Well, her first guess is that these are Pokémon she's never heard of. Some Pokémon walk on two legs. Bella hates indoor battles and they aren't making challenging noises at her, but she lets Fireflower out, just in case. Fireflower tosses her mane.

"Whoa, what the fuck?" says the lightning man. The vine man arches a wing protectively around him and gives Ace a curious look.

"And what's one of those?" inquires the vine man.

"They evolve from Ponyta. Fire-types, if it wasn't obvious. Uh, what are you?"

"Earth and Lightning," says the vine man, gesturing respectively to himself and his friend. "If it wasn't obvious. Do you happen to know where we are?"

"No, I just - got here myself, still figuring it out. I've never heard of you or seen anything like you before."

"And neither have we heard of or seen anything like your Fire-horse," says Earth. "But you seem to be an ordinary human as far as I can tell, and we're familiar with those. That's interesting."

"I'm a human. What's a horse?"

"They resemble your Rapidash, minus the horn and with the fire replaced by hair in more or less the same locations and shapes. They're not magical in any way."

"I don't know that I'd call Fireflower magical." These 'mon or aliens or whatever pretty clearly don't seem to want to attack her; Fireflower can go back in her ball. "You mean they're, like, Normal-type...?"

"It's, uh, one of the Pokémon... types..."

"And what's a Pokémon?"

"...Fireflower is one. I've only got six on me but there's hundreds of species. They're, you know, the things that move around besides humans. Or they are where I'm from. Iiii'm guessing you guys aren't talking Pokémon after all?"

"The things that move around besides humans where we're from are either animals or elementals, never both. Elementals resemble humans, with various halos - Fireflower looks a little bit like a horse with a Fire halo. Horses are a species of animal. Apart from Fire, Earth, and Lightning, the other single elements are Adamant, Air, Glass, Ice, Shadow, Shine, Stone, Water, and Wood."

"Huh. Some of those are also Pokémon types - ice and water and fire. And some of the others are close. But yeah, you are not Pokémon. Sorry for thinking you might be."

"Is that the sort of thought one apologizes for?" asks Earth.

"I would be mildly put out if I were mistaken for one? I'm not sure how that would happen, but if it did. I'd be more put out if they thought I was one long enough to attack me or try to capture me."

"Well, you'll notice I didn't have Fireflower try to set you on fire right away, and I don't even want any more, I have six - if you don't have your 'mon attack a wild one that gets in your space, though, it'll basically kill you unless you're very lucky. People who don't have at least one 'mon of their own pretty much can't leave cities."

"You're welcome. I hate indoor battles anyway, unless they're in adequately sized purpose-built stadiums, those are okay."

"Hmm?"

"Oh, I guess if you don't have Pokémon - they're good for keeping the wildlife off you but lots of people also battle them recreationally and to get them stronger so they're more effective at the wildlife thing. I enter tournaments sometimes to stay in good guild standing, I'm not great at it but I'm all right - mostly mine spar with each other or wild ones, though, I travel a lot."

"Depends heavily on the 'mon. Mostly by individual, not species. My smartest is Zag. Except for legendaries basically none of them can talk, unless you count Chatot, but those are dumb as bricks and just do mimicry."

"And what's a legendary?"

"'Mon that you can't prove exist but that there are stories about, basically. Now and then you'll hear of a really bright Meowth or something picking up some human language, but it's - tabloid stuff, I'm not sure whether to buy it or not, Zag's quite bright and doesn't talk."

"It's an interesting world you seem to have," says Earth. "Very different from ours. Did I understand you right when you seemed to imply earlier that there's no magic, or nothing you're used to calling magic, there?"

"We don't usually call 'mon and the things they do magic. Magic's a fantasy stories thing. But some 'mon powers are big and poorly understood enough that people call it that as a shorthand. Fireflower's just... firey, but, like, my Dusk has a psychic attack, that's more arguable."

"Elementals and the things we can do are generally considered magical, and there are humans who use magic as well," says Earth.

