no, there was probably no one waiting for him.)

"Where are we?" Mercury suddenly asked, meeting her eyes for the first time. Well, he wasn't actually meeting them; Marissa got the feeling he was staring at everything but the eyes on her face, though at least it was an improvement, even if the gaze that looked so identical to her own father's made her a bit uncomfortable.

Marissa thought back to what she'd last heard from her mother. It had been a long time since she'd bothered to think about a map.

"We're a bit south of Traia," she said. She thought that was the name of the nearest large city.

"What's the continent called?"

"Edolas." That one, she was certain of.

Mercury stiffened slightly, and Marissa tensed in exchange – she didn't want him to bolt out of the room again, especially because if he made it outside, there was no telling how far he'd manage to get before she could catch up. Instead of getting up, however, Mercury put his head back, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. He looked… perplexed.

"This… might sound crazy, but it's the only reasonable thing I can think of," he explained. "I'm from Earthland. Have you ever heard of it?"

No, Marissa had not.

"If I had to guess, it's some sort of parallel reality to this one. I'm not really sure what happened, though. I was just sitting in the guild – er, have you heard of a guild called Fairy Tail?"

Marissa shook her head, but offered, "I think magic guilds are banned now, so I probably wouldn't have heard of any."

The blue-haired man looked about ready to choke.

"They're – no, wait, I suppose that makes sense. There's no magic in the air here, so mages wouldn't really be a thing here, I guess… Ugh, this is confusing. If it is a parallel world, it's a pretty shitty one."

Marissa wasn't sure if she should be offended by that or not.

Mercury, though, looked a little bit calmer, now that he could focus on something that wasn't his own daughter sitting in front of him. He asked for a map, but Marissa had none; maybe she'd be able to ask her mother for one, though her alternate-reality father insisted he wasn't going to stay here for long enough to meet the woman, which confused her. Who wouldn't want to meet a version of someone they knew from an alternate world?

Mercury – that's who. In fact, he looked rather terrified at the very idea of it.

"I'll be gone by the time your mother gets here, one way or another. This world isn't very good for me, I think."

Marissa didn't comment on the way he suggested that he would perish before her mother returned, nor the fact that he was also carefully refusing to say her mother's name.

"In that case," the woman suggested, "I propose an information trade."

"What?"

"We can each ask each other questions. That way, we both get more information, and can hopefully get you home somehow."

Mercury visibly considered the idea. His head tilted while he bit the inside corner of his cheek in a way that Marissa was quickly coming to learn that he was thinking deeply about something while his eyes glazed over just a bit.

That didn't stop him from refusing, though.

"I don't think that there's any information you could provide me that could help, and frankly, anything else would just be bothersome."

She didn't expect him to outright reject her offer. If it had been her father, he would have probably awkwardly danced around the subject before considering it further and tricking himself into accepting the deal. Her father was a very curious man, and even before that, he could hardly ever say no to his own daughter.

Marissa needed to keep reminding herself that the one in front of her was not the same as her father.

Still, a little more prodding couldn't hurt; she was certain that, together, they could find some sort of solution – and maybe she'd learn about her own father if she asked carefully enough.

"Don't you want to know what your daughter is like –"

"You are not my daughter."

Even Marissa had to admit that the words stung coming from his mouth. She wished he wasn't such a carbon copy of the man who had raised her, or that he took a little more care with his words, because she couldn't stop herself from slouching into her chair at how venomous he sounded.

Why wouldn't he want to know about his daughter? She was confused. Even if they weren't the same person exactly, surely he would want to know something about the child he had fathered, especially because it seemed like his version of Marissa either wasn't around anymore, or had left – maybe their situation had been reversed in his parallel world, and it was she who had left him, rather than the other way around. Or maybe his Marissa hadn't inherited his longevity and had passed away. Either way, she clearly wasn't in his life anymore, and yet here she was, the perfect image of his daughter.

Or, maybe that was the issue.

Maybe it didn't have to do with the fact that she was the same as his daughter. Maybe it was the fact that she looked so similarly to his daughter that was causing him pain.

Did it hurt? Seeing someone who you knew should be dead, sitting in front of you, asking you questions about the person they should be…

Yeah. Maybe Marissa wasn't being the most sensitive of people. In her haste to get to know about her own father, she'd completely ignored the feelings of the very tangible, very real person sitting across the table from her.

Because no matter how much she tried to convince herself, they weren't the same person. Not by a long shot.

