so what happens now? [Milo]

[Milo Thatch]

Okay, now he was sure she was teasing him. He couldn't blush much redder, but it seemed like she was taking a stab at it anyway, and Milo ducked his head, laughing good-naturedly and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "Um, well...yeah, kind of. I don't know how much of that you saw back then but...I had a shocking amount of craziness going on there on that front." He looked up at her over the rim of his glasses, a playful smirk crossing his features.

"Of course, I'm not the one who's been making babies in the past decade," he pointed out, wagging a finger at her. "You've got that honor all to yourself, your majesty." He pushed his glasses back up on his nose again. It was much easier to return Alyss' teasing than it was to confront his own nerves over his past love affairs or attempts of that sort. It had been ten years and he was still checking around corners a little anxiously, just in case Apollo or Egeria or both popped up out of the woodwork and started bickering over him. Sometimes he still had trouble believing that had ever happened.

"We can do group activities with our classes," he said, returning to the topic of teaching. "I mean, unless you're teaching math or something that can't possibly be combined with linguistics in any practical way." She'd never really seemed like the math type to him; she seemed like much more fun than math, although he could have been wrong there. It wouldn't be the first time, after all.

[Alyss Heart]

Alyss didn’t have the expression of someone who meant it when she giggled, “I’m sorry,” to Milo as he did, indeed, get thoroughly embarrassed by her queries. One couldn’t solely credit Hermes for her daughter’s mischievous streak. Then she shrugged and answered, “I didn’t see much of it, but I’m not surprised. It seemed like everyone had enough issues for a yearly subscription.”

She had barely processed the smirk on his face before he started teasing her back…well that was a twist she hadn’t expected. It was her turn to turn a little pink, to offer a sheepish smile, but she hardly seemed upset about it. It wasn’t as if she was ashamed of what had happened, how could she be when it worked out so well in terms of getting her daughter? “Fair enough. That’s all a long story. Like I said, everyone had quite a few issues.” Hers just happened to be an indescribable connection with a god that inadvertently snapped her out of her fears enough to help her save her country…and gods only knew how the god himself felt about any of that.

“Oh gods, no, I never was fond of math, at least not past a certain point. I’ll be teaching Literature…it just seems like what I’m best suited for and…”

And that was when an idea hit her, one that almost made her jaw drop. “Oh…oh my gods, I just realized...” Within moments, some books appeared in her hand…but she could do far more than just that, couldn’t she? Her Imagination powers might very well be precisely the edge she needed in order to be a good teacher…

She then shook her head, remembering she was in the middle of a conversation and her epiphany should not interrupt that. “Oh, so yes, absolutely, we could work together on that, it’d be perfect…”

[Milo Thatch]

Milo, as usual, was instantly worried that he had offended her with his teasing. He could take the teasing about as well as anybody; he blushed like crazy, but he was good-natured about it, and usually just fumbled around laughing and looking flustered. And the more flustered he got, the more likely he was to say something awkward, as if he needed any help with that.

"Probably a much more interesting long story than my last ten years. I mean, that was long, I guess, but not much of a story at all. Lots of studying, lots of writing, lots of time spent fixing the boiler in the basement of the university. You know. A day in the life, except...thirty-six hundred days in the life, I guess." Alyss wasn't the only one who wasn't fond of math, but Milo could multiply by ten, that was basic enough.

Alyss seemed to pull books out of thin air just then, and Milo was suddenly speechless. He'd never seen her do anything like that before; she had referred to her abilities, but he had never seen her just...pull real physical objects out of nothingness the way she just had.

"Woah..." he breathed. "That's nifty, isn't it? Can you just do that with anything?" Could she pull other things out of thin air? Ancient manuscripts? Multiple copies of priceless artifacts? "Like, if I had a tablet from five thousand years ago that I wanted students to check out but I didn't trust them with the orginal, say, could you..." Alyss was going to be the best teacher, he realized, and it wasn't even close.

[Alyss Heart]

Alyss chuckled at his comment that it'd be a lot more interesting than his. "Oh I don't know..." She tilted her head, deciding that was enough of a signal to explain everything to him. Again, why bother hiding it? "Tori's father is Hermes...it's funny because it all started...you remember that Halloween party? Where everyone became their costumes? I kind of...died. I think Hermes became an evil version of himself...I know he didn't mean it, and was pleading for forgiveness not long after, and...we had already had this really strong connection I couldn't describe if I tried, and...one thing led to another."

But far more interesting than her nostalgia for her lost...whatever he was to her was the way he fed off of her Imagining books into her hands.

