"I've looked far and wide for a world map, I have found none. I'm pretty sure they have geography classes but every map I have seen is of the local area." She points to a black board game piece. "This is the bridge where I first entered the Academy." She points to a different map Northwest of that, and points to a blue piece. "This is the bridge to the city." And then points somewhere to the northwest just outside of any map. "And this is where we are now." She pauses. "I mean not like right now. You get it."

"Where my bridge leads back to, yes, I see. So, hmm..." She finishes transcribing her notes and then brings her notebook over to that corner. "The scale is off, but you can see here the bridges I've mapped out... the one in the middle of everything is to Arbor, and those two are Earth, and that one's to Brazen. When you crashed into me I was trying to see how far I had to go in order to find the next Earth bridge."

"Wait, Earth? As in Earth, Earth? That Earth?"

"—yes? Oh. Um, yeah, I had a bit of a moment too when I realized I could still go back. I... haven't gone back, though."

She looks at her hand-drawn maps. "These are pretty good." She looks up at her. "You told me about Arbor, what is Brazen like?"

"It has—actually, I can show you, come out to the garden."

She picks her way across the map to the archway opposite the foyer, which leads out to an enclosed garden area. Right in front of the little porch, there's a sort of huge sandbox filled with glittery rust-red sand, and silver and copper flowers of all shapes and sizes blooming there.

"Metal flowers," she says, gesturing to them. "And iron trees, like those." She waves at a distant stand of black oaks, past the sand garden and an assortment of berry bushes.

She gasps. "It's so pretty!"

She snickers. "And pretty metal."

...tiny giggle.

She stares at the metallic foliage for a few seconds. "I don't know if I want to go back either."

"...to Earth? Yeah."

"...yeah." She stays silent for a bit.

"...not to become that girl who solves all her problems with fruit and fruit derivatives, but do you want a strawberry?" She points at the bushes up ahead..

"Do I!" She very carefully navigates the garden and gingerly picks a strawberry. She nibbles at it. "It's very good, thank you."

"I have mostly refrained from stealing but I am not above taking a tree branch or a cutting of a bush to plant in my garden."

"Hah, oh man, I have essentially been haunting colleges for weeks now. I was afraid to sleep in my Bevin, due to an uncertain oxygen supply, so I had been teleporting into empty dorm rooms and jamming a chair under the doorknob to sleep! That's also how I've been getting my showers. I'm not as self-sufficient as you yet." She chuckles. "It wouldn't surprise me if some of the girls had been telling ghost stories about me."

"...you don't have a shower?? Oh dear. ...you can use mine if you want?"

"You have a shower?!"

"Yes? ...sorry."

"What? No! No, you didn't do anything wrong! I'm happy that you live in a world with easy access to a shower! I'm just mad at my own Bevin!" She thinks about it. "I'm not even mad about that." She pauses again. "Your house is very cool."

"Oh. ...really? I mean, it would be kind of fair to be mad at me for getting all this good stuff for free when you don't have a shower and weren't even sure you had air..."

She blinks at her. "Friend... that wouldn't be fair of me at all. That would be completely psychotic."

She struggles to find the words. "A friend that would get mad at you that you have things better than them... they're not a friend at all... they just... they just... they just want somebody to feel superior to."

She looks at her. "I am happy that you have nice things."

She considers this.

"It is possible," she says after a few seconds, "that I have not, historically, had very good friends."