Author’s Note
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The taglist for this story is now open. Reply to this post or send me an ask if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters.
In this continuation, the Player’s old online username is SweetBeanPaste, shortened by her friends to Beans. It is not her real name. The NRC still does not know any of the names she answers to.
Chapter — Julios at the Port
Beans reached the port without entering the port.
That was the first correct decision she made that day.
The second was not asking for help.
The third was not looking as though she needed it.
She remained for almost two hours in a position that was uncomfortable, inconvenient, and useful: hidden behind a stack of empty crates near a low wall stained with salt and soot. The smell of fish, wet rope, oil, old wood, and stagnant water was strong enough to conceal the scent of someone who had spent the night walking through a forest.
The port district of Sage’s Island was neither as large as the harbors she knew from films nor as small as a tourist marina. It was functional, ugly around the edges, and far too alive to ever be completely organized. There were cargo vessels, smaller boats, carts, dockworkers, men shouting numbers, women selling food, children running where they probably should not have been, the occasional student hurrying past, and people who seemed to have learned not to notice more than necessary.
People who refused to see more than necessary were dangerous.
They could also be useful.
Beans remained crouched behind the crates and studied the flow of the port.
Who avoided questions because they did not want to hear the answers.
The port operated through weight, urgency, and the smallest possible amount of trust. No one truly trusted anyone, but everyone trusted that a crate needed to leave the ground and reach its destination before the tide, the captain, the merchant, or some magical inspector decided to complicate the day.
A place like that could swallow a person.
Neither received permission.
She watched a group of laborers unloading sacks of something dry. Flour, grain, salt, or animal feed. She could not tell. The men moved with a rhythm that seemed brutal and rehearsed at the same time. A younger worker let one of the sacks slip, received two shouted insults, and resumed working. No one asked whether he was hurt.
In that place, weakness only seemed to matter when it delayed the work.
Beans observed them for another fifteen minutes.
Then she stepped out from behind the crates.
She did not approach the man shouting orders. That would have been an invitation to be examined from head to toe. Instead, she went to the side of the pile where the smaller sacks were being separated from the rest.
She picked one up without asking.
It was heavier than it looked.
Everything in that world seemed to find it amusing to be heavier, more dangerous, or more magical than it appeared.
The weight struck her shoulder before she found her balance. The strip of fabric bound around her chest made the first breath difficult. Her ankle protested. The small stone she had placed inside her boot to alter the way she walked immediately became a personal enemy.
She lowered her center of gravity, wrapped both arms around the sack, and walked.
Getting it onto the cart required more strength than she possessed. She used her knee. Then her hip. The sack slipped at the last moment, forcing her to pin it against the edge before it fell.
Then stepped away before anyone decided to throw her out.
Beans did not turn too quickly.
Turning too quickly meant fear.
She moved only enough to face him.
The man distributing orders was watching her. He had broad shoulders, a short beard, a shirt open at the throat, and the expression of someone who had no patience for cheap mysteries.
— Who told you to pick that up?
The truthful answer remained trapped behind her teeth.
Two of the workers laughed.
He looked at her as though trying to weigh her bones through her clothes.
— The sack reached the cart.
That earned another short laugh from one of the men.
The supervisor pointed toward the pile.
— Ten trips. Don’t drop anything. Bread and three small coins.
Beans did not ask whether that was too little.
She also knew that arguing too carefully would reveal that she understood nothing about local prices.
The man raised his eyebrows.
One of the workers whistled.
Inside, every part of her screamed that she had just destroyed the opportunity through arrogance.
The man stared at her for several seconds.
Then laughed through his nose.
— Four, if you finish before that idiot.
He pointed at the boy who had dropped the sack.
But money was still money.
She returned to the pile.
By the third trip, her shoulder was burning.
By the fifth, her hands had begun to tremble.
By the sixth, she realized she could not lift the sacks the way the others did. She had to bend, embrace the weight, use her legs, and begin walking before fear persuaded her muscles to stop working.
During the seventh trip, someone tried to shove her as a joke.
Beans turned before the touch fully landed.
The sack slipped in her arms.
She caught it just in time.
Beans wanted to curse him in her real voice.
— I just don’t want to lose money because you’re bored.
Several of the men laughed again.
The worker raised his hands, still smiling.
He did not try to touch her a second time.