"Oh Milo, absolutely...and let me put it this way...there's a clone of me in Victorian England that I made because I didn't want my adoptive family to worry while I was in Wonderland." Her speech was getting faster, more intense and passionate as she would when she knew her argument with a diplomat was steering in her favor, but with far more childlike energy, an energy she hardly ever got anymore.

"I could make just about anything...including..." And within moments, she was turning around to see if her attempt at an illusion worked in the staff room, and sure, it was clear it wasn't real, but they were still in a rather good replica of the Heart Palace throne room. She beamed like a child that just got all A's on their report card, and she turned towards Milo. "Illusions...welcome to Heart Palace." Honestly, she was beginning to wonder why only people in her family, who were born to rule, had abilities to this extent, she was suddenly realizing how useful it would be if more people had the power to create anything they imagined. "Or perhaps..." And she remembered from one of their first conversations, he enjoyed Verne, didn't he? With a borderline wicked grin, she changed the illusion to what little she could remember from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. "Or perhaps The Nautilus?"

She turned to get a proper look at his response. "Milo...we're going to be an amazing team, I think."

[Milo Thatch]

He wasn't trying to pry; it wasn't any of his business, really, who Alyss had been knocking boots with over the past few years. That was just...yeah, not any of his business at all. He'd only been teasing, but as she recounted the events that had led to her daughter's birth, Milo found himself a little swept up in nostalgia.

"I was Indiana Jones," he remembered, grinning. "That whole night feels like...it feels like some really weird dream, like when you remember a dream and you can't quite grab all the edges of it." He played with the pencil between his fingers, flipping it over his fingers in one direction, then back in the other, before dropping it on the floor and having to bend down to pick it up. When he looked up again, Alyss was working her magic, and Milo's heart leapt into his throat.

"Wow..." he breathed, looking around the room...the throne room, as it now seemed to be. "If I get an office, you gotta help me decorate it, huh?" He could only imagine the possibilities with a gift like that. Sometimes, Milo wondered if it wasn't quite fair, the way everyone else here seemed to have some kind of magical ability, and he, Milo, had absolutely none. He had seen magical things, he had lived in magical places and he had been in the presence of things other people from his world and his time wouldn't believe in a thousand years, but here he was, very mortal, very ordinary, very unmagical, living in the most magical of worlds.

And then Alyss changed the room again, and they were suddenly in the middle of a scene he had walked through a thousand times in his own imagination, the interior of a craft he had spent so many hours of his childhood inhabiting in his mind's eye. Milo forgot how to breathe for a few seconds, turning in a slow circle, awestruck. He approached one of the rounded panes of glass where the windows had been only a moment earlier, reached out and laid his hand on it, transfixed by a school of fish that swam by slowly. "Oh," he breathed, casting a glance back at her over his shoulder, childish wonderment written across his features. "Alyss, my gosh, how did you...this is..." He blinked rapidly, and took his glasses off, rubbing them with his shirt before pushing them back onto his face.

"I've been here a thousand times in my mind," he said, gesturing around them. "I've read Twenty Thousand Leagues so many times I've worn through three copies. This is exactly like I imagined it, it's...how did you do this?"

[Alyss Heart]

She nodded, remembering how much Della appreciated Milo's costume...but the fact that the party had been a blur for him was almost enviable, she had to admit...she had long since come to terms with her own death, of course, but...gods, she could still remember how terrified she was. How Hel had almost come to claim her, how she watched the people she cared for becoming something else all around her...it was terrifying. Was it any wonder that she had been drained of all energy up until she knew she was pregnant? What could be more life affirming than that, when everyone you loved, and for a while, YOU, died?

Fortunately, thoughts of her death faded as she saw the look on Milo’s face when she recreated her throne room. “Oh I’d love to. I could come up with whatever you want in it, we’ll make it feel like home in no time…” But if she thought the brief visit home was leaving Milo breathless, she had no idea what she was in for until they found themselves in the infamous submarine…she had guessed this might be the best choice, given his love for the books and his own underwater adventures, but… gods, to think she caused that much joy. Sure, she was generally loved by her people. She could get lots of giggling and wonderment in her child…but this was something entirely different. After years of being told her abilities weren’t real, were worth nothing, this level of praise probably took her breath away as much as Milo’s was right now.

“I…it’s something women in my family can do…my aunt actually managed to trick me into thinking I was back in London in the middle of a battle…it never really occurred to me to try this aspect of my abilities until now.” She took a few steps closer to the window Milo was gazing out of, hovering just behind him. “It’s just Imagination, really. Ours just happens to be powerful enough to bring things that exist in our head into reality…and I guess we had similar ideas of how this ship would look.”