Mercury seemed to have noticed how harsh his words were when she didn't respond, and sighed deeply, closing his eyes. It took a second for him to open them again. "Listen. You don't think of me as your father, right? We're different people, even if we're probably biologically the same. And it doesn't matter anyways, because…"

When he didn't finish his sentence, no longer looking anywhere near her direction and instead choosing to stare at the corner of the worn table, Marissa finished his for him "Because your 'me' is dead?"

There was no answer for a moment.

Then, "Yes."

"Young?"

"... Yes."

The thought could have torn Marissa's chest in two.

She knew her father loved her dearly, and it was clear from this Mercury's responses that he very much loved his version of his daughter. For her to have been torn away from him so young that he hadn't even been able to watch her glow was terrible.

Underneath the table, Mercury's foot tapped loudly. He was nervous. Her own father did the same thing when he was talking about something he didn't want to go into detail about.

Marissa wondered if he was lonely. He probably was. She knew she was, despite still having a mother who was there to love her.

Goddess, did he still have her mother as well? Or had he lost that, too?

"I know that you're not my father, even if you look exactly like a younger version of him, but it's like you said. You two are – were – biologically the same, and he never really shared anything with me, so I just thought I could ask some questions… I'm sorry if I sounded insincere."

Mercury finally met her eyes. She could tell it was hard; his pupils seemed to shake, moving away, only him to squint slightly and refocus right onto her.

"Is your father dead?" He carefully asked, as though each word was a probe right into her brain.

Wow. It actually did feel terrible for someone to ask such a sensitive question.

"I'm not actually sure. He just woke up and disappeared one night after leaving a note. Neither me or mom knew where he went, though mom told me not to go looking for him."

"He just… ran off?"

Marissa nodded.

"Pretty shitty thing for him to do, though… I'm not necessarily all that different, I guess." Mercury scratched the back of his head, waving a hand through the blue strands. They were still tangled, and they hadn't had a moment to fix it nor tie it back up – the conversation between them had taken nearly an hour already, and neither one had made any effort to ask or find a new rubber band for him.

The woman simply stared at him. She shouldn't have been surprised anymore at how blunt he was, but the words, again, stung.

It was shitty of her father to do, wasn't it?

"If he was dead, what would you do?"

"What could I do? I can't bring back the dead," Marissa said bitterly.

It wasn't like she hadn't considered the idea before. She'd always been aware that her father wasn't in the best shape, and was deteriorating even faster than her actually aging mother had as she pressed onwards in the years.

But she hadn't seen a body, so in her mind, he was still alive.

"I can't be sure exactly how it was over in this world," Mercury said, "but, like I said, this world isn't very good for me, so it probably wasn't too good for him, either."

Mercury had said the same thing earlier, though it still didn't make any sense. How was the "world" the part that was wrong? Her father was much older than she was, so it wasn't like the world had suddenly changed in a way that was harmful to him.

But… This Mercury did look a lot younger than she ever remembered her father being, though, maybe "younger" wasn't the right word for it. Visibly, they both looked pretty young; she would peg the man in front of her for early twenties, while her father had a face that made him look simultaneously young and old, maybe late twenties or early thirties. She herself only looked around thirty herself, despite being around fifty – another thing she'd partially inherited from her father.

"How old are you?" She asked. Maybe he was simply younger.

"Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight soon, if that matters." Mercury was surprisingly candid; and unfortunately for her partially-built theory, he was exactly the same age as her father would have been if he was still here.

"I was… nevermind, continue. What is wrong with the 'world'?"

"You know I'm – we're not human, right?"

Marissa nodded. She remembered her father saying it once, then telling her that if anything ever happened, she wasn't to tell anyone else that fact – and besides, even if she hadn't been told… it was fairly obvious. No one else that she'd ever met had gills, or patches of skin that so casually looked like they'd been marred by black tar.

"I've only recently come to this conclusion," Mercury continued, "but our bodies seem to run on magic power, and this world appears to be lacking exactly that. There's almost no magic in the air, and even if there was, I doubt my body would ever try to accept that. It's too picky, only likes ethernano from the ocean. Is there an ocean nearby?"

As far as she was aware, there was not. Marissa knew what an ocean was, of course, though that had been told to her by her father. She shook her head.

"Again, I'm not sure exactly how much is the same… but it's likely that he was dying from Magic Deficiency. I, at least, live by a source of magic I can take in. But your dad? Well, er, it's a bit of a long story, and it could be completely different, but did he ever mention his family?"

