……
………???…?
let it SING …let what sing?
no, but see, there's- Dream plot. Where are they actually. (There's that sleepy floating feeling, unmoored from reality in favour of…) Oh, but come on! — they have reasons to wake up on time often enough.

(Their eyes are still closed, but they're starting to notice a sun's brightness on them, and it'd be hard to keep them closed for much longer… a light breeze.)

…they've fallen asleep on a bench? Notice — outside, comfortable — how about I-

They abruptly sit up, look around, as usual. Hold on- What do they see?

It looks like somewhere fairly in the middle of nowhere, with a few picturesque houses with tall grass and gardens of beautiful flowers between them. Further away is an out of place huge white building, with floors upon floors of balconies or rooms with huge windows surrounding it; people can be seen walking around, wearing gym clothes or short blue skirts, or sitting on the floor. Everything is placed among endless rows of neat and even fields of grain, with a train station next to train tracks built on a simple dirt road.

????????????… This is really not where they remember being last evening.

They're confused, and they don't have it overtrained, no opportunity for it, but they have still installed a bundle of checks to run if you're confused about where you are at some point. You can always have dissociated through your bus stop. So, check belongings, did they leave those anywhere? Are they in the middle of a train track or long-haul road, are they physically safe or should they move to anywhere right now- no, this is a bench, this is fine. Anyway, what are their immediate surroundings like? Any people?

(A mental current underneath like skidding on sand, at first. ?? Does this happen to people, could they have forgotten…? Never happened to them before, and- no, I don't remember hearing of cases either, but there's always something, minds are weird, haven't they been taught that too? Could they have been moved while asleep? Probably not the kilometres this implies —
— no, focus. Confused means confused, understand better later means later, they are still half-asleep. What considerations, what do I need to know right now…?
And deep breaths, to let the residual anxiety of surprise fall away. No scenario they can imagine in which it would help any.)

(Or maybe someone's rescue-simulating them, like in that novel… Isn't it, technically, exactly what you'd expect, odd peaceful place? (Continue to breathe, try-to-be-grounded —) I think this is you getting caught in stories again? Most of what you tried that with has not been anything unusual, in the past. But still, I really did not expect this! Acknowledging that, and going from there…)

Someone in a blue and white fursuit walks past one of the buildings to water some flowers. It's shinier and smoother, somehow, than the types of fursuits people are most familiar with. They turn to the new arrival and are confused for a moment.

…They haven't, actually, seen fursuits before, mind, though it sounds exactly like something an interesting-person would do somewhere, or for theater. And it looks like an odd kind of visual stylisation I've never seen before — of which there's, of course, thousands, and I haven't followed the goings-on of interesting-people even in other cities close by… but this is still some information on how close by they are to where they live. Unless they are completely wrong about the nature of reality- no, I think still true then, at least about how similar to where they live?

They get lost in thought for a moment, then, and have to catch themselves. Never miss an opportunity to stare at a beautiful thing, and it does look oddly — high-craftsmanship, I'd say if I tried to put it into words… Anyway, can you-

Anyway, they turn to the person and make eye contact to acknowledge their presence. Not saying anything, yet — it strongly depends on the person and culture, how much conversation they prefer in public spaces, and I would prefer to get my bearings more for now — but ready if they ask something.

(They look a bit more alert again, and sit up straighter, if you pay attention to this kind of thing.)

The fursuit-wearer waves awkwardly and in confusion. Whoever it is waits long enough for the silence to become wildly uncomfortable before saying, "Hello? Did you come here for a reason?"

"Ah, sorry, no, actually! I can leave to wherever if you point me there, so I don't interfere with your thing. I'm just… very unfamiliar with the place." They affect looking sheepish, and a friendlier smile, avert their eyes and lean back a little. "I've forgotten how I even got here, to be honest." Are you sure of mentioning this out loud? Well, too late now, isn't it? And they do have to ask their actual questions, at some point, if they still want the answers… We could read signs if they exist here? But mostly I concur. Though, hold on-
what language is this that I'm replying in, it's not one I remember knowing—

They pay attention, while they're listening to the reply.

"That sound pretty scary! Do you want to get your head checked? The school nearby has a really well-equipped clinic with ultrasound stuff."

"Huh, I wouldn't say- I know you want to be desperately careful, with brains, but I think memory issues are fairly common in places I know of… You might be right, though, this one's new for me. Could you sketch me a map of how to get there, if you've the energy or time for it?" I'm not sure if this language has that stock question, that's transparently a calque from one of their other ones. "And I might have to ask if they have the 'fund for nonpaying clients' thing, if I'm far enough this place's currency's different, or if they're volunteer enough to sometimes do without it…"

The sentence trails off. Not paying even close to all the attention they have, to the conversation, because- what is this language like, though? Have they remembered it as related to anything, or anything historical about who it's constructed by, if it was constructed? Maybe they wouldn't remember it as related, though, if they don't know anything it's related to, or would but entirely wrongly, that's not unusual… It feels like a language — an entire language, look at that! — ought to be very integrated into a mind, though, hard to just forget. Maybe they could elicit something if they introspect there.

