Young Writers Society

Felix gave a nod of his own—seemingly not entirely sure what the gesture was for—and then went gliding back to Viktor's side. Unsurprisingly, he slipped underneath Viktor's arm so Viktor was technically giving him a one-armed hug.

"So now I guess we're letting you go?" Evie asked, as if she hadn't been planning on doing that earlier, too.

Viktor nodded, even though she had technically been asking Tiberius. Viktor suspected that Evie had already talked to Felix about it while they were out; he suspiciously hadn't tried attacking Tiberius again.

"We can walk with you back to town," Evie offered, "if you want. We need to check out the bounty board again. And your friend is probably worried..."

James blinked at them, sharing his stare of disbelief between the three of them as he raised his eyebrows and scoffed.

Were they serious?

“Really? You expect me to waltz back into town after the stunt you just pulled? Someone had to have seen you guys carrying me out like a sack of potatoes and by now, my friend has probably figured out who I really am, and if he hasn’t, he’s on his way to knowing soon,” James said, gesturing behind him with his thumb.

“No. Thanks to you guys, I have to start a fake life all over again, which means getting far, far away from here. Thanks for that.”

Evie wanted to say that Tiberius was jumping to conclusions. She wanted to reassure him that they hadn't made a fuss about who he was when they were bringing him out of town, and had in fact lied to a few people who had raised concerns. As far as those people were concerned, Tiberius was just blackout drunk. It wasn't the best excuse, but it wasn't like they had pointed out he was their bounty. They didn't want to draw attention to themselves.

His friend, too, probably didn't have any idea who Tiberius actually was. Evie had only picked up on it because she could analyze things in a way no human ever could. His friend was probably just worried about him.

And yet...

They weren't from this kingdom. They weren't from this world. They didn't know how cutthroat this place could be, and didn't know how well-known Tiberius was. Maybe Tiberius was right. Evie couldn't take the risk of just assuming it was paranoia.

She looked at Viktor. His lips were drawn tight and his eyes were studying a nearby tree instead of Tiberius. When he finally looked back and saw her staring at him, he gave a tiny nod of his head. It was a reluctant one, but she knew he couldn't reject what she was about to say. It would be hypocritical.

"We're sorry," Evie said, and she genuinely meant it. She felt horrible uprooting Tiberius from the life he had made for himself. She wanted to help make new lives for themselves, not mess up the ones they already had. "I...didn't think of that. And even though we didn't know you were a good person, we still took that away from you."

She paused.

"...We could help you," she said. "Build a new life. We've done it before."

She had done it before, technically, but Viktor had experience with it. Felix could be there for moral support.

James hadn’t been trying to guilt trip them into helping him. In fact, it had been much the opposite. He’d been hoping that they would regret getting involved to the point of leaving him alone to deal with it himself, so they wouldn’t cause him any more trouble.

But being faced with their sincerity rubbed him the wrong way. They appeared well-intentioned, and they’d proven to be helpful in healing him, but there was still something in his gut that sat wrong about them.

He put his hands in his pockets, looking them over.

“Oh, you’ve done it before?” he asked casually, refusing to give them much context to work off of. “How so?”

For a moment, Evie faltered.

Before Tiberius had asked the question, she hadn't realized just how much she couldn't actually say about their shared histories. She had helped Viktor make a new identity for himself after he tried replacing his brother in Dragonspine, but Tiberius didn't even know Dragonspine. And explaining the action as Viktor being corrupted by Durin's heart wouldn't really help prove that he was a trustworthy person, since Tiberius also didn't have any idea who Durin was.

(Not that many people in Mondstadt did.)

"I'm a mage," Viktor suddenly said from next to her. She looked over at him. "I wasn't careful, and two people figured it out. Evie met me while I was running away from them. She helped me come up with a new identity to hide behind. I haven't been recognized since then."

That was a lie, but the delivery was solid. Tiberius wouldn't know he had been recognized. That part of his explanation done, Viktor glanced down at Felix.

"Felix can mimic things," he added. "He's young and not good at listening to instructions-"

Here, Felix was smart enough to look a little guilty. Viktor didn't believe for a second that the look was actually genuine.

"-so he likes to change his form. We have to come up with explanations for every new form he comes up with, especially if we run into anyone we know."

Another lie: at this point, Viktor had just gotten used to tiredly explaining that Felix was a mutated whopperflower to people they actually were on good terms with. Almost all of the knights knew at this point, and even a few people in Liyue were aware of what Felix really was.

