There is a cascade of split-second views of dozens of places in the air above the potion. Ocean-forest-farm-glade-farm-swamp-grassland-city-beach-

And someone wearing what must be a hundred pounds of metal on various tool belts stumbles through the- hole- and falls flat on her face.

Right.

She strides over to metal person and tries to help her up. "Are you alright? Can I help you in some way? ...Can you understand me?"

"Ouva sut- Mein gott is that English?"

"Yes, but -" she switches languages "- but I can also speak German, if that's better?"

She starts clambering up, keeping to German. "Okay so this isn't Milliways, how did I end up here-"

Flora helps. "It's our magic system. If you make an elixir incorrectly, and it turns some neon color, something weird is about to happen. The something weird... Some examples: a-" she gets stuck on contagious, thinks of another word, "- multiplying disease that literally only makes you sneeze pink glitter, a talking boot, an intelligent hat that changes color to talk, things like that. Interdimensional visitors are a recurring theme, and I assume that's what you are. Welcome to our world. The consensus was to name it Moondust, after the powder used in elixirs, since that seems like a unique feature so far."

"How delightful. I actually liked the world I was in, unlike my original one."

"The weird stuff is usually pretty harmless. I'm pretty sure I can put you right back where you were after some studying?" she offers. "Can you please tell me about all the worlds you've been in? And what's, what did you call it, Milliwatts? Milliways?"

"Yeah, you need to send me back. I've been in two. Don't have names for them. One where Germany is in a really bad situation after the damn Great War, one where a kind stranger I met invited me so's I could not be interrogated for having red hair. Milliways is a random interdimensional bar. It grabs doors and invites you in sometimes, I get it like once every few months."

"Wars shouldn't happen. I'm sorry." She notices the ambiguity of that statement and clarifies, "As in, I am sympathetic about the situation with your home world, and also I'm apologising for... the elixir, I guess. Not being able to totally defuse it to the harmless and inert white in time. Anyway. Our magic is actually pretty shareable and pretty nice too, so I could sprinkle you and give you a moondust-producing crystal ball as compensation? For the interdimensional kidnapping thing. Also, I cannot, on my own, give you a place to stay, but I'll put in a good word with my master and other locals if he doesn't agree to it. And yes, regardless of where you stay I'll try and get you back to the right dimension. ...What is the right dimension like? You only mentioned your original one."

She makes a face and nods at the war comment.

"You're gonna have to explain what the magic is like some before I think of whether to take that offer or not. I've been a mechanic in two different worlds now though, adding a third might not be much challenge if mechanicing is something that people tend to need. The right world is - not Earthy. It's got gravity and a sky and no magic, but it also has Pokemon, which are easier to show than tell." She glances around at the room. Is it big enough for Feume?

Plenty big enough. It's an elixir making room! Of course it's big. It's also well-lit, clean -- except for some neon yellow left from when the elixir malfunctioned -- and it smells flowery. Not any particular flower, just the essence of floweriness.

"I don't know much about mechanics, but I would love to explain all the everything about magic, it's pretty neat. I should probably eat first, though, making elixirs is a whole lot of work and I'm hungry. Do you want to eat?"

"I might as well. And let me show you a 'mon. Don't be alarmed please?" The little white-and-red ball on her belt swells up to hand size. She tosses it out and says, "Feume, we're somewhere new. No milliways this time."

Feume is a horse that is on fire.

He gives a sarcastic-sounding whinny at the news.

"Yeah, but I'm not too worried. This isn't a warzone or wasteland, she says she can send us back, there's milliways if nothing else."

Snuffle-whuff.

"You'll just have to live with fewer treats, then."

She is not alarmed, but she is somewhat startled by that. She twitches when Feume is revealed, but after that she only raises her eyebrows.

"Uh. Wow. Was Feume in the ball somehow? Why is it on fire? It understands you, is it in fact an "it" or am I being disrespectful? For that matter, how do you understand Feume?"

