Having a fairly unique Miracle had its ups and downs. On the one hand, Evan Baumgard took pleasure in his powers not just being another way of lifting really heavy things, or shooting some kind of nondescript energy at things. On the other hand, he couldn't really talk to any of his siblings or classmates about his abilities. The only other kids at school who had the ability to assign symbolically appropriate functions to objects was Howie the power-copier, and Evan was still mad that he hadn't asked his permission before duplicating his abilities. There were however plenty of other kids at the Institute for Transhuman-Baseline Cooperation who shared his plight. The young Miracles at the school whose powers defied broad categorization were already forming into a little clique; they were a fellowship defined by uniform diversity. At the moment, Evan was trying to get the newest member of this group to show him what he could do.

"So, you can grab stuff from other planets?" asked Evan. 

Erwin Everett was new to school. He'd only Manifested as a Miracle a few weeks earlier, and the teachers had been pretty vague about what he actually did.  "Ah, the doctors said it wasn't like that." 

Evan smiled, glad to know the new boy wasn't just another teleporter. "So what do you do?"

The look on Erwin's face suggested he might not be certain himself. "They said the stuff I get is from Earth, but not the same Earth we live in. Like, there could be a world with no Miracles at all."

Evan shuddered at the thought of a world where he couldn't make his teddy bears dance. Or have cured his friend's asthma....

"They brought in a history guy to look at some old coins I found in my pocket, and he said they might've been from a place where the Romans are still in charge."

Evan's grin widened. "Alternate histories are so cool! What kind of stuff can you pull in?"

"Just little things so far. I did find a phone yesterday that I don't think was invented in the real world."

"You know, I bet the people who made the phone wouldn't say we live in the real world."

 Erwin shrugged. "Yeah, probably."

"So, can ya show me something from another here?" asked Evan. 

Erwin looked a little crestfallen. "Sorry, all my other-world stuff is at home."

Evan was almost tempted to ask the other boy if he'd forgotten his Miracle. "Why don't you just get some?"

"The coolest junk comes when I'm not thinking about it. When I try to poof up stuff, it's usually pretty stupid. Once I just got some rusty nails."

"What kind of place did they come from?"

Erwin sighed. "Don't know, they were just old nails."

"Maybe they came from an Earth where humans live in the sea and mer live on land! That'd explain why they were rusty" said Evan. His interdimensional theorization didn't seem to do the trick.

Evan pulled a triple A battery out of his left pocket. "Hmm, maybe this  will help." He focused his Miracle on the battery, pouring into it a smidgen of new purpose. 

Erwin took the battery from Evan. "What'll this do?"

"Make your power stronger-I think."

Erwin quickly looked from the battery to Evan's painfully earnest face. "Worth a try," he said. Clenching the batter in one hand, his other outstretched, waiting for whatever goodies the Multiverse had for him, he closed his eyes. 

With no fuss or bother, a child burst into existence, right on top of Evan. 

Said child eeps and tries to scramble away from—whoever. And she completely lets go of the concentrating she had to do not to be girl-shaped, so girl-shaped she is. Of course, being eight, it's not like there's much difference, but still.

She looks around, blinks, and curses under her breath. Well, she says "Oh, duck," but that's pretty much as much cursing as she does.

Being a child whose chores were done by animated plush, and accidentally created a sister while trying to win at tag, Evan barely even blinked at the new arrival. 

"Hi."

"...hello. Is this English? It would be really annoying if I landed somewhere that doesn't speak English, I'm not good at languages!"

Evan, on the other hand, was very good with languages. "Nyet!"

The girl looked slightly panicked.

"Sorry. Yeah, we speak English here. Welcome to Australia!" 

She dusts herself off and stands up, looking around at the—school playground?

"Okay, cool, new Earth but it's like mine, you don't seem to be freaking out, why aren't you freaking out?"

"Well, my friend did just summon you here. I didn't interrupt something big, did I?"

Evan turned to Erwin, only to find him running towards the duty teacher. Approximately half a millisecond later, his sister Moira was standing between him and the new girl.

She blinks. "Summon? No, Professor Haywire sent me here, he was trying to rob a bank. Hi, I'm Sadde."

"Pleased to meet you, I'm Moira!"-she gestured at Evan-"And this is my brother Evan." Moira thought for a second, remembering Hannah. "He might be your brother too. You didn't make another sister, did you Evan?"