By the ninth trip, the edges of her vision were darkening.
She remembered how many times she had complained from the other side of the screen when Crowley left Yuu without money, without proper food, without a responsible adult, and surrounded by problems far too large for a magicless teenager.
She had criticized all of it as a spectator.
Now she was carrying sacks in the port of another world because incompetent headmages apparently existed as a multiversal constant.
On the tenth trip, the cart groaned beneath the final weight.
She did not collapse with it.
It was a small and miserable victory.
The supervisor threw the bread first.
She caught it with both hands by reflex.
She corrected herself too late, tucking the bread beneath one arm as though it did not matter.
Beans looked at them only long enough to count.
— Come back tomorrow, if you don’t die — the man said.
It was not quite a threat either.
She left before her body admitted that it could not remain standing much longer.
She did not eat where they could see her.
That was another correct decision.
A starving person devouring their payment attracted attention. A person hiding food attracted less, provided they were competent enough to disappear.
Beans crossed two narrow streets, passed a fish stall, avoided a group arguing beside several barrels, and found an alley between a warehouse and a stone wall.
She did not enter immediately.
Passed again from the other side.
There was a corner where broken crates formed an improvised barrier. An adult could enter if they wanted, but they would need to crouch and make noise. Behind the crates was a narrow exit, almost a crack between the walls.
Difficult for someone large.
Safe was an exaggerated word.
Only after she was hidden behind the crates did she allow her body to fold.
The pain in her shoulder climbed into her neck. Her hands throbbed. The fabric binding her chest made every breath more difficult. Her stomach awakened violently the moment she looked at the bread.
The bread was hard, but it was bread.
It did not taste like home.
It did not taste like anything familiar.
Still, it was the first thing in that world she had obtained through her own work.
That nearly made her cry.
Bread remaining: a little more than half.
Knife: still nearly useless.
Ankle: painful, but functional.
Port identity: incomplete.
She rested her head against the wall.
SweetBeanPaste had been a bad joke from her adolescence that had survived longer than many serious things.
Beans was what her friends had extracted from that joke after deciding that calling someone Sweet Bean Paste required too much effort.
It worked for people who knew her well enough to understand why the nickname was ridiculous.
A word that could fit inside a badly maintained record and be forgotten before the end of the shift.
It was close enough to something she could answer to without hesitation.
Far enough away that it did not belong to her.
An old word connected to walking, measuring land, crossing spaces.
She did not know whether that world recognized the origin.
No history anyone could verify.
For several minutes, she did nothing but breathe.
Voices passed near the alley.
The other complaining about taxes or port fees.
They passed without looking.
Beans counted fifty beats of her own heart before allowing herself to relax.
The alley was not a place to sleep.
It was a place to disappear between jobs.
She remained there until the angle of the sunlight changed.
Then she left through the narrow gap rather than the main entrance.
At Night Raven College, the same sun passed through high windows and illuminated the kind of meeting that looked important because it contained too much paper.
Twenty-four hours had passed since the missing young woman left Ramshackle.
Almost twenty-five, depending on which time they accepted as the beginning.
Crowley preferred to count from the moment he had been formally informed.
Crewel counted from the moment she crossed the threshold.
Trein recorded both times.
Some forms of cowardice needed to be preserved with precision.
— Rook did not find her — Vargas reported.
The statement produced a particular kind of silence.
Not because everyone trusted Rook Hunt.
If Rook had failed to find someone fleeing across Sage’s Island, then the young woman was very good at disappearing—or he had chosen not to force a capture.
Both possibilities were unsettling.
— He found false trails — Vargas continued. — Broken branches leading north. Partial footprints to the west. A brief entry into the water. Then stone.
Crewel listened without interrupting.
— No — Vargas agreed. — It is someone thinking while she runs.
Sam leaned near the window, turning a coin between his fingers.
— Do you have confirmation?
— No. But if I had no documents, no magic, and no money, I would look for a place with daily labor, large crowds, and a route off the island.
Crowley cleared his throat.
— The railway station would also be a possibility.
— The station watches faces. The port watches cargo.
Crewel closed his eyes for a moment.
— She would think of that.
Yuu was sitting at the far end of the room.
They spoke before deciding to speak.
— She would observe first. She wouldn’t ask for help directly. She would look for work that paid on the same day. And she wouldn’t eat where she received the food.