"Feume is a he. His species is Ponyta. I'm still not sure how the balls work, 'mon can be compressed into information somehow and are sort of asleep inside but it's not magic just really cheaty physics and computer science. He's on fire because that's what Ponytas do, fire type. There might be a little psychic backchannel thing but mostly I understand him because I'm used to him. He's smart for a 'mon but not as bright as a human."

Feume peers at Flora curiously.

"Sorry Feume. How do you tell it's not magic? Can it be mass produced or something? What does being a fire type do, other than that? What are the other types? How does he sustain the fire, how is he not hurt by it, can it catch on something else? What does the psychic backchannel do? ...Anyway, maybe let's start heading toward the kitchen?" She heads kitchen-ward.

It is big enough for Feume for a short while but then Walta should probably put him back in the ball.

Feume accepts balling with good grace.

"The psychic backchannel helps him understand me and be tied to me. Different people can have different numbers of them, my number is two but I only have Feume permanently. Balls can be mass produced, 'mon can be sent as information. Magic detecting people I find in milliways detect no magic. He doesn't burn stuff unless he wants to. There somewhere I can let him graze later?"

Flora looks around in the fridge and the cupboards, doesn't find anything substantial, and starts a low-effort omelette. "Will that be okay?" she asks, absently, and continues, "Aha, right. A very strange system, but of course I'd find it strange. ... There's a park near here? Or does he need, like, a great big field?"

"A park will be fine if nobody tries to arrest me for setting a horse on fire. And omelet is fine too."

"Heh, no, they've seen weirder. They're going to assume one or the other of you is Dusted, though, so they're going to try and point you to the emergency station. In that case, just explain that you're from another world. -- Dusted -- or Active -- is the word for people who have been sprinkled with moondust and who then did lots and lots of random stuff until one thing turned out to be their activation condition and they transformed in some way -- a horse on fire would be very rare but not out of the question -- and got a cool superpower. Then, if an Active-- Detour, Dusted is if you've found your condition, it doesn't say anything about whether you're currently transformed, and Active is if you're Dusted and transformed and able to use your power -- if an Active is distracted from maintaining their transformation they detransform and have to perform their activation condition, usually reduced some, again. Have to perform it to retransform, that is."

"So that's how it works huh? Why would they send me to the emergency station?"

"Yes. There's also extra bells and whistles, for example if you've activated you can sprinkle your pet, and it, or in your case he, might also activate at some point and give you and himself a bonus passive power, which is pretty likely compared to sprinkling yourself a second time.

"Oh, yeah, there's organised disaster relief and etcetera. Active stations. Actives go, or are asked to go, to a station. They say what their power is, and then stations coordinate to give the Actives very simple tasks they can just do without having to risk losing their concentration and their power. It's actually really good."

"Do you get paid to do it? Do dusted have to help? I mean, it sounds noble and all, but..."

"Yeah, some. I think it's enough to live on? It's plenty for the effort they put in but not nearly enough for the effect they're having, which is how the system remains stable. -- That last part is quoted from a book, I don't really like economics enough to figure out the Active station system for myself."

"You're dusted? Is it dangerous, hard to figure out?"

"No, just a Chance, I'm not spending all that much time on trying new things for the activation. One of my co-prentices is. ...It is somewhat dangerous if you try to do stuff on your own, but you're pretty much guaranteed to get something you can handle if you go to a station. The conditions are pretty hard to find, yeah, but you don't really... figure them out. Just try lots of different stuff. Get a sense for which kinds of things get results, try some of those. Oh, and what I meant by 'for myself' is... I tend to try and figure things out, to know for sure that the opinion I have is mine and as correct as I can make it."

"I'll take a good crystal ball and dusting as accidental-kidnap-repayment then. And then have lots of fun doing weird things to try and get something."

"Cool. I should also probably tell you about elixirs and artifacts... But food first."

The omelette is done. She splits it in half, puts the halves on plates, and starts eating her half. She doesn't seem inclined to talk while eating.

