"Go to hell! Mudbathing pig-bitch!"

A tall dirty blonde girl stumbles out of an orphanage, St Aloysius of the Damned as it's sign reads, dark eyeliner around her eyes, plain black pants and shirt, a wide brimmed black hat perched atop her head, half focusing on shoving half falling out clothes in to a duffle bag. She slams the front door of the orphanage shut with a kick of her foot, and digs in to her bag to find her sunnies, leaning just outside the grounds to also pull out a cigarette and lighter, proceeding to focus on lighting it in her mouth. Once done, she takes a deep drag and exhales with a frustrated sigh.

She's passing by when that happens, and slows down.

"Everything okay?" she asks.

She looks up, peering over the tops of her shades, an eyebrow raised in contempt.

"Sure lady, just fine."

She both literally and figuratively blows her off, blowing smoke out the side of her mouth towards the stranger. 

"Do you have somewhere to go tonight, or money for a hotel room if you won't trust a shelter?"

Her head snaps back towards this woman, an immediate frown marring her features.

"Look, whoever you are, I don't need some random strangers help. And trust me, I'm not someone you'd want to help."

"I find I've yet to regret helping someone. I'm not demanding you trust me. But I can give you information on nearby shelters, or at least some spare cash."

"I don't... uh... I don't go to shelters anymore."

"There's one you're unlikely to have heard of." Even if the tiny shelter for those few in the know might get mad at her for it. "But I'm fine just giving you money for a motel."

"It's not them, it's... They'd throw me out. They always do."

She mumbles around a mouthful of smoke.

"I have influence with this one. But I understand the concern."

Ariadne stops to breathe, deep, connect back with her aura, and checks the kind of vibes she's getting from this woman. It seems positive and fine, and even though there's a part of her that is trepid, she decides to dip her toe.

"It's just... Stuff happens around me, it's not an orphanage for the damned for no reason." She nods back to the building behind her.

...Interesting. Earth's usually too normal, and Lianne can't quite see the weave here...

But there's been damage, lately, to just about everything.

"I'm not particularly normal myself. The shelter knows how to care for those with unusual concerns." A bit lightly, "Last time they grouched at me it was about some kid trying to summon Cthulhu."

Her eyes widen as her head snaps up to make immediate eye contact. 

"I'm not a moron. Stuff just kind of falls over around me." Ariadne lets silence awkwardly hang for a second as she takes another drag from her cigarette. "I'm sorry for being rude, I'm... My name is Ariadne."

"I'm Lianne."

"Lianne. I... I'd actually be down to check out that shelter, it'd be good to go somewhere safe, where people aren't automatically assuming I'm the antichrist, so if..."

Ari's sentence trails off, she gets distracted by the feeling of someone watching her, goosebumps rising on her arm opposite Lianne.

"Can you feel that?"

There is, indeed, a tingle, something curling around the primal part of her mind -

She doesn't have enough time to look more than alarmed before - 

The world lurches, and Ariadne is yanked - backwards, upwards, downwards, spinning inwards - it's unclear - 

And the world changes, colors slamming in. It's her dreamscape, a cavern lit only dimly by glowing patches of moss and little white flowers decorating the vines that reach in tendrils far above her. Many paths branch off from here, large and small alike, and all interesting and beautiful. Crystals bloom from most surfaces, their colors muted but all a mixture of blues and purples. But it's vivid and real as it's never been - 

And she's alone.

"Woah..." She blinks rapidly, stumbling back trying to regain her balance. Once she does, she realises the familiarity and yet strangeness of where she is.

"Well hey there sweetness." She caresses a few plants. "Any chance you can point the right path to go down? I'm looking for a way home."

The plants curl a bit under her touch.

There's a faint shuddering in the vines going down one of the paths she's explored the least - it'd be mistakable for a light wind, except for how utterly still the air is.

"Thank you sweetheart."

She slowly slinks down the way the plants indicated, continuing for quite a while, stopping every so often to talk to plants, make sure they think the way ahead is safe.

It's a long route, and she quickly gets to where she's never been before - 

But then there's a place where the plants arc away from each other, and at first it looks like it'll be another cavern.

It's not.

The path opens onto a mountainside, a rocky cliff-face covered in vines falling away below her feet, the sky above riotous and alive, twirling sheets of night with stars trapped in their nets, clouds billowing and flowing among and above and between them. Thin strands of aurora trail along the edges of the distant horizon, dipping down to brush the mountaintops then soaring back up. There's what might be trees far below her, their spindly fingers reaching up the cliff, and little groups of flowers here and there, some glowing, most not.

