Coincidentally, Jasper's first day of work as a clerk is also the first day he intrudes on another world.

The shaky beat of his nerves climbing from his heart to his throat have him up early. No relief is won from waking, though, because he is then shaken by the unfamiliarity of the room he's in. Even after three days of acquainting himself with his new lodgings, he's still not fully used to it.

The bed, a place he's usually so eager to sink into, feels suffocating in the high-energy stress of what this morning will bring.

Jasper yanks the blanket of gray wool off of his body to free himself, standing and striding to the window to check the status of the morning light. After a moment of delay in which his foot becomes tangled in the blanket and nearly trips him over, Jasper looks through the glass. The sky is made up of pale blues and grays, so early he likely could have slept at least half of an hour more.

Turning from the window, he is confronted with his own genius when he spots a clock in the room. He had forgotten it existed and could have easily checked it while still in bed instead of throwing himself at the window.

The clock confirms that he still has much more time available to him than he needs before leaving for his first day as the newest municipal clerk of Cadeus Falls: in fact, he has nearly a whole hour. Still, the luxury of time doesn't prevent him from rushing through his preparations, buttoning his shirt and pulling on trousers as if his overseer in the office will bang on the door any minute.

Jasper takes an apple from the basket on the small corner table and paces, mind mostly empty between bites but stressed nonetheless. He cannot fight through the persisting sensation that this is the first of many such days, where sleep is elusive, stress is imminent, and the day brings no opportunity of joy but that which comes from getting to leave the monotony of a clerk's office at the end of the workday.

The apple finished, he has nothing more to do in the next three quarters of an hour but wait. He contemplates leaving early to take a walk through the town, getting to know it better through exploration. But the prospect of getting lost and ending up late to the office is a very real possibility, and therefore a risk he's unwilling to take.

Jasper moves to sit on the wooden chair by the corner table, but stops when he sees a few things are already atop it. He picks the items up. One is a small hand bell, made of brass. The other is a piece of parchment, rolled and tied with a red ribbon.

Jasper has no memory of either of these things. He had forgotten about the clock though, so it's possible his mind is still clouded by sleep and has momentarily forgotten these as well.

To restart the track of his memory, he places the bell down on the table by the basket of apples and tugs open the ribbon. The note is small and lights nothing of recognition in him at all. It is addressed to him, though: For Jasper, before he forgets.

Before I forget? Too late, Jasper thinks, because he really doesn't know what this is referring to at all.

Deeming the note useless, he tosses it carelessly onto the table. The bell is decidedly more intriguing. The handle is the length of his thumb, and the actual bell has etchings of what look like jasmine flowers around it.

Picking it up, Jasper gives it a careful shake. He blinks as the ring sounds out, clear and more decisive than his tentative shake probably merited, but he stops thinking about the sound completely when his eyes blink back open. His surroundings have completely changed from that of the bedroom he is renting in Cadeus Falls.

He is somewhere where the air is golden.

A second later, he realizes that it is not the air itself that is golden, but the fields surrounding him that the sun is shining on. But there are no fields like this near Cadeus Falls. They stretch out to the right and left of him, broken occasionally in their brilliance by stalks of tall purple flowers that also reach towards the sky. In the middle distance there are stately-looking trees, and farther still are a series of mountains. The sky above is made of the kind of blue that reminds one of how vast and beautiful the heavens must be.

And the air itself may not technically be golden, but the feel of it is, brushing against Jasper's freckled face. The same glowing feel of it spreads to his chest when he takes a breath, brings the distant sound of bells to his ears.

Bells.

He looks down to the one in his hand, then back up at the bright fields around him. There was nothing he could have done to bring about this change of scenery except ring that bell. He is not all the way certain, but he would definitely place a bet on it.

With one last glance at the crisp blue, yellow, and purple beauty that surrounds him, he gives the bell another shake. With no concrete line between one moment and the next, Jasper is no longer in those fields. He is back in his room outside the heart of Cadeus Falls, and the air is back to the kind he knows. Dull, subdued.

