In Which Justina Explores and Skipper Heals


Justina woke up feeling better. She was still stiff and achy, but it was no longer the terrifying deep down ache and clawing fatigue that had stayed with her even through the bath. She lay quietly for a time letting her mind wander as she gazed up at the vines looping across the glowing ceiling.

Wait. Ceiling?

She sat up and for the first time really looked around at the subtle wrongness that had niggled at the back of her mind. Until now she had been too preoccupied and stressed to notice many details in this safe environment. But now she realized what was wrong. It was like she was both inside and outside at the same time. There were vines hanging and climbing and twining overhead and looping down to the ground. She had noticed the fluffball using them, but she had unconsciously just assumed they hung from trees. But there were no trees. Short bushes of many kinds, certainly, but nothing as tall or sturdy as a tree. The vines seemed to grow up all over the distant walls and ceiling. Strangest of all, both walls and ceiling glowed through the vines with a clear steady light.

Justina got up, put the Grecian dress back on, and realized that she needed a bathroom. She looked around and not sure what else to do, began to dig down into the moss.

Just like camping, she thought uncomfortably. The dirt was soft and loose and it made digging easy. The deeper it got the more she started seeing little specks of glowing rock. She dug until the number and size of the glowing stones made it hard to keep digging by hand. Much deeper than she had planned. Justina carefully extracted a lumpy rock about the size of her thumb. Clear and soft the light shone, and with it the stone had a shimmering opalescent sheen.

This is absolutely beautiful.

She went to put it in her pocket but then realized she was still wearing the old fashioned dress. So she tucked it in her bra, finished her business, and filled in the hole.

Justina couldn't really tell which wall was closer because she couldn't see where the walls became the ceiling. Clues might be hidden behind the vines, but I doubt it. This whole place looks like a domed room. Looking around she noticed a large blue thing in the distance that was taller than anything else she could see. With a shrug headed towards it. At least I'll have a landmark.

She began walking, keeping the blue structure in front of her. The ground was covered in a thick layer of moss, but surprisingly flat. There were bushes everywhere and scattered between them were all sorts of random objects.

Justina saw an armoire still scattered with someone's makeup and hair brushes. A battered old chest that Justina would have been unsupprised to learn held a heap of pirates gold and jewels. A blue and grey fisherman's dinghy with salt ravaged paint named Pipsqueak. Another bed, this one little more than a tanned animal hide firmly strapped to eight posts. An oven range lying on its side. A bright gold pleather bean bag chair. A shiny black briefcase. And many other odd and curious things. It took an effort of will not to stop and inspect them. She promised herself she would make time for that later.

She realized as she got closer the blue thing was a water tower. That makes sense. If this place is a closed room or cavern, then any water would have to be brought in or recycled.

She had to rest several times, which annoyed her. She had begun to take her stamina for granted after riding her bike everywhere for the last month. It scared her a little too. She didn't know how she had gotten here but the continued proof of the toll it had taken on her was unsettling.

It took her over half an hour to reach the water tower. It was bigger than it seemed from a distance, and made of blue high grade plastic. A wooden scaffolding held it up over her head. Just beyond it the floor began to curve upward until it was a wall. The moss thinned as it got steeper until it was all gone leaving only shining stone and vines. The walls were rough and craggy and the vines were anchored firmly in every crevice. They even grew around and through holes in the rock.

No, not holes. Handles. She walked closer until the ground became too steep to walk up easily, staring at the rocky loops sticking out from the wall at regular intervals. They were too rough to seem manufactured and too regular to be natural. They looked to be designed for human sized hands to climb up, but the vines had taken them over and they worked even better for holding the vines to the wall.

Justina scrambled up the incline, trying to get a closer look at the glowing stone, she caught hold of one of the loops of rock to keep from sliding back down the slope.

Huh, the glow itself isn't that bright. She could look directly at it without discomfort. It's just that there's so much gently glowing stone it seems like day time. Are there even days here? Does the light ever go away?