"Woah... Where the heck am I?" She looks down towards where the trees are. She calls down to them politely. "Anybody wanna give me a lift down?"

None of the trees responds, however, a pure blackness comes slithering up the cliffside, and once she notices it, she stares in a mixture of fear and awe. This has certainly never happened before. She backs away as it get closer, and once it reaches the top, it hovers on the edge like a pool of inky darkness.

"Hi?" She steps forward slowly, not quite sure what's happening.

The shadow curls a bit at the edges in response to her voice.

The shadows, if she tests her weight on them, are solid, and can easily support her, though they feel soft in a way.

With her weight firmly on the surface, she bends her knees to stabilize against any movement.

"Nice to meet you... I guess. If you could take down the cliffside, that would be very kind of you." She keeps her tone soft and inviting, but firmly not condescending.

The shadow ripples - 

And then flows down the mountainside like a misty river, billowing when it hits rocks or trees and slipping through openings. Yet the part she's on remains steady... Mostly.

The trees look a lot bigger, a lot stranger, up close. Dark, with little gashes of odd colors, the silhouette of the branches against the roiling sky odd. But they rustle when she approaches, acknowledging her.

She wobbles for the first few metres, but quickly gets the hang of the way the shadow moves. Once finally on the ground, she lightly steps off the shadow to brush her hand gently on top of it, sending thoughts of thanks the way she normally does with plants. Still crouching, she whispers to the shadow.

"Any chance you know the way I should go?"

It wobbles. She'll get the sense it's uncertain.

"That's okay. Thanks for the lift." She straightens to standing, lightly skipping to a tree to place her hand on it gently. "How 'bout you big guy? Do you know how I'm supposed to get home?"

There's a sort of mental question mark. Isn't home right here where the tree is?

"Right. Um... How about the direction of other people like me?"

There's a few ripples - ahead and a few degrees to the right, to the right and a bit behind, to the left but mostly behind her...

The one ahead is strongest, followed by the one mostly behind her, and the one to the right and a bit behind is weakest.

"Thanks. I guess we're following the big shake this way..." The latter is mumbled to herself as she begins her trek in that direction.

As she goes, she whistles a jaunty tune. After a significant portion of walking, Ariadne finds her getting more than a little frustrated with how freaking long it's taking. She looks around in a bit of a huff, finding a tree to climb, doing so the old fashioned way to exert some of her agitated energy. She finally get to the safest, uppermost part of the tree and looks out in the direction she'd been walking in.

The forest ends soon, bordering a glassy wasteland that reflects the odd sky above. Shards of dark glass jut out of the plain, most small, many human sized or larger, some towering over even the taller trees. Their depths shift, almost liquid, but it's hard to discern colors - it's dark and distant, and the reflected auroras wash out the deeper glass.

Past that is a low rise of mountains rimmed with swirls of pink and purple light, that shimmers into a golden halo around the most distant and highest peak. It's maybe twenty more minutes of walking to the edge of the glass wasteland, and an hour or two to what seems to be the foothills of the mountains. There's no one actually visible - 

Except, no.

There's movement, on the wasteland. But it doesn't seem fully human. Too large, motion shutter-stop and jerky, silhouette hard to see but unnatural. Humans don't have that many arms.

"... What the fuck? No people? But I could have sworn I asked... Shit... What are the chances there are no people?" She sits on the branch she had stood on, her legs bracketing it to stabilize her as she reaches in to her duffle to retrieve her cigarettes and lighter. She lights one as she takes a moment to decide what to do.

"Hey pal, do you know if that thing over there would kill me if I walked up to it?" She addresses the tree she's sitting on casually as she smokes.

The tree sort of rustle-shrugs.

"Fun." She continues to smoke, waiting till it's done before putting it out on the bottom of her thick soled leather boot. From there, she gracefully makes her way down and in the direction she had already been walking in. Eventually, she makes it to the weird crystal field and starts to make her way towards the... thing-person.

"Hi there! I was wondering if you wouldn't mind helping me!" Still significantly far away, she calls out to warn them of her approach.

It rushes around her, incredibly fast, climbing up one of the jutting outbreaks, and then laughing.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" it asks, voice feminine and mocking. "Are you lost, little girl?"

