No One Here Would Understand As Well As Me

[here_together]

It's probably harder for most people to stay off the grid than you would think, but when you have unusual enough (and useful enough) talents, there's always someone willing to help you out, in exchange for something only you can give them. (Incentives. Supply and demand. The carrot is so much more useful than the stick--and so much less likely to get you hurt in return.) And their magic (it has to be their magic, even when they're a her instead of a they, otherwise the investiture would just fall apart) is uncommonly useful.

Right now they (definitely a they, right now) are kicking back and relaxing in a little no-tell motel. There's free wifi, at least, and the employee who discretely got them a room in exchange for clearing up a few issues also snuck them some decently filling snacks, so they're pretty much good to go until they decide to do something else. Or something interesting happens.

Comments

[inourhead]

'Where are we?'

[here_together]

'Little motel in a podunk town in Pennsylvania. I think it was called Keystone or something.'

[inourhead]

'...Where's that?'

[here_together]

'Do you mean where in Pennsylvania or have you never heard of Pennsylvania?' Odd, but if this girl came from some random non-America country...well, it's not like she can name all the Canadian provinces or anything.

[inourhead]

'We've never heard of Pennsylvania.'

[here_together]

Last time she said "we" she could have been referring to herself and us, Emily observes. Less so this time.

'We?' Edie asks, sending a vague wave of agreement to her sister.

[inourhead]

'Me and Holly. I'm Crystal.'

[here_together]

'...I'm Edie and {this} is Emily,' she sends, mirroring her sister in on the conversation. 'You're two people too?'

'We've never met anyone like us before,' Emily chimes in. 'Not so we've noticed, anyway, which isn't saying much; we don't usually advertise it ourselves.'

[inourhead]

'We're unusual,' agrees Crystal. 'Um, where is Pennsylvania?'

[here_together]

Mental image of a globe. Mental image of the United States on the globe. Mental image of Pennsylvania's location in the United States.

[inourhead]

'Why is the thing round?'

[here_together]

'...Because it's the planet?'

[inourhead]

'...We're from a flat place. With a hole in it. It's not round.'

[here_together]

"Are you sure? Lots of people used to think the Earth was flat. It's not hard, it's really huge, it looks flat until you get really, really far away."

[inourhead]

'We're... pretty sure. Suns would probably come back eventually if they were going on a round thing.'

[here_together]

'Suns? Earth has a sun. The world goes around it, and spins.' Simplified mental image of the solar system.

[inourhead]

'I guess that would work if you lived on a round thing, but we don't.'

[here_together]

'Apparently. How'd you leave?'

[inourhead]

'A demon ate us.'

[here_together]

'What.'

[inourhead]

'We didn't recognize the kind, it looked like a snake with a big mirror for a face, and it was chasing us and we weren't fast enough, and then - we were here. We don't know if it got our brother and his cohabitor too.'

[here_together]

'A snake with a mirror for a face? Cohabitor? Demons don't exist. Here. Demons don't exist here. Presumably they exist where you're from. We don't know anything about them.'

[inourhead]

'Our brother knows more about demons but he was asleep, his cohabitor was running away at the time. ...Cohabitor is the person who lives with you? Our brother and his are normal, they aren't awake at the same time like us and you.'

[here_together]

'Here we're not weird because we're both awake, we're abnormal because we both exist.'

[inourhead]

'We're unusual because we were born all together. Our brother too until he moved out.'