"I Helped A Stranger Fare Evade On The MBTA And Now There's An Elven Mage On My Couch"
"tickets! get out your tickets!" the fare inspector shouts
they've been showing up more and more frequently lately, much to my annoyance
I rummage in my pocket for my CharlieCard and find it wrapped in a partially crumpled validation receipt from the green line extension
as the fare inspector gets closer, the girl sitting next to me taps me on the shoulder and whispers "what do I do? I don't have a ticket" with panic clear in the unplaceable accent in her voice
without really thinking, I hand her the receipt before the inspector gets to our row
he glances at it and my CharlieCard for just a moment before moving on to the next row of the green line train
as I go to put my headphones back on, she taps me on the shoulder again
I turn in my seat to get a better look at her and see pointed, elven ears poking out from beneath her long pink hair
for a moment, I wonder if it's Anime Boston weekend, but a quick glance around the train car reveals none of the dysphoric cosplayers that haunt the green line through the entire convention, so it's probably not that time of year
"thank you for helping me earlier; I knew I could count on another mage to help"
"a mage? what?"
"hair like ours isn't natural" she says, gesturing at my purple hair
"yeah, it isn't; I dye it, but I'm not a 'mage' or whatever you think I am"
"how would you not know what a mage is? you're in a metal carriage pulled by magic!"
"we're in Boston, girl. the MBTA is as far from magic as it gets"
"Boston? I've been all over the seven kingdoms and never heard of such a place"
before I have a chance to ask where the seven kingdoms are, the train pulls into Park St with a screech and I stand up to get off
she hesitates for a moment before following me through the narrow passageway to the Alewife platform
down on the platform, I can't help but check her out as she leans against the wall next to me
she wears a long pink and white checkered dress that matches nicely with the pink hair that she fidgets with with one hand
in the other hand, she carries a battered waxed canvas bag that would definitely be covered in pins if she was from here
everything from her practical looking leather boots to her general demeanor tells me that if this woman is straight, I might as well give up on being a lesbian; my gaydar is clearly broken beyond repair
"so, uhhhh, do you think could you help me get home?"
"maybe? where's home for you?"
"Ithkuil, the fifth and largest of the seven continental kingdoms"
"where the hell is that?"
to answer my question, she takes a crystal ball out of her bag and stares at it as though expecting to see something other than her hands through it
"right, right, no magic, so no Orb" she mutters to herself, sounding genuinely disappointed as she puts it away
I take out my phone and open up the maps app to show her where we are
"here's Boston, Cambridge is to the north, and that's all in Massachusetts" I say, zooming out on the map and offering her the phone to point out where she's from
she holds my phone as though she'd never held one before in her life, hovering her fingers over the screen as though that might move the map
I take the phone back, convinced that this woman is definitely from somewhere very far away and that her pointed ears might be real after all
"what's your name, anyway? I'm Rachel" I ask
"Magnolia Rivercrest, or Maggie for short"
"I was on my way to the bar for drinks, so how about you come with me and we can talk about how to get you back to whatever planet Ithkuil is on?"
even if my rapidly-growing crush on her isn't requited, I can tell that she's definitely got some absolutely wild stories to tell over drinks
she agrees, turning this chance encounter on a train into a date
"are we headed to Alewife because beer is plentiful there?"
"no, no, I think it's named after a fish or something"
a train eventually arrives and we ride across the river into Cambridge
she smiles as she looks out the window at the skyscrapers stabbing into the sunset, but her expression falls as the train dives back into the tunnel and just how far she is from home seems to sink in
"if you're from this Ithkuil place, how did you end up here?" I ask
"I dunno; I remember being knocked over by a horse crossing the street, and then suddenly I was on that train next to you"
she doesn't say much more until we surface again at Central for the walk to Inman Square, where Trina's Starlite Lounge is
we settle in at the bar, both ordering glasses of the same cider
she offers me to buy my drinks, and while I appreciate the sentiment, the gold and silver coins she pulls out of her bag are definitely not legal tender in Somerville
I pick out an almost flirtatious tone in her voice, and my hopes that she likes me burn even hotter
she gives me a confused look when I hand over my credit card to open a tab for us
"is that what money looks like here?"
"uhh, no, that's a credit card, but it's way more convenient than paying for this with cash"
"credit? so it's a sort of .. portable loan that they gave you a card for?"
"pretty much"
"isn't it weird to be buying cider on credit?"
