It's sand as far as the eye can see, but they can't see very far: they're in some sort of natural depression, perhaps a dry lakebed; there's a spot over thataway where the sand has piled up to make a tempting-looking ramp out rather than the much steeper climb up the ridge that otherwise surrounds them. That said, it certainly does feel like they're in a desert; it's hot and very dry, with no sign of clouds and only a few scrubby plants visible at the top of the ridge.

The sun might be a bit off, too, or maybe it's just the clearness and brightness of the sky making it seem unfamiliar.

Val squints up at the sun for a moment before deciding that investigating it's slight weirdness is not worth giving themself eye damage, and also probably shouldn't be their first priority right now. They stand up and dust themself off, and then take a running start and launch themself into the sky. After a few hard flaps they're airborne, and they start circling higher to get a better look at wherever the hell they've ended up.

The terrain is somewhere between desert and badlands, leaning to desert; the ground is covered with sand and loose rocks ranging from gravel all the way up to large boulder size, plus occasional scraggly brush and even the rare twisted tree, where it's not instead taken up by pillars of banded, wind-scored stone. If they fly high enough, they'll be able to spot a smudge on the horizon that might be a town; nearer by, in another direction, there's a small cluster of buildings made of white adobe - it's too far to make out details, but there's movement near them, perhaps a person walking around.

Val is not generally inclined to gravitate towards people, but they are generally inclined to not die of sunstroke, so they go invisible and angle themself towards the white adobe buildings. They figure they can sneak inside, cool down and find something to drink, and figure out where the hell they are. It's far from the first time they've been portal'ed- their sister plays with them constantly, Val steps trough portals several times a week- but this is the farthest they've ever gone, and the first time they've done so involuntarily. 

They make it closer to the buildings, then stop and hover in midair when they catch sight of someone

There's three buildings in the cluster, with a garden laid out between two of them and a tall thin sculpture of twisting metal in what appears to be the front yard; all three buildings are flat-roofed one-story things, and one of them has a sun-bleached wooden platform on top, with a tall long-haired figure in loose black clothes (black? in this heat? they must be nuts) standing on it, scanning the sky in Val's direction.

A moment or two after they switch to hovering, the person suddenly looks right at them, and a sword's length of coherent red light extends from their hand, pointed relatively unthreateningly at the ground for the moment.

Val balks and immediately tries to go invisible, before realizing they already are. That's impossible. No one can see them when they're invisible, not even other superheroes. No one ever has before. Panic rises in them and they almost turn around and fly in the other direction, but they think of the vast expanse of desert and the oppressive heat of the sun and think better of it. They draw closer, hands raised in a I won't hurt you please don't hurt me gesture, and study the figure on the roof for a reaction.

The figure resolves to a woman in her mid thirties, lean and muscled and glaring but not quite tensed for a fight, yet. Her clothes are practical, comfortable pants and a light shirt, with a splatter of embroidery on the shoulders and cuffs and a holster on a belt across her hips. Her hands are oil-stained, but her long hair flows freely behind her.

Her glare sharpens as they approach, but she doesn't otherwise move, even to track them with her eyes.

The fact that the woman on the roof doesn't track Val with her eyes gives them a bit of relief. At the very least, it doesn't seem like she can physically see them, so their cloaking powers must still be working somewhat.

For a moment Val and the woman on the roof just stare at each other as Val decides what to do. Their original plan of "waltz in undetected and steal some water" has been foiled by this stranger's unnerving ability to sense them through their cloaking. As much as they hate talking to people, especially strangers, it seems unwise to continue approaching cloaked. They may not be very socially aware, but they know enough to figure that that would probably be perceived as threatening. And this woman's preternatural ability to sense them through their invisibility means they must have superpowers too, which makes Val much more inclined to trust them.

Taking a deep breath, still hovering in the air about fifteen feet away, Val uncloaks. They hook their thumbs around the straps of their backpack, just for something to do with their hands, and say "Uh........... Hi."