"It's just..." he points at the out-of-place huge building. "There. There's an entrance on this side and from there you have to go left to end up at the medical wing. I'm happy to advance you the money just for a scan and come with and help you, I'm not working today! You're also right that some of the kids do free scans just for practice, though they don't give out too many."

The language is efficient, straightforward, and uses many different syllables and subtly different phonemes to let words be shorter! It does in fact feel a little unsophisticated.

Huh, that actually makes sense! Of course they would want a clinic to always be nearby. "Oh, thank you, hope it won't end up taking too much of your today. That's neat, though, that they do that-" Do you want to, or are you reflexively agreeing? Appreciated. "…Or, actually, I suppose, I'd like to find out how far I've gotten from home, first. Do you have a map of the wider area, by any chance?"

The language, though… Does it feel constructed? They've an intuition for it, because there's people building all sorts of things, but there are some features that barely ever show up naturally that they know of.

"-wait. If 'advance' means I would need to pay the money back later, I might not be able to take you up on that. Figuring out exchange especially depends on a lot of things going right at once, and I prefer not to depend on that even when I am less confused than this." Social politeness noise here? "…Sorry."

The language is constructed.

"Certainly, no advance then! And when it comes to a map, I can show you on my phone? There... isn't much of a wider area, really! It's fields that go on forever and the school behind me."

"…Wow. That'll be how many people living hereabouts full-time? How often does the train come, what's the closest places it would usually go? And, yeah, thank you again, that'd be wonderful…" And they lean in to look at whatever they're shown.

"Well with this village there's like 100 of us, the school has 800 students, and across all the fields there's another 60 or so people, the tractors and everything do a lot. The train comes every 10 minutes at the moment, it's self-driving and we need it for the two cities of 20,000 at both ends. It's like a 40 minute trip from one city to the other, and the train can stop by a few farms along the way."

"Oh, that's tiny! Students come to the school from all over, then?" !! wait. Could you ask- "…Also, just to check, are train tickets also paid, or is it funded differently somehow?" A personal story to make it less awkward… "My old hometown used to let all the trains to and from it be free deep in the morning, so- I think, so everyone was at worst a day from freely leaving if they needed it, but most people paid for the convenience. Don't think it worked out, though, overestimated how set it was, what's convenient for people…"

(— notice — these numbers are also information, they might have heard and remembered some living densities from different parts of the world, for example — to try to remember them to process afterward? Although not likely to be the densest most important part of the conversation… I feel it's fine! But I often feel it's fine at first glance in lots of cases where it isn't, actually, so go do whatever. Right, then, 160–800–20000–40h —)

"That's right, students come from far off and live here. You do have to pay for train tickets here, it's kind of in the middle of nowhere. So, do you need a place to stay? It sounded like you didn't think you were quite comfortable taking that ultrasound, yet."

"…Huh, I suppose I do, don't I. I wonder if you have anything systematic set up here, for cases like this, or if it'd be individual kindness? Fuck, it sounds hypocritical of me, though, how I keep repeating how I wouldn't like to impose on you and then I just keep imposing-" They laugh for a couple seconds, then abruptly pull back to serious and thoughtful. "…I, um, don't think it's about 'comfortable'? It's just, if I'm two hours of travel from home I'd prefer to know first, so I can plan about it, and if it's two weeks I'd prefer to know, and regardless I'd like not to take loans I can't pay back. …Wouldn't guess that it's two hours, though, honestly, I'm sure I'd have heard of this language, it's so interesting…"

"Well uhh... tell me about where you're from so we can know how far you are? Like, the corner? The language thing is quite worrying. Don't worry about the imposition, I don't feel you're much of an imposition really. You're a cool surprise! I have a big enough house." He tries curling his fursuit head into a bit of a smile, and it looks funny for a moment.

…Wo-oaha-ha-haoowwww, their animal costume can do what, if barely? :O "Oh, that's the best-case scenario, really! I always thought I'd try to find a relevant interest group, or something, if I ended up in this situation, so I could make sure… Right. Hm."

(While they're thinking: check, is the conversation going in the direction they prefer, have they only agreed to what they meant to (yes, looks like?) Do they trust this person enough to go live in their house — yes, most people do not pull ridiculous stunts that require harming someone, least of all without preparation. (This line of thought is overtrained, almost nonverbal at this point.) Though, was it without — well, the person looked convincingly surprised, though this is not much evidence? And I still have no model of how the language thing happened, the ability to do that is already far enough from what I expect, that also proposing a normal ridiculous stunt is — something like superfluous. I think they can let themselves be straighforwardly very grateful. …there you go, straightforwardly grateful now.)

