Marius Fic chapter 1

Hi guys!! As promised, this is the first chapter of the story that I'm writing loosely based on Outcast's Alley/Bastard Prince. The first little scene at the beginning of the chapter is not my fave, and so may change a bit later, but for the most part the chapter has gone through a lot of editing, and won't change. I need some help, though. I cannot for the life of me come up with a title for this story. Any ideas? I know y'all don't know the whole plot line, but pretty much anything would be good. The only idea I have right now is to go ahead and call it Bastard Prince, but I'm not sure if I like that or not. Opinions on that would be good, too! Anyway, here it is! 


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"...not your mother, and not me," Marius heard despite his best efforts to tune it out. "That's your father, boy. Through and through. No son of mine-"

"-would ever be this stupid," Marius continued for him wearily. "And you don't know why you kept me; it's never done you any good-"

"You shut up, boy!" Malcolm shouted suddenly, face reddening. "You owe me everything, you hear? I didn't have to keep you! Your bitch of a mother-"

"-ran out on you and left me behind, and she obviously knew what she was doing, since I'm just proof of how much of an asshole my father must have been-"

"Damned right, boy! Ungrateful little shit. I should've kicked you to the curb when you were four, and now you're still here at seventeen?! The least you could do is show a little respect!"

Respect? For a man that was drunk at breakfast? Marius snorted, and Malcolm whipped around to glare at him, face going from red to purple and voice rising. Marius ignored him. It really didn't matter what he said, and for whatever reason the man never actually hit him. The veins were starting to bulge in his neck, Marius noticed absently. That can't be healthy. Somehow, when Malcolm was at his maddest, Marius only seemed to get calmer. Later, his hands'd probably shake with the adreneline, but for now he could think and operate in relative calm. As a child, he'd done everything he could to appease the man when he went off like this, but at sixteen it just didn't seem to matter anymore. "I have to go to class," he told the man finally. "See you." Malcolm just kept screaming, but Marius just turned his back and walked out.

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Marius headed for the school, trying to put Malcolm out of his mind. He stepped out of the morning foot traffic to grab a bagel and a coke, shaking his head at the mothering woman behind the counter as she once again tried to convince him to get an orange juice instead. “I'm trying to get scurvy,” he explained, earning a look of confusion, then a big smile.

“Sir!” he heard a woman call. Nobody called a sixteen-year-old 'sir'. He kept walking. “Sir!” it was repeated, and someone touched his arm. He pulled away from the touch but looked over.

“Can I help you?” he asked, hearing his own tone come out a bit brusk. He regretted it a moment later as he saw that the woman who'd touched him was only a bit older than he, and more than beautiful.

“Yes, please,” the woman said, strangely formal. “May I speak with you for a moment, please?”

“I am late,” he told her, noticing the infant she carried in her arms and the strangely desperate look in her eyes and walking a bit faster. He wasn't late, really, but he would be if he let her stop him.

“Please – please,” the woman said. “You cannot understand how important this is.”

She was begging, eyes huge and desperation painfully clear in her eyes and in the tightness of her lips. It was strange; the woman was far too clean and well dressed to be homeless. And he'd never had even a beggar come up to him quite like this. And, Lord, she was beautiful. The stereotypical angel come down to earth to speak to the worthless mortal. “Alright,” he heard himself say. “I don't have a lot of time, though-”

“Just come with me to the alley there, please. I only have ten minutes.” He nodded reluctantly, and she grabbed his arm. He wasn't entirely comfortable with the contact, and her grip was weak enough for him to pull away with no effort, but something about her manner was so urgent that he let her pull him with her into an alley.

“What do you need to pull me in here for?” Marius asked when she released him and moved to lean hard on the wall. “I need to-”

“Please,” she interrupted him breathlessly, holding up a hand. “There is no time.”

Annoyed, Marius waved an arm. “By all means, continue then, my Lady.”

Seeming not to notice his sarcasm, the woman started speaking, quickly. “My name is Lliannan Sheyananre Ardmohira-she. I've been looking for you for weeks. I should have realized that you could be here. Anyway, please-”

“You were looking for me?” Marius repeated. Strange name.

