Exploding stars are going on. Not much else.

I don't mean to alarm you, says a napkin. I'm the bar. I can produce beverages, and the first one's free.

Certainly. Any specifications, or would you prefer to take my recommendation?

"Well, I was going to see if there's anything to that 'virgin's blood' thing, but now I'm curious. Recommend me a vintage, friend sentient bar."

A burgundy wineglass full of blood and a little plastic umbrella appears. Virgin, male, mild tequila-based BAC introduced to a naive system, this glass is footnoted.

Leo raises his glass to her. "Well met! Nice shinies, are you some kind of enchanter?"

"Did you kill the door? That's inconvenient. We're in some kind of bar with a habit of replacing doors with itself. Come on in, have a drink, apparently you don't actually have much choice, sorry about that. I've never heard of commas, what would those be?"

She approaches the bar, frowning. "I think I'll pass on the drink. Singular kama plural kyma magic used kamai; the stuff I'm wearing is mostly kamai tools of one sort or another. Where did the door go? Why did I wind up here in the first place? I was trying to get to vi'Naav's office..."

"Sure you'll pass? Bar's very good at drinks, and the first is free. Door went somewhere probably, you wound up here for reasons, I have no idea who vi'Naav is but that's a really cool name. What's yours?"

"I'm sure. Vi'Naav is a title; my name's Leekath." She sniffs the air. "Is... that blood?"

"Yes! Virgin's blood, in fact, apparently it really is magically delicious. Good nose there. Nice to meet you, Leekath, I'm Leo. Vampire of the Red Court and layabout aesthete."

"Oh, there's already anywhere between four and ten different kinds of vampire depending how you count it, what's one more. I suppose you'd be, I don't know, Blue Court or something. What's your lot do?"

"I don't know what you're talking about with courts. I'm White Line, but somehow I don't think that's what you mean. What do you mean what do we do?"

"Well, there's Red Court, which I am, we're delightful rubbery monster things in human flesh and we drink blood. There's Black Court, they're dried-up rotting corpses and they drink blood and get everybody pissed off about vampires by being generally awful. And the White Court eat emotions and sparkle and are a bunch of prissy little twats. Oh, and there's the Jade court but they stick to China and I know fuckall about them. I think their legs are stuck together or something."

"Well, usually I go for the neck, but it all goes down my throat anyway. What, do you have to use a straw or something? Bar can probably provide."

"I have to drink from the vein or a bag, it has to be pressurized, I can't swallow. And I still don't want anything from the bar, I fed recently."

"I'd find a way to make room, this stuff is delicious, but if you're watching your weight I won't push. Can't swallow, huh. Interesting. I'm not going to make any crude jokes about that, because I happen to be a gentleman. Well, actually that's a filthy lie, but implying a crude joke is pretty much the same as actually making it for my purposes."

"Dating a breather. Very interesting. I grew out of that a while back."

"A breather? You don't breathe? My family says bleeder, because they're racist..."

"We don't breathe, no. I suppose you could call it racist. But, you know, vampires being immortal and all, it's not the greatest idea to date food."

"My kind of vampire isn't immortal."

"Sorry about it. I suppose I won't be dating you, then. Or, I don't know, whatever male relative looks most like you. Wouldn't happen to have a brother, I suppose?"

"Ah well. I'll find some nice monster who can tolerate my neurotic ways eventually. Anyway, you never answered my question, what's your species like? You drink blood, you breathe, you're mortal, you have families, you date food. Any fascinating quirks? Repelled by holy objects? Turning into bats? Kill people with sex? My kind have a party trick I can demonstrate if you like, it's great fun."

"...I turn into a bat," she says. "Why would we be repelled by holy objects...? I'm not sure I want to see a demonstration of any unexpected trick that belongs on a list near 'kill people with sex'."

"Huh, you actually do turn into a bat. Weird, that's one of the more inhuman Black Court tricks, I'd expect you to be on the vanilla end of the spectrum. And most vampires are actually repelled by holy objects. Supposedly we're repellant in the eyes of Whoever, and Whoever lets us know it. And the party trick is nothing like the sex thing. Really, you could call it the opposite of that."

"I go to temple routinely," she says. "And pass missionaries on the street with, you know, normal amounts of annoyance. What is the trick, then?"

