extremely qualified ambassador of earth

[bitterchill]

Vancouver, being Vancouver, lacks a vibrant night life, or for that matter a dingy one. Take this alleyway, for instance. Completely empty. Where are the muggers? Where are the filthy strays? New York clicks its counterfactual tongue in grimy disapproval.

That said: the alleyway is empty. It would be a shame if something... happened to it.

Comments

[erinflight]

"Oh yea. That. I know this bastard who made me immortal, so now every time I should die, my soul cracks a bit. My parents were human though."

[bitterchill]

"What a coincidence, I'm fairly sure mine were too. What kind of bastard would this be, specifically? Sidhe, dragon, old god? Outsider, maybe?"

[erinflight]

"Old god I think. I don't know what a Sidhe or an outsider is. His brother's the one who gave me my teleporter. Why do you want to thwack him?"

[bitterchill]

"...You have really confusing gaps in your common knowledge for an immortal with friends among the old gods. I honestly have no idea what's going on here."

(Raised under a literal rock? Extremely incompetent Outsider infiltrator? Unreasonably pretty amnesiac?)

[erinflight]

"I"m, umm, not actually from here. I don't know if you know about this? But there are actually a ton of human universes, thousands, and it's my job to go check out new ones."

[bitterchill]

"Well."

[erinflight]

"I guess not then," Alex laughs, "But yea, I'm from the Organization. There are a lot of things out there that hate humans, and we try to keep the human worlds safe. I'm one of the scouts. If whoever is in power here seems reasonable, I'll try to talk to them. "

[bitterchill]

Ari laughs. "That's adorable. No, no one reasonable is in power. Everyone with power is terrible and should be avoided at all costs. You might have some luck with the Merlin of the White Council of Wizards, if it weren't for the fact that he'd immediately kill you and fling your remains into the sun because you come from beyond the Outer Gates."

[erinflight]

"That's, that's good to know. Maybe I should go home and reevaluate, I'm not equipped to deal with hostile wizards." Alex grips his teleporter and closes his eyes. Nothing happens. He grows very pale.

[bitterchill]

"That looks like a bad thing," Ari hazards.

[erinflight]

"It's not working. It's not working at all. That's never happened before!"

[bitterchill]

"Well... shit."

Ari tries to think of a solution. He can't try to send him back, on account of the Seventh Law being enforced by scary people with swords. He can't help fix the amulet, because he has no damn idea how it works, in addition to which that's still Seventh Law territory.

Eventually, he just goes with, "D'you want to stay in my apartment while you get back on your feet?"

[erinflight]

Alex looks up from where he'd been uselessly fiddling with the teleporter, surprised, "You would do that? You don't even know me."
He smiles and says very seriously, "Thank you."

[bitterchill]

"Well. Nobody else is around, so I might as well do what I can."

He pauses. "Plus, the apartment is huge. I could house, like, at least four dimensional castaways before it started getting crowded."

[erinflight]

Alex laughs, semi-desperately, and says, "I'm Alex by the way."

[bitterchill]

"Oh, thank the Queens you remembered that part. It probably would have gotten awkward. I'm Ari, Ari Kaltmann."

[erinflight]

"Nice to meet you Ari," Alex holds out his hand.

[bitterchill]

Ari shakes it firmly.

"...Do you need to eat, or anything? This is a good area for restaurants. Otherwise I can show you the apartment."

[erinflight]

"I could eat. Do you think you could tell me a bit more about this world? All I know is that it's a 21st century earth that has magic."

[bitterchill]

"Dammit, I was going to interrogate you first. Fine, I'll explain as we go. Do you have any 21st-century food preferences, or should we just get Vietnamese?"

[erinflight]

"Vietnamese sounds delicious. We could trade off questions if you want?"

[bitterchill]

Ari sets off Vietnamesewards. "Ooh, good idea. So what century are you from?"

[erinflight]

"21st, but my home earth didn't have any magic. What are you, exactly?"

[bitterchill]

"Wizard, human, specialty for earth evocation and general proficiency with thaumaturgy. Layman-wise, that means I'm good at immediate combat magic involving dirt, stone, or gravity effects, and I can do various cunning magical rituals."

[erinflight]

"Sometimes I wish I could do magic. Is magic common here?"