“Yes, I- I had to-” she bit her lip. “There is no time. Here-”

With no warning at all, she thrust her infant into his arms, forcing him to juggle a little bit to figure out how, exactly, he was supposed to hold the tiny thing. All he knew about babies was not to let their head loll and that they threw up all the time. Great.

"Wha-”

"Her name is Moriyana- Lliannanre-Ardbeijahn-She. She is five months old.”

"Mori-what?” he asked in confusion, holding the infant away from his body. “Take her back!”

She smiled, eyes very sad. “Mo-ree-yana Le-lianan-rey Ard-bei-jahnd-Shey. And I can't take her back. She's yours now.”

"What- no! What the hell are you doing?” he exclaimed, pushing the infant further away from his body.

“Here, you will need this,” she said, pulling a large book out of her bag and dropping it at his feet. “It is the best source for information on how our society works.”

“What are you-” he tried again.

“Oh, and these.” She reached a hand under her hair to her ear, then reached out quickly to grip his ear. He yelped at a sudden, sharp, pain, and brought the baby back to his body to touch his ear, wincing as his hand encountered two small hoops lodged in the cartilage of his upper ear. “What the heck? How did you-? Ow!”

And finally she met his eyes. “I am dying. I have no more time, and I know no one better to take her. She must be with you, do you understand? If you give her to someone else, she will die.”

For a second, Marius' mind refused to process what she'd just said, but then it came back online. Shit, she means it. He looked back down at the baby, who promptly gripped his hair in a fist and pulled it into her mouth. “Take her?” he asked, pulling his hair free. “You mean like, take her, take her? You- I'm sixteen! There's no way-”

“Her supplies are in this bag,” she said, dropping it onto the ground next to the book. “She'll need food and a diaper change every three hours or so. My family will help you, just go to the Friendship Gate in Chinatown and run your hand along the cement, then go and talk to the Elite and tell them I sent you. They'll-”

“Stop!” Marius demanded, before taking a breath and trying to speak calmly. “What you are asking of me – it's crazy, okay? I am sixteen years old. I am a junior in high school. There is no way in hell I am taking a kid. Take her to a police station or a hospital, they'll put her in the system, she's little enough that-”

“She'll die,” the woman interrupted again, closing her eyes and breathing shallowly as she leaned on the wall. “Please. Please. She has to be with you, do you hear me?” she repeated urgently. “I've been looking for weeks. I know it sounds crazy but she'll die with anybody else. Slowly, but she'll die. I beg you, care for her?”

The woman was nuts, Marius finally realized, staring at her as she met his eyes. She actually, totally, believed what she was saying. She really thought she was dying, and really thought that if he, specifically, didn't take her, her daughter would die too. And that didn't make any sense at all.

His hair was in the baby's mouth again. He looked down at her and pulled it back out, dripping wet. “Ugh,” he said. “Look, Lady, I'm not-” the words died in his mouth as he looked back up and realized that she was no longer listening. She lay at a strange angle on the ground, eyes staring vacantly. He hadn't even heard her fall. As he stared blankly at the body, a sense of vague desolation growing in his chest, he felt a tug on his hair. He looked down to see his hair once again trapped in the small, slimy fist of a very alive baby girl.

“Stop that,” he whispered, “I can't be your father, you understand? I'm a sixteen-year-old kid. I can barely take care of myself.”

Moriyana- Lliannanre-something-or-other just gave a big, mushy smile, and went back to chewing on his hair.

“Come on,” he said to her, pulling his hair back out of her mouth and feeling himself start to shake. “Your mom's dead. You can't be so- so happy.” She just gurgled and kicked her legs a couple times, and he readjusted quickly to hold her more firmly. “God, I hate babies.” She was reaching for his hair again.

Jesus, the woman had died so fast, one moment talking to him and the next - And the next I am standing next to a corpse and holding her baby. Shit. He had to get out of there. And...what? Take the baby to the hospital? Then he'd have walked away from a corpse carrying her baby. But then they weren't likely to make the connection – and did he believe the woman that the kid would kick it, really? She seemed so sure – and she was dying. She was right. But no. Hell, no. There was no logical reason that the baby couldn't be much happier and healthier with somebody else. He'd bring her to a hospital. They'd make sure she was okay and then the state of Pennsylvania could take her from there. God, that sounds cold. Hadn't the woman said something about her family? Her family. They're the ones that should take care of her anyway. They weren't far, she'd said – in Chinatown? Surely that was better than the foster system?