Grim, sitting on the floor beside them, muttered:
— Because somebody could steal it.
— Did she ever mention the port?
Yuu took some time to answer.
— Not specifically. But she talked about leaving through ordinary places instead of magical ones. She said magic leaves a magical trail, bureaucracy leaves a paper trail, and poor people leave a trail of exhaustion.
The coin stopped between Sam’s fingers.
Vargas swore under his breath.
— From the other side. I thought it was only… commentary.
No one said that it had not been.
But they all understood that a person who had spent months commenting on survival inside negligent systems might have been listened to far too late.
Crowley attempted to reorganize the room around his own authority.
— Then we should send a formal request to the port—
— No — Crewel, Trein, and Sam said simultaneously.
Crowley managed to look offended in three different directions.
Sam explained first, perhaps because he was the only one capable of smiling while stating the obvious.
— If you send a formal notice, every inspector, guard, captain, and opportunist will begin searching for “a girl from another world who ran away.” If she is disguised, she will disappear even deeper. If someone dangerous finds her first, they will sell the information.
Sam did not complete the thought.
Crewel noticed the change in Yuu’s face.
He did not soften the situation.
The world would not become safer merely because Yuu was listening.
— Sam, go without any institutional identification.
— Vargas, no large group.
— And Rook? — Trein asked.
The answer appeared simple.
Rook was the best tracker available.
He was also exactly the kind of presence that would make the young woman believe she was being hunted.
— Not yet — Crewel decided. — If he sees her, he reports it. He does not approach.
Vargas did not like the answer.
The worst thing they could do at that moment was transform an attempted rescue into a pursuit.
Crowley folded his hands on the table.
— We need some means of identification.
Trein looked up from the report.
— We have an incomplete physical description.
Crewel looked at the empty field on the first page.
— We do not have one — he said.
Crowley shifted his shoulders slightly.
— We could use “Player” as a provisional identification.
— That is not a name — Trein said.
— It is the designation by which everyone knows her.
— It is the function you assigned to her.
Crowley opened his mouth.
— Sam will search for a young foreign woman who may be disguised. He will not use any name.
Sam placed the coin in his pocket.
— People who run usually choose one.
— Then it will be the first name someone bothered to hear.
No one needed to explain why that hurt.
Beans returned to the port when the shadows began to lengthen.
Never the same place on the first day.
The man supervising the sacks might remember her. He might decide that four coins had been generous. He might notice that the boy who was too small had returned far too hungry.
He might begin asking questions.
She chose another street.
This time, she followed the smell.
Kitchens were danger and opportunity. They contained knives, water, scraps, heat, exhausted people, and hierarchies of their own. They also contained adults who noticed hands, posture, hunger, and lies.
Beans passed behind a portside inn without entering.
Then came the voice of an older man, rough, irritated, and unhurried:
— If you broke it, you pay with a finger or an hour.
— Nearly everything that causes a loss is an accident. Scrub.
Beans stopped near the side entrance.
The kitchen was narrow, hot, noisy, and damp. Pans hung above a counter. There was steam, fish, broth, onion, grease, bread, some bitter herb, and the sour smell of accumulated dishes.
Two young men worked near the back.
An older woman chopped vegetables with terrifying speed.
Beside a basin filled with dark water, there were stacks of plates.
The old man stood beside the stove.
He occupied space anyway.
His gray hair was tied back. He had a short beard and a scar crossing the left side of his face from the temple to the edge of his mouth. The scar pulled one corner of his expression, making it look as though he smiled incorrectly even when he was still.
He turned before Beans spoke.
— If you came to beg, the front entrance is that way.
The old man looked at her hands first.
The line of her torso, held too rigidly beneath her clothing.
Only then did he look at her face.
Not because it contained desire.
Because it contained knowledge.
It was the gaze of someone who knew more than he said and had already decided not to waste questions on a poor lie.
The word nearly knocked Beans over from the inside.
This time, someone had asked.
Not in the way she wanted.
She held her breath for half a second.
The woman chopping vegetables raised one eyebrow.
The old man continued studying her.
Beans’s heart beat incorrectly once.
The answer escaped before fear could stop it.
The old man released a sound through his nose.
He pointed toward the basin.
