There is only so much she can learn about her heritage, and her abilities, from her mother and through experimentation.
The Elder Continent is, if not precisely off limits, not somewhere she even wants to try to go until she knows more. So: London, which is much closer anyway. She'd have to pass through to make it to the Continent anyway.
The stalagmites thin, and she blinks as she steps out into the lights of Mrs. Plenty's Carnival.
After a few good swings, she bursts through. There's a shower of dust and rubble, but there's also a hole leading out of the Orphanage.
Angie stares. "You've quite an arm on you," she says.
"Yeah, remember when I implied I was some kind of hybrid? I don't know if I was blatant enough about that, but, yeah."
She'll give it another couple of swings if the hole isn't big enough for their fellow escapee to fit through.
After a few seconds of this, there's a lot of yelling and banging on the door down to the chamber. Clarabelle whimpers.
Their fellow escapee scurries up the wall and through the hole.
Lucy picks up Clarabelle and jumps up out of the hole, then turns around to see if her not-heavily-pregnant sister needs any help.
She's trying to clamber up, but she's not exactly an athlete. Her hand slips on a patch of milk and she falls back to the floor.
Lucy jumps back down and hoists the other sister up, then turns and leans back inside to see if there's anything else she needs to rescue and/or destroy before blowing this popsicle stand.
The door bursts open, and who should rush in but Poor Edward.
He's got a pistol in his hand. He fires it -
and the bullet goes wide, and shatters the tank of moon-milk, which sprays everywhere. He's soaked in the stuff, and as he looks at the Light-Hearted Wastelander, his eyes widen.
She sees none of this. As soon as the barricade burst, she started turning; by the time he sees her, her back is to him; a moment later, she's gone.
"This way," she tells the other two women, indicating the most direct path to the Prickfinger Wastes.
The Music-Hall Singer follows her. Clarabelle sits sidesaddle atop the giant beetle, which chitters happily as it scutters along.
They reach the edge of the Wastes.
Lucy starts taking her clothes off.
The sisters politely look away, as the Music-Hall Singer gets up on the back of the giant beetle to join her sister.
The sisters, at this point, are not particularly surprised.
"Should we get on your back instead of the moon-miser's?" asks the Music-Hall Singer. "So it can fly over the stalagmites."
They clamber up among her vanes and spires.
And she sets off, easily navigating among the razor-sharp stalagmites without letting either of her passengers get so much as a scratch.
An area has been cleared of razor stalagmites, and in this little clearing is a house.
The door opens, and a woman peers out.
"Lucy! You've brought guests?"
The moon-miser buzzes after her and sets down in the clearing. It clicks appreciatively, its various eyes swiveling.
The sisters dismount from their savior's back. "Hello, ma'am," the Music-Hall Singer says with a curtsey.
Clarabelle curtseys as well, but remains silent.
The moon-miser nods.
"This is the Fading Music-Hall Singer and her sister, the Eccentric Opera Singer," Lucy says, lifting each one down in turn, "You guys, this is my mother, the Pale Adventuress. Mum, the moon-miser is probably the father of her child, an occurrence which neither of them consented to. I'm going to get a doctor to help with the, uh, unusual gestation."
"And you figured this was the safest place for them? Fair enough. You two come in, get off your feet. Are you hungry?" she addresses this last to the moon-miser.
It shakes its head and clicks some more.
"I think they fed it through those tubes," Angie hypothesizes.
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