"Kam - kam khutrai kash anas," she wonders, and then declares "-niekada dvasi. Galia ant."

She brings the glowing sword up into a guard position, keeping it close to her body so as not to suggest a threat as it moves, and closes her eyes.

She's not a ghost, she's definitely right there in the flesh, but Val can hear her the same way they can hear them. "What the fuck."

Val relaxes a little bit; ghosts are comfortable. Ghosts are familiar. This is clearly not a ghost, but hearing her talk like one is reassuring the same way it might be reassuring to hear your mother tongue in a foreign country. They know the rules for interacting with ghosts much better than they know the rules for interacting with living humans.

"Hi," They say again, this time in ghost-speak. "Um, it's really hot and I'm kind of lost. Do you have any water?" They fidget with their fingernails as they speak, not making eye contact.

"Yeah, go land in the yard and I'll bring you some." She gestures toward the side of the building away from the garden, where the sculpture is.

Val nods and flaps over to the yard, then touches down gently. Usually they're a little clumsy with their landings-- often they drop down too hard and their knees buckle and they land on their ass in the dirt. This time, though, they look like they actually know what they're doing, and not like they taught themselves to fly by jumping off small ledges and crashing to the ground over and over. Which is exactly what they did.

While they're waiting, they take out their phone. No signal. They weren't really expecting to be able to text, there's no cell towers in sight, but it would have been nice if they could.

The metal statue is too latticelike to offer much shade, but there's a tree by the door of the house that casts a more useable patch. The yard between the house and the third building - a garage or storage shed, from the large doors - is mostly flat hard-packed dirt, but there's an empty campfire circle off to one side half-ringed by three seat-sized stones.

The woman jumps down from the roof, landing with an easily audible thump, and comes around the side of the house to let herself in; she's put the blade of light away for now. She's back again after a minute with a glass pitcher of water with a few handfuls of berries floating in it, and a glass of the same; she doesn't approach Val closely enough to hand them the glass, but pauses a few feet away and floats the glass over with telekinesis.

Val takes the glass out of the air and drinks gratefully, folding their wings in now that they're standing in the shade of the tree. They're sweating in their black t-shirt and black jeans. They wonder briefly about the woman's all-black attire; at least they have the excuse of having been in Michigan minutes ago. Maybe she's just really committed to the aesthetic. Val can respect that.

"So, uh," Val says, still in ghost-speak, "Where exactly are we? Arizona? New Mexico? I've never been west of Illinois. God, it's going to take me so long to fly back. Do you know anyone with portal powers?"

"Wrong planet and no," she sends back. "You won't have heard of this one. Empire, though, not rim, I'm guessing you're from the rim."

"The rim of what?" Val blinks, rocking back on their heels.

"The galaxy. But if your planet's uncontacted it's going to be much harder to get you home no matter where you're from." She sighs, "come in," and turns to open the door. "Don't touch the machinery, and be polite to my droid."

On the other side of the door is a workroom, with the bulk of the space taken up by a heavy wooden table cluttered with tools and machine parts and flanked on all four sides by benches. Bins with more parts line the wall to the right, while two machines of unclear purpose and a closed wooden cabinet sit against the back wall and a small kitchen workstation is set into the left, easily accessible from the door. The room takes up easily a third of the house's footprint, with a door along the back wall leading to the rest of the space.

"I'm Lord Sunset, by the way," she sends, pausing to set the pitcher down on the table. "That's -" "Ari Pradnakt" "-to speak it. The droid is Daisy."

"Wait, planet?" Val trails after Lord Sunset. "Like, space travel? Oh God, Shannon is going to be pissed. Have you seen a giant snake around?"

"No, and that means there isn't one - I'm a sensory specialist, I'd know." She opens the door into the rest of the house a crack and whistles a few notes into the room beyond. "Were you expecting one?"

