I woke up in a bed. In a nice soft bed. And Frej was lying next to me, sleeping soundly, his arm around me. He stirred a little when I did and opened his deep green eyes. 

"Hey, how are you feeling?"

"Weird."

"Xipe told me to look after you. I guess I fell asleep... But so did you." He smiled a bit and shrugged. Then his smile paled as if he suddenly realised where he was. "Oh fuck... Shit." He jumped out of the bed. "Oh fuck, sorry Aura! I was all up in there and-"

"It's okay. Don't worry about it. We're friends," I said and smiled. "Thank you for looking after me."

He nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. "Right... I wasn't trying anything..."

"Frej, I know." I shot him a very saying look. He didn't seem to understand. "I know, you're gay. So I know you weren't trying anything."

"Oh... Right. Yeah. I mean, I am, but... I don't wanna overstep any boundaries."

"You didn't. It's okay." I held my hand out towards him and he took it in his, a small smile fighting its way back on his lips.

"You're not like other people, are you?"

I shrugged. And Frej smiled fully.

"How are your legs?"

"Numb. Kind of. They feel weird."

I removed the blanket covering my legs and looked down at them. They looked normal. I was only dressed in a big t-shirt and my underwear, but I didn't mind Frej seeing my bare legs. He apparently did as he looked away, his cheeks reddening.

"I'll go get Xipe..." he muttered and left the room, leaving the door ajar.

I wasn't alone for more than a minute before Dawid softly knocked on the open door.

"Hey. Frej said you were awake."

I motioned him to come inside and sit down next to me.

"What happened?" I asked and covered my legs again, in case Frej came back and was offended by my bare ankles.

"Someone put lavender in your drink. Tec will be in in a minute to tell you what that means," he said softly.

"Thank you... For helping me out. Not just when I got sick, but from that guy."

He just patted my head instead of saying anything. Tec arrived and closed the door behind him, letting Dawid sit on one side of me, as he sat down on the other.

"How are you feeling? Frej said, your legs felt weird still." He looked very concerned.

I bit down on my lip before replying. "I don't know if I can walk. They feel heavy and like something crawling under my skin. And they feel oddly numb still."

"That can happen to some when they get lavender." He glanced at Dawid who just glanced back at him. "I should never have left you. I should've known something would happen."

"Why?" I asked sheepishly.

"It's not something you should worry about right now. You're safe and I'm in contact with all the right people about this. The one who drugged you will not go unpunished."

"But why did this happen? I don't understand..."

"You're new and exciting. Some use lavender as kind of a... Date-rape-drug... Is that the word?" He looked over at Dawid who nodded.

"But... I only had three sips," I whispered.

"Which is why you just got tired. Usually, it has uh... Other effects."

"But... Frej drank from the same glasses."

"He's not affected by it like you are," Tec just said courtly in a way that indicated this wasn't up for discussion. But it was. His story was full of holes and I was ready to poke at them.

"Why?"

"Aura, I'll explain everything when you're feeling better. I don't wanna overwhelm you."

"I'm not overwhelmed! I just wanna know why this happened, so I can avoid that ever happening again," I said, frustrated, and threw my arms out to the sides.

"Rest now, Aura," Tec said and rose to his feet. "I'll have someone bring you your food. I don't want you out roaming tonight. Okay?"

"No, not okay. You didn't answer any of my questions."

"In due time, Aura. Just... Listen to me now, okay? Don't go out."

I huffed and folded my arms over my chest, letting my back hit the pillows behind me. The side of Tec's mouth twitched and he left the room again.

"He didn't tell me shit though," I said and glanced up at Dawid. He was still watching the door, so he didn't see me talking to him.

I gently put the tips of my fingers on his arm and he turned his gaze to me.

"Why didn't he tell me anything?"

"He told you plenty." He leaned closer but then stopped. He grabbed a pen and paper from his back pocket... Because he apparently carried those around with him.

We might be bugged. Wrong people might be listening. Stop asking questions until we leave the country, he wrote on the note. He had a surprisingly beautiful handwriting. Like calligraphy level beautiful.

I looked up from the note and swallowed something. I nodded and gave the piece of paper back to Dawid.