"I'd need to know more to account for that. Come to think of it, it's pretty strange that we can understand each other."

"Not exceptionally strange, to me," says Earth. "Elementals speak all the languages that exist on the planet when we coaelsce. I'm used to being able to understand most people. But you're right, it is a little odd. I wonder if it's a property of this place? Seems likely."

"Does that apply to us, too?" asks Earth.

"Hello," says Earth, leaning down to pet the creature. His leaves rustle.

"Umbrrrr," says Dusk. He puts his forepaws on Earth's knee as though considering trying to climb him. He is soft.

Pet pet pet. (Earth is very gentle.)

"Do you want to see the others?"

"I don't know," says Earth, smiling. "Do they want to see me?"

"Of mine, Fireflower's the least friendly, and you've seen her. They wouldn't all fit in here if it were crowded, but it's not." And she releases her Pidgeot, Sawsbuck, Mienshao, and Linoone. "Rachis, Branch, Juu, and Zag," she says, scooping up the latter into her lap. "Maybe don't try to pet Rachis. Zag'll have a sweet egg milk," she tells Bar. Zag seems very excited about the phrase 'sweet egg milk'.

Lightning spreads his crackling wings and backs away a few steps when there begin to be more creatures present. Earth continues to pet the Umbreon.

Zag drinks his sweet egg milk. Dusk gets tired of being petted and finishes his juice. Branch looks around confusedly. Juu starts preening Rachis's feathers. Rachis seems to find Lightning intimidating, which Zag notices when he's done with his beverage and has slid out of his trainer's lap; he gets between the bird and the elementals and throws tiny little sparks of his own, chattering.

Lightning makes what in context can probably be assumed to be a rude gesture in Zag's direction. Earth gives him a mildly reproving look.

"No? You aren't as lightningy as you look?"

"Oh. Huh. ...Uh, why?"

"It's standard practice, when humans are dealing with elementals, to magically prevent us from doing anything they might not like us to."

"That... sounds... very carefully phrased?"

The girl puts Branch and Juu away and picks up Zag again and sits back down. "All the explanations that are coming to mind are literally from fantasy books, I don't know how to interpret what you're saying or if it'd offend you if I guessed wrong."

"Okay, so - are elementals really dangerous without the magic on you, or something, and that's a deal you have to make to get anything from humans, or...?"

"Yes," says Earth.

"There's... probably nothing I can do about that, is there?"

"All I've got going for me is my 'mon and I don't know how your world's magic would interact with them."

"I doubt they could break an amulet," says Earth. "And I certainly don't know any ways to find out that don't involve stealing one first."

"I take it amulets don't break unless you do magic to them."

"I've never heard of an amulet breaking while it wasn't being used. As far as I know, it's not possible. And I don't think you can use an amulet, because there's no reason to think you can do any magic at all if it doesn't even exist in your world."

"If we went to yours, you mean? I'm not sure it would," says Earth. "It might be better to wait here and see if someone else shows up who seems like they could break an amulet and wouldn't mind stealing one."

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm not sure how much you'd like it in my world anyway, somebody might throw a Pokéball at you and wild 'mon would probably attack you and just like you don't know if I can do magic I don't know if you can train 'mon, the ability to do that varies even in my world among humans."

"That too, yes," says Earth. "Although elementals are immortal, so being attacked by wild 'mon might still be preferable to what we get at home."

"'Manage' implies a successful effort of some kind. It's just how we are," shrugs Earth. "We don't age, and we can be hurt or injured but not killed."

"Can humans do that too where you're from?"

"No. It's not a 'do', it's a 'be'."

"Rattata."

"There's such a thing as magical healing..."

"Color me fascinated."

"Earth healing is one of my particular specialties, and I know how healing works with the other relevant elements. I can tell you all about it if you like."

"If I succeeded at getting someone to free a lot of elementals here, you might be able to convince some of us to come to your world then," says Earth. "In which case it would be handy to know at least a little about which ones can do which things."

"Okay. Do you think you can in fact convince somebody to do that?"

