Ava would really like to ask what year the Glorious Future started, but even if the words sound weird she can hear the Capital Letters there, and that does not look like a smile that is reaching the eyes, and maybe therefore this is the type of thing that one shouldn't ask about?

"In what year did the Glorious Future start?"

She just SAID it was year nine of the this is clearly not the question they're actually asking? 

And Thirel...thinks that she sort of gets the question that they are trying to ask. (From almost no context, it's becoming increasingly clear that these people, whoever they are, aren't from the Republic or the Empire - that they know nothing about the war, about the events of the last half-century...)

Thirel takes a deep breath. Lets it out.

"Officially, nine - almost ten - years ago. Unofficially...a long time before that, but - it gets subjective - there is  no bright line one can draw." 

Pause. 

"The war began about fifty years ago." 

"War. Which war? And you won and proclaimed the Glorious Future after that, or what?"

"It's not as though I won it personally!" 

And she's angry, suddenly, for no reason at all–

- for deeply predictable reasons, that she should have dealt with decades ago, but she hadn't realized there was anything there left to deal with until now, being confronted by it - 

"Nobody won, really." 

"Uh, Cori, maybe don't..." She trails off. Maybe don't get us killed by this maybe-traumatized woman who maybe has access to actual magic?

"Ah sorry! I didn't, um... I think the recent history I remember is very different? What continent are we on?"

"Here they call it Otarun." Which just means 'the continent' in an archaic dialect. "In the Empire they call it Akal. In 'America' they might have other words - is America one of the Territories?" 

Going by the visitors' faces, they don't recognize those names either. 

"- I would show you a map, but I don't have a hard copy of one. I can copy it from a Sideworld archive but at that point it would be just as fast to answer your questions." 

"A map would help a lot if you have one I think?"

"I can have one for you in a few minutes." 

Under normal circumstances, it would be a lot simpler to just bring them to the relevant Sideworld archive along with her, but these circumstances are abnormal in so many ways. In fact, if– well, if almost everything about the world were different, she would probably be calling in a report to the local City authorities about the unexpected interlopers in her apartment.

In the world as it actually was, of course, Thirel had absolutely no intention of reporting anything at all to any supposed authorities. 

"I would offer you a seat and something to drink," she hears herself say, "but..." Vague gesture around the empty room. "Wait for me here." 

And she leaves and ducks into the bathroom, which has a bolt on the inside of the door, and locks it, before taking our her portable artifact-crystal - most practicing magi wouldn't be able to project to a secured Sideworld at all, with such minimal equipment, but Thirel barely needs the artificial aid at all. Still, she's hardly comfortable making herself that vulnerable in front of strangers. 

(The two women will be left alone in the bare unfurnished bedroom for about five minutes.) 

"I think that went well!" 

"Oh come on what does that look mean? The map will help us learn where we are! Obvious hypotheses include that this is a prank, that we somehow were seriously injured and took a long time to recover and were put here for some reason -- okay now that I say it out loud that one doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Hm."

"You don't look older do I look older?"

"Cori, this... isn't a game or a dream or something? It could be some kind of hallucination but that would itself be a really bad sign -- how are you so chipper about this?"

"Ava, what else is there to do? If I stop and mull over all my emotions here, I am going to go crazy, maybe I already am crazy, the only thing to do right now is to get as much information as we can and crying about how everything I care about maybe doesn't exist anymore doesn't help do that so I'm not doing it and maybe after I figure this all out there will be time for that but not right now, Ava, don't tempt me with that!"

"Cori, we might have actually died! We might actually be dead!"

"If we were dead would we be talking? Besides, worrying about that doesn't help us solve it does it now?"

"Oh, my apologies for worrying about all the people who are going to die because you got us into this situation and now HEART isn't going to be able to launch its program and those transplants won't get through..."

"Because I got us into this situation? I assure you this was by no means something that I was interested in doing, and as soon as I figure out how to get us out of this situation I'll do that, and you sure don't seem to be helping with that, so maybe just go on being scared while I solve everything, again, I always have to do all this stuff myself --"

"Wow, you're really going there? Really? You always micromanage everything, maybe if you let anyone else ever have ownership of anything or treated them as actual collaborators then maybe you wouldn't have to keep such a tight grip on stuff? I am so sick of "Cori solves everything herself", insofar as it's true around here it's true because you don't let us help you!"

"Oh uh... I'm sorry, now we're both sad, that's not what I wanted..."

"No, you're-- uh -- they say "that which can be destroyed by the truth should be," and you're... maybe not altogether wrong per se but this really wasn't the time..."