Meanwhile:

Villanelle really, really hates unplanned pitstops, especially in tiny backwaters that're actively hostile to magic. Earths can pretty much go fuck themselves honestly, she has no idea why they're all like this. 

She's actually not entirely positive which Earth this is - there's so many, and a lot of them aren't even vaguely mapped, and her nav system is just enough on the fritz that it can't figure out where this is from first principles. (She's going to have to manually steer back, probably...)

She's been able to lie low though, parking her ship in some deserted field under a notice-me-not tarp with its stealth mode engaged while she bops around collecting what she needs to repair it. It's had plenty of time to refresh the air envelope at least.

But that means she's had time to acquire local clothes and get a sense of the local rhythms when she sees a crack team ghost through one of the stores and descend on a human teenager. The fight's ignored by everyone else - that's a pretty decent memory fuckery illusion they've got going, really - 

Except Villanelle.

The thing about memory fuckery illusions is if you can catch anyone who isn't an unlucky rando with them you have better tools. Villanelle is very much not an unlucky rando.

She's better at invisibility, too, and illusions in general she decides as she tails them - also known as, starts humming then takes a wide leap up on top of the van and sits there with her hands in her pocket studiously not attacking anyone until she knows where they're going and the potential hostage is definitely not imminently getting shot. 

And then, once she's also identified how they're communicating (sadly requiring the hostage getting out of her line of sight): 

And then she starts kicking some kidnapper ass.

(Okay technically, first she waves her very shiny official proof she's a representative of the Crown of Aitania in front of some mook's face. Then she starts kicking ass.)

Villanelle's just about done mopping up the last of the ass when the target of her rescue operation pokes her head out of the room she was being kept in, blood dripping off her fingers.

She's not quite at invisibility that'll last through ass-kickings, so she's fully visible. She waves a little. (She isn't at all bloody, and in fact most of her downed opponents don't look injured.)

"I'm friendly!" she calls. (With magical translation up, which sounds like a pretty weird double-layered song.) "Are you hurt?"

"...No, I'm not."

"Awesome - I was a little bit worried about that, what with the random kidnapping assholes..." Shrug. "Oh - you missing any of your stuff?"

She frowns and pats her pockets.

"They took my phone."

"What's it look like?"

"About so big. Plain black case."

"No like, what's a phone? - I might be able to use just that word but a mental image will help."

"-Do magic people not have phones? What the fuck."

"I've only been on this world a little bit, I might've seen one? The word just isn't translating clearly."

"Oh, alien magic people, all right then. A phone is- a pocket computer, does telecommunications, internet access. Has a touchscreen and a camera in the back."

" - Can you draw one?"

"Don't have anything to draw with. Maybe I can-" She fiddles a bit, then pops out a hovering, slightly transparent image of her phone in midair. "Like that."

"Neat." She squints at it. "How precisely accurate is that?"

"It looks like that? I mean. The actual phone is solid and has data on it and stuff."

"Image's enough." She closes her eyes a little and starts singing - sways a bit - spins around - and says, "That way!"

Then starts walking.

Maybe there's different kinds of magic? And this one's based on music somehow?

She follows.

She zeroes in on one of the fancier dressed dudes, riffles through his pockets - 

And comes up with a phone. "This yours?"

"Looks like. Can I see?" She holds out a hand.

She hands it over.

Ellie goes to tap its screen and notices she still has claws. "Ah." She frowns and pulls the pointy bits back in. Then taps the screen.

"Yeah, this is mine."

She giggles a little. "Not used to your abilities yet?"

"No, not really. Only found out about them the other week."

"You're picking it up quickly then - and you just could suddenly do stuff?" 

"Pretty much."

"Some kind of spontaneous caster, then."

"I guess? I'm assuming spontaneous caster is some kind of term of art for you people."

"Yup - so there's a couple ways of doing magic, and casters use one of them: spells. Spontaneous casters can use spells without like, intentionally preparing them ahead of time every day - you're also innate it sounds like, where you can do magic without training. And I mean I was guessing on the spontaneous thing, but most innate casters are spontaneous too."

" - You might also just have only spell-like supernatural abilities, but given your age I think that's probably unlikely?"

"No idea."

"So, do you know who these assholes are?"

"Nope." 

"We should poke around, though it'll be risky if backup shows up."

"All right. Looking for anything in particular?"

Hum. "Weird objects, symbols, tattoos, if any of the mooks look non-human..."

"All right." Searching the bodies, then.

They turn up some stuff - including what seems to be a group insignia - but nothing like a giant list of contact information for evil bosses.

