Pick a star on the dark horizon And follow the light You’ll come back when it’s over No need to say goodbye

- The Call, Regina Spektor

It was what she wanted.

It wasn’t like Jane to pause and consider when she’d latched onto something so exciting and wonderful as this news – but she did, just for a moment, if only to reflect.

Because doing this – going to New York City, joining the RAS, leaving everything behind, why that would be a big step. Last time she’d gone around the world on a whim, she’d at least finished uni, hadn’t totally up and left – just sorta kinda up and left, was all.

This would be something bigger.

Would she feel bad for not finishing her degree?

Truth be told, she’d been feeling wishy-washy on it in the past couple of weeks. She still had three years of school, at least, and that was just eating up at the time she had left (fifteen years, Lachesis’ voice still echoed in her ears sometimes and though it was easy to ignore most of the days, she often found herself curling closer to Milo in the middle of the night when the darkness was harder to turn away from). Swynlake she had grown to love, but deep inside, Jane knew that she was meant to see the rest of the world. She’d seen a lot of it, she had, but she’d done it alone.

Now she wouldn’t have to.

She’d have to withdraw from PrideU. They’d have to pack up their flat. They’d have to stop by London and give Dr. Porter the full explanation – but this time there would be an explanation. But then they’d be off – Jane and Milo Porter-Thatch, just as was written in a journal in the 1800s, just as they were always fated to do.

Jane nodded, squeezing Milo’s hands.

“I want to, oh I definitely want to – this is wonderful! I don’t have to finish my degree to do some actual good with the world – don’t have to waste that time. Not that a doctarate is a waste of time!” She didn’t add the next part, because she knew he’d do so in his head: It’s just that I’ve not much time left. “But this is – “ She giggled, eyes glimmering, already dreaming of new places and new people and the whole wide world and – “Oh – is Fluffy coming with us?!”

superbtheoristcollective:

Milo grinned from ear to ear then at Jane’s exclamation. His eyes shined and he grasped at Jane’s hand, tugging her at once from the kitchen and toward their living room so they could both fall onto the couch. Fluffy had been laid out across one of the arms of it and she let out an unhappy mrrow, getting up at once to jump down and slink away to claim Milo’s desk as her new temporary kingdom.

Milo truthfully barely noticed. His brain was now filled with those same legends and rumours that Jane had mentioned. The organization’s intrepid beginning, and how eventually they needed to go underground because of potential danger– to themselves and their charges. When was the first time he’d heard such stories? Even Milo could not pinpoint the place. Perhaps it had been in his own Magick History classes at the beginning of his career, many many years ago when he too was an overeager student.

Or perhaps, if he looked back to his grandfather’s journals, he would find those three letters sketched somewhere inside: R. A. S.

Because of there was someone who might have known…or encountered or found evidence of…it was Thaddeus Thatch.

And now Milo would join them. Er, hopefully.

“They did! Jane, it’s real. I– I had no idea, they’ve apparently been watching me for a while, I– there was this woman, months and months ago, who came to my office inquiring of my research for her own book project. But– it turns out she isn’t a travel author at all! Which makes a lot of sense, she seemed very odd at the time,” he quirked his own head to the side as he recalled his first meetings with Bianca. My, would he have to have a secret identity and a cover story too? Would he have to lie?

Milo felt both extremely excited and extremely nervous at the prospect. It was like a great adventure novel, though he could not imagine himself as the hero in it. There was really only way he would be able to pull something like that off…

Milo squeezed Jane’s hand. “But– yes. As I was packing up my office, the same woman approached me and said I passed all these tests I had no idea I was even up for and– and they want me to go and train in their offices in New York City, Jane! New York City!” He flopped back against the couch, running his free hand through his hair.

The RAS was real.

