does not anymore work

[campanas]

Here, in a place where she is quite an unexpected sight, is:

an eight year old girl with brown-flecked white wings, looking dismayed and lost.

with Prime (Aestrix)

with Edie and Emily (Maggie)

with Gloria (Maggie)

with Gren (Rockeye)

Comments

[aestrix]

There looks to be some kind of doorway, there, freestanding. It is magic; the room through it has sunlight streaming in through a skylight. There are other doors in it, and they are similarly magical.

[campanas]

Oh, that's promising. It's not the nice bar, but it's something. Pen approaches the freestanding doorway inquisitively.

[aestrix]

It is pretty nonthreatening! It could actually be a regular doorway, except for the fact that it goes to a place far away. And has nothing at all behind it but wall. A warm breeze floats through the door.

[campanas]

Step.

[aestrix]

It behaves exactly like an ordinary door! Except now, she is in a room with a lot of magical doors to other places. It's noticeably warmer here.

[campanas]

She peers around at the additional doors in case any of them lead to the bar.

[aestrix]

Not a one.

[campanas]

Rats. Well, where do they go?

[aestrix]

Lots of places, it looks like. There's some sort of theme, though - bright, well shaded day, or well-lit, frigid night. One would think it'd just be the magic adjusting, but there are no inert lights where there is also sunlight, and no places for shade where there is night.

[darkest_evening]

A man steps through one of them. He looks somewhere in his forties or fifties, gone grey early, and is carrying some kind of staff with a clear crystal globe on it.

He looks through the glass to see the eight year old. He makes a thoughtful humming noise, then looks at her properly.

He says something in another language, curious, but not unkindly.

[campanas]

"Don't know language," sighs Pen. "Only Samarian and English and Edori and Callian."

[darkest_evening]

"Thankfully I just needed to identify yours," says the man in Samarian. "Hello. You look very lost. Can I help?"

[campanas]

"So lost! Do you knowing how go Milliways? Jane put home if I go there asking her, but none of Jane here, no ones of Mommy or Daddy or sisters or anybody."

[darkest_evening]

"I don't know of Milliways. Another plane, I assume? I might be able to find it, if you can specify it exactly enough, or have something from there."

[campanas]

"Milliways is nice bar! Is for going to new places, except did not bring any Jane," she jangles her bracelets; the light catches the opal embedded in her arm, "so cannot going back from this new place."

[darkest_evening]

"Hm, going to new places," muses the man. "Sounds interesting. And somewhat dangerous. Jane... Sounds like a name, but you use it as a noun?"

[campanas]

"Jane her name," says Pen.

[darkest_evening]

"And... If something of hers were here she could bring you back?" he guesses.

[campanas]

"A gem. Mommies have gems of Janes with them all time, but not me. So Jane can't putting me home."

[darkest_evening]

"Ah." He'd comment on the bad design, but she likely knows already. He'll leave it. "Well, aiming for a bar's difficult, but I can try. Is there anything else I can use to find where you came from? I can trace genetics, if your mommies are related to you."

[campanas]

Pen giggles. "Mommy is related! Other Mommies don't know, maybe, probably sort of."

[darkest_evening]

"Then I will look for the one mommy first, and try looking for the others, too, if that doesn't work," he says. "Would you like to come to my home for tea while I look?"

[campanas]

"Okay."

[darkest_evening]

"This way," he says, and he goes to a different door than the one he came from, and ushers the eight year old through.

It's one of the night ones. One of the prettiest of them.

He leads her to his house. It is surprisingly small, but very magic, in lots of subtle ways.

[campanas]

She mostly doesn't notice them.

Although her outfit has no sleeves, she is unbothered by the cold, not even putting her wings around herself.