"Thinking back on it… no, he never did," she said. The conclusion hadn't even come to her until Mercury had said it; her father never talked about his family. Marissa only knew of her mom's side, and even that was vague, because the only relatives her mom had were her mother and father, and they'd died a little after Marissa was born.

"We've got a Mother, though she's probably not as nice as your mother. She's a bit… crazy. And if your dad is similar to me at all, he probably got in a fight with her and she got a little mad about it… Which means that he probably couldn't return to a source of magic even if he wanted to."

And her father probably didn't want to, Marissa realized; maybe that was who he was talking to when it was like his sanity was crumbling. Not to himself, as Marissa had thought, but to some version of his "mother" in his head.

His sanity did still crumble. It was just a little less severe than she'd thought.

"So, you think he's probably dead because of… Magic Deficiency?"

Mercury nodded. "That's just based on myself, though. Was that enough information for you?"

It took a second for Marissa to realize that he was just humoring her request for information, except he hadn't asked anything of her in return.

"Are you going to die too, then?"

She wasn't sure she could take it, watching her father whither away in front of her a second time – even if this wasn't him, he still had the same face as her own father, and still clearly cared for her to some degree, if he was telling her all of this.

"If I stay here too long, probably. I'm holding out for now by holding as much magic as I can in, but it's still draining, somehow. Not really sure how," Mercury explained. "But I'm not planning on staying here for that long. I'll figure something out. Besides, what are the odds it was only me who got transported here? I was in the middle of the guild, so surely someone else came along, too…"

It seemed like he was trying to convince himself more than anything. And their conversation had made a massive loop already, so they were back to their starting point – how did he get here, and how would he get back?

"Maybe mom will –"

"No."

Well, that was a bust, too.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, both of their teas now cold. Marissa had completely forgotten to drink hers, which was a waste, but she could forgive herself just this once. Both of them had better things to think about.

"I'm going to go to Traia," Mercury suddenly declared. He didn't get up from his seat, waiting for Marissa's reaction.

It made sense; a big city would probably have a lot more answers than one girl who'd hardly ever interacted with others.

Though, Marissa had to wonder if he'd even find anything.

She couldn't remember her father ever talking about other people that he knew – like she'd said, his family was a complete mystery, just as much as the rest of his background was – so she doubted anyone could help Mercury specifically. And this world, from what she knew, didn't function the same way his own did. Maybe something had pulled him here, but that didn't mean that the power to send him back was located in this world.

But… something in her stomach welled up at the thought of him leaving. Of him leaving without her. It wasn't painful, just the sensation of something squeezing like it was going to come out.

Marissa realized she was excited at the prospect.

"I'll go with," she said.

To his credit, Mercury was a little nicer with his words this time, it being less of a snapped 'no' and more of a gentle letdown, but he still gave her a little pause before his rejection.

"That's not a great idea, I think."

But Marissa was not one to give up so easily.

"Why not? You don't know anything about this world, right? I could help you out!"

"Marissa," the man said carefully, "You weren't even sure where Traia was on a map."

That was true, but it didn't really mean anything. Marissa didn't know where anything was on a map because she had never seen a map; no one in her house had ever kept one. She was sure she could help out in other ways –

"And your mom would kill me," Mercury added bitterly.

"My mom's not even here. How would she know?"

"And if she comes back?"

Who even knew when her mother was going to come back? It had been almost two weeks at this, and sometimes her trips to go get supplies took upwards of a month – so she could walk through the door at any moment, or it could be another week and a half.

Though… she also didn't want her mom to come home to an empty house.

But she couldn't just let this man go. Not when he was essentially adrift in a world that was not his own, in a place where he could die if he wasn't careful enough. Marissa's conscience wouldn't allow it.

(And she absolutely couldn't miss her one opportunity to finally see more of the outside world that she had been pulled away from her whole life.)

"If you don't let me go, I'll just follow you, but I'll leave a note telling my mom that you kidnapped me," she threatened. It was more than a little cruel to use the parallel version of a man's wife as blackmail, but Marissa just had to go with him.

Mercury flinched at the threat. Debated, staring long and hard at Marissa's face with a squint, before sighing heavily.

"If it takes more than a week, you have to promise to come back here. And I'm going to use your supplies," he acquiesced.

Yes!