Walta still feels chatty though. "You know, eggs are rare on the 'mon world. It would be really weird to try and eat a 'mon egg. Like eating dog. I grew up on chicken eggs though."

Flora nods and makes a little acknowledgement/interest noise.

Walta rambles throughout the meal, not bothered by the merely nonverbal response.

Flora is okay with that.

"Right. Moondust!" She heads back to the room where Walta appeared to get Walta's compensation. "Sprinkling it on a person makes them a Chance. Sprinkling it on an Active's pet makes the pet a Chance with passive powers for them and their owner. Sprinkling it on an inanimate object that is not a plant or water gives you a potential artifact. That part works just like any other thing with moondust -- it's activated by random conditions. An active artifact bestows one active power on anyone who's touching it, and everyone can use it regardless of whether they're Dusted or not. Those are usually public property, because most of the ones that activated are old enough to be in museums, but also in great condition. So we have a mini-museum of artifacts here, because of the high concentration of magic users who want some close-by."

She takes a small bag from the shelf and opens it to reveal softly glowing silvery powder. "Alright, are you ready? It can be a bit startling if you're not warned."

"Ready and waiting."

Flora sprinkles.

It is the most amazing feeling -- it's like she's just been hugged by the whole entire universe, she's accepted and loved and she's skydiving, hang-gliding, riding Feume at top speed and she's wrapped in a soft blanket, holding a mug of hot chocolate, dozing off to sleep and she's giggling helplessly and she's solved a difficult problem, an impossible problem, after hours of thinking it clicks and she understands, she applies all her skills and knowledge to something and gets amazing results, she not only fixes a walker she builds one herself and she can do anything, she can be anything -- all at the same time, in the same split second. It feels like it's both an eternity and much too short at the same time.

"Fun?" asks Flora.

"Oh, geez, I didn't think it was supposed to feel like anything special! I just thought surprising was - being covered in dust suddenly! Woooah."

"Ah. I should have said. Forgot for a second. Anyway. What did it feel like, to you? Do you remember any of it? Everyone perceives it slightly differently."

"Flying and a cozy nap and making something brilliant and more all at once..."

"Cool. I wonder what causes these, we haven't been able to replicate them with elixirs at all. Anyway. Here's your compensatory bag of moondust, I've told you about artifacts, sprinkling it onto elixir ingredients -- plants, liquids, biological materials in general -- also a bad -- but usually not very dangerous -- idea. If you don't know what you're doing, that is. Oh, um, sprinkling is actually a special mental action, people who've grown up here know how to do it -- and how to not do it, when they're just trying to touch or move their moondust from place to place. I'm not sure how to teach that, but it's definitely possible. I'll go ask my mentor about that and the possibility of letting you crash here, if you don't need anything else for now."

"I think I'm going to go find that park you talked about. Feume's probably hungry."

"Alright." She gives directions and walks off.

And she goes to the park, kind of marveling at how nobody's using 'mon. Surprising how fast she got used to that.

There are lots of strange people doing strange things, such as decorating trees with paper clip chains and crawling around in turtle suits. It's nice and sunny.

She can't think of anything creatively crazy to try off the top of her head.

So she dances, kinda badly, the rest of the way to the park. Not particularly creative, but fun.

That does not produce any result.

Someone is trying to balance balls made of different materials -- wood, metal, knitting wool, some kind of purple gemstone, some kind of fluffy thing -- in a pyramid on top of their head. A woman in a beautiful dress is half-covered in horizontal, spaced-out stripes of tape, even her face and legs. A little boy is knitting octopus pants with both his fingers and his very nimble toes. A guy has a wig with needles instead of hair, and is taking a selfie with a phone that looks for all the world like a large potato with a screen.

Here's the park.

She's kind of inspired by some of these things! She tries juggling her tools after letting Feume out.

That still doesn't work, but it is more on the right track. Not that the universe or the writer have any way of conveying this.