Even though Jane had not studied Magick-Mundus relations much before coming to Swynlake, even though she had only just begun to learn all of its intricacies and little secrets (by just begun, of course, we mean over the span of the past three years, ever since she’d bumped into Milo that fateful day and he’d told her about his studies and his ambitions and she fell in love with him bit by bit), she knew just how big a deal this was.

The RAS was real – and they wanted to recruit Milo.

There was a flush of pride – why of course they’d want to recruit Milo. There was no better person to recruit, no one more knowledgeable, no one else who would dive right into a cave and list off everything you needed to know about it at the same time. She was grinning so wide now, oh how fortunate it was that PrideU had let him go, because this opportunity came sweeping through.

She plopped right next to him on the couch, reaching to wrap her arms around him and rest her head on his shoulder.

“The RAS!” she exclaimed, looking up at him, eyes glimmering, then leaned to kiss him. “Oh goodness – Milo, that’s amazing. Of course they want you. You’re the utmost qualified and I’m absolutely certain that you’ll be marvelous in –”

Oh, that was right. New York. New York, as in, America, as in, not-Swynlake, as in, not-England. As in across the ocean and far away from PrideU, where Jane was still enrolled as a student, where she had a few more years to go, a few more years to drag her feet till she got a degree to put on her wall, a few more years to tick off the handful that the Fates had given her.

New York was far away and the reality of that hit her, curling in her stomach like she’d swallowed an ice cube.

“I’ve actually never been to New York City,” she said, with a little shake of her head “Imagine! I’ve been all over the world and never stopped there.” She let out a tiny laugh, more an exhale of air than anything, and then turned quiet, pulling away and folding her hands in her lap, unsure of what she ought to say next.

But Jane was not one to let questions go unasked and she turned back to Milo.

“I can come, yeah? Obviously I’m not – RAS material, but I’ll manage with something!” She jutted her chin out, sounding more confident than she was.

They walked up the stairs to their flat, Jane poking her head over the boxes to make sure she wasn’t missing a step. She followed after Milo, remembering how just three years ago she was moving up her own boxes with her father, and the melancholy feeling that lingered in the flat after he left and she was alone with a new life that she did not quite want for herself.

Though she’d started off with some furniture leftover from her aunt and from Bobby before he moved to American, she’d furnished the rest of her flat slowly, picking things up from Whosits and off the street ‘round the Benbow area. It was cluttered, but that was the way she liked it, something out of an old gran’s attic or a cosy tea shoppe somewhere. The shelves were full of trinkets – now even more so as Milo had moved in and had his own host of artifacts. There were still boxes of his to unpack (and now there would be even more), but it was theirs and she adored it in a way she’d never adored a home before.

This was the same couch she’d sat on with Simba when she told him she was sick, but also the same couch she had eaten takeaway meals and sketched in her journal and rested her feet on Milo’s lap. Right now, Fluffy was resting on it, curled up and sleeping. The coffee table still had a cup of tea from morning and there was a book open and spread facedown next to it. In the corner, Jane’s easel had a half finished painting of some imagined leopard stalking through the tall savannah grasses.

It was their home, it was, and even though Jane still dreamed of the rest of the world, there was part of her that was happy about this little flat. It was nice to have something to come back to, you know, even if you spent every other moment looking for adventure elsewhere. 

Jane set her stack of boxes right by Milo and then looked up as he spoke (the Porter-Thatch still have her a little giggle because she liked the way it sounded).

“We’ve mentioned it a couple of times in class,” said Jane, nodding. “A rumored organization of Mundus dedicated to protecting Magicks – oh!” Her eyes widened and her hand went to the side of her face. “Have you found them?! I mean – are they real? Have they contacted you?”

Jane was in the library when she got the message from Milo. Truthfully, she’d found herself daydreaming, thinking of the animals she was studying, but in the wild, in the places where they roamed naturally – far off mountaintops in the Himalayas, remote volcanos in the South Pacific, wide open steppes in Central Asia. Sure, Swynlake had its gryphons and deep forest, but she’d had a taste of that and there was a whole world out there that she had yet to see. (She had seen it before, she had, but not in this way).