"What is this stuff?" She mused aloud.

"Mostly quartz, with some other stuff mixed in."

Justina froze for a second startled by the unexpected voice. Then she leaned back, the rock handle keeping her from falling over backward, and tilted her head up toward the voice. She saw Skipper hanging from a vine just above her head. Eye to eye they both hung there for a long moment.

Justina broke the silence with the most obvious of the thousand questions flooding her mind. "What other stuff?"

Skipper wrinkled their nose up, embarrassed. "I'm not sure exactly. Something metallic tasting and something sort of greyish blue." They sighed mournfully. "And I was so proud of the all-knowing omnipresent vibe I had going too, oh well."

Justina laughed and let go of the wall, half jumping, half sliding down the steep mossy slope to the ground.

Skipper slipped down the vines to join her, and curled up on the moss.

"Is it always glowing?" She asked. "Can you turn it off to sleep?"

"It is the way it is." Skipper told her, rolling over on their back. "I can't change what it's made of, especially since I can't quite remember. And if you mean while you sleep, no I'm sorry. But I do have quite a collection of eye cover thingys. If you mean when I sleep, I don't."

"You don't sleep at all?"

"Well, I guess I do sleep sometimes. But I only need to if something is wrong. Like when I'm hurt, or if I've worn myself out by pushing too hard while navigating. I slept while you two did for a little while, and I'll probably need to sleep some more later if I want to stop leaking when I take this off." Skipper ran a gentle hand like paw over their bandaged belly. "I usually don't eat either, although I can sort of taste things."

"Oh." Her stomach, quiet until now, growled suddenly.

"But since I know you need to eat, I brought you some food. That's why I was looking for you, once I knew you woke up."

"You knew I woke up?"

"Yes. I saw you."

"Where were you? I didn't see you."

"Up there." Skipper pointed with a tail into the high reaches of the vines over their heads. "I can see most things from up there. I'll be right back."

Skipper scrambled back up the vines again. Justina watched them unhook a basket from a strong leaf stem and climb back down again.

When she looked inside the basket she saw a couple handfuls of small cubes that looked to be made of greenish dried foam. She picked one up between two fingers. It had more weight to it than as it's texture implied. She glanced at Skipper uncertainly, but they were distracted playing with their tails, twisting them into complicated knots and patterns. Her stomach rumbled again. With a sigh Justina popped the cube in her mouth. It crunched easily and tasted a little salty, and like the memory of chalk.

"Thank you for the food. Um… what is it?"

"I don't know what they're called exactly, Jake left them behind. They're from a metaverse without planets, only space stations. I know they're tasless, but they are the only food stuff I have left that didn't go bad. They're designed to last generations. Jake called them emergency rations. He also said people would find ingenious ways to avoid eating too many of them so I included a zucchini. I only have a couple from my garden. I tried, but I'm not good at plants that want real sunlight."

She looked again and peeking out from under the chalky cubes was a little zucchini just a bit bigger than her thumb.

"Thank you. This is wonderful." She said with a smile.

Skipper beamed. "More questions?"

"Is there anywhere I can find some more modern clothes? I feel weird in this dress. I keep wishing I had something with pockets." She touched the stone digging into her ribs.

"Probably! All sorts of things have been brought here by visitors and some of it gets left behind again. I'm sure there's something somewhere that's more like what you're used to."

"Would it be okay if I went looking?" Justina felt a little daunted thinking of such a scavenger hunt.

"Of course! Or if you want to wash your old clothes I could show where the washing tools are."

"Oh! Yes, that would be best I think."

"Okay! You can eat while we go! Oh, and if you ever need me just shout, okay?"

"What if you're out of earshot?"

Skipper wiggled their big ears meaningfully. "You're never out of earshot if you shout, this place isn't that big."