Yeah, that would have been too easy.

"Pretty suspiciously so."

"So what next?"

"Well... I have resources I can call on to track people like this down, but it might not be quick, and won't be on this planet - I've been hiding out while I fix my ship."

"I can drop you off wherever on this planet you want to go..." Tiny smile. "Or you can come with me when I leave."

"You're a space traveler?"

"Space and more."

"Well. It's not like I've got a lot to stick around here for."

"Excellent."

Interplanetary adventures with a hot magic girl. This is more like an eighteenth birthday she can get behind.

"Where's your ship?"

"A bit of a hike... Unless you wanna fly."

"If you tell me you can fly, obviously I want to fly."

"Gimme a minute to get a tune going," she says with a wink.

"I don't need to harmonize or anything, right?"

"Only if you want to."

"Better to leave it, I think. Singing's not my thing."

"You can stick to being my adoring audience then."

"That shouldn't be hard."

"I am very adorable."

"You've got magic, you're hot, you came to rescue me... what's not to like?"

"And I'm a good musician, can't forget that."

"I'll be sure not to."

"And I'll provide some very memorable experiences, to help you remember."

"Sounds fun."

Giggle.

And she starts to sing - wordlessly, but the song sweeps and soars, rising uplifting crescendos -

Nothing happens immediately, but - something definitely feels magical about this song. 

She is good at singing.

And - 

Ellie starts to feel rather literally buoyed. Like she can fly, if she just reaches out - just wants to hard enough -  

She wants to!

She rises into the air - and the woman rises alongside her, still singing.

They're flying!!!

She laughs through the song, swooping around Ellie, and then takes off towards the horizon. 

Let's see if Ellie can control this well enough to follow her.

She can! It's a pretty intuitive power, actually, like Ellie's body is realizing it was born to fly. 

That's pretty cool.

Villanelle swoops around her again, teasing her.

Ellie will try out some swoops of her own.

(Takes a bit of concentration to do right if she wants to get fancy - but she's a pretty good flier, seems like.)

Villanelle darts in and away again.

A challenge, then. It's on.

She'll have to really push to catch up with Villanelle. 

Like that's going to scare her off.

Yeah her song definitely sounds like laughter now.

Figures.

Ellie does gain on her eventually. 

Then it's time for some revenge swoops.

Oh nooooo.

That's what she gets.

Terrible. 

(Smug Ellie.)

Extra oh no.

Heee.

And the ground falls away under them quickly - until, what feels like far too soon but was probably objectively at least a while, Villanelle is banking and starting to descend.

Her song fades out as they descend - and Ellie starts sinking, too, the magic on her fading slowly - and she calls out: "You're very unfair, you know!"

She follows her down.

"Sorry. I'm new to all this, you know. Dunno the rules yet."

Giggle. "Well... Being very pretty while my mouth is occupied singing is a bit rude."

"Sooo... I should save doing that for when your mouth is occupied with other things?"

"Depends what exactly it's occupied with."

Giggleblush.

"You've got ideas there?"

"I could think of a few, yeah."

"Going to make me draw them out of you?"

"We have only just met, after all."

"A take it slow kinda girl, then?"

"Or maybe I just want to savor the experience."

"It's only brand new once?"

"Exactly."

"I'll be sure to set up a memorable first time, then."

"Oh good."

"That's one of my widely acclaimed talents."

"Widely acclaimed, huh."

"On more enlightened planes, at least." She winks.

Giggle. "Fair enough."

"And you can visit those, now."

"I can't wait."

Heee!

"My ship's nearby," she says, and holds out her hand. 

She takes it.

"I'm Ellie, by the way. What's your name?"

"Villanelle. It's a pleasure to meet you, Ellie." She nearly caresses Ellie's name.

Mmmm.

"Likewise."

Smirk.

And she tugs Ellie on. "Ship's invisible, so I'll need to key you in - you'll be able to see it when we're inside, too."

"Fancy."

"It is!"

She hums a few bars - and it's like a veil is lifted from Ellie's eyes, revealing a large and very strange ship. It's designed more like a river barge than anything else, and not even much like that - the hull at least resembles a steamboat, and it has a jumble of wood-and-paper rooms above it like a small castle, and brilliant red tiled roofs, green spills of leaves and vines along the many decks, and a tall mast with no apparent sail. It hovers in the air like it's in still water, the bottom about ten feet off the ground, but it's perfectly quiet.

"...Huh." She pauses a moment to take it all in. "Not sure what I was expecting, but I don't think this was it."