Ranting about electricity at nobody. Wearing cogs and gears in her hair. Walking in patterns. And so on, taking breaks to actually care for Feume.

None of those things! But very on the right track.

Some guy tries to interview Feume. It's pretty clear that this is not an actual reporter.

Feume nips at his fingers without actually biting him.

Her English is rusty but, "Maybe not do that. He doesn't like strangers, and we're from a different world, he's not Active."

"O-oh. Ah. I- sorry. I'll- go." And indeed, he goes.

They are not bothered further.

Then Feume will graze happily and Walta will relax in the park, humming and clanging two wrenches to the tune of an old song, and other such things.

And then navigate back to that one house.

"Hi again! ...I did not ask your name and did not provide mine, sorry. My name's Flora.

"Master says you are welcome to stay with us! If you agree to help with groceries." She is somewhat uncomfortable saying the second sentence, and explains further -- "Master doesn't like doing them, I only go once a week or so, and the other apprentices are too young. It's a perpetual problem."

"I'm Walta. You mean... Shopping? May as well. And I saw what you meant about people doing lots of weird things, it seems fun."

"Yeah, shopping." She seems relieved and brightens at the return of her favorite topic. "Yeah, some weird things are quite fun. I, personally, don't enjoy most new things and just do all the weird stuff I've already tried and am comfortable with. Which doesn't really help with activating, but it's still fun."

"Shopping is fine." She relates the weird things she's tried so far. "Those sound on the right track?"

"Mostly! A few at the beginning were slightly off but then you got really into the spirit of things, it seems."

"This place is nice and relaxed and actually pretty fun I like it."

"I'm glad! 'This place', as in Moondust, or the park, or?"

"This world. Though I guess I haven't seen all that much of it, but it sounds like a nice place overall. Especially if you get interdimensional stuff regularly and send 'em back."

"Yes, it is pretty nice, and yes we do. I'm pretty sure there's like a forum for people from different worlds, even, that's how common it all is."

"You'd like milliways I think, have I told you about milliways? Do you need any shopping done now?"

"You said it's a bar, I think? ...Yeah, we need some stuff, we can go together and chat some more on the way and I can show you how things work and where to find everything." She retrieves a neat shopping list and a bag. "The shop that has everything we need is a long way away, we'll go by bus, is that okay?"

"Buses are fine. Milliways is... An interdimensional bar that borrows doors sometimes and shows you all sorts of interesting people to talk to. Doesn't like being used for profit much, like, that's not in the spirit of the place or something. You can meet dangerous or creepy types there too, but there's good security. You're safe in the main bar area. Security is guaranteed to be able to handle anyone there, by time squeezing nonsense. I plan to sign up for it eventually."

They get on a bus. Flora is visibly uncomfortable with being on a crowded bus and makes her way to the very back.

"Ooh, interesting. How does it borrow doors? What are some examples of interesting people? How does it 'not like' things, how is 'profit' defined? What's time squeezing?"

"Nobody knows how the doors work exactly, but sometimes you open one and it goes to milliways instead of wherever it's supposed to. Profit, well, you'd think with Bar able to buy and sell things to arbitrary places you could get some crazy arbitrage, but she only lets you do that a little bit and only if you really kinda need it. Doing things it doesn't like apparently makes you less likely to get doors again later, and less likely to find interesting or useful people, and generally not having as good a time of it. Milliways' time is all kinds of twisty, not sure where to start with that."

"Aha." She is acutely aware of various bus-related sensory experiences, so it occurs to her to ask, "Is it like a normal bar in terms of smells, or is there magic preventing it? And if you're having trouble explaining, just give me some examples of whatever. Like 'twisty', what qualifies as twisty?"

"Milliways is pretty clean, cleaner than most bars I'd guess? And doesn't really smell like anything except what other people are having, which is sometimes beer and other bar-smelling things yes. Time pauses in your world when you're in milliways, usually, unless you leave and don't intend to come back. If you leave the main room and hang out in the backyard for an hour you could come back and see the same person who was there before and it's only been a minute to them. Stuff like that."