— Wash plates, small pans, and mugs. Don’t touch the knives. Don’t touch the money. Don’t touch the pantry door. Break something and you leave owing me. You eat at the end, if anything is left. Two coins.
Beans looked at the pile.
Two coins was too little.
Food at the end might be a lie.
And the old man had not asked where she came from.
He had asked enough to know she would lie and stopped before forcing her to invent something worse.
The woman chopping vegetables scoffed.
His scar pulled at the corner of his mouth as he answered:
— Three if you don’t complain about the cold water.
Beans looked at the basin.
— You will. Just not aloud.
This time, she almost smiled.
The first pan had grease stuck to the sides.
The second looked as though it had been used to cook glue.
The third smelled so strongly of fish that her stomach remembered bread was not a complete meal.
Her hands, already injured from carrying sacks, burned when the water entered the small cuts. The soap was harsh.
The scrubbing brush was worse.
She scrubbed as though she could remove from her skin the scent of Ramshackle, the forest, and the room where no one had asked her name.
She scrubbed until her fingers wrinkled.
While she worked, she listened.
The old man was named Marron.
Or at least that was what they called him.
Perhaps it was a surname.
The boy who had broken the plate was Noll.
The other was Bric, and he laughed at nearly everything until Marron looked at him.
No one asked Julios another question.
That was the strangest part.
At some point, a mug appeared beside the basin.
— Dishwater isn’t for drinking — he said while stirring a pot.
She did not thank him aloud.
Something told her Marron did not want loud gratitude.
Later, when the movement in the kitchen slowed, Tessa placed a piece of bread, some leftover fish, and a spoonful of something cooked near the edge of the counter.
— Is that rubbish? — Beans asked before touching it.
— Ask again and I’ll give it to Bric.
She ate standing in a corner without turning her back completely on the kitchen.
His gaze moved over the way Julios protected the food, the distance maintained from the adults, the posture attempting to look masculine and failing in small places, the hair cut with a bad knife, and the rigid binding beneath the clothing.
He merely threw a dry cloth in her direction.
— Wet hands break plates.
— And boys who faint in my kitchen block the walkway.
Marron stirred another pan, although there was nothing left over the fire.
Not because she trusted him.
At the end of the night, she received three coins.
Marron handed them over without touching her fingers.
— Come back tomorrow, if you didn’t steal anything.
— And if I don’t come back?
— Then you won’t wash tomorrow’s dishes.
She should have found another alley.
She should have protected the little information she had left.
But her body was too exhausted to maintain every correct decision.
— Can I stay outside until morning?
The question escaped before she could swallow it.
Asking for shelter revealed too much need.
The kitchen became slightly quieter.
Tessa did not look at her.
Marron turned only half his face.
The scar appeared deeper beneath the yellow light.
— Near the barrels. There are walls on both sides.
— I’ll sleep on the crates.
— The night guard kicks people.
Marron continued looking at her.
Beans held his gaze for one second.
Then lowered her eyes enough to suggest respect rather than fear.
— Behind the firewood. Not inside it. Behind it. If anyone asks, I didn’t see you.
The relief nearly made her knees collapse.
— Don’t cut your hair with a kitchen knife again.
The blood drained from her face.
Marron turned back toward the stove, although it remained empty.
— Makes you look like a cry for help.
She left through the rear door, found the space behind the firewood, and fitted herself between the wall and the stacked bundles. It was not comfortable. It was narrow. It smelled of dry wood, dust, and something that might once have been a rat.
An adult could reach her if they knew exactly where to look.
But not without making noise.
Not without passing through Marron’s kitchen.
That night, it was the closest thing to safety she had found.
She lay on her side with the knife pressed near her chest and the coins hidden inside her sock.
SweetBeanPaste was the username left behind in another world.
Beans was the nickname her friends had extracted from it.
Julios Arpenteur was the name the port had accepted without demanding documents.
The Player was what Night Raven College had decided she was.
Four ways to be addressed.
None of them was her real name.
That remained safely behind her teeth, untouched, because no one had yet bothered to ask for it as though the answer truly mattered.
Before she fell asleep, she heard Marron lock the back door.
Then his voice came quietly through the wood:
— Breathe through your nose. Coughing gives away a hiding place.
Much later, she began breathing through her nose again.
And, for the first time since Ramshackle, she slept for more than an hour without waking with the immediate certainty that someone was already coming to find her.
===
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