The preparations to leave were simple enough. She provided Mercury with a spare change of clothes – formerly her father's, of course – and set about collecting anything they might need. Some food, some money (though there certainly wasn't much) as well as whatever weapons laid in the house. Marissa had her regular, average knife. It was about as long as her forearm, and entirely plain, used mostly for cutting and skinning animals more than anything else, but it would do.

When Mercury came out wearing her father's old clothes, she nearly had a heart attack.

He'd replaced the long-sleeved turtleneck that he had been wearing with a button up vest made of much lighter material. It was early spring in Edolas, and he would have been very uncomfortable in the humid weather if his arms had been covered. For pants, Marissa had provided short, capri-length pants that went down a little past the middle of his shins, and had plenty of pockets. His clothes, caked on the back with dirt and mud, had been carefully folded and placed in an old traveling sack, which also formerly belonged to her father.

The man looked rather uncomfortable. Seemingly unconsciously, he was pressing his hands against the skin on the back of his arms and rubbing. Marissa spotted the barest outline of a scale from the edge of his right sleeve, which his fingers kept catching on. It looked like he was trying to avoid tearing it off.

"Here," she said, handing him a long length of gauze to wrap around it. That way, it could stay hidden, and he wouldn't have to tear it out – she couldn't imagine that would have felt very good.

She'd also loaned him one of her own hair brushes and hair ties. He looked a lot more at ease with his hair pulled back out of his face, and Marissa had to notice that his hair pulled up was still longer than her own hair when it was down.

Why did he keep it like that?

With his arms wrapped and clothes changed, all that was left was to leave a note for her mother.

Chloe was quite the fickle woman. While it was obvious that she loved her daughter with her whole heart, sometimes, she wasn't great at showing it, which was something Marissa often noticed. She often got into moods where she just looked lonely – which her daughter understood, but it was as though Chloe forgot that she had a daughter that was just as lonely.

Between Chloe and her father Mercury, they rarely let her interact with other people. Marissa had no idea what they were afraid of, but she loved her parents, so she went along with it. That was why it was always them who went out to get the supplies despite the fact that their daughter was consistently in the best shape of the three of them – something prevented them from letting her leave the forest. Whether it was people themselves or something else, she had no idea.

When Marissa returned, she planned to have a long talk with her mother about everything.

She kept her note rather sparse on details. The parallel version of Mercury wasn't mentioned, only that someone had been injured in the forest, and that she would be dropping them off in Traia before returning straight home.

Hopefully, that would be enough to prevent Chloe from tearing through the forest looking for her. Actually, the ideal situation would be that in the timespan of one week that Mercury had given her, Chloe wouldn't have returned at all, and Marisa could pretend none of this had happened in the first place.

Mercury read over the note, but said nothing about it.

"Why don't you want to meet my mom? Wouldn't it be a fun story to go back and tell her – er, to tell other people?" Marissa quickly corrected.

The man stared at her for a long second.

"I'm sure you've put this together," he said, "but she's dead in my world, too. Same time as you, actually."

His eyes looked more sorrowful than she'd seen them so far, and that was saying something, because the look in his eyes right after he looked up and figured out what was going on felt like it had stabbed her right through the heart.

Marissa had no idea how much time had passed since it had happened, though it was clear that it still resided in Mercury's memories very clearly.

The man turned to check over their supplies once more. It wasn't a lot. Most of the food she'd packed was dried meats, and some dried fruits to go along with it. Mercury assured her that he didn't need to eat much, though, so what she was bringing was probably fine…

Assuming he wasn't lying about that. Marissa wouldn't put it past him.

"Ready?" Mercury asked. He hovered on the boundary of the doorway to the outside, tentatively placed so that he was neither fully in nor fully out.

The man in front of her had taken one last thing of her father's, at her own request – she'd only ever seen her father use it once, but he owned a simple shortsword with a leather handle. It was the only thing she'd ever use as a weapon. Not that there were many chances for him to use it. He only ever brought it with him when he was going into the nearby towns – "Just in case," he'd said, though whatever "in case" was, Marissa had never learned.

It now hung rather sadly on Mercury's hip, as though it missed its original owner.

At least it looked like it was the perfect size, though the man had seemed rather hesitant to take it first.

"Just so you know, if it comes down to it, I'm more likely to use it as a baton than a sword," he had told her.

That was fine. Marissa just wasn't sure what he would do if he had to defend himself otherwise. Clearly, he had no magic to rely on, and neither of them owned any magic tools that would have done them any good, so good old iron and steel were going to be their companions.