"I have a brother. And a sister. Well, half-brother and—sister. And they're back on my Earth. I didn't know other Earths had parahumans, too."

"I have two twin brothers, and a half brother, and a robot sister. Oh, and what's a parahuman? Is that like a Miracle? Because we have those, and we're awesome!"

The duty teacher strode over to the children, Erwin in tow. 

"I dunno, what's a Miracle? Parahumans are people with powers."

"Same here. Are you American? I heard Americans have a different name for us."

"I am! I'm from New York. Well, I wasn't born there but I moved there when I was little. Where are we in Australia?"

Stanislav appeared beside his brother and sister. "Perth, also known as the best part." His skin glowed a pale yellow, visible even in the sunshine. 

"Why is your skin yellow. Also hi I'm Sadde."

"Cause I am a font of infinite power! Hi, I'm Stanislav. If we had met but a week later, you would know me as Emperor of the Solar System!"

"...I didn't vote for you."

"Since when were emperors elected?"

The duty teacher would've gotten there sooner, but there was a minor tussle she needed to break up. She'd been employed at the school long enough to know that was a more pressing concern than a child appearing from nothing. 

"Kids, are we playing safe?"

"Safer than I was ten minutes ago."

"You think you are safe now, puny mortal!"

"Stan, be nice."

She grins at him. "Yes, I do, you're not robbing a bank, that's an improvement!"

"We're so fast, we could do that while talking to you!"

The duty teacher raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me for asking, dear, but where were you a second ago?"

Erwin had tears in his eyes. "ANOTHER UNIVERSE, I'M SO SORRY, SORRY, SORRY!"

"I don't think it's your fault, Professor Haywire was robbing a bank and I was in it and something went wrong."

"Nevermind, that's my new name!"

And then the penny dropped.

"I mean, he might be peeved you stole his name if he finds out, and he is a villain."

"Well so am I."

The duty teacher had pulled out her phone, and was making a half hearted attempt at whispering. "I think we should call Zaneta."

Stan made a quarter hearted attempt at whispering. "That's our mum." 

"I don't think you can be a villain as a kid," she says dubiously.

"Why not? I bet I have better powers than him."

"He's a tinker, those are, like, the best powers. And he's an alternate universes tinker, too, it's how he sent me here!"

"Can tinkers move faster than sound? Because that's the best power."

"Tinkers can make things that move faster than sound."

"So can I! And so can our mum."

"Really? What can you do? And do people on this Earth just tell everyone they have powers?"

"I make things do other things. And why wouldn't we?"

"'Cause then villains can attack your family and friends!"

"And then we beat them up. Or mum does."

"But by then your friends could be dead!"

"Eh, just make more Miracle friends."

"Your normal friends won't be any less dead just because you made new ones, and anyway the villains could kill those, too."

"You do know half the kids here are Miracles, right?"

She looks around. "Really? Kids? Isn't everyone here, like, our age? I thought this was a school."

"Yeah? What else would it be?"

"I dunno, but on my Earth it's not very common for kids to have powers."

"Why not?"

Shrug. "Dunno. Most heroes are adults."

"But they got their powers as kids, right? Huxley's virus doesen't work on grown ups."

"What's that?"

"It's what gives people powers, dummy. Don't you know anything?"

"I'm not a dummy! But no one knows about any viruses back home, and capes can too get powers as adults!"

"I never heard of em'"

"Why does this virus thing only work on children?"

"Hormones."

"How do you know that?"

"How do you know what makes electricity?"

"Science!"

"Well, science says grownups don't get powers. So there."

"Well in my world science doesn't say a lot about who does or doesn't get powers, but grownups do get powers!"

"Your world sounds silly."

"I haven't even told you like five things about it!"

"But it was a silly thing!"

"I bet your world has silly things too and you don't see me thinking all of it's silly just because of them!"

"And I bet in your world mermaids live on land."

"There aren't any mermaids in my world! There are mermaids here?"

"Yes. One's my boyfriend! How do you have no mermaids? Did you kill them all?"

"There were never any mermaids! How can you have a boyfriend, you're eight."

"What's that have to do with anything?"

"Boyfriends are grownup things."

"I keep trying to tell her that," said the glowing woman hovering above the children.

She looks up and her first thought is "Alexandria," followed by "Legend," and then she remembers she's not in her world anymore. "Hi, are you their mom? It's really weird that no one here wears masks."

