"I'm not sure this is strong enough," Gemma says faintly, staring at her cocktail. "How many of us are there now?"

The woman to her right does a quick count. "I make it twelve?"

"We need nicknames," someone says. "We all have the same name, or almost."

"Last names? Unless someone else has a married name of Anderson?"

Heads shake around the table, along with murmurs of agreement.

"What's a last name?" Gemma whispers to Emmalina.

Emmalina shrugs, looking just as lost.

"Do you not have first names and last names? Like, um, I'm Emma Matthews, so Emma is my first name and Matthews is my last name."

"I'm Gemma of H- Fort Weyr," Gemma says, stumbling a bit, "but Fort's not part of my name, it's just where I live."

"Same. Princess Emmalina of Griffinmarsh," Emmalina offers, looking rather pained at the last bit. No one asks, but Gemma pats her hand awkwardly.

The others go around and supply their names. Quite a few of them don't overlap - Gemma, Emmalina, Emarila, Emmeline, Emra and Ruth - and none of them bother with nicknames. The rest make it through Mason, Morgan, Lalindar, Matthews and Anderson before running into trouble.

"How do we not overlap except two Millers?" one of them complains.

"Three, if you count my maiden name," Anderson says apologetically.

"This is weird," Emra grumbles. "Just pick names?"

"Um. I don't know what's different... I live outside Jerhattan at the Center for Parapsychic Talent? I'm a polylinguist?"

"I am, uh. None of those," the other one says with a laugh. "I'm a linguopath studying magical engineering at Selevy University."

"Polylinguist can be Polly, and... uh. Linguopath can keep Miller?" Emarila suggests.

Polly shrugs. "Sure? Apparently we're all the same person anyway? Except for how we're not?"

"Yeah... I don't really understand the whole 'being the same person' thing," Lalindar admits.

"Maybe I'm just hallucinating again," Ruth says sadly, in a voice soft enough to be intended for herself more than the others.

Anderson catches it anyway, and narrows her eyes at her. "What do you mean, hallucinating again?"

"I- I got lost in the woods- I got, abducted or something, I don't know, I can't remember, I- I saw things-" she gulps. "It wasn't a pleasant hallucination. No one found me for months. It took a long time for me to get better."

Anderson looks at her in concern. "It took them months to-" she starts, then stops.

And thinks about barbecue forks and gangs on PCP.

"Do you think you were hallucinating?" she asks.

"Hallucinations always feel real to the person experiencing them," Ruth says.

The words sound- learned.

"What did you think happened?" Anderson asks carefully.

"Oh, all sorts of things," Ruth says, looking away. "The doctors said, um, the malnourishment and mistreatment led to a, uh, mental break. I mean... Fairies don't actually exist."

"If it helps... fairies definitely exist where I'm from," Mason puts in. Emmalina, Morgan and Anderson nod in agreement.

 "And that's why you're probably hallucinations!" Ruth says, voice rising with stress. "I don't want to go back, they're going to send me back-"

Anderson draws her away from the table before she can keep going, arm around her shoulders.

"She means her parents, doesn't she," Emarila says sadly. It's not a question.

"Do we all-" Emmalina starts, then stops when she sees everyone nodding. "All our parents are like that?"

"Mine aren't!"

"You're-"

"-adopted!"

"They're still great," Emra says stubbornly. "My egg parents only gave me up because I'm a shren, and my parents knew I was a shren and took me anyway."

"What's a shren?"

"No one has shrens?" Emra says, looking surprised by the confirmations. "That's... Probably good? Shrens are- they can happen to dragons, sometimes. Shren eggs instead of dragon eggs. It's- we're- bad. We can't fly, and it hurts, and- it's good, not having shrens."

Morgan nods with understanding. "I'm a monster, too."

"We're not monsters, just... being a shren is bad?" Emra tries.

"At least you can look like a human. I'm stuck in Avalon with the other monsters."

"...um. Are you a weird kind of centaur somehow? Centaurs where I'm from aren't monsters..."

"Uh, I don't know what you mean by 'weird', but I think I'm a normal centaur? Um, at least of the ones I've met. Monsters just can't look like humans, we don't have shapeshifting medallions."

"And what, you just... let people call you a monster!?"

"That's what you're called if you don't have a medallion!"

"At least you have magic?"

"Trade you."

Anderson looks up from the corner where she's been soothing Ruth. "Gods almighty, you all need therapists."

"Not you, Ruth, you need literally anything else."

"Do you have one?"

"Not right now, but I've had one, yeah. I'm married, remember? I, uh, had to get through wedding planning somehow." Various Emmas nod in understanding. "My parents cared weirdly a lot about, well, weirdly a lot."

"Yeahhhh. Just... no one let our parents matchmake for you," Emarila advises wearily.

"...what happened?"

"They, uh. Kinda dropped me off a cliff?"

"Wait, what?!"

"Yours too?" Emmalina sighs. "Mine had me kidnapped by a dragon."

"No seriously, what?!"

"No wonder my parents signed up for Kidnap Teenage Girls, Incorporated."

"They didn't mean to drop me off the cliff," Emarila feels compelled to add. "The other mages just said the platform would stop, not that I'd fall."

"Yeah but, uh, they still did drop you off a cliff?"

"My parents often speak of presenting me at court, but have yet to arrange the journey to the City. I suspect I may need to refuse, if this is what their matchmaking will yield me."

"You talk funny!"