Ari's jaw clenches in the effort it takes her not to snap back at the rude, possibly hostile being.

"Look, I'm trying to find my way home... I presume because you speak English you know Earth. Specifically London."

"Most dreamwalkers know their way around. But you're new, aren't you? Got pulled just recently? How cute. I haven't met a newbie in so very long."

"Pulled? I guess that's something like what happened. One minute I was talking to some chick, the next, everything went all," Ariadne gesticulated wildly with her arms for a brief silent moment, "And presto change-o I was in a cave like two hours that-away." She chucks her thumb in the direction she'd come from.

The being skitters ever so slightly closer, stepping into an area of brighter light and tilting its head.

It has eight eyes, arranged as the points to a starburst in the center of its mask-like face, and a narrow slit of a mouth beneath the star with many glinting teeth. The skin is slick, a pale grey.

"Common, that," the being says, agreeably. "You must not even know how to take your Ideal Form yet. Let alone anything more interesting."

"Ah yes. I'm so sorry that I'm not some cryptid spider person like you, my first thought wasn't to test whether or not I could change shape, oddly enough. Actually, I was a little more focused on not dying, and maybe getting home." The immediate snark let loose from her lips was unstoppable. She sneered up at the thing, no longer bothering to play nice considering it wasn't even being the slightest bit polite, and had officially ticked her off.

"Oh, no need to be rude darling."

"Trust me, you have yet to see rude." Without her even thinking it, her own shadow leapt up in to her hand, immediately solidifying in to a large weighted knife, sharp everywhere but where she held it.

"Hah! So you have experimented some. Shadow control. Interesting."

And then the spider-person is being her - not teleporting, but moving, her shadow informs her, so fast human eyes can't track it.

(But shadow can).

"But playing with shadows doesn't put you in the big leagues."

An eyebrow quirks briefly in violent humour, Ariadne never even inclining her head towards the thing's new position.

"Don't worry, I've always been a natural."

And with that ominous statement, a giant spike of shadow erupts from the ground behind the spider-person, bluntly forcing it's way through their squishy middle in a split second, growing to split in two, effectively trapping it, impaled from behind.

It wavers - 

And it's elsewhere, perched high on an outcropping. Light spills around it, driving back her shadow. "Clever! But not clever enough."

And it surges, glowing, rushing at her - 

It can't catch her though, she sinks in to the shadow, reappearing behind the spider person like ink slowly filling a mould. She tuts mockingly. "Fast, but not fast enough."

It laughs. "Oh, girly. You haven't even seen me try."

It's behind her - no, to the right - no, still in front - no, all of those -

A last flicker, it's above - 

(And the light continues to pulse out, a sickly green, winding into her shadows.)

She doesn't let the mild panic in her heart register on her face for even a second, instead, she calls on the roots of the trees, and all of a sudden she's well above where the thing is flickering to and from, and any of it's attempts to get even vaguely near her are batted away with a whipping tendril of plant life. She stands in the roots comfortably, her arms akimbo like a sassy school mistress.

"Now, are you going to play nice, or will this have to get even more unpleasant for you."

It flickers to a shimmering platform of force far above her head, laughing, and there's a bloom of searing heat behind her back - 

And suddenly she's there but she's not, tears beginning to leak from her eyes in strong, steady streams of fear and pain. Ariadne is trying to place reality, but she's struggling terribly, her ears beginning to hear the whispers of latin. 'Vade, satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis...'

"No, please, it burns, ple-"

And then the fire goes away, and there's a flash of golden light, and a familiar voice booming, "Hisrane! I've warned you before!" and the scream of the spider-being she'd been fighting.

"This isn't your territory, princess!" the spider snarls.

"Leave," is Lianne's only response, and there's another flare, another shriek - 

"I won't bow to you - " and there's a clattering rush - 

"Fine." And the light flares brighter - 

And silence.

"I promise I'm not bad, I promise I'm not bad, I promise I'm not bad..." Ariadne isn't quite paying any attention, mumbling the same sentence over and over, continuing to cry.

The glow moves before her, and the burns on her heal. Nobody touches her.

"Hey," a voice says, gently. "Do you know where you are?"

She doesn't respond for a moment, other than going completely silent and still. Then another sob breaks from her mouth.

"I'm sorry Sister, I promise I'll be better."

"You're in the Dreamlands. You're not there. There is past. No one here is mad at you."

