On the grounds of a nice house in England, there appears an alien, and not the kind of alien they might expect to appear.
She startles, but apart from her stalk eyes flailing wildly in all directions, doesn't immediately do anything else about having appeared.
Eskillimi has now remorphed and anyone who can read human facial expressions may be able to tell that she looks TERRIFIED.
"Is Khalil going to appear here too, since Kimli has? And who's she?" Ismat asks, gesturing at Eskillimi.
"Well, from the name, she's maybe an Aunt Klimati. I'll see if Aunt Klimati wants to come over too," says Hala. "It'll take her longer, she's on another continent?"
"How's your aunt going to get here?" asks Ismat.
"She's got a helper. Or do you mean get across the sea? There are shuttleplanes."
"How long do shuttleplanes take?" asks Kimli.
"About ten hours from Boston," says Hala, "longer for Aunt Klimati."
"It's a long way. But clearly they're part of the puzzle here."
"I wasn't about to complain, that's very fast to get from another continent."
"Alright. Uh, everyone listen to Miranda and don't make trouble."
"I'm being assigned guardianship of all these folks? Okay then. Let's feed you, the elves should've laid the table by now. Do you," she asks Caranth, "need constant elf supervision to keep your tail to yourself?"
"Okay, you can eat the lawn with your space alien feet and we'll go have dinner without you, let me know if you do need anything. Eskillimi, please tell the ghost he may join us and continue to sign at my husband, but we obviously can't feed him."
"Okay." <We're all going to go in and have something to eat, you can come but obviously they can't feed you.>
The ghost tries to stand again. This time it works. He follows.
The elves have put out snacks and sides; one begs Miranda's pardon that dinner requires slow-cooking and won't be ready for a few hours. Miranda tells them snacks and sides will be fine and shows Eskillimi how to eat a forkful of mashed potato when she seems confused.
Eskillimi wants to taste EVERYTHING but does require occasional reminders about how to chew; Hala supplies these.
"So your theory is that the people appearing here are variants of Aaron and me, our wives, and their sibling?"
"That's what it looks like, yeah. I don't know why though. Even if Aaron is secretly behind it to find trade partners I don't know why he'd bring all the Kitties into it."
"I don't think I would do that in this fashion even without bringing my wife and Khalil in. Though I don't really understand how far the alternates thing goes."
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