"...That probably sounds bad, doesn't it. Sorry, I've got a particular sense of humor. Death doesn't really faze you so much when your high school has a 30% mortality rate. So I get a bit 'ha ha, what if his eyes were eaten because he thought demons were cuddly' about things."

"Why do people still go to your school?"

"Eh. The Hellmouth convinces people to come to town, they bring their kids, the kids have to go to the school. I don't think the mortality rate's that much better elsewhere, anyway. Teenagers do have a tendency to get eaten."

"Your world sounds like, uh, what's a diplomatic way to say total shit? What's a Hellmouth?"

"Hellmouth: Dormant portal to one of any number of extremely unpleasant hell dimensions. Magically useful, tends to attract the nastier kind of demons. And humans, for food supply. And yes, I'm aware of the shittiness. I like it alright, though. I take care of myself, and it does mean I get to use magic, which is cool. Plus, my best friend's technically included in the shittiness, being a murderous vampire, and I'd hate to have to do without her."

"You must have really different magic than we do. What is a vampire. Do I want to know what a vampire is. What is a hell dimension. Same meta-question."

"Magic is fun, easy, and useful, and anyone who doesn't use it is an idiot, I don't care if human users get nosebleeds and aneurysms. Vampires are soulless monsters who drink people's blood and often have a thing about the apocalypse, and a hell dimension is a very, very unpleasant place full of demons."

"Okay, in my world five people can use magic that's magic enough to notice and it doesn't give them nosebleeds and aneurysms. Unless they get in a fight with the Lalindar prime, I guess. Why is your world so terrible?"

"Really, it's only particularly terrible if you're a human. For me it's pretty fun."

"My world only has humans. And like. Dogs and stuff."

"Seems a bit boring, really. No offense to humans, but I wouldn't want to have to deal with nothing but them all day. Also, five people? Really? Seems a bit anemic."

"There's five magic families and the heads of them have magic and when they die somebody else in the family with the family personality turns up with it," explains Aleko. "Kiri's the prime of the Ardelays, so she does fire and spooky mind stuff."

"Huh. Suzanna'd like her, then, fire and spooky mind stuff are her specialty."

"If this is the same person as your murder friend, Kiri would not like her. Kiri does not approve of murder."

"Aw. Zanna wouldn't really care, but that's a shame."

"It's a shame that my sister doesn't approve of murder?"

"...well, when you put it that way..."

"Ah-huh. Why do you even have a murder friend?"

"Well, she was my friend before she killed people too. Then she got turned into a vampire, and, to be honest, she hadn't really changed that much except that she had a reason to kill people now. Didn't really see a reason to ditch my oldest friend over a couple of humans."

"People get turned into murder friends. I mean, into vampires. That's disturbing."

"Eh. You get used to it."

"Or you get eaten, apparently. Your world sucks. I wonder if I can get Kiri out of the library and in here somehow so she can go, I don't know, Kiri at it. Probably not. She can't read me through a wall and she'd have to burn holes in the house to get out while the door's doing the thing."

"Well, while fire and mind shit would be a decent starter on dealing with my world, you'll forgive me if I don't let in someone whose first action would probably be to kill my best friend."

"Kiri doesn't approve of murder! She would want there to be less murder. Including of your murder friend, if she can have it both ways. Kiri hasn't ever killed anybody. But I don't think I can get her in here in the first place."

"Pretty confident you couldn't get Zanna to promise an alien not to kill anyone. Well, she'd promise, but she'd absolutely refuse to give a shit. And it sounds like your sister wouldn't like that. So I'm not too put out about not getting to meet her."