She blinks a little, cloudiness seeming to clear from her teary eyes, and immediately starts to hiccup violently. She takes a minute to get her diaphragm and breathing back under control before actually making eye contact with her saviour. Immediately, she recognises the familiarity of Lianne, not only visually, albeit vaguely due to the glowing yellow difference, but her essence and aura are familiar. Realising she's left a little too much out in the open, Ariadne immediately snaps up from her position curled up on the ground, dusting herself off and backing away.

"Thanks. I, uh... I don't do fire."

"A lot of people don't. Are you okay to return to the ground?"

She is, perhaps a bit notably, currently floating in mid-air, not even on Ariadne's root-platform.

She looks down in mild surprise.

"Oh! Sure." The roots sink, taking Ari with them back down to the ground.

She floats down to the ground - 

And then the glow folds in on itself, and Lianne looks fully human again. "I'm guessing you want an explanation," she says, voice a bit wry.

"Please. If you could be a smidge more helpful than spider-lady, I would be ever so thankful." She feels the need to snark to regain her emotional distance from this stranger, sneering as politely as she can at the woman.

"Earth's not the only reality. Dreams occur in this one, the 'Dreamlands.' It's possible to move between realities - or be moved. You were probably caught by a fallen thread from damage to a higher reality's fabric, and pulled one step closer to that reality - the entanglement with a reality thread gives powers, though they're only usable outside of Earth. The spider-lady's shape was her Ideal Form, which is something everyone outside of Earth can take - it's individualized to the person. What you fundamentally want to look like. There's... A lot more, too. It's a complicated world."

"Ok... I'm following. Is that why I have the ability to manipulate and communicate with shadows now? It used to be just plants in my dreams, this place seemed so familiar. She mentioned the Ideal Form thing, I'm guessing that's why you were all 'shine bright like a diamond' or whatever. Can I... Would it be considered abnormal to wander around not in my Ideal Form?"

"Staying in your Earthen form is perfectly normal. Most people in the Dreamlands do. It's... Odd, that you'd have had a power like that prior to getting entangled, but I suppose not impossible. And 'shadow manipulation' would be an example, yes - my power is I can manipulate and somewhat communicate with light. There's also assorted magics all entangled can use - the platform the spider woman used and the healing magic I have are examples of that."

"Magic? As in... bippity-boppity-boo? Who am I kidding, we're in a Dreamland, of course there's magic. I've been here before, though it... seemed different before. Everytime I dreamt, I showed up here, and the plants were very... I guess the way you would describe them as like a nagging motherly figure. Once I started actively communicating, they calmed down, and the shadow thing seems to be very similar so I just instinctually do it I guess? It's... What do we do from here, is it... Do I go home? Or should I... God damn it I need another cigarette." Stressed beyond belief, Ariadne begins to rummage through her duffle again.

"Most everyone on Earth comes here when they dream, as phantoms of themselves. I can teach you how to return to Earth, yes, or you can come with me to the city I live in, or I can try and teach you enough for you to make your own way."

"I... I don't have anywhere to go..."

"Chthani - the city - has housing available, and I can arrange something."

"Why are you so nice to me? I mean, you don't know anything about me, yet you're so willing to help... Why?"

Defensively, Ari wraps her arms around her own waist, it showcases how thin and practically malnourished she is under the baggy clothes.

"I can help people, so, I do, and I have enough resources helping costs me little."

"That's... You are so weird, lady. But, like, good weird, y'know?"

"Thanks. I try to be good weird."

An out of place giggle escapes her. 

"So this Cthulu? No Chthani place. Mind leading the way oh great beacon of the good weird?"

"Not at all. Do you know how quickly you can move with your shadows? Or we can take the scenic route and go slowly, I suspect. Gives me more time to explain."

"I kind of just politely ask them to take me to a place, I stand on the shadow, and away I go. I could probably ask it to follow you if that works?"

"Should, especially if I'm not going at my top speed. But I did also promise to explain things to you - I guess it depends on if you want that while we're heading out or after we get there."

"Yeah, I think I'm only fast when I'm doing the melting into shadow thing. And I don't know how to long distance that. Heck, I don't know how I did that earlier. I guess chatting while we move is good for me."

Mentally, she calls out to a shadow, this one larger and more inky, it gloms onto her feet and shins fully. She pets it lightly, thinking calming thoughts to just follow Lianne, straightening up to look at her expectantly.