"MUMMY!" 

The glowing children lept into the air, rapidly orbiting the glowing woman. Evan meanwhile had to content himself with launching into a long, rambling narrative about his day. 

"That answer your question?"

"Yeah," she grins, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. "I'm Sadde."

"I'm Zaneta. I see you have met my children." Zaneta looked at the still slightly hysterical boy, watching from the distance. "And Erwin."

"Yeah. I'm from another Earth."

Zaneta almost raised an eyebrow. Almost. 

"Interesting. Would you like to discuss this?"

She looks delighted. The flavor of delighted is "no one ever takes me seriously or wants to hear what I have to say of course I want to discuss this!"

What she actually says, however, is "Sure!"

"Well, would you like to talk somewhere a little less public?"

She shrugs. "I dunno, you're the weird ones who don't wear masks."

"Now why would I wear a mask? And do you have any objections to the tropics?"

"To protect your secret identity! And I dunno I've lived in New York since I was little." Pause. "Littler."

Zaneta smiled. "To each their own, I suppose." She descended to the ground. "Just to be on the safe side, do you mind being carried?"

"Well I can't fly on my own!" Yet.

And at that, Zaneta promptly drew the child into her arms, and sped off home.

Wheeee!

Arriving on the western shore of Boyus, Zaneta allowed her cargo back on her feet. The hollowed out mountain she made her home loomed above them, its domed top reflecting the sunlight. 

"So, like what you see?"

"This is so cool! Are you a supervillain with a volcano lair?"

"I prefer to think of myself as a civil servant. With a volcano house."

"...is that an eu—euphe—another word for villain?" she asks dubiously.

"I make sure people stay safe, okay?" She almost patted the girl on the head, but she worried it might seem condescending. "You said another Earth, didn't you? You're not from Mars?"

"You're not answering my question," she says, folding her arms.

"I guess you could call call me a super-heroine." She slumps onto the sand, looking out to sea. "So, how'd you get here?"

"From my end, this alternate universes tinker villain was robbing a bank and something went wrong and I ended up here, from this end apparently a kid summoned me."

"I heard. I suppose the AA will have to amend Erwin's file. And I'll definitely be having a word with Evan."

"What'd Evan do?"

"I suspect he ramped up Erwin's ability" 

"Oh. He can do that? I lost track of all their powers. Are they all yours?"

"Aside from poor Erwin, yes. I have five children."

"That's a lot. I have a half-brother and a half-sister."

"Well, I only gave birth to three of them. You see Martin at all back at school?"

"I don't think so, but I kinda lost track."

"That's a shame, you could have had the complete set of triplets."

"Do they all have the same power?"

"The triplets do, mostly, but Evan and Hannah are a bit different in that regard. Hannah especially."

"Oh right you said you hadn't given birth to them. When did they trigger?"

"Assuming you mean 'when did they become Miracles', correct me if I'm misunderstanding the question, they were all born that way."

"...that sounds so much better."

"Well, I'm suppose it's more natural to them that way."

"Did you get powers when you were a kid, too? They said everyone does but that's not true where I'm from."

"When I was eight in 1917. And yes, my children were not lying to you. I may however need to you to repeat everything they told you, I wouldn't past them to feed you some amusing misinformation."

"I don't remember everything they said. What year is it here? It's 1995 back home and you don't look eighty."

"It's 2020," Zaneta says, smiling just a bit too much.

"What."

"I'm 110."

"How."

"Huxley's virus continually repairs my cells, among other things."

"I think powers in my world are different."

"Your transhumans age?"

"Parahumans," she corrects. "And I think so? I dunno they've only been around for like... twenty years."

"Hah, ours have been around since the Great War. Your world had a Great War, right?"

"I dunno, what's a great war?"

"It was a horrible war between the nations of Europe in the 1910s."

"...there was World War I?"

Zaneta looks shocked. "Good God, you had more than one of those?"

"Yeah. The other one was in... I dunno I think the forties. There was a nuclear bomb. Well, two. I think. And Nazis."

"I honestly don't know what those last two things are." 

 A grey skinned little boy walks out of the ocean. "Hey, Mrs. Moira's Mummy. Is Moira home?" The boy looks to the girl sitting beside Zaneta. "Is that Hannah?"

