Ce’rana of Borune closed her eyes and settled into the hollow tree-trunk she was hiding in, taking pains to keep her breaths as quiet and shallow as possible. She didn’t expect her hiding spot to give her away; it was, after all, still a tree, even if it was technically dead. But there was no sense in giving her pursuer advantages he didn’t need.

Time dragged on; her only measures of how long she’d been waiting there were the running count of her heartbeats and how many times someone had come by her hiding spot, each one leaving her tense. Slowly, her blinks lengthened, and eventually stopped. Her breathing deepened, becoming slow and rhythmic. She fell asleep.

It took a while, but someone walking by her hideout stopped. Alex poked his head into the hole, trying to spot her. It wasn’t hard to make out the only soft thing in a hard area, so he stood back. He grinned, took in a deep breath, and shouted “Boo!” at the top of his lungs.

Ce’rana jolted awake and screamed, automatically jerking to her feet. After a moment, she realized just who she was staring at, and scowled at him as she tried to calm her racing heart. “Was that entirely necessary?” she grumbled.

“It is when you fell asleep.” Alex stepped back from the tree, grinning as he turned away from her. “It isn’t like you wouldn’t have done the same thing if our roles were reversed.”

The Dryad clambered out of the hole with a huff, glaring at the back of his skull. “No, I would not have,” she muttered. “Of course, I make no promises about not startling you in general, but that would not have been my method.”

“Well, you were sleeping like a baby. How else was I supposed to wake you up? I couldn’t rock the tree.” He started walking, not really aiming for anywhere in particular.

She shook her head at that. “I was doing no such thing. And there was always the option of knocking - the tree would have woken me on his own.”

Alex shrugged. “Considering what we were playing, I don’t think it would have let me win until I broke out the matches.” He didn’t even need to look to guess what kind of effect that had on her.

She froze in utter horror. “That,” she choked out, “is not funny, Alex. Not in the least.”

“I didn’t say I was gonna use them.” He patted his pockets. “Actually, I don’t think I even have any on me.”

Ce’rana closed her eyes and sighed, shaking her head as she moved to catch up with her partner. “It was still an awful joke to have made,” she muttered unhappily.

“Who said I was joking? Pulling out matches tends to make your tree listen to me. Or, as much as a tree can, at least.”

She froze again, this time only for a moment before she pulled out a pen, gripping it far more tightly than she perhaps ought to have. “You do what to make him listen.”

Alex froze and turned to look at her. When he saw the pen, he swore quietly and took off running down the halls. He wasn’t letting that pen anywhere near him. Not like that.

The Dryad bolted after him, shouting mental curses in Imperial Tolnedran all the way. She didn’t wave her weapon threateningly; she didn’t vocalize her swears; she just focused on not letting her long-legged partner get too far ahead of her.

Still, despite her efforts, she lost him three turns in. Muttering some of her curses to herself, she kicked the Generic Wall and began tromping back towards the Department of Technical Errors, Grammar Division. She could always catch him when he came back to sleep.

"Happy birthday!"

"The cake is on fire."

"And?"

Kelok pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "I'll get the fire extinguisher before it spreads to the bed again this year."

"I'll get the plates!"

As far as birthdays went, Victoria Brown's nineteenth was shaping up to be pretty rotten.

She'd graduated Hogwarts the June before, a witch ready to make her mark on the world. June had become July, and the Ministry responded to her application with a form rejection, her name misspelled on the first and only page. July had become August, and Obscurus Books, a safe bet for a Ravenclaw, even a muggle-born one, hadn't returned her owls. Now it was late September, and Brown had sent resumes to the Junk Shop in Diagon and the local Tesco.

Staying in touch with friends was proving harder than she'd expected, too. Portsmouth was a long ways from everywhere, in both the muggle and magical worlds, and there was only so much a cellphone and an owl could do to keep up with friends who were happily finding jobs, love, and other things.

On the other hand, Brown was finding books. At least there were libraries here, and authors writing about history or space or magic, close to the truth but wrong in enough ways that she could tell they didn't have a clue it was real. She could walk to the nearest library almost by habit, just a muggle with a wand in her bag and, occasionally, when nobody was looking, an owl on her shoulder.

Habit was useful, this morning- the September fog had been getting thicker over the last few weeks, until it was dense enough that it shrouded the city around the clock. Everything was muffled, the preternatural hush of a world waiting for the weather to change.

Brown's feet had carried her down to the university. Today felt like a non-fiction day, and the library there was tempting for all that it was by the water, and thus even deeper in the gloom of the fog.

It wasn't until her hand hit glass that she realized that something was wrong. Habit was habit, she'd walked to her favorite coffee shop first- except it wasn't there. The building didn't even have a storefront, for all that it was on the little high street that ran alongside the university. It was just empty, anonymous windows in a forgettable brick facade.