She'll start to glow gold gently, and rise into the air, orienting herself for the light-limed mountains.

"Flying's faster," she explains, then sets off at a gentle pace, speeding up slightly if it turns out Ariadne can keep up - and slowing down if she can't.

The shadow flits easily at pace, this particular one seems to stop, then jump forward in motion suddenly and quickly. It's uncomfortable and awkward with the constant jerking. Ariadne has to close her eyes and send thoughts of a single joltless pace to match Lianne's before the shadow starts obeying.

"So, what's going on," she starts.

"From the basics - Earth isn't the only reality. It's at the center of a series of shells - kind of like the nucleus of an atom? - of different realities. Things get weirder the further 'up' you go. Dreams involve projecting into the Dreamlands, the first reality layer. Usually, just a few things are possible in the Dreamlands - taking your Ideal Form with practice, and a few people can alter the landscape by Dreaming. My mother is a powerful Dreamer, and created a city."

"But for some people it's different. There's - sort of threads from the fabric of reality - that fall from higher reality levels sometimes. Usually they just mess up the landscape, make things even odder around them. Sometimes they entangle around a person - which usually yanks them up a reality level or two when it happens. The entanglement brings with it the rules of higher realities. Minor magic like in the Magelands, the second reality layer. And idiosyncratic powers from the third reality layer or above, which vary person to person in nature and power, but are generally better than Magelands magic."

"I'm an entangled. My Ideal Form is what you see before you. My idiosyncratic power is controlling light, which is very convenient since I am light, like this."

"Ok, all of that makes sense. What I don't get, is how I got here."

"You're entangled, now. The thread would've pulled you from Earth to here."

"Uh huh, and I have an Ideal Form, and one of those idiosyn-whatsits?"

"An individual power, basically. And yes."

"Alright. So, it'd be like my plant thing, or whatever's going on with the shadows now."

"Honestly, those both sound like individual powers. Could be you have two."

"Is that rare? Like, should I pretend to only have one because people are gonna think I'm weird? And then there's this part of my brain that is, like, absolutely bonkers because this entire thing seems bloody ace!"

"It's not too weird? And it's not all amazing, there's monsters that sometimes come from the Idealands, and a lot of magicals are a bit... Aggressive at times. And magic use can damage your mind if you overdo it. But I think it's pretty great overall."

"Cool. I mean, I don't need to be alienated by two whole cultures, ones enough. Honestly, anything is way better than..." The way she was living goes left unsaid, the way she would have lived, homeless, in danger, without this adventure.

"Yeah, I get that," she says, voice a bit distant.

Ariadne blinks an almost tear out of her eyes before it fully forms.

"Anyway, what's the name of this place we're going?"

"The city of Vhelssi'a. Or just Vel."

"... Right, I'll stick with Vel. Anything I should or should not do to avoid danger? I think I still have my safety knife with me!"

At the sudden thought, Ari sticks her hand in her duffel, rummages, and pulls out a very sharp, quite large knife. She brandishes it comfortably with a slightly disturbing smile on her face.

She laughs. "Generally, try not to insult anyone, or break anything, or take things without asking about it. I can handle any fights, of course, but it's better for the landscape and my mother's patience if they never start."

"So your basic 'don't be an asshole' vibe will work? Damn! I think I'll really like it here!" Ariadne puts away the knife and smiles widely, truly joyful in this serene moment.

"It doesn't work everywhere; there's different warnings for going farther afield - blasphemy is a major safety issue in some places, for instance - but Vel itself is stable."

Ariadne raises an eyebrow at that.

"Y'know, in a place where legit magic is a thing, you'd think the Jesus freaks would let up."

"Not so much the Jesus freaks. There's the mad gods, here - it's debatable if they're divine, very powerful humans, ex-humans, eldritch abominations, or what. Some of them get mad if you insult them, so places near their territories tend to have blasphemy laws."

"Oh, so less on crazy bigots and more on the suped-up maybe-not-gods. Ok, that's something I can get down with."

"I'll get you set up with a map and an explanation of important customs, sooner if you feel like wandering."

"That might be good, I have trouble sleeping in new places, walking helps."

"Hopefully a late night walk won't take you clear to another polity, though geography can get weird sometimes."

"Words I'm assuming I'll learn the meaning of at some point, but that's good, certainly wouldn't want to stumble into the danger zone by accident."