"I pay it off every month, so they aren't charging me interest and it's fine"
".. I'm going to need more cider in me for any of this to start making sense"
I wake up with my head's dull pounding almost distracting me from my grumbling stomach
with all my strength, I push myself out of bed and into the late morning
as I half-stumble into the living room, I catch a glimpse of something pink out of the corner of my eye
it's her.
last night wasn't merely a dream with gay themes; it was an actual evening of gay themes, and there's an elven mage passed out on my couch to prove it
I try to step quietly, but I wake her up anyway
she sits up with a start and frantically looks around, pink hair swishing through the air, before she spots me and calms down
"morning, cutie!" I say, hoping that my voice doesn't betray how much my head hurts
"do you have any hangover cure potions?"
"sorry, the best I can do is some ibuprofen and a big breakfast"
"that'll have to do"
I rummage around my kitchen for something to make breakfast out of
"ooh, I think I have everything to make french toast" I say, sniffing a bottle of milk
"french toast? what's that?" she asks
"it's bread soaked with milk and eggs and cinnamon. it's delicious; trust me"
"sounds sorta like knights' bread from back home"
she watches intently while I cook, a thousand questions about how the electric stove works going unasked
I flop a slice onto her plate and watch her eat it, hoping she likes it
"yeah, it's definitely knights' bread" she says with a mouth full of french toast
"so, do you have any idea how you're going to get home to Ithkuil?" I ask her while I cook yet another slice of french toast
"well, I got here by being hit by an omnibus, so I could try that here"
"I'm not going to let you get hit and killed by a bus"
she sighs as though my insistence that she not get run over is an excessive demand
"you should probably change out of that dress you wore all day yesterday and then slept in" I say to her after we finish off the entire loaf of bread
"no need, I can just ... wait, no, there's no magic here"
I toss her some of my clothes and she emerges from the bathroom wearing a tank top and jeans that show off her body much more than yesterday's dress
as she stretches her lightly muscled arms, I feel my face growing warm and hide my blush behind my hands
"maybe I should wear something over this so I'm not flustering you all day, but ... you're pretty cute when you're blushing like that" she says
I toss her one of my flannels and she jokingly taunts me by not putting it on for a long moment
the owner of the coin store stares at one of Maggie's gold coins through a magnifying glass
"EDVARD REX ITHKVIL" he reads aloud from it, going slowly and stumbling over the pronunciation of Ithkuil
"where'd you get these? I've never heard of anywhere called Ithkuil before" he asks
"a friend had them made to commemorate a D&D campaign a couple years back, and uhh, the price of gold has gone up a lot since then" I answer, the pink-haired girl standing beside me nodding along
"wow, that's some commitment; I wish my players would get that into it"
he gently sets the coin down on a scale, types some numbers into a calculator, and makes us an offer
"how does $900 sound?" he asks
"sounds great to me" I answer, more than a bit surprised by just how much money such a small coin is worth, and he hands over a stack of cash
"give me a ring if you wanna join my D&D group" he says over the sound of the bell on the door as we leave
"okay, so what is D&D anyway? you just said it was a game earlier" Maggie asks me as we walk away from the store and I hand her the cash
"it's a way for awkward nerds to do paperwork that lets them pretend to be murderous fantasy warriors using dice"
"that doesn't sound very fun"
"it's a lot more fun than it sounds, but only if you get a good gamemaster"
".. you should probably have a phone in case we get separated or you want to explore Boston on your own or something" I think aloud while opening drawers in search of my old phone
"yeah, I guess I kinda need a flat orb if my regular one doesn't work"
after some searching, I find it in the back of my closet inside a shoebox
it's definitely seen better days, with every surface of it scuffed and a couple green vertical lines visible on the screen, but it still powers up on the first try
a quick charge and a walk to CVS for their cheapest prepaid phone plan later, Maggie is the proud new owner of an android phone and an 857 number
she stares at the keyboard on the screen, a bit perplexed
"why are the letters like that? don't tell me that's the order the alphabet is here"
"typewriters, I think"
"typewriters?"
"there used to be these machines that put letters onto paper when you hit the buttons, and then they copied the order of the keys when they built computers and phones"
"ah, yeah, we just use magic to will words onto paper and make them look nice"
she makes an attempt at typing and frowns when the word she's trying to type gets autocorrected out from under her
"it doesn't think Ithkuil's a word"
"well, I mean, nobody here's ever written it, so the phone doesn't know it and it might as well not be a word. you've gotta tap the word you want so that it'll learn, and if it's bold, that means it's going to replace it"
"learn? is there a dæmon inside of this?" she asks, looking at the phone skeptically
"no, no, there isn't"
"ughhh, this is so much more work than willing words into my orb" she sighs
she plays with the phone, sliding back and forth between screens and getting used to it
she taps a button and the view from the camera fills the screen
with another tap, she takes a picture
"you can capture pictures with this?!" she says excitedly
"orbs can't do that?"
