Friday, 17 December 2021 - Greenwich Village, New York City, United States

“So I was thinking, the people of Iceland are big into these legends of elves. They think they live in rocks in lava fields and other areas like that.”

“Right…” said Ella as she paged through Jae-Young’s notes.

“Well… we aren’t going to be finding cosmopolitan elves hanging around in Reykjavik and running coffee shops and whatever.”

“Why not? I wouldn’t have expected one to be a film grad student in New York either!”

“Point. But I doubt they go to the grocery store and tell the cashier they want a lottery ticket, a pack of smokes, and a magical ring to disguise themselves, oh yeah, the pink one with built in mood stone.” Jae was talking excitedly but under his breath as they sat across from one another in the coffeehouse1. The unlucky undergrads around them were at tables that had been spread out, all had masks on, and headphones in their ears as they studied for their finals on the very last day before break.

Three tables over, Kothin sat, hunched over a book in a pantomime of the students around them.

“Nah, they’d definitely go for the ring pop one. Magical camo and delicious lollipop all in one.”

“So I figure any elves have got to be living out in the open or something. Somewhere kind of remote where humans occasionally see them from far away but never close enough for proof.”

“You do realize a lot of Iceland is the definition of remote, right?”

“Yeah. I do.”

They stopped and spent time coming through the documents that Jae-Young had pulled together.

“Jae… I, ummm, wanted to thank you for doing all this. And going with me to Iceland. You know you don’t have to, right?” Ella tentatively ventured.

“Hey… don’t worry. This is my history too.”

“But this could be super dangerous. I’ve been stabbed. Twice!”

“Don’t deny my agency in this. My whole life I have been a freak hiding who I am. This is my chance to find out more. I would take it even if you weren’t involved.”

Ella read through the notes one more time and pulled out her phone to look at a map of Iceland. She knew something was bothering her. Something they were missing.

“I am going to get another espresso. You want anything?”

Jae-Young nodded his head no, still engrossed in the papers.

She wandered over to the counter and ordered an espresso and a black coffee. Once they were served up, she headed back and then sat down at the table with Kothin and slid over the coffee.

“I didn’t know how you take your coffee. With poison was it?”

Kothin looked up at her and laughed. “I suppose reusing the same ring was arrogant.” He took the coffee and blew over the top before taking a sip.

“Well that and I could ‘see’ something, a whisp of light connecting your table and ours.”

His eyes opened a bit wider, “That is impressive.”

“Well, you caught me. I was just keeping an eye on you. Trying to not cramp your style. "

“I think it is time for a more frank discussion. I have been banging my head over what is going on, why I am involved and the rest. And I want answers.”

“I thought about it as I said I would and the truth is: I have very little in the way of answers. Why The emperor crowned you. Why, after being trapped away from everything I was able to emerge twenty years ago. Why more and more of the People are emerging.”

He held his hands out wide and shrugged. Then drank more coffee

“Do you know where Jae-Young’s great grandmother is?”

Jae-Young, who had come over when Ella had sat down, looked with interest.

“No, why would I and is this him?” Kothin held out his hand and shook Jae-Young’s.

Ella tilted her head at Jae-Young which he read as asking for permission, he decided to do it himself, “This ring is like yours,” holding up his hand.

Kothin’s expression did not change. “You are of the People then. And you need what exactly?”

“I may be one of the ‘People’ as you put it, but I was raised with humans. I never was in one of these pocket worlds you talk about. I know nothing about my heritage and nothing about this.” Jae-Young spoke in a whisper but it was gaining steam as his pent-up frustration poured out, “I was born an elf and made it hide it. Pretend to be something I am not but I also don’t know what I am. How can I be at peace this way?”

Kothin put down the coffee mug he had been drinking from and leaned forward, “I can tell you very little. I was born and grew up in one of these shards, one that was made from an ancestral home of my people torn from reality and set adrift.”

“Imagine you live on an island, and if you leave pass through the mists that border the island, you most of the time end up on the other side of that island.”

Ella interrupted, “You said most of the time. What happens the rest of the time?”

“Well the person disappears. And sometimes a path appears in the mists, an opening, and you can see right through to somewhere else. Like here. Or another of the shards. Such connections are often short lived. But the connections to this world, they started small, but now they grow larger and seem more stable.”

Ella was almost fidgeting in her excitement. “I have a hypothesis” She flattened out a paper napkin from her coffee.

“Imagine this is our universe as it existed back when everything was magical and the People were a part of it.”

She then pinched part of the napkin in the middle and puffed up the captured piece.

“The emperor, for each of these sharded lands, folded over a portion of our spacetime and then stitched the ends together into a small self contained collapsed world. And then added something to stitch it together, like the knot of a balloon.”

“So these small self contained worlds stay attached to reality… maybe jutting into unfolded higher dimensional space? Nah, that would be really power expensive, well something. And sometimes they open up a bit or didn’t seal all the way. Although it is hard to know what they are anchored to and how they would manifest”

“Why do it this way?”

Ella’s brain was in overdrive. “You said it yourself. Magic was fading. He did it to concentrate what was left somehow. He shoved magic into these worlds, these hidden kingdoms of magic and new physics.”

“It was imperfect of course. The seams unraveling. And something wants them to reknit together which is what is happening now as the boundaries start to fail.”

“If he is altering fundamental physics this way, is magic an emergent property? Is it a fundamental force? Hmm… it is something I have thought about but didn’t have anything to go forward with besides raw speculation. Hell, maybe magic is a missing boson. Ooh! And I wonder if I could apply Donaldson's Theorem to the topology? Einstein says that dimensions can’t be torn, what if he was wrong - maybe they are untethered bubbles? The mists instead of smooth attachments seem to imply poor stitching.” Ella was almost muttering to herself and now typing ideas rapidly in her phone.

At this point, Jae-Young reached over to hold Ella’s hand for her attention, “Hey. Remember- film student here.”

She came back to herself. “Oh sorry. I just need to put this together in the language I understand. Basically the napkin-ball theory feels right to me. Need to do some math on it eventually. And lug a ton of equipment into one of these pockets.”

Ella suddenly stopped and her mind went tangentially to the party, “So… were those fairies part of your world? How were you at this party?”

Kothin smiled, “You went right to the point. The fae seemed to be free of this constraints. They traveled from world to world and would bring news when it suited them. They were like ghosts in our world, insubstantial and hard to see, but I did get one to admit they appeared differently in other worlds. When you can get them to admit anything. This was the first time I had seen them so real.”

Ella typed into her phone furiously, muttering under her breath.

Ella’s phone alarm went off, her phone vibrating on the table which she snatched up quickly. “We have to go. But Kothin, I want more time for questions and no dodging me.”

“As you command, your royal highness.” Ella blushed at that address

Ella and Jae-Young packed up their belongings and made their goodbyes.

Kothin sat a while, sipping his coffee. “She is sharper than I thought to catch me. And she is getting a handle on some of her magic even without help. Better be careful.”

A text appeared on his phone sitting on the table:

Not as clumsy as u

Think Coffee in the Village. Many fond memories of studying there when it opened way back when.