Eliza, Daniel had come to conclude, was not the best, but not the worst roommate he had ever had. There were idiosyncrasies to contend with, certainly, but he had expected things to be different. She was royalty, technically speaking, and he’d expected her to demand fineries, luxury, comfort, but she seemed oddly at ease in a place this small, although he caught her staring out the window with an expression he would only be able to describe as wistful more than once. Or maybe he was misreading her. She must’ve missed her old life as queen, minions at her beck and call, ordering servants around, surely. And yet… She wasn’t stuck up. Not as such. 

That wasn’t to say she was easy to live with. Despite the opulence of the bathroom, adjacent to the bedroom, she’d still made certain demands with regards to hygiene, which they’d eventually been able to satisfy after several trips to a nearby store -- which had been an adventure all on its own. She also had a tendency to brood, steepling her hands as she sat at the little dinner table and seemed to try and burn a hole through the table with sheer intense staring, and while he was worried about what she might be planning, he was also convinced he wouldn’t get a straight answer out of her if he asked. 

Which, of course, played into her vicious streak. While they most definitely both adhered to their ceasefire, and Eliza wasn’t planning any grand conquests as best as he could tell, she made a point of keeping him on edge a lot. He caught her holding up and examining knives in the kitchen more than once, only to turn around and hide it behind her back when he came in. It was only after the third time this happened that he realized he hadn’t caught her doing anything, but rather that she’d set up the situation specifically to provoke him. After reaffirming that she wasn’t planning to stab and kill him, all he could do was lament her unfortunate sense of humour. 

But she’d also put the effort in. After their first day, they’d both realized that making the other miserable was very much akin to cutting off their nose to spite their face, and wouldn’t lead to anything but mutual misery, and they’d fallen into a rhythm of sorts. A few rules, spoken or unspoken, cemented themselves, and both of them adhered to them. 

Bathroom time was sacred, for one. While Daniel had enjoyed baths, back in the day, and he was sure Eliza’s old castle had contained a bath the size of a lake, one of the wonders of this world’s plumbing included showers. Eliza and him had shared a moment of unadulterated awe and even joy when the slowly-heating water had come out of the shower head. Ever since, they had both taken to enjoying long showers that were not to be interrupted under any circumstances. Sure, a part of it was to relish in the hot running water. But if her experience was anything like his, Eliza probably spent some time every day in the bathroom trying to make peace with her new appearance. 

He knew he himself did. In fact, for the first time in his life, he’d had a panic attack in that bathroom, shivering and hyperventilating, and trying to scratch at his skin until the person he used to be showed himself underneath. The body he was in felt borderline repulsive to him, and spending time -- fruitlessly, so far -- coming to terms with it was becoming a daily ritual. Weight hanging off his chest when he moved too quickly felt like something had been done to him. Bumping into things with hips that flared out ridiculously. It was a bit too much sometimes and he had to keep himself from clawing at his own body. 

He’d heard Eliza sobbing through the door at least once before, and the eye contact they’d made after she came out of the bathroom had cemented the importance of that alone time. Neither of them said, a word about it, of course. 

 There was also the sharing of duties and rights. Shopping and cooking were things they were both equally adept at, having no idea how to navigate the city or how to operate the various kitchen appliances. They’d agreed, after doing the dishes, that the person who cooked was exempt from some cleaning chores that day. Whether she enjoyed cooking or hated cleaning, Eliza had quickly taken to learning how the kitchen worked, and spent more time cooking than Daniel, even if she wasn’t particularly good at it. He’d even heard her humming while cooking, once. He’d made sure not to say anything. It was a spell he wasn’t keen on breaking any time soon. 

They took turns sleeping in the bed, which was quite big for a girl as small as Sally, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about a partner, so it might’ve been a luxury expenditure. The girl hadn’t exactly thrown away money on much else, Eliza had noted. The bed was definitely soft, if a bit empty for Daniel’s tastes. It’s why he used to prefer single beds. Or, well, not sleeping alone. But these days the only person he knew was… He shook his head. 

Daniel sat at the little living room table, tourism guides and how-to manuals strewn about, and tried to focus on something other than Eliza. She was all around him these days, and they were learning how to coexist with remarkable ease, but he couldn’t allow himself to forget who she was, and what he was supposed to do when that side of her made a comeback. She was the Demon Dragon Queen, and that didn’t just go away because she shaved so often it made him wince. He was the Hero. He had to keep an eye on her. 

The various pamphlets in front of him had been to give him a better lay of the land, to get a better idea of the world they were in now, but it was overwhelming. The black plastic card, the Credit Card, with the funds from the company that had put them in hospital, had come in after only a day, and it had paid for food, rent (a practice Daniel had serious questions about) and these. A pile of how-to books as tall as him and he had no idea where to get started. Sure, he was interested in this world’s technology, but all of it used jargon he had no idea how to decipher, and he hadn’t heard from Sally since the hospital, so she hadn’t been available to ask questions of. At least the map of the city was incredibly detailed, on a level had never seen outside magical scrying done by mages back home. 

There were other things eating away at his hindbrain, of course. It’s a universal constant that any person who is in a situation with guaranteed food and shelter but no way to express or keep themselves busy will get incredibly restless. There’s a reason it is considered by many societies as a fitting punishment to lock someone in a box with enough food for sustenance until they slowly go crazy. Daniel needed to do something. Eliza too, from the looks of it. They were both getting restless. 