"I have no idea," he says. "I've only met one person here so far. I don't know how likely it is that someone else might show up who could help, or how likely it is that they'd want to, or if it's even meaningful to ask how likely those things are in a place this strange."

"The list of people at home who I might trust to do anything helpful whatsoever is very short, and I think she's out of town at the moment."

"No," says Earth. "We can, but it doesn't hurt us not to."

"Oh, then you're probably good to camp out here forever, lucky you."

"Yes. It might be convenient if we could find somewhere to sleep..."

There are rooms available for rent, but they cost money, too. However, sleeping on the couches or in the backyard area is permissible as long as they aren't incompatibly occupied at the time. You might be more likely to find your rest disturbed.

"Thank you," says Earth. "That seems all right, then."

"That sounds potentially useful," says Earth. "How would we arrange that sort of thing?"

"Would we qualify for Security if we were free?" inquires Earth. "For that matter, would we now?"

If you were free, yes. As it is, no, I'm afraid that is unlikely, although an existing Security representative can administer a finer-grained assessment if you like.

"Well. Thank you anyway. I wouldn't mind cleaning things," says Earth.

When there's more of a mess to be had, I'll provide cleaning supplies. You can have, she produces a key, room 033 on a provisional basis.

Earth picks up the key and tucks it into his vines.

The girl finishes scanning the pamphlet, and then says that she'd like to sign on for a Security job, and the bar gives her room 013 and a beeper tells her where to find the relevant office when her beeper announces her shift is about to start. Apparently that time is not right now.

"Did you want to hear about elemental healing?"

"Yes please."

Earth smiles. "I like healing."

"Does this all work just the same on humans and elementals and - 'animals'?"

"Elementals can be healed most easily using their own element, and some things aren't applicable to us because we can't die and our bodies aren't always very much like human bodies. Shine works on all of us, but I couldn't do much for an injured Stone or Air. I think healing humans isn't very different from healing animals, except that depending on the animal, an Earth or Water might need to know different things to help them."

She writes this down too. "And 'mon are probably more like animals than humans or elementals, I guess?"

"Seems like it," Earth agrees.

"But maybe a little elemental-y. Mine aren't hurt at the moment, or I might want to have you check them out if you could do that safely."

"And I'd want to know more about them and how they're put together before I tried anything more than healing very minor surface injuries."

"Yeah, Pokécenter's probably a better bet unless I'm in the middle of nowhere and Rachis has a busted wing and I somehow manage to find a door."

"A Pokécenter being... some sort of non-magical Pokémon hospital?" he guesses.

"Yeah - see, when 'mon are in their balls they're sort of simplified in ways I don't actually understand and there's machines that can make repairs to them pretty easily and then they're all better, no waiting time or blowing your money on Potions and stuff, so every town bigger than like three houses together in the woods has a Pokémon center."

"Convenient," says Earth. "But the machines aren't very portable?"

Earth and Lightning exchange some silent commentary, and then Earth turns to Bar and asks, "Is it usual to find people here who strongly resemble people we already know?"

Sometimes that happens, but not to everyone. Some of them only look alike and others have deep and thorough similarities. And some of the second kind don't look alike.

"Interesting. Thank you," says Earth.

You're welcome.

The two elementals decide to go investigate the outdoor area, for completeness's sake. They spend a few hours out there before coming back inside.

Where they find sitting at the bar and having an animated conversation therewith - yet another one. This one's prepubescent and dressed differently and is asking if the doors can be summoned "- maybe with academic magic? Or since it's doors wood magic, I think there's wood magic."

...Lightning starts snickering.

"...Huh?" says Lightning. (This is not a reaction he tends to get from most people.)

"You're all - sparky!" she exclaims, sliding carefully off her bar stool. "It looks fun, how do you do it? What are you? Are you an elemental?"

"I'm an Earth. A different kind of elemental from Lightning."

"Huh. I don't think you can be kinds from home, then, plants and earth are separate things there, one of my teachers does plants." She looks up at Lightning. "Can I hug you?"