"It's a pretty normal Spelljammer ship - or as normal as those get."

"I will adjust my aesthetic expectations accordingly."

"You know what I need to show you? Elven ships." Wink. "I'll give you a tour, first port we hit."

"You have elves?"

"And more."

"This new world just keeps getting bigger."

"It's massive."

"Are there species besides humans and elves?"

"Plenty," she says, and clicks her nails together -  and a set of tiger ears pop up on her head, and a tiger tail flicks behind her, and her eyes get a bit larger, the irises more golden...

"Wow."

Toothy grin! (She has fangs, apparently.) "There's tigrans, for one."

"So you just- turn those on and off at will?"

"Requires a touch of magic."

"Seems like everything does."

"Everything fun. And you've got more than a touch, I'll bet."

"I hope so. It'd be kind of sad if I only get basically just party tricks."

"Well... Even if your innate magic is just supernatural traits - basically those are innate magic abilities you can't get better at - you can always learn something else."

"Is there- a test or something, that would let me tell?"

"Attempting to learn new spells - also supernatural traits are usually either pretty plain, or are spell-like abilities with pretty strict limits a day, so I can probably guesstimate just from seeing what you can do."

"Cool, okay."

"We can work on that once we're in flight - I've got a few repairs to do still, but I can explain things while I do that."

"Is there anything I can help with?"

"Handing me tools? There's also some basic stuff you should be able to do... You can probably get gunk out of machinery with your magic just fine, that's one of the tiny tricks."

"Just point me in the right direction, then."

"We'll make it part of the lesson."

"Sure."

Into the ship, then? "Do you need to rest at all first?"

"No, I'm good to go."

"Awesome."

The inside of the ship continues the paper-and-wood theme, though with smaller, irregular panels of paper - and many of them contain artwork. Sketches, paintings, layers of cut paper (often clustered in stretches with more wood than paper), abstract marble-dyed papers - and many panels instead contain cloths at varying levels of sheerness, with complex weavings or embroidery. The wood is mostly plain, though there's carved sections in areas where it's heavier and around doorways.

Most of the scenes are pretty fantastical: strange objects suspended in space - an enormous tree with roots craddling a blue sphere; more ordinary still lifes and architectural sketches; stranger spaceships - one with tendrils like a jellyfish and one apparently made of spun glass, what are probably planets; an amazing assortment of humanoids sketched going about their lives - a woman with wings like a tropical bird, wearing a skimpy dress with light swirling around her hands, a group of small green woman posing with spears and laughing, a naked man with purple skin and large sweeping antlers and a spade tail playing a guitar; botanical sketches; animals like and unlike any Ellie has seen - dragons, great cats, monsters with far too many eyes, a winged horse...

"This is- amazing."

"Awww, thanks!"

"Did you do the decorations yourself?"

"Pretty much yeah - some of the panels are gifts or souvenirs."

"You're very artistic."

"With an eye for beauty."

"A keen one."

"Well refined and discerning."

Giggle.

Grin!

"Which parts of the ship need fixing, then?"

"There's some stuff with the atmospheric recyclers, they're finicky..." To the guts room! It's full of weird crystal objects, mostly, and a few metal or crystal bowls or pitchers with assorted colorful fluids in them. 

"Does it work more comprehensibly than just 'magic'?"

"Yup! It works via weird arcane magic." Wink. "Want a lesson?"

"I do."

She explains as she's working then - and in with pointing out where Ellie should apply her own magic - the broad overview of magical items and how they work; what artifacts are and what's the difference; how each is made (magic items: pretty much normal mages doing normal artisanal work; artifacts: gods and myths and the opus magnum of a master crafter); how you can tie multiple magic items together to achieve something at the power level of an artifact; how there's multiple such networks here - the Spelljammer helm which produces the bubble of real space around the ship, and assorted life support systems which keep that bubble habitable; and how they need maintenance (and a more detailed overview of what that maintenance entails, given what they're currently doing).

Complicated, but it seems simpler than her vague knowledge of how Earth spacecraft work. She's very sure those can't be maintained and repaired by just one person.

Poor design, that. Though the 'being magic' helps.

For sure.

And it gets easier the more experience you get. 

Handy, that.

Always nice when it works out like that. 

Mhm.

"Feel like you're getting a good overview here?"

"Practical applications help, yeah. I don't know that I'm qualified to judge a 'good' overview when I don't know the full extent of the concept space."

"We'll have to work on furthering your education, then."

"No objections here."

"Good."

"You're a good teacher."

Giggle blush! "Thanks."

"The best compliments are the true ones."