"Religious vampires. Something new every day. Anyway, the trick..." He stands from the barstool and grabs the top of his head. In one fluid motion, he rips off his skin and stands before her, a slimy red bat-thing with an enormous dripping tongue. And a stupid grin on his face. "Abracadabra!"

"Eugh," says Leekath.

He giggles and sits back down. Skin begins stretching over him, starting from the tips of his fingers and toes. "I love that. It's gross as hell, but watching people make faces at it is hilarious."

"I have no idea why the ambient translation magic thinks we're both 'vampires'."

"Eh. 'Vampire' is a pretty broad term, back home. Really it just means 'human-shaped thing that kills humans for their delicious essence and isn't a faerie'."

"I don't kill people, humans taste terrible, and fairies don't drink blood at all."

"Huh. Well, parasitizes, then, I'm pretty sure we don't have to kill people but not much point in letting them live and tell their human friends about the big scary monsters. If you don't eat humans, what do you eat? Don't tell me it's animals, that's disgusting. And our definition of 'faerie' is even broader than the one for 'vampires', I'm pretty sure half the species on the planet are different kinds of fucking faeries. That's why I carry a bag of iron filings under my skin, gets rid of them very nicely. Those fuckers."

"...Neat trick, there. Both the peripheral vision for the napkin and the fact that you eat fucking dragons. That is not something I would like to attempt any time soon."

"With the dragons' permission," Leekath emphasizes. "It's against my religion to bite people without permission. And I wasn't using peripheral vision, I can hear objects talking about themselves. That's how I was sure there was an ambient translation effect. The napkins look to me like they're in Leraal, but they say they aren't in anything in particular."

"I'm just going to come out and say it. As a vampire of the proper, soulless variety, your religion is hilarious. You're so neighborly! Also, again, neat trick."

"What is that stuff? That you make your - envelope out of?"

"Oh, it's ectoplasm. We can't do anything else with it, the mask is a racial ability thing, but if you're a wizard or a sidhe or something you can turn it into just about anything you like. Couple of weeks ago we got a rain of frogs, that was some high-level ectoplasm weirdness."

"Weird. It definitely counts as a substance and not an object, I can't hear it."

"Huh. Wonder what'd happen if somebody gave you a conjured sword or something, that's all ectoplasm but it's made into an object."

"Well, I can't hear things made with image kamai," she says. "But I don't know enough about ectoplasm to say how that applies."

"So what kind of details can you hear with that, anyway? Can my pants tell you about my sexual history? Do my flannel shirts love me as much as I love them? Is the knife hidden in my left arm traumatized by me stabbing a malk with it?"

"Objects tend not to have much in the way of rich inner lives, and can only tell me things that are strictly about them, not just things they bore witness to," says Leekath. "Sometimes things like people but I'm afraid your shirt's not one of them."

"That's reassuring. This shirt needs replacing anyway, I'd feel bad if it loved me. Actually, who am I kidding, it'd be hilarious. But a world with sentient shirts would be a bit uncomfortable."

"They're not sentient," she says, shaking her head.

"Not really," says Leekath, blinking only briefly at the weird face. Leo's is weirder. "It won't let me out at all."

"That's not going to be a problem, because I don't want to go out any time soon. Unless it lets in Blondie out there, which I wouldn't be thrilled with. What in the everliving fuck is wrong with your face?"

"Do I ask rude questions about your facial deformities?" asks Leo, whose face is inching steadily into place over his actual face.

"Fair enough," says the woman, trotting over to the bar. "Any way a girl could get something strong and preferably with blood in it?"

Sure. First one's free, says a napkin. Do you want my best guess or something specific?

She blinks at the napkin, then shrugs. "Magic bar. Guess, I guess. Surprises are always nice. Unless they've got holy water or something in them, don't make me a holy water sangria."

She sips, makes a very pleased face, and turns to Leekath. "Right in one. Suzanna Richardson, vampire, witch, and apocalypse maven extraordinaire. Currently under heavy pursuit by certain local organizations and looking for a change in work. You?"

"Leekath Hhirheek, vampire, wizard, kama, hearer, parliamentary office worker," says Leekath dryly. "Currently wondering whether I'm going to be late for a meeting."

"Leonardo Cristobal Sangre de Dios Rojas Moreno de la Corazón, vampire of the Red Court and filthy coward, call me Leo," puts in Leo. "Currently antagonizing the good Ms. Hhirheek, mostly by accident, and enjoying a truly excellent cup of blood. Speaking of which, could I get a refill?"

