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.

??

"Warm drinks? Only kind of warm drinks we have here are temperature, like hot cocoa or tea or coffee."

She opens the fridge. "I've got a nice tangerine-mango juice blend that's really yummy, how about a glass of that?"

"That'll work." 

And then Audrey blinks. "Oh, right, you said you didn't have ellecol - a drink is warm when it has ellecol in it. Usually it's put in coffee or juice."

"Huh! Yeah, the name sounds a little like alcohol, but we wouldn't usually describe the effects as warm."

She pours two glasses and brings them over, handing one to Audrey and sitting across from her at the table. "What's ellecol do?"

"It helps you focus, at first at least. Then it starts to make your senses finer and makes you aroused. One or two drinks is a good time, three or four will make everyone your girlfriend, five or six and you'll be having muscle spasms and puking on the floor. I usually stick to one drink; that's the limit at the il'ka I go to." 

Audrey seems completely frank in her account, as if she's completely forgotten what she looks like right now. Which may well be the case. 

She sips her juice lightly and rests it on the table, and has a handful of nuts. 

"We have alcohol where I come from, but it's a sanitizer and not a drink. I can't imagine anyone would find it pleasant in comparison to ellecol."

That. Sure is a twelve-year-old talking about arousal, girlfriends, and implied sex.

"Wow! That sure sounds like an improvement over alcohol. Maybe we just don't have the right plants to discover it or something."

She takes a sip of her juice. "Oh! Another question I wanted to ask, before I forgot: you were using 'we' and 'us' and 'collectively' earlier, and I was wondering what you meant by that. That's not very common here, so I'm curious if it's just a language thing or if something else is going on there."

"You're all singlets?" 

Audrey looks as if something fundamental has just been turned on its head. 

"Okay let me explain."

"On Terra, it's normal for people to facet around the age of ten, developing one or more alternate selves that go on to become their own identities in that body. Most people have between three to six selves, but some may be as crowded as thirty. Generally these internal facets will share memories, but present significantly differently in style of dress, speech, personal likes and preferences, preferred aesthetics or mythological roles, and similar. The facet that's most forward - that speaks the most to other people - is known as the "host" or sometimes the "heart" of the system - a system is a group of people in one body - and being the one speaking to others outside the system is called 'fronting.' I'm the host of the Songbird System - Audrey is my personal-name, and Songbird is my system-name. There are two other people in here with me - my shield, Lily, and my spark, Foxbox. Shields protect, sparks play and have fun." 

Why does she feel some kind of way about that?

...Not now.

"That sounds fascinating. It sounds like a nice way to never really be alone. We definitely don't have much of that here. I've maybe heard of something a bit like it, but it's probably badly misunderstood, like most ways people can be different."

"I'm getting the impression this world is kind of just... worse than the one I come from. Between drinking alcohol, not letting tweens vote, and you saying people would be shunned for having more than one self..."

She blinks, long and slow.

"Am I going to have to deal with your Exception Handling branches being incompetent too? There's places where they don't work well on Terra too, but they're small places like Derim of the Rising Flame, not - the kind of place you'd expect to hit by random." 

She frowns. "Exception Handling... sure sounds like the kind of government agency I really wish existed here. If they do what it says on the tin, then that job is handled — poorly — by a hodge-podge of different departments, from the police to social workers to the military."

"Oh. Oh dear."

Audrey frowns. 

"... what rights do I have then? I was assuming things would be fine even though I look like this, but if tweens can't vote..."

"Not a good look for my world, but you basically don't. Parents and guardians can be arrested and the kids taken away for physical or sexual abuse, but that's basically it. Kids without parents or guardians get housed with foster parents and sometimes eventually adopted, but the process tends to be an awful mess. I actually just six months ago got certified as a foster parent just so there would be more good ones."

She tilts her head. "How old are you, anyway? You look twelve, but one of your IDs has a picture of you older and says twenty, and you talk like you have more experience than I'd expect from a twelve-year-old."

"I... I'm not sure. I remember having taken the voting exam, that's the last thing I recall. So I'm probably at least twelve. But there's so much evidence of my being older, on the other IDs... something isn't right. It feels right for me to be this young but I don't know if that's a - physical identity thing or a mental identity one, if you get what I'm saying. Looking at the pictures on the licenses I do feel that they're also me, and not relations of mine, but my memory is really spotty..." 

She tilts her head. "The juices I have on me have ellecol in them, and it'd have been illegal for me to have them on my person in Asterion if I hadn't passed the age of consent bar, but I don't remember taking the exam for that at all. My mind seems... light? Graceful? Not noticeably inhibited? But I don't know for sure. I certainly was quick to grab a stranger when you showed up. Tentatively, I think what might have happened is that I've lost years off my life. There was more of it at some point, but I'm younger now, at least in some ways."

"Normally I wouldn't be so quick to suggest magic, but, well... We're already talking about alternate universes here." 

"Odd. Very odd. That... suggests some things about how we handle this. It's possible to find foster or adoptive parents who won't just treat you like a slightly precocious Earth twelve-year-old and exclude you from any decision where your input is inconvenient, but rare, and we're going to need to finesse things a bit, depending on what you want to do from here."

She is not sure she trusts normal foster parents to raise this kid.

Possibly she shouldn't believe the alternate world story so quickly, but all that ID is pretty convincing.

The cops are going to be trouble. They're the best way to get social workers for placement quickly and to get Audrey and her... other selves? The other girls in her head? Facets, she called them? To get them into the system and get a social security number, but unless they get lucky with which cop they get, the otherworldly stuff is going to turn this into a circus.

And the cops and social workers just straight-up can't be told about the facets, not until Sable learns more about it all herself. It sounds like it's normal on their world, and that means that there are proper ways to handle it that America's mental health system will fuck up badly if given the opportunity.

Well, good thing she's got this week off.

"Well. That's... complicated, for sure." 

Audrey lets out a breath.

"I still like you and all, but I'm going to let Lily forward for the moment because this is - too much to process all at once. Sorry. Um. I hope you like her." 

And she sits up straighter in her chair, and meets Sable's eyes with a gaze that would almost be intimidating if it wasn't on a twelve year old girl. 

"Okay. I think I can trust you to sort this out, and I don't exactly have better options from what you've said. On our world the thing to do now would be for me to shut up - since I'm not even considered a party to the negotiations - and let you handle it. I'm a bad liar but I can genuinely like you honestly, I think, you've been sweet so far despite everything." 

She crosses her arms over her chest. "What do you expect the police to object to about my situation?"

"Good to meet you, Lily. I'm glad Audrey and Foxbox have you to look out for them," she greets her with a smile.

"As for the police, we probably can't mention facets at all, unless we want badly broken mental health institutions involved. The thing I'm stuck on is whether we go open on the alternate world and put up with the resulting circus, try just naming your parents from your world and using non-full-disclosure to get you out of telling any actual lies, or try to swing amnesia. The police are basically going to be useless for figuring out anything about how you got to this world, and they have absolutely no processes for this. We'd see a lot of disbelief, confusion, and frustration, at least until someone actually sat down and studied your documents. Either or both of us would probably be assumed to be crazy."

"Which set of parents? Our aunt Sable mostly raised me, but Eva and Topaz were both there too to different degrees, and all of them had lots more girlfriends who helped out, like Method and Sisters and Sunflower and Duskwing and Gardenia and Imp and Dragoness. My biological parents are Eva and Sunflower, but Sunflower isn't even in the clan, she just happened to be willing to bear for Eva." 

She shakes her head. "I think the second thing is best, if we can get our story straight. I'm relatively good at selectively leaving out information; lies of omission are my best kind. And being the focus of media attention is bad enough when it's not on a planet where people drink alcohol for fun. There must be schizophrenics on this planet as well, yes? Large fame attracts them like moths to flame. Better to stay quiet."

"Too true. I don't think much good would come of the circus. If we really want someone to look into how you got here, far better to quietly bother carefully-selected academics later, after you're settled in. Probably you tell the cops about Eva and Topaz, then. It would be too odd of a coincidence for there to be a Sable who raised you and a different one who found you, and naming parents you feel attached to will probably help."

