"As you like then, Nausicaa. What were you doing before we accosted you?"

"Finding somewhere to clean up, hopefully before I get accused of being fey."

"The... oil is a typical sign of that? What are the consequences of being thought fey?"

"The oil's not really typical, but it's weird and means I might have come through the Void. And the fey are rarely noticed while they're here, but I imagine people would be rather afraid and aggressive and it'd escalate so dreadfully, and the other Nausicaa would be quite put out to come back to that mess."

"What does escalation look like?"

"Trying to take me in for questioning. Trying to drive me back over the wall. Trying to capture me for study. Trying to kill me."

"Of course, realistically, it'd end in many of them dead."

"Ripped apart."

"Perhaps."

"How else would you kill them?"

"Knives are a classic, I believe, and there's something... Poetic, about an even chance. Though I haven't gotten much practice in assorted forms at all. The other Nausicaa usually isn't one for killing."

"Not with magic?"

"Well I could, but why would I pass up a good knife if that would do the job? I suppose if I had some sort of dramatic show to put on."

(Hisame is nodding and grinning.)

"I grow weary of standing in the street," Eliana says. "Perhaps we can find somewhere more comfortable to speak."

"Of course. There's more empty buildings than not, along most walls - it's either that or apartments." She tilts her head. "That way should be somewhere we can go uninterrupted."

"Lead on."

She nods, turning to do so.

The buildings remain brick, but the fullness peters out as they go on. The streetlights are fewer and farther between. 

There's a building she finds, half eaten by metal, single lamp burning dimly before it in the darkness. It's three floors, an old bed and breakfast, linens and furnishings still there, apparently untouched by the passage of time.

Except for the metallic back wall, of course.

"Does the metal expand over time?"

"Usually externally first, then internally. And it's safe to touch. Sometimes entire new buildings grow out of the wall. They make good apartments. Sturdy, never get roach problems..."

"What lies on the other side?"

"The Void."

"And what, exactly, is that?"

"It's everything that isn't. Something that can't exist, squeezing into the shadows cast by reality. Existing in it... I wouldn't recommend it, if you're used to being a body."

"...Charming."

"Yes. Very much so."