Wrong turns happened. Brown stepped back, looked around, confirmed her bearings. This certainly seemed to be the place- Guildhall Walk, across from the-

The New Theater Royal was missing. Mostly. There was a facade in its place, sure, white porch in front of brickwork, but it looked flat and empty, like it was painted on an unimportant corner of one of the backdrops inside.

Brown glanced both ways before digging out her wand. This smelled like magic, for all that she'd never heard of it. Some strange form of concealment charm, perhaps?

Thoughts of counterspells vanished from her mind when a thing that had once been a car drifted past. It moved aimlessly, as though it moved out of habit rather than any motive force- and instead of windows, there was just a broad black stripe wrapping around the vaguely-bloated shape.

Brown didn't run. Running was a bad idea. Brown walked quickly back the way she'd come, wand in hand but forgotten.

It was all wrong, the details washing out of the world. There had been an old half-timbered building on the corner, now it was just a boxy building, white concrete and blank windows. There had been a little restaurant, catering to students with bright text on signs, now it was just a blank wall with "pizza" painted on it. Even that was fading, flaking, vanishing entirely.

Brown made it to the imposingly-named Winston Churchill Avenue, just to find it deserted. There were no people, there were no cars, real or car-things or anything, just fog and the looming sense of buildings. She walked around the railings, looked both ways before crossing the street.

There was a building on the far side, she was pretty sure- but it didn't loom out of the fog. The sidewalk just ended, an edge opening into mist. Brown turned to go back, but there was nothing there, either- the curb-stone was the edge of the abyss on that side, leaving her on an island of sidewalk, floating in foggy nothingness.

A shrinking island of sidewalk. Every time Brown turned it had lost size where she wasn't looking, squares of concrete vanishing into nothingness. It was ten meters across, and then five, and then she blinked and it was down to a three-by-three grid of pavers, barely a meter to a side.

There were ways out of this. Brown tried to picture home, somewhere safe to apparate to. She couldn't do it- nor could she visualize the library, or the coffee shop, or the shore, or anywhere that was close enough that she felt she had a chance of getting there safely. London and Hogwarts were clearer but further, and the rising wave of panic made it clear that long-distance apparation was out of the question.

Her phone was similarly useless- low battery, no signal, no messages.

It felt like it was getting darker, or maybe her mind was playing tricks on her with nothing but fog to look at. That, at least, was fixable. Brown raised her wand, said "lumos!", winced at the sudden, clear glare of the charm.

And then there wasn't anything else to do. Brown sat, a witch in jeans and a sweater and a blue-and-bronze scarf loosely around her neck, and waited for the end of the world.

And waited for the end of the world.

And waited.

Who knew that ceasing to exist was so boring?

The next thing Brown heard, a moment, an eternity later, almost sounded like an air-raid siren. It was accompanied by something fading into existence, for once- a blue box, a police box, butted up against her square of sidewalk like a ship against a quay.

Brown tried to stand, to face the TARDIS with some semblance of dignity, just to find that one of her legs was asleep.

"Sorry to bother you, doc-" she started, as the door opened.

The person inside the TARDIS wasn't any Doctor that Brown knew. She looked like she could have been a student at the university, young and dark-haired and equal parts short and strong, as she demonstrated by casually hooking one of Brown's arms over her shoulder and pulling her to her feet.

"Not me, I'm afraid," she said, walking Brown into the TARDIS. "Call me Grace. Let's get you out of here, hm?"

Sorry if this is a bit too short!



Tiger didn’t have a very good track record when it came to birthdays. Last year, for instance, he’d only got two presents, and the year before that he’d just lost the competition to Holly.

He’d hoped this one might be a little better, but it seemed to be worse. At least this year he had got presents, even if there weren’t that many and one of them (Holly’s, of course) had literally blown up in his face.

The problem was that what was meant to be a party had soon turned into just another evening of darts. Tiger’s father had given him some money, but he had promptly lost it all by losing a round to Andy.

He’d decided to escape before he was bankrupted, and had slipped out unnoticed during a particularly dramatic match between Holly and Timothy. Cautiously, he opened the door to the throne room a crack.

There was no-one there, as he had expected, except a huge white tiger who lifted her head as he came in and shut the door softly behind him.

“It’s alright, Minty,” he said quietly. “Only me.”

He walked slowly over to the tiger, who now appeared to be asleep, and sat down on the red rug beside her.

“Just you and me,” he said sadly. “Just you and me.”

((Not an escape in the traditional sense, but I'd say this one counts.))



8386071 stood still, stripped to the waist with his arms bound in front of him as the Mandalorian circled him slowly.

“How old?”

“Twenty-two years and four months,” Ressh replied. “Son of a human whore and who knows what; a mongrel, most likely.”

