A human-looking girl in her late teens or early twenties looks up from her book. "Oh, fun! I'm Sharon."

“Ember, nice to meet you.”

"Neddy's coming over later, if you need space we can scoot." She looks at Rose and the two of them have some kind of silent exchange. "Kaiju problems, huh? That sucks."

Ember updates her mental model of her host’s powerset, shuffles by and finds a spot to sit down.

Sharon scoots over on the couch. 

"So, um, I guess I should expect to be here a while?"

"Probably! I'll make up the guest bed, do you have any dietary requirements or sleep habits that need accommodating or anything?"

"If 'human' means approximately the same thing here that it does back where I come from, then not really? I'm a little asthmatic and I don't do great with shellfish, but neither of those're likely to kill me."

"If 'human' doesn't mean the same thing to both of us, though? Then things could get Very Complicated."

"May I check?"

"Sure."

She takes one of Ember's hands and hums for a moment.

"Everything looks perfectly normal."

"...even my brain? There aren't, um, any weird growths up there that humans from around here don't have?"

"...No?"

Fuck.

...

"Well. Um. I guess that means dietary stuff will probably be a cinch?"

"I'm sorry," she says at the look on Ember's face. "I take it that means something to you."

"It means I'll definitely never get superpowers of my own."

"I knew the odds weren't good. Most people destined to trigger, unless they have really idyllic lives, do so before my age. But if I don't have a corono pollentia?" Ember taps the side of her head, pointing out the spot where the brain growth would have been. "That settles the matter. It'll never happen to me."

"Aw, that sucks. But cheer up, there's lots of kinds of magic out there, you can probably learn some."

Oh wow she doesn't know exactly what Rose means by 'magic' in this context but she knows she wants it.

She wants to get back to her husband more, though.

"Huh that's... certainly something I'd like to learn more about sometime? But before learning anything else here, I think my priority is learning how to get home..."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Good luck."

"Could I get some water? And maybe a bite of local cuisine--probably better to find out sooner rather than later whether I can definitely stomach it?"

"Sure," she says, putting her book down and loping off to the kitchen. She comes back a couple minutes later with a glass of water and a plate of rotini with meatsauce. 

Ember partakes warily...

...and finds the taste no different than the food she left behind.

“Well. Transdimensional amenities continue to be way more convenient than they have any right to be!”

“Thank you.”

"You're welcome."

"Earths are remarkably similar in some ways and amazingly diverse in others."