"...Sure," says Lightning.

The girl bursts out into uproarious laughter as more sparks engulf her.

"What even are you," giggles Lightning.

"I'm a weather mage!"

"Eeeheehee!"

"They work. I fly. Wanna see?"

"Yeah!"

Stormy whoops at the top of her lungs and holds on tight.

Whee! Flying!

"I fly around sometimes," Lightning agrees. "It's pretty great."

"Was it hard to learn?"

"Nope!"

"Lucky! You get to be lightningy and fly. I bet you can't be the sky though."

Swoop. "What's it mean to be the sky?"

"Eeeee! - it's when I put my magic up and it's like I'm, well, the sky, being the clouds and the air and the sunshine and everything. It's best during big storms. I'm supposed to only do it in a magic circle so I don't leak magic everywhere and not go more than a few miles away from my body, though."

"I don't think our magic does that," says Lightning.

"Most people's magic doesn't do it at home either. I'm not the only weather mage ever but we're really rare."

"What are your elementals like?"

"I've never met one and don't know a whole lot about them. One of my teachers knew a mountain, I think."

"...A mountain?"

"Or like the middle of the mountain or something. I think it was an elemental that spent most of its time being a mountain."

"I don't think my kind of elementals spend any time being mountains, even if they're Stone."

"I don't know why the kind from my world would bother, it doesn't seem like mountains do enough to need people to be them. I might have remembered it wrong, anyway."

"Maybe the kind who be mountains are just really, really boring people?" he suggests.

"Maybe. Or maybe they can be mountains and sleep at the same time."

"Must be some nap," opines Lightning.

"Yeah. So they'd still have to be kind of boring, they'd miss all the stuff."

"Meh. If I could turn into a rock and sleep for a hundred years, I might do it," says Lightning.

"Why? You can fly."

"It's a long, depressing story," he says, angling into a lazily spiraling glide.

"I don't think I'd want to only ever be the sky for a hundred years straight, but I'd like it if I could do it instead of sleeping or something."

"And you can't?"

After some traffic which includes no mysterious duplicates of Maurabel, the crowd thins out again, and here is another mysterious duplicate. This one is about the same age as the one with the Pokémon, but skinnier and redheaded and paler, and in yet another stylistically unrelated sort of clothing. She seems pretty bewildered.

"Hello," says Earth.

"...hi. Uh, where am I?"

"A very weird magic place called Milliways."

"It's, uh, very weird and magic. Why am I in a weird magic place called Milliways?"

"Apparently it just does that," he says, shrugging. His leaves rustle.

"Okay. Next question. Are you a plant?"

"I'm an Earth. I'm not a plant, but my wings and halo are."

"Okay. I didn't think you were entirely a plant, but it seemed politer to ask than to check any other way I could think of. I'm a plant," she volunteers, "I don't tell people that at home but this is sufficiently bizarre that I don't think it can possibly hurt anything."

"You look more like a human than a plant to me," Earth observes. "But stranger things have happened."

"Yeah, I don't know, like, why I am a plant, since I turned up on Chris's doorstep mysteriously when I was like three and had amnesia, but I perk up in the sunshine and have to avoid salt and if you prick me I do not exactly bleed."

"Well then. I guess you're a plant," he says. "Did you know I've seen two other people here with almost exactly your face? I'm told that's been known to happen, but I am not told why or what it means."

"Huh. Who told you that's been known to happen?"

"The bar." He points. "She's very helpful. Communicates through napkins."

"And there's another one attending the university at home, but I don't know for sure that she's an alt of yours," says Earth. "I suspect so, though."

"Well, what's she like?"

Earth considers this question, then settles on, "Unusually nice."

"There seems to be a certain commonality," he says. "I don't think niceness is a defining feature of Maurabel's either; I think it's a product of her environment."

"What do you mean? Oh, also, what's your name, I'm Katie."

