As was usual for Quentin, despite being in a completely foreign world, he settled in probably more easily than most would have. Or at least compared to those who had never been to another world before; this wasn’t exactly his first rodeo, so to speak. Such was the case for basically everyone in the Physical Kids’ Cottage.
He had his legs folded up under him in a giant plush chair near the currently-not-burning fireplace of the cottage, a book open in his hands, quietly reading and enjoying the solitude. This was what most people would consider normal for him, honestly.
But he let out a noise of discomfort when a massive, orange tabby jumped up into his lap and landed less than gracefully on more sensitive areas. “Holy shit,” he groaned, cringing as he tried to wiggle the weight of the cat into a more evenly distributed way without making it too obvious that he was… well, in pain. “When the hell did we get a cat?” he asked no one in particular, brows furrowing as the cat nestled in for a nap.
“About a month before you showed up? I think? Has it been a month already?” Fen was the one to respond, walking into the room with a grooming tool in her hand. She could barely hold him to give him a good brush and partway through the task, Garfield had bolted from the room and found himself a new place to settle. Away from Fen. Figures.
She knew cats were fickle and extremely picky, but when she saw where he landed, she raised her eyebrows in surprise. Garfield had yet to settle down in anyone’s lap, even hers. He did once try to settle down on top of Margo’s shoes but Fen had grabbed him right away before he could.
“Congrats, I think you’re officially his favorite!”
“Huh.” Q seemed a little shocked — he’d already been there a few days and only just now was noticing that there was a huge, fat cat in the cottage. How he’d missed that, he wasn’t sure.
But he smiled and gave the cat a firm stroke before looking up at Fen. “Hi, Fen. I’m assuming he’s yours?” he asked, fingers moving to scratch at the feline’s chin gently. Cats liked that, right? At least he was someone’s favorite. “What’s his name?”
She didn’t think he was going to be giving up his current spot on Quentin’s lap any time soon, so Fen decided to slump down on the nearest sofa, letting her hand holding the cat brush drop into her lap. “His name is Garfield. Yeah, he’s named after the cartoon! If he could talk, I bet he’d be exactly like the cartoon Garfield.”
Who, in the meantime, was purring with his eyes drifting closed. What a little tart.
“So how are you settling in? This place is new for Garfield but not so much for you! I mean the cottage at least. Everything looks the same inside here. I think if I had remembered, I definitely would have made a version of this place in New Fillory.”
Unless she already had. She couldn’t be too sure exactly what world she had created when she was musing to the World Seed. She didn’t get much time to explore before landing in Vallo.
“Fond of lasagna and everything?” That thought amused him, even though he was pretty sure that lasagna would be very, very bad for a cat.
Q shook his head a little and then shrugged lazily, continuing to pet at the animal in his lap. Though he didn’t really get a chance to respond before she went on mentioning something about New Fillory and— “wait, New Fillory? What happened to, uh, old Fillory?”
Honestly, what hadn’t happened to Fillory? Though he’d killed Ember to save it, so…
Fen’s eyes widened at the realization of what she said but she quickly realized she hadn’t said anything that wouldn’t have cropped up in a conversation later, especially when he found the dagger tree in the backyard at some point. “Oh, it was destroyed.”
She settled in a little closer to give him more detail than that. “So Josh and I went back to Fillory while the rest of you were off… doing… things, magician-related things, and Margo and Eliot tried to get back to Fillory but they ended up way in the future when Josh and I got overthrown and Fillory ended up getting taken over by the Dark King. Who was… a bit of a complicated character but I think some people would say he was trying his best.
“Well, things happened and Fillory couldn’t be saved because the barrier between it and the undead world was broken. So we realized that the best way to save it was to create a new world. Hence, New Fillory. We had an ark to carry almost all the citizens over too, so most everyone were saved.”
That was more information than he’d been given so far, aside from finding out about what happened to Penny. Quentin was quiet as he listened to her explain, though he noted the wide eyed look she’d given beforehand. Interesting reaction.
“So, you and Josh get overthrown, Eliot and Margo get stuck in future Fillory, and the rest of us are off doing… what again? I mean, you clearly survive to create a New Fillory, so you’ve got to know what was going on on earth, right?”
He bit back a sigh and finally closed the book in his lap, setting it aside. “It’s just… you know, I haven’t been told much about what happens after I kill Ember other than magic gets all fucked and Penny died.”
Fen cringed. “Well, technically… we didn’t survive. Josh and I were executed, but Margo and Eliot managed to figure out how to get us from that point in time into the future without, you know, actually experiencing all of that!”
There was plenty she knew about what had been happening but most of it wasn’t because she wanted to keep him in the dark - it was more because it wasn’t her story. Particularly about Julia’s pregnancy. And Margo and Josh’s story although that never happened in the current Margo’s universe.
“I really only know one Penny and he is very much alive, but he was also from another timeline.” How much could she share? She wasn’t exactly the closest to Quentin in all that time, even though he was her husband’s -- ex-husband now -- best friend. “But anyway, you’re so far in the past from what I remember, you guys must have experienced a lot together, and they would be able to tell you more! I was… mostly in Castle Whitespire, being acting royalty while Margo and Eliot were off doing other things.”
Of course Margo and Eliot had figured out a way to save Josh and Fen, even from three hundred years in the future. That made him give a quiet sort of laugh in response, one of disbelief, despite not being surprised at all. “Well, you know, I’m really glad you didn’t die, too. Technically. I-- I mean, I guess you did but hey, you got saved, so… yay?”
