"I'd prefer an amicable parting if they cease to align, as well. I do not much like fighting allies, even lapsed ones."

"Well enough."

"How far is this city?"

"Ten miles or so."

That is so near and she could cross it so quickly and it's been five years since she had to walk somewhere.

She hums, bouncing a bit. 

Still, walking probably is sensible given how tired she is...

Best to arrive under cover of darkness. Besides, it would be somewhat awkward to follow directly on the heels of that dwarf.

"What is your world like?"

"Greener than here, at least where I lived. It was a very beautiful world."

"The type of magic user I am - shinobi - organized themselves by clans of related individuals, who were traditionally mercenaries, and the clans a few decades ago joined into Hidden Villages - a sort of mercenary guild. Unfortunately, they developed a dreadful number of rules over the years. Told me to be a good little soldier and not get any of my icky emotions anywhere, and of course kill whoever they pointed me at and no one else."

"How terribly restrictive. Where I come from, no one is supposed to kill at all."

"How dreadfully boring of them. Though I had a good friend who was trying to make our world more peaceful; perhaps he could've made something interesting of that."

"People with powers had only been appearing for thirty years or so. The world was still adapting. Some parts of it were more lawless, if someone strong decided to stake their claim."

"How strange. We've had magic a thousand years, though it's been rather destabilizing, all told."

"That is quite a long time."

"I suppose so! I hear we had an Empire for a while, but it fell when it ran out of heirs, some centuries ago."

"In my own life - I didn't agree at all with a soldierly life, and left, though they quite unfairly declared me a traitor for it. Still, I'd slipped out with enough stealth they lost my trail for a time, and I was able to go to someone who had offered me shelter and a promise of training. I would not name him an ally - I could have, he was certainly imaginative enough, but he had no respect for loyalty, and betrayed me first. I left him dead, gathered a small group of my own, and went to find my sister, who had left our home when I was a child after a rather impressive massacre."

"Events conspired, here and there, and some idiot decided to resurrect a god - or a being close enough to divinity - that'd been sealed at the beginning of magic. That drama rendered my universe rather uninhabitable, assuming it still exists at all."

"What of you? What of your world? And you mentioned a rather - I supposed uninspired group?"

"I was raised by a small-minded woman with the ability to call lightning and a consuming fascination for herself almost to the exclusion of everything else. Killing her was the first thing I did when I gained my power, and it was then that I learned I could take the powers of those who die near me and put them to use. I set out to enlarge my collection. People with powers called themselves 'heroes' and 'villains' and acted out those roles as though playing a game, without taking it seriously. I did take things seriously, and so they sought to remove me, to preserve their game. A man named Jack Slash approached me, to recruit me into his group, the Slaughterhouse Nine. He also wished to upset the order of things and so I went along for a time, until it became clear that he was playing a game of his own, and did not intend to allow me to gain more power than he could handle. We quarreled, and I left on poor terms. Later, I returned to kill him. That was the second most satisfying death I have participated in."

"How unimaginative of them all. Systems are for breaking; and why should you handle an ally?"

"He was, it turned out, more useful to me dead than alive. Perhaps he had an inkling of this. But I have no wish to ruminate overlong on his particular psychology."

"Entirely reasonable."

"In any case, following his death, I decided that I was finished with playing any sort of game, and proceeded directly to the end. The reason powers only started appearing in the world thirty years ago is that we were visited by alien entities of nearly incomprehensible power who would gift small pieces of themselves to us, in order to see what we would do with them. There were two entities, but through a string of poor fortune, one was killed upon its arrival, and without it, the other wandered lost. I approached him with the offer of using my power to replace his companion. We were in the process of gathering her scattered shards when I found myself suddenly in this world. It was not treachery on his part, for he does not understand the concept. I suspect the work of an agency entirely foreign, for he has not found me nor am I able to return myself."

"Interesting. I know how I got here - I fell between realities and stepped out - but I don't know what else could have moved you."

"The multiverse is deep and wide. Determining the reasons for my traversal may be a long-term project."

"Hopefully an enjoyable one. Once I've rested, I might even be able to duplicate the trick that got me here."

"If it can be targeted, that would be useful."

"Haven't tried that yet!"

"A risky experiment, if not."

"Well, I survived the first time, and if I'm rested I should be able to manage quite a few types of hostile environment..."