Skipper led her around the edge of what she had started to think of as a cavern. She was relieved to notice that they were climbing happily through the vines again, though they weren't trying any big leaps. She ate as she walked. The cubes were surprisingly filling, and after only a few she decided she'd had enough. To wash the chalky taste from her mouth she ate the zucchini. It was small, but very tasty. After about 5 minutes of walking she saw a refrigerator humming gently sitting on a bed of moss. Beyond it was a sleek looking front loading washer dryer set. Beyond that was something that looked like a dry cleaners press. Looking around she realized that aside from the bathtub, which had been self powered, this was the only place she had yet to see electronic devices set up as though they were expected to function. When she asked about that Skipper nodded.

"I don't like it when the cords get tangled up in my vines so it's easiest if all the things that stay hooked up to electricity stay near each other."

"That makes a lot of sense. So then, where do you get the power from?"

Skipper showed her over to two very odd devices hooked up to a jury rigged contraption that looked to be part inverter and part converter for a dozen different plug types, half of which Justina hadn't even seen. Not even when she had been researching what she would need for her fantasy of traveling.

"These are the Geopiezo Microgenerator and the Electrophillia Battery."

"What?"

"Geopiezo Microgenerator. It uses the motion of the ground and crystals to make electricity, and it makes a lot of electricity even though it's small."

"Okay, but I meant the other one. The electric love battery?"

"Friendship battery. The more friendship there is nearby the faster it fills the battery. Like a windmill."

"That's ridiculous."

"Maybe where you come from," Skipper swug upside down to look her right in the eyes. "But in the metaverse Amiri came from they were found in most households."

"Who's Amiri?"

"An old friend of mine. She's been gone for a very long time." Skipper dropped the rest of the way down to the moss and snuffled at it gently not looking at her. Justina, feeling awkward, looked closer at the bizarre device.

It was roughly conical with a flowery meadow painted across it. Up one side was a strip of unpainted grey metal right in between two painted flowering fruit trees. One tree was a little sloppy and abstracte, the other was almost photorealistic. In the unpainted strip was a column of 13 stripes set one above the next each about an inch wide and a quarter inch tall. They were all dark except the bottom one which glowed yellow and Justina finally recognized it as a power level meter.

"That's really low, isn't it?"

"Yes. It got all empty before Xanaria arrived. It's been a long time since there was anyone else here."

There was a pause. "Can I hug you?" Justina asked, "It sounds like you could use a hug."

"I would quite like a hug."

Justina gathered them up in a gentle hug, being very careful of their bandage. When she set Skipper down again they were both smiling, and maybe it was her imagination but the yellow light looked a little greener.


It took Justina a while to gather everything. She had to keep pausing to catch her breath even though she was only walking. She gathered the disgusting clothes she had arrived in and bundled them up in the sheets she had used last night, figuring she could do it all at once and be done. Xanaria found Justina as she was taking a breather, dirty laundry set down beside her. Xanaria looked fresh and cheerful, nothing like the painful exhaustion of the previous day.

"Hey," Justina smiled, relieved she didn't sound too out of breath. "How are you feeling?"

"Much better." Xanaria smiled back at her. "I've always bounced back well. How are you?"

"Not bad." Xanaria looked sceptical. "Not as bad as I expected to be," Justina clarified. "The bath helped a lot, and you were right about sleep."

"Would you like a hand? What are you doing?"

"Laundry. As nice as this dress is, I want to be able to wear something with pockets again."

"Oh. Well, I can fetch you a bucket and soap, you don't need to find a stream or anything."

Justina looked at her for a moment, confused. "I'm not washing them by hand..." She said slowly.

"Oh, did you figure out about the moss? It does do a remarkably thorough job of cleaning things it touches if you don't mind waiting. But… you wouldn't need to take things anywhere for that."

"I don't... I'm taking them to the machine."

"The what?"

"The washing machine. Come on, I'll show you."