"Uh, maybe." Val stands anxiously by the door, wanting to be able to make a quick exit. They don't like not being able to spread their wings without hitting something. "I guess I'm not flying home by wing. Jesus fucking Christ. Different planet? I don't think even Flare could portal me home from a different planet." They start to tremble a little bit. Without really thinking, they go invisible, as they always do when they're particularly anxious.

Pradnakt tenses, and Val is hit by a wave of calm and the clarity that comes with it. After a moment it recedes a bit, letting a shade of their anxiety return, and there's a sense of how they could mentally step away from the effect if they wanted to. "Keep it together, we'll figure something out."

Val wavers, caught between the desire to keep strangers out of their head and the desire to not have a total freakout in front of this woman. In the end they pick the middle ground, not totally leaning in to the external calm being offered to them but not totally rejecting it either. They try to take deeps breaths like Shannon, their team leader from back home, had taught them.

"I've never been this far from my twin before. I mean, obviously, I've never been on a different planet, but I've literally never been more than like five miles away from her."

"Oh, that'll make it easy, I can follow a twinbond halfway across the galaxy even on someone Forceblind. Here, sit, I'll see what we're looking at for distance between you." She leans against the cabinet, still blocking the doorway with her body, and closes her eyes again.

They pad over to the wooden benches and sit gingerly, still ready to run if need be but hopeful now that they'll be able to get home. At least they'll have a better idea of where they are now.

Pradnakt stays there, unmoving; after a few seconds the door opens behind her and Val can see a silver figure decorated with bright colors behind her until her hand twitches and the door shuts again.

Eventually, backed by a resurgence of the calming effect: "I'm not getting anything at all. They aren't in this universe."

This time, Val does reject the calming effect. They stand up too quickly, banging their knee on the table as they do so. That's not true. That can't be true. Panic bubbles up in their chest, and the room feels too small. The walls close in on them. Without a word, they dash out the door.

Yeah, fair enough.

She gives it a second and, when Val stops under the tree and resolves to her Force senses, decides to leave the calming effect up; while she's waiting for them to relax again, she sets Daisy to getting out the camping gear and busies herself putting together a plate of finger foods.

Val spends a good while pacing, wings extended. They flap anxiously as they speed-walk back and forth, and the breeze stirred up by their massive wings creates eddies in the sand. Their instinct to flee is pressing on them hard, but this isn't the kind of thing they can escape by running.

Not that that's stopped them in the past. But a sprawling expanse of desert and no water as far as the eye can see is a pretty powerful motivator to stay put. They're panicked, but they're not stupid.

Finally, they manage to put a lid on their panic to the point where they think they'll be able to string together a coherent sentence, or at least a few words, and walk over to the building again. They don't go in, but they linger in the doorway.

The door opens promptly; Pradnakt leans on the frame rather than inviting Val back in.

Still flapping their wings, not making eye contact, and speaking too fast, Val asks "You have space travel. Universe travel?"

"I've heard rumors."

Val nods. "Okay. Okay."

Somewhat reassured, they move on to their next line of inquiry. "Are you alive?"

Heh. "Yeah. I'm a Sith - you won't know what that is - and we're kind of... more, or both, or beyond."

Val nods again. "Okay. So, sort of like a ghost. But with a body. And superpowers?" In their universe, people lose their powers when they become ghosts.

Nod. "And tech to interface with them, and social license to do what we like. If you see a Sith with their lightsaber out again you really shouldn't approach them." She indicates the short copper rod now resting in her holster.

"I'm, uh, hard to touch." They turn invisible-intangible again to illustrate what they mean, and then blink back into existence. "But I won't."

"Yeah, you shouldn't count on that stopping us. Anyway. Daisy's getting my camping stuff, we can set you up out here in the open - you don't need to worry about animals, there's nothing dangerous close to the house - and let you settle in, and we can talk about where to go from there. Don't run off, I'm not going to be in a good mood about it if I have to chase you down."