"Vampire interns, huh. Your place of work hiring?"

"Ah, that sucks. What about being a filthy coward, how's the pay on that?"

Leo counts out several rumpled and, in one case, slightly blood-spotted bills onto the countertop. "Whatever you can mug. Which is, you know, decent, considering vampiric cost of living."

"Reputable vampires," snorts Suzanna. "That's kind of hilarious. What, do you pay people to bend their necks or is it more a charitable blood donation thing?"

"...Charitable. I just feed off my fiancé, other vampires ask their friends. We're not supposed to pay for it."

"And you're marrying food. It'd be a very strange world if we were all alike, I'm sure."

"Oh, don't be mean," chides Leo. "Really, she should be judging us, they seem to have a very nice arrangement set up, they can have their blood and drink it too."

"What makes you think I'm not judging you?" Leekath says frostily.

"I'm sorry, I misspoke. Your judgment is extremely clear. And kind of hilarious."

Leo giggles helplessly. "Oh man, tell me you're a vampire. Today gets better and better."

"Yeah, murder sisters! Put it here, pretty Irish lady. Also, help yourself to a drink, the bar does great blood and the first drink's free."

"Huh. Would I like any of these synthetics?"

"Human blood has bits of soul in it, which is an essential nutrient for growing vampires. Though, actually, you mentioned you drink from other species, now I'm curious. Bar, do you think I'd like something from one of her dragons?"

The distinction is unlikely to be as unambiguously positive for you as it would for her sort of vampire, but it would be drinkable. $22.30.

"Blah. Money."

"I'll front you the cash, I had a recent windfall and you've got me curious." Suzanna lays down some suspiciously crisp currency.

Suzanna snickers. "I was hoping for something like that. Thank you, Vampire Jesus."

"Smelled pretty unpalatable to me," comments Maggie. "Is the taste of knives nice or not, all things considered?"

Leo coughs violently. "Nope! Initial impression very good, aftertaste fucking awful. Not a fan. The neighborly religionpires can keep their dragon snacks."

Leekath snorts. Maggie finishes her blue thing.

"Sunlight thing being catching fire? Yes, it's unpleasant. Well, you can see my lovely forehead ridges. And we don't have souls and as a group we're very into the apocalypse, though I'm starting to think of giving it up in light of recent events. Other than that... we explode if you put a bit of wood through our chests, that could be notable. Not much else to speak of."

"Direct sunshine and we sparkle, no spontaneous combustion. Very conspicuous, therefore very illegal," says Maggie. "No apocalypse, not so friendly, if we're going to marry food we turn it into not-food first, and in terms of my physical composition what you see is what you get, though what you see is in fact nigh-invulnerable unless another vampire goes after me or somebody ignites me."

"Wait, hang on, why would the vampire shadow government get involved? If I see someone aggressively sparkling at me I'm less likely to think 'oh my land, I'm surrounded by vampires!' than 'somebody got lost on the way to New Orleans'."

"Well, you might be able to get away with it if the human doesn't tell anybody," shrugs Maggie. "Or you eat them right away and then they of course don't tell anybody. But if there's somebody talking too much about anything a little funny, the Volturi figure you can't handle being a vampire and should instead handle being a pile of ashes, see?"

"Still doesn't make sense, but okay, Sparkle Party. At least you still eat people."

(Leo snickers quietly.)

"Amen, sister," says Suzanna. "I mean, I've turned people, but if you needed to leave them half full or something, I'd never have managed."

"Dads? What, are you like seahorses?"

"Magic. All right. Back where I come from magic is less suited for gay dad assistance and more suited for murder, sorry for the confusion. Back to the other confusion. Vampires aren't born, they're made. At least sensible vampires. You take a human, you drain their blood, you give them a mouthful of yours, and bam, new vampire."

"For ours it's more complicated- way more complicated- but yeah, the principle's the same."

"Yeah, witches are not that. I don't know about glitchy, though, I feel like if you stranded a bunch of English-speakers on islands containing various weird magic things you'd get a lot of similar-looking overlap. Like, there's these things that drink blood and react to sunlight, they're vampires, doesn't matter that one's a creepy demon thing and one has a weird bumpy face and one sparkles. There's these people with insert magic here, they're witches, doesn't matter if they do exactly one thing or try to cause the apocalypse or, I don't know, whatever your weird kind does, probably flies around on broomsticks and apologizes a lot."