"How does it know whether or not I intend to come back? And woah, that must be really weird. Okay."

Something occurs to her; she takes a pen and a small notepad and jots down a list of seemingly-nonsense words, then puts it all back.

"Milliways is best as an occasional interesting visit, I find. I've only gotten it three times ever so far, once every couple of months. What'chu writing?"

"Aha. Oh, uh, this is just me trying to construct -- or is it invent, might be invent or something -- an elixir. The words were a bunch of plant names I thought of that I haven't yet tried to include in my 'recipe'."

"Sounds like chemistry. Really weird metaphorical chemistry. Like old folk tales of witches... I'll stick to electricals and mechanical stuff, heh."

"It's really not chemistry! But I guess I can see how it would look like chemistry from an outside perspective. Oh, and the next stop is ours. We should start pushing to the front now --" she does so "-- just in case."

She's used to street trams which operate on much the same principles. "I should probably look at this routes and schedules if I'm going to be here for more than a few hours."

Flora takes out a card from her wallet and presses it against a box on the wall. It beeps. They get off.

"Yeah, you most likely are. Lowest bound on figuring out which tiny adjustments to make to the send-back elixir is one full day of work -- the realistic estimate might be a week, absolute worst case is probably like a month but I don't think it'll happen. See, every elixir accident is slightly different, so I'd have to take that into account. And then you have the added complication of having travelled between worlds already.

"Bus schedules are on a website, I'll show you.

"This way -- make sure you remember this part of the path, it's easy to get lost here."

"Ooh, you have a real internet, it's pretty limited in the world with the 'mon despite having plenty of tech for it."

"We do! It's useful. Limited? How is it limited?"

Flora intermittently points out landmarks for am-I-lost diagnosis.

She doesn't really pay attention to the landmarks in particular. She's good at watching. "There's radio networks, and a system of cell phone-like things, but... It's just not widely adopted, no websites for everything, more than one big city doesn't even have its own site."

"Oh."

They reach the shop! It is a supermarket which sells basically everything, including: clothes; cleaning and hygiene products; art supplies; weird toys like, say, a (plastic) headless chicken that runs around on a plastic platform and lights up with pink light every three seconds; packets of moondust; and, most importantly, food.

Flora takes out her list and guides Walta around the store in a very efficient path, taking all the things she needs and demonstrating which exact variety of each thing to buy -- "take this one, that one contains nuts -- one of my coprentices is allergic -- and that one sometimes has bits of paper in it" -- finally, after more than half an hour, everything on the list is bought.

"Is there anything you'd like to get for yourself?"

"The tacky toys are amusing but wasteful."

She adds a pack of sausage and some cheese to the cart.

"Okay, we're done then." Flora goes through the process of paying for their purchases and then they go back to the bus.

She is surprised and fascinated by the idea of credit cards and asks questions about them for most of the way back.

Flora doesn't know much about credit cards except the practical usage, so she takes this opportunity to demonstrate the use of a smartphone to get on the internet. Someone who knows more about the normal features of a smartphone might be surprised at the total lack of games and social apps.

"Just don't research things too long, okay? We've got internet at home."

She navigates the phone's features and browser without much issue. "Thanks!"

"You're welcome."

They arrive home. Flora puts all the groceries in their correct places. It's dinner time, so she peels some thick-skinned potatoes and calls everyone in the house to the kitchen. Five children/tweens of various ages gather and start mashing the potatoes, preparing meat, and other kitchen-y tasks. Flora retreats to the corner of the kitchen furthest from the action to wash dishes.

Walta is welcome to join in, but if she wants to research things that's fine too, someone will point her to a computer.

She produces strange cooking tools! She's proud of them, they're very clever aren't they, especially this dicing ball thing that only actually uses one sharp edge.

She is swarmed with questions about them and how they work!

(This is in English, so Flora translates for everyone. One of the others tries to stumble through asking in German, but gives up because he doesn't know half the words.)