"I'm not Hannah, I'm Sadde. Are you a mermaid? Nuclear bombs are bombs that are nuclear. They're very bad, they exploded two cities! And Nazis are evil people who don't like a lot of other people. They killed lots of Jews and stuff."

The little boy frowns. "Do I look like a girl?"

She looks between his legs. "No. Are you a mer—guy? Why are you naked? Weren't mer people meant to have tails?"

"Why aren't you? And I'm special." The boy pokes out his tongue revealing a rather sharp set of teeth. His cheerful expression is not dampened by his large, black eyes. "Are you another of Moira's brothers and sisters?"  

"'Cause you get arrested for being naked in public. At least in my world, maybe it's different here. I'm from another world."

"Mars? And even in the ocean?"

"No, another Earth, why does everyone think I'm from Mars? And people usually need to wear swimsuits in the ocean."

"There's another Earth? Where? And how'd you get the mer to agree to that?"

"Another universe, and there are no mer."

"Sounds horrible. I'm Michael." The boy ambles up beside Zaneta and plonks himself down. "You know where Moira is? She said we'd make sand castles."

"She's still at school," says Zaneta.

"This world is weird," she opines.

"Maybe so," says Zaneta. What in another world might've been called smartphone dings on her belt. She frowns. "I have to take this," she says, "Michael, could you keep Sadde company for me?"

She grins at Michael.

"You know where the water and snacks are, Moira and the others should be here in a few hours. Tell your tribe I said hi." And with that, Zaneta is gone.

"So, if you have no mer on your planet, who lives in the sea?"

"Fish?"

"But who eats the fish?"

"Other fish! Sharks! Dolphins! Evil weird-looking worms! Humans!"

"But humans cook fish! Completely ruins the taste." Michael looks strangely agitated. 

"Not always, there's sushi."

"Can't humans just eat rabbits or something?"

"Humans do in fact also eat rabbits. We have very varied tastes."

"Well, mer eat seals, too. And dolphins!"

"But dolphins are cute!"

"Dolphins are evil! They hurt porpoises that were minding their own buisness, and don't even eat them!"

"And are all mer very nice and cozy and friendly all the time?"

And then Michael lunges at Sadde.

Sadde eeps and falls on the sand. "What are you doing!"

Michael pins Sadde, and growls. 

She twists and tries to take his balance and to drive a knee to his groin—she knows how much that hurts.

He manages to avoid her knee just in time. "What was that for?"

She hopes him talking to her is enough of a distraction for her to headbutt him.

It is. The boy falls to the sand, slightly dazed, but oddly content looking. "Okay, you win. Wanna play?"

No.

Now she pins him, with one knee where (she thinks) his solar plexus is. "Why did you do that?"

The boy cringes in pain. "I just wanted to see who was tougher! Humans are so confusing." 

"Well don't do that again," she says, standing up and folding her arms, her eyebrows furrowed.

"I won't, I won't! You're dominant. Do you still don't wanna play?"

"You attacked me!"

"Yeah, so I could figure out which of us was stronger. You beat me, so now we know. For now."

"You could have asked!"

"You could've lied! I would have. Also, you weren't being very fair to start with."

"Not asked who was stronger, asked to fight, or something. Especially if you wanted me to be fair, I'm not gonna be fair when someone just lunges at me out of the blue."

Michael sighs. "I'm sorry." He extends a clawed, webbed hand. 

She cautiously accepts it to shake—if he tries anything else -

He does not. "Sorry aside, don't ever go for that area again. Bad enough I have to keep them outside."

"...keep what outside...?"

"Boy parts."

"Oh. Well, don't ever surprise attack me again, then, I don't fight fair."

"Okay. We please be please be friends now?"

"...fine."

They stand in awkward silence for a moment.

"So what do ya wanna do?"

"I dunno. Build a sandcastle?"

"Cool! Hope Moira doesn't mind."

"Oh right you're Moira's boyfriend. That's weird."

"Why? Is it 'cause she's human? Because that's racist, I think! "

"No, it's 'cause you're eight!"

"You don't know how mer work! I could be a million jillion!"

"She's eight!"

"And I could be one...okay, we're both eight. Who cares?"

"Dating is a grownup thing!"

"Kids don't do fun stuff with kids they like? Do you not like sandcastles?"

"That's not dating that's just being friends."

"Well, we're going to have babies someday. And they will be so cool."