Leo raises his hand. "There's some vampires over on our side who do that. Not counting my own somewhat batlike self." He peels off his face and winks, then pastes it back on.

"Aw, but it's a neat party trick! We could all demonstrate something, if you want. Sparkles could hop out into the sunlight, Suzanna could... I don't know, do some weird magic thing? Maybe she can do a light show. We'll be the Amazing Vampire Circus."

"You all aren't even actually vampires, you're some other word that this magic is insisting on translating instead of giving to me phonetically."

"...How sure are we that we're all speaking different languages? Because I'm pretty sure Sparkle Party's Irish, and we all apparently use similar money. I think that we're all 'vampires' and you're some weird thing that's translating wrong."

"Nah, I was calling you Sparkle Party because it's funny. I can stop. Anyway, Lydia, I'm glad you are now a more comfortable special snowflake. I could probably turn myself into a bat if that's the issue at hand, but I'm not 100% sure I could turn myself back, so... probably not doing that."

"Turning yourself into a bat is not the sole membership requirement," says Leekath dryly. "Dragons and kyma can do that, if they want."

"Dragons can turn into bats. Have I mentioned your world is super weird?"

"It's come up," says Leekath. "Dragons can turn into whatever they want, sometimes that's bats, usually it is not bats."

"Dragons are OP," mutters Suzanna. "Nerf dragons."

"Let me guess," says Leekath. "More mistranslated vampires."

"The door disappears sometimes. The bar says it usually doesn't trap people more than a couple days," Leekath says to the nervous girl. "And yes, the translation magic here is awful, it thinks we're all vampires, I'm speaking Leraal not English when I say that so it's clearly incorrect."

"That's what I said!"

"I don't kill people!" says the girl. "I work as a hairdresser and I take the energy I need from the intimacy of touch, I don't have to have sex with anyone at all! Or kill anyone!"

"Oh, thank goodness," says Leekath. "That you don't kill people. I'm less clear on whether I should be pleased about the rest of it. My sister's a hairdresser but as far as I know all she gets out of it is dressed hair."

"The White Court don't do anything with blood at all," explains Leo. "They're all about emotions. Lust and intimacy, in this case, or so I'd imagine from that description. I'm sure your parents are very proud of their little vegan. Or, no, what's the opposite of that, horribly ashamed. Horribly ashamed of their little vegan."

From me, appears a napkin. First drink is free.

"Oh, nice. You're magic, right? Could I get a glass of Chateau That One Barmaid From 1830 or something, or do you just serve generic blood?"

It needn't be generic per se, but I'm afraid I can't identify that one barmaid from 1830 for you with the information available.

"That stuff makes me want to try. Good god."

"I've bitten dragons by asking nicely," says Leekath severely. "You could try it. If the door would let me out and I didn't think having you in the halls of Parliament would be a terrible idea, anyway."

"Asking nicely." She snickers.

"Our venom's anaesthetic," contributes Leo. "Well, it could dull pain. In addition to feeling like God Himself is giving you a blowjob, and then addicting you to vampire saliva more or less instantly."

"That sounds inconvenient," observes Suzanna. "Have you considered not that, instead? I've found that a complete lack of venom serves quite well."

"Considered? Nobody consulted me," snorts Maggie. "I put in my three days of Hell and now when I bite somebody it's because they're gonna be dead in a second."

"Well, you've got to turn some people," says Tessa. "How else will you get enough minions to get anything done?"

"Well- acquire tomes of ancient and forbidden lore, clean house, serve as shock troops- I don't know, what wouldn't you need done?"

"Ghouls," says Leo the Walking Dictionary, "are horrible monsters who are very good at killing things, can come back from just about any injury that doesn't involve decapitation or reducing them to paste, and are kept as something of a mercenary army by the White Court. Though they get loaned out to the Reds when we need them. They have to eat their body weight in raw meat per day, it's delightful."

"They're not horrible! Some of my best friends are ghouls," complains Sky. "They're quite nice when you get to know them."

"I'd say that's a fair assessment, yeah. They don't always kill people, they think it's wasteful, but they sure as hell don't mind."

"It's kind of adorable how human your thinking is. Like a puppy dressed in a suit and tie!"

