"I am sorry," he tells the hosts. "Uh... is there anywhere where we won't bother you?"

"If the government is sending people they will probably set you up somewhere nice," Liset says, "and you're welcome here in the meantime."

         "They're sending people," Afen says. "What's the sleep-dependent ability? What happened?"

(Oranges frown at him disapprovingly. He ignores them.)

Should he tell them? Well, he guesses he could check first, but then it might be easier to get something to induce sleep.

"Uh... I have an ability called dreamshaping... it allows me to create a pocket-dimension. That rock thing is... a failsafe that should only show up if I am in a completely different universe than my native one.

He points at the floating pebble, which raises to eye level... it looks a bit bigger than before and it starts dripping water.

"Uh, sorry about that."

He looks fascinated. "Pocket dimension?"

"They're extra-dimensional space. You can reach them through portals and might have various magical traits."

He looks at the increasing puddle forming on the floor.

"Um," he says to the orange mom, "do you mind if I turn that into water vapor?"

She shakes her head silently.

"Sorry," he repeats.

The water turns into a mist and he keeps it as a tiny cloud beneath the pebble.

"What abilities do you have - where's the pebble getting water or is it producing it -"

"It's producing... making out of nothing, or rather out of magic, I guess. I think you've seen all my abilities so far?"

" - I have seen the translation effect and changing water into water vapor. That's all?"

"Oh, sorry. I shouldn't have assumed background knowledge. The changing water into vapor and the wings are part of skymagery, which gives me various weather-related powers, flight and..." he hates saying it, "control over fire. There is the dreamshaping and the translation effect - which I have no idea where it comes from if it isn't an ambient effect. And I am immortal, the pebble is that, it will grow into a floating boulder with a fountain where I can grow a new body after losing the previous one."

"Can other people learn these things?"

"No, sorry."

"Are they common where you're from?"

"No? There are two million skymages out of seven billion people. The other two have less than a hundred individuals. Uh, I meant that the immortality and dreamshaping have less than a hundred individuals. I actually don't know anything about the translation effect. I was assuming this was a pocket dimension and the effect was local-"

"But if that were true your - immortality rock wouldn't be far enough out of range to activate?"

Slow nod. "My brother makes them and they're very overengineered and full of redundancies."

"Can other people from your world get here?"

"I don't know. I've never heard of it happening before and they wouldn't know that they're supposed to look... the other fountain back home is going to assume my body died and is going to fork me."

"Huh."

"...There are conspiracy theories about the Shattered Skies doing weird things to people. But I don't think it's ever throwing them into other universes. And I most definitely never heard anything about people returning from other universes."

"What are the Shattered Skies?"

"They're a bunch of portals that someone decided to force close, and then half a century ago they all opened in a chain reaction, and haven't closed since- I have a touristic brochure," Felix retrieves from his pocket and presents it to Afen.

It's in English, it shows what can be presumed to be standard touristic information, a map and pictures. One of the pictures shows the Shattered Skies, the name is fitting. The portals are irregular and with cracks around the edges.

"How do portals work? Who can open or close them, what do they go between -"

"It varies per portal, each has sects of circumstances that are commonly called Keys," the translation happily provides the capital letter, "and they vary a lot, but each dimension has a theme. Some might react to emotions, actions, sounds or specific kinds of magic."