"I more meant the map for broader travel, sorry, like if you feel like going to another country, though this technically isn't a country - a 'polity' just means 'a place governed.' Geography doesn't always behave on a large scale, here. But I can also get you a local city map; you're unlikely to get into trouble here, though, being my guest. And I can explain the local laws."

"Oh, yeah, sure, totally. Anyway, so, what's the plan, like, in the more expansive sense, like, the broader sense." 

Evidently, she's tapping into her teen energies to really be as sarcastic and even a little bit rude as she can be.

"Get you settled, get you somewhere to stay and some way of acquiring necessities like food and information, and then try to find you training in dream-walking and using magic - I've never had a student before, so I can try teaching you, but don't know if I'll be any good."

"Cool, and that'll be fine, I've been told I'm the worst student ever by many a teacher, so no sweat home slice."

"We can be terrible academics together."

"Coolness." 

She picks at her nails as she waits for them to actually arrive, every so often speeding up the shadows in impatience before slowing back to Lianne's pace.

Lianne can keep pace with her near-effortlessly - once Ariadne signals impatience, she'll speed up until they're rocketing along at Ariadne's limits.

Or at least as fast as she can figure out how to go right now without falling off, she is still new to this. 

Of course.

They arrive at the mountain's base quickly, Lianne slowing to a stop before a set of imposing black stone gates.

Ari shudders to a stop awkwardly beside her, silently waiting for Lianne to lead the way.

She touches the gates, causing them to swing open silently. "These are half for show, but they do some amount of good," she says. "There's gate guards, technically, for people who can't get around themselves."

And she leads the way into and then up and over the city, a sprawling place of low stone buildings, none more than four stories, and narrow mountain roads. Then veering off to the side, taking their path away from the imposing buildings at the top of the mountain and towards a line of white row houses with spills of color down their fronts, from paint and flowering vines alike. She comes to a stop outside of one, and waits for Ariadne to settle beside her.

Ariadne says nothing, just follows, looking around in concealed awe. She almost misses the veering off to the side she's paying so little attention, but she catches herself and follows. Once they stop, she looks up and raises an eyebrow.

"Cute house."

The glow around Lianne dies down. "I think so. And the owner's friendly - this's a bed and breakfast, though the owner's terrible at advertising."

"Uh huh... Well, lead away christian soldier."

"That a reference to something?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, just a hymn we had to sing in church a lot. The phrase stuck."

"Makes sense."

She leads the way into the house. It's nice, albeit a bit old-fashioned, a formal front parlor with rich dark wooden furnishings and busy wallpaper showing scenes of mountains and people praying and monsters. There's a lamp on a side table with a stained glass shade with tentacle patterns.

"Person we're meeting's probably in the back..." Lianne mumbles, half to herself.

Ariadne ignores whatever it is she says, she's thinking about how much she wants a cigarette right now but she really doesn't want to give a bad first impression.

Lianne heads into the back, and quickly negotiates a room. "I'll pay for now," she says to Ariadne. "You can pay me back later, if you want, or just consider it a gift."

"I'll pay you back," is her stern reply.

She nods. "Good."

She's mildly pleased with the easy way the woman agrees to that, most people say no over and over and wait till you're at your most vulnerable to change their answer to yes. 

"Thank you, for all of this. You're a really nice person."

"Thanks. It's - one of the things I try to be. The sort of person people benefit from having known, and all."

"Well, congrats. Success. I, um, should I just... Should I go introduce myself, or go sleep, or... what is the thing to do here?"

"You'll want to introduce yourself at some point, but your host will understand if you're tired and want to wait until breakfast."

"I'm terrible to talk to all the time, but more so in the mornings. I think I'd make a better impression now. Are they just through there or...?"

"Yeah. Working on records, I think."

"Coolness."

Ariadne wanders through to where Lianne came from to find her host, knocking politely before entering said persons space.

Said person invites her in. He's bent over a table, working in a ledger, but he glances up to Ariadne. "Hello," he says.

"Hi. I just wanted to introduce myself so you weren't meeting me in the morning, I've been told I'm less than delightful. I'm Ariadne."

She extends her hand in an offer of shaking it, but doesn't push it particularly far into his personal space, letting it be clear through gesture alone that he is welcome to decline.

He turns, smiling a bit awkwardly. "I'm a bit of a shut-in, myself," he says, taking her hand and shaking it. "Still, I get all sorts through."