"You don't know that!"

"I know that being mer is awesome, and I know being a Miracle is almost as awesome, so therefore mer-Miracles will be amazing."

"You don't know that you'll still like each other when you grow up," she corrects. "You could have the West—Westermer—you could think she's gross when you grow up 'cause you grew up together! Besides, that's not what babies are for."

"What are babies for? Moira's dumb brother told me they were meant to be test subjects. And we didn't grow up together. Moira lives here, I live over there." Michael points out to sea. "So, still wanna play sandcastles?"

"You should only decide to make babies when you know what they're for," she nods. "And yeah sure."

"Cool, tell me if you figure out what they're for." The boy strolls over to where the sand is still wet, scoping out where to begin construction. 

She goes after him and looks at the sand dubiously. "I don't have a swimsuit."

Michael looks at Sadde with genuine puzzlement. "Neither do I?"

...right. She furrows her brows and ponders for a second then shrugs and starts stripping.

And then she notices what's between her legs, and more relevantly what's not, and stops.

"Is something wrong? You don't have to be naked if you don't want to."

"No, that's not it," she says, chewing on her lip, then strips to her underwear—boy underwear.

(She should not be girl-shaped—yes she's a girl today but now they're gonna wonder when she inevitably changes back, she was never able to prevent it the other way around, they will know she has powers—

—and is that so bad here, really?)

She finds somewhere on the sand to sit and help him.

Brushing aside his new friend's apparent confusion, Michael gets to work on the castle. He's had a ton of experience.

She hasn't! She has in fact never built a sandcastle, it will probably be best for her to be Michael's assistant than anything.

As he lays down the foundations of his silica palace, Michael lapses into conversation. "You know how to swim? Cause I think my pod would like you."

"I've never done it before. What's a pod?"

"My family. I think some people would call it a tribe."

"Oh. I can't breathe underwater."

"They could come near the beach."

"Well I don't know how to swim but maybe you could teach me."

Michael looks absolutely heartbroken at her plight.

"I never had to!"

"Did you live in a desert?"

"I lived in New York."

"Isn't there water in New York?"

"Not a lot to swim, and no one would take me, and I didn't really want to."

"You don't know what you're missing!" Michael stood up. "Wanna wade out a bit, just up to your waist?"

"Sure, why not," she shrugs.

Michael makes his way to the waterline. 

She follows!

Michael is glad, he thought he would have to drag her along. Anything to save this deprived child from a life of dryness!

She didn't feel that deprived but alright. Follow follow.

"So, how does it feel?" says Michael, one the water has reached around Sadde's midsection. 

"...like water?"

"Try putting your head under."

"I've been in a bathtub, you know."

"You are so boring! And how could a bath be like this?"

"I'm not boring! And it's cold and water and alright this moves but that's not the interesting part of the sea! I wanna swim."

"...Do you wanna go out a bit further?"

"If you think I won't drown."

"Just a bit, enough so you start floating. You can hold on to me if you like."

"If I need to. Don't drag me down." She takes a few more steps into the ocean.

"Tell me when you start treading water."

She does.

"Now go under."

She does.

Michael follows her. 

She does have to breathe eventually.

"Do you have powers?" It seems like a reasonable question to Michael. Most people who hang around Zaneta's island do.

"Why would you think that?" she doesn't answer. "And I'm not gonna learn how to swim just by putting my head underwater."

"Most humans who come here do. And how do humans learn to swim?"

"Aren't they all Zaneta's children? And I dunno how humans learn to swim, I think people show them how to move their arms and legs and they try to imitate it."

"Sometimes she has visitors. She told me once that she used to have a husband."

"People who have biological children are normally part of a couple at some point."

"What do you mean?"

"That people usually have biological children as part of being a couple."

"What do you mean by couple?

"Two people who live together and have children together and raise them together and stuff."

"Humans are weird."

"Do mer do it differently?"

"Kinda, I guess. We just mate with whoever and take care of the babies together. Most of us don't even know who our dads are. Also means nobody's an orphan."

"Doesn't that make lots and lots of babies born? What if you don't want a new baby?"

"People don't have a baby every time they mate. And people can't have babies all the time. Or do humans work different?"

"Humans have babies sometimes if they have sex and don't use protection."

"Protection? Like a spear?"

"...no, not like a spear. I dunno what it is but it's stuff they use to not have children."