She’d been tapping her pencil on the table, not really paying attention to her notes, when her phone went off and since, of course, it was an important message (and she knew that Milo was leaving PrideU today, which was a whole other thought in the back of her mind – not that Jane got embarrassed, mind you, but it was not exactly pleasant to hear whispers in the hallways), Jane decided to pack up all her books and put them in her knapsack to meet Milo at their flat in Benbow.

It was quite a lovely day, it was, a bit warmer than usual for this time of year, but nonetheless the sun was shining and there were only a few clouds in the sky and it seemed like a day full of possibilities and of good news and Jane couldn’t begin to imagine what sort of news Milo had (“brilliant!” he’d said and that was not a word to toss around casually).

She was almost to their building, when she spotted a stack of boxes walking across the street. Only it wasn’t a stack of boxes (it was Milo) and it wasn’t walking (it was about to topple), and Jane darted across the street, catching the stack just in time.

Milo’s face popped out from behind the boxes and a smile blossomed across his face when he realised it was her.

(This was how they met, dear reader, three years ago when Milo was bringing boxes to his own place).

“All these years and you’re still stacking your boxes wrong,” she said, shaking her head a little and wriggling a few of them off. “There – all even now.” She peered up at him over her stack, wrinkling her nose. “Now! What was that news!?”

“Of course.” Bianca nodded. “Discuss it. But you must know that this is entirel confidential - you’re not to discuss it with anyone else. Not a soul, Doctor Thatch. It’s imperative that you understand the gravity of the situation.”

Bianca was sure she could trust him, though; if he was to go spouting about the RAS and Bianca, he likely wouldn’t be believed anyway. If anyone were to hear of it, that was; the RAS had gotten very good at handling those who thought to tell the world of their secret society. Thatch didn’t need to know that, though. Bianca never did like threatening people.

But it wasn’t going to be too much extra work on her part, so she really didn’t mind. She reached into her bag, pulling out a small business card with her name and a number - her personal number, rather than the office number, as it really did make things so much easier. She smiled as she slid it across the desk towards him. “In the mean time, if you’ve any questions, I’m not too far away. You can reach me on this number, any time, or our office is open on Main Street, normal business hours. And do let me know once the two of you have reached a decision.”

She sat back in her seat, and looked at Milo from across the desk, still smiling ever so slightly. “Do you have any more questions, before I go?”

@superbtheoristcollective

Witnesses: @simba-lyons @captain-ameliasmollet

Other guests: @trip-downtheriverstyx @labellerose-acheron (and Professor Archimedes Q. Porter and also Jane’s cousin Bobby via FaceTime)

Current events - Bianca knew all about them. It was her job to. And when she had nominated Milo, she had kept all of that in mind. Lying about it to the Director wouldn’t have done anyone any good. But Milo had passed all of their checks, and there were people with worse histories on the roster. So in response, Bianca just gave a soft smile.

“The fact that you brought it up only makes my mind up more, Doctor Thatch. Anyone else wouldn’t have brought it up,” And yet he had, whether because his mouth had ran away with him, or because he wanted to be honest. Bianca was going to assume the latter, rather than the former.

“I’m sure the Director will have more to say about it than I do, when you go for your formal interview, but so long as you’re honest, it shouldn’t stand in your way. When compared with the rest of your record, it’s…” She waved a hand. “Not insignificant, but not enough for the Society to turn you away. I think we all agree that it’d be a missed opportunity, not to have you as an Agent.”

A wife, though? Bianca arched an eyebrow, head tilting for just a moment as she considered it. A magizoologist would be helpful - the Society were always looking for more, as so many were more concerned with their own research or their own work. They could always work as a team. And if Thatch trusted her, well–

“She would need to pass the background checks,” She said, speaking slowly as she brought it through. “And I’d need to nominate her - it’s a process, you see. But so long as she’s willing, I don’t really see why not.”