Xanaria picked up the bundle of laundry before Justina could. Grateful, Justina let her carry it and led the way to the water tower and the path she had taken with Skipper to reach the washer dryer set. There was a box on the ground next to it with some powdered laundry detergent. Justina showed Xanaria how to add detergent, select a setting, and start it running.

Once it was going Justina laughed, "My great adventure is starting to feel a lot like doing chores."

Xanaria turned to her, eyes wide, "What are you talking about? This grand machine does the laundry for us! How cool is that?"

Justina just smiled, and enjoyed watching Xanaria get excited over laundry.


Justina changed back into her own clothes as soon as they were dry. She had even washed the bag that held her notebooks, taking everything out first and cleaning what she could by hand. She was relieved to find that the ink on the outside of her notebooks only crept in a little at the edges and hadn't destroyed her notes. Xanaria had giggled maniacally watching the drier humm and spin with both hands pressed against it's warm window and when it was done she'd run off to find another load to do. It had been absolutely adorable.

Justina sat on the moss, alone for the moment, and content. She began to repack her now clean cloth bag. She slipped in the precious notebooks, then her colored pens and her two broken pencils, the glowing rock she had dug up, and finally her wallet with her frozen credit cards and her dwindling supply of bills. Everything else had been in her coat pockets. She lay back on the moss and looked at her left hand running her thumb across the place her wedding ring should have sat. As she was drifting off to an unexpected nap she had a sudden realization. If the people who told her to stop looking for Tom got so worked up when she had looked up "metaverse," maybe Tom wasn't with them. Maybe he was out here somewhere.


Justina opened her eyes when she heard Xanaria start a load of laundry, giggling. She sat up and looked at her left hand again.

"Maybe he's here."

Xanaria looked back at her confused, "Who?"

"Tom. Maybe he's out here somewhere. The people who told me he was dead got really upset when we tried to research metaverses. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place."

"Maybe. But wouldn't that make him harder to find?"

"If Tom isn't at home then finding him there would be impossible. I don't know. At least it feels like a step in the right direction."

"Hmmm." Xanaria didn't sound convinced. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Why do you call him Tom?"

"That's his name."

"His name is Thomas. You don't like being called Tina and I don't like being called Ri so we don't call each other those things. He doesn't seem to like being called Tom, so why don't you call him Thomas?"

"He always called me Tina."

There was a pause. When Xanaria realized Justina thought that was all the explanation needed, she prompted. "So?"

"It was… It was just what we called each other."

"Did you ever tell him you didn't want to be called Tina?"

"He knew."

"How do you know that?"

"He always knew. It was just that it was okay when he used it."

"That's not true. I was inside your mind for several hours, if you recall. You hated it."

"I… Well, it was true once." Justina shrugged, "I guess I didn't really notice when that changed."

"I don't understand."

"Honestly, I'm not sure I do either. We… had problems."

"I remember. But that seems like an easy place to start."

"I don't need marriage counseling from you."

"Fine. I'm Sorry."

"No I… I shouldn't have snapped. Maybe you're right." Justina looked away, shredding a leaf from a nearby bush. "Tom always… Thomas… My husband always seemed to think that if he didn't try then he couldn't fail. So he never tried. And he never succeeded. And somehow he took that as proof that he should never try. I just wanted something, anything really, I… I don't know."

"That's why you left?"

"I wanted him to come after me."

"That makes no sense."

"Something had to give."

"But…"

"It doesn't matter. He could be in danger. I'm not leaving him to the mercy of those assholes." Justina pushed herself to her feet. "I need to get some water. Have fun with the washing machine."

She left quickly heading toward the water tower. Xanaria let her go.


Justina got a drink of water, and then started walking. She meandered aimlessly through the bushes for a while. After a couple of minutes she noticed the bushes weren't entirely random. They looked like they had been planted in swooping lines all across the ground. Sometimes they were far apart and sometimes they were close together. Often they made little clearings in ovaloid and circular shapes, like the one that held the bathtub.

