Talia and Vera

Talia's accommodations are a bit cozier than she might have initially assumed. There's a pale bed, white, sleek floor, a portrait-shaped computer terminal with keyboard and wheeled chair, and even a potted plant. There's as well a small washroom and closet. The computer's menu is designed to be user-friendly by default, although it is not a familiar operating system and really paints how far Talia has gone.

Vera in her own quarters washes off, puts on more casual attire than her interviewing attire, and she sits at her own terminal, typing up thoughts in a few notepads and then soon a couple electronic messages to other departments. She orders food for her door, like everything for the fortunate citizen, free of charge.

Talia makes herself comfortable quite easily; she's more than used to taking up whatever free space people have to offer, or worst case whatever she finds herself. A real proper bed to herself is pretty high class on the list of things she's ended up sleeping on. She lies down for some time, to simply rest off the excitement from the last little while. And her shoulder, too.

She doesn't just yet sleep though, and eventually takes upon her "duty" of examining the digital access point she's been granted. It is quite intuitive indeed but it's not every day she is in a time and place with modern technology so she's not entirely warmed up to it always.

Vera receives, after some time, two blips:

> how to use chat interface
> oh I thought that was the help menu

Talia receives back a message:

> You're using it right now. Anything else you'd need help with?

Vera's managed to convince the couple talking heads for the foreigner guard, and Town AI, to lend her one of their less common gadgets. And she's tipped them, and the other field researchers, the possibility that she may need to be recovered from somewhere distant if things go south in the near future. However, she's assured them and effectively herself, it won't go south. She's been working long enough to manage the "untamely " types, or at least stay important to them in the case of Talia. She eats her country rustic sandwich.

Vera sends another message:

> You informed me in the grass field that there is always someone or something for you when you arrive. I'm under the impression you're not sure what that is in Town?

Talia had earlier somewhat unknowingly answered a request for what she'd like to eat as she entered her room, and somewhere down the line she'd been presented with a plate of pasta of sorts. She isn't quite sure what exactly is in there but it tastes good so she continues eating.

> i did say that yeah
> it seems you're it though, or part of it, whatever that means?
> or you'll lead me to it
> i don't intend to take anything don't worry
> just experience it
> it's what I do

> I was thinking the same thing. We will work together, then. I'll help you experience new things, and I'll be happy to come along with your teleportation and take notes. [Draft]

Vera ponders on this message before hitting send. Of course, everything about this plan is tentative and could be abandoned at any time when they weren't out in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes even then. So she figures she'll sugar coat this right now. Maybe succeeding in an even better asset for Town and for herself.

She revises the message from saying "work" to "have fun." And she deletes "and take notes." And then she sends it to Talia along with another message:

> I will take a nap. How about I meet you at your door in the evening?

Talia squints slightly at the phrasing. Vera was a bit too much of a stuck up textbook person to not want something more tangible out of this than "having fun" but Talia doesn't judge her for trying to play nice. She licks out her plate quite thoroughly once she's done with the bulk of it, free food is good food after all.

> yeah i guess some snooze is good
> i might too but feel free to wake me again

She puts the plate and cutlery aside, and proceeds to tap around in the software for a few more minutes in case Vera has more to say, but intends to lie down if nothing shows up soon.

Talia receives a confirmation message that Vera will see her later, then. Indeed, Vera just walks over from the monitor to deposit her crumb-coated plate into the dirty dish basket by the front door, closing the cover on the opaque box. And she then goes to practice oral hygiene and then sleep in her bed, not taking her tablet with her.

--------------------

Many hours later, Talia hears a strange chime coming from nearby the door to her temporary living quarters. Vera's brought her sash with her tablet, taser, and requested gift from the foreigner guard, and she's wearing her typical weather-grade formal dress-piece and working pants.

Talia's somewhat lightly asleep as the chime disturbs her; she rolls over and makes some manner of disgruntled creature noise. "Dome. People with weapons. Science lady... Vera. We went to... Yeah. She said she'd wake me." She somewhat hastily pops out of her bed, waddling over to the door and opening it while still rubbing the sleep out of her face with the other hand.

Vera walks inside the room and takes a seat at the computer chair, and she removes her tablet from her sash. "Seems like you rested too. Perhaps next time I'll make the time more specific. Has everything been comfortable, to your best living standards? What are those, anyway?"

She idly opens her notetaking application and stares at Talia with pursed lips.

Talia takes seat at the edge of the bed, stretching quite considerably and making her already not short frame even more imposing in the moment. "Well, right now, my living standard is... This room. This is my home for as long as you'll have me. And that goes for most of my time anyhow, I take what people can offer mostly. It's been very comfortable, for sure, and the food was good too~" She nods her head at the criminally un-deposited plate on the table.

