Talia and Vera

There was sometimes controversy about the dome. Its glass could handle the worst of natural disasters, and incidents of even medium-sized planes crashing into it. There were a total of five incidents that involved a crash into the dome, and all of them were caused from excelling children students' chemically-propelled rockets. "Wouldn't the fresh, ocean air be better if the whole dome was open", argued a board member from the third hallway of the twenty. It didn't matter that we pumped the ocean air into Town through the colossal (much less argued) walls. Studies showed that babies and middle-age women felt significantly less depression without a see-through dome holding over their head all seasons.

Today, dozens of residents sit in the grass and benches of the dedicated grass area, and they bask in the warm, overhead sun with primarily soba noodle bowls, some sandwiches, and a pancake. But a large thud, for the first time on a weekend, comes off the dome roof.

Vera is reading at her bedroom desk with an uneaten soba noodle bowl when she gets called on her monitor for an emergency interrogation duty in her usual sector.

Talia is dizzy. Sore, dazed. She rubs her visibly bruised shoulder yet again, whining softly. Her recollections of the incident so far are... Scattered, but it's slowly clearing up.

She hadn't been at all prepared to Strike into the glass dome so far above what she thought was her target. Of course, any reasonable being would have perished on impact at that speed but taking a rather rough beating to her instinctively bracing shoulder, being lightly concussed on impact was way above her regular standards, and she'd barely been aware but not trying to resist as she'd been collected off the dome ceiling and now sat in a fairly anonymous looking room, waiting for. Who knows what, really. She was not in power and was not looking to start a situation. Some ice would have been nice, but she's only slowly settled enough to be in a state to try asking.

A couple of men with tasers stand behind Talia. One of them laughs, in particular pointing out the colorful tail coming from the rear. At least her chair in this well-lit room is comfortable and soft, particularly at the head and rear. It was found that a chair any more comfortable than this would start to curve the average openness of the convicted and question person down since, well, they'd start to be sleepy, or get distracted.

Vera pushes a door into the room, and she closes it behind her with a combination on her notepad. She sits right across from the humanoid fox or cat. She has bags under her eyes, but she types onto her device with the enthusiasm of a first report. This is a first report!

"Hello. Please call me Blogger. What is your name? And, I'm sorry to run into it so fast, but please elaborate on the circumstances surrounding your impact at 12:07 pm."

Talia sits up, assuming this is who she's been waiting for. She shakes her head out a bit while the other takes seat. Hoping for a bit more clarity. "Well, see, I was expecting to hit the ground. It seemed far away so I thought I'd be fine for a bit longer. And then this... Dome snuck up on me, out of nowhere. Really should be flagged or labeled somehow. That wasn't very pleasant."

"The name's Talia. Talia Starstrike. Yes, the falling from the sky part came before the name."

To add extra emphasis on her situation, Talia rubs her shoulder a more and whines just a little bit more distinctly, hoping it'll inspire pity in the visitor who might be fairly important and maybe in charge in some way.

This double line-up of joke gets only a couple lines of writing from Vera. She smiles a fake smile, and she leans back into her seat. She glances at the hurt shoulder.

"I appreciate the comedy routine. That'll be a great fit in the other district. However, I need a real answer. Your name is Talia Starstrike, allegedly, and you fell out of a plane? A manned drone? The vehicle in questioning must have been in a low-flight trajectory, dangerously low."

She also addresses the room openly. "Can someone bring inside a bag of frozen, diced carrots?"

"No, no. You don't understand. I fell from the sky. That's what I do. I don't think I can explain this very well but that is, in fact, the whole answer. There's the sky. I'm up there. And then I'm no longer up there. Because gravity, or whatever you might call it here. I've heard a few names for it. 'Earth-greed' is my favorite so far. But anyhow. So I stop being in the sky and then I hit the ground. Everyone tells me 'But Talia, falling from the sky kills people!' but like that's the whole thing, not me. Which is why I'm upset about the whole dome thing. If I know where I'm landing I can do a neat lil' roll and catch myself and hopefully keep my balance to end on my feet."

