Dante rounded the corner to the alley and was greeted by a solid punch in the arm from Jemma. He hissed in air through his teeth as he clutched at the spot she'd struck. "What was that for?" he whispered.
"You know why!" she shot back, voice low. "You were about to do something so idiotic that it hurt to watch!" She grabbed him by the shirt sleeve of the arm she'd punched and dragged him after her.
Dante stumbled along after her but didn't fight against her grip. As he was led along through the streets, he rubbed at the sore spot on his arm, which tingled painfully to announce its intentions of bruising. "I needed my chime to get away from here good," he mumbled. "What, are you going to let me borrow yours?"
"If I loan it to you, I won't have a way to get it back, and you'll keep it," Jemma said. The streets she led him down were lined with vendors setting up tables filled with trinkets and treats in preparation for the festivities starting early the following morning. "No, I have a better idea."
They passed a food vendor setting out freshly baked pastries shaped like Chimeras, and Dante swiped one when the seller turned her back. As he was led onward, he took a giant bite from the top third that had been covered in chocolate, ignoring the half that was covered in seeds to simulate buttons. "What's your plan?" he asked, voice muffled from his mouthful of fried dough.
She led him down a side street and pushed him into a nook leading to a read door to a shop. "Wait here," she instructed. "I'll see if I can get my brother to loan me his to give to you. Then we can go together to whatever world you want to spend the rest of your life in - ideally one where your hair isn't going to earn you the same negative attention you get here - and then I'll take his chime back from you and come home."
"So you'd just leave me out there without any way to get back?"
"I thought that was the entire point!" Jemma threw her hands up in the air. "Dante, you don't want to come back here: trust me. And I can always go visit you. Now just wait here and I'll be back in a bit." Before Dante could protest, she hurried off toward her family's house.
Dante leaned his back against the wall, pushing his weight into it as he heaved a long sigh. His head lolled back, bonking lightly against the surface supporting him, and he stared up at the slowly brightening sky above him. Nothing seemed to be going the way he wanted it to today. He had no chime, and now he was going to be some stranger, an exile in a foreign land with no way to return home if things went poorly. And while he was technically almost an adult, he had no worldly skills other than how to cook and clean.
He lifted his head from the wall and took another bite of his Chimera pastry.
Is getting away from my uncle really worth losing my one and only friend? The thought struck him hard mid chew, and his chest constricted so that it became difficult for him to breathe. He forced himself to swallow down his bite and then closed his eyes. He took several purposeful breaths, focusing on not thinking about scary "what if"s.
Taking one more deep breath, in through his nose and out though his mouth, Dante resolved to talk about his concerns more with Jemma once she returned, and then he opened his eyes and took another chomp of pastry.
As he chewed, the wall of the alley across from him began to ripple, much in the same way heat would ripple from the ground on a summer's day.
Or when a person was using a chime to break through the barriers between worlds.
Dante's chewing slowed and then stopped as he realized that the characteristic ringing sound when a chime was used for moving between worlds was missing. Also, the ripples were much faster than any he'd ever witnessed.
As Dante watched in puzzled awe, a man strode through the rift, which snapped shut behind him.
The two stared at each other in shared confusion. The man's gaze was clearly fixed on Dante's tangled mess of prematurely silver hair. This usually would make Dante self-conscious, but he was too busy staring back at the device that the man held in one hand.
It was black and rectangular, fitting perfectly in the man's hand. On the back was etched an equine design in white, and a collection of small rectangles dangled from one corner. The side held facing up was covered with buttons in the same places his pastry had seeds and nuts, and where there was chocolate on his treat, there was a glowing, sunken square in the item the man held.
Dante dropped his half-eaten pastry in his shock. "Ch-Chimera," he stammered, unable to form coherent words beyond that.
The man blinked, the word snapping him from staring at Dante's hair. His attention turned instead to his Chimera, and then in an instant, the device vanished into thin air, as if it had never existed in the first place.
Dante's jaw dropped.
"I want to ask how someone from the old worlds knows what a Chimera is, but judging by your hair color, I think I can safely assume the answer." The man's voice was pleasant enough, as though he spent most of his time telling hilarious stories in bars and bursting out laughing at his own jokes. But under it all, there was a bite to his words that made Dante sure that the man would've been reaching for his weapon if he'd had one on him.
Dante stared at the man, confusion spreading across his face. "I don't know what my hair color has to do with anything. Everyone here knows what a Chimera is." He paused and then hastily tacked on a stuttered "milord" to the end of his sentence.
The man raised a brow skeptically, but then he looked down at the ground, only then really noticing the shape of the pastry Dante had been eating. "Hm." He chewed his lower lip, brows crinkling in thought. "This is an interesting situation, then, if this world also has Chimeras. I'll have to look into this more thoroughly." He muttered these words to himself as though Dante weren't even there. "But, some other time," he continued, his attention snapping back to Dante. "For now, I have someone I need to find. If you'll excuse me."
The man turned to leave.
"Maybe I can help? Who are you looking for, milord?" Dante asked.
The man hesitated, but slowed to a stop and turned back to face him. "My brother."
Dante stared at the man as his mind rapidly put pieces together. Finally, he came up with a name. "Blaine?"
The man's eyes widened. "Well, no. I mean, yes, that's the name of one of my brothers, but that's not the one I'm looking for. How did you know him?" His eyes lingered on Dante's hair in realization. "Your father?"
Dante ruffled his own hair. "My mom told me stories about my dad, since I don't remember him. She said I got his hair. She also said he had a Chimera. I thought maybe you were looking for him, but about fifteen years too late."
The man's tense expression softened, though worry flashed behind his smile. "Ah, so you really are Blane's kid. Earlier, I'd assumed-" he cut himself off and shook his head instead of continuing that thought. With one hand, he patted Dante's shoulder. "I have some further investigating to do here, but I'd like you to come with me for a moment." His Chimera appeared once more in one hand as though it were never gone, and his thumb of the hand that held it poked at the various buttons across its surface.
Dante glanced past him to see if Jemma was coming back, but he couldn't see her. "I'm not sure I can, milord. I'm waiting for a friend, and I shouldn't-"
But before he could finish his thought, there came a feeling of the ground dropping out from below him, and then everything went dark. And then, in what felt like the blink of an eye, he found himself in front of the gates of a massive stone castle. High walls were interrupted by doors, thrown open to welcome them inside, where guards patrolled the grounds between various smaller buildings.
"Welcome to the Nascent," the man said as he continued to press buttons on his Chimera. "I'm sure you'll enjoy living here."
Dante, wide eyed, couldn't help but silently agree.