"...What do wolves have to do with anything?" asks Leekath.

"Not wolves, puppies! Cute little baby dogs. Or wolves, I guess, wolf puppies are probably adorable."

"What's a dog?"

"Bitty little domesticated wolves. You guys didn't domesticate wolves? Your loss, man, they're super cute."

"Wolves are - okay, there are two kinds of wolves, and one kind is people, and the other kind are vicious wild animals..."

"Vicious wild animals that we made into adorable little domestic animals. You guys do have, like, domesticated animals in general, right? Cows? Sheep? Horses?"

"I don't know what a horse is, but we have cows and sheep."

"Dogs are like that, to the wild versions of those. I mean, wild sheep aren't particularly dangerous- well, they can be, but not so much- but it's the difference between a wild bull and a milk cow. Which is substantial. I almost got killed by a wild cow once, and this was after I turned. Anyway, we did that to wolves so we could have animals that would kill mice and protect our homes and stuff."

"We have cats, for mice," says Leekath. "I'll have to take your word for it about wild cows; I've never seen one. And they might not be the same anyway."

"Do not speak to me of cats."

"Your kind of vampire vulnerable to cats?" Maggie asks, raising an eyebrow.

"No, but they're vicious filthy little bastards and I hate them."

"Finally someone understands. Why did the humans stop throwing them in rivers again?"

"Lydia, you should really lighten up. Cats aren't even people! We're being perfectly humanitarian."

"Leekath," says Leekath. "Is my name. Not Lydia."

"I know that! I'm just calling you Lydia because you look like the chick from Beetlejuice. You're easily the gothiest person at this vampire bar. Apart from the living corpse, maybe."

"Yeah, but she's got the whole... fangs and pallor and inky-black hair, thing going. I knew girls back in junior high who would've killed for that kind of coloration."

"I don't know, I've known a lot of people with your coloration who got it by killing people. It's certainly an option."

Leekath glares at her.

"So, Maggie, you mentioned sparkling. And it being pretty. Would it be patronizing and weird to ask you to demonstrate?"

Suzanna stares at her, neglecting to breathe. "Pretty," she sighs.

Maggie twirls. "Aren't I just? Part of the upgrade - the sparkles and general cosmetic enhancements, that is. Nobody looked this good during the potato famine."

"I was. Don't get your hopes up, ducky, my kind of vampire does love at first sight and is much less about casual hookups, and I don't love you."

"Thank Someone for that. Love is disgusting. I'll pass, pretty as you are."

"There's nothing for you to pass on. If it were going to happen I'd have been gooey over you from the first moment," snorts Maggie. "I don't think it even does happen to people who think love's disgusting, same reason I can be sure if it happens to me it'll be a woman."

"I think that the risk alone would bar me entirely from your world. That means I'm either sneaking into Lavinia's world when her door comes back, or I'm going with one or more of the weird triplicate vamps. Though there's no need to pack up just yet, I'm just looking at my options."

"Oh, I wouldn't bring you home, Siobhan's very strict about who she lets on her island and I don't know that you'd count as not a vampire to the point where she wouldn't kill you anyway."

"Well, I don't know that that's fair! You could've told her you brought me in and I'd've fucked off to California and not bothered you again. Unless we became pen pals or something."

"Oi, I like my working relationship with my covenmates, why would I screw it up for you? She'd understand if it was a mate, those're different, but some presumptuous bint I met in a bar?"

"I wasn't suggesting that you put me up for a week until I got my feet back! She wouldn't even accept me setting foot on her soil in order to immediately hop off it? It's not like I'd poach on her land, I happen to enjoy not being a pile of dust."

"...We don't speak English. There's a vampire language, with regional dialects, and a bunch of other languages. The planet's a square, I think that's unusual. There's plenty of magic; I'm three kinds of magic and I was only born with one of those. One sun. Plants, animals, oceans, land, air, what do you want to know?"

"Oh, that sounds- lovely. I just meant... well, do you have, um, kingdoms? Or something? Or countries? What's- the one where you live? Like?"

"I live in a country with a appointment-based parliament that can be removed by popular referendum," says Leekath. "One of my dads is in Parliament and I work for him. There's a neighboring country that's a kingdom, and some others elsewhere, and theocracies and representative democracies and so on."

"Oh, I won't start anything," Tessa soothes. "You can be sure of that."