"I can put feeling into loving Eva and Topaz, for sure. Both of them are lovely, even if they had a little less time for me than you did. Or, well, than - the other Sable did. Sorry, that's still tripping us up, it seems like far too much of a coincidence." 

"I can see how it would throw you off. Do you wanna tell me about her? Either now or after we deal with the cops?"

"She raised me very gently and lovingly. She was always there when I needed support or help. Just incredibly patient and sweet. And she always had time - well, except for weekends when she had her dates with the rest of the polycule, but that's entirely to be expected. Usually she'd have me on weekdays and I'd see Eva in the kitchen or Topaz in the study when I was feeling more put-together. She was really an excellent mom, even if she was only my mom's girlfriend. I say "aunt" but - I think that's actually not what it means in this language? I have a feeling like it doesn't quite fit. The word I'd say on Terra comes out as - 'sister-wife'? That feels clunky. 'Metamom', maybe?" 

She giggles. "I have no idea how I'm speaking this language or how it's on most of my documents by the way, it feels weird to be able to talk to people from a whole other planet!" 

"Whatever the case... She was so patient and kind. Sometimes she would be her shield Maya, who was a battleship-woman, and who would hug me really tight as her solution to everything. It worked, too. Or on worse days when she was angry about things going on in the world she'd be her other shield, Hailey, who was more irritable and willing to be fierce but still had a really good heart. She had a couple sparks too - Ruby and Neo - and they would sometimes tease or play with me. Ruby baked really good cookies. Mostly I saw less of them though because they were less... mom-like. And I think I'm forgetting something more, but I don't know what it was..." 

Oh, that's so sweet and good.

That... makes her feel some kind of way, though.

Parts of the description of the other facets feel... weird.

Not the time, though.

That really does sound like what she would do, how she would raise a cute daughter in a world like that.

"Awww. It sounds like y'all had a really great relationship, and she sounds like exactly what I'd aspire to be as a parent. Which is really weird, and starts to make me wonder if people repeat on other worlds ever. But well, that's very good. I'm really glad you had her, and that she was so good to you. And I'm sorry you're apart from her now. You must miss her, and your other parents, an awful lot."

"I haven't really had time to yet, you know? It's been what, an hour? But I'm sure I will if I stay here too long. So... for now, let's try to focus on taking it one day at a time, you know?" 

"Wise. Clever girls, the lot of you. Well, I haven't met Foxbox yet, but I'm sure she'll be just as delightful."

"Okay, so I think that sounds like a plan on the parent situation. As for how you got here, what if we go with something like... the last thing you remember is yesterday, when you were taking a test — which is an Earth-incompetence-friendly oversimplification of the voting certification you remember, and looking forward to telling your parents that you passed. Then the next thing you know is you found yourself on my street and I happened to step out while you were getting your bearings. And just say you don't know your address, don't know your parents' last names, and so on. How's that sound?"

"Sounds sensible to me. And we're just pretending my bag wasn't with me?"

"Yeah, just going to fail to mention it at all. If the cops want fuller disclosure than this, they can invent an Exception Handling department or at least be more trustworthy."

"Okay."

Then she pauses. 

"You do have the internet here, right, it's not - locked down or doesn't exist or something -"

"We do! It's great. We're even starting to get new things like touchscreen phones with internet access and things like that, just the past year or so."

"Those were so common as to be a fact of life on my world. Everyone had one except extreme asrai luddites. I think between that and my version of you looking older we might be a little bit ahead of you, time wise." 

She exhales. 

"Still. Some internet is better than no internet at all."

"In any case, we should probably get the authorities out of the way before they start messing things up for us."

"Which they can absolutely be counted on to do if we let them. Okay. Off to the car with us."

Sable takes the empty bowl and glasses back to the sink, rinses them out, and sets them into the dishwasher, then leads the way back to the entryway to put her boots back on.

Lillian troops obediently after her and puts on her flats. At least looking princessy is likely to make her more underestimated, right?

It totally will. Into the car they go, Sable makes sure Lily's buckled up, and then she starts the car. "Wanna listen to music on the way over?"

She gets into the car and nods. "Sure! What do you have?"

"A big collection of bands and possibly even genres you haven't heard of!"

She pops open the glovebox, pulls out her big binder of CDs, and starts flipping through. "Tell me what kinds of music you like and we'll figure out if I've got anything similar."

"I prefer electronica and when possible electronically-influenced classical, but I'll take regular classical in a pinch, especially anything with violin or cello. Foxbox likes pop punk and anything with electric guitars. Audrey likes folk and storytelling songs, plus electronica again."

"Or I could try to sing you some folk songs from my world, though I'm not that great at singing."

"Ooh. Electronica, including classical-inspired, as well as pop punk and folk, I've got all of those for sure."

She flips the binder to a page showing some albums by various electronica artists, including Pendulum and Tiesto.

"But now I'm really tempted to hear some folk songs from Terra."

Lillian picks out Hold Your Color by Pendulum, mostly on the strength of the really cool album art. 

"I can sing some snatches of things, but I never learned a lot of songs. I did memorize Jabberwocky, if you have a Louise Mirror here. Let me try this one -" 

She clears her throat and tries to sing a ballad. Her voice wavers a little and is a bit off key but the tune is broadly recognizable.  

Once there was an astronaut who sought to build a land

of green and shining water from Ares' reddish sand

and brought from earth a magic seed to plant it on the plain

and Ares took that seed and gave only this refrain: 

Space is vast and cold and dark

and in it we are but a spark

of light to shine amid the void

enough to make you paranoid

that humankind will sputter out

but we're still here, so raise a shout

and grow, grow, grow, little seed, seed, seed

humanity is a tough old weed! 

Once there was a venturer who broke the permafrost

Once there was a climber to Asrai's far-off tops 

Once there was a pioneer to break the vasty plain

So off away to the frontier we venture once again - 

"And then the chorus repeats. It's a relatively modern song since the moon landings but I like it. I forget the bridge right now, I'm sorry." 

"Awww! That's a great song! Thanks for sharing it, Lily!"

She coughs, manages a smile, and puts the CD into the CD player. She does recognize this technology, though it's kind of antiquated on her homeworld. 

And they enjoy the music the whole way there. Once Sable parks, she turns to Lily and asks, "We should figure out what name we're going to give the police for you, since y'all have three."

"We'd be most comfortable with Audrey, even me and foxbox, if we're going to share a name. And this is maybe silly, but where and when are we?"

"Today is the seventeenth of March, which is the third month of the year and sits on the border of winter and spring, in the year two thousand eight. Today is Monday, the first workday of the week, but we lucked out that I have this week off. And we are in the city of San Francisco, in the state — like a province — of California, in the United States of America, one of the three most powerful nations, and maybe top… twenty? top fifty? most sensible. That give you about the context you need?"

"It's enough to get by with, I think." 

Lily takes a breath. "We may cry in there, just so you know. Getting questioned by a medical professional who doesn't even have my interests at heart is... messy, and if Audrey is in front the homesickness might hit her. But we should be okay as long as I stay in front. It's my job to protect, after all."

She nods. "If you're crying, or for any reason at all, don't hesitate to ask for me, although they shouldn't need us separate for too much of this. Probably don't call me auntie in there, though, that might confuse them. Probably you just know me as Miss Sable."

"I'll do my best not to confuse them."

She looks out of the car. "That building on the left?", she asks. 

"Yep. I'll do most of the talking until they take you aside for a few questions."

"Okay. Here goes."

She gets out, walks around to Lily's side and lets her out, and then offers her hand on the way in.

Lily takes it. It's a comfort.

She's still not quite used to how short she is, but she'll be okay. 

And in they go. Sable walks up to the front desk and greets the officer there. "Hello, officer."