She knows, to some degree, that this is entirely not what is being asked for. But all she can do is tell the truth and show enough confidence that maybe, by a miracle, someone will believe it.

The answer is competent and horrid, completely devoid of any information, hilarious, and seemingly honest. Vera glances between Talia and her device, and writes a few things down before setting the device beside her on the cushion, letting the screen turn off. "Talia, you've successfully said nothing but what I find to be an endearing joke. I am interested in the truth, and... I have no reason to doubt you and no reason to believe you so far. Furthermore, I have no reason to fear you nor do I have reason to laugh." She stares at Talia, trying to prove she's indifferent, and a little hatch near the door buzzes. Vera collects the frozen sliced carrots and hands them over to Talia. "Use this on your shoulder. I suppose a better question, then, to play by your manufactured game... How do you start up there, prior to when you are no longer there, hmm?"

She takes the bag of produce, not interested in asking why it's carrot and not just ice. A soft sigh escapes her as she presses it onto her shoulder. She leans back, and lowers her enthusiasm just a bit, looking down at the table.

"Your type is so methodical. So absolute. You punch some numbers into a calculator and see the numbers. What if one day you typed in two plus two and suddenly a picture of a clock appeared on the display? You'd assume something's broken. Try to fix the thing. But maybe the universe decided it was 'replace the number four with an image of a clock day' for exactly you and no one else. I'm... I'm not sure why I am trying to make this absolutely insane and pointless comparison. I could tell you all my adventures, try to describe this sense of Fate that makes me depart from one story to the next, but you wouldn't get it. There's only one way I can truly offer you a fulfilling answer, and I don't know if you'll like it. But I'll offer it just this once, Blogger."

Her eyes finally look up at Blogger, with a soft smile. This is a dare, a very clear one. Say yes, Blogger, it'll be fun.

"I'm not a cashier. See, I can be a comedian too. Look how funny I am." Vera rolls her eyes. She clears her throat. "I do research, I maintain a blog, I interrogate and make notes. However, I haven't even been writing any of this down. I lost interest documenting nonsense; your ridiculous hypothetical supposing tautologies aren't absolute losing me further." She pauses, and then glances at the guards, nodding at them. She returns to Talia, trading a steady gaze in return.

"I'm always looking for 'a fulfilling answer', to quote Miss Starstrike. I've seen adventures, but I haven't figured out how your claim of story hopping has any grounds on reality, and if it did I'd be the first to write it down, I'm sure. My point is I don't care if I hate the answer, and I accept your offer." She sighs. "Now that I've accepted your corny offer, explain it."

Talia giggles, and puts the ice down. She stretches, taking her time with it. "So, it's quite simple. I have so many words, so many stories, so many memories. But you're not interested in those. Instead of us sitting here for god knows how many hours..."

"I'll show you."

By the time anyone around can react, let alone pop her with a taser, she's grabbed Vera and they both vanish in a blink of light.

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

The wind soars past both of them. It's almost sunset in this location, and the sky is in pleasant tones of red. Vera is held tightly by Talia, probably not comfortably but I can assure you, it's better than the alternatives.

And by the time Vera may dare to make sense of up and down, the impact rattles them both. It's much cleaner this time, Talia rolling over her good shoulder and absorbing almost all the energy, letting go of Vera who find herself roll twice around in what seems to be clean, long grass. After just moments, it's quiet. Peaceful.

"How's that for an answer?"

Vera doesn't dream. If she did have dreams, she'd maybe have to make a note of them, so if anything it gives her more time and freedom.

This, however, was suddenly a dream.

The sky is absolutely gorgeous. She soaks in the view with a strange, somber silence. She can see the horizon, but not the curvature of this planet. She wonders what any of this had to do with the interview. If Talia had killed her, or if this was a hallucination of the highest degree. But none of that made sense. Talia was here, and everything felt very real. There was a very strong gust and one part of the vast sky has seemingly grown very large, a long stretch of green.

She didn't have enough time to figure out the impact, indeed. It made sense when she was now sprawled on the grass, however. The machinations of going from up there to down here.