"orbs let you push messages and information around and open a portal to talk to people, but they can't capture a scene"
"well, watch this" I say, taking the phone from her and tapping the button to switch to the selfie camera
"smile!" I tell her before snapping a selfie of the two of us
she takes the phone back and takes what must be a dozen selfies before checking out the other apps
introducing someone who's never used a camera before to selfies was perhaps a mistake.
we go to sleep again, no closer to getting her home to Ithkuil than we were that morning
the next morning, I wake up to find her already awake and rummaging through my kitchen cupboards for something to eat
"what's a biohazard and what's it doing in your kitchen?" she asks, holding my sharps container
"it looks dangerous" she says, gingerly setting it back down
"that's because it kinda is"
"but what is it?"
"it's where I put my used needles so I don't stab myself with them again"
"needles? like for sewing?"
"no, no, for injecting estradiol"
I brace myself for what I know I'll need to explain next, worrying that the girl who's been crashing on my couch and in my gay thoughts will suddenly hate me
"estradiol? injecting?"
her second question confuses me until I realize that a world with magic has no need to deliver medicine through stabbing
"I have to inject, to stab myself every week or so to fix my hormone levels because I was born a boy"
I mumble the last few words, hoping that this won't make her hate me
"oh, we just do that with magic back home; it's a really easy spell"
I breathe a quiet sigh of relief and put some store brand eggos in the toaster for us
after breakfast, we head into the city yet again, both to run some errands and to show Maggie more of the city
we walk from City Hall ("reminds me a lot of Ithkuil Castle") through the Common and the Public Garden to Copley Square and the central library ("it feels like a temple to books") and are heading down Newbury Street when my hunger gets the better of me
I guide us on a beeline to the nearest restaurant I can remember liking, a small pizza joint on a side street in Back Bay
she picks up a slice and stares at it for a moment long enough for the cheese to start to slide off
she takes a bite, makes a pained expression, clearly never having tasted 400°F mozzarella before, and then smiles
we quickly finish the whole pie, both of us hungrier than we cared to admit
"I need to figure out how to make this when I get home" she says
"although, maybe, being stuck in Boston isn't too bad if the food is like this" she jokes
she types "pizza recipe" into her phone and scrolls a bit
"what's a tomato?" she asks, her pronunciation of the unfamiliar word uncertain
"it's this red vegetable? .. fruit? that we put in a lot of foods because it's got a nice .. vinegar bite to it, but we don't tend to eat it on its own"
"so that's why the sauce tasted so good"
we catch the green line back to my place, both of us paying our fares this time
as I stand beside her, I glance over her shoulder at her phone and see she's still reading up on how to make pizza and how to grow tomatoes
perhaps introducing her to the concept of pizza was a mistake.
the train speeds towards Boylston, wheels screeching on the curve louder than I've ever heard them before
I hold on to the bar, waiting for the train to slow down for the stop, but it doesn't until I feel a jolt that knocks me over, accompanied by a thud and a clanging of metal
the driver makes an apologetic announcement about coupling to the train in front of us and I stand back up shakily and look around for Maggie, but she and her pink hair are nowhere to be found
I look again, panic forming in my chest until I have a sudden realization: maybe the shock of the trains colliding sent her back to her world
she was sent here by being run over by a horse after all, so maybe any big enough shock would be enough to send her home
I sit in the stationary train car, still shaken and worried
will I ever see Magnolia Rivercrest again?
did she even exist, or was she just a figment of my overactive imagination?
I walk home from the train station almost on autopilot and sit down on the couch, slowly calming down as I spot the pile of blankets she slept on and her dress on the floor
my phone buzzes, and when I unlock it to delete the inane email I'd just received, I see Maggie's last message to me
I type and backspace what feels like a million different ways of asking if she's okay, and when I finally hit send, it shows as sent but not delivered
I miss her and hope she's safely home in Ithkuil and not sent to the far side of her world, or worse, yet another world
a couple months later, my phone buzzes
I open Signal to find a selfie from Maggie, captioned "I'm back! I didn't get a chance to kiss you goodbye!"
FIN.