His expression goes slightly more expressionless and he whimpers.

I don't think he's okay. I want him to be okay, what happened, how do we fix this--I'm worried if I talk to him he'll just keel over, can you--

"Uh, hi! This is weird and the explanation's even weirder but I don't want to hit you with it when you look like you might fall over - also if there's anything bad happening in your world you should close the door, time stops while you're in here."

"Do explain yourself."

"Uh. So, there are multiple dimensions."

"I know."

"This place lets us go between them. And it turns out some universes have the same people. There are three mes. Well, now there are four mes."

"And how many Idaias?"

"Her name's Edie but, like, one and a half. Two and a half if you know one."

"...What happened to her, and will it make things better or worse if I hug you?"

"She died thirty thousand years ago and I do not actually think there is 'worse' -"

She hugs him. Wingfully. ...So he's wearing Earth clothes, I just noticed--also his hair isn't braided? Is a ponytail enough to count as decent?

No.

"How come you're dressed like that?"

"...'s for my job?"

"...I mean why are you wearing clothes that look like they're from an Earth, not an Arda."

"Huh?"

"...I come from an Earth, it has humans on it. My Tyelcormo comes from an Arda--it has Valinor that has Valar and Elves and Maiar, and Endore that has Elves and Orcs and Dwarves and tree-people and Maiar, and Earth that has humans. And one of his alts comes from an Arda that has Valinor that has Valar and Maiar and Elves and Endore that has Elves and Orcs and Dwarves and presumably tree-people and humans and no Earth. And his other alt that isn't you comes from an Arda that's all one planet, and Valinor and Endore are continents, and for assorted population read the Space Arda that the one in front of you doesn't come from."

"...thirty thousand years ago there were all those things, yeah. The orcs we killed and the Dwarves died out and the Maiar and Valar and most of the Elves are all in Valinor where the humans can't find them so now it's mostly humans and the Elves who didn't want Valinor or weren't welcome there."

"...You're from an Earth. That is an Arda."

"Yeah, and at some point after everything else faded from living memory the humans decided to call it Earth."

"Yeah I'm just going to check to make sure my Earth isn't an Arda." Complete written works of Elves on her Earth? Nothing. Dwarves? Nothing. Orcs? Nothing. "Nope. Okay, this is weird in multiple directions."

"...I'm sorry?"