She rubs her head, and her earlier, hardcore presence is completely gone. She scurries close to the strange Talia, holding her arm. The only logical reason to exist here, if this is real, was this stranger's touch. Vera's body shivers. "Where the fuck are we?"

Talia lets Vera close. She gently dusts herself off, and looks around for some time with... some sense of nostalgia.

"I think it amounts to maybe two years ago. This world was one of my longest lasting adventures. I met a girl, she was a traveler. Like me. Instead of having each our adventure as we tend to, we chose to have one together. We shared stories as we wandered tirelessly. Neither of us knew where we'd end up, but that didn't matter." Talia gestures to a pair of trees some distance out in the open field. "We camped under those, one night. It was a chillier day than most, not like the summery evening mildness we have now, but she was always so warm."

Talia puts a hand on her hip, a reasonably sized satchel on her side. Embroidered with an orange A. "She gave me this, when we parted. Said my adventures were grander, and that I needed it more than her."

"...I guess that doesn't answer much of your questions. This place has no name, we're about a week and a half of walking from civilization to the east and west. I don't think the other directions are any better. But what matters is that we're not in your little interrogation room. Instead, we fell from the sky. As I said, that's what I do. There's really not more to it." She giggles.

Vera shakes her head through most of the story. The composure of her expression is incredibly fragile, like trying to cry but being frozen instead. "Are we alive? How could you possibly have teleported somewhere distant and nameless? What the fuck... You were confiscated for gadgets, the report was none, no gadgets. Teleportation is extremely advanced, I wasn't wearing any gear to facilitate joining you in this, you didn't open a portal, I am clearly awake, I don't think I'm dead..." Nothing made sense. Vera, with her free hand, reaches for the orange satchel. "You must be magic, or indistinguishable from magic. You... I've met a witch, once—Take us back."

"We are alive and awake, yes. I simply took the two of us somewhere else. Be glad I opted for a place I've been before, I didn't want to take the risk of another bad landing with a bruised shoulder and extra cargo." She settles down on the ground in a comfortable sitting position, after politely swatting away Vera's hand from the bag. No touchy. "Your people know so little about things outside their knowledge. I have a good few things they wouldn't want me to have probably but apparently just a simple enchanted pouch is enough to mislead them. And... I can't tell you much more who I am. I don't know all the details myself. And unlike your kind, I'm okay with that. I am Talia Starstrike, some kind of humanoid animal creature thing with unnatural abilities. I follow my sensed fate to new people, planets, universes. I can't even tell the expanse of my ability to locate new places, but there's always something for me when I arrive. Or someone."

"I can take you back, eventually, once you've convinced me you're not going to try to have me incapacitated or shot by your many guards when we return. Also, maybe if you manage to describe me a place nearby your area that's not a terrible glass dome to land on, that would make arrival easier."

Vera just kind of stares at the orange satchel, but doesn't make an attempt to grab it off of Talia anymore. She actually cries, her displacement from familiarity not only too high but too fast. Being told, too, she'd have to convince this lunatic she wouldn't have them immediately imprisoned. She'll do that convincing when she's ready. The fact any of this is possible, even if there is something nasty to that bag...

She sniffles, after a while, and she clears her throat. "Okay... Okay. I have no intention to harm you, or imprison you, or any miscellaneous ill intention... The entire town is surrounded by ocean. If you landed in that, you'd break every bone in our bodies... Like you managed to avoid just now, that's another question entirely." Vera reaches, as a force of job habit, into her work dress' pale satchel that stretches across her stomach. She says, "Oh... I can't write it down until I go home. My field research equipment was left in the interrogation chamber. If you want me to document all this you're telling me, like that you don't even know what kind of humanoid creature you are, that's going to be necessary. I'd like to write it down personally."

She stares with red, baggy eyes. "Something for you? Someone for you? What was for you in my town? It's a utopia, it could have been anything you were trying to confiscate or enjoy..."

Entirely unrelated to Vera's concerns, Talia produces a small pack of tissues from her satchel, and offers them over. "I can tell you more when we're back and settled in. I love telling my stories. Maybe... Hm. I mean, I never actually know what that something is, what kind of story expects me. But I think by now that clearly, you're part of it." She smiles warmly, then realizes. Wait, maybe that sounded a bit more threatening than kind, to someone as narrow as Vera. "I mean that in a good sense. You're interesting. Maybe someday I'll tell someone else about you the way I told you about this location, and the girl."