Garfield shifted in his lap and Quentin let out a little “ouch” when the cat started kneading his leg with his paws, the tips of his claws pushing through the fabric of the jeans he was wearing.
“So, um, does everyone end up in New Fillory eventually from what you know or is it just you or...?”
“Garfield, chill,” Fen tried to see if she could shoo him off of Quentin’s lap. But he didn’t budge. She shook her head before turning back to the topic on hand.
“Not exactly. In order to make a new world, we needed the World Seed and we had to pull a heist in order to get it. That was only mildly fun. The others bottled up their feelings because otherwise they were going to be singing all over the place.” She described the whole thing, or at least everything she experienced to the best of her abilities. Not including the fact that she had to place the world seed up her vagina in order to keep it from dying. They just managed to get the seed, that was what was important.
“And then Alice, Margo, and Josh helped with the magic while I talked to the seed about Fillory, and then… it worked! We all landed there. Or at least just us four. I don’t know what any of the others get up at that point. I always assume that Eliot would spend all the time he could get trying to find a doorway to us. And so would Julia and Penny.”
It was kind of a fascinating story, but one he couldn’t help notice had a distinct lack of… him by the end of it. If he wasn’t in New Fillory or still on earth with Eliot, Penny, and Julia… then where was he?
The thought of that made him a little uncomfortable and he curled up in the chair a bit more, continuing to pet the cat at this point to keep his hands busy. He couldn’t help wondering if he’d finally succumbed to his depression for some reason and no one wanted to tell him. It would make sense, anyway.
“I— uh, I’m sure they do eventually. There’s always a way, especially if you created the new version, right? There’s probably a portal tree somewhere, it’s just figuring out what… would work on the earth side, I guess.” Like the clock. Or something else entirely. Q kind of stared off at nothing for a moment before letting his attention fall back on her. “It’s good to see you here, you know? I, uh, well. I think I owe you an apology for… you know, I never really bothered to get to know you before. I’m sorry if I was ever a dick to you.”
Fen was hit with a wave of sadness right then because she knew how much Eliot loved him, had loved him. And she loved Eliot, and it had always hurt to know she couldn’t do anything to fix anything for him. They’d all gone through hardships but it seemed like Quentin’s loss was the biggest of all. She felt it in Margo too as well as Julia.
“Oh, please,” she replied with a slight laugh. “You were never a dick! We just never had a chance, really. There was just so much craziness going on, one thing right after another! Maybe later on, we could have gotten the chance, if you hadn’t— I mean if we had— if we hadn’t all gotten separated the way we did. You know?”
Q’s eyes lifted when she said ‘if you hadn’t’ and between those words and the look on her face -- she’d never been particularly good at hiding her feelings -- it was almost the only confirmation he needed of what he suspected. He was tempted to ask her, but as sweet as she was, hearing that from her wasn’t what he wanted.
No, if he was going to hear that he was dead in his timeline, he needed Julia or Eliot to be the one to tell him, assuming either of them even knew. They had to have known, right? Fen was from even further ahead than the both of them, maybe she’d explained things.
Ugh. He didn’t want to think about it right now.
“At least we get the chance here, huh? As long as Maleficent doesn’t decide to burn this place to the ground, anyway.”
Fen was pretty sure that he had the hint because she was fully aware that she stumbled over her words. Oh, Eliot and Margo were going to be upset. She was sure of it.
“Sure!” she started, her voice a little higher than expected. She cleared her throat and attempted it again. “This place is full of second chances. So I’ve heard. From a lot of people that have shown up here from really crappy universe environments.”
While it seemed like Quentin was ready to move past what he might have suspected, Fen was still wary. Because if he asked next what happened to him bluntly, she didn’t think she’d have it in her to walk around the bush. So to keep the topic continuously changing, Fen held out her cat’s brush. “You don’t happen to know of a humane spell that keeps a cat calm and frozen in air while you finish grooming him, do you? Or is none of it humane at all?”
He opted not to press the issue and let his gaze fall back down to the tabby who was still purring contently in his lap. “I don’t think keeping him frozen in the air is very humane, it could still freak him out by being off the ground like that, but I could probably…”
Q lifted his hands and twisted his fingers briefly, clearly casting a small spell near the cat’s head. Garfield seemed to relax a little more against him, eyes closed, his breathing slowing just enough to show that he’d completely fallen asleep. “He’s down for a solid cat nap; real relaxed right now, probably won’t notice a thing if you take that brush to him again. I’d say you’ve got at least ten minutes or so before it lifts?”
It was the easiest thing to do and something he knew would be safe for the cat, though if it meant him needing to be groomed while still laying on Quentin, well… so be it.
Fen’s eyes widened again but this time, in amazement. “Gods, I wish I was a magician sometimes. Or had some form of magic myself.” Before she could lose out time, she quickly hopped up from her spot and sat down on the coffee table corner directly in front of Quentin. “Well! Since we have our chance now, let’s chat about all the fun stuff here while Garfield gets a brush!”
“I don’t know. Call me lame for this, but I think the fact that you’re from Fillory itself is pretty cool and magical.” Sure, maybe she didn’t have magic like the rest of them, but that didn’t make her less than, did it? Q smirked a bit and rolled his eyes at himself, before giving Fen a soft, genuine smile. “Yeah, let’s chat. It’ll be nice to actually get the chance to get to know you.”