The officer on duty looks up from the desk, and his gaze goes over the pair of them. Purple haired woman in a dark green dress with a warm but slightly worried smile, with a not quite so little child who can't be older than twelve, dressed in a lavender dress that's slightly too big for her, a pink pleated skirt, pink arm warmers, long pink and white striped socks, and flower-petal flats. Her hair is pink too. The kid looks like she's trying to be brave, but she's holding on to the older woman's hand pretty hard. 

"Hello there," he says, directing his gaze first to Lily and then to Sable. "Is our little lady here lost, perhaps?" 

(It's the princess dress. Nobody comes to the police in a princess dress if they have anything else to wear.)

He pulls a notepad from his desk, somehow managing to keep his smile bright and professional. Best not to scare the kid further.

Oh good, an officer that knows the basics of being nice to children. Off to a pretty good start, here.

"Yep. Little miss Audrey here turned up on my front step this morning, found her just as I was stepping out to hit a café with my morning paper. No memory of how she got here, last thing she remembers is a test she took yesterday. Decent odds we need to see a nurse, just to be safe, and definitely missing child reports. Doesn't know her address or I'd've just driven her wherever that was. Her moms have got to be worried sick."

There, that should be enough framing that he won't ask any questions that have a chance of throwing Lily off when it comes time for her turn getting questioned.

The officer nods along. "No memory of how she got there, huh? That is concerning. I'll have an EMT take a look at her. When did you say you found her, and where?"

He takes down notes in shorthand as he talks. 

"Early sevens, on my front step." She gives her address. "Just stepped out and there she was."

He takes down the date, time and address in shorthand. It's a little slow for Sable to have gotten her here, but factoring in the time it must have taken to get her calmed down about being separated from her family it's not suspicious. 

"I would have noticed if there was a missing child report for our little highness," the officer says. "With that pink hair she's pretty distinctive. Either her family hasn't noticed she's missing yet or she's a long way from home. I'll try the national reports and see if I get a hit. You said she has two mothers - were you able to get their names out of her?"

"Yeah, Eva and Topaz. She didn't know their last names."

Topaz, huh. That's a new age hippie name if he's ever heard one. And fairly rare. That seems to indicate west coast, along with the "two moms" thing. 

Slightly odd phrasing saying "their last names", wouldn't they be the same? He supposes that if they're a gay couple they might not be. 

"Alright," he says. "I'm going to have to ask the little lady to come into an examination room to be looked at by one of our EMTs and ask her a couple questions." He gives her a reassuring smile. "Don't you worry now, little miss, we're here to help as best we can."

Man, fostering's going to be hard on this kid if he has to put her into the system. He should see if he knows anyone on the welfare side... 

Interestingly, when he looks Sable up in his database, she is listed as a newly-registered foster-mom, having just been certified six months ago.

Sable turns to Lily and squeezes her hand encouragingly. "I'll be right here if you need me, okay?"

"Okay." Lily lets a little of her anxiety bleed through in her voice. "See you Miss Sable."

She squeezes her hand back once, sharply, then lets go and steps in close to the desk. "Where should I go to see the nurse?"

Cute kid. She's really putting on a brave face, trying to be very grown up in this grown up situation. 

He blinks when he sees Sable's name registered in the database, and supresses a smile. Now that's a lucky break. Sable seems more or less on the up and up — if she'd wanted to keep the kid she could've just not brought her here, probably, though eventually the neighbours might talk — and the kid seems to be clinging to her pretty hard, so the placement seems obvious. It is a bend of the rules, but he doesn't see the harm in it. 

"Right through that door there," he says, pointing to an interview room. "I'll just be right back with the nurse."

Lillian goes through the door and into the interview room, trepidation in her heart. It's scary, being alone in a strange police station with no-one she knows in a world that seems much worse than her own. But she'll be brave. She's got to do this for Audrey and Foxbox. 

Moments later, the EMTs arrive, a stocky man with black hair and a slender ginger woman with a kind smile. "Hi there, sweetie. I'm EMT Joy, and this is my partner, EMT Corwin. We're going to check you over to make you're you're safe and healthy. How're you feeling right now?"

"I feel okay. A little scared but that's only 'cause I'm lost."

"That's good. Not hurt anywhere? No aches or stings or scrapes?"

She shakes her head. "No, none of those."

"Good. Okay, now my partner is going to check your blood pressure and heart rate while I ask you some questions, okay? You might need to slide your cute arm-warmers down a bit to get the cuff on, though."

EMT Corwin has gotten out a blood pressure cuff hooked up to a small machine, along with a few other sensors.

"Okay."

Actual medical devices she recognizes being employed helps, weirdly enough. It feels soothing.

She slides off her right armwarmer, stuffs it in her skirt pocket, and offers her arm. 

While EMT Corwin fastens the cuff around her arm and starts taking measurements, EMT Joy starts asking questions. "Thank you, sweetie. Can you tell me your name?"

"Audrey." That's the whole system's name so it's technically not even a lie.

"Thank you, Audrey. It's good to meet you. Do you know where we are right now?"

"We're in the city of San Fransisco, in California, in the United States of America. This is a police station, I don't know what the name of it is though. Miss Sable told me where I was on the way over, I don't recognize any of those names."

Okay, so the kid is honest to a fault, and doesn't recognize anything. She doesn't seem to be lying, either, there's no familiarity with any of those place names. That's some support for Elm's hippie commune theory.

"Good job. What day is it today?"

"March seventeeeeeenth?" Lillian stretches out the second word, suddenly unsure of the day Sable gave her. 

Joy frowns a bit but nods. It fits that she might not be sure, given what was said about her memories. "Can you remember how you got here?"

"Miss Sable drove me over and we listened to music in the car. It was really good too!"

"Oh? I'm glad you enjoyed that. And what about before that?"

"Before that she found me on the street outside her house. I hugged her because she looks a little like my auntie Hailey and I confused her for her. She helped me calm down, brought me inside, gave me juice and trail mix, and after I'd had my snack we came right over in the car. I don't know how I got on that street and don't recognize her neighbourhood."

All true statements! She is so good at this.

That explains some of the quick attachment, and the story checks out with what Ms. Miller told Elm. No obvious signs of lying, either.

"What's the last thing you remember before that?"

"Doing a test online at home. I passed it and I was going to tell my moms about it but I don't remember seeing them after that."

So they had the internet in their little commune? Interesting, but too surprising. Does suggest someone in the commune took the kid, though.

"Thank you, sweetie. That must've been scary, not knowing where you were. Can you tell me your parents' names?"

"Eva and Topaz!" She immediately brightens at the thought of them, despite the circumstances. "They're really really nice."

"Awww! I'm sure they are, and I'm sure they're very worried. Can you remember anything that might've happened to you, between taking your test and winding up on Miss Sable's street?"

"No, I'm sorry, it's a total blank. Kinda scary."

That reads as true too. Joy nods. "Yeah, I bet it is. Can you count to ten for me?"

"One two three four five six seven eight nine ten." And thank her lucky stars for whatever translation effect is running that lets her do that. 

"Good girl. Can you tell me what you had for breakfast this morning?"

"I have no idea."

Consistent. No evasion, no hedging. No signs of a way to get at the memories the long way around.

"Thanks for trying, Audrey. Can you tell me the color of your dress, without looking?"

"Lavender."

Okay. Basic working memory is functional. No signs of cognitive issues.

"Good job. And how are you feeling now?"

"Okay. A little scared I won't be able to see my family again, but Miss Sable is nice and you seem nice too, so I hope we'll be able to find them."

(A patchwork of unrelated true statements. She is so good at this.)

"Well I'm glad you like me. I certainly try to be nice whenever I can. And if you could pick one thing to do today, what would it be?"

"See my mom Topaz again. But if I have to pick something I think will actually happen then I think it would be getting a big hug from Miss Sable."

Awww. Very practical kid, trying hard to be brave. "Well, I bet she'll bee glad to give you a hug when you see her next. Okay, last thing we need to check, Audrey, is your blood sugar. I'll need to prick your finger, and it'll sting just a bit. Can you hold your hand out for me?"

"Alright." She offers her hand.

