"I'll make sure they know. How does it work, usually, when you have a war?"

"Starfleet handles it but there aren't strong anti-war-crime norms that are in effect galactically; sometimes someone aims at a Federation civilian population. The important planets are well-defended and the unimportant planets aren't interesting targets, but it's a consideration if someone happens to come from a background of universal peace."

"It really doesn't sound bad for being at war in the first place; I'll make sure they know, but anyone who needs someplace to go probably won't care much."

"That's my thought, but yes."

"That sounds like enough to start with, then. And - I don't think I'll regret bringing you to Milliways, if you'd like to see it."

"Should it wait till my ship is parked?"

"No - whatever you do with it while you sleep should be fine if I leave the time synced, but I don't have to, if you're in the bar and there isn't a portal here time will pause in this world."

"It has an autopilot when I sleep, but it can alarm loud enough to wake me if something needs attention. But time pausing is certainly an interesting feature."

"It's up to you how you want to do it, then; I can make a portal that'll let you listen for the alarm if you want."

"I think I prefer time pausing!"

"All right. We'll need to stop in my room for a moment, then, to deactivate the portal there; don't touch any of the things, most of them are magical and some of them are activated that way." She offers her hand.

T'Mir takes it. She otherwise keeps her hands to herself.

As soon as T'mir touches the kobold, they're in a cave. It's much dimmer, though not to dim to see, and the rock forms a series of shelves that are absolutely covered with an amazing variety of stuff - necklaces and vials and a cloak and a stack of books and a basket of spheres glowing softly in red and green and orange and another basket full of black sticks and a collection of small abstract glass sculptures with blobs of color moving inside and much more, in a chaotic jumble of aesthetic styles and with none of it labeled except for a few cases where the item itself has a name imprinted in plain English. There's also a pile of cardboard at one side of the clearing they've appeared in, with one propped-up piece showing T'mir's control room on the other side of a portal; the kobold goes to it and pinches the corner and the portal disappears.

"Wow, how long have you been accumulating stuff here?"

"A few years. My magic is pretty good for trading."

"Is it all useful or is some of it just collectable?"

"This is all magic; I've picked up a little art, too, but that's with my tribe."

"What does it all do?"

"Most of it is for mobility or stealth, one way or another - that's an invisibility cloak, those let you breathe underwater, that one muffles sound, the footcovers there make you jump higher, things like that. The way my magic works, I can't teleport somewhere specific unless I've been there, so being able to get more places is useful."

"That makes sense! Do you need to be able to visualize it or is it directly about having been to a place?"

"There's two ways I can do it; one's about having been there and the other one can work off of a description, sort of, but it gives a random place that fits the description if there's more than one, and there usually is. The second kind is how I found your ship; 'spaceship' isn't the kind of thing the magic can work with but 'an object too small to have its own atmosphere, but with enough of the right kind of air in it for me to be okay there' doesn't get very much else."

"I'm glad you found me and not someone who would have been upset about you appearing on their ship!"

"If you'd seemed upset I would have closed the portal instead of going through, but yeah. It's uncommon for people to have sharp enough hearing to catch me."

"I'm used to all the sounds of the ship. I'm less concerned about the scenario where you appeared on a bridge full of Cardassians, more about appearing in their cargo hold and wandering out..."

"Oh, I can aim well enough to get the portal near people to watch."