"Why were you in the hospital?"

Cecilia blinked. Eastiel’s familiar worried, slightly accusatory tone caught her off guard. She had been so absorbed in the television, in the monsters and the rifts and the creeping realization of what this world represented, that she had not prepared for an interrogation.

"Me?" she narrowed her eyes, deflecting. A smile curved her lips, teasing. "Why were you in the hospital?"

Eastiel chuckled. Behind him, his lion tail swayed gently, left to right, relaxed despite the lingering worry in his golden eyes. "My co-worker got into a little accident in the workshop today. I was driving him here."

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the hospital’s main entrance. "He begged me not to, because his wife works in this hospital and he didn’t want her to fuss. He is fine now. Just got himself some burns because he is being a dumbass."

They walked.

The hospital’s automatic doors slid open as they approached, and then they were outside, stepping into a world that was... very, very strange.

The streets were paved with something smooth and dark, marked with painted lines in yellow and white that seemed to direct the flow of traffic.

And the people... Everywhere, people. Walking, talking, staring at small rectangular devices in their hands, their clothing a multitude of styles that made Cecilia’s eyes glitter.

She noticed the attires of the women first. Some were dressed modestly, wrapped in flowing fabrics that covered them from head to toe, their hair concealed beneath scarves of vivid color.

Some wore garments that Cecilia would have considered scandalously revealing, short skirts, tight trousers, tops that left arms and shoulders and even midriffs bare to the air.

Well, these were just the two extremes. There were in betweens too. Like herself, and like some of what she had already seen.

This diversity of clothes walked arm in arm, laughing at private jokes. Some strode alone, their postures confident, their eyes fixed on some distant destination.

So this world was not so different from the real world, then. The variety of fashion existed in both places.

But while the real world’s styles were defined by culture and region, like the flowing desert dresses of the south, the fur-lined leathers of the northern beast tribes, the elegant silks of the Iondoran court, here, in this strange future, everyone practiced their own style in the same place. In the same street. Side by side.

The variety was not separated by geography anymore. How... beautiful.

The men’s style, though—

Cecilia glanced around, cataloguing.

Boring.

Most of the men she passed wore variations on the same theme. Dark trousers, dark jackets, dark shoes. A bit more practical, perhaps. Uniform. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Well. Some were not boring. A young man passed in a coat of vivid scarlet, his hair styled into an elaborate crest. Another wore a jacket covered in metal studs and patches of brightly colored fabric. Some few, a very few, truly looked great.

But Eastiel—

Well, Eastiel was always an exception. Not because of what he wore, but because of him. The dark overalls, stained with grease and soot, should have made him look common.

The messy bun, the callused hands, none of it should have been flattering. And yet, standing beside her in the sunlight, he looked like a prince in disguise. Extremely aesthetic.

No matter what Eastiel was wearing, he would look like a handsome prince.

Either way, the fashion of this world gave her a clue. This world, despite being bombarded by threats from the gates, or rifts as they called them, was peaceful.

People walked freely. They dressed how they wanted. They laughed and talked and lived their lives, even with monsters spilling through tears in reality on a daily basis. People had adapted as usual.

It was, in its own strange way, comforting.

"You have not answered my question." Eastiel’s voice broke through her observations. He had stopped walking and was looking at her intensely. This man too, as usual, wouldn’t let anything slide, huh?

"Miss Araceli... are you... or someone you know... sick? Or something?"

The hesitation was slight, but Cecilia caught it. His voice stumbled over the question and his lion tail had stopped its gentle swaying. He wanted to ask something else. More, perhaps. But... he did not know if he had the right?

Cecilia smiled. "Just some symptoms. Nothing serious."

She saw his eyes shake. "I..." He cleared his throat. Straightened his shoulders. "Uh. Stay here. I will get my truck. Let us drive you home."

Truck. Hmm. He also had said that he had driven his co-worker to the hospital. Cecilia looked around, her eyes tracking the vehicles humming up and down the street.