"I don't have a personal name. You can just call me Earth," he says with a slight shrug. "In my world, humans can capture elementals and force us to do magic for them. There are entire industries built on the practice. Maurabel is one of the few humans around who sees something wrong with it. I don't think I'd consider her unusually nice if it weren't for the contrast."

"Most people don't see anything wrong with that? Where I'm from slavery's been illegal for a long time."

"They don't call it slavery when it's elementals. They don't call it anything in particular. It's just how things are done. It's what we're considered to be for," he says, shrugging again.

"Um."

"Yes," agrees Earth. "Maurabel has just about the same reaction, but she can't do much about it except treat us as much like people as she possibly can."

"Is she planning on doing something?"

"I'm sure she is. She hasn't told me if she's thought of anything specific, besides buying an elemental from the university when she graduates."

"And - are there free ones? Is that magically possible? I don't know how this works."

"We start out free. Many of us still are. Humans find us in the wild and capture us and bind us to amulets. It's possible to break an amulet, but I've only ever heard of it happening by accident."

"But she's got to be planning to do that, right, not just buy one and keep them?"

"Breaking an amulet is considered a very dangerous thing to do. I don't know if there are any of us that she trusts enough to be sure they wouldn't kill her and everyone else in sight and then flee, which has historically been what happened whenever an elemental got loose by accident."

"Oh. Yeah, if that happens every time that would be, uh, a deterrent." Pause. "I want to meet her."

"I'm under the impression that would be difficult to arrange," he says. "For one thing, she's not in town right now."

"Yeah, maybe I can't. Alas. I mean, at least you can be here instead of - who owns you or are you a free one?"

"The university. They have a little collection - at least a few of every element - for the magic students to borrow."

"I guess that... seems like something that would happen."

"Yes."

"What's the magic like, do you have to be born with it or what?"

"Humans are born with different levels of affinity for different elements. Elementals aren't born at all, we coaelsce, but we come in varying power levels too. Not all humans can do magic, but it's pretty common."

"So I probably can't learn any."

"I very much doubt it."

"Rats. Oh well."

He shrugs.

The conversation peters out. Katie quizzes Bar, takes notes, collects napkins, accepts a Sprite, and goes out again.

Lightning finishes his nap. They sit together on a couch and wonder if another Maurabel is going to show up, and what she'll be like if she does.

Well, next is this random dude with wings and a tail in lieu of wearing a shirt. He looks pretty damn confused, which is something of a theme.

"My swimming pool. What's the story? What are you, that doesn't look like the sort of cosmetics you do on a whim because you saw it in a magazine."

He smiles. "I'm an Earth. This is a weird magic place called Milliways. What are you?"

"I'm a demon. I'm going to guess you haven't heard of demons any more than I've heard of Earths in the form of talking winged humanoids as opposed to planets."

"Planets? That's a new one. Earth is a type of elemental from my world. Lightning is another." He points at the couch; Lightning sits up and waves. "And in much the same way that I'm not a planet, I'm going to assume you're not a mythical creature speculated to be a wild misinterpretation of early encounters with elementals."

"I am not that thing. Demons were for a while widely considered mythical but now we are not. The planet most humans live on is named 'Earth'. Uh, in my first language, which I'm suddenly not at all confident you're also speaking."

"Yes, there seems to be some sort of translation effect active here. Most humans? What happened to the rest?"

"Some of 'em live on the moon and another planet in the same solar system now."

"I see. Did they run out of room or are they just very adventurous?"

"Little of column A..."

"Aha." He smiles again. "And what's your magic like?"

"Demons can make stuff. Arbitrary nonmagical stuff adequately specified."

"That's an interesting ability to have. Is that all the magic your world has?"

"Nah, there's also angels and fairies. And parlor tricks. And summoning. Angels change stuff, fairies move stuff, parlor tricks are stupid and tiny, and summoning moves demons, angels, and fairies from where we spend most of our time to the mortal world so they can get us to do stuff for them."

"...'Get' as in...? Coax, coerce, trade?"

