She has no idea where she is. The cars look off, too - they're not tall enough, with the bubble canopies she's used to. And the air smells a little... acrid, in some indefinable way. 

The purple house seems a little familiar, though. She moves towards it instinctively. Her auntie liked the colour purple... 

(She has no idea what the pride flag means, but its cheery rainbow colours seem comforting too. People with cute taste in decorations are close to her heart. She dyed her hair rainbow once!) 

And then the door of the purple house opens.

Small child at the bottom of her stairs. This is new. Hope the poor dear's not in trouble. The kid looks fairly put-together, with the matching dress, shoes, and stockings, and that cute little purse. But still. 

"Well hello!" The woman's voice is warm, cheerful, and a bit bouncy, despite the noticeable hint of concern. "Are you lost, sweetie?"

She's about 5'8" tall, with purple hair tied back in a braid draping down her back, a lean frame, and modestly full but perky curves, wearing a short, swishy, dark green dress, black leggings, black boots, and a little black jacket with silver buttons that somehow accents the dress nicely.

"Auntie!!!" 

Audrey tackle-hugs Sable, and then doubletakes when she realizes that she's almost a head shorter than her right now. That seems off for some reason but she doesn't know why... 

"I was so scared, I wasn't able to get cell service and I don't recognize any of the houses on this block and I thought the purple one was maybe yours but I didn't know and now you're here! What's going on? Where are we? Is this a surprise of some kind? I think I'm missing some of my memories..."

Um what?

She catches the little cutie and hugs her, though. One does not simply Deprive Kids Of Hugs when they're anxiously glomping you. 

"Hi, sweetie! I think either I'm missing a lot of memories, 'cause I'd definitely remember a cutie like you, or you might have me mixed up with someone who looks like me. Either way, I'll try to be as helpful as I can. Do you wanna sit down and talk through what's going on?"

This is very confusing. There aren't a lot of women that look like her, certainly none with natural purple hair and eyes, or even purple hair that looks as good as hers — though occasionally really good salons come close. This little girl shouldn't be mixing her up with anyone, no one mixes her up with anyone. 

And she doesn't have any nieces this age in her out-of-touch extended family, or at least none that know her well enough to pounce her like this.

Only thing to do is figure out what the kid knows and troubleshoot from there.

"You're Sable Pirates! And, and, um um um who were your systemmates - Maya! And Hailey!" 

Audrey squeezes Sable again and exhales. "I think maybe we're both missing memories. Um - oh! I should have a clan ID in my bag, so I can show you!" 

She unhugs and rummages in her purse, and produces a glossy license card from her wallet, with a group portrait of a woman that looks like she could be Sable if she was twenty years older, a woman that looks a lot like Audrey herself, but about a decade older, a woman with silver hair and an enigmatic smile, about the same age as the older Sable, and a woman with cyan hair and a bright grin. There's an official government seal at the bottom right of the card in hologram, a constellation of five scattered stars, and next to it it says "Clan Treasuresong." 

Audrey points to each one in turn. "Pirates! Stars! Gems!" Then she points at the portrait of the twenty year old that looks like her. "Us! Songbirds!" 

Pirates? Systemmates? What?

Well, the woman in the picture does look like her.

That sure is a government ID from a country that doesn't exist, referencing clans (which also aren't a thing), too. 

This just got big.

Okay.

Seal is higher-quality than a well-funded tween should be able to produce. Better than even talented hobbyists could manage. Probably either real or the product of a dedicated forger, and the kind of project that hires a dedicated forger and an absurdly convincing child actor isn't something she's unraveling here and now.

She always hoped the world was bigger than this one rock.

Nothing for it. Onward as kindly and lovingly as she can manage, as ever.

"Well. This sure is a puzzle, because that does look much more like me than I'd expect, just older, and the you in the picture is older than the you here, too. But the real mystery is this ID, because I don't know of any country in this world called Asterion, nor any that recognize clans as a basic family structure. So I think, sweetheart, that you might be a lot further from home than you expect."

"Oh."

She swallows. 

"You're not Sable?"

She exhales and tries to focus. 

"Um. Is it okay if I come in?"

She smiles softly and opens the door. "That's another weird thing. My name is Sable, and I don't know anyone else with that name, but I've never met you or any of the other people in that photo before. I'll gladly try to figure things out together with you, though."

"No hailey or maya...?" 

Audrey's gaze shoots to Sable's wrist, and finds something missing there that she expects to see. 

(On Audrey's own wrist is a bracelet with a softly glowing pink LED.) 

"You're a singlet???" 

Shock shows through in Audrey's voice. 

"But you must be..." She searches Sable's face. 

Then she lowers her head and sighs. 

"Maybe you're not my Sable then."

She picks herself up from the step where she had flopped to rummage through her purse, and steps through the door into Sable's house with all the dignity and aloofness of a princess who has decided that it is time to be elegant. 

The effect is rather ruined, though, when she dumps out her bag onto the hall table and out comes a professionally bound coloring book of fantasy art, a set of side-advance mechanical coloring pencils, a package of cherry gummies, a tetra pack of apple juice boxes, a keyring in the shape of a dolphin covered with jangling keys, her clamshell touchscreen phone with its sea star charms, and her wallet. 

