Submission (#2492) Approved

It had started with a simple delivery. Marco had assisted his brother with a delivery in the great city of Il'durahn by transporting goods between two Bellmoril wizards. Since that day, Marco had joined his brother on numerous deliveries, and eventually began traveling to the city all by himself. His curiosity drove him to move past his hesitation and shyness, and before long he had made friends with many of the locals in the city, including some of the wizards who resided there. They were more than happy to take him under their wings and tell him what they knew, some more excited to help than others, and eventually the kittom was given access to some of the greatest libraries Bellmoril had to offer.

When Marco was younger, he remembered having to wait days on end for his brother to return home from his work. Now Marco was the one who was gone days at a time, many hours spent with his face stuck in his book as he did his best to soak up all the information he could from within the pages of the old tomes around him. The librarian would sometimes catch Marco asleep at one of the desks. They would gently nudge him awake, as he was at risk of drooling on a priceless book. The kittom would head back to the inn for the night but appear back at the library bright and early, eager to pick up where he had left off the night before.

It was on one of these late night reading sessions that something spectacular happened. Marco was in the midst of a historical book that involved legends of great beasts that he felt himself grow weary. He couldn’t imagine putting a bookmark down now, as he was sure that he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until he knew how this tale ended. Even though his mind was awake, his body was ready for a nice warm bed. Marco pressed on with his reading and ignored the world around him, including his own feelings.

If he had great night vision he would have continued reading when the candle next to him went out. However he saw the world best in light, so reluctantly he lit a match and went to work lighting the candle. Once again the room lit up, casting a soft orange glow on everything the light could reach. 

Just as Marco was about to go back to reading, he realized he wasn’t alone. His tired eyes snapped to attention as he looked over to his right and saw an unfamiliar figure. The figure was far from elnin in shape - in fact, it was a human! But if it was a human, how was it able to sit in a chair built for an elnin? Question upon question piled in Marc’s head as he examined the rest of the human. The human had curly brown hair of the same shade as his own head hair and tail color. A familiar shade of gold that Marco had in his own eyes could be seen in the human’s, which stared at the kittom in a mix of curiosity and amusement. A soft grin stayed on the human’s face, which was light but adorned with soft flecks of brown on his cheeks. Lastly, the human appeared to be wearing the exact same clothes that Marco was wearing. From everything he knew about humans, their fashion was quite different from elnin fashion, so that was the cherry on top of the sunae that was Marco’s question pile.

Despite all the questions he had, the kittom found himself momentarily speechless. The human made no move to speak or do much of anything besides look at Marco. Eventually, the kittom cleared his throat and spoke up. “Who are you?”

Still the human didn’t speak. Instead, the human made a motion to himself before motioning over to Marco.Marco awkwardly statd he had no idea what that meant, and the human mimed the motion of sighing, though Marco couldn’t hear an inhale or exhale. It was that moment that he realized that the human coudn’t speak, or at least couldn’t make a sound.The human pointed at himself, then pointed at Marco. More things began to click together in Marco’s head, but he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow and ask “You’re me?”. The human beamed as he nodded. 

So, this human was Marco, somehow. Perhaps in another world? Another time? Marco had found books on the topic but hadn’t gotten around to reading them yet. “Alright, Human Marco. If you’re me, then why are you here? Do you have some grand information to tell me?” The human made the motion of laughing as he shook his head. Instead of giving a direct reply the human reached out for a pen and some parchment before beginning to write something. No, wait, he was drawing. The human’s movements were quick but precise, and in little time he had drawn a rather detailed image of the forest outside of the city. 

Marco looked at the picture for several seconds, trying to figure out if there was some sort of secret meaning behind the drawing, before looking back over at the human. However, the human was gone. Marco also noticed that the pen that the human was holding was in his paw. Carefully, he put the pen down and closed the book. Perhaps that had been an illusion conjured up from lack of sleep. Or maybe he really had been visited by a version of himself from a different universe. One thing was for sure - he had been reading too much. Going outside and enjoying the woods like he had when he was younger sounded like a wonderful plan for tomorrow. For now though, he needed to sleep.