And EMT Joy carefully pricks it with a fresh lancet, then collects the sample and hands it to Corwin for testing before putting a bandaid on Audrey's finger. "Thank you, sweetie. Now, since you were so good and brave, would you like a sticker?"

She holds out a few sheets full of pokémon stickers.

Aww, cute, they have cuddlemons here too! 

She takes a sticker of a Ninetales, mostly for looks. 

"Thank you!" she chirps.

"Ooh, Ninetales is so pretty. Good choice." She clips out the Ninetales sticker with the backing, so the kid can have her choice where to stick it later. "Okay, all done. I'll take you out to see Miss Sable now, okay?"

She stands up and offers her hand.

"Okay!"

She takes EMT Joy's hand, gets up, and manages a little smile. It's totally because of the sticker. One hundred percent. 

Cute kid. She leads the way back out to the waiting area.

"Welcome back," Sable greets Lily, arms open for a hug if she needs one. "How're you doing, sweetie?"

She hugs Sable firmly. 

"Good. I got a sticker!" She holds up the little Ninetales. 

A few minutes later, Elm comes out from behind the desk. While he thinks it'd be nice to get some more details out of the kid regarding what her house looked like and where it was, since she remembers being there, he has enough to work with that it's probably not worth pressuring the kid to say more right now. He can do a phone interview later if the family doesn't show within a few days. 

"Ms. Miller," he says. "I'd like to take you aside for a moment if I could?" He's holding what is recognizably a foster intake form in his hand.

"Awww, that's really pretty."

She squeezes Lily protectively.

Then she looks up at Officer Elm's words.

Oh? She's seen one of those before, during foster orientation. 

She looks back to Lily. "I'll be back in just a minute, sweetie. Stay right here for me?"

"Okay!"

Officer Elm draws Sable aside into an interview room and clears his throat. 

"This is irregular as hell, but I noticed you're in the foster system, and looking at the cute kid out there and seeing how much she likes you already, it just seems cruel to make her take a placement with some other random foster house that probably has a half dozen kids all together. You're new to this, but she seems like a sensible enough kid to be alright for a first-timer like you. So... understanding that this absolutely happened through the proper channels..." He hands Sable over the intake form. "Fill this out and I'll file it with the foster program on your behalf, alright?"

"Oh, wow. Thanks for the trust, Officer, I won't let you down. You'll get a social sorted for her so I can put her on my insurance?"

She sits down at the table and starts filling out the form. It doesn't take very long.

"Yeah, I'll sort it. I know a couple people in that branch. Obviously it's just till her actual family is found, but you know the clearance rate for missing-child cases of this kind as well as I do." 

He sighs and rubs his forehead. "Oh, and any information you can get about the house she lived in before she got here would be great to have, just for those extra slivers of a percent that we find her real folks. I saw the way she lights up when she talks about her moms; if she can get back to them it's worth prodding and poking at her a bit, and I figure you probably will have better rapport with her than I would."

She nods. "If she gives me anything you can use, I'll pass it on, for sure."

There's no chance of anything the Songbirds remember being useful, of course, because of the alternate world problem, but if something miraculously turns out to be something the police could use helpfully, she'll pass it along, definitely.

"I really hope she gets to see them again. I wanna meet the women who raised such a sweet and brave kid, they clearly did a good job so far."

Yes, she does want to meet them. Including her apparent alternate self??? The multiverse is weird.

Lying with the truth is something Sable is an old hand at, for all that she doesn't usually have much cause to use it.

Elm nods. "Thanks." 

He takes the completed form and gestures to the door. "Take the kid home for now, she needs somewhere to sleep the night anyway. And thanks for coming in promptly too, I know it must've been a disruption to your schedule especially on a Monday."

"Any disruption's worth it to take care of a lost child. You've got my number, give me a call when you've got a temp SSN for her. Have a good day, Officer Elm, and thanks for the help."

Out she goes.

She smiles at Lily when she gets back to the waiting room. "What d'you think about coming to stay with me until we find your moms, sweetie?"

"That sounds wonderful," Lillian says with genuine warmth in her voice. "Back to your house again then?"

"Yep. Let's go think about maybe getting some lunch in you, then we'll get you some clothes."

"Alright!" Lillian puts all the enthusiasm she can muster into the word, which is considerable. 

And out they go to the car. Sable makes sure Lily gets in okay, shuts the door behind her, and then gets in as well.

Then she lets out a breath.

"Well, go us. That went perfectly."

She starts the car up.

"I did end up telling them you look like my auntie Hailey. I hope that was okay." 

"Yeah, that should be fine. Not something they can do much with, and helps them explain why you latched onto me so quick."

She pulls out of the parking lot.

"Any preferences for lunch?"

"I have no idea what the names of any of the local cuisines are. Do you have fast food? Persine wraps? Uh, Ohalan food? Pizza? Wursts?" 

"Yes, no idea what a persine is, describe Ohalan food and I'll tell you if it matches anything here, yes, and lastly wursts sound like bratwurst which is a type of sausage here."

"Persines are a very common fruit on my world. They'll grow just about anywhere and they have compounds in them that are the basis for our modern hormonal birth control. Women have to avoid them when they're trying to catch a baby, but they're less major a part of the diet these days than they used to be centuries ago. It used to be that if you were poor enough to have to eat persines consistently you just couldn't have children, and you'd have to avoid them deliberately to conceive. Ohalan food is fish and tropical fruit mostly, like salmon fillets and sushi and pineapple and stuff like that. Wursts are a sausage in a bun wrap thing with sweet sauce." 

"Persines don't exist here and I wish they did, they'd probably change the politics around birth control a bit. Ohalan sounds like Japanese crossed with Hawaiian: fish is popular in both, sushi is Japanese, pineapple is more common in Hawaiian cuisine. Wursts are hot dogs, the technical name for the specific type of sausage used is a Frankfurter, but that type has been casually called a hot dog after the bun-wrapped meal for a while now, and you can use other types of sausage as well. Are those some of your favorites?"

"More things I expected you to have than things that were my absolute favourites. Though pizza is good. I just figured it was more likely I'd find something similar in fast food."

She nods, thinking. "Well, all of those exist except persines. Any other options you want to check on? Also, wanna tell me more about the texture sensitivity you mentioned this morning?"

"I can't eat anything green and leafy, and most vegetable textures are troublesome for me. Starchy vegetables like potatoes are fine, squishy vegetables like peas and beans are fine, fruit textures are fine, it's specifically the structured or crunchy textures of things like bell peppers or lettuce or cabbage or even onion if there's too much of it. It's not at all an uncommon thing in my world, maybe as rare as needing glasses? It helps if there's some other texture in the dish that overwhelms it - wraps are usually good unless they have a bunch of leaves in them, but I can eat, like, diced tomato, most kinds of salsa, and stuff like that if it's in a wrap with meat. I can't manage salads, some people in my world can but I'm not one of them." 

She nods thoughtfully. "Okay, that changes up which veggies I stock. Hm. Most things I put onion in can have it cooked down enough to lose all the crunch. Peppers can be just swapped out, we can get most of that flavor through spices derived from the peppers than the peppers themselves. Lettuce almost never plays an important flavor role. Yeah, this should be pretty doable, and drowning any remaining veggie textures in meat and sauce and bread should be easy enough. We'll just make sure to get you a good multivitamin that covers anything you're missing from the crunchy green things and call it good."

"Sounds good to me. Persines cover most of that for me in my world, but multivitamins will do as well." 

And she pulls out the music albums and starts going through them again. "I think I'd like to listen to Hold Your Color again, if that's okay?" 

"Sure!"

Into the stereo that goes, and they can jam to that the whole way home.

"Any requests, given it seems we have most things that aren't persines?"

"Frankly I could really go for a wurst right now. Or as you call it a 'hot dog.' Please tell me you do not actually eat dogs?"  

She laughs and shakes her head. "There are maybe a few places in the world that very occasionally do, but no, it doesn't happen here in the US, nor most countries. It's just an expression."

"Good, good, good to hear." She giggles and starts bopping her head to the stereo. 