Looks like I'm missing my morning classes, then, he realized as he packed the book into the diaper bag and threw the strap over his shoulder. Whatever. He'd make up some excuse. He was a good enough student that they'd probably believe him. The strap of the diaper bag was irritating over the heavier backpack strap on his shoulder, but he didn't have far to go.

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The Friendship Gate was a heavily decorated arch that stretched over tenth street, marking the official entrance to Philadelphia's Chinatown. Supposedly it was very authentic, down to the pig's blood in the red paint, but Marius had no way of telling, looking at it. At any rate, it was here that the woman's directions had sent him.

What was it that she'd said exactly? My family is not too far away, just go to the Friendship Gate in Chinatown and run your hand along the cement, then go and- and something about the Elite. Whoever they were. He'd cut her off and she'd never explained. Shit. He'd finally given up on keeping his hair out of the kid's mouth, and it – she, he thought begrudgingly – was currently holding it in one slimy fist and contentedly sucking. Her other hand was clumsily groping at the fabric of his shirt, unable to quite grab hold. She'll need food and a diaper change every three hours or so, he remembered suddenly. There were probably supplies for both in the big diaper bag he carried, but he had no clue how to change a diaper.

Stop panicking, idiot. Just find the kid's family. What had the woman said? Run your hand along the cement. That was weird.

Looking at the base of the gate, he realized that it was, in fact, made of cement up to about five feet high.

Run my hand along- walking forward, Marius put his hand on the cement experimentally, and trailed it along as he walked forward. There was a slight lurch, like he'd missed a step, and he looked down to find that his foot had landed on cobblestones.

Surprised, he looked up quickly as he realized that the normal sounds of trucks, cars, and passerby had given way in an instant to the bray of a donkey and shopkeepers hawking their wares on the street. The donkey was real – it pulled a cart full of clothing that a man was apparently selling. Traffic pressed in on him, and after a moment of confusion he realized that he was on the wrong side of the street. Holding the squirming baby securely to his chest, he pushed the diaper bag up higher on his shoulder and pressed through the crowd to stand in the shelter provided by a column of the Friendship gate and observe.

For a moment, it was all he could do to hold the baby and stare. There was such an enormous amount of color and noise and activity, and everything was so strange, that his brain didn't want to process it. A man nearby was shouting something about a discount on some sort of fruit, while a woman argued with his assistant over a blemish on one of the apples. At first, he thought that they were both wearing strange bodysuits, but after a moment he realized that what he was looking at was their skin itself. It was a funny color - almost more green than brown.

Strange. Maybe they're sick? After a moment, though, Marius realized that the fruit sellers were the least of it – their customer sported spikes down both sides of her spine, looking like they cut through her clothing. Maybe they were all in costume? Is it some sort of holiday? It wasn't Halloween yet, but this was Chinatown - maybe the Mid-Autumn festival? He was pretty sure one didn't dress up for that, though. Mardi Gras was in the spring, and Pride was in early summer, and took place in a totally different part of Philly anyway. Plus nobody had been dressed weird until he got to Chinatown, and now suddenly everybody was, and the shops weren't the ones he remembered, and there were actual farm animals. No festival could adequately explain that. I'm hallucinating. I have to be. That bitch slipped me something.

He'd come in from a relatively normal street, remarkable only by the fact that most of the people and businesses were Chinese. Here – there were a lot of people of various races, but the more he stared at them the more he realized that the people at the fruit seller didn't look human at all. And they were just the beginning. Marius' eyes darted around frantically, taking in the fact that a man selling fish had hair to his waist and enormously long, pointed ears. One of his customers had a crest of hair that grew in a mane all the way down her back. She wore no shirt, and Marius looked elsewhere as she turned around.