Vera types down this about Talia's tendency to be nomadic and living door-to-door. She says, "I'm glad you enjoy the room and your food. There's even more 'goodies' if you go visit the buildings on the layer below the dome. I can talk more about that later. For now, I think we ought to stay close." She rubs the back of her neck briefly. "Do make sure to put away dirty dishes like the one behind me in the bin beside the entrance, though, next time. Someone goes around and cleans that out every so often... I'll say that I've lived here my whole life, and am loyal to Town. But, like you, I have a deep tendency to travel. In my case, it's my line of work—my passion."

Talia doesn't hesitate to scurry over and put away the plate, as requested. "Goodies! I like goodies. Later sounds good." She takes a small moment to figure out the exact mechanics of the box but gets it closed pretty soon. She finds it a bit awkward to remain standing at the door and heads back to the bed. "It's a nice place, I can see why you like it so much. I have many a time considered settling in somewhere but it just isn't what I do. What kind of places do you tend to travel to? Is it exciting stuff or do you just interrogate people who land on other glass domes out there?" She giggles and then takes a look at her shoulder which is slowly shifted to a more bruised than sore tinge of discoloration.

Vera, of course, jots anything new about Talia, and keeps her eyes on her. "Oh, I've visited a number of unique and interesting places... Remote and busy areas of many countries. I do interrogate many people, usually elsewhere, but the real joy for me is uncovering information about the outside world that nobody in Town had knowledge of prior, particularly cultural details, details about important individuals, sometimes even details about magical entities such as yourself. Magic, after all, still tends to elude us in Town... But I am getting much ahead of myself. My point is just that I travel and I write about what I learn with great interest. Some would call me a blogger." Vera stares at the shoulder, too, offering nothing. She asks, "What do you do when you're not familiarizing with new places? I'm referring to hobbies or long-term projects, if they apply."

Talia scoops up her pillow and wraps her arms around it. "I do suppose I am much in the same boat. Though more for my own purpose than for. Town? An odd name. Why's it called that anyways?" It seems to be more an open ended question than a deliberate ask, and she proceeds without answer. "I've met a good few creatures and people of magic in my time. Remember the girl I mentioned, who I was with in that field? She could breathe and control fire. It was pretty neat. I can see why you lot want to understand and research it, and I won't object to that. But yes... My hobbies are largely what I find accessible in the places I visit. My true free time where I have not much to do I'll fondly ponder over my past experiences to make sure they don't go entirely lost to memory... I think a few have escaped me over time, but they must have been lesser adventures if they didn't make the cut."

Vera pauses and then says, "Perhaps you should introduce the habit into your own life and adventures of writing it down. I'd be haunted with the knowledge of forgetting the past, personally..." She clears her throat, and she raises her gaze. "So, Talia, because you do not possess a standard way to spend your time other than in the places you turn up—and because I think you've probably pondered your past recently enough—I think we might as well have more conversation somewhere else on the planet. I'll be having an unusual amount of stirring in bed if you don't satiate my curiosity with more of that teleportation of yours and more information about yourself as we come across it." She extends a spread hand, palm up.

"If I write it down and then forget it truly, I'll be reminded of what I don't know when I see the notes. I cannot tell you how long this has been going on for. It might be a timeless cycle. I might have written notes in the past, discarded them, and forgotten about ever having written them." Talia smushes her face into the pillow, nuzzling it slightly. "I'm not too experienced with taking other people around so I can't promise it'll be exactly as expected, but..." She closes her eyes and hums slightly, taking Vera's hand. "I can feel it. Do you feel it to? It wants us to go." The former sensation of the world tilting, fading, an unfamiliar breeze, envelops the both of them. "We could go now, if you're ready."

"A timeless cycle?" Vera, discarding her device to her sash and holding it against herself, says, "It's certain there's a beginning to your adventures. After all, you're not ageless. I'd wager you're in your twenties. In any case, yes, I am ready. Drop us." Vera clings onto Talia's hand and her sash with more urgency as the floor drops. And Vera closes her eyes, the thrill of skydiving still lost on her. This time, however, she had prepared her landing apparatus in her sash from all those message requests. And so with the wind blasting their hair, leaving Vera's frazzled and Talia's like a shimmering eel, Vera produces a small square seal attached to several stretchy threads that are in turn stuck to a large, white box. She pushes the seal onto Talia's back, and then seconds later the box dangling above their heads with the bouncy cables pops open into a thin, white net as long as a car. The parachute apparatus works. And so their last twenty seconds of falling is extended into at least a couple minutes.

Talia is still pondering Vera's short-sighted assessment of her age when the strong yank of being lifted rattles her deeply. She flails in a minor panic, trying to cling onto Vera even more to protect her. But as they settle into a smooth glide, she stops and assesses the ongoings. Vera seems to know what she's doing, and the two are descending at a steady pace.

"Vera. What the fuck is this." She hangs in the ties like a cat picked up by the scruff of the neck, seeming not charmed at all.