Mostly really clever clockwork. She takes one apart and moves it, trying to show how the gears slide onto each other, the 14th tooth of this one is shorter so it sort of falls off and pushes this other one on instead, and so on...

Oooh. She is invited to use these tools to help cook things. She is also invited to propose new things to cook or vote on existing ones -- there is a well organised tally chart.

Soon, food is ready.

She wants eggs. That's about it.

Food: Is yummy.

Halfway through the meal, Doctor Bolinor arrives. All conversations halt. He finishes his food quickly and leaves. Everyone picks up right where they left off.

After everyone is done with their food, they efficiently cooperate in tidying everything up.

Then, Flora is free to show Walta around the house!

"You guys seemed kinda terrified of him..."

"Oh, no, he's perfectly nice, he just finds it really irritating when people talk while eating so we do that "suddenly tumbleweed" thing. --Tumbleweed is a -- cultural reference or whatever you call it -- for quietness, if that's not the same between worlds. Or between languages. I forget if that's a thing in German, I'm just translating literally." 

She shows Walta the bathrooms, the elixir making rooms which you definitely do not disturb ever, and leads her to an empty room. It's somewhat small but has a desk, a bean bag chair, a bed, and a small wardrobe/shelf.

"I am gonna be terrible at remembering to... Tumble weed."

"Terrible like 'oh whoops I said a thing and then remembered to be quiet again' or what?" 

Flora sits on the bean bag and gestures to Walta to sit on her new bed.

"Yes. That." She takes her tool belt off first and sets it on the floor - or, is it carpet? On the shelf if so. Oil stains: Not fun. "Probably should have gotten clothes at the store. These are work clothes, and covered in oil."

The floor is polished wood.

"Ah. I can let you borrow some spare clothes? Also, there are very, very effective cleaning elixirs -- which is my favourite feature of my lifestyle." 

And indeed, most of the house has been almost suspiciously clean.

"I have no interest in making elixers, but trading some other stuff for using them would be good. I've learned to be a mechanic and general fix-things-person twice now. Also, I won't be expensive clothes-wise. I would gladly flip between these and one other set of stuff almost all the time if they kept clean."

Slightly nervously: "I actually meant I could provide you with a few since it's my fault you're -- stuck here -- but we could also have a trade arrangement where you fix up various things if you can? Because we have a bunch of things that are broken and if you could fix them, basically anyone in the house would be happy to do you favors such as providing cleaning elixirs. Because they're very broken things and fixing them would be very good. Fixing things is always good. Gains from trade, right?"

"Yeah. Gains from trade. What's broken? Can't guarantee I'd be better than someone from this world whose career is to fix the things, but I can definitely look."

Still a bit nervous but with something to focus on, Flora lists, counting on her fingers, "There's our water heater, Master's car, the dryer, some of the door hinges are all oiled and all but they still squeak, what's up with that we don't know, maybe some other things I'm not remembering because I'm used to them..."

Flora ignores the complicated question because it is dangerous and not good to try to answer complicated questions while it is dangerous.

She does not in fact realize that she's nervous, focusing on the fact that not good.

"Okay. Door hinges are probably the easiest to look at, which doors?"

Flora leads Walta around the house, showing a bunch of squeaky or hard to open doors. She switches between babbling nervously or staying completely silent during this. She calms down some, but is still sensitive to various reminders.

Walta is oblivious to what she reminded Flora of.

She investigates the first door. Opens it a few times to listen to the sound. Applies a little oil and observes that it indeed has no effect.

Then she takes out one of the hinge pins and says. "Oh wow these are old. And filthy. Let's see if cleaning 'em all fixes the squeaking."

"Uh, okay, what do you need? Will plain soap and water do, or does it need something more complicated? If it does, we probably don't have any - doing it with elixirs is much more convenient for us than the industrial stuff - so we'd have to wait until morning to go to the shop. Or actually just use elixirs."

"Anything that's strong but not caustic will do."