"So 'you're pretty' is a superb compliment, then?"

"Only if you allow scaling by truth value."

"I vote we do."

"Then you're very pretty."

Blush! 

"And you're clever."

"You have fantastic taste."

"You've got some amazing claws."

"Your ears and tail look seem incredibly fluffy."

"They feel incredibly fluffy, too."

"I'm a bit jealous of them."

"You want your own?"

"I wouldn't say no."

"There's broader shapeshifting magic - some you can learn, some you can get someone else to apply to you, some you can get a magic item for..."

Hum.

"Maybe I could sample the texture of yours? Before I decide whether or not to go to that trouble..."

Pleased tail curl! "Seems prudent."

Ellie reaches out for a pat.

She's very soft and exceptionally fluffy. (And purring quietly.)

Scritch scritch pet.

Purrrrrrrrr!!!

Cuuuuute cutecutecutecutecute.

"Cute," she says.

Villanelle leans into Ellie, purring more.

A good angle for more scritches. And perhaps... a small kiss??

Absolutely! Perhaps - a bigger kiss?

That would be positively received.

Then a bigger kiss it is.

Kiss!

Villanelle is apparently also a very good kisser.

Something else Ellie will be learning from her.

She's happy to provide a well-rounded education.

Excellent.

Starting with a few tricks you can do with your tongue...

Ooh.

Now to see how quickly Ellie can learn.

Pretty quickly, it turns out.

She'll need to escalate the lesson's difficulty, then.

Bring it.

So much for taking it slow?

Call it the heat of the moment.

They'll make a spelljammer out of her yet.

The life seems agreeable so far.

Villanelle certainly approves.

Ellie's glad.

Kissssssss.

Kisses!

Perfect way to finish up a maintenance session.

How many more maintenance sessions until the ship is back in order?

That was the last big one... 

"Maybe we could extend it to other sorts of lessons?"

"If it's an effective teaching strategy."

"Well, I'm feeling very motivated."

"An excellent indication."

"Good."

Giggle kiss.

Kiss!

"So what next?"

"Next I give you a tour."

"Of the ship?"

"Unless you'd rather get a more focused tour first..."

"Of your bedroom?"

"One option."

"Maybe it had better be the full tour then, so I'm not artificially limiting myself."

"Give you an idea of what you want for a more in depth tour later."

"Sounds like a plan."

Kiss!

Kiss!

"Let's start with the stuff around here."

"Maintenance stuff?"

"And storage, and the Spelljammer helm, and navigation..."

"We can head to another section first instead, though."

"Starting here works. We can intermix business and pleasure, as it were."

"Give ourselves regular breaks."

"Exactly."

Off to the first little chunk of business, then?

That seems indicated.

The first chunk of business: the magical guts of the ship! 

"Should I be taking notes?"

"If you think artificing is cool." Villanelle's excited rambles are implying she thinks it's very cool.

That's a strong argument in artificing's favor.

"It's one of the best fields."

"I can see why you think that, since this ship is built from it."

"Pretty essential to getting anywhere cool."

"And so it takes a share from everything else."

"Precisely."

"That is pretty slick."

"And it's cool separately, of course."

Nod nod. "Of course, of course."

"All magic is."

"Yeah."

"It's a bit of a rush, honestly. Doing magic."

"That rush never goes away."

"Perfect."

"We are."

Ellie laughs.

She has such a pretty laugh. Calls for a kiss.

Gigglekiss.

Mmm Ellie's getting good at this. 

She's putting the practice time to best use.

A habit that'll serve her well when learning magic. 

Then she'll make sure to keep it.

Villanelle will help.

It's nice to have a teacher she can count on.

Giggle blush.

And the cuteness doesn't hurt either.

"Charmer - and you're definitely a sorcerer for spell casting."

"Good to have that nailed down, I guess."

Giggle. "We'll still want to confirm - but my instincts are pretty keen."

"All right."

"Glad you see it my way." Kiss!

"You don't leave me much choice."

"Bards like me are also famed for our persuasiveness."

"I can see why."

"You haven't seen half of it yet."

"Excellent."

Kiss!

Time to swap back to fun?

Seems so. 

Perfect.

And, once they've had fun amd then flopped -

More tour?

Sure, if there's more ship to see.

Plenty!

Though they might get a little distracted finding Ellie a bedroom...

That's something that deserves careful consideration.

A thorough review of each option. 

Fully weigh the pros and cons.

Possibly grade them on what makes them best for different use-cases...

Build up a comparative database to consult.

Take detailed notes.

Mhm, mhm.

