Gabe is enjoying having some free time without having to look over the shoulder to make sure his husbands' children are 1) destroying something 2) trying to destroy themselves 3) looking at Gabe's less suitable artwork. Not that he doesn't love the two little critters. But it's good to have time for himself too.
He opens the door to his studio.
That is not his studio.
Well, if a glorybearer went to the trouble of creating an illusion like this, he might as well check it out.
Inside, there is a bar, with a silver-haired girl sitting at it. She looks up at him; her eyes are black as night, and full of falling stars.
"Hey, there! I like the effect in yours, very aesthetic." He looks around taking in the seemingly normal bar and the seemingly impossible view to exploding stars with the same level of cheerfulness. "What's going on?"
"This is Milliways, the bar beyond any universe. I'm from a different one than you, I'd guess. You can get a free drink from Bar if it's your first time here; she's a person. Sometimes the management take over doors in other realities and make them open to here; no-one's quite sure how they do it."
She halfsmiles. "I'm Aurica. You?"
"Gabe Valentine-Oswald. Man, that sounds way more interesting than my first guess." He approaches Bar's countertop.
He gets a stein of worms and mud. That is, gummi worms and chocolate goo. It comes with a large straw.
Gabe is surprised, but takes a sip without hesitation. "Yummy! Well done. I don't know how much an invisible bartender earns but it's clearly not enough."
The management pays well enough. And there are always new travellers to keep me busy.
"Cheers to that!" He raises his glasses. "So, hey you said that you are from another universe?" He turns to Aurica. "What is that like?"
"That sounds tough, why though?" He sips some of his not-actual-worm drink.
"There's a thing in it called the Glitch where you can fall out of the world and die, if you're lucky. I survived, but now my death by loneliness is stalking me. That's where I got these starry eyes from."
"They are cool, but definitely not working that price. Is that death, like, a grim reaper or something?"
"More like a powerful curse. People slip away from me. When I'm most alone in a place where nobody goes, the world starts to fade away, and eventually I'm back falling through the same Glitch I did originally. I always come back, but it takes something from me each time. I know other people dying of memories, lightning and recklessness. We all saw something we shouldn't have, and..."
She looks down into her drink. "Some of us reacted better than others to realizing... the whole deal. We have a club, half to support each other, half to keep an eye on each other. It's called the Chancery."
"Ah, good that you have Glitch Anonymous for that." Sip. "Your world doesn't have any sort of magic to fix it?"
"It has quite a lot of magic, but none of it works on un-things like the Glitch. More mundane things work, though. I was never much of an extrovert before this. Now I'm sitting here talking to a stranger. So it's not all bad."
"We don't have a Glitch and un-things. In the sixties some wacko cultist managed to perform a ritual that actually worked. And now people that are young and talented get magic. We call them Glorybearers, each can make a healing potion and a power potion."
"Yeah, most places are better constructed than my home universe. Tell me more about these potions."
"They are called the fancy names 'elixir' for the healing one, and 'ichor' for the power one. Elixir is made by a glorybearer using water and does something heal-y, sometimes weird heal-y, like, healing lost memories or whatever. Ichor is made from the glorybearer's own blood, it grants a power for a while, but non-glorybearers get tired from drinking it."
He actually knows the term "restorative", but "heal-y" is a personal joke between Henry and the rest of the family.
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