"Actually, I think I'm shading Foxbox now, so - one second -" She taps a switch on her wrist bracelet and it switches to a red spark, and her head falls forward for a second, her eyes closing, before she sits up and looks around.

"Hi hiiii!" Foxbox starts jamming in her seat to Hold Your Color, and waving her hands in the air a little too. She makes little fox ears on her head with her hands and flaps them to the beat.

"Nicetameetyou!"

"Nice to meet you too!"

Oh she's so cute.

Yeah, Sable's going to have to find someplace that sells child-sized fox ears, won't she?

...None of them will react to mood or motion.

Buy three pairs and gut two to make an animatronic set? She doesn't know how she'll make them track Foxbox's emotions, but that's Future Sable's problem.

Foxbox will happily bop away all the way home if allowed to!

Why in the world would Sable stop her? Happy dancing foster-daughter is a good thing, anyone who argues about this should not be allowed to raise children.

By the time she gets home she's tired herself out a little and stops bopping quite so vigorously, but she still has a big goofy smile on her face. 

"Thank you aun- Thank you Sable!" She says as they pull in back at the house. She manages to hold her enthusiasm in until the car comes to a complete halt, but after that she quicky has her seatbelt off and is squirming to try and get the door open and get down without injuring herself in the process.

Awwwwwww!

Cute and good.

The door opens easily enough, and Sable leads the way inside. "You can call me auntie, if you want. I probably won't say no to anything that isn't an insult," she replies as she sits down and gets her boots off.

Foxbox undoes the buckles for her flats and steps out of them, and does a little curtsey just for fun. Then she pulls out the arm warmer she took off back in the police station and puts it back on. 

"So, wurst?"

"Wurst! I have some kind of sausages in the fridge, and definitely plenty of condiments and buns in the cabinets."

Into the kitchen they go. Sable finds some nice bratwurst in the fridge and starts cooking those, and gets out some buns too.

"What do you normally like on yours? I've got everything from ketchup and mustard to relish and chili sauce."

"Usually I like like a honey garlic sauce? But if that's not the done thing here it's probably worth it to learn the customs, just since we don't know if or when I'll be able to go back..."

Foxbox taps her chin. "Mm. Don't like that thought. Moving along for the moment, how about you give me what's usual and I can see if I like it?"

She frowns thoughtfully. "I can probably approximate that sauce, or find something like it, but it's not the usual thing on hot dogs. Usual is any combination of ketchup (a sweet tomato sauce), mustard (a somewhat strong spicy sauce with a savory tone rather than the sweeter heat of some pepper-chili-pepper-based sauces), relish (a paste made from minced sweet or dill pickles), and shredded cheese. Some people do more exotic things. Sometimes I like sauerkraut on mine, when I'm in that mood. It's pretty flexible, honestly, and the customs aren't very restrictive about this."

"Let's try just ketchup and mustard for the moment?"

"Sure!"

Out comes a bottle of ketchup and a bottle of mustard. Sable also grabs some relish for her own.

The brats are cooking up well enough, so she starts lightly toasting the buns.

This won't take long.

Foxbox looks around in the cupboards for a plate to put this on, and tries to get a little more familiar with where things are stored. 

Well, that cupboard there has plates, bowls are right next to them, glasses are over here, utensils are in this drawer next to the sink, and so on.

The utensils surprise her a little, but she can certainly adapt to them. Certainly she shouldn't need them for a wurst. 

She gets down a plate for herself and leans against the kitchen counter and visibly fidgetstims with her feet and hands. 

The stimming gets a smile. "I'm no good at stillness either. I usually have something in my hands, or I'm drumming along to the music."

Foxbox nods along and keeps drumming to the tune in her head. 

Sable keeps tending everything, hands staying as busy as she can keep them, until finally she pulls the bratwurst off and puts them into toasty buns. "Okay! Off to the table with these. What do you want to drink?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe some more juice?" 

She takes the odd wurst in its thick bun from Sable and goes and sits at the dining room table, where she starts sizing it up like she's judging a worthy opponent.

More juice it is! Sable sits down at the table next to her with a glass for each of them.

"Preparing for a declaration of war, cutie?"

"I think so, yes." 

She sips her juice, takes one more long hard look at the wurst, picks it up, and takes a big bite. Then she chews, consideringly. 

"Mh. Y'khnow, thatsh no sho bad." She swallows the bite, and immediately takes another. 

It seems her stomach has woken up to being quite hungry, given the rate at which the rest of the wurst disappears.

"Oh good!" Sable digs into her own. "Mmm. That's good. Want another, or will that do?"

"I think I will finish off the bowl of nuts and berries you gave us this morning," she says, pointing to the still half full bowl that's still on the table. "And then maybe clothes shopping?"

"Definitely clothes shopping. You need a whole wardrobe, and your own hygiene products, and everything else. What sorts of things do y'all like to wear? Do you all prefer the same sorts of clothes, or are we going to get closer to three wardrobes than one today?"

"Me and Audrey like the same kinds of things - pastels, anything cute, anything princessy - but Lily likes darker tones and jewel colors, especially deep red. She's a vampire like I'm a foxgirl."

Sable nods, following along. "And is that hair color natural, or do we need to try to color-match the dye?"

"It's a... Lily would have the words for this... one moment..."

"It's a permanent cosmetic procedure from our home world," Lillian says. "We figured out how to make hair follicles express some of the more common synthetic dyes... I'm not sure when..." She presses her hand to her head. "... Feeling of pressure there..." 

"Oh wow, that's really cool! Don't strain yourself, though, sweetheart. Take your time with the memory stuff, better to take longer than hurt yourself."

"Yeah. I get the sense it happened somewhere in my missing time, but..." She shakes her head. "No straining."

"Good girl. Y'know, I think that makes you the only other person like me, whose hair grows in an unnatural color. Everybody always asks what salon I go to, and I can never give them an answer."

"Huh! I wonder why your hair is like that. Maybe it was someone like you who the procedures on my world learned to imitate?"

Lillian grabs the bowl of nuts and berries and starts munching away a little more. 

"Not sure. All this happened to me suddenly one day. I got the body I want, though I hadn't understood what I didn't like about my body yet at that point, and my hair changed, and everything happened all at once. My parents were so confused."

"Gosh. Do you think...?" She hesitates to put the hypothesis to words. 

"That it could be related to what brought you here? Maybe. Those are the only two mysterious phenomena I have, so that seems worth investigating at least."

"For sure." Lilian exhales and shakes her head. "For now, well... I'd like to rest a little before we head out again. Do you have a relaxing book I could read, or...?"

"Sure. I've got 'em in the living room. I'll get you set up there and then go clean up from lunch, okay?"

She leads the way to the living room, where there are a variety of sci-fi and fantasy classics, like Lord of the Rings and Foundation, on a small bookshelf, along with a few model ships, both surface and space-faring.

"What sort of book would you like?"

"I like fantasy stories a lot. That one looks good." She points to The Fellowship of the Ring. 

"Oh that's a classic. That's one of the greats. Enjoy, sweetie. Lemme know if you need anything, okay? I'll check on you in maybe half an hour, an hour, to see if you're ready to head out."

"Okay. I'll curl up in your... tiny lounge?" She curls up on the couch, her feet up on the seat, and lays her head against the armrest and settles the book in a cozy reading position.

"Enjoy. Perhaps you'll have to tell me about how houses are organized on your world later."

And Sable heads off to clean up the dishes from lunch, then to take a few notes on her plans for a possible set of reactive fox ears.

The book is a nice distraction. It reads like it's an older piece, all wordy and meandering, but the author has a real sense of how to make a myth feel real, so it manages to occupy her. And she needs something to keep her mind off of Eva and Topaz. She can't afford to cry and fall apart just yet. 

Sable takes notes, then researches a bit to learn about different kinds of plurality. It's fascinating.

It feels important to understand, somehow, for more reasons than the obvious three in her living room.

But that can wait. She has adoptive daughters to look after.

...Foster daughters. Right.

Anyway, it's been an hour.

She heads back down from her office to check on the girls.