James’s eyes narrowed slightly. Viktor’s story was believable up until it came to Felix. The only creatures James knew of that could shift their forms were werewolves and dragons, and the latter he knew very little about. He didn’t know a dragon’s shifting limitations and if they could change into inanimate objects like a flower, but if Felix was a dragon, which was highly unlikely, he was playing with fire by revealing what he was and what he could do.

That, and he would’ve called himself a dragon, not a whoppleflower.

James found himself growing increasingly suspicous of their strange story, but instead of poking at Felix, he decided to turn to Viktor, who’d taken it upon himself to do all the talking. He’d let them have a false sense of security.

“Really?” James said, turning to Viktor. “So this -“ he gestured to Viktor up and down, “Is the result of a cover-up? What’s your real name, then? And what did you look like before?”

Without a pause, Viktor replied with, "Subject Two."

Evie shot him a surprised look at his answer, eyes wide and mouth dropping ever so slightly. He had been hesitant to reveal that to her before, but Viktor was almost entirely sure homunculi wouldn't exist in this world. As far as he could tell, alchemy, and more specifically khemia, didn't exist. It wouldn't be possible to create a person without it.

"And I looked like Felix," Viktor said. "With longer hair. Like I said, he's not the best at listening to instructions. I've tried telling him to take on other forms, but he met me while I was in the process of changing my identity. We've been working on him taking other forms or only taking that form when it's just the three of us."

Either their story was far more bizarre than James initially thought, or Viktor was lying ridiculously. The more Viktor shared, the less that made sense.

“And Felix is… what, exactly?” James asked. “I assume not human.”

Evie bit her lip. As far as they had been able to tell, whopperflowers didn't exist here. Felix was already an oddity back in Mondstadt, but at least they could point to the whopperflowers that mimicked plants and say he was a mutated form of them. They didn't even have something they could relate Felix to.

"You're right," Viktor said, nodding. "He's a whopperflower. He came up with the name himself. I don't know if there's more like him somewhere. I found him by chance when he was too small to fend for himself. He was just able to copy small things like flowers first, but now can copy humans. We don't entirely understand how."

That was mostly true, Evie guessed. Viktor was simplifying some of the story into half-truths. The only part that wasn't entirely true was that he didn't understand what had happened to Felix. He might not have understood the exact way it had happened, but he knew it was because of where Felix had been raised.

James narrowed his eyes just a little more and nodded.

“Mmhmm,” he hummed. “And where exactly are you guys from again?”

Evie froze.

Viktor froze.

Felix, who was terrible at reading any social cue that wasn't Viktor, Evie, or any of Evie's many creations being threatened, didn't see the reason for hiding the truth. Evie, in retrospect, should have realized that Felix was being surprisingly quiet. He likely hadn't even been paying attention.

"Mondstadt," Felix said.

James blinked. He’d never heard of it.

“I’m sorry,” he said slowly. “Where is that, exactly?”

Evie and Viktor exchanged a look. They could have tried salvaging the story, but another surprise answer from Felix would probably ruin it even more. And it was clear to both of them that Tiberius thought they were lying to him.

Evie sighed.

"Would you believe us if we said we were from another world?" she asked.

James felt like, for a moment, time slowed down.

He observed the three of them closely. Though they had yet to actually say it, the mere suggestion that they were from another world had several implications, some of them frighteningly overwhelming.

It was a bold claim. To say they were from another world could only really mean one of three things: they were telling the truth because they believed it, they were telling the truth because it was actually true, or they were lying. And if it was the latter, they were lying desperately to come up with something so outrageous and ridiculous. Either the truth was so hard to swallow or explain that they had to reach for the impossible or the impossible was actually true, and James wasn't sure he liked either possibility.

But in any case, he felt that he'd brought this upon himself. He'd welcomed their honesty - if it was even so - with his scrutiny and his questions. He'd invited it, and now he had to deal with the consequences.

But he was going to be logical about it.

At least, as much as he could be, all things considered.

"Well, I'd tell that that's very hard to believe," he said slowly. "Hypothetically, since we're talking in hypothetical questions. But..."

He had to admit that so many of the odd things about them could not be well explained by his current understanding of his own world. Of course, he was by no means an expert on everything, but never had he ever heard of a giant talking flower that could shift into a human shape and communicate like one.

He eyed them closely.

"...I'd also tell you that I'm willing to hear you out."

Evie let out another sigh. This one, unlike the previous one, was a sigh of relief. She had hoped that Tiberius would at least believe that, but hadn't been too reliant on it. It had taken them a good hour to accept that they weren't in Teyvat anymore, and the only reason it hadn't taken any longer was that two of them were from Khaenri'ah.

"That's good," Evie said, "because I'm honestly not sure what we would have said if you weren't. We are from another world. It's called Teyvat."