“That doesn’t concern me.” The Mandalorian, Jaleth Ellea, tapped 8386071’s arm with a gauntleted hand, producing a faint clinking noise. “How old’s this thing?”

“Six years, same as the eye.”

“That’ll need replacing,” Jaleth muttered. “He got a name?”

Ressh grunted and shook his head.

“You’ll need a name,” Jaleth said, and 8386071 felt a small thrill of hope. Could it really be happening? He was leaving the palace? But what if his new master was crueler than the current one? Though nothing could be as bad as the breeding, could it? Or was he tempting fate with such thinking?

Jaleth turned to Ressh. “I’ll take him.”

“Three thousand credits,” Ressh said, and 8386071’s eyes widened, certain the Mandalorian would be dissuaded by the price—but Jaleth simply handed over his credit chip without a word.

The next hour was a whirlwind of activity. His chest was cut open and the detonator removed, and then he was hurried away to Jaleth’s ship. He’d never been to the nicer parts of the palace before, let alone the Master’s private shuttle landing, and he looked around with wide eyes at the gleaming floors and carved walls—and then he was bundled onto the ship without so much as a chance to say goodbye to Jeyla.

Jaleth piloted the shuttle into orbit, and 8386071 risked lifting his eyes off the floor to peek out the window. Tatooine was… somehow small, seeing it from this high up. He’d been told the planets were round, but until that moment, he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d believed it.

The cuffs that bound his wrists suddenly opened and fell to the floor with a clank, and Jaleth returned the remote opener to his pocket.

“So.” Jaleth spoke and 8386071 jumped, his gaze returning to his feet. “You’re a good fighter. I’m impressed.”

“Thank you, sir,” 8386071 finally said when it became clear the Mandalorian was waiting for him to speak.

Jaleth waved a dismissive hand. “None of that ‘sir’ business, d’you hear? You’re free now.”

8386071’s breath hitched. “F-free?” he stuttered.

“Free,” Jaleth repeated. “So how about you look me in the eye as an equal?”

Slowly, 8386071 did so, surprised to see Jaleth’s mouth turned up in a smile.

“That’s more like it, son,” Jaleth said, and 8386071 hesitantly smiled back. “Tell me, you were born on Tatooine, right? Ever left it before?”

“Yes sir, to both questions,” 8386071 said. “I’ve been taken offworld before to participate in prize fights on Nar Shaddaa.”

“Jaleth,” he corrected 8386071, who ducked his head in consternation. “You’re free now. Don’t call me sir again.”

“Yes si—yes… Jaleth.”

Jaleth nodded, steepling his fingers together. “You could do things out there that I’d never seen a human being do without the use of the Force,” he said. “You ever been tested before?”

8386071 shook his head.

“Huh.” Jaleth scratched his chin, then shrugged. “So, way I see it, you’ve got a couple of options now. I drop you off at a spaceport of your choosing with a bit of money and some proper clothes, and send you on to live your life as you see fit… or, you can stay with me, if you want, and I’ll teach you everything I know.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. But first—you’re gonna need a name. Got any ideas?”

8386071 shook his head again. Jaleth shrugged and pulled out a datapad, scrolling through it until he tossed it at 8386071.

“There you go.”

8386071 looked down at what he could only assume was a list of names. “I, um… I can’t…”

Jaleth pinched the bridge of his nose and 8386071 tensed, expecting a beating, but Jaleth motioned for him to throw the datapad back.

“My quarters are just that way,” Jaleth said, pointing. “First door on the left. Help yourself to some clothes and come back in here.”

After a moment’s hesitation, 8386071 hurried to do so. The clothing he found was so soft, and clean, and none of the fabric contained any holes. It even smelled clean, he thought, holding a shirt up to his nose and inhaling appreciatively. He pulled it on, marveling at how silky the fabric felt compared to the rough cloth he was used to.

Not wanting to keep Jaleth waiting, 8386071 went back to the bridge, where Jaleth was sitting, his pilot’s chair spun to face the copilot’s.

“Sit down,” Jaleth said, gesturing at the copilot seat. “I’ll read you the list for now, and you can follow along. See if you can figure out what the letters mean and all.”

8386071 sat and leaned forward to look at the datapad as Jaleth began slowly reading the names aloud.

“Aarol,” Jaleth said, moving his finger as he spoke. “Abramos. Adrinne…”

They remained drifting in Tatooine’s orbit until 8386071 was soon haltingly reading along with Jaleth, though his guesses at pronunciation left a lot to be desired.

“Lo… Loral” 8386071 sounded out. “Lor… son…” Something seemed to click and he pointed at it. “Lorson. I like this one.”

“Lorson’s a good name. Nice and strong.” Jaleth smiled. “There will be plenty of time to pick out a last name later. I’d like to get us out of here first, and then we can talk some more.”

Lorson nodded. “Sounds good to me.”