"So, figured out what babies are for yet?"

"No! That takes years! And puberty!"

"Puberty?"

"Yeah, that thing that happens when you're like eleven or twelve that makes your brain act all weird and makes you want to have sex with people and makes your body change in ways that help you have sex with people."

"Yeah, I've seen that happen. Looked scary, but the big kids looked like they were having fun. Sometimes."

"Ew."

"Other times they seemed upset about nothing. And confused by by very simple things."

"Again: ew. And I still think if you don't like or even understand the process for making babies you shouldn't make babies."

"I didn't say we were going to try right now!"

"No but you thought I'd have figured it out in like ten minutes and you can't know you'll want to do it with her. For all you know you're gay. Or she's gay."

"I think I heard that word in a song? It means old, right?"

"What word?"

"Gay."

"...no, gay means you like people of the same gender."

"Oh, that. Humans have a lot of weird words for things."

"It's better than having no words! Anyway, if you're gay or she's gay you won't be making any babies together."

"Not true, I heard humans could make babies without mating!"

"...yeah, I guess. You still shouldn't be having babies in the next like fifteen years."

"My mothers had me and my sister when they were only two times my age."

"Okay, maybe mer are different."

"I think I was her first baby, I'm not sure."

"Well, you said babies are raised by the whole tribe so I guess it's not all that bad."

"Yeah. I still like my mummy, though."

"Mmhm."

"What're your family like?"

"...mom's dead, father's evil, stepmother's boring, siblings are small."

"Sorry about your mummy. Do you wanna fish?"

"I thought we were gonna swim?"

"I mean, do you want a fish?"

"What for?"

"To eat."

"I'm not hungry but you can get one for you if you want."

"If your dad's evil, how come the other grown ups don't spear him?"

"...because in civilized society people don't usually solve their problems with violence."

"So what do you do with evil people?"

"Arrest them."

"You should lure him into the water, then my grown ups can spear him!"

"That's evil!"

"Isn't he evil?"

"Yes but two wrongs don't make a right."

"But even if it's evil, there will be less evil when it's done!"

"There'll also be one less person when it's done, and it makes the world more evil while it's happening, and even after there'll be no one to take care of my stepmother and my half-siblings, and everyone gets uncomfortable about the idea of being speared if they do stuff other people don't like, and killing people is much worse than that! And, and there's a reason humans stopped doing that."

"Humans are weird."

"Mer are evil."

Tears begin welling in Michael's eyes.

She folds her arms and bites her lower lip. Then relents after a second: "Well, humans are evil in some places, too."

...kinda relents.

Michael realises he probably isn't going to teach Sadde to swim in one day. "Wanna look around the island?"

"Okay."

Walk walk in the water back to shore.

"The grown ups in my tribe say Zaneta came here a very long time ago, and built that thing on top of the mountain." He points to the glass dome.

"I asked her if she was a supervillain and that was her volcano lair but she said she was a superhero and that was her volcano lair."

"Sometimes we leave her offerings."

"Why?"

"If she's not a goddess, she's the next best thing."

"Does she only do good things if you leave her offerings?"

"Nah. But saying thank you is good manners."

"Oh. So they're not really offerings, they're presents."

"If you want to call them that. There's one." He points at a dead dolphin lying on the shore.

"...why would she want one of those?"

"They're tasty."

"Does she actually eat them? Wouldn't she maybe like other stuff better, if she's almost a goddess?"

"Don't know, but they don't stay there long. What would you give a goddess?"

"Jewelry. Books. Music. Maths. Sculptures."

"Don't really have those."

"...really? What do mer do all day?"

"Hunt, play, make music, tell stories, mate, stuff like that."

"Music and stories, then! Those things are much harder for her to get than dolphins."

"Yeah, but we can't wait around all day to give her those."

"Don't you have recorders?"

"Nope, except the ones in our skulls." The boy makes his way into the jungle surrounding the island.

She follows. "Why not?"

"Why don't you have robot slaves that know what you want before you do?"

"'Cause that'd be creepy and also those don't exist in my world, do they exist here?"

"Well, Moira's sister is a robot."

"...I wanna meet her."

"She's at school. Stupid human things. I have to go during winter."

"I like school, I make friends there. And anyway you didn't answer my question."

"I make friends in the sea! Or here. We don't have slaves here, I think."

"Not that one!"