Jasper is now sure it is the bell that took him away, and the bell that brought him back. How, or why, are questions out of his capacity to answer. But what a wonderful thing it must be, to be able to take him to such a place. He glances at the clock. The time between finding the note and coming back must have taken hardly any time at all, because there is still half an hour until he has to leave to make it on time for his first day. Perhaps he can go back then. For a little while only.

Eagerly now, he rings the bell. Again, there is no distinction he can make between when he is in his room and when he is there no longer. There is no sudden clap of thunder, no fading of the world around him to make room for another. There is only the sound of the bell as his surroundings are suddenly switched out.

He is disappointed to find that he does not return to that golden field. In fact, he is not outdoors at all.

He is in front of a staircase, in a room filled with books. Jasper reaches a ginger hand out to touch the staircase's polished wooden railing, testing its materiality. Astonishingly, it is solid. Wherever he is is a place of weight and heft, not illusions as he had initially guessed.

To his left and right are bookshelves that reach up far past his height, each one crammed full of texts of different sizes, varying colors shown on the spines. By the corner of the room is a window, under which is a table whose sole purpose seems to be to hold different colored glass lanterns and candles.

The staircase in front of him is not very tall, two Jaspers stacked one on top of the other could likely have reached the platform it lead to. Winding to the left, the staircase was clearly for those wishing to reach the left bookshelves' upper offerings. Indeed, there is someone perusing those high shelves now.

Jasper freezes. He does not know where he is, nor anything about who this new person could be. He could be reprimanded, arrested, killed (however unlikely the latter is). He has no knowledge of the restrictions on entering the place he now stands in. Surely books as abundant and preserved as these are under careful watch and care.

He really should ring the bell right away and get out of here to avoid discovery, but it ends up being only a second that jeopardizes this decision for him.

Light from a high window comes through gently, and touches upon the person's hair. It is evidently a young woman, whose bright red hair is tied in a braid that reaches nearly to her waist. The light, while mild, is enough to catch upon the touches of gold in her hair, reminding Jasper enough of the flickering gold of the fields to give him pause.

That pause is enough to give the woman time to sense that someone is around, and she turns to Jasper too quickly for him to react. Expecting immediate suspicion, Jasper braces himself. He is surprised when instead the woman's expression opens, leaning over the railing to get a better look at him.

"Here for training already? You're almost as early as I am," she says with an encouraging smile.

Jasper just stares. Eventually he gets out, "What training?"

Her eyebrows raise the smallest bit upward. She turns to place a book she had been holding carefully back on the shelf before looking back to him.

"You must not be who I'm waiting for then." After a pause, she adds, "You don't look like a Kalila anyway."

Jasper genuinely can't tell if she's joking or not. Of course I don't look like a Kalila.

Before he can say anything out loud, her gaze hardens. "How did you get in, then? I know you don't already work here, and you've said you aren't in for training."

He has no answer, and her look becomes even more steely at his silence. Apparently having had enough of the mystery, she begins to descend the staircase to reach him and examine the situation properly.

Panicking, Jasper gives the bell a harsh shake. As quickly as before, with no chance to hear any reaction from the red-haired woman, Jasper is back in his room. Shaken, he waits for his heart beat to steady. That was close to being dangerous, almost being caught like that. If she had taken the bell away, what then? How would he have ever gotten back?

He places the bell decisively onto the table this time. It lands with a thud by where the parchment and ribbon already lie. Only then does Jasper look at the clock to find that despite the emotional highs of his recent adventure, barely any actual time has passed. He still has a quarter of an hour before he has to tug on his coat and leave the room.

Hesitantly, he looks back towards the bell. He has gone to wherever that other place is twice now, and his hands now itch for a third occasion, despite the previous close call. Stories always placed an emphasis on three, right? There were always three siblings, always three tasks to complete, always...

Somehow, he could not think of a third example of things happening in threes.

Taking this as a sign, Jasper errs on the sign of caution and leaves the bell alone. He has to push it out of his head to clear his mind for the rest of the day. Take on the role of municipal clerk and nothing else. He will examine it again when he returns in the evening. And maybe he will try it out once more, to go to the place where the people and land shine golden.