"How're you doing, sweetie? Enjoying the book?"

Lillian sighs. 

"Yeah, it's good, but I keep thinking about what my moms must be thinking right now. They must be so scared..."

She shakes her head. "Nothing I can do about that right now, though. So I'm trying to put it out of my mind. Getting out and shopping would be a welcome change."

It's sweet that she's so concerned about them, more than her own fear. 

"Well, that's a wish I can easily grant. You've got one and a half to two wardrobes to replace, so there's no shortage of shopping to do. Need to hit the bathroom before we head out?"

"That would probably be a good idea after all that juice, yeah."

She thinks she remembers seeing a small washroom earlier. It was over... this way?

Yep, just over there by the stairs.

Meanwhile Sable is over here looking up the locations of a few other clothing shops that carry more niche things.

Lillian does her business (the facilities are familiar, thank the graces) and washes her hands, then emerges. 

"Okay," she says. "Let's go."

"Okay!" Off to the entryway to get shoes back on, then to the car. "More electronica, or something else this time?"

"I think I'm in more of a classical mood right now. Something relaxing."

Lillian gets into the car and gets settled.

"Sounds good."

San Francisco always has classical music available on the radio, so she switches to that station, and off they go to the department store.

By the time they get to the store, Lillian is humming cheerfully, because it turns out America has a completely different set of classical composers from Asterion. Except Beethoven. Beethoven seems to be in both worlds, for some reason. 

Lillian descends from the car still humming Beethoven's Fifth to herself, and waits for Sable to lead the way inside. Probably it would be bad for her to be visibly unaccompanied if she's considered to be a minor.

She doesn't have to wait long. Sable locks the car up and leads the way, offering her hand.

Inside, the department store is full of quiet conversation and soft pop music, and fairly well-lit but not harshly-so. Sable finds the department for girls' clothes easily enough, starting in the underwear section. "Okay, we need to start with undies and the like, just to get the basics done before we move on to the more fun stuff. Wanna get measured, or eyeball things and figure it out by trying them on?"

She clicks her LED bracelet back over to pink and smiles. "I think I'd like to try some things on, that's always more reliable. There are probably change rooms around here somewhere, right?" 

"Yep! At least as long as you're buying things off the rack. Tailored clothes, and also bras when you grow a bit more, tend to really need precise measurements and do much better that way."

She glances down at the bracelet for a moment. "Does that indicate which of you is in the metaphorical driver's seat?"

"Mhm! They're standard where I come from."

She stretches, and starts looking around at the aisles. "Okay, underwear."

She can spot boxer briefs easily enough, and tighter panties too, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the third style she's used to seeing with the extra room in front. She will go with boxer briefs for now and remember to ask Sable a bit about that other style when they're not in public. She has a sinking feeling she's not going to like the answer. 

She thinks back, then hazards a guess. "So... Audrey now?"

"You got it!"

She goes on down the aisle and starts looking for tops and skirts in approximately her size. 

"Oh, sweetie, d'you think it might be easier if you work out your sizes for these first, that way we can load a whole stack of everything y'all like into the basket before we head across the department to skirts and the like?"

"Oh! Yeah, that'd make sense." She will grab a couple more sets of boxers then and offer them to Sable to hold.

She sets them in the basket and leads the way to the changing rooms.

Then she will accept underwear and try things on! 

The first size she tries is obviously too large even before she gets it on, but the second size fits. 

She emerges from the change room with the briefs in hand, her original underwear back on. "These ones fit, these are too large."

She nods and puts the too-large ones into the go-back cart the staff have set out. "Okay, now we can grab a whole bunch of those. Next up, bras."

Back to the aisle they go.

She gets some bralettes, since she doesn't have very much in that area right now, checks the fit in the changing room, and moves on to the main event - Skirts and tops! 

She seems to be having some fun shopping at least. 

Oh good! Sable's having fun too, especially getting to comment on how cute all her selections are. The department store has some darker things, and definitely plenty of jewel tones, but there are limits to how goth you can get in a department store, though. If Lily wants more than that, they'll have to hit another store.

But within those limits, the selection is great.

Lily ends up with a sort of corpgoth look - black blouse and black slacks mainly - while Audrey picks out some nice patterned skirts with flowers on them, a few longer and a few shorter. She also makes sure to pick up some t-shirty things with a slight v-neck in soft pastels, and a blouse of her own for when she feels more dressy. 

"This should be enough for all of us," she says with a little smile.

"Oh good. We can hit another store if you want, there are places that have gothier stuff than this department store. More vampire themes, darker clothes, different accessories, that sort of thing."

"It's tempting to, but right now we're still getting used to what this place is like, so sticking to more mainstream fashion is probably good for the moment. Plus I don't want to break your bank." 

Sable grins and laughs, shaking her head. "I make stupid programmer money. I probably can't buy this many clothes every month forever, but even that's mostly just a probably. But getting used to this world is smart. Clever girls. Any other requests, like room decor or anything? Or d'you wanna wait until you've seen your room first?"

"Well... I don't know where you are on the internet, but I'm used to having a computer in my life. If I have to borrow yours that's okay, but it would be ideal for me to have my own. And I assume there'll be some form of education expected of me? It'd probably be worth it just for the political studies classes, honestly."

"Oh, we've got to get you a computer, for sure. Remains to be seen whether we do a laptop or a desktop, but that's happening, no question."

"As far as education... Yes. I have to make sure you're getting an education or the state will yell at me and take you away. The usual way is just to put kids in public schools, but those are usually kind of mediocre, and I'm a bit worried about teachers' and classmates' reactions if there's something you don't know, or if you let slip something otherworldly. On the other hand, homeschooling is a thing, and we can find activities in town to get you exposure to other kids your age."

"What do your schools cover, anyway? I can read and write and have good reading comprehension, at least with a word processor. My handwriting is atrocious but we don't emphasize it these days. I've done some celestial navigation with a sextant as part of my place-in-the-universe classes, though I'm a little rusty on it. I've seen the double slit experiment performed with a laser pointer in person, built an electronic six-sided die, know enough Cube to muddle along and build some simple games, like a 2d space shooter with a single source of gravity in the center... Obviously the local languages I'll have to learn... What else... I don't know much about chemistry, though of course I've heard of acids and bases and the periodic table of the elements, and I don't have a lot in the biological sciences either though I know some simple stuff like respiration and the fact DNA exists and have a broad idea of what modern cladistics is and does. Obviously all my political science education is for the wrong world entirely and probably will have to be rewritten from the basics given that you're, you know, aliens. And I would go into what my health classes have covered, like vaccines and so on, but I suspect you'd rather I not discuss the sex ed part in public from the face you made when I mentioned the effects of ellecol."

Her cheeks faintly pinken. "Oh, you caught that, did you? Yeah, this world is kind of hilariously bad about sex-shame. We can talk more about that in the car, though."

She shakes her head.

"As for the rest, I'm kind of impressed. You're ahead for your age on science and programming and reading, if I'm judging your enjoyment of the Lord of the Rings series right. Our schools typically have some required literature, civics, history, science, and math courses, along with what we call 'physical education', or just phys. ed. or PE for short, which is focused on exercise and physical fitness, and also tries to recruit kids for sports teams. Most schools have some kind of additional classes like art or shop or home economics (which mostly covers stuff like cooking and budgeting), but that really varies from school to school. There's usually some kind of health class, it's usually less informative than it should be and more than a little biased."

She leads the way to the front to check out all the clothes they picked out.

"I don't really think of myself as especially intelligent or dedicated. Method is, she's actually contributed a couple papers to the field of AI alignment and I am so fucking proud of her, she's such a great mom and she's helping to make sure the world doesn't go foom, but when she tries to teach me the math it just goes in one ear and out the other for me. I just can't understand tensors, and I've tried calculus and it's really hard too. I know they say there's better and worse ways to learn things, but I think some of these things might just be beyond my thinkoomph." 

She bobbles her head. 

