nexus_crossings | It's Called Brand Loyalty

It's Called Brand Loyalty

"So, I got a question..."

Asking today is Harrowheart, who's wandering the Nexus' Downtown district puffing away at cigarettes and stopping at holiday stalls up and down the major streets. He leans over now and then to consider the merchandise on display, pensively looking over the goods with his arms folded behind his back and his hands rubbing at his chin or scratching his sideburns. But he doesn't buy anything – not yet anyway.

"Should you change things about yourself to get what you really want outta life? Or should you always be the 'You' that comes most natural, and get whatcha get outta that?"

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His first thought is 'oh come on, I'm not that short'. People usually stare at him for that, or for his hair, but they're not as open about it. A few awkward seconds are spent between them just sort of in that awkward mutual staring state, Alex worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

"...it's illegal for me to smoke. I'm eleven," he points out, not unkindly, but a little bluntly because wow, that's weird. Maybe laws about that are different between worlds? That's probably it. Most adults don't just offer kids something unless it's okay for them back home, right? Right.

Alex shrugs, fiddling with his Rubiks Cube. "It doesn't make me happy. Sometimes I get distant and everything feels fake and I say mean things without meaning to." Which is very opposite his normal personality, admittedly, but it's still the state of things most of the time. "I can't fake it then because everything feels so far away and out of my control. If I could, I would. It'd be better and I'd probably be happier."

"Illegal?" Harrowheart laughs uncertainly. "Where the Hell you from that a kid can't have a smoke?"

But the more the boy talks, the more Harrowheart's expression falls until his eyebrows twist up guiltily. He opens his mouth to reply, but slowly shuts it with nothing said. Instead he takes in a breath just to be able to sigh it out.

"I know when I was eleven I didn't believe nothin' no one told me, but shit -- I mean shoot..."

He glances around as if he might find the words he's looking for in the faces of the crowd. Unfortunately, what he wants to say has to come from the heart. He looks back at Alex with a certain reluctance, then forces a smile for him.

"I grew up feelin' just like you. Hell, sometimes I still feel like you. Mad and sad all the time, and can't nothin' really change that. 'Cause sometimes even if you want to change, it ain't that easy. Ain't that right? You can try and try, but it just don't work out. You say stuff and do stuff before you even got a minute to think about it, and once it's out... Well, it's out, ain't it?"

He winces and tries to hide it with another half-hearted smile. "I'm probably makin' it worse pointin' it out like that."

"Maine. It's very, very illegal in Maine. My dad said that we also have strict alcohol restrictions but that most alcohol tastes bad anyway, so I'm not missing anything." The only alcohol his dad approved of was scotch, which smelled so bad he couldn't picture it tasting good - Alex long ago classified cigarettes and alcohol as weird things adults were into, not anything he'd like to try.

He chuckles. "You can swear. My dad's done it when he's had a long day and my mom does it in French and thinks I don't know." Bless his parents, they think they're doing an A+ job despite actually doing more of a B- one. That said, his smile fades away to a flat look as he listens, an expression that many of his classmates find incredibly unnerving. The lack of blinking doesn't help, probably. "I don't know if I'd say it's mad. It's more like I don't feel real, nothing's real, I'm not there, everything's like it is in a dream, and I just kind of drift through it. I've tried explaining it to my parents, but they don't understand. Nobody does. There's something really wrong with me. It's not like you - you're nice, you just sound like you've had bad moments," and he smiles, briefly, trying to be encouraging, "which isn't the same thing as actually being bad. Bad guys don't talk to kids to try to make sure they're okay."

And he doesn't really do hugs as much as he used to, but he'll gently pat Harrow on the arm, trying to be comforting. "It's okay."

"Main?" Harrowheart asks with a scoffing laugh. "Kid, everyone in this place thinks they're from the main world. You're gonna have to be more specific."

Fortunately for Alex, unblinking stares don't register as unnatural to a guy who has a tendency to do the same. But when Harrowheart listens to Alex speak his face is lively, twisting with his thoughts.

When Alex touches his arm he reflexively moves his disembodied hands to hide the open wounds on his severed wrists. Kids don't need to see that.

