(Untitled)

[shoeless_ed]

"Super-Dooooog! Coming to save the daaaaay!"

Ed is running around the bar holding Ein over her head. The Corgi has a red dishtowel pinned to the back of his collar, and looks like he's trying to be stoic - as he usually does when Ed does stuff like this.

"It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Super-Dooooog!"

Comments

[never_b_free]

Ed's proclamations are almost drowned by the noise of the bar. ███████ almost doesn't pay attention but wait...

That child... has red hair she looks down at her own arms. She's not pale. She's... like me. Wait... how?

"Hey you!" She calls out. "Is your hair naturally that color?"

███████ own hair is extremely short at the moment, but it, like Ed's hair and Ein's cape, is red. Huh.

[shoeless_ed]

Ed skids to a stop. "Bwuh?"

The Corgi looks in her direction with a similarly puzzled look. "Aroo?"

[never_b_free]

Huh.. odd little dog, such short little legs.

"Your hair," she says pointing at her head. She frowns slightly, remembering that her own hair is mostly gone and that she is pointing at fuzz. "Is it naturally that color, or do you dye it?"

[shoeless_ed]

Ed puts Ein on the floor. He immediately starts trying (with little success) to grab the cape with his teeth and somehow pull it off his collar.

"Ed's hair has always been this color," she says, grabbing and tugging it with her hands.

[never_b_free]

"Really?" She asks brightly. "Mine too!" Wait, no it hasn't. Oh, close enough.

"Where do you come from?"

[shoeless_ed]

"Earth," Ed responds. "Mostly," she adds.

[never_b_free]

"That is the name of your world? What's it like?"

[shoeless_ed]

"Ummmmm..." Ed thinks. "It's not all like one thing. There are mountains and forests and deserts and lots of other stuff. And there are lots of meteor showers because the Moon got blown up in the hypergate accident."

[never_b_free]

"Moon? Blown up?" OOOOO! That ... wow! Awesome!

"What's a hypergate?"

[shoeless_ed]

"They let ships travel through hyperspace! So it only takes a couple of days to travel to Jupiter or Pluto or wherever instead of months and months!"

[never_b_free]

She thinks about this, trying to relate this to what she knew about the multiverse.

"How far away are Jupiter and Pluto from where you live?" A trip that takes months and months on ship? That must be a huge ocean to cross.

[shoeless_ed]

"They're all millions and millions of miles away!" Ed says cheerfully. "That's why you need hyperspace to get there fast."

[never_b_free]

Millions and millions of miles in months and months. Actually, that is pretty fast for a ship.

Wait...

Her eyes go wide with realization.

"Jupiter and Pluto are celestial bodies, like the moon?"

Otherwise, Earth is huge.

[shoeless_ed]

"Yep yep!" Ed confirms. "They are both much bigger and waaaaaay further away!"

Ein, meanwhile, manages to pull the "cape" off his collar. After tossing it away he sits down, satisfied.

[never_b_free]

More thinking.

"Hmmmm. I think... hyperspace sounds like abyssal space. And you use it the same way people from where I come from use abyssal space. Except you use a gate." And A really fast ship. That goes into outer space. OOO

Think think...

"Or used to, until it blew up along with the moon. Who made the gate?"

She hopes Ein likes to chase cats. She doesn't like cats. Stinky sneaky treacherous spies are they, always listening into her conversations and ruining her fun. She checked earlier to make sure no cats were eavesdropping but they are sneaky little things.

[shoeless_ed]

"There's a whooooole corporation that builds and maintains gates. They built a new one in Earth orbit after the old one went kablooey, 'cause people still need to get from Earth to other places and from other places to Earth."