They looked like carriages without anything drawing them. No horses, donkeys or bulls, just metal boxes on wheels, moving under their own power. Perhaps they also used electricity, like the elevator?

Driving, she assumed, was what people called the activity of operating these transportation devices.

Truck. Driving. Interesting.

"You can drive me," Eastiel, who had already turned, stopped when Cecilia’s hand caught his arm. It stopped him mid-stride, his golden eyes snapping back to her face, "but not home."

He looked at her and a low hum rumbled in his chest. "Well. Where do you want to go, then?"

Cecilia’s smile widened. "Buy me clothes." She paused, tilting her head. "Also, I want to stay in your estate from now on."

Eastiel was immediately speechless.

’Buy me clothes.’

’I want to stay in your estate.’

The two sentences bounced around his skull like trapped birds, looking for an exit and finding none.

These were...

These were weird sentences.

And yet, they were undoubtedly exciting sentences.

Immediately, his lion tail started moving again, swaying with a rhythm that was no longer relaxed but eager.

"I will buy you anything you want, Miss Araceli." He smiled, a broad, blinding smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Anything."

And then he was off, striding toward the parking lot. His work boots scuffing against the pavement, his messy bun bouncing with each step.

***

Apparently, the hospital was located quite close to the center of the city, where everything could be found, Eastiel said. The shops, the boutiques, the places where one purchased clothes, all within a short drive.

He would not be gone long, he promised. He would pull up in his truck, and they would go together, and he would buy her anything.

He had emphasized that word. Anything.

When he pulled up to the hospital’s pickup zone, she noticed that the truck was quite something. It was, by the standards of this world’s traffic, not fancy.

Half the vehicles humming past on the street were sleeker, shinier, painted in colors that gleamed like wet candy. The truck was black, or had been black once, before the years had scratched lines into its paint and faded its finish to a duller color.

The exterior was dirty, not filthy, just looked like it came from honest work, from hauling equipment and driving through industrial districts and not having time to visit a car wash between shifts.

There was a small dent in the rear panel, and the front bumper bore the faint, ghostly imprint of something that had bumped into it.

Eastiel opened the passenger door and helped her climb inside. Yes, climb, because the truck sat high on its wheels and her emerald gown was not designed for such maneuvers. Only then did Cecilia realize that the exterior was a lie.

The interior was immaculate.

The seats were leather, soft and dark and stitched with either great expense or great care. The dashboard was sleek, its lines curving in a way that felt intentional, designed, modified, perhaps? Since it didn’t match the exterior somehow.

Screens glowed softly from the center console, displaying information Cecilia could not yet interpret. Numbers, symbols, a slowly rotating image of the truck itself.

The floor was clean. The windows were spotless. There was a faint scent of something pleasant. Not perfume, exactly, but something warm and clean and slightly spicy. Well, also a bit of jasmine.

"Sweet, right?" Eastiel was grinning pridefully at her from the driver’s side. He looked like he had built all this with his own hands and was watching someone appreciate it.

"I just modified it lately. The outside is a work in progress. The inside," he patted the steering wheel with obvious affection, "the inside is done."

Cecilia watched his movements. The way he settled into the seat, the way he reached for a strap hanging near his shoulder and pulled it across his body, fastening it with a click.

She turned to her right. A similar strap hung beside her own seat. She pulled it gently, mimicking his earlier motion, drawing it across her chest and down to her hip. The metal tab slid into the receptacle with the same click. Fastened.

Was this... for safety? A restraint to keep passengers from being thrown about during travel? How ingenious.

Meanwhile, Eastiel was observing her too.

"Sorry. I shouldn’t have bragged," he started the engine and a rumbling purr that vibrated through the seat beneath her made her feel a bit excited. He glanced over his shoulder, preparing to merge into traffic.

"A high-class princess like you will not be impressed by this, I’m sure," he said lightly, teasingly, but it also somewhat sounded nervous. "You don’t look used to sitting there. Classic fancy backseat dweller, huh?"

His teasing tone enhanced full throttle, "Used to being driven around by chauffeurs in cars that cost more than my entire apartment building?"