Vera, unlike any other time, is grateful to be tightly held. She blinks at the pink woman past the bright sunshine of the afternoon. "It's... A parachute. From now on, we'll be using this for the latter portion of our descents to prevent lethal falls for either of us." She gazes down below them. "Never mind why you don't know what a parachute is. Where are we?"

"If you want one for yourself, sure. I can drop you off when we teleport and you can take your time reaching the ground. I hate this. It's gross and unnatural and goes against anything I stand for." She grumbles, and then starts scanning the surroundings. "We are, uhh... Somewhere. We might greatly miss wherever we're meant to be, if the wind keeps taking us away. Do take note of what direction we're going so we can take the walk back once we land." There's a fairly mountainous landscape around them, a calm little river drifting away from the airborne duo.

"That'd be incredibly unfortunate if you splattered one day instead of bruised, you know. Especially if you sent me to the actual middle of nowhere." Vera sighs, her gesture apparently not good enough for the psychotic thrill-seeker. She searches for any familiar landmarks in the sparse trees as well as direction, holding to Talia's advice. She says, "What, you decided to take us somewhere random this time? Or, alternately, have we really veered off course this dramatically?"

"Vera. That's not how this works. If I know everything ahead of time it's hardly an adventure. Do you think I knew where I was going when I landed on your dome? If I was aware and prepared to collide with a dome of glass I would have stuck the landing. That was a terrible landing and I got away with a dent. I don't think I can die on impact unless I tried. I am serious about this."

The two gently touch down in a grassy field, and Talia disapprovingly tries to shake off the parachute to little effect. "Get it off. I don't want it. Make it leave."

"Okay, please, one moment..." Vera grabs the seal on Talia's sparkly dress back, rotates it a couple times, and it falls off. Then she's pulling on the cables away from the box, reeling the nanomaterial cloth of the parachute into the box. "You really are just super resilient physically to landings. A convenient feature, certainly. I guess necessary, given how we met—And you don't know where we are? You never know ahead of time?" Vera collects the last of the net into the box, and then Vera closes a trap door at the top of it. Into the sash the parachute goes. She says, "Sure, you want arbitrary places for new adventures, but how did you guide us to that field you claimed to already know, or back to Town?"

"Those are special cases. I can go to places I've been before, if that's what seems right to do. But when my business is finished in places, I seek new ones. You know how vast of an expanse of places I can go? I don't think my mind would even be able to comprehend and store all of that information." She carefully paces, making sure to keep her orientation. "We need to head the direction we came from before we're entirely lost. It's not meant to be like this, with the parachute. You... You are making so many assumptions about my powers. But I think you'll manage to learn! It'll be good insight for you."

"Interesting. Your combination of abilities and the nature of each are so specific, and I have to wonder why magic is always such a strange and fickle tool. At least, what appears to be magic. And you claim you don't know when it began, right? Still... Trying to figure out how someone like you is even possible, even if something like a ShapeShifter or spells exists." She starts walking in the direction, then, and she gestures Talia to follow. "Sure. Let's walk there. I'll never parachute you again, just because I'm your 'friend' and I suppose that means I respect your wishes. And if I didn't learn, I wouldn't be a field researcher, would I?" She stares off in the distance in front of them, searching for one of the few tree landmarks she tried to commit to memory. "Although your mind can't, maybe mine could. What, can you travel anywhere in space?"

"In theory? Who knows. I could try to aim for the moon, if this place has one. But I don't really like aiming for places I can't even guarantee to be, y'know. Liveable." She follows after Vera - The upper end of the river they appeared above is visible further up the mountain so they're clearly headed in the right direction. There's not much indication of trodden paths in this area yet. "A shapeshifter? I can't recall meeting any one of those yet. You are familiar with one? That's cool."

Walking along the quiet valley, Vera gazes up to the darkening sky. She eventually says, "Talia... Are you implying you aren't familiar with Earth and haven't learned how many moons we have or are you trying to frighten me by implying we might be on... an Earth-like planet without a moon, do I have that right? It'd have to be remarkably similar to Earth, given the very familiar plants, soil, and air. We... Probably are on Earth, even if you can travel far and wide, is what I'm concluding." She also says, "Their abilities are interesting the first time, and then they keep talking about their abilities as if it's the backbone of their entire personality. Which it is. You wouldn't care for them."

"The meadow we visited on our first meeting? Oh, no amount of your science knowledge stuff could put a number on how far away that is from here, probably. This place? It seems to have similar vibes - Are you able to check? I bet your silly gadgets would rely on being on the correct planet. You might ask, what are the odds these places are somewhat similar to what we know and contain people we can communicate with? Well, that's where the sense of fate comes in. What I've seen is an itty bitty fraction of the whole, just a select few places that happen to be somewhere I can actually experience things of interest."