Vera takes the tissues, blowing her nose on a couple. "These aren't moisturized, but I accept them... If you love telling your stories, Talia, I love writing them down with my Town tablet. And... I appreciate your flattery that you think I'm part of your story in some intrinsic sense, but it's a bad story to feel threatened by a strange, intelligent woman interrogating you who just cried like a defenseless loser." She sighs, and stops slouching. She dusts her dress of loose pieces of grass and dirt, still with one hand on Talia. "But, enough. They're going to probably document me as dead if we wait too much longer. I accepted your offer, and I got an answer that freaked me out, that's all..."

Talia looks her company up and down. She seemed... A bit more understanding and settled now. Maybe it was time. She scans her memory, trying to think over her fuzzy memories of her landing... She was picked up from on top of the dome, after all. There was a roof access of sorts, flush with the glass. She could aim for that area, and use the solid part as reference for the height. It'd be fine, better than last time at least.

"Let's head back, then. Hope your people aren't too eager to seek senseless revenge on my actions. Let me hold you again, less rushed this time." She steps around Vera, holding around her. The pull out of this location is already vaguely... perceivable. The vague scent of ocean. The winds in the clouds. A change in temperature. We haven't left yet, but it's like we're gradually more and more in two places at once, as Talia feels out the surroundings to adjust the landing as well as she can. To avoid severe injuries despite the difficulty.

Vera drops the packet of tissues into the sky as it emerges. It recedes into a spectacle of white below. Talia having taken the time to teleport the two of them made the ordeal a lot less traumatic. Although Vera, as they start to plummet, closes her eyes in anticipation of a fall at least a minute away from impact, knowing she only could rely on Talia's own ragdoll body to brace the landing again. Eventually, the rush of the ocean air pulling past them flattens entirely with an unpleasant thud. Talia's landed on the dome, which would kill anyone lesser than her landing expertise, Vera's sure. And something about her body, surely.

Vera slowly opens her eyes, shivering, to an assortment of armed security, some with traditional projectile weapons this time. She calls them all off, explaining she's safe despite the fright of falling from the sky. And she then says, clearing her throat, "In fact, I think Talia may prove to be very interesting to us—a great asset for field work, if you give me some time to work with her. For now, just give her limited living accommodations. Food, water, bed." Shutting down his raised hand, she faces one armed man and says, "Imprisoning her and stripping her of her items would be pointless, after all. She's the teleporter."

Talia and Vera are escorted from the roof. As they walk down a series of stairways, Vera combs her windblown dark hair with her fingers and says, "...That stated, Talia, I will need time to think alone, immediately. Your limited accommodation will have a computer terminal you can use to call or message me if you require anything. And, please, understand you're very interesting, don't seem malicious, and... You pulled the worst out of me tricking me like that. Don't do that again."

Talia knows she's got no power as soon as they land, and apart from being ready to simply vanish if hell were to break loose she lets Vera make sure things stay in order. Landing on the done this time was quite a bit more passable, though it's still a hard surface she landed onto with someone coming along so it wasn't really on par with most. She doesn't comment on the mention of "being an asset for field work", but she's very curious as to if it is... Something she'll actually be able to do. Vera will have to figure her out the hard way, though.

Having food and bed does seem an upgrade from frozen vegetables and an interrogation room, at least, plus the prospect of the people attempting to rob her of her possessions again is good to avoid. She equally starts tending to her much more volumous hair, and simply quips; "I simply did what you asked me to. Any other method wasn't getting anywhere. But now that we're on more agreeable terms, I think I won't have to take to such extreme measure again~". She beams a cute and innocent smile.

"Whatever the case, it won't be necessary to do it again, correct." Vera leaves Talia with a fake half-smile, the kind of smile one gives when talking face-to-face with incompetent customer service. She steps aside into a different hallway than the one Talia is being led into, and Vera again calls out to the men and women of the foreigner guard, "Be nice to her."