"Hun," he starts quietly, shaking his head. "You gotta hurry up and learn that 'nice' is different from 'good,' and 'mean' ain't the same as 'bad.' Real awful folks can be nice, and real good ones can be mean. You don't sort out the difference fast and you're gonna wind up in a world of trouble."

To say nothing of the trouble he's already apparently in. Now it's his turn to fix Alex with an unblinking stare, which lasts too long to be polite before he finally leans back and turns his head to watch the boy from the corners of his dead, blue eyes.

"Like bein' in a dream, huh? Maybe... Maybe you're dreamwalkin'? Look, here."

He searches his shirt pocket for something but comes up short. His hands go roving through the pockets of his cargo pants, and only when he comes to the final pouch does he find what he's looking for. It's a card -- a business card by the looks of it.

"Go see this guy," he says, tapping the name on one side: Viatorus Durant. He hands the card to the boy and nods in tiny motions. "Viatorus is my best pal, and he's a master Planeswalker. He knows all sorts of stuff about bein' in dreams. If your problem's magical, he can help you figure it out. Plus, his wife's real nice -- and good -- and she's always bakin' little cakes and leavin' 'em in his office for their guests to try."

"Maine is a state. In the United States. It's on a map and everything." Did they not have a United States in his world? But wait, even when part of that territory was Canada's, it was Maine - was there no Canada? But that was - his head hurt and he abandoned that train of thought. Who knew how the geography of it worked.

The idea of seperating nice from good and mean from bad has him rubbing his temples. Sure, that's well and good in theory. Alex himself would never assume someone was bad over their attitude, nor would he think the bullies from his school were good just if they were nice all of a sudden. But there's an underlying problem with the analogy: he's not mean-angry, he's mean-apathetic. Mean-unreal. Mean... unperson.

"What's dreamwalking? I might have magic. I mean, I can be in two places at once. But that doesn't feel like a dream; that's more real than anything else is. It's kind of random when I stop feeling real. Is that a dreamwalking symptom?" Oh thank God, there might be a solution to his problems. Finally. His dad has exhausted all possible scientific treatment that's safe to utilize on a child, and a few that aren't. He'd looked into the neuroscience in great detail. Alex knew his dad was smart, but the guy had hit a wall in figuring out the problem.

Alex raises his hand like he's in class, even as he takes the card. "What's a Planeswalker? Also, I don't have money to pay him and I'm pretty sure it's rude to walk up to somebody and ask them for favors when I can't do any for them. That's mean, and not 'good mean', it's 'douchebag mean'."

You can thank his dad for him knowing the word douchebag. Again, B- parenting.

Chuckling, Harrowheart corrects, "Maine ain't a state!" Except... There's that niggling doubt, isn't there? He stares off in another direction and his lips move as he silently mouths the names of the states. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona... Delaware, Florida... Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mai--

He clears his throat and looks around. Ah shit, the kid was right. Now he'll never trust his authority! Better to distract fast. He procures from his pocket a few coins and a few wadded bills, which he passes off to Alex. He counts as he goes:

"Five, ten, twenty pounds..." And then the coins, British as well, "Five, ten, ten more, uh... Seventy... One, two, three... 20 pounds, 73 pence. And this Azerothian coin, too." That last one is a hand-minted golden coin, surprisingly light, and stamped with a lion and gryphon on either side.

"Take that to him, and tell him Harrowheart sent you. Tell him I'll pay the rest."

But the most important question is yet unanswered. What is dreamwalking? Actually, great question. Would be cool to have an answer. Harrow shifts his mouth from side to side and slowly tries, "Dreamwalkin' is when a person with magic powers steps into the minds of other folks. Only when they're sleepin' I guess. Do it in the day and you're just regular-old psychic. But if you are dreamwalkin' when things don't feel real, you wanna see a professional. There's nasty stuff that lurks out there in places we can't see. It can getcha if you don't know how to stay safe. But Viatorus could help you with that. He'll have the right answers to all the rest of your questions, too."

"Maybe it's not where you're from? I mean, the states were different back before maps got redrawn, so..." It's all he can think of to paper over the awkwardness of Harrow being obviously wrong. Better to just say it's a world thing than anything else.