Sky's forms are going well! She has listed a variety of natural powers appropriate to a somewhat anemic vampire of the White Court, she will probably not be farming, she will almost certainly be on government assistance. She's left "acquired magical skills" blank because she's fairly sure she doesn't have any. She continues apace. (She writes pretty quickly, especially when she's blocking out something like Tessa being terrifying.)

"You seem nervous about her, and I have my ward stones with me, and I can make a ward. I'm not positive how it will interact with whatever you're worried she'll do but it's pretty general purpose."

"I... that... that could help. Maybe. It's her necromancy, it- just the fact she's using it puts me on edge, I feel it in my teeth."

"What exactly is she doing?" asks Leekath, pulling her ward stones out of her bag and setting them up around Sky, some on the bar, some on the floor, in a multilevel sort of circle.

"Well, nothing she's doing with it ought to be able to hurt you through the ward," says Leekath, and she wakes the stones. "There. I can put an illusion where the ward is active if you want to be able to see it."

Leekath nods, steps past her ward stones, and puts her hand on Sky's head. Quick check for anything that will foul up mind kamai...?

Apart from the obvious crippling anxiety, nothing in particular!

Great. Leekath gets out her gold wand, since it is very kind about letting her cheat, and taps Sky on the head with it. Bog-standard kamai shields.

"Oh," sighs Sky. "Thank you. I'm still- afraid of her. But it's so much less, now." She vibrates nervously for a moment and goes in for an extremely hesitant hug.

Tessa rolls her eyes. "Well, if everyone's leaving or becoming immune to fear, I think I may go as well. Unless the bar has tomes of forgotten lore on demand."

"Leo has graciously agreed to take me along into his world," says Suzanna with a measure of glee, "and this joint is getting kind of tired, so I think we'll be taking our leave."

Leekath evinces no objection to any of these disreputable sorts of vampires departing.

Suzanna takes a moment to purchase some tomes of forgotten lore for herself, and a bottle of a particularly nice vintage of blood, and merrily follows Leo through his door.

Tessa leaves as well, hauling a rolling suitcase of obscure grimoires behind her. The world isn't going to know what hit it.

"If I've got the chance to move to your world and leave that nightmare behind me, I'll wait as long as it takes."

"Okay, that's up to you. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to sleep, here, if it takes long enough -" She eyes the rafters. "I guess I could conjure something up to hang from."

"Bar could probably rent you something? I wonder if we could rent a room, I have to sleep too..."

"My emergency credit card is, uh, substantial. And I might as well use it while I can?"

Sky giggles. "Is there something ridiculously expensive you've had your eye on? I kind of like the idea of bankrupting Dad before I go."

"Aw. Not even fancy clothes or something?" She considers. "Could I, like, buy money? That would be useful."

Sky looks at Leekath solemnly. "I am entrusting you with the power of my emergency credit card to buy me the fanciest wardrobe that money can buy. Can you do this for me?"

Sky begins rattling off clothing preferences. Pastels feature heavily. Asymmetry, when possible. Fancy designs! Beading! Embroidery!

And Bar takes a look at her credit card, and inquires how much she'd like to reserve for direct currency exchange into aaberik.

"Um, $25000 is the cutoff. So, uh, however much of that is left over."

Do you want twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of clothes alone? inquires Bar.

So Bar produces twenty complete outfits of variously pastel, variously embroidered and beaded, artful Esmaarlan clothes, and six pairs of shoes, and, in a basket, miscellaneous accessories and locally appropriate jewelry. I did a little bargain hunting for you, but this is all top wearing-out-and-about quality for the locale, Bar promises. Appropriate for the various Esmaarlan seasons and should be reasonably fashion-forward for the next year and respectable for twenty to thirty. The individual pieces should mix and match pretty well, although they're presented in complete outfits for your immediate convenience. It's Esmaar, so it's dresses, and skirts with blouses, but there are several pairs of leggings in there too (and socks, and three cardigans and a poncho and a shawl, and underthings, and two scarves, and sashes.)

This is slightly impractical, but I appreciate the sentiment very much.

"So, I have beautiful clothes. Should I just get a sack of coins, or is there something a little more portable? Or do aaberik have high enough denominations it won't be a problem?"

"Um... how available are small apartments? And I can take that in coins, then, I'll take very very good care of them."

