What drops is not a pin; it's a boy. He falls onto the ground with a muffled scream and a not-so-muffled thud, but where he's falling from is not clear. He wasn't there a microsecond ago; now he is.

And next he's immediately trying to scramble to his feet and reaching for a... wooden stick... from a sheath.

Well, that's new.

Xan opens his eyes and floats back to the ground. "Good afternoon. What's the stick about?"

By then he's standing up and looking up and squeaking and pointing his stick and shutting his eyes and then opening his eyes again because what's the point of the stick if you can't see your target. "Who are you! How are you flying without a broom! Why are you naked! Where am I! Where's the giant snake!"

His accent is pretty British.

"I'm Xan. Why would I need a broom to fly? I'm naked because I was sunbathing on my own property. You're in Kent Acres, Smallville, Kansas, USA. I'm not going to make the obvious joke, but I haven't seen any giant snakes around here recently."

He squints. "You're... not a wizard," he half-asks half-says. "I was eaten by a snake. Well, it had a mirror for a face. Then I was here." He's still pointing the stick. "Also my name is Sadde."

"I'm not a wizard, no. You're saying you are?"

He considers lying but it would be stupid as heck. He lowers his stick. "Yes. Although I guess I shouldn't tell you that but you, er. Can fly."

"Yeah, I've got no idea what's up with me being able to fly. I'm also super-strong, and I can set things on fire with my eyes. The Kents say they'll explain everything when I'm older, which is, like most of what they say, absolute horseshit."

"...huh. You're like a comics superhero or something. Cooool."

"That's... kind of a weird thing to say? Comics are about real people, you could've just said 'like a superhero'."

"Comics are not about real people where I'm from. Ultraman and the Black Widow are, like, fictional."

"Huh. Our comics are about, like, Wonder Woman, who fought Germany in World War 1 and then fucked off to an island paradise instead of sticking around for the sequel, or the Green Lantern, who flies around making big green boxing gloves to punch criminals instead of, like, building infrastructure. Both of whom are real."

"...sounds also weirdly like comics back at home but not, like, the same. Also the thing where they punch things instead of doing anything better. Hey do you get tired of flying? Or punching things. Do you need to eat a lot more? 'Cause if not that's a whole lotta energy you can create out of nothing."

"I eat about as much as a normal kid, but I think I might photosynthesize somehow too? For some reason society isn't built around sunbathing four hours a day and never wearing clothes, which it would be if I was in charge."

"If people don't wear clothes they get, like, infections."

"Not me. I've never gotten so much as a scrape."

"Well you're a comics superhero, of course you didn't, but mug- er, normal people get those so they can't just be naked."

"They can wear shoes," Xan says magnanimously. "To keep their delicate feet safe."

"It's not their feet it's their butts and, er, other parts."

"Humans are poorly designed," Xan rules. "Maybe I'll just make a bunch more of whatever the fuck I am and we'll live in a nudist paradise to rival Themyscira."

"Themwherenow?"

"Wonder Woman's home island where she fucked off to after World War 1. By all accounts, it's a very nice place. Population: one thousand beautiful warrior-women who don't age or get sick."

"Why don't they—is this another one of those things where someone has invented the secret to immortality and not shared it around, I was already annoyed enough by one of those."

"They say their gods did it for them. Some people say it must actually be witchcraft, because there's only one God and his name is blah blah blah, but I think he must have put in that commandment about putting no other gods before him for a reason, and if the Amazons say their gods did them a favor I don't see a reason not to believe them."

"Gods are real here?"