seat_five_girl | Time to wake up

Yes, green grass and trees and curious looking mushrooms everywhere.

This looksa clearing in a forest, infact. A rather odlly shaped and large one at that, especially considering how thich the forest is at the edge of the clearing. It almost looks like a wall.

And those mushrooms. Why are they growing in a circle like that?

There is a large, curious looking insect hovering above the circle of mushrooms.

No. That is isn't an insect. It is a tiny woman. Carrying a tiny toolbox. A tiny woman with wings, beetle wings if you know your insect wings.

The tiny flying woman buzzes closer to eye the new arrival at a closer range, right in front of the new arrival's face.

And boy, does the tiny insect lady have huge eyes.

"How the heck did you manage to get yourself so lost in the teleportation matrix?"

She buzzes about the new arrival, as if searhing for something.

"I don't know!" all but wails Ako, "I was just opening the door to go home from Milliways and there was instructions on the floor to pull one of the levers and it happened again and again and ag-again."

The run on sentence ends with a shuddering breath and then another. Ako would like to actually go home now.

Back up to the new arrival's face.

"Seriously? I thought you were dressed a bit odd. Those are some very fancy clothes for a human, but I couldn't remember any royal brats having blue hair like yours."

Blue hair on a human head? Completely normal! But for some reason, humans don't like having blue haired kings and queens.

"You're serious about Milliways? You aren't playing tricks on me are you?"

Sniffle. Nobody likes the bluenettes.

"Why would I? I don't even know you."

"That... does make sense." But.

"You are just lucky you didn't end up stuffed into a beer barrel. Or squeezed into a hose, I suppose. Something must be working right!" There is a noticable degree of relief in her voice.

"So, Milliways. No wonder your ethereal threads are so hard to read. That place is even screwier than this place. It doesn't help that it is technically in the future. Speaking of which… I think I am going need help with this. I am not paid enough to deal with temporally displaced persons."

She flies off a short distance before returning, "Oh, How rude of me. I am Fairy Fixit. What is your name?"

"Ako. Izumi Ako."

A quick rub at her eyes and a bow. Routine is good. Routine is anchoring.

"Where am I anyway?"

"Zanaris. Don't wander around to far while I am gone. there is a slight chance you might turn into a frog or sheep here, but that circle will offer some protection from that."

Just like Milliways!

Well, no, it isn't triggered by a holiday.

Fairy Fixit buzzes off.

Uh-huh.

Ako will just take a moment and start going through her inventory.

Some food. Some ammunition. Some clothing. Some things she didn't put in there.

Where did the IOUs for magic rocks even come from?

"OOO, what is that?"

"Runes! ♫♫♫"

"You should cash that in, those are valuable."

"Can I have them?"

Hmmm, a bunch of people in robes randomly appeared.

Sorry, it happens in Zanaris.

"Gah!"

Don't do that large group of singing people. Seriously.

"Where would I cash in something like this then?"

"♪♪The Bank!" they all respond. "It is right over there♪♪!"

Well that isn't helpful. They are all pointing in different directions.

"Get away from her, you pests," says Cthulu's little brother. Cousin. Distant realative? Maybe, whatever it is, it looks like it got a squid for a head.

The choir disappears. They don't run away, they just disappear.

Squid head approaches, followed by the the fairy. "Just as Tentacles of our Waves was getting exciting," he sighs. "Milliways, Milliways. I'm just not seeing it."

"I know," answers the fairy. "It is very strange."

Probably not little brother. The lack of batwings make all the difference there.

"I don't know how strange things are, really, but I got stuck in the same room, all red stone, the writing on the floor said it was the abyss?"

The IOUs are kept in a pocket while the rest of it is rewrapped and popped back into her sylladex. The large pile of wrapping paper is eyed for a moment and then stowed in the sylladex too. At least until she finds a garbage can or a fire.

Squidhead steps in for a closer look and seems to pluck invisible somethings off of Ako's clothes. "No, no," he says after inspecting a few of those invisible somethings closer. "Can you lift your arms for me? That may knock something loose. Thanks."

"Ah, there it is," he says after picking another invisible something off the floor. "See, it is all frayed, all of them are," he says as he shows something to the fairy. "And this one, it has a different time stamp than what is usual for Milliways."

"Oh, gosh, no wonder I couldn't recognize any of it. That is way later than the requests we usually get," remarks the fairy.

"Yes, and the different time messes with the encoding. Even though most places move linearly in time, the special time and location situation at Milliways require some special hacks to make sure things arrive at the right place and right time. I can't even tell what time these other ones come from."