"Everything will be okay," he said and smiled softly.

I nodded a bit and sighed. "So where are we anyways?"

"Tec's house. We used to live here permanently after leaving England back in..." He frowned. "Around the 1600s, I think. We're still in Denmark."

"I've never been outside of the UK before. I went to Isle of Man once," I muttered and looked up at Dawid.

"You shouldn't stay in here then," he said and helped me out of bed and then helped me find my clothes.

He waited outside the room while I got dressed and then offered me his arm. I gently grabbed it and grinned up at him. We went into what appeared to be a living room. Everything was furnished with old rococo furniture in dark brown colours. Soft rugs on the old wooden floors. Beautiful paintings of landscapes on the walls. Except for one painting. That was of Frej. He looked regal in it. It wasn't as big as the rest of the paintings and it was painted in a different style too. He looked really good in it.

"Xipe painted that of me," Frej said from behind us. I turned and smiled. He repeated what he said, so Dawid could follow too. "Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah... Somewhat. I got tired of just staying in there. Don't tell on me."

Frej smiled. "I promise. Are you hungry? We have some blood for you in the kitchen."

"I'd love some," I said and turned my head towards Dawid. "After that we're teaching Frej how to use a computer. Right?"

Dawid didn't look overly excited by that prospect.

The kitchen was an old one. With a stove where you had to light a fire in it, completely made out of iron, scorched black by constant use over the years.

Frej was standing by it, heating up the blood for me in an old brass pot, slowly stirring it with a wooden spoon.

"It has a fantastic graphic card," Dawid said enthusiastically as he was showing me his laptop.

"What processor does it run on?"

"Intel Core i7, of course." He smiled widely when I gave an approving nod.

"What does that mean?" Frej asked. I repeated the question for Dawid, as he was sitting with his back turned to Frej.

"It's kind of like the computer's brain, in a sense," I said. 

Frej just frowned and went back to stirring. He was soon finished and poured the blood into a mug. He handed it to me and sat down on Dawid's other side.

"Okay. I'm ready. What do I need to know?" he asked and glanced up at Dawid.

We spent the good part of the night teaching Frej to set up an email account and then send an email. He struggled with it, because the mousepad was hard for him to navigate and it took him ages just to write a simple message. But he kind of got the hang of it and we taught him how to google stuff too. He liked the internet he proclaimed all happily.

And as it often happens when you're supposed to do something important, you end up on YouTube, watching funny cat videos.

And that's where Iwo, Kissy and Tec found us, laughing our asses off to a cat trying to get out of a cupboard.

"What are you doing?" Tec asked and couldn't help but smile.

"We're watching videos on the internet, Xipe! Come look," Frej said and held his hand out towards Tec. Tec sighed and took Frej's outstretched hand in his and bent down. Frej let go of his hand again and showed us all how he could find a video all by himself. Dawid and I didn't even have to help him move the cursor to the video he wanted.

I glanced up at Tec and noticed he wasn't even looking at the video. He was just looking at Frej with this look of... Love. And pride. I think this meant a lot to him, that his husband was adjusting better to this century.

Tec followed me back to bed after we had all just been sitting in the kitchen, talking about the internet and seen more videos.

My legs were still feeling a little wobbly so I needed someone to support myself against. Tec helped me into the large and tall bed and pulled the covers over me. He bent down his lips lingering just above my forehead.

"Thank you for that," he murmured and briefly kissed me.

"For what?" I asked and rubbed my forehead.

"For taking your time with Frej. It means a lot to me. And to him. He'll be watching videos all day, I reckon."
I laughed a bit and so did Tec, but he was fast to turn serious again.

"I will find the asshole who did this to you," he whispered almost soundlessly. He took my hand in his and squeezed it softly. "I promise."

I didn't doubt him. I wanted to know why someone would drug me too. I was... It wasn't like I was the prettiest girl there. I mean, I didn't have any issues with how I looked, but I knew the truth. I was average and my new life hadn't changed that. I didn't look like Kissy. She was the real beauty.

I sighed and lied down on the pillows and Tec sent me a small smile before he closed the door behind him.