Looking around, Marius finally looked back through the arch and discovered that, as he'd half expected, the street he'd come in by had disappeared in favor of this new...world. On this side, there was a butcher's shop, where an absolutely enormous man was carving thin slices from a huge chunk of meat for a man with what definitely looked like a prehensile tail. Plus-

He was awake. He knew he was awake, and yet as he watched the butcher he was startled by something passing in front of his view, just a little below head height. That's a fairy. There's no way that's not a fairy. Everyone else could have been in elaborate costumes, or something, but that? Costumes didn't shrink you down to a foot tall and make you fly. Aren't drugs just supposed to make you see pink elephants or something? And how could Lliannan-what's-her-name have possibly gotten them into him?

Calm. He could think this through. Okay, I'm tripping. And temporarily responsible for the welfare of a five-month-old kid. Not a good combination. Malcolm would be no help. Mori-whatever-her-name-was was probably better off with him, even tripping, than with Malcolm as drunk as he'd been that morning. Still, the hospital idea was looking better all the time. I'll just tell them that she probably has family somewhere. They can deal with it.

Decision made, Marius walked away from the pillar and the rest of the way through the arch before realizing that nothing was changing – he was just walking towards the butcher's shop he'd seen before.

I trailed my hand before, he remembered. Going back through, he tried again, this time trailing his hand. Still the same view. Feeling his breathing start to pick up, he tried again, with the same results. Going back again, he was going through for the third time when a woman's voice stopped him.

“It's a one-way.”

“Excuse me?” he asked, turning towards the voice before backing a step as he saw the – woman - who it belonged to.

“Aww, poor kid,” the –I guess it's –she's- a satyr?- said to him, “managed to get in on accident, did you? How'd you manage that? Anyway, the arch's a one-way gate. You'll have to get to a gate-hub and buy a ticket out. They're damned expensive, though. And honestly I wouldn't recommend it. If you're here, it's 'cause you're supposed to be.”

Marius just stared at her. Was that supposed to make sense? It sounded like English, but the meaning of her words totally escaped him.

“And you have no idea what I'm talking about. Not that you were listening anyway.”

Marius just continued staring, unable to think of a single thing to say. The satyr sighed. “Just come on, would you?”

She walked about ten feet before turning him physically to face up the street and pointing.

“You see that tower, with the bell?”

Shaking his head to try and focus, Marius nodded his head. “Yes, I see it,” he answered her as normally as he could.

“That's the guard tower. If you're real lucky they might help you get back out of here. It's damned expensive, though, like I said, so don't get your hopes up too high.”

“Well what the fuck am I supposed to do if they don't?” Marius asked her, frustrated. Cool it, man. None of this is real. You'll come down and it'll all be okay.

“Well then you're screwed,” the satyr told him frankly. “So I'd be a bit more polite if I were you.”

“You are a hallucination,” Marius replied firmly. “This is not actually happening.”

The satyr raised both eyebrows and smiled, to all evidence highly amused. “Well then you won't need the guards' help, will you? You might want the apothecary, though. He's on the next street over.”

How is the imaginary apothecary supposed to help me more than the imaginary guards?

Abruptly, Marius realized the full absurdity of his situation. He was holding a baby and talking to a satyr in the middle of the street trying to get help to get out of this 'world' he'd stumbled into when in fact he was probably on a street corner somewhere, rocking back and forth and mumbling to himself, or wandering around in Philadelphia traffic. If the baby was part of his hallucination, then maybe he'd be okay in another couple of hours, but if she wasn't she'd be getting hungry quite soon, and hallucination or not he needed to be making decisions and getting things done. The guards are not a bad idea, actually. If this is not a hallucination, I need help. If it is...going to the police still wouldn't be a bad plan.

“Thanks,” he told the satyr finally. “I really wish you could tell me what was going on, but-”

“-but I'm a figment of your imagination. Go to the guards.”

“Yeah,” Marius said, taking a deep breath, “I'll do that. Thanks.”

“No problem,” the satyr said. “You amuse me.” She disappeared into the crowd and Marius stared after her. Great. My problems are amusing. Looking down, he found that the baby had finally managed to get a hold of his shirt and was slobbering into it. Now I know that babies throw up and drool. I'm learning.

Guards. He needed to go to the guards.

Looking around, he realized that the buildings on both sides of the street were short, no more than two stories tall, and made of stone and wood, roofed with something that looked like actual slate.