"… doesn't the time thing mean their timeywhotsitwhowibbly thing is broken?" asks the fairy.

"Uhhh... yeah," answers the squidhead, unsure of what the fairy just said.

Ako has no idea either. She's mostly a normal school girl!

"Um. Can I lower my arms now?" asks Ako, "I know there were some explosions and earthquakes before I left, plus the weather was worse than usual."

"Oh, yes. Go ahead," answers squiddy.

"Well, our deliveries to Milliways have been bouncing back for a while now. They must be moving linearly in time!" the fairy thinks out loud. "Of course, since they were floating around the end of the universe, Milliways might not exist anymore."

"Well, we're certainly lucky that our connection to them broke when they did, if that is the case."

"Hey, wasn't one of the actresses on Tentacles of Our Waves born in Milliways?"

Squiddy's whole head blanches at Fairy Fixit's comment. "I, uhh... have to go make a phone call." He shuffles off.

"Phones don't exist yet!" the fairy shouts after him.

"I'll order one!"

"And what about the people you are going to call?"

"I'll order them phones too!"

"Is there anything I could do to help?"

Let's not think about the issues of Milliways moving forwards to the end of everything just yet.

[ooc: sorry, somehow I didn't notice the IM notifs coming from this thread. Or, wait that is something LJ does, not DW. Damn, another thing I am gonna miss.]

"Ummm... no, I don't think so," answers the fairy. "Now that Tlap' is motivated I am sure he will figure something out in a jiffy," she says with a smile.

"So are you originally from Milliways or somewhere else?"

"No. Originally I'm from one of the Earths," offers Ako, "You get a lot of dimensional travel here?"

"Earth... Terra? No, you said one of the Earths. Oh gods, don't tell me Milliways has to deal with multiple versions of the same reality." One version of several different realities is trouble enough.

Wait...

"Probably, a long time ago, we had a lot of travelers, but then us fairies started settling permanently here. But it's hard to live in peace if you live in an inter-dimensional nexus, so we try to route most travel through unused planes. That was way before my time before we got that working, though. It has probably been a very long time since a human has been in Zanaris."

"But we don't get much travel requests from or to Milliways though; we mostly just get beer, wine, rum, food, and magic routing requests. Occasionally a price check on various markets too. We got a request for the exchange rate on bottle caps once. I think that was a mistake since I have never heard of anyone using that as a currency." Either that or *GASP* there are other inter-dimensional hubs other than Milliways and Zanaris. At least ones that aren't as messed up as Xen.

The toolbox Fairy Fixit is carrying then starts buzzing, giving her a jolt. After a surprised exclamation she lands on the ground, sets the toolbox down, and opens it up.

Is that a fairy sized cell phone?

After giving the buzzing thing a confused look, she fumbles around with it and then finally manages to open it. The noises coming from it finally convince her to put it up to her ear. "Hello?"

Being that she is on the ground and how much taller Ako is than her, it is amazing how far the tiny fairy's voice can carry. "I don't think you want to go back to Milliways," she says, looking up at Ako.

Small body's can have tremendous projection abilities when it some to the voice.

"Oh. Um, how. How bad is it?"

"A black hole, two planet devourers, what feels like a really angry god of destruction, magic storms, a demonic invasion, tears in reality, and a chance of nonexistence. And I mean erased from history nonexistence."

"Gosh, it is almost like someone has been using really powerful rune magic without using flattening spells. I would say that it is about to by bulldozed into another abyss if it weren't for it's location. The whole nonexistence thing is going to be a moot point anyway, eventually."

"Oh. Um."

"What now?"

The tiny cell phone disappears. The fairy is startled by it, but she carries on with the conversation.

"We could try sending you back to your Earth, but that might be harder than finding the thread that connected you to Milliways. I don't think you would like to be sent to the wrong Earth." The wrong Earth. It sounds … wrong. "Or… we could keep an eye on Milliways, but, well, that requires some scary... well, we would be looking way into the future and not a very pleasant future at that. Just that little glimpse we took to find out what is going on is going to cost us..." slight grimace, "I don't know how much."

"In the mean time, we can let you stay here. I just hope we don't get more refugees. We are a bit short on houses your size."

It wouldn't be disastrous necessarily. Ako might know someone who knows a mad scientist or a mage or something, but...

"Being on the wrong Earth would be tricky, yeah," agrees Ako, "And I'll be happy to help out with anything if you someone lets me know what I should do."

Time to wake up

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