She came into one of these semisurounded clearings and saw that it had been set up like a bedroom. There was a twin sized bed along one side with a deep red comforter and a little table. Continuing around the circle there was a desk and chair, A full length standing mirror in a wooden frame, two dressers and a little standing closet for hanging clothes. Right in the middle was a large circular art nouveau rug in lovely blues and greens.

Is… is this someone's bedroom? She carefully stepped out again. But I haven't seen anyone here besides Xanaria and somehow this room doesn't feel like her style. I mean there's also Skipper of course, but I think they live up in the vines somewhere.

Although it felt silly she called out, "Skipper! Can I ask you something?!"

She watched the vines above her until she saw movement. She smiled as Skipper hopped their way down to her.

"Yes?" Skipper asked.

"Is there someone living here?"

Skippers ears drooped. "No. Not anymore. I haven't gotten around to redecorating yet. Zuci always thought it was funny when I tried to make things look nice even though I was learning from her. She said balance is the key, but you can't just make everything be laid out perfectly in a grid pattern. Because imbalance is also important. Evenly uneven. Edges and middles. It was very confusing but I've been practicing. Still, I didn't want to mess up her space. She'd made it so perfect."

"Oh." Justina looked back into the room. It felt peaceful, happy, and collected. Almost as though its owner's personality had been draped over it like a dust cloth and left behind. "Could you help me find another clearing like this so I could set up a space of my own? This is so perfect. She knew what she was doing."

"You could just stay here. It's been many many years, at least as I've experienced them. I don't think she's coming back and it would make her happy to know someone loved something she created. Artists are like that."

"What happened to her?"

"I don't know." Skippers ears drooped. "Do you want the room?"

"Yes!"

"Wonderful! I need to go nap, see if I can heal any of this mess. I told Xanaria where I put the food cube rations."

"Okay, feel better!"

"Thank you! If you need anything shout and I'll wake up. I'll heal better if it's one continuous nap though."

And Skipper disappeared back into the vines high overhead.

Justina walked into her new room and sat down right in the middle of the rug. She looked around and smiled, taking a moment to enjoy this feeling of belonging in a place so far from home. Then guilt began to worm it's way in; you aren't supposed to enjoy yourself, you're supposed to save Tom. Thomas. Xanaria was right, damn it. She took a deep breath and reminded herself firmly, look, Skipper can't let me out until they heal. The best thing I can do is leave them alone until then. Waiting is the fastest way to get back to searching.

Trying to shake it off, she got up and walked around her new room. She looked in the drawers. Everything was folded into little bundles and meticulously organized. The most obvious were the shirts folded Kon Mari style in their drawer. Front to back they were light to dark and from left to right they were green to blue to purple to red to orange. Nothing yellow. It was satisfying to look at but also a little unsettling. She carefully lifted out a shirt. It looked very ordinary to her, a blue rayon t-shirt with a rippling green ocean pattern across it. One look at the inside seams showed her that it had been altered to fit someone perfectly. On an impulse she tried it on. It was a little big, but the mirror showed her that it looked good. Not perfect the way she was sure it would have on Zuci, but not bad. That was good, she had been worried about what she would do with the perfectly organized clothes if they hadn't fit her. Move the whole dresser somewhere she supposed. There was no way she would have been able to get herself to dump all those carefully set up and maintained clothes somewhere. They had been too well loved.

The next drawer down was all pants, folded and sorted in the same way. There were only two pairs of jeans and they were too long and too big around to wear comfortably, but there were also several pairs of leggings in different solid colors which, being stretchy, fit her just fine. Although, based on the length of the jeans, they had likely been capri's on Zuci. She had never been much for leggings but they were comfortable and they would work. She gasped when she saw the skirts in the second dresser. They were lovely multi colored things, every one of them, swirly and flowy and varied in length from mid thigh to brushing the ground. And every one of them had deep carefully hidden pockets added by a deft hand that still left the skirt seeming light and unburdened. Until she put one on Justina had never realized she wanted a skirt like that. The one she settled on for now was a swirling pattern of blue and green all flecked with white. When she moved, it looked like the sea churning up flecks of foam and drifting seaweed. It came to just above her knees. Under it she had a pair of leggings in a deep turquoise green and she loved the way they looked together. When she looked in the mirror she noticed that her hair had taken the last few weeks to soften from the rough hack job she had done on it. She was pleased to see that in this outfit it looked tastefully tousled and not like she'd taken a weed wacker to it. She left her shoes by the bed, curling her toes in the moss. She turned again to her reflection in the mirror and smiled.


