Eight

He nodded and thought back to his feelings about their chance encounter the moment he had seen her. All in all, no, things were not so bad. He had been expecting... well, everything worse. So far, Sebastian admitted to himself, this had been enjoyable and somehow enlightening.

He nabbed seeds from a pit and smiled a little at them. "What about before 'right now'? It doesn't sound like you've been staying put very much," Sebastian said and blinked at her wide-eyedly, ears perked.

"Well, back home, as it were, I was officially on the road. After being thrown elsewhere I couldn't see a way how to get back, because that manipulated door did not stay open, so besides being in the habit of moving around, there was also hoping to find someone who knew about these things. That's the world where I picked up Ayu-Asra, too, by the way."

She didn't go into the problems of finding your feet when you were in a strange place, looked different from the people there, and didn't even speak their language; he had to have been through that far more often.

"I thought I had found a way, but that led me to the Cross'd Roads instead. A nice place all in all, but I think in the long run it would have driven me insane. There seemed no way to get from there directly home, and, well, I walked out to see where I'd end up."

She tilted her head, said, "You know, maybe I'd been there too long already," and chuckled.

He grinned. Not just because it was amusing, but because survivors were another group with whom he was comfortable around. "Maybe so, maybe so. The Cross'd Roads... uh, well, establishments like that are places where you will go crazy," he chuckled, although in the back of his head rattled a memory of another similar place and a friendly face telling him off.

"Maybe," he said after a while, rubbing his head. "How do you feel about being on the road? I can't say I remember what it was like to want to go home, so I'm curious about... umh. Well, what I just said?"

She sighed. "It was more fun when I was floundering on the end of a long line." But had it been, really?

Resting an elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, she considered for a while, before continuing thoughtfully, "When I travelled Kondar - that is the continent I went to - I was in a small way a representative of my guild and homeland. Later, where those were unknown... I lost the protection the guild granted, and there was the sheer strangeness to get used to. But there is a certain freedom in being cut off completely. And there are always new things to learn and see.

"And yet..." She shifted her weight and leaned forward, gesturing, talking more quickly.

"The night sky's an example. A moonless night, here, with countless bright stars? It doesn't happen in Eodea. It's beautiful. But I also miss the sky I grew up under.

I visit places no-one from my world has seen before. But that means little if my friends, teachers and family never find out, but think me dead."

She leaned back and turned her face away from Sebastian, sighing again, sounding more exasperated than sad. This wasn't a place she had wanted to visit, but it did good telling someone. "That is, no-one I've ever heard of visited the places I've been to and came back to tell the tale."

Looking Sebastian in the eyes with a grim smile she added, "As I said at the start. I'd like it better if I knew for sure there was a way back." Another shrug, and she ended more softly, "But if I can't find one, well, I'll manage."

There was a certain anger underlying part of her explanations, but it was not directed at Sebastian.

The half-elf looked sympathetic, yet at the same time he didn't know how it felt even though he knew what it felt like to want something like that. He would have felt envy if he had not felt a hint of sadness. The survivor spirit he heard in those words was what touched him. "Thank you," he finally said quietly, feeling a little overwhelmed.

Then he made a move on the board. "I won't pretend to know how that feels, as I more or less said, but... well, I hope it'll turn out all right for you. Whether you have to manage or find your way back," he said, just as softly, and smiled and looked back up at Sylvie. "Not much of a consolation, I know," he added a little self-depreciatingly and shrugged, still smiling.

"I'll just take it as encouragement, then." She looked up from dropping beads. "Thank you."

After stretching her arms a bit she asked, "How do you get from one world into another, anyway?" She was relaxed, and just asked the question since it occurred; expecting it to hold the answer to her problem would have been silly.

Ayu-Asra finally woke up (or possibly stopped pretending to be sleeping) and stretched.

He looked up, wearing a sheepish expression. After a moment's consideration, he said, a little uncertainly: "I'm not too sure. It's never a conscious thing. There's been accidents, there's been... crossed roads and then, well, this one time I was on a world that was... a little zealous about their laws. Must not wear blue on the first day of the week, that sort of thing...

"They had a kind of gate through which they threw their unwanteds, like outsiders that broke some law without knowing it." He smiled at the memory a little, getting carried away by it for a moment. "The world behind that gate was... unnaturally bright and vibrant. Trees thrice the size of these, rodents twice the normal size... hot, humid. Even the colours were brighter. The people there liked to wear plain colours."