[Milo Thatch]

If she decorated his office (which he still wasn't sure he would even have), would it all stay there if she wasn't there? Were the objects she Imagined real, would they function like normal objects? He had so many questions, but he couldn't really seem to pin them down, he was still so starstruck by the scene around him. He finally managed to drag his gaze away from the fish outside the window, and looked back at her.

"You have an incredible gift," he said, "honestly. I've been so many places and I've seen so many things but I don't think I've ever seen anything like what you can do." Well, except for maybe the things Apollo did, but that was different. Apollo was clearly interested in something else. Alyss didn't have any reason to be trying to impress him, she had just done this because she thought it would make him happy, he thought, and that was a whole other thing. And she'd remembered that little detail from all those years ago, that he liked Jules Verne.

And maybe that was what really shook him up, because Milo was used to people disregarding things he said - either they thought the things were boring (which, to be fair, they probably would be to someone who wasn't obsessed with languages), or they thought Milo himself was a little unhinged (again, not an entirely unfair assumption given his tendency to go on about fantastical places and things no one else believed in). But Alyss had listened, and she had remembered, and that was a pretty new feeling for Milo, especially after the past ten years.

"It's just the women?" he said, catching that little detail a few seconds late. "That's pretty nifty, you would think the evil dictators would know not to mess with you, huh?"

[Alyss Heart]

Alyss knew how lucky she was to have this gift. She remembered all too well what it was like when it was lost...but the way Milo said it, gods...something about this sort of validation was working wonders, made her want to do more with it, push her abilities to the limits...but that could quite possibly lead to some power hungry tendencies. She was still Redd's niece, after all...and speaking of...

"Well the thing is...she had this ability." She pressed her lips together. "The aunt I mentioned, she killed my parents at my sixth birthday party and took over. That was why I had to run to...we call it the Dull World." She couldn't help but offer an apologetic wince, since they were essentially referring to the kind of world that he was more used to, although she had to wonder if his world was the same one they referred to. Did Atlantis exist somewhere out there in the world she had been stranded in for most of her life? ...and the funny thing, my time in...we call it the Dull World." "But my time there...it drained me of my power, somehow. Perhaps it was trauma, or just that magic didn't work as well there, or just being told over and over that it wasn't real...whatever it was, my Imagination so weak...it was really only coming back here that brought it back at all. But I was still really out of practice by the time I returned home...it was a miracle I made it at all."

She took a deep breath...she tried really hard to not let her tragic past bring her down like it used to. Usually she succeeded...she just hadn't had to explain it to someone before. She refused to tell Apollo too much, even if he had been such a great help, but Milo...Milo she could trust him.

"But...yes. Thank you. It's really nice to hear, that I can offer something with this...people in Wonderland don't appreciate this at nearly as much," she chuckled.

[Milo Thatch]

Wow, that had spiraled into childhood traumas in an instant, hadn't it? Milo's eyes went wide, and he wondered if he ought to say something, he ought to comfort her, right? That was the sort of thing you were supposed to do when someone mentioned that their parents had been brutally murdered by their aunt. He wondered if he ought to talk about his own parents, just to show her that he could relate to her on some level, but that felt a little bit like he would be trying to one-up her tragic story, and that seemed like it would just be rude.

"I'm so sorry," he said, not sure what else he could possibly say. There wasn't really anything that could be said that would make that kind of thing better, was there? The dull world, huh? Well, that was a pretty accurate description of some places in the world, but Milo could think of plenty of places he'd seen in his ordinary non-magical world that were still plenty exciting. Probably not the best time to get indignant about his dull homeland, though, if that was even the same place she was referring to...although he was certainly very curious whether she and he had ever been in the same world without knowing it before.

"I appreciate it, anyway," he said softly, looking down at the pencil in his hands a little awkwardly. "So, you know, if you ever feel like nobody respects what you can do, you can always just come see me, pretend we're in a submarine or a hot air balloon and I'll gush about it for days. Or if you want some practice, so you don't lose your touch again."

[Alyss Heart]

She almost felt bad for putting that look on Milo's face. This was the sort of thing you probably didn't unleash on people you had only sort of been friends with a decade ago, she realized...this whole thing had just left her feeling so...vulnerable, she supposed. Almost had her forget that their friendship was still budding, she supposed...still, of course Milo was kind about it. She really couldn't imagine Milo not being kind.

"I appreciate that...and I'm sorry as well, that was... quite the heavy subject. You're my friend, not my therapist," she half joked, twirling a loose curl in her finger, and allowing a smile to grow on her face as Milo suggested that she could always come to him if she ever felt underappreciated. "Though I'd say that's a capital idea. As I said, beyond just friends, we're going to make a splendid team, so why not?"