He seems nice so she tries to actively not scowl in return. "Thank you for this. And is you need any help, I'm willing and... have no marketable skills, but I can learn."

"Oh, I'm good, though I might want some help with dishes after meals..."

"That, I know how to do. Well, thank you for this, good night."

"Night."

Ari nods her head politely and exits the room, then realises she has no idea where she's going and pops back in. "Sorry, where do you want me?"

He gives her directions to an upstairs guest room.

She smiles politely and ducks back out, scurrying up the stairs and into the room, and once she's finally alone, she lets out the breath she's been holding. She drops her duffle anywhere on the floor, yanks out an overly large sleep shirt, changes into it, and flops onto a bed, passing out immediately.

No one disturbs her until the morning, when the smells of breakfast start filtering up the stairs.

She moves and wriggles in her sleep upon smelling food. Blearily she opens her eyes, but upon seeing daylight, she tries to wriggle back under covers.

There's curtains she'll be able to pull closed, but that does require climbing out from under the covers.

The food doesn't chase her up the stairs.

Daylight is not escapable via covers, so she is now awake, unfortunately. She grumps into jeans and a plain black tank, raking a hand through her hair as she goes to make her way towards the food smell.

Food: appears to be some kind of very large egg, over easy, a brownish bread, a reddish root vegetable turned into a hash brown, tart blue jam, sweet orange-colored jam, assorted colorful (and unrecognizable) fruits, and small sausage links.

Food is food, she's never been fed regularly enough to be picky about it, she eats some of everything, regardless of taste, her plate ending up a little less than a healthy serving.

The proprietor kind of socially awkwardly encourages her to take more.

She picks up on this fact and takes more, though a little uncomfortable at walking the line between just enough and too much that she seems greedy.

He's made more than both of them could eat even if both of them were at peak human food needs, and other than making sure she gets some amount of 'enough' doesn't seem very concerned about the food's existence.

She figures, now that she's some what human, she should actually speak to the guy.

"Good morning."

"Good morning," he mumbles back.

"Dishes?"

She means 'would you like me to do the dishes' but full sentences are, apparently, beyond her.

"Ah - if you'd like to help - but you're my guest, so I can handle it - "

"I like helping."

"Oh, okay - "

He directs her towards the kitchen, carrying his own cleaned plates in, and explains where all the dish washing implements are.

She silently sets to work, cleaning with vigour and precision.

He doesn't really talk while they're cleaning, but does yawn a few times.

This suits her just fine, and once she's done with dishes, she moves on to cleaning the whole kitchen spotlessly, cupboards, benches, everything, in an almost robotic manner.

"Thanks," he mumbles. "You don't gotta clean all that, though..."

"Hmm? Oh, it's... Sorry, habit. Miss Lucille thought enforcing perfection would help rehabilitate us."

"Weird. Not much perfection, out here."

She smugly replies. "Good."

Chuckle. "Drives some people crazy, but... I don't mind it."

"I've always found myself not quite so inclined to perfection, so it suits me just fine." 

Smile. "Well, hopefully you'll get along great here."

"That's the hope. Well, if you need anything else, just give me a shout, alright?" 

"Sure. Same to you."

She salutes as she leaves the room, wandering through the house, nothing really to do for the moment, and not quite interested enough to leave the house.

The house doesn't seem to have a lot of modern amenities. It's old, and creaky, and the hallways don't entirely behave, nor seem to have a coherent floor plan that matches their geometry. There's mirrors that show a rippling world, and portraits that seem more like windows into a painted world.

The mirrors and portraits garner her attention most, they're... Entrancing to her, she wants to reach out and caress these things she's seeing.

The portraits move, a little, if she spends a while studying one then looks away.

After some time entranced she does look away, intending to move on, but the tiny movement catches the corner of her vision and her head snaps back. Even more curious now, she tentatively reaches up, her hand moving closer and closer, and she is soon inches away from touching the nearest portrait.

It ripples, oddly, like disturbed water - even though she's not touching it.

She inches closer and closer, slowly, till her finger tips finally come into contact with the portrait, her gaze still entranced by its rippling pools.

It feels more like oil than like the glass that should cover a portrait.

She pulls her hand back to study any residue left from her investigation.

A thin, shimmery slickness.

"Cool."

She puts her hand back to the portrait, putting more pressure into her exploration.

Her hand sinks into the surface a bit.