"Civics and history I will for sure need to catch up on, and I suppose having to stay fit as a kid is a good intervention if you're going to do in person classes anyway. What sports? Any good capture the flag leagues? I'm not very good at cooking but I can follow instructions on packages; my auntie Method has always handled budgeting for me, since I tend to not have the discipline to do double-entry bookkeeping on every purchase. She gives me an allowance I'm allowed to spend each month and the rest of my life-float goes to rent and food and savings. And I've always wanted to learn to draw, but never really had the patience to learn - I think it could be fun to do art classes!"

Blink blink.

"Teaching twelve-year-olds calculus? Clever people doing AI alignment work? Yeah, your world is just better, I'm officially envious."

Another headshake. "We don't usually have capture the flag leagues in school, most people are obsessed with sports like baseball, football, or soccer — which is also called football in countries that don't have what this country calls football. I can pull up some recorded games of each if you wanna find out what they're like once we get home, or I can try my hand at describing them. For now though..."

They arrive at the cashier and quickly get rung up.

"It's not standard to teach twelve year olds calculus, I just wanted to try anyway and Method was willing to give me a little of her time even though she was working on More Important World Issues. Spherical trig yes though, it's considered important that people are able to do experiments to measure things like the distance to the moon so they don't reject astronomical and geologic scales out of hand."

Checking out, checking out, and out they go to the car.

"Goodness. We typically cover flat trig in the teens."

She makes a face. "It would probably be better if we taught math better here so more people didn't get confused and think the world was flat."

"Somehow I am less surprised than I should be. It does happen sometimes on Terra in worse countries, but..." 

She shakes her head and gets in the car.

"Spherical trig isn't really that much worse than flat trig though, you just have slightly more complex laws of cosines and so on. It's very doable if you know how to cancel variables."

"Yeah, part of the problem is our world is crap at teaching math," Sable replies once she finishes loading everything into the trunk. "We've got tropes about hating math, at this point. It's practically comical how bad we are at it."

"Oof." Audrey winces. "Let's get off this topic for the moment if you don't mind, it's making me anxious."

"Oh, sorry about that, sweetie. Yeah, we can set it aside. Wanna head home for now, or is there anything else you want tonight?"

"Let's head home for now. I want to get used to your house a little more."

"Can do." She puts the car into gear and starts driving. "What sort of music would you like on the way home?"

"Let me see if you have any more albums by Pendulum."

She starts going through the discs again. 

"They only have the one so far, but I've heard they're working on another that they're going to release this year."

There's plenty of other electronica, lots of punk, a bunch of pop, classic rock, some folk, and more, but no more Pendulum albums. "I wonder if you'd like Beth Patterson. She's a folk musician from the state I grew up in, with both Celtic and local Cajun influences. There should be a few of her albums in there."

"I have no idea what either of those things are but I can certainly give it a listen!" 

She flips through and pops in the CD for Hybrid Vigor. 

The album opens with expressive folk violin, then builds into some wordless vocals in the middle of the first track. Sable starts bouncing a bit in her seat, grinning.

"Ooh, this is nice!" Audrey bops along as well, and taps her foot to the music. 

"Glad you like it, sweetie. Any more juices or such you wanna stock up on on the way?"

"Do you have coffee here? I drink it regularly and if I go a day without it I'll probably have to deal with headache and fatigue the next morning."

"We do. I don't keep it in stock usually, because caffeine conflicts with some of my medication, but I can grab some. Got a favorite kind of roast?"

"Ohmygod my medications -" 

She visibly panics for a moment, before taking a deep breath and clenching her hands tight for a minute.

Then she pauses, and frowns deeply. "I... don't actually know what medications I'm on. If I was sixteen at some point I might still have an implant in me somewhere, which will be good for about three years of whatever hormone therapies I was on from whenever it was implanted, but I don't know if I still have it or not and I feel dubious about the possibility. I wasn't taking any focus medication I think? Carrying ellecol seems to indicate nothing else in that department. But I might have been on an anti-psychotic - schizophrenia is common for my kind of human, though usually it comes in later in life - and that's a real scary possibility. If I could just remember what I was on -" 

And then she flinches hard as a sudden, stabbing feeling of DO NOT goes through her, accompanied by pain - 

"Ow ow ow ow ow I think something just tried to happen and it didn't go well -" 

Sable glances over briefly, sharply, struck by sudden concern. "Coffee shopping can wait, we're getting you home."

She offers a hand to squeeze and keeps driving.

"Do you need me to pull over for a second and check on you, or do you think you can make it the rest of the way home? What kind of pain was it?"

She squeezes Sable's hand back firmly. "Sudden stabbing headache and a feeling of imminent doom. I think it was because I tried to - remember something from my future - oh, looking that way still feels real not good -" 

Audrey does her best to tune back into the stereo and forget the question for the moment.

"I think I'll be okay as long as I - don't look that direction -" 

"Yeah let's just enjoy the music for now," she replies with another hand squeeze.

Okay that's fucky. That's really fucky. 

It's related to her missing memories.

It happens when she tries to explore them, and includes a feeling of impending doom. Outcome sense? Just weird psych phenomena? She doesn't know. 

She isn't sure she trusts Earth's medical systems to know what to do with an otherworldly human.

Get home first, troubleshoot more later.

She keeps driving.

Audrey does her best to focus on the music, and slowly the headache eases and the sense of doom retreats. 

"It's fading a little as I stay focused elsewhere. Let's just get home, yeah."

Sable is concerned.

She keeps driving.

It's only ten more minutes or so.

Soon enough she parks.

"I'll get the clothes after we've got you settled in."

She comes around to Audrey's side and offers her a hand.

Audrey gets up, and out of the car, and takes a deep breath. The sense of doom has vanished. She looks again just in case -

And suddenly she is on the other side of the car entirely, just past Sable, and about a head taller and much more filled out. She looks about twenty, now.  She stumbles, almost falls, and steadies herself against the car's hood. She looks at Sable and her eyebrows shoot up.  "Sable? What just happened, where am I, why are you so young -"

"- Wait, hold on a second. I was... I know you, you're not that Sable you're... another...?  And this is... San... San fra... something...?" Her tone is uncertain, as if trying to call to mind a memory that wants to escape. 

And then Lillian leaps forwards and takes the reins. "- we had better get inside before anyone sees us like this."

"Holy shit. That really just happened."

"Right, c'mon, follow me."

She hustles up the steps to the door and opens it.

Lillian quickly ducks inside and around a corner so she can't be seen from the street, and takes off her shoes at the bench there. The same shoes she was wearing just ten minutes ago, now sized perfectly to fit her adult feet. 

"Okay," she says once Sable closes the door behind her. "You feel safe but the last twenty-four hours feel vague and hazy. I was... at the DMV... getting a new license done..." 

She goes for the dining room, off like a shot. 

She finds her purse on the table, where she left it this morning. Turning it out onto the table (why does that feel familiar) she goes for the wallet and turns out her license onto the table. 

"There," she says, pointing at the card. "There I am. Captured in a moment. And - here I am -" 

She sways and presses the heel of her hand to her forehead. "... dissociation," she says. And she sits down heavily in one of the table's chairs, still staring at her license.

Sable sits down across from her and offers a hand. "I'm here. Let me know when you're ready to talk through what's been happening, okay?"

"Okay. Okay." Lillian takes Sable's hand and squeezes it hard, her grip much stronger now that she's older by eight years.

"Let me try to... sort through this..." 

"I remember that... I was at the DMV... and had just gotten my license. And I was thinking to myself... that it was a shame that I had to be twenty and out of the funnest part of my life. And I - cast my mind back to when I was twelve... and then..." She presses her hand to her forehead. "Then there was - this tearing sensation - and a pounding headache - and -" 

"And then I think there's some lost time there, but the next thing I remember is... being here. On the street outside, except - my auntie sable was there - but it was you - and I wasn't on Terra -" 

"... I'm still missing everything from before I came out of the DMV," she reports after a second's thought. "I can... I vaguely recall being twelve before I was at the DMV, but it was a long time ago... and between the DMV and taking my voting exam... there's just nothing."