"What question?"

"Why you don't have recorders and stuff for music."

"...How about I answer that when you tell me what babies are for. Is it in a book?"

"I dunno, but making recorders probably is, and it's 2020, I bet someone's invented stuff that can go underwater!"

Michael shrugs. "I'll ask the grown ups. Tell me if you see the tiger."

"...what tiger."

"The tiger that lives on the island. It's big and furry."

"Why is there a tiger on the island with children."

"Africa has lions, and children live there."

"Africa is a big continent! This is a teeny tiny island!"

Michael grins. "Have you met my girlfriend?"

"Yes?"

"So why do you think a tiger is dangerous?"

"Because it's big and strong and can eat you? ...I think it probably won't but."

"It won't. It's Moira's brother's."

"He has a pet tiger?"

"Moira said he was the kitten King."

"The kitten king?"

"Yeah. Cats love him."

"...is that a power or something, or did he just raise this tiger from birth?"

"The tiger sort of took care of him since birth. Like Moira and her birdies."

"Oh. That's cute. And it won't be angry with us or anything if he's not around?"

"She let me sleep on her once!"

"Oh. Okay, I guess. That's really cool."

"Yeah, wish Moira's birdies were that nice."

"Why aren't they?"

"Moira is a dark and terrible queen." 

In the distance, a pelican squarks. 

She cracks up.

If Michael were caucasian, he might've been blushing. "It's not funny, I haven't had a seagull since I was five!"

"Good on the seagulls."

"How would you like it if your favourite food tried to kill you?"

"I'd probably stop eating it!"

Michael gives her a sour look. "I hope Moira makes the chickens go to war."

She giggles. "Why would she do that?"

"She doesn't like people harming her birds. Which is all of them. I don't think her brothers have even tasted chicken."

"I can stop eating birds if she wants me to."

"One day I will have my vengeance!"

As Michael established a healthy foundation for a romantic relationship, a tree melted and contorted into a silver little girl. 

"Oh. Hi Hannah."

Blink. "Are you the robot one?"

She looks angrily at Michael. "I am not a robot, Seal!"

"Sorry. Are you a Miracle, too, then?"

"I'm a colony of nanites."

"What are nanites?"

"Little bugs that stand on top of each other and make a me."

"Bugs? You're made of bugs?"

"Science bugs!"

"What's that mean?"

Hannah proceeds to metamorphose into a precise copy of Sadde as is. "What's that? Why do you do that? You should do this, you should do that!"

Blink blink. "What?"

"I'm eight years old and going to give relationship advice."

"...were you eavesdropping."

The second Sadde shifts into what could be Michael's twin. "I'm going to pretend not to understand things I totally do, because I don't like admitting I'm a human, too."

She throws her hands up in the air and says, "Is everyone on this island terrible!" then turns around and starts stalking off.

Hannah laughs, before being tackled by Michael.

She finds a tree, turns around, and leans against it, arms folded, and mumbles something under her breath.

And then a tiger bursts from the greenery, a little boy atop its back. Aside from the fact he's about as dressed as Michael, he's also a mirror image of Stan.

She eeps and takes two steps back and trips and falls on the ground.

"State your identity, intruder!"

"If I was an intruder they wouldn't be acting like it was normal I'm here!" she says, pointing at Michael and Hannah.

"Maybe you brainwashed them to fight!"

"If I did that then why would you believe anything I say anyway!"

"Cause then I know what lies you're telling." The tiger creeps closer.

"Then my name is Sandra and I am the evil dark lady of the West."

"Get her, Squishy!"

"That was a lie, you numbnuts!" she says, scrambling to her feet to try run. "Is everyone here terrible!"

The tiger is not deterred, and attempts to groom the girl-child.

The girl-child eeps again and starts crying—

—and a person, featureless, with no face, not made of skin, of indeterminate gender, white as paper, appears and gently pushes the tiger away with irresistible force, scooping Sadde up in their arms before taking a few steps back (and moving much farther than the few steps ought to allow), then disappears after putting her on the ground again.

Probably Not Stan tumbles off Squishy. 

She draws her knees to her chest and hugs them.

"...Are you okay?"

"No! Everyone here is terrible! He thinks spearing people is okay and she thinks eavesdropping is okay and you attack people with tigers and your brother is a supervillain and your sister is an evil queen of birds and everyone here is terrible!"