He purses his lips, looking and feeling conflicted. On the one hand, he wants to get help. On the other hand, it feels kind of mean to make somebody else pay for that help, especially someone he doesn't know and can't pay back. Alex looks up at him seriously. "I'll pay you back, sometime. I promise." That's only fair. Normally he'd hug Harrow, since he's a pretty affectionate kid, but remembering how Harrow withdrew when he touched his arm earlier, Alex can only give him a grateful look as he listens to the explanation about dreamwalking.

"I don't have that kind of magic. I'm not psychic. I'm... the only term my dad could find was 'bilocate'. I don't go into people's heads and I feel fine when I sleep." Oh no, what if he's wasting Harrow's money by going to get help? That would be awful. He rocks on his heels, thinking. "Does Mister Viatorus know things about bilocaters? Could he tell me why I can do it when magic isn't even real where I'm from?"

A quiet and uncertain laugh escapes Harrow when Alex makes such a humble attempt at letting him be right. That's a first... But he won't tell him that. "Maine ain't a state where I come from 'cause America ain't a place where I come from. I was born in a place called Westfall on a world called Azeroth. I didn't know about your world or places like it 'til I got here and started learnin'."

Then, tentatively, he rests a hand on Alex's shoulder and says, "And Viatorus might not know about whatever 'bilocaters' are and do... But he's a smart guy, and his family's got a whole lotta magical knowledge, and he can solve problems real good. If he can't tell you the answer to somethin', I bet he could figure it out along with ya."

His hand gives the boy's shoulder a little pat before detaching to return to its place near his wrist. He looks the boy over a few times before asking, "What's your name, by the way? Don't think I ever heard you say it."

"Oh. Well, then I'm surprised you remember any of the States. It must be hard to keep track of everything. I don't know how to say a lot of place names in other languages. My uncle lives in Iqaluit in Nunavut and it took me forever to learn to say those." Alex has no judgement here, only sympathy. Worlds and words and names are probably hard to keep track of after a while.

The touch is actually kind of comforting. His dad used to do that to him all the time. "A bilocater can be in two places at once. That's what I do. I can be here and also be somewhere else, and we don't know why. Nobody else I know can do it. Magic isn't real back home... we think. Maybe. But maybe, if it's real in other places, you're right, and he can help. I hope so, anyway."

He doesn't completely believe that, but he wants to. He wants to have someone turn to him and tell him what to do and how to manage all this. Alex smiles tentatively up at him, small and hesitantly optimistic. "Alex. Alexander Seidelmann, actually, but that's way too long. It's nice to meet you."

Harrow smiles as Alex explains bilocation in his own way. Getting schooled by a child... (Un)life is interesting that way.

"Alexander Seidelmann, huh? Well, Alex, it's been a real pleasure meetin' a brave young man like you today. This place has a way of makin' folks bump into each other, so I'm sure I'll see you around – and soon. You keep safe out there, all right? Make good choices, kid. And–"

He stops abruptly and falls silent as he stares off into the distance. The gears of his dead mind grind slowly before he collects himself enough to ask, "Are you bilocatin' right now? Is this you the real you? Did you leave your body behind on Earth?"

"Hey! I haven't sleep-projected since I was little!" How dare you, good sir. His cheeks flush, embarrassed. Huffing, he puts his hands in his coat pockets and looks away, feeling a little hurt. He's eleven, not six, darn it. And they were having a moment, too, before Harrow got distracted by that weird idea. "And I can't go as far when I'm awake - more than a few miles and it's really hard. I couldn't go as far as another dimension... world... thingy. That's not a thing."

Alex gets defensive and at first Harrowheart is taken aback. The confrontational tone gets his fists clenching automatically before a split second later he realizes he's being reprimanded by a fetus and he has to smear his hand across his face to keep from openly laughing.

"All right, all right," he says, tempering the humor in his voice. He holds his open palms up defensively. "Take pity on the ignorant, huh? Viatorus is gonna ask you more personal questions than that. You gotta have a little patience with him."

He nods his head in another direction and says, "Now git, varmint. Go find you some answers from someone who might know. After you met Mr. Durant, you find me again and tell me how it all went. Maybe I'll even take you out for ice cream while you catch me up."

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It's Called Brand Loyalty

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Harrow is immediately invested in the emotional welfare of this child oh my GOD

Harrow is right to be, and tbf his heart's in the right place

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