"What happened since I met you, remind me, please, it's all very vague and amorphous, I think there was music, and... we had to... talk to some kind of authority..." 

Sable nods. "So after I found you on my front steps, we talked for a moment to establish that I wasn't the Sable you already knew. That involved looking at the clan ID, which started convincing me of the alternate world thing. Then I brought you back here to have a snack and talk further. You explained facets, and I told you about how children have basically no rights here. We talked about your memory issues some too. Then we went to the police, and you were checked out by a nurse, and they appointed me as your foster-mom. Then we went shopping. bought a bunch of clothes for your twelve-year-old body, and started talking about schooling. You ran into some issues with your memories trying to talk about sex-ed on your world, and then pushed at them and ran into doomy feelings. And then you shifted just after we parked the car here."

"I'm considered your child and a minor-incapable-of-self-care? Wow, that's sure a situation. Glad I have you here to be a reasonable person, that could have gone very badly very fast. Let me wrack my brain and see if I can connect up the memories..."

She closes her eyes and focuses, nodding to herself a little as each memory flares in her mind, the dominoes clicking one by one into place. With more of an idea what to look for, the memories are easier to find, and she finds it easier to assemble a shaky but consistent chronology between then and now. 

"Right, first I spilled out the purse like I just did but on the hall table, and then - we looked through the cards - and we exchanged some basic information about each other's worlds - and then I wasn't sure what age I was, and this seems to answer that question - wait, that wasn't me, all that was Audrey - and then I, me personally, switched in, and we decided to go talk to - the police - and leave the bag here - and I sang badly - and then there was the police station where the EMT looked at me - and then we had lunch, and then clothes shopping, and then I had my attack in the car..."

"... because I didn't know when my medications were from and was scared that I might be on an anti-psychotic."

She takes a deep breath. 

"Well, I can answer that at least now, I think. I don't remember being on any anti-psychotic on the day I was at the DMV. I was on... a long-term cycloterine, estrogen, progesterone and persine extract implant, which I got implanted... One year ago, so it should still be good for two years... And it was implanted in my abdomen above my right thigh. I don't need to take pills, it's all in there. I suppose that if I'm stranded here for two years then we might have to worry but until then I think I'm okay." 

"That much is settled, but I don't know why I got such a premonition of doom when we were in the car or why it stopped when we arrived and suddenly did this, and I don't know how to get back. Just thinking about the memories of when I was twelve doesn't seem to be doing anything." 

"We are going to have such an issue if you can't produce a twelve-year-old me on demand." 

"How do we..."

She frowns and drums her fingers on the table.

"Well the first time you did it, you wanted it."

"That's a good point. It's kind of hard to want to be twelve in this place though. But we should try." 

She looks at the other contents of the purse, and slides the coloring book across the table to settle in her hands, along with the set of side-advance coloring pens. 

"I'm an age regressor," she says without preamble. "I don't mean just magically, I mean that I like childish things and want to experience them often. On my world you'd say I pleat as a child - identifying as younger than I am is a core part of my identity. This power is... In a real sense answering one of my desperate wishes, that I could be a child again and stay young and be taken care of by my auntie forever." 

"It's not such an uncommon desire, on Terra. There's enough of us out there for there to be demand for things like these colouring books." 

She opens the colouring book, and flips through the pages. Almost all the pages depict women in fantastical situations; rowing boats across seas crowded with jellyfish, weaving galaxies from stars kept in a basket on their arm, standing astride a horse in full medieval armour...

And a few pages have nude women, often eating fruit and lounging on couches, usually with piercings and tattoos as linework to colour in as well. There are no depictions of sex, but all the anatomy is depicted with a frankness that would shock many Earth humans, particularly in this context. 

Many of the pages are coloured in, either fully or partially. The Songbirds seem to like both types of subjects about equally, from their choices of what to colour. 

"We color when we want things to be simpler for a while. If anything can knock us back in age it'll be this. But it'll take some time to do one of these pages properly."

"Oh. Oh girls, i..."

She takes a breath, her expression very tender. "I understand completely. That... is not a common or well-known or well-accepted way to be, here on Earth, but you've landed on probably the safest person. I lean caregiver in the same way y'all lean little. Can I give you a hug?"

"Absolutely."

She smiles softly, steps around the table, and hugs Lily tightly.

She hugs back.

"Thank you. It's a huge comfort to have you here, even if this world seems... frankly kind of terrible."

"You're not wrong. Yours sounds like a massive improvement. But as long as we're both here, I'll do everything I can to protect y'all."

"If I were to figure out how to go back," Lillian says, after a long moment. "Would you want to come with me?"

"Um. I... don't know how I'd support myself there, or where I'd live, or..."

"There's the life-float for everyone in Asterion, which isn't enough to have luxuries on but will keep you alive, immigration won't be an issue most likely, and you'd almost certainly have support from my clan after it was explained to them that you had kept me safe in an entirely different, much worse universe. My auntie Sable would tell me you deserve so much better than this place."

"I mean. If I figure out how to get back. And if I figure out how to bring other people with me. Cart before the horse a bit. But it's a real offer, if we ever figure it out enough to undo whatever I did that first time."

"That's the kind of thing I would say. Have said, to other people here."

She giggles and shakes her head. "I guess I'll take you up on that. Can hardly argue with my own words, can I?"

"I guess not!"

She squeezes Sable one more time and then lets go. 

"So let's see what we can do with what we have on hand. No time like the present."

"Yep. If there's anything I can do to better set the mood, let me know."

"Do you have a proper desk I could sit at instead of at the dining room table like this?"

"Sure. Follow me up to my office."

She leads the way up the stairs to a hallway with wooden floors, and down to a dark, cozy room with a large wooden desk. There's a big, comfortable-looking, cushy chair on wheels, four monitors, a mechanical keyboard, and a mouse with a lot of extra buttons. She moves those out of the way, clearing the majority of the desk for the Songbirds to color.

"Here you go, sweetie. Plenty of space to sit and color."

That gets a blush. 

"You really do sound so much like her..."

She looks and acts so much like her auntie, but the way she's sweet takes on a whole new cast when they're closer in age like this. The feelings are confusing and for now she would prefer not to focus on them. Just coloring.

"Thank you for clearing the desk, I really do appreciate it."

And she settles in to start coloring.

Awww. This is... really cute. Really sweet. And just kind of... peaceful to watch.

Sable sits down in another chair and just keeps Lily company while she colors.

Slowly, Lily starts to relax a bit. It's a little odd to have Sable in the room while she colours, but after a few minutes of warm silence her presence seems more reassuring than unsettling. 

And so she loses herself in colour, for a little while. 

She watches on, already irrepressibly fond despite only knowing the girls less than a day, curious to see if this will work, and enjoying the gentle peace of the sounds of pencils against paper.

Lillian falls out of front first, Audrey creeping back in.

And then, after twenty or so minutes, the woman in the chair disappears, and twelve-year-old Audrey falls out of the air and into Sable's lap! 

"Eep!" 

Sudden falling child!

Sable catches her carefully.

And then squeezes her tight!

"Hello, little sweetheart. Looks like you can age-slide on demand."

"Age-slide on de- oh! I was coloring! And - it worked!" 

She giggles and hugs Sable back. "Thank you, Sable, I feel - more like I remember what's going on now. And we found out that I don't need pills!" 

"Well, assuming the implant is still in me when I age slide, but it sure seems to adjust my clothes well enough." 

"That it does," she replies, running her hands through Audrey's hair. "It means we've got two years to figure out how your magic works well enough to get you back there for a replacement, but with the progress we've made so far, I think we'll manage just fine."

"Yeah! And even if I can't bring you I could at least carry mail back and forth so you can get to know my auntie!" 

She giggles and leans into the pets. "Thank you for caring and thank you for being so lovely."

And, after a moment's consideration...

"Can I get out of your lap now? It's a little weird when my twenty year old self is kind of crushing on you but I'm currently twelve."

Sable blushes abruptly, then gives Audrey a last squeeze and sets her on her feet.