"Trade, by and large. We don't have to show up to summons if we don't want. A summoner who was a huge jerk could just sort of leave a summon parked in their circle without making a deal or sending 'em home but that doesn't happen that I've personally heard of."

"I see. Lucky you. With elementals it's coerce - humans have the ability to bind us to amulets that let them make us do whatever they want, which usually amounts to more magic than they could accomplish by themselves."

"Wow, that sucks. Annnnnd because human populations are a reasonably large fraction total jerk this happens every Tuesday?"

"There is no such thing as a free elemental in contact with humans. Either we're out of their reach or someone is using us."

"Ouch."

"Familiar how? Duplicate how?"

"I'm not sure I could describe the familiarity. Our local version's attitude towards elementals is very unusual at home, much less so here. But the other alts we met here have tended to share it, and share it in a... certain way. As for 'duplicate how', I'm not sure I understand the question and I probably couldn't answer it if I did. I've only been here for part of a day."

"We've been hoping all day to find someone who might be able to steal and break a large number of elemental amulets, but that's seeming less and less likely," says Earth.

"Why doesn't your local version do it?"

"Breaking elemental amulets usually leads to the newly freed elemental doing a lot of destructive magic to anyone and anything nearby and then running away. I believe that's because no one breaks them on purpose and breaking them by accident tends to happen during stressful moments. But it's a discouraging statistic if you're a human who wants to free some elementals."

"I," remarks Cam amiably, "an am immortal indestructible demon."

"Do you think you could break an elemental amulet? As far as I know they're not susceptible to physical force, that's the tricky part."

"No idea. I'm also not sure if I'm invulnerable to magical harm. There isn't any on offer in my world."

"And we can't test that here under relatively safe conditions because Lightning and I are still bound to our amulets and can't harm anyone. I suppose you could go find Maurabel and talk to her about cooperating somehow on a large-scale elemental theft... I don't know where she is at the moment, though, besides not at school. And you would stand out very obviously at home, with the wings. People would probably try to classify you as a new hybrid elemental. Someone might even try to capture you, and I have no idea what would happen then."

"I could cut the wings off."

"That sounds uncomfortable."

"Nah, I made 'em without any nerves at the base joints. It'd be messy, but it won't feel like anything. But if you don't know where to find Maurabel..."

"She's probably not that far, but my element doesn't scry well and neither does his," with a gesture at Lightning. "So 'not at school' is the best I can do. You could come through and wait for her to come back to school, but apparently you'd be risking never finding your way here again."

"That... would be displeasing but not catastrophic, if it turns out that I'm not going to be magically attacked in ways I can't handle. And if anybody in your world writes books."

"I can guarantee the books. I can't guarantee the other part."

"Anyone else likely to help, you mean? Well, I could find one of the other university elementals and ask them to scry for Maurabel... there are a few who might. Humans I'd trust to be helpful, though - no, none of those."

"Any obvious drawbacks to getting a university elemental to scry for Maurabel?"

"It involves an amount of time spent holding open a door and hoping no one wanders by and investigates. I can't think of specific negative consequences for somebody from the university finding this place, but I have the general feeling it wouldn't be a positive contribution."

"Can any of them do a safe little test on how magically vulnerable I am?"

"No. The university's very strict about what restrictions need to be in place at all times."

"Damn. I mean, I could theoretically threaten the humans, but I'm not really about that..."

The door opens again.

"I look like a five foot tall fairy when I'm a girl?"

"No, the other ones of comparable apparent age were taller and didn't have wings," says Earth. "Although one of them was some kind of plant creature visually indistinguishable from an ordinary human. Hello," he adds in the newcomer's direction. "This is a weird magic place called Milliways and that is an alternate universe version of you and we're discussing how to rescue some people in my world from magically enforced servitude."

"Thank you," says Earth. "Does it count if the name I'm usually called is the default used for every single elemental of my type who isn't otherwise named and is also the name of my element? It could be very awkward to conceal it if so."

"I have no idea, no previous examples."

"Are nicknames safe?"

"Yeah. Mine's Promise."

"Right, call me Revelation."