A job would help. He still didn’t have any idea of how much money they now had access to, despite a book as thick as his arm on economics just a few feet away from him, but no matter how much it was, money had a tendency to run out. A source of income would take away some anxieties, at least, and give him something to do other than try to cram a world’s worth of knowledge into his skull. 

Searching for magic had been fruitless so far. Sure, they’d found traces and signs of magic in a lot of books, but all in a hypothetical, mythical sense. Magic, it seemed, existed in this world as fiction only, which was disheartening. Eliza had flung at least one book at the wall that mentioned ‘finding your inner spirit goddess’, only for it to turn out to be less true wish-fulfillment and more wishful thinking. 

They’d done some more shopping, of course, and Sally had given him a primer on laundry and how to operate the small washing machine and drier in the corner of her kitchen. Sally’s wardrobe wasn’t huge, but it was expansive and neutral enough to cover Daniel. It wasn’t clothing he was used to -- the old large undershirts he’d been used to simply didn’t seem to exist here -- but it did the job and none of it was too aggressively feminine. 

 But Eliza had still needed clothing. Daniel had offered to go with her, but she’d adamantly refused. She only took one of the smaller maps with her to avoid getting lost, and had come back after a few hours with a bag that contained mostly underwear, baggy jeans and baggy hoodies. She’d clearly cried, he could see it in her eyes, but the glare she’d shot him had told him not to ask about it. He hadn’t needed to. 

And then there was the last thing. The elephant in the proverbial room. Their identities. Daniel was walking around as a girl named Sally, and even though he tried to tell strangers, like retail workers, his name was Daniel, they just seemed to assume they misheard him and called him Danielle, which was no better. But at least he knew who Sally was, with Sally’s own help. She was a twenty-something who’d moved to the city after a falling out with her family, and had apparently made enough to get by working the front desk at a local ‘multi-media’ store, although she’d assured Daniel that she probably wouldn’t be missed if she didn’t show up. She’d mentioned something about franchises and big corporations that Daniel hadn’t been able to follow. 

But Eliza still didn’t know who her body had been supposed to be. A random nobody? Daniel hoped that Sally would be able to find out more by the time they ended up in that in-between space again.

But there was, of course, more to it than that. He knew who Sally was now. But what if they weren’t able to make it back to their respective worlds? Sure, it was a worst-case scenario, but it was one that had to be considered. Sally hadn’t said it outright, but her argument with her family hadn’t seemed like the never-talk-again variety. 

The more he tried to make himself useful and distract himself, the more he was getting overwhelmed. Leafing through a book on geography to get an idea of the size of this planet, this world,  the almost-two-hundred-countries and upwards of six thousand languages jumped out at him to remind him that his experiences were completely insignificant by comparison, and it kept forcing him to sit back and think about Sally’s family.

“What’s going on?” Eliza asked as she walked past. She held a cup of steaming tea, something that had thankfully been present in both worlds. “You seem more sour and dour than usual.” 

“It’s nothing you’d concern yourself with,” Daniel said, crossing his arms and jutting his jaw forward as he thought. “It’s little people stuff.”

“I’ve lost several feet in height,” she said, sitting down on the other sofa, “try me.”

“Sally -- this body’s -- family is out there somewhere,” Daniel said, reluctant to share his worries with someone who might well try to subjugate this world or his old one if given the chance. “I’m trying to figure out what to do if we meet. If I should reach out or not. What to say.” He leaned on his knees. “I don’t know what they’d think.”

Eliza looked at him for several long seconds, and Daniel was starting to wonder if telling her had been a mistake, if she’d mock him or berate him. She took a sip of her tea then put it on the table in a tiny spot not covered by a book ‘For Dumbasses’. “You don’t know if you should convince them Sally is dead,” she said. The edge that was usually in her voice wasn’t there, and Daniel looked at her with confusion. 

“Yes,” he said. “Exactly.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Difficult.”

“If you’re going to mock me…” he began, but she shook her head.

“There’s many reasons someone might take distance from their family,” Eliza said. “But if I can’t find any magic, we’ll have to give them a way to grieve while confirming to them you’re not their child.”

“I… well, that’s true…”

“I can think of a few things,” Eliza said. “Maybe we can… But that requires magic…” She frowned and crossed her legs, before bouncing up with determination. “I need to know what’s possible in this world.” She frowned and looked over at his stack of books, running a hand over the spines until she stopped at one and pulled it out, only slightly wobbling the pile. Daniel looked at the cover as Eliza simply sat down and started reading what appeared to be a book called Modern Psychology, then frowned again. What was she looking for? She seemed utterly engrossed by the book immediately, and Daniel didn’t know what to think. Was she just… helping? Coming up with solutions just like that? Why? Surely not out of the kindness of her heart. After a few minutes, she looked up at him. “What?”

“I… nothing. Thank you,” he said, and went back to one of his books on world history. He could’ve sworn he saw the corner of her mouth twitch.

“Hrm,” Eliza said. “Don’t mention it.”

“More tea?” he asked as he got up. 

“Please.” Eliza held up her cup without looking. Daniel took it and, with a lot to think about, went to put the kettle on for both of them.