Pause.

"Sorry, uh, as I was saying... it's rarely a conscious choice, although there are people who have some idea of where worlds connect."

Sylvie looked around. "Well, they'd been about the size of the trees in that spirit-protected wood."

Ayu-Asra snuck up to her and rested his heads on her leg, and she scratched him absentmindedly.

"I do wonder what the people there feel about getting stuck with the zealots' unwanteds, though."

"They were the unwanteds," he said after a moment of looking at the dragon getting scratches. "They had their own world going on in there. It was a little rough and unforgiving, but so was the land. Giant predators, mainly. Lizards. The people made their armour and weapon out of their bones and leather.

"I don't think it was that strange that they were the best hosts I have ever met. The food wasn't all that bad, either."

"When the land's unforgiving, people need to stick together." It was half a question, but she continued with barely a pause.

"Sorry. I've known someone who lost family because a neighbouring country banished some thugs rather than dealing with them. It's not like those ridiculous laws you mentioned. Just a bit of a sore point."

He smiled a little, indicating he wasn't offended or otherwise affected. "It's fine. I see your point. Had there been people prior to the unwanteds... I'm fairly certain it would have turned bloody, although I'm not sure on whose behalf."

Sebastian gave the game a look of surprise and picked some seeds. "When the land is unforgiving, people stick together or they die," he finished.

Sylvie hissed at Ayu-Asra to let him know she did not appreciate him nipping her fingers. As she made a move, the dragon moved away from her, and settled at one end of the "board". The left head mostly watched Sebastian, the right the shiny, shiny beads.

The line of thought they were following now did not agree with Sylvie. It lead to thoughts of how often when things were not so bad, people instead made things difficult for other people.

Casting around for something else to say, an association lead her to asking, "You can't read my mind, can you?"

Sebastian - intrigued by the hissing and the subsequent reaction by Ayu-Asra - blinked first, then gave a short laugh. "No, goodness! Though... I wouldn't even if I could. It's not polite, and hardly necessary," Sebastian said with a relaxed smile, looking at her curiously. What prompted her to ask such a question?

She raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Good to know I'm that transparent."

The dragon tried to get some attention by jingling.

Ayu-Asra had to wait. Sebastian looked a little shocked for about two seconds. Then he shook his head, calmly. The moment he stopped second-guessing people and himself, these things happened. "Nothing of the kind," he said, smiling a little. Then, after a while of staring at her with an expression of uncertainty not unlike that of a perplexed fox kit, he finally asked. "Why?"

Sylvie looked at Sebastian smiling sadly. Seemed like that joke had backfired a bit.

"Nothing, really. You just suddenly reminded me of someone I knew, hm, way back when."

"Oh," he said in a thoughtful tone, paused and continued. He was sorely tempted to say Oh, so I'm not unique, hmm?, but he thought that may have been a bit too cheeky. "Who were they?" Sebastian asked, smiling and looking back at her as if there hadn't been any confusion or misunderstanding in the first place. If anything, he was contemplating something.

Sylvie relaxed and hummed thoughtfully.
"She ran, hm, runs a shop and is a bit of a storyteller, and some of her favourite stories dealt with people sticking together against high odds. Her family includes elves and humans. We sometimes joked she could read people's thoughts, but probably she's just very good at reading expressions and such."

Meanwhile, Ayu-Asra was fed up with being ignored, and approached Sebastian, mewling.

He cooed - instinctively - at Ayu-Asra and extended a hand toward him without a second though. A part of him was ready to toss him the rest of the beads should the dragon prove troublesome. To Sylvie, he didn't know what to say at first. "I guess so. Or perhaps she's one of those people who knows how to put herself in another person's shoes, even those of total strangers. I don't at least think it's the same as reading expressions. Nonetheless, she sounds like a person I might enjoy meeting."

The dragon quickly climbed up Sebastian's arm and took position on his shoulder, cooing back. Sylvie watched, hoping Ayu-Asra would be not too much of a nuisance, and was startled by Sebastian's words.

"Well, there's the aforementioned problem of getting to Yrn..." She shook her head and gave a silent chuckle, realising that he probably had not meant it like that.