"Given how our local version acts when she has my amulet, I'm not especially worried about telling you mine as a test," says Earth.

"If you want to, and we need the information for some reason, I won't stop you, although then you probably want to avoid being in a room with me and anybody who can get my name or otherwise vassalize me. Uh, how do we know that me and him and this other person and so on are the same... personality or whatever?"

Revelation opens his mouth and gestures at the bar, rethinks what he was about to say, and says, "Informative napkins, but it's possible you shouldn't interact with their source."

"Okay. And you were so concerned because?"

"The bar's name is Bar."

"Are beverages usually a problem?" wonders Earth.

"There are two ways for my kind of magical servitude to happen - learning somebody's real name, or feeding them. The feeding thing is mostly a problem between fairies and mortals - I can go foraging and not worry if somebody has some long lost claim to a tree I pick nuts from or something as long as I'm not actually stealing - but I wouldn't take food from a strange sort of person without being sure."

"Well. Would you like to help us out?" inquires Earth. "If so, I should probably tell you my element, because it's not very likely that you could interact with elementals for long without learning someone's."

"I think I want to know more about what's going on first, but I am generally opposed to the servitude thing and haven't got anywhere with my world's version yet."

"In my world, there are elementals and humans. Elementals have wings and halos, like my vines or his sparks, and are very magically powerful in our own element; magic-using humans have affinities for multiple elements, but can do much less with them than we can. Magic-using humans can also create amulets that bind elementals to obey whoever last touched them. Elementals can't interfere directly at all with our own or others' amulets. Humans consider it unsafe to let any elementals go free, and we're very valuable and useful for doing magic with, so they capture any of us that they find. My friend and I are part of a university collection, and we've been trying to find someone who seems like they might be able to steal and break all the amulets in the collection. But I don't know if it's possible to break an amulet without using my world's magic to do it."

"If I got the name of a human who could do magic, I could make them do it, but I wouldn't want the human to get hurt following my orders."

"If you stole all the amulets and brought the elementals here and explained everything to them first, that might not be much of a problem. Humans think we're unavoidably destructive, but I don't. I would avoid surprising busy elementals with sudden freedom, particularly if they're upset or traumatized, which we frequently are, but I think we have the chance to do a much better job than that."

"The human will probably be upset and traumatized regardless, but I suppose I can put them back afterwards? How does the door work?"

Cam hands her his rundown on the mechanics involved.

"So - where are you, exactly?" she asks the elementals.

"We were just coming back into the building where the university elementals are kept when we're not in use. If I hold the door and someone walks out and goes around front, and deals with the amulet-minder somehow, they could take all the amulets right off their hooks. You might want a bag to put them in so nobody sees you carrying off a double armload of amulets before you get back here."

"Are there none checked out right now?"

"I'm not completely sure, but I think so."

"Stroke of luck. You know the minder's name for Promise?"

"The shift could have changed while we were out, and I'm not sure I remember who it was... either of us," with a gesture to Lightning, "would probably recognize who it was, but we might not know them by name, just by sight. You could chat with them a bit and find out that way, I guess. It would probably have to be you, wings off and tail hidden, because if Promise walks around the university with those wings she'll be mistaken for a new kind of Earth hybrid and there'll be a frenzy to capture her."

"I will?"

"I do not," she observes, "appear to relevantly know your name - which might be bad, in my world if you start with no name someone else can name you."

He folds his wings and shrugs. "If you think you're at all likely to accidentally name some elementals, you can try me first and see what happens."

"You're sure you don't want to go off with your friend and name each other? I can't name someone by accident and apparently it doesn't happen much in your world to worry about my overhearing."

"If you happened to acquire my magically enforced servitude I have the strong expectation that you wouldn't do anything with it whatsoever - and I'm already volunteering at least one presently-unknown human from my world for the same thing, if we go through with this plan. So if it's worth knowing whether or not you can name elementals, we might as well find it out."

"Okay. Any preferences?"

He shrugs again.

"That's pretty," he says. "Did it work?"