The already sparse trees they are passing through lighten again, and the river comes to view ahead of them. The trickling sound of water is soothing, the ground mostly rocky in content giving the flow a lot of obstacles to weasel around and over. Talia walks over, and carefully observes it. "Very pretty."

Vera produces her tablet from her sash and clicks around until she produces a map with a flashing yellow marker. She turns it to Talia's direction and then back to herself. "We're just in Alaska... You've managed to take us nearly halfway across the globe in a fraction of a second." Since the device is already out, Vera starts writing down more of what's been updated since landing here, including Talia's speeches. "I see. So... The universe, if you do travel it, has life everywhere of varying interest, geology of differing similarity. That makes sense. We already know earth-like planets and alien life exists, and most in those won't be speaking our language... Your ability is quite remarkable in its selectiveness, and I'd wish to investigate it more with time the mechanisms behind it. And the unit you're looking for the meadow is either miles or light-years—what's pretty?" She yawns. "Alaska? Yeah. Tends to make for good post-cards."

"Now comes the critical, all important and vital question, Navigator. Are we upstream or downstream from where we appeared? Maybe your fancy top-down view map might help you recognize the landscape." She sticks her hands in the water, and takes a small drink. "I have to admit, I don't know how much the rules change when I have someone joining me. God knows, maybe you qualify for the rule of landing near something living and aware. Would be a shame if we never got to meet anyone, but I think that's not too likely to happen every time." She hasn't looked around yet, but some distance upstream there's the vaguest indication of something not entirely natural. A vague construction of sorts.

She says, "That wouldn't do much good, Whimsical Wishy-Washy Woman. I already see where we were descending starting from because I remember some of those sparse tree clumps. And it appears there's something human over there, which is a good indicator." She stands next to the leaning Talia, her boots in the stream. "Interesting concept, however, Talia. I could be in our travel the communication element of the two elements your ability apparently seeks, communication and adventure. While an interesting approach to a bonding experience as 'friends', I also don't wish it happens regularly."

Talia stands up and observes the thing Vera mentioned. "Ah-ha! That's exactly the kind of thing I'd usually be looking for." She takes Vera's hand and insists they go check it out. As they get closer, it seems to be a rather large tent, easily able to room three people and a fair bit of belongings. There's a campfire spot outside - The ashes are dead and weathered, it hasn't been lit the last night at the very least. It's quiet.

"Huh. Usually I'd expect someone here. They might have left while we were awkwardly hiking this way?"

"That's a reasonable answer for a basic parable." Vera squirms her hand from Talia's grip, and she rummages around the belongings without too much concern for the privacy of the owners. She does, however, check that the coast is clear. "There's food here and water. A book. A stuffed elephant. I think we should wait for the campers for at least a few minutes, and then we should leave for Town if they don't return back to base. It's about to get very cold when the sun slips behind that mountain."

Talia pokes around as well, but seems rather surprised by how empty the place is. It's clearly not what she's used to. Minutes pass, and nothing of note does happen. "Maybe. Maybe... Hear me out, Vera. Maybe this is all just a trial. To make you understand. All these misunderstanding things you said, maybe you just weren't ready to go on a full scale trip with me. I don't know... This really isn't what it's like for me. We could try to go back, certainly. If we're actually done here, it'll be trivial." She closes her eyes, and senses. Of course, she doesn't quite have the pull around her yet. She's not holding onto Vera.

Vera for a couple minutes checks notes from throughout the day. She puts the device away and responds to Talia, "I think I'm perfectly equipped for a full trip. I'm not sure who or what would be inventing a trial for me, believing I lack some sort of essential knowledge, but somehow you're implying it isn't you. So, what, not only does the magic decide to take you on random new adventures, with people you can talk to, but you also have to pass a trial sometimes…? It really should be trivial, we walked around and we talked." She removes her parachute and sticks it to the back of her white outfit, preparing this time in advance. It would only deploy once the elevation was sufficiently low. And then she holds Talia's hand. The weightless air around them then envelopes them.

"We seem to be ready to depart, then. Can you control this thing, if I let go of you? I don't want you drifting into the ocean because I intend to let go and fall straight down. Alternatively I could put us a bit to the side and we can drift there together. That's not fun though." She stalls, wanting to be sure of these details instead of yet again having an unprepared, weird moment in the skies.

"Yeah. I can make it go roughly where I need it to. If I land in the ocean just make a panic and get the coast guard, but I know how to swim and float." She shrugs, and she grabs Talia's arm despite having a parachute. "I'll only deploy when we are closer to the ground, for safety and accuracy."

"When you are closer to the ground." The entire world tilts on its side, Talia falling backwards. Once they're through to the other side, Talia pushes off and takes her own landing. It's been too many weird ones, lately. It's a trained tuck and roll, and she ends in an elegant pose on both legs.