Flora runs off and brings back a bunch of things, including dish washing liquid, toilet cleaner, and a bottle of the kind Walta saw in the elixir room labeled "cleaner" put to the side.

"Um. I have no idea what you meant by caustic, but. Here's all we have, will any of this do?"

"Sometimes just steel wool is fine. Let's try this stuff first..." The elixir, with a heavy rag to rub it up with.

How good it it at cleaning metal and not damaging it?

It vanishes rust, dirt, oil, and various other things that need vanishing, and doesn't damage the metal at all. The pin is as shiny and clean as new.

... However if she tries putting oil on top of the elixir, even after she's rubbed it off, it also vanishes. And the pin turns pink.

She'll wash the elixir off with water. Or rub the elixered pin over her dirty work clothes until it runs low and then oil it.

"I'll use soap for the next one though, ha."

Water just slides off as though the pin is covered in oil and turns it green, instead.

The second thing works. Now the pin is oiled, back to its normal color, and the work clothes are slightly cleaner in general and a lot cleaner in that spot where she rubbed it.

Flora snorts a little when the pin turns green and even smiles when Walta tries the second solution.

"If it still squeaks you need new pins."

She hammers it back in. Does it still squeak?

It does not! Hurray! Next door?

Just so. And then all the rest of them.

"Thank you for that! So, I'll get you a set of night clothes, hopefully, and you can use the leftovers of the elixir you've cleaned the pins with to clean your current outfit for tomorrow? If that's okay?"

"Yeah, that's fine. Clothes aren't a big deal to me. I could look at another broken thing now. It's not that late. Probably can't fix the rest of the stuff immediately like the hinges but a glance at 'em and I'll know what to look for tomorrow."

"Sure." 

The water heater makes weird noises and sometimes fails to work for hours at a time. Flora demonstrates the weird noises.

(There is no central heating. Each house has its own water heater, and when that fails to work there is only freezing cold water available.)

She pokes around the outside.

"...No immediately visible terrible problems but the weird noises thing is not promising. Need to look on the internet some to make sure these work how I think they do. Probably need to turn it off and drain it and get a look at the insides, which means it definitely doesn't work for a while. Three, four hours minimum, best to arrange when to do that with everyone yeah?"

"Yeah, okay, we'll figure it out right after breakfast, that's when everyone's gathered and mostly mentally present and not too tired... It's getting pretty late - would you like to check the dryer or should that wait until morning?"

"Getting pretty tired, I'll take a look tomorrow."

"Okay."

Flora goes off to a closet, brings night clothes of various sizes -- the closest set is awkward on Walta but fits okay and is comfortable. 

"Good night," she says, in a somewhat unsure tone.

"Good night!"

She waves and goes to get ready for bed. 

And realises that she was panicking, and why, and resolves to say something about that to Walta.

And sleeps.

Walta lets Feume out for a little while longer, in the empty elixir room. He doesn't like being cooped up all day.

She is not immune to some amount of nervousness. Sleeping in an unfamiliar spot... Wondering whether she'll really get home (huh, she does think of it as home now) or they're only saying that... She sleeps soon enough.

Flora is up before almost anyone else. She cooks herself a small portion of Flora-Acceptable Breakfast, eats it, and waits for everyone else to come in.

The residents of the house start trickling in one by one, some cooking more breakfast as efficiently as they had dinner, some still half asleep. It is an oddly clear line.

Walta will have whatever requires little work for breakfast. She gets up fairly early to exercise Feume a bit, and was using the computer to look things up earlier, and has several ideas on what could be off with the water heater. And because she's the one she knows best, "Good morning Flora."

"Good morning –" she remembers her resolution from yesterday "– I'd like to say something to you away from the others, if you don't mind?"

"Um? Did I do something wrong?"

Nervously, but noticing this and trying to stop, "Nonono, you're fine, better than fine, you're good, okay. It is about me and" my silly problems again "I hope you don't mind at least hearing what this is about? I will just feel slightly awkward if I have to say the thing in a crowded room and there is an option not to, so." 