Weird. Were hallucinations usually this all-encompassing? This was incredible. The detail was beyond belief, down to the cobblestones under his feet, the backpack straps cutting into his shoulders, and the combined smells of fish, food, and donkey shit. It seemed more reasonable that he had to find his way out again than that he would just wake up and it would be gone. Guards.

The guard tower stuck out, towering above the surrounding buildings and featuring a large, dull-colored bell. Trying to ignore his surroundings, Marius walked straight towards it, and soon found himself walking up to a small wooden door at the base of the stone bell tower. The tower was bigger than he would have expected, as big as any of the other buildings at the base, and a lot taller. The door was labeled 'office', and unlocked. Well that's easy enough, I guess.

He balanced the baby carefully in one arm and opened the door, pushing his way inside.

Oh, good. The hallucination was somehow...thinner...here. The walls were still stone, and the floor wooden, but otherwise it looked like an office, with wooden desks and a bored-looking woman doing paperwork. Her uniform was a bit strange – a rough-cut brown wool tunic belted at the waist over pants made of the same material – but she looked human.

Realizing that though she was dressed as a guard in his hallucination, she was probably just a receptionist at some business, Marius approached the desk and spoke, readjusting the baby so he could drop the diaper bag and his schoolbag onto the ground.

“Excuse me, ma'am?”

The woman looked up with an air of impatience. “Yes?”

“Hi, my name is Marius Batiste. I – this is going to sound strange but I think I'm hallucinating. Could you help me out? A hospital, maybe, or the police? Are you the police?”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “Is this a joke?”

“No,” Marius answered her seriously. “I really am hallucinating. I see weird...creatures, and donkeys and things. I don't know how I got drugged or whatever but I really need a hospital.” The baby wiggled in his arms, and he indicated her with a hand. “I might be okay, but I really wouldn't want me caring for a child right now, if I had a choice.” He closed his eyes. Well that sounded...idiotic. “I mean...would you just help?”

“You see weird creatures and donkeys and things,” the woman repeated to him.

“Yeah,” Marius said again. “I know it sounds weird, but-”

“Very funny,” the woman said, clearly angry. “Leave, please.”

Marius shook his head. He hadn't expected that. “W-what? Look how long does it take to call a hospital?”

“Very little,” the woman said. “But you have already wasted enough of my time. Do you honestly think that the city guard has so little to do that we will find your prank amusing?”

“Prank?” Marius repeated, not understanding. “It's no prank! I'm really seeing donkeys and shit! There was a woman with spikes out there!”

“Was there really?” the guard answered. “Very funny. Get out.”

The guard was fully part of his hallucination, Marius realized suddenly, feeling like a total idiot. She was not interested in his plight because naturally she saw the creatures, too. Illogically, he still wanted her to help him.

“Look, could you maybe just get be a ticket out, then? I came in through the one-way and-”

The guard only got angrier. “Do you really think I'm that stupid?” she asked him. “First hallucinations, and now you're a switch? The city guard has better things to do than deal with your bullshit. You want a ticket, buy one.”

“I have no money,” Marius said, trying to stay polite. “I really need to get back through.”

“If you have no money, get a job. Nobody comes through the gates by accident. You need some sort of magic to use the gates, and the humans on the other side of the divide don't have it. Ergo, you're lying to me. Get out, or I really will call for someone to throw you out, infant or no infant.”

“I'm not lying,” Marius told her, wrestling with rising anger and fear. “I really think I'm hallucinating, but I swear, I don't know how I got in here and I really do need help to get out.”

I better damned well hope this really is a hallucination, he realized. If not, then the satyr'd been right – he was screwed. He shook his head and addressed the guard again. “Look, you can't just leave this supposed gate open and then not-”

“You came in through the gate?” the guard interrupted him finally. “Prove it. Show me your American coin.”

“I have no money,” he said again.

“Convenient,” the guard said coldly. “Look, kid. You want a vacation, you go get a job. It is not the business of the city guard to pay for portals to exotic vacation spots. Get out.”

Marius stared at her and spoke. “I'm hardly going on vacation, ma'am. I really have no idea where the kid's next meal is coming from or where we're going to sleep tonight, but thanks a lot for your help.”