"Thanks." Val says, a little surprised and very grateful that Lord Sunset recognized their fear of enclosed spaces without them having to say it out loud. They like this woman, despite themself. Usually it takes them weeks to months to get used to new people, but the whole superghost thing endears her to them significantly. Also, their general demeanor is reassuring-- not too friendly, that would make Val skittish, but certainly kind. "I can't pay you. I don't have anything you'd want."

"Don't worry about it, we're not tight for money. I should know if there's anything you're going to want, actually - I'll send Daisy into town for clothes and things for you tomorrow, and she'll do another run next week, but that's usually monthly."

Val narrows their eyes, suspicious now. "Why are you helping me? I can't do anything for you."

"Well, my options are keep you here, kill you, or let you wander off and attract some other Sith. That last one's dangerous, and I'm trying to stay out of the habit of killing people I don't need to. If you want to leave, we'll figure out how to escort you far enough offplanet that it won't be a problem, but that's going to be a pain, so you're here for now."

Val fluffs their feathers, unsure if they feel reassured or threatened by this. Both? "Okay. Uh, thanks for not killing me, I guess. You don't have to buy much for me. I'm not picky."

"Mmhmm. Well, we'll see."

They rock back and forth on their heels, uncomfortable. "So, uhhh. What now?"

"The tent's going to be a bit. You should probably eat." She goes back in to get the plate she's prepared.

"Oh, I have some food!" They shrug off their backpack and dig through it before triumphantly pulling out an entire dead opossum, somewhat flattened from being hit by a car.

Uh-huh.

They open their mouth wider than should be physically possible and hork down the opossum whole. Their throat and chest swell disturbingly as it slides down their esophagus, and then the opossum-sized lump disappears. They yawn and stretch. "I should be good for a while now."

Uh-huh.

"Do you need whole corpses, or will a high-protein diet do?"

"Oh, I don't even need high-protein. I can eat basically whatever. I just need to eat a lot of it." They gesture to their wings. "Flying takes lots of energy. Fast metabolism. I eat a lot of trash but I guess there's not a lot of trash cans out here."

"And we've already got the goat for our scraps. All right. I'll have Daisy pick up some more chickens and think about expanding the garden."

"You've got a GOAT? Oh fuck yeah. Flare would lose her absolute goddamn mind. Can I see the goat"

"Sure, one sec." She goes to the door to the rest of the house and calls into the back, then leads the way around the house to the garden in its backyard, where she stops to get a handful of cherry tomatoes from one of the tomato plants before continuing around the barn to the pen behind it; a few chickens are pecking around in the shade, and ignore them, but the goat comes right over to see what they have for her.

Val takes a few slow steps forward, practically quivering with excitement but not wanting to startle the goat. There's no grass to pick as an offering, so they simply hold out their hand, palm-up.

The goat has a brief whuffle at their hands and pockets, sticking her head through the fence to get a good sniff, and quickly turns to Lord Sunset and the tomatoes. The Sith gives her one and a quick pet on the nose and offers the rest of them to Val.

Val does an excited hop in place and takes the tomatoes, then begins to feed them one-by-one to the goat. After she takes the first one, They reach a hand through the fence and lay it on her sun-warmed neck. When she doesn't protest, they begin scratching behind her ears, getting dust and goat hair under their nails.

"What's her name?"

"Jasmine. I'm the only one without a flower name around here, Daisy likes the theme."

"Jasmine! Hi, Jasmine." They give Jasmine a few firm strokes on the back. "Do the chickens have names, too?"

"Mmhmm. Queenie, for Queen Anne's Lace," she points, "and Clover and Petunia and Lilly." This leaves two unnamed, but she seems to be done talking.

They look over at the chickens, hands still embedded in Jasmine's fur. "What about the other two?"

Lord Sunset shrugs, feigning unconcern, but there's a thread of tension in it. "They're Daisy's birds, I don't really keep track."