She starts taking steps in the direction of 'out', hoping furiously that Walta will uncomplicatedly follow.

She grabs her cup of milk and follows.

She leads Walta into what appears to be some sort of storage room. 

"Okay, so."

She pauses, and when she starts again she talks even slower and more deliberately. "My parents were, or are, depending on how you look at it, somewhat nasty to me. In, like, nasty words, they didn't beat me.

"One of the things my mom did in particular was deliberately mispronounce 'elixir'. Not that this in particular was a nasty thing, but it reminds me of all the other things she did.

"So when you mispronounced it – I reiterate that it was not your fault at all, you didn't know, let'sjustforget it please? But yes, when you did it yesterday I was reminded and I went into... panic mode. I knew you were you but I kept acting like you were my mom, specifically in terms of expecting you to do nasty things but also in other ways like talking to you like I would talk to her and so on. So. How do you feel about this?"

"...People have issues. It happens. Like, I'm going to be nervous around any police that aren't, like, local street cops, I can explain if you like it was a while ago. I'll try to remember to pronounce it right but I'm not good at remembering things that my brain puts in the bucket labelled 'manners' and this is one of those things."

"Okay. I should be able to spot it and calm down if it happens again, I think. Uh, if that happens again for a different reason, should I try to tell you on the spot? This will be hard for me but would make it easier to snap out of but there is a possibility of you making it worse? Is that something you want to have happen, totally fine if you don't?"

"I'm not good at subtle-touchy-feely. I'm not gonna push your buttons on purpose. Up to you whether to tell me any more things I can try to not do."

"Subtle is the opposite of what I need here, you're very frank and blunt and this helps because my parents never are, it's always either hidden meanings and subtle stuff or screaming terror and mockery. I think I will, then, if you don't mind."

"Okay. Air clear. Can you talk about the water heater at everyone? I have some ideas. You probably need to buy a part though."

"Yep, I'll handle that."

She handles that by knocking on the wall in some sort of rhythm and then announcing things. Most of the inhabitants of the house agree with the need to fix the water heater, and get vaguely annoyed by the part where it has to be turned off for hours, but acquiesce that it should be done if it gets the heater working reliably, thank you for being willing to help, Walta, and yes, it should be done while everyone is busy making elixirs. A couple people dash off to do last-minute water-requiring things.

A little boy comes and asks if it would be okay to pour stuff down the sink during that time or is it just that the tap will be cold or will the tap not work at all. Flora translates to the best of her ability; it's much harder to flip back and forth than to talk in just one.

She doesn't mind the spotty translation. She knows enough English to get the idea anyway. "Cold water and drains should still work, since this place is set up smart-ish. If you try to get hot water you'll just get nothing."

Flora translates back.

Eventually, everyone's ready for a lack of hot water. "We're good to go."

So she turns the water heater off and then does nothing in particular. Well, does some appropriately weird things while waiting.

Flora is curious about this but not enough to ask her over the protests of She Knows What She's Doing. 

If Walta seems open to this, Flora will offer suggestions and join in in some parts.

This is fine. "It's really quite funny how activating works, you know."

After maybe fifteen minutes she looks at the heater's thermostat and hooks up a hose into the house's drainage system. Out goes the water, producing only moderate amounts of steam instead of scads and scads of it.

"Kind of is, yes. What's next?"

"Now I wait for the steam to clear out and confirm my sucpicions that your heating coil is probably rusted half to pieces."

"If it is, what would be next - do we replace it or de-rust it somehow or something else? I think we had a de-rusting elixir somewhere..." She waves a hand vaguely downwards.

"Other things could be wrong too. Replacing it is probably most thorough, if it's lost big bits of itself into the water derusting won't help for long."

"Okay. Will it be hard to find a replacement?"

"This 'google' thing says no'. Three different stores that are near sell this kind of thing, and I think I will be able to pick the right one if we have to visit."