Hauling his backpack and the diaper bag back onto his shoulders, he turned away from the desk and walked back out of the office. Once there, he took a moment to stand just outside of the door and stare back at the street. Nothing had changed – same strange, wood-and-stone buildings and crowded street full of donkey carts and strange humanoid creatures. Some of the people looked human, but he couldn't be sure.

Dude, they're figments of your imagination. If they look human, they're human. It doesn't matter. What mattered was finding a place to stay for the night, preferably someplace that would also feed him. For free. Right. Homeless shelter it was. Lovely. But nothing for it; it wasn't like he had anywhere else to go.

Watching the passerby, he quickly found a mostly normal-looking man and reached out to touch his sleeve.

“Sir,” he said. “Sir?” Finally the man noticed, and turned to him hostilely.

“What?” he demanded.

He thinks I'm a beggar. He swallowed. He's not far off. “Sorry sir,” Marius said quickly, “but I need some help. Is there a homeless shelter around here somewhere?”

“Workhouse is in Banesworth, I think,” the man told him brusquely. “Don't think they'll take you with a kid, though.” The man moved on, and Marius stared after him. Workhouse? Really? It was like something out of Charles Dickens. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

“Try th' pub on 12^th,” a man told him, stepping sideways out of the crowd to talk to him. He has horns, Marius realized blankly before focusing on what the man was saying. “I think they're looking for a grunt t' wash dishes, and the cook's a sweetheart. She won't mind the little'un.”

“Thank you,” Marius told him, relieved.

“No problem,” the man told him. “Just find a side street to the right, walk two blocks, and ask for Madame Harlot's. It's a pretty popular place, n' somebody'll tell you where to go.”

Marius raised his eyebrows. Madame Harlot's, really?

The man grinned and winked. “Owner's an old whore. Bit of a bitch, but a good'un just the same.”

Marius smiled back, relieved even as his mind processed the fact that apparently 'old whore' wasn't much of an insult, here.

Says strange things about the way my mind works, I think, that this is what it comes up with when it's fucked up.

The second man continued on his way, and Marius set about finding a side street. Looks like I'm looking for a job, then. Better than a homeless shelter, at least.

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Stepping out of the narrow side street he'd found, Marius found himself in a much quieter area, and evidently much poorer. It was only two blocks from the arch on 10^th, but the change was nonetheless visible – tenth had smelled strongly of animal droppings and fish, but it had had businesses. This street was just beat-up residential, with the addition of what might be the pub he was looking for. It also smelled pretty strongly of human sewage. Looking around confusedly for the source of the stench, he saw the trenches that ran down both sides of the street. A man was walking down the street, sweeping what he assumed was donkey shit and other debris into them. Lovely, Marius thought. He'd found the slums. Which, let's face it, is probably where I need to be right now. It wasn't like he was looking for a four-star hotel.

Once again hitching the diaper bag higher on his shoulder, Marius approached the street cleaner and pointed towards the building with the sign.

“Is that Madame Harlot's pub?”

“Lo siento señor es que no hablo ingles,” the man told him.

“Oh, umm... lo siento. Es ese edificio el bar de Madame Harlot?” Marius tried again, pointing again before pulling his arm back for a better hold on the baby. His arms were starting to hurt.

The man smiled at him. “Que sί,” he said, returning to his sweeping.

“Gracias,” Marius replied, turning towards the pub.

“Nada, nada,” the man said, waving a hand at him. “Que linda tu hija!”

“No es mίa,” he answered him, slightly disturbed.

Not mine, Marius thought, once again removing his dripping hair from the baby's mouth. What the hell am I doing hauling around a baby? The whole situation was surreal. I walked through a portal with a five month old baby and am going to a pub, run by a whore named Harlot, in order to get a job so I have a place to sleep for the night instead of on the cobblestone street. If he had half a brain, he'd just sit on the sidewalk until he woke up. Why do I bother? What was his body doing while his mind was off talking to satyrs? Had somebody found him, yet? Brought him to the police, or something? Was the baby in his hallucination, or was she real?

He was hungry, he realized. That much was real. Guess I've got to hallucinate myself some food, then. And that meant the job at the pub with the whore. Fine.