—
Tegan was writing a song in his head to hum along to as he decoded the strange symbols based on the hot werewolf’s book. He was making good progress, so at the rate he was going, he should be able to…
“Oh,” Tegan said, when his pen ran out of ink. “Shit.” He looked through all his pouches, pulling out some other pens, then remembered after he tried to write with them that he’d stuck them in the pouches planning to have them replaced. “Shit.”
Tegan stood up, stretching as he did. Apparently it was finally time for him to go outside and live in the real world. At least for as long as it took him to find some pens.
His stretch turned into a yawn, one of those ones that made him dizzy, and when Tegan opened his eyes, he was in a very orange building full of people. He slowly lowered his arms, looking around and hoping he looked like he was supposed to be there.
The people were bustling around trying to get places, heading for the staircases on either side of Tegan, or to wait at large platforms with big yellow strips on them.
Tegan sighed. The world his weird time bullshit had chosen to help him burgle had terrible taste. Oh well, at least he could take a break from translating. The people here were human, which was nice. Last time they hadn’t been and that had been a bit awkward, especially when they’d started treating him like a pet.
He tried not to jump as a huge blue monster raced into the space and…no, it was a machine of some kind. It stopped in front of one of the platforms and doors opened, letting more people out. The people waiting got on.
Oh, thought Tegan. It was like the doors in the ziggurats. A way of moving people around quickly. Cool.
He hurried over to the machine and hopped on just before the doors slid shut. Nobody was dressed like him, but nobody paid him any mind. The machine started moving and Tegan nearly fell over, but managed to hold onto a blue and yellow pole anchored to the floor to stop himself. There weren’t enough chairs for everyone, so he stayed standing up while the machine moved through a dark tunnel.
On the wall was a picture with a bunch of coloured lines on it, each line dotted at intervals. He couldn’t read what any of the notations said, but it wasn’t hard to guess that it was a map. It didn’t really matter since he didn’t know where he was or where he was going, but it was still cool.
The machine started talking, which was when Tegan realized it was actually an automaton. This place was insane. The automaton stopped in a grey and purple room, and a few people got off, more people getting on. Tegan chose to stay on, because why not?
There was a boy he thought was cute, so Tegan decided that, in want of any other guideposts, he’d get off when that boy did. Tegan followed him off a few stops later, into another place that was grey but then, one moving staircase later, came out into a brightly coloured street full of really tall buildings with vibrant signs on them. More big metal automatons slid down the road with people inside them, but usually only one or two.
The cute boy wandered off and Tegan didn’t want to be a stalker, so he started walking after him but not in a stalking sort of way. Usually he only got stuck in other worlds for a few hours at most, so it wasn’t like he’d be able to do anything.
It was probably enough time, he thought, putting his hands behind his head, to find some pens. This world probably had really colourful ones.
—
How Best to Use a Sword 