Luckily Villanelle has plenty of notebooks and pens lying around.

Conveniently enough.

Might take a bit of coordination to get the notes actually written in a timely fashion, though.

Well, as long as it happens at some point, that should be good enough.

They have a good enough memory.

And if they forget, they'll just have to check again.

A very robust system.

Practically foolproof.

Hardly needed with them.

Not as the two beautiful, intelligent, conscientious ladies that they are.

The opposite of fools.

For sure.

Giggle kiss!

Kiss!

"I'm glad I got rescued by you."

"I'm glad I rescued you!"

Kiss.

"Gonna show me the universe now that your ship's fixed up, then?"

"Absolutely."

"My hero."

Kiss!

To the navigation cabin, then!

There to jam some spells, Ellie assumes.

Wild giggling!

Not directly how it works - though pretty close for a bard.

She'll just relax and enjoy the music, then.

"You don't want to learn how?"

"I'm not so much musically talented. I don't want to mess up your harmony."

"It's any magic, not just music."

"Oh, well, in that case..."

"Interested now?"

"Uh huh."

"Excellent."

"So how's this work, then?"

"Well..."

So: the Spelljammer helm is flat out a minor artifact. You can jerry rig one by stringing together several ordinary magical items, but that's not really safe or effective - instead, they have a central artifact supported by magical items... It requires users attune to it - which is a process of syncing your magical aura with an item's. With the more powerful magic items, that gives you a kind of telepathic input into them. Spelljammer helms, unlike most artifacts, can have more than one person attuned to them at a time, and as a class they're not choosy about who attunes - though individual helms will get pickier about their navigators over time, with earlier navigators and experiences shaping later preferences. Hers is pretty old, named Serenity, and might not let Ellie attune to it.

She'll try to make a good impression.

Kiss! "You'll do fine. Serenity has excellent taste."

"I'm probably not too far off, if they like you."

"I'll put in a good recommendation."

"Thanks."

"Happy to help."

"So you just put it on to start?"

Her expression goes briefly blank and kind of confused, then - 

She giggles. "Ship helm, like what you use to steer it, not like a hat."

"-Oh."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I was thinking some kind of magic hat that telepathically controls the ship."

"Probably anyone's ever built something like that? Elves are weirdly fond of thrones, dwarves like these incredibly complicated things they insist aren't puzzle boxes even though they totally are, there was a big human group really into spinny wheels for a while - so you do get these aesthetic trends. But, yeah, a helm is just anything used to control where a ship goes."

"Yeah, I just didn't put that together. In my defense, this doesn't look much like the ships I'm familiar with."

Giggle. "Fair enough."

"So show me what this non-hat helm looks like, then."

"Your wish is my command."

To the navigation room! It's massive, and shaped like the inside of a paper lantern. They emerge into it through a tight spiral staircase into a circular platform in the lower part of a cynlinder that runs through the sphere's middle, where the light might normally go. The edges between panels are thick and papery, but each panel seems to be a screen of sorts. A band of them show the area outside the ship in three hundred and sixty degrees, and a cluster above that has some kind of - data readout? There's panels showing far away scenes too, some with diagrams or guides Ellie can't make heads or tails of, and a few that seem currently inert.

And hovering just above the platform's center, at the absolute center of the paper sphere - 

A gyroscope with golden threads between the hoops and a complicated golden sphere in the center. The golden parts glow and flicker softly like fire, and the rings turn lazily as if the threads aren't there.

"Impressive."

There's a warm pulse in the light. It feels pleased, somehow.

Well, it is almost a person, based on what Villanelle said. Best to be polite.

It doesn't seem to have any kind of external speakers, but it does keep pulsing.

Villanelle elbows her. "I think it likes you."

"That's a good start, right? Should I say hello?"

"You can."

"Hello," she says in the general direction of the sphere.

Soft pulse. 

"My name's Ellie. I'm going to be traveling with Villanelle."

A more continual glow. 

"That means it's okay to reach out for it with your magic."

Ellie will try to- do that, then.

It's not entirely obvious how to do that at first - but if she reaches out her intent to do things, the same way she does when using her little tricks to change objects, she gets - resistance, almost? There's definitely something bright and intensely magical right over here.

Hello magic, Ellie is also magic, look, see how magic she is.

It takes a push and pull, a few cycles almost like waves -

And then something clicks.

"Hello."

"Hi."

"Villanelle thinks you're pretty. You do have interesting magic."

"Oh, thank you."

"Beauty speaks for itself."

"Do you wish to travel with me?"

"I would."

"Then you may, for now."