"There exist little one-bedroom places. I actually live in a tiny house on top of an apartment building but we get charged extra for the view and roof access and metropolitan location. I know there must be cheaper but I'm not sure how easy they'll be to find. If the rest of your paperwork checks out okay you can live in temporary housing until you do track something down, though."

"Oh! Good. If I was immigrating to America from nowhere, it would be... a lot harder than that. You're apparently, uh, filthy socialists. Good."

"We're what?" blinks Leekath.

Sky gets a very slight deer-in-headlights look. "Socialists. It's, uh, it's a joke. Your government takes care of its citizens very well."

"What a weird joke," says Leekath.

"Yes. Yes it is."

"Anyway." Leekath picks up the forms. "Usually, the contents of these would be verified with a wizarding lie detection spell -" As an afterthought, she deactivates the ward stones and puts them away. "I can't cast it here because wizardry only works in Elcenia. I can do lie detection with kamai, though." She pulls her gold wand and makes a little gesture with it; the shields on Sky's mind are no longer helping with anything now they're alone. "This might mean you have to do the whole thing over again on the other side, because kamai isn't formally used for governmental processes like that; but I'm going to do it anyway because it would be a hassle to put you back if you get turned away. All right?"

"Oh! Sure. I don't mind."

"To the very best of your knowledge, are the contents of this form true, transparent, and complete?"

Good, good. Leekath reads it over to see if there are any hiccups.

"Well... if I got a job at a salon or, I don't know, polishing dragons or something, I could do what I've been doing. Otherwise, there's always the 'weekly sex with someone or other' route. I've got enough self-control to keep myself from killing anyone with that, and it's not totally horrible, it's just- not my favorite thing."

"There's no risks to the salon thing," says Sky indignantly. "It just feels really nice and you're tired for a little bit. And I wasn't talking about prostitution, just- going out and being aggressively pretty at people until one's into it. Though the disclosure might make that harder. It's not risky for that either, I have a ton of practice, but I can see where disclosure would be necessary given the theoretical risk of ripping out their souls."

"Yes, you definitely have to tell people if you're at theoretical risk of ripping out their souls, and - look, my kind of vampires are the sole existing precedent you have to work with for feeding off other people, even if you aren't drinking blood. And we always ask and everybody knows exactly what we're doing. Even making people tired or making them feel nicer than they normally would while receiving salon services is slightly iffy. I think you're within legal parameters about it but that's not saying terribly much."

"Sorry. I'm just- used to working outside the law, in a lot of ways it's more convenient that way. But it's better to be doing it... right, I think."

"Right. If nothing else Esmaar has very good law enforcement. Nothing you put down here would let you get around it, so whatever you're used to, you need to become used to obeying Esmaarlan law if you want to live there."

"Yeah. I think I'll- let it be known, then, I don't know if somebody could detect it or something and I wouldn't want to be caught out about it. And if that makes people too worried to let me at their hair I'll, I don't know, find a boyfriend or something. Or trawl the local college for guys sexually frustrated enough to ignore my draining their spirit energy. That's a classic."

"I mean, you won't be competing with a lot of other members of your species for access to people who'd be interested, you just may have an initial marketing problem and I'm not sure the government will be able to be responsible for it from the get-go," says Leekath. "That's the only serious wrinkle I see. You still would prefer to immigrate rather than go home, given it?"

"Huh. I guess it's a marketable skill, in a way. Yes, I'd like to get out of my horrible permanent war zone of a world."

"Okay. We'll see if the door will cooperate with the plan. I can sign these, I've got the licence for it, but obviously you can't immigrate if you can't physically enter Esmaar, so they won't take de facto effect right away." Leekath signs the papers in a few places. "You'll still probably have to do this all over again but this will get you as far as the office that's supposed to handle the thing."

"I don't mind doing it over. Thank you, so much. Do you want to, um, stay in contact, when I get to Esmaar? I mean, we don't know each other very well, but- I'm not really going to know anyone."

"I don't mind. I'll probably also put you in touch with one of my old teachers, she's from offworld too and likes helping people to an almost pathological degree."

"Pathological help sounds- nice. I'd love to meet her."

Sky quietly orders a fruit salad from the bar.

▫1.04.

She pays after examining her coins in some confusion.

And she receives a fruit salad! It is a nice fruit salad, slightly lemony.

Mm, lemons.