The first thing Justina did after leaving her room was apologize to Xanaria. Together they explored Skipper's world. They started from the water tower and began walking around the edge of the cavern. It was roughly circular and by Justina's watch it took them almost three hours to walk all the way around. Xanaria showed Justina where she had set up a 'room' for herself.

She'd taken another of the little clearings and she had placed various boxes and trunks around the edge of the circle helping to define her space. In the middle she had laid out a soft king sized down comforter from a bed that had clearly been moved to just outside the clearing. She had a pillow there too, and when she was ready to sleep she rolled herself up in the comforter with moss as her mattress and the pillow under her head. In the morning she would turn her comforter over so the side she had been wrapped in was flat on the moss.

"That way the moss cleans it for me! And while that fabulous machine works a lot faster, the moss means I never have to worry about it!" Xanaria explained, "It's fantastic!"


Justina found a whole drawer full of colorful scarves in her new room, the kind that chemo patients wear. She took a moment, looking at them, and thinking about the woman whose space she had inherited. Then carefully closed the drawer again. I'll never use them but that there's no harm leaving them be.

Xanaria, through careful experimentation, discovered that she too could climb in the vines. They supported her weight easily. But while the leafy bumpy nature of the vines made them easier to climb than ordinary rope, it was still hard and slow going. Justina didn't enjoy it, but in short bursts Xanaria had a lot of fun.

For the first few days they had been having trouble finding important locations and each other. They made do with guesswork and shouting each other's names until, watching Xanaria climb around in the vines, Justina had an idea. She went back to her room and opened the drawer of scarves. She chose one in bright red and orange that looked almost like it had been set on fire and climbed, slowly, and a little bit painfully, up a vine. Once she was a good 15 feet up the vine, 10 feet over the tallest nearby bush, she used her teeth and one hand to tie a scarf around it. Sliding back down she took a moment to catch her breath then grabbed a purple and blue scarf and took off toward the water tower. Each time she looked back she could still see the scarf marking her bedroom. She found Xanaria by the washing machines and explained what she was doing. Xanaria loved the idea and took the purple and blue scarf and tied it to a vine above the laundry room.

"We'll be able to find our way right back here from anywhere!"

"Exactly!"

Justina let Xanaria pick her favorite scarf, a silver metallic one with streaks of gold through it, and they use it to mark Xanaria's room. They tried marking the food area with a green one, but it didn't show up well against the green vines so they replaced it with one that had every color in the rainbow.


It was hard to tell how much time had passed because of the unchanging light and lack of weather. Justina was grateful that her watch had a date dial, but was always a little surprised by what it told her. She missed her phone, which might have given her more detail, but it had been in her coat pocket and was therefore out of her reach.

Her watch told her five days had passed when they began to run out of food. It wasn't gone yet, but Justina figured they only had a couple days worth left.

"I think we need to call Skipper."

"But they're sleeping."

"And they can go back to sleep soon, but we need food. And honestly I'm not sure they're sleeping so much as putting themselves in a light coma in order to heal."

"A what?"

"Nevermind, the point is we need food."

"There's still some."

"Yes. There are still some emergency rations. But we should really save some of them for emergencies."

"...Alright. I hope it'll be okay."

Justina took a deep breath and shouted, "Skipper! Sorry to bother you and wake you up, but we need more food soon. Are you well enough to let us out?"