Sitting down seemed about right. Bianca gave a small nod, an amused smile. Honestly, she was loving every minute of this - she should recruit people more often. Maybe she’d asked the Director about it some day.

Bianca moved to take the chair in front of the desk, removing the boxes from it and carefully setting them on the floor before she sat. She gave him a moment, crossing one leg over the other, and then she smiled a little wider. It wasn’t a silly question; she’d asked the same thing, when it had been her time. It was generally an easy enough question to answer.

“Of course,” She nodded. “The Society is always looking for new people to join its ranks, you see - without new recruits we wouldn’t be able to continue the work that we do. And it’s important that when an agent comes across someone with potential, they inform the Director - or at least our Recruitment Office.”

Bianca had never been formally involved in the process before, save for when she was recruited, but it was very rare for the Director to sniff someone out himself. The Society was a network, with agents or former agents or associates, whoever, posted all around the globe. It had been one of her university professors that had told the Director about her, about the potential she had. She had never gotten the opportunity to thank said professor, not at the time; she had gone back a few years ago to make sure she knew how grateful Bianca was.

“Once you’ve been nominated there are a few background checks - you passed with flying colours, Dr. Thatch. The next step is the Welcome Pack, and a meeting with the Director and the other new recruits for this quarter. I’d give you the pack if I could, but unfortunately they aren’t permitted outside of our main headquarters, in New York. Should you decide to accept the offer, transport and accommodation would be arranged for as soon as possible, and off you’d go.”

She assumed that he would know at least something about the Society; most professors in his field did, because the history, the stories, they were difficult to avoid, woven through Magick history. Of course, most thought they had petered out years ago, rather than doing what they had done - going underground, building themselves up in the shadows.

Bianca imagined that Dr Thatch was very used to teaching people things. Well, now it was time for him to learn something new.

“Of course.” She nodded. “I take it those letters were rather old - people don’t tend to write about the Society anymore, if at all. But I ask, you see, because it’s important for the Agents to know the history. We get an essay to read, it’s all very compelling. It’s a lot easier to grasp if you have some idea what the Society is prior to that, though.”

There were no need for the dramatics, really, but there they were. Bianca liked being dramatic, if she got the chance, something she had inherited from the Director - he had approached her whilst she was sipping coffee, alone, in a cafe in Budapest, in a corner where the light was low and they could talk without being heard. It had been like a scene pulled straight out of a spy movie - now she had standards for this sort of affair.

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a writer, Doctor Thatch, and I’m sorry for having lied in the first place, but I do hope you’ll understand - once you gain a little experience. I am Miss Bianca Gabor, yes, but I’m an agent of the Rescue Aid Society, and if you’d be interested, I’d like to recruit you.”

Terminated?

Well, this had all worked out perfectly, hadn’t it?

Bianca tried not to smile too outwardly, doing her very best to put on a straight face as she stepped into the office. She wouldn’t be doing herself any favours if she acted like it was a good thing. Being a professor at Pride U wasn’t an opportunity to be sniffed at, and certainly not something one would willingly give up, she was sure. She could imagine that it wasn’t very easy for him.

She slipped past a few of the boxes and gave a small smile, hoping she looked sympathetic; she was, truly, it was just that it really had worked out so well. “Well actually, I’m not here to see you as a professor.” She said. “In fact, quite the opposite.”

Bianca didn’t sit, because there seemed to be too much going on in the room for that; to sit amongst the clutter didn’t feel like the right thing to do. So instead she stood by the desk, hands clasped in front of her. “Dr. Thatch, I know we haven’t spoken all that much, but I do believe that you’re a rather… trustworthy person.” She began, perhaps a little cryptic, but then, she was here to recruit him for a secret society. Being cryptic was all a part of it. “And your knowledge in your field is unparalleled, certainly around here. Have you heard of the Rescue Aid Society?”