"No. Congratulations."

"That's heartening for everyone else's sake, anyway. And now I can tell you people's elements without worrying that they might object. Hmm. So - one of me or Lightning opens and holds the door; whichever one is holding it, the other one goes around to see if the current amulet-minder is someone we know; if so, we tell their name to Promise, who commands them not to interfere while a de-winged and perhaps re-clothed Revelation heads out to grab all the amulets and stuff them in a bag. If not, the same thing but Revelation does a first run to chat with the amulet-minder and try to learn their name. And then we bring the amulet-minder here, and have all the elementals come through the door as quickly as possible while hoping no one notices and gets suspicious, and explain what's going on, and get everyone outside, and have the amulet-minder break all the amulets. Is that enough of a plan to be going on with?"

"Sounds like. Your wings come off?"

"They have not historically done so, but they can. Who wants to hold the hacksaw?"

"If it really won't hurt you, I might be able to just - remove them," says Earth.

"Your definition of hurt is based on pain and not bodily integrity? Yeah, go ahead, try it."

"Yeah, I'll wear a long coat. Name some long style of coat that makes sense in your world and I can copy it. And some kind of shirt. Let's leave me the tail, I - actually, see if you can remove the tail if I don't let you. It has the same nerve thing but I was letting you with the wings, there's a loophole in my indestructibility for deliberate body modification."

"Frills, joy." Cam materializes the clothes in question. "Okay, that's a little seventeenth century but not too bad. ...Flaw in plan. What language are you even speaking?"

"I'm just plain speaking, I shouldn't have a translation issue unless something very odd's going on."

"...Flaw in plan," Earth agrees. "All right. The translation issue means you probably can't ask the amulet-minder for their name without involving Promise, which would be troublesome. But one of us," he gestures between himself and Lightning, "can still go look and see whether or not you would have needed to, and then if you would have we can try thinking of something more complicated. In a pinch you could pretend you're very foreign and that Promise is your recently captured, I don't know, Earth/Shine hybrid? What would they call one of those - Leaf, probably, if they looked like you. And have her translate. Elementals speak all the languages that exist when we coaelsce; it wouldn't be that odd. And you could make a fake amulet without much trouble, I imagine. It'd be a complicated story but it wouldn't have to hold up for longer than it took to find out the amulet-minder's name."

"Sounds good to me. Are we all set?"

Promise and Revelation stand by to hear about the name of the amulet minder.

Promise nods. "No one else around?"

"No. Do you need to see her to make her do things?"

Meanwhile, Revelation collects all the amulets.

"Follow me," sighs Promise at Kisonde. "I'm really sorry about this, by the way."

"We should probably do this in the yard," says Promise. "Well, elementals in the yard, Kisonde in here? Does that work?"

Revelation brings the amulets to the yard and takes attendance.

"The plan does not involve harm to you," Promise informs Kisonde, "if me telling you that helps, at all."

"Now?" Promise asks Earth.

"Now."

"Break all the amulets," Promise tells Kisonde. "And then you can talk again."

"Freeing large quantities of elementals."

Cam goes and has a peek at the freed elementals.

"I didn't do it. Short stuff with the leaf wings is a kind of person who can command people to do things if she knows their name. Earth gave her Kisonde's and I'm along for the ride." He shrugs off his interfering garments and reappears his wings.

"Oh. I have your name, although I don't expect to use it again. And because as you may have noticed magically enforced servitude is not much fun. And because you were on duty."

Revelation comes in. "There is the question of now what. Does Milliways have a wild elemental population for keeps or are they going to somebody's world, not necessarily their own? Is Kisonde in large amounts of administrative trouble that we should attempt to deflect as a courtesy?"

"I can't wholeheartedly recommend my world anyway."

"Mine's nice, but the balance of power and civilization and so on is pretty thoroughly reliant on the fact that there are only demons in it, and I don't know how to get anybody from here to the places where demons are not the sole species, since elementals - not to mention Kisonde - probably aren't summonable."