Marissa hesitantly took a step towards the door after Mercury had fully left the building, marching blindly through the woods as though he had any sort of idea where he was going. It wasn't like it was her first time leaving the house – daily walks were a common occurrence, and she had the entirety of the woods memorized like the back of her hand. Just the thought of leaving it for a long time filled her with equal parts dread and excitement.

"Last chance to let me go on my own," Mercury said briskly from several meters ahead. He had apparently paused after he didn't hear her footsteps following closely behind.

"Don't worry. I'm going with," the woman said before taking the step out the door. Then, she peeked back to make sure that her note was comfortably on the table as she swung the door shut with a quiet, "Be back later."

It was official. She was leaving, even if it was just for a week or so.

In all actuality, leaving was a lot less arduous than she thought it would have been. The forest surrounding Marissa's house had always been the boundary between her and… well, everything else, enveloping their little home like a wall.

But a forest was just a forest.

Mercury plowed ahead, batting away stray branches as though they were little more than bugs flying in his face. Marissa cringed, a little, because she'd never done anything so violent to the trees, though she understood his own haste; it was already midday, and they had quite a lot of walking to do before they made it anywhere near the next town – and when they got to the small, little town that was about an hour's walk from her own house, they'd have to first find a map, and then ask how far Traia was from there. Hopefully, not too far, and if it would take more than half a day, she hoped they could find a ride somehow.

While the man in front of her walked like he was on a mission, it was Marissa herself who held the key to their navigations – a compass. He only slowed his pace when he could no longer turn over his shoulder to stare at her, quietly urging her to hurry up, and even then, he often left her sight, and she had to listen to the sounds of him crashing through the woods to hurry up.

It was likely that he regretted agreeing to bring her along. Well, it was too late to regret too much – in no time at all, they finally broke through the trees to reveal a small town nestled in between two proportionately much larger hills.

Marissa found herself a mix between scared and excited.

"If anyone asks," Mercury said just outside of the small, wooden gate that surrounded the town, "We're siblings."

When Marissa tilted her head in confusion, he went on to say, "We look the same age. It would be suspicious if I said I was your father," then hastily corrected himself to say, "Which I am not."

If you asked Marissa, she would say that her presence was slowly growing on the man.

The town itself was very, very small. That was probably why Marissa's mother went further out to purchase supplies – the town itself didn't even have a name, let alone a store to buy anything more than the most raw of materials from.

Still, someone did have a map, and they were quite willing to share it with Mercury after he flashed a wry grin at her.

Watching a clearly married woman swoon over an equally very (technically) married version of her father was just… uncomfortable. At the very least, when they'd successfully copied down the most important details of said map onto the journal paper that Marissa had conveniently brought, Mercury looked equally as disgusted with himself.

"I can't waste your money on something like a map. Based on what that woman explained to me about the currency here, your family is dirt poor."

Ouch, that stung. But it wasn't exactly untrue, either.

(Which led Marissa to wonder how exactly her mother and father had ever gotten enough funds to buy whatever they needed.)

It didn't take long for them to start making their way further north. According to the woman and the map, Traia was just over a day's trek if they went the fastest route, though that didn't account for any stoppages for rest.

Marissa nearly thought that Mercury would suggest they make the journey all in one go. Her body was in a lot better shape than she would have imagined, coming from a lifestyle that had minimal exercise, which was exclusively from walking in the forest, and sometimes doing a little bit of hunting or felling trees. It was probably thanks to whatever genes she'd inherited from her father that she actually felt pretty good.

But, thankfully, Mercury didn't suggest they continue on for much longer. Or, rather, he found a way around it entirely – there happened to be a small-time merchant traveling in the direction of Traia that was terrified that someone might try to take over his cargo on the way. Fortunately, there were two adventurers in town that just so happened to be looking for jobs and going in the same direction as him, so he had hired them on the spot.

Leave it to a parallel version of her father to somehow turn their lack of money into a profit. Marissa was beginning to think that in his world, he was known as someone who was incredibly cunning.

(She would not be wrong.)

The little merchant – Ivan, as he introduced himself – was entirely happy to not only let them travel with him, but also ride on his automated wagon with him, as well as fill in any uncomfortable gaps in the conversation with his chatter. He seemed like a very happy guy, though his mouth didn't appear to ever stop moving.