"Well, Isohedral-on-lake-İilete, usually just Isohedral for us inhabitants, where I'm living now, is a city of… half a million people or so, last I looked, though that was a while ago and it might've changed in any direction. Its main lingua franca's Kawelen, it's what I mostly think in nowadays, though the community of Ghje home-speakers is sizeable, and I've heard the journalists do half their professional correspondence in Mhùlistē. The public-spaces editorial team loves sharp shapes and solid colour, and they've a couple of designers around that are really good at making its parks into environments that feel alien… though that's my opinion, there was a popular travel writer that thinks Ânursii's, nearby, are much better at it… don't recall the name, sorry, something starting with 'lh'? …Is any of that recogniseable?"

"Ohh nooo... I asked which corner and you sound like you don't even know what I could mean! If you can't say that then I have no idea about how you could possibly ever get back to that Isohedral place."

"Okay, but now I'm curious, what does it mean? I- actually, I missed that completely, the first time, I suppose because I didn't understand you… Or, no, I'd thought it just meant 'area'." What could it possibly mean that you'd expect everyone to understand- or are they very isolated, somehow, despite all the trains and miles and miles of fields, so you really couldn't get to anywhere too different… no, probably not that…

"It's... the point that's closest to the 'top' of the planet that's in your house or city or whatever? I don't know how the top of the planet is defined, you have the north pole and... well it's tough to explain but everyone learns it in school and knows what it is! So you not even noticing that I used that word shows that... you're not from this planet..."

"…Huh, there's anything complicated there? Does, just, closest distance to the North Pole not work in some way I'm missing? Neat, though…" They look lost in thought for a moment, then restart speaking. "What I'm amazed by is how you can be sure that everyone on the planet understands that coordinate system. The planet is enormous — well, the one I know, — there's billions of people there, you can just barely expect them to be human because 'not that' isn't technologically possible yet-" They deeply breathe in, than out. "Sorry, got on my soapbox again, I meet so many schoolkids assuming stuff, they haven't yet learned not to… but I suppose, if this really is a different planet, you have good reasons for thinking that's actually true of yours. In that case I'm amazed in a completely different way. Genuinely so, how?" (Hey, what do you think, while they're waiting for a reply-)

(This… was in their intuitive space-of-possibilities, if barely. You were right to not dismiss those! I — still think putting as much weight on the possibilities that sound like interesting stories would lead one astray most of the time? But, much less sure now, if this does turns out to be true.

Their interlocutor does sound human, though? And everything else looks like the planet which they are used to — plants, sky, even architecture somewhat? (Technically cannot be sure they look human yet, but — again, anything that predicts 'similar and survivable' at all probably has no reason to be as alien as it could get away with within those bounds, either… Stories would? Not all stories, you know that some of them do other incompatible things, but point taken.))

— if this happened once, though, it might conceivably happen again, or a wider space of things formerly thought impossible may turn out not to be. (They would not, actually, know, if some of the mysterious disappearances per year have always ended up on other worlds.) This — is not a lever, yet, but it is a unique angle, which I had been looking out for.

— right, paying external attention now.

"The opposite side of the planet is the same distance from the north pole as here, because the north pole is perfectly in the middle of both places!"

"I know you'd know about the corners thing because our education is just very, very good and the system of corners is so utterly ubiquitous, so for anyone to end up anywhere, they'd have to know some way of doing that. Even if you have amnesia, the chance of me just bumping into the perfect right time for you to not have re-learned the corners thing is wildly unlikely."

"Ohh, of course, right! And you want to distinguish all those, so you also need the distance along the concentric circle? Or is it something else and not continuous distance?" Or probably something I haven't come up with yet at all, that happens a lot. Still, how would you set up as similar an education throughout nigh on the whole population- You could ask? "Um, how many people are there on your planet?" They raise their hand in a 'wait' gesture, though, thinking of ways to put another thing.

"…And, well, subjectively I've only been here since sometime this morning. So, maybe it's unlikely, but I can't see how it's more unlikely with amnesia than it is with whatever weird thing actually happened." Maybe it is, depending on your model of how the weird thing works? But I know of no reason to expect a skew either way yet. Huh, suppose so! Though I feel like it's less true than it's complicated and distracting to say out loud, so I don't think I'll mention it. "Though, admittedly, it might still turn out that I've made myself up a backstory fictional world and convinced my brain I was from there. I think that's usually less vivid memories but I don't have direct experience, it's not like I tried to have those and vividly at any point…"

(— if they genuinely wonder — I agree this is not how they would expect that to feel, but I would like to be surer — they could check if their bag has the contents they expect, including those that imply the world they believe they knew? That would at least imply preparation on your part. My part, or their part? This is very characteristic of you to try on purpose, while I struggle to imagine what anyone who is recogniseably me would need to do this for, and in what situation? But not more impossible than having actually moved, and they need not have been recogniseably either of them, in the scenario, so- yes, their part.) And they do start hauling the bag back upward onto their lap, to look through more conveniently during the next lull in conversation.

(Also, might this person just be lying for a stunt, they had earlier guessed 'not' but- no, still true that the language thing is impossible then. To keep in mind the space of possibilities, though.)

"Yes, that's right, you need to find a... north pole of sort for the longitude. 15 billion people live on this planet, actually!" The man in the fursuit shuffles a little, curious about what the stranger is going to do.