A human, about twelve years old, walks in the door.

He stops. He stares around him in confused suspicion.

Rithka peers at him from over Mallyn's ear, not letting go of her walnut. She whispers in Mallyn's ear, and he turns around on his barstool.

This is not an adult! He hesitates, then lifts a hand tentatively, waves just a little.

The human peers at both of them, then waves-just-a-little back. After another moment spent looking around, he approaches the pair of them.

And asks Rithka, "Are you a talking squirrel?"

"Only when I'm a squirrel," says Rithka, around a cheekful of walnut.

"She can turn into things," Mallyn explains haltingly. "Usually she looks human."

"Huh," he says.

"So... what's going on?"

"This," says Rithka grandly, "is Milliways. It's Mallyn's first time too, don't worry, it's okay. The bar is nice and she makes food and drinks and stuff. Sometimes this place just sort of - eats a door. It un-eats the door after you leave."

Mallyn laughs a little, quietly, at her description.

"She is," confirms Rithka. "Ask her if you want. She makes written-on napkins too."

Mallyn is busy with soup - he doesn't seem to be ravenous right this minute, but he doesn't have any tendency to linger over a meal, either.

He achieves a perch on a stool next to the elf boy and his talking squirrel friend, and asks the bar, "You're a she and you make food?"

A napkin appears. The napkin says Yes. On top of the napkin is a cupcake with swirly rainbow frosting. He eyes it suspiciously - eyeing suspiciously seems to be his default reaction to things - and then picks it up and takes a bite.

Ooh. Tasty magic cupcake! Maybe this is fairyland and now that he's eaten the magic food he can never go back. That would be something.

Mallyn's soup is done for. He puts the bowl down.

Rithka stuffs the rest of her walnut into her cheek and turns into a sparrow. "I'm Rithka. And he's Mallyn like I said. Who're you?"

...ooh. Nobody here knows his name, not without some kind of magic, anyway. An opportunity to pick something else; better not waste it.

"Felicity," he says - the first thing that popped into his head. There is a blue-green-yellow smear of frosting on the end of his nose.

Rithka turns into a squirrel again, leaps onto Felicity's head, and leans down between his eyes to lick the frosting off his nose.

Mallyn finds the initial jump startling, but promptly calms down - although he half-raises a hand as though to pull Rithka off Felicity if Felicity manifests an objection.

With the frosting safely cheeked and dissolving, Rithka says, "Nice to meet you." Her tail flicks against Felicity's ear.

When she jumps on him, he yelps a 'Hey!', but by the time she gets to the frosting he's giggling.

"Nice to meet you too," he says between giggles.

Mallyn puts his hand down.

Rithka hops down to Felicity's shoulder. "I've never heard your language before," she comments.

"...Huh?" says Mallyn.

"Oh! Yeah, here people can all understand each other even if they usually can't do that," says Rithka. "But I usually can do that so I can tell what he's speaking. I never heard it before."

"Oh," Mallyn says.

"Martisen," says Mallyn.

"He's working on Leraal because now he lives in Esmaar with us, though," says Rithka, hopping back onto Mallyn and sort of petting his cheek with a forepaw. "And in Esmaar they speak Leraal. But everybody in our house knows Martisen!"

"I live in America," volunteers Felicity. "We speak English."

He glances at the door, though, in a considering sort of way. It might turn out to be the case that he lived in America, past tense. Even if this isn't fairyland.

"The door will go back wherever you came from when you open it, and then be un-eaten," Rithka says. "...Well actually I'm not sure if it would put Mallyn in our house if he opened it or somewhere in Barashi where he's from, but I can just open the door so we don't have to figure out how to get home from Barashi. But if you don't have anything like that it will probably just work normal for you."

"You didn't tell me that," says Mallyn, alarmed. "Where in Barashi?"

"I dunno!" says Rithka. "Maybe the last place you were when you were there? Dad's shop?"

"Oh. Okay."

Felicity watches this exchange curiously.

Then he says, "What happens if I don't leave?"

"Huh. I dunno," says Rithka. "Are you gonna not leave?"

...Now Mallyn is looking thoughtfully at Felicity.

Mallyn opens his mouth, then closes it.

Rithka has no such restraint. She swallows the last of the walnut she's been nibbling, slithers down to Mallyn's lap, and turns into a six-year-old girl with hair the color of her squirrel fur. "Why?" she asks.

"I don't really wanna go back where I came from," he says, inexplicably starting to smile a little. "I might go where somebody else came from, if you can do that. But I might not. Most places probably don't hand out cupcakes like this."

Speaking of which, om nom.

"Where we live is nice," muses Rithka, starting to look between Felicity and Mallyn with the beginnings of a frown.

Mallyn nods.

When he sees Rithka's proto-frown, Felicity laughs.

"Yeah? What's it like there?"