Mercury only said enough to keep Ivan talking. He prodded at whatever the last thread of conversation had been, repeating it in the form of a question before returning to his position leaned against the pillar supporting the wagon. If Ivan noticed, he didn't comment. Marissa, on the other hand, was all too happy to engage with him, talking about all sorts of things – the world, the state of the Kingdom, general trends of late. Honestly, it almost made up for how long she'd spent alone. Through Ivan, it was like she'd been out there traveling her whole life.

Marissa enjoyed it. She wasn't sure she'd be able to ever return to her little house after all this, but that was an issue for later.

Eventually, the topic of Traia was brought up. Marissa mentioned that she'd never been, and Ivan was all too happy to fill her in on everything that had happened there recently; apparently, it had been his previous stop, and the chaos there had been the reason he now wanted someone to guard his goods. The town was the same as usual, he'd said, very similar to the Royal Capital because those two cities were the largest in all of Edolas. Between it and the Royal Capital, Traia was more commonly known for being a trading hub, while the capital was far more focused on entertainment.

But there had been a shift in the dichotomy of these two cities recently. More and more supplies had ended up being rerouted to the capital rather than Traia, and no one knew why. What they did know was that the royals were planning something.

Ivan argued that it was probably a good thing. They had somehow managed to procure a large, entirely undiluted lacrima, and the royal artisans were preparing to make use of it; they had never seen a lacrima so pure before, though, and had announced that they needed to make sure whatever they did wouldn't harm it before they moved forward.

But what was moving out of the city was a lot more worrying, Ivan had said. They'd mobilized one of their most violent units, under the command of one of the most notorious mage hunters the capital had ever known.

Apparently, a dark guild called "Fairy Tail" had come under the assault of the Fairy Hunter, Erza Knightwalker there.

Mercury stiffened at both names.

When Marissa turned to stare at him – she recognized the name Fairy Tail from what he'd said – she was not expecting him to laugh.

It was the first time she'd heard the sound since he'd woken up. He'd chuckled after he made a bad joke or wry comment, but the hearty laugh sounded so unnatural coming from what she knew of him. Maybe it was just the situation – he'd hardly seemed to be anything other than gloomy so far, so a laugh felt a little "out there" for him.

"Of course," Mercury said when he calmed down, "they'd be causing that sort of trouble here, too."

"Oh, sir, are you familiar with Fairy Tail?" Ivan asked. He looked equally as startled by Mercury's outburst.

"You could say that. We've had some run-ins before," the man explained. "They're quite the chaotic bunch, aren't they?"

Ivan nodded enthusiastically. "They're pretty well known if you go further east, but they've got that teleportation device in their hall, so they've been giving the Royal Knights a lot of trouble! Even Knightwalker can't seem to catch up with them, and she's known as the Fairy Hunter!"

"Not a great Fairy Hunter if she can't actually catch them though, is she?"

Ivan and Mercury shared a laugh, and Marissa felt kind of left out.

"To be honest," Ivam said lowly, leaning in close to the two of them as though about to share a secret. "I hope she never catches them. I've hired them a couple of times, you see, to transport my goods before. They've got a real speed demon among them – have you ever heard of Natsu Dragion?"

Mercury paused, then laughed so hard that Marissa worried he was going to pull a muscle, or something.

"This world really is something if Natsu is a speed demon," he said when he'd finally stopped laughing. If Ivan thought it a weird comment, he didn't say anything about it. Marissa knew that Mercury was probably thinking of the "Natsu" of his own world, and suddenly wished that she might get the opportunity to meet him.

When they finally arrived at Traia, it had taken them a little over six hours, Marissa's butt was sore, and she was so tired that she thought she might pass out right then and there. It had been just over a day and a half since Mercury's arrival, and in that time, she'd only been able to doze a bit while watching over him and a couple of hours in the trailer.

Mercury, on the other hand, seemed like he was fueled by determination alone. He didn't even look the least bit sleepy.

Still, he took one look at Marissa after departing from Ivan and told her they'd find a hotel to stay in for the night. Afternoon was fading, and soon, the sky would have been completely dark; they wouldn't be able to search for much after the sun had set, anyway, so they might as well get some rest – or so he'd said.

They found a little hotel room for the night. They'd skipped any introduction to the nice lady working at the counter entirely, and Mercury had again flashed that sly smile at her to get her talking.

Gross.

… but it did let them get a room with two beds for the price of one, so Marissa allowed it. And when her head hit the pillow she was out like a light.