[Milo Thatch]

Milo shook his head quickly, emphatically. "No, no, no," he assured her. "You're welcome to talk to me about whatever heavy stuff you need to talk about. I might not be your therapist, like you said, but...hey, I lost my parents when I was really young, too. Not...murdered at my birthday or anything awful like that, but if you ever need to talk about all that good old orphan stuff..." Milo snapped his fingers and pointed his thumbs at his chest. "I'm your guy."

He watched her, fixated for a moment on the way she was wrapping her hair around her finger, but he jerked his attention back to the present, hopefully before that got weird. "Hey, do you want...I don't really know where there's food around here yet, but do you want to go see if we can find some? Or can you just...imagine food, is that a thing you can do?" Did imaginary food taste like regular food? Could you keep from starving by eating it? "Have you run into anybody else here yet? You're the first person I've found that I remember from before, there was a princess, too, but she was young, like she'd be a student here still."

[Alyss Heart]

Alyss stared at Milo as he assured her it was perfectly fine to talk about this with him, and even shared his own sad orphan story and just...what had she done to deserve this kindness anyway? Sure, she tried her best to be good to people, use her position to make everyone's lives better, but...but she was still blown away by what a good heart Milo Thatch clearly had. Of course she had friends who were kind, but it somehow felt different. She managed to not shed a tear despite the temptation, but just smiled at him. "That'll do..."

She caught him glancing at her...oh, now what was that? Was he considering possibilities that had occurred to her earlier in the conversation as well...no, no, shouldn't dwell on that...rushing into those conclusions could lead to quite a bit of embarrassment and the last thing they needed was more awkwardness between them. Still...it was a nice thought to entertain.

Alyss thought for a moment when Milo asked about whether she could Imagine food. "I can...but it seems like it can only be food that I know how to make normally...and sadly, culinary skills weren't something I managed to pick up, other than..." Within moments, a plate of her favorite dessert from Wonderland, tarty tarts, appeared in her hand. "These...but I imagine we'd want something a bit more substantial...but we could always save it for pudding, right? And I'd be more than happy to join you in a quest for supper." A more mischievous smile crossed her face there, not unlike that day when they decided to play hooky together, although it was more just a way to show she knew exactly how silly she just sounded, and just what were you going to do about it?

[Milo Thatch]

Once upon a time, Milo had been undeniably attracted to Alyss. It had been many years ago, for him anyway, when they had sneaked out of that class he wasn't even supposed to be in, when she had appeared in the middle of one of his self-absorbed reveries, and he had known right then that there was something special about her. It had been a decade, and their lives had taken very different paths since then. She was a queen now, and a mother, and who knew what else, and he was still just Milo, but if Apollo was around here somewhere, there was that. They were far away from the boy and girl they had been on that day. But as Milo watched her, first with that one strand of hair wrapped around her finger, and then providing tarts out of thin air, there was a little corner of his mind that entertained the thought of what might have been.

"Hey, those look amazing," Milo said, reaching out and taking one of the tarts off the plate. "Don't worry. I'll still have plenty of room for dinner, I'm always hungry." He looked down at the little tart in his hand. "Almost seems a shame to eat this, though, it's so cute. I never could cook much...when you grow up mostly on some archaeological dig here or there and your only parental figure is your generally clueless grandfather...cooking isn't really one of those skills you pick up." He grinned, nibbling on the edge of the tart, then finally working up to putting the rest of it into his mouth.

"So," he said, after chewing and swallowing, "other people, and food, that's the mission of the moment, hm? And I can meet the little princess? And we can talk about the plan for getting this place back up and running?"

[Alyss Heart]

Alyss chuckled, unable to resist a proud grin as he complimented the tart before he even tasted it. "Oh I hardly ever got to myself. I just sort of...made a point to learn how to make them once I got back to Wonderland, so if there was ever a reason I wouldn't be back for a while, I could make them myself, instead of being without them for fifteen years again." It probably sounded silly, but even just that little connection to Wonderland might have worked wonders for her younger self...and gods only knew, if she wound up away from Wonderland, she would hope she wasn't away from her daughter, and she could offer her that kind of guidance she so desperately needed. Being able to conjure up tarty tarts seemed like a good tool to have.

And speaking of Tori, her heart leaped a bit at the thought of introducing Tori to someone else, especially someone who was such a good friend. "Yes, absolutely to everything. She's with Della, she was my roommate for a while and is her godmum now, might as well go find them both, and knowing her..." She thought for a moment, and got the bright idea to sort of "reImagine" the plate as a tupperware...although then she laughed. "Gods, I must look like a suburban housewife right now, but at least they won't get stale..."

She nodded towards the door, letting the illusion of the Nautilus fade as she stepped forward. "C'mon, I'm sure they're still waiting near the entrance."