Audrey goes for her wallet first, and spreads out the cards in it on the hall table for Sable to see. 

Among the cards there is:

- A voter registration card with photo that matches Audrey's current face exactly. She looks about twelve. 

- A card for age of sexual consent that has an image of a slightly older Audrey on it, still young enough to be a teen but older than the twelve-year-old she looks like now. It's hard to tell the exact age from inspection but she looks perhaps sixteen. The back confirms that the bearer has a standard contraceptive implant and grants the owner the right to consume ellecol as well. 

- The clan ID, which on closer inspection names each member of the clan in small print. "Sable", "Eva", "Audrey", and "Topaz" are identified. 

- A recognizable driver's license, issued in "Texcala, Asterion" for "Audrey Songbird & System", with a holographic photograph of an older Audrey, and all the personal details, including her age, which is recorded as twenty. There is a condition on the license that she must wear glasses.

- A transit card for the "Texcala Interlink Transitway." 

- A credit and debit card in the name of Audrey Songbird, both from the Asterion Interlink Bank. Both have chips in them for tap and both of them are made of a matte black semi-metal material. 

- Another debit card in plastic, from "Texcala Regional Automated Tellers". 

- A library card for "Rancala Public Library & Craftspace."

"Maybe I'm not, but I don't mind looking after you while she's not here. Let's see all this."

She looks through it all, frowning thoughtfully.

"That's a lot of documentation from places and institutions that don't exist here. I think you might be in a different world, Audrey."

She's not sure what these mentions of "& system" mean, but she can figure it out in time.

"This world doesn't have consent licenses or ellecol or twelve-year-old voting rights. Do you wanna tell me about what your world is like? Maybe over a drink or a snack?"

"Okay." 

Audrey scoops the cards back up into her wallet and stuffs everything back into her bag, then picks up the set of apple juices (which are labelled in a foreign language Sable doesn't recognize), looks them over, blinks, and then puts them back in her bag too.

"... Okay," she says again, as if steadying herself. "Kitchen?" 

Everything is so confusing but the only way she's going to sort all this out is by talking about it.

"Yep. Lemme just get my boots off."

With that, Sable sits down on the bench, takes off her boots, and puts them on a little shoe rack.

Audrey blinks, realizes she's wearing her shoes still too, and slips them off. They're a pair of lavender flats with a pink flower on the strap. 

Putting them to the side, she slips her purse back onto her shoulder and waits for Sable to lead the way. 

And off they go through the house.

The house is cozy and warm, with neutral tones accented by pops of purple or very dark green here and there. Immediately inside the front door is the little entry room they're just leaving, with a coat closet, a rack for shoes, and a little bench where Sable stops to kick off her boots and put them away. A door just off the entry room seems to lead downward, given how it's tucked underneath a staircase to the second floor just outside the entry room. To their left as they head inward is a little sitting room, with a few shelves full of books, a little seat in the bay window, a really squashy-looking armchair and a big couch set around a coffee table and across from a TV. Continuing further into the house, there's a small washroom, and then the kitchen on the right and dining room on the left. The kitchen seems to be airy and open, with big stone countertops for food prep and plenty of cabinet space to store things. The dining room seems designed to be cozy enough for meals with friends or family rather than fancy dinners. The table is currently round and covered in a lavender tablecloth (though under the tablecloth are hidden fold-out bits to expand if if there are more guests over). The back door leads out to a cute little deck, and has stairs down to the yard.

Once they reach the kitchen, Sable opens a cabinet and starts looking through the snacks. "What kind of thing would you like?"

It's a smaller house than she's used to, but if Sable's the only person who lives here it's really a lot! Where are her clan mates? Where's her girlfriend and her girlfriend's girlfriends? It seems terribly lonely to be so small in such a big place. 

"Um. Any cookies or anything like that? I could use something sweet and I want to save my gummies for when I'm in a really bad mood." 

She nods. "Smart to save a backup cheery treat. Any allergies? Oh, and can you tell me what pronouns you use, sweetie?"

The cabinet appears to contain a variety of cereal bars, fruit bars, some cookies, toasted nori, popcorn, nut/berry trail mix, and snappea crisps. 

"No allergies, but we have sensory sensitivities to vegetable textures? And we're all 'she', or you can refer to us collectively by 'they.'" 

She points to the nut/berry trail mix. "That looks good." 

Trail mix it is! She pulls it out, pours a bunch into a bowl from another cabinet, and puts it away again.

Collective, huh?

Sable is beginning to connect some dots. For all Audrey looks to be in her princess phase still, that didn't sound like the royal we. She thinks she's maybe heard of something vaguely like this? Not sure though, and she doesn't know enough to figure it out on her own.

She'll ask after she gets the girl a drink.

"What would you like to drink, Audrey? I've got some juices, milk, and a few kinds of tea, if you'd like any of those."

"Juice would be nice as long as it's not, like, actually a nectar or something...? Not a warm drink, is what I mean. Do you have warm drinks here?"

She takes the bowl of trail mix and sits in the dining room where she can see Sable, since apparently the kitchen doesn't have anywhere to sit. Probably best not to handle a big bowl of nuts on her benefactor's couch.