“So, um, what’s the mechanism involved in getting from one Earth to another?”

Ember glances around. It sounds, from what Rose just said, that they’re on an Earth now...

"Oh, it's less about Earths and more about--some worlds are adjacent to each other, and others aren't, and you can only go directly between adjacent worlds, usually--there have been exceptions but none of them scale so far--and it's possible to create portals between adjacent worlds! A lot of them are permanent but I can create temporary ones."

“Does that apply to all sort of portals, do you think? Even tinker-tech ones?”

"That they go between adjacent worlds? I suppose I don't know enough about tinker-tech to be sure but I can't see why they wouldn't."

“So that means my Earth has to be adjacent to wherever it was you found me. Because the tinker-tech Displacer Beast used... it didn’t take me anywhere else in between, it portal’d me straight from the site of the ambush to that trippy rainbow room...”

"Yes."

Eeeeee!

This all sounds like good news to Ember!

(She was sure she was going to die. But now not only does she get to live, she gets to go back too? It seems almost too good to be true!)

"It'll still probably take a while," Sharon offers apologetically. "Lots of worlds are adjacent to Lighthome."

"Mmmm. Well." Stay positive. There's no point in not being positive, is there. "I should keep just fine until that happens. And I'll do whatever I can to help, and to make helping me worthwhile. I know that, as a baseline, I don't have much to offer... but of what I have, I'll offer it all."

"That's the spirit! Don't worry too hard about being useful, everyone has something of their own to contribute."

"Dad's as baseline human as you are, and we like him fine."

Oh wow, this sounds like Such A Good Place.

(A good wholesome family. Maybe she and Sharon's Dad can compare notes? So few people understand the stresses and the joys involved in being a baseline who's adjacent to a superhuman.)

"Alright. Please let me know what I could make myself most useful with? I'm good at keeping spaces clean and at tending to clothes... I can cook too but my skill at that's only so-so..." She stops, thinking through her skillset, and laughs a little. "Oh, and I graduated college with a degree in Philosophy? I haven't found much use for that yet, though."

"Is fun a use?" Sharon asks. 

"Yeah, I guess so."

(Ember is very fun. She is used for fun frequently. That is certainly a thing she's reasonably good at...)

"Philosophy isn't very practical, but things don't have to be!"

"Right, yes!"

Philosophy. Of course that's what she'd meant.

(For a second there Ember's mind had gone somewhere else and she has no idea why. She can just be kind of dumb about things sometimes?)

"Dad's a musician; it worked out well for him, but, y'know."

"Mmhmmm. I was fearsome debater at your age. A natural firebrand."

"But then I settled down, same as I imagine your dad did, and I've gotten a little rusty..."

"Oh, Dad still plays! Just not as professionally. Got anything you wanna debate?"

"No. Not right now."

(Starting a random argument, on an alien planet, with the nice people taking her in seems like Possibly Not The Best Idea.)

"Oh well. Let me know if you think of something, that sounds like fun."

"Okay."

"Neddy," it turns out, is a pretty girl Sharon's age; she shows up and the two leave. 

Sharon's dad--Greg, or "Mr. Universe," as Rose flirtatiously calls him--shows up a few hours later. He doesn't bat an eye at Ember.

Greg doesn’t look the way Ember expects the baseline spouse of a high-level-cape-equivalent-to.

(He’s too schlubby. Too round.)

Maybe schlubby is the height of attractiveness here? All beauty is culturally mediated, after all, and she’s a long way from home...

(If she gets stuck here she’ll need to gain weight.)

Why is she thinking like that? She’s going home. 

“Hello, I’m Ember. Nice to meet you.”