Elesse will be waiting when she's ready.

Which she is, sooner than the promised hour.

"I'm not supposed to fly around within the city," she says, "But it's not a bad walk to get out, and we can take the trolley anyways - quickest is heading to the West Gate, since we're on the western side 'cause that's where the newer roomier buildings are, then loop over the mountains... The dragons are a good bit to the East."

"Lead the way."

She does, at a light lope - switching into a human shape (the same face as Bellona, in fact) for the trolley. The rest of the city's as well designed and artistic as the wealthy district, apparently, though the richness of people's clothes vary - still, the poorest person using the (free) trolley would be considered wealthy in many other worlds. The plazas feeding into the West Gate are grand, with the city's laws enshrined on giant pillars in the middle, and the road out's marginally busy - there's a town that's sprung up on the western slopes of the mountain, meeting the needs of foreign traders, and a huge network of farms feeding both city and town. Once there's clear sky above them, Ruby turns back into a tiger, navigating them to somewhere free enough to take off.

She leaps into the air, smoke billowing around Elesse to lift her in Ruby's wake, and soars up the side of the mountain. The bubble of smoke keeps the wind from reaching Elesse too harshly, and keeps the air around her warm - helpful, as Ruby shoots above a layer of mist and cloud. The mountains here are apparently rather tall.

East of the mountains - more towns spilling from the Eastern Gate, then a wide valley around a large river, a forest two hundred miles wide... The land falls away below them quickly as Ruby soars over it, coming to a young seeming mountain range cutting north to south, ending at a large inland sea.

Small dragons in a huge variety of colors flock around it - mostly staying clear of a central territory, where a massive red dragon is currently sunning herself. Brisingr has by now grown to a bit over two hundred feet in length, her frame still relatively lithe, and she raises her head to track the incoming tiger with interest.

Ruby lands them about a hundred feet from Brisingr's head, putting Elesse down gently.

"Hello," Elesse calls.

"Hello!" she calls. (She is certainly a Panthera, albeit an enormous one.) "Who're you?"

Her voice caries well, somehow not sounding like she's a massive dragon shouting from a hundred feet away.

"My name is Elesse, an extra-world visitor."

"Neat! Are you from any of the worlds we've met?"

"I am not, no. I am part of a collection of alts from a variety of worlds, primarily composed of people like me and people like Ruby and yourself."

She tilts her head. "Separately, or as the same sort of alt?"

"The same sort of alt."

"Huh." She considers this. "I can see it, I guess."

"My magic lets me identify alts by- the feel of their mind, more or less."

She hums. "Identity's clear in my magic system if someone's not hiding, but I've never used it around Ruby..." She croons, softly, a few notes - the air feels strange, something shifting around her. "...Huh, you're the same as Ellisaria."

"I suspected that, but did not wish to guess in advance of the evidence."

Squint. "A bit different, though... But she'll wanna meet you, I bet."

"I would if I were her."

She laughs. "This way, then." And she turns to slither into the mountain, wings tucked close to her body.

Into the mountain then, following the dragon. Certainly there's no way this would go wrong, were this a story.

Brisingr leads them both down into the mountain, whistling cheerfully, then calls out, "Ellisaria! I found guests!"

Another dragon emerges, dark-scaled and sturdier in build than Brisingr, though less than half her length. "So I see."

"One of them says she's an alternate universe version of you. And she feels kinda like you, in the Song."

"Interesting..." She moves out for a closer look.