They spent a minute, the two of them, looking up into the vines searching for a hint of movement.

"Maybe they didn't-" Xanaria began, when Skipper came hopping through the vines. They slowed down as they approached and paused at the scarf tied above the food area. Then they finished coming down.

"What's that for?"

Xanaria explained how they needed landmarks for navigation. Skipper paused for a moment thinking about it

"I like it! Simple, dignified, effective, and it doesn't make things harder for me." They began unwrapping their bandage as they spoke, "Thank you for waking me up. I had more healing to do than I thought. I'm not all better yet but I should be able to get close enough to a metaverse for you to go get food."

Under the bandage was a long hairless patch of raw pink skin, but Justina was glad to see that Skipper wasn't bleeding anymore.

"Great," said Justina, "If you can let me out near my apartment, I had a lot of canned food saved up in case of emergencies. And I can spend the rest of my cash on food at the nearest grocery store, and that should buy us enough time to figure out what to do next. It shouldn't take long."

"I'm sorry, Justina," Skipper ran their paws over their muzzle looking sad, "I can't reach your home metaverse right now. We're too… I guess 'far away' is the best I can explain."

"Oh." Justina felt her stomach drop. "I understand."

"But one of the metaverses within reach has a pretty similar feeling, maybe that one would work?"

"What does that mean?"

"It means it's very close to yours in most ways, but not identical. I don't know what the differences are, they might be more obvious than the similarities, but it's the best bet for finding what you need with the least amount of trouble."

"Okay, so we'll go there. Or.. is that okay with you Xanaria?"

"Food is food. Unless… What do the people there look like?"

Skipper blinked and shrugged. "No idea. Why does it matter?"

"Ah, well, if this world is like Justina's, then I won't blend in." Xanaria said, unconsciously smoothing down her ears.

"Why don't you use the Metastone? I can go in person, you can join me." Justina grinned at Xanaria. "We work well as a team anyway."

Xanaria grinned back, "that'll make it easier for us to get back as well, I suppose. I can leave and then I'll tell Skipper to open the door for you. No guessing, no need to leave the door open-"

"No tearing the world open and almost dying?"

"Yes, I would prefer no more of that."

"What? But it was so much fun last time!"

Xanaria rolled her eyes at Justina, but she was smiling.

Skipper looked confused. "I did not find it fun. Was that sarcasm?"
"Yes, yes it was."

"Okay!"

"Joking aside though, I think this is a good plan." Xanaria said, "It feels… right, somehow."

"Let me grab a couple things and I'll be ready to go."


Five minutes later Justina was back. She had grabbed a jacket and her wallet, but decided she didn't know what else would be useful and anyway it was better to travel light.

She found Xanaria teaching Skipper what looked like a clapping game. Skipper was very enthusiastic about it, tails twisting around each other in concentration.

She watched for a moment, smiling, before they noticed her.

"We'll finish this later." Xanatria promised Skipper, getting to her feet. "Ready to go?"

"I think so? I can't know what we'll need so trying to bring everything useful would be pointless. I have some money though. Skipper said it was like my home so that might make things easier."

Xanaria nodded and turned back to Skipper. "Alright then. How does this work?"

Skipper nodded to one side where a fuzzy white hole opened in the air. "Justina steps through this and you already know how to use the Metastone. Good luck! I'll open the door again when Xanaria returns to tell me it's time. If she doesn't return before 100 hours passes I'll open a gate as close to where you are as I can. At least 100 hours for me. Time might pass differently for you. I know you now, so I can find you again, as long as you're in a place where the currents run true."

"Wait, what does that mean?"

Skipper cocked their heads, "A place that's right, a place that can support a door, like an important place, or an undamaged place."

"So... A natural place?"

"If natural is right in this metaverse."

"But I don't-"

"I can't hold the gate open much longer, please go. Just come back to where you came out of, if you can."

Justina nodded and stepped through the hole, hoping she would figure it out as she went.