(Untitled)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen hasn't gone back to her world yet. After Oasis, the Wasteland looks... rather different. It's one thing to see trees in Milliways, but to be surrounded by them in her own world? Something else entirely

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[a_mere_child]

"What are you doing?" asks a familiar voice from somewhere near Ellen's right shoulder.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh, I'm just-" Ellen twists in her seat. "Alyx! Hi!"

[a_mere_child]

Alyx blinks a couple of times and facepalms. "I keep forgetting it's been longer here than it has back home. Hi, Ellen."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Well, that and things back home for me have been a little weird," says the girl from the world with the nuclear holocaust that led to giant ants and two headed cows. "Sit down if you want. I'm not making a lot of progress with this coat right now."

[a_mere_child]

"I'm almost afraid to ask what constitutes 'a little weird,'" remarks Alyx as she sits down.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Well, there were the little green aliens that turned out to have been kidnapping people for several hundred years," says Ellen. "And there were the very strange people who worshipped this poor mutated man as a god because he'd sort of been turned into a giant tree that happened to make it possible for plants to grow properly in his valley. And the crazy superheroes. But mostly the first two."

[a_mere_child]

.

.

.

"I shouldn't have asked, should I?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Probably not," Ellen says. "I'm sorry."

[a_mere_child]

"No, it's okay, I..." She sighs. "It's been a long day."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I know how that gets," Ellen says. "Would you like a beer? Or to meet my dog? Either one."

[a_mere_child]

"When did you get a dog?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Right before the crazy superheroes, I think," Ellen says. "Dogmeat, come here, please?"

[a_mere_child]

"...please tell me you didn't pick the name."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"My friend Sativa was telling me about a dog by that name in her tribe's histories," Ellen says as the blue heeler arrives. "He started barking and getting excited when he heard it. I assumed it was his name."

[a_mere_child]

"Well, I guess if he's happy with it..." Alyx offers a hand for the dog to sniff.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Dogmeat stretches his head up and sniffs at the offered hand. After a moment he wags his tail and makes an attempt at licking it. Humans seem to like when he does that. Sometimes they give him food.

"He seems to be," Ellen says. "And he's been very good about staying with me, and he's really good in a fight."