"I thought we had established that you were from far enough away that basic cultural assumptions wouldn't be shared."

"Basic cultural assumptions are one thing, but basic magic... what else is different here? Do things still fall if you drop them? Do people still eat and breathe and dream?"

"They do these things, yes."

"And there are still planets. Well, that's better than nothing."

"Is this Door person the only known magic where you're from?"

"No."

"So it sounds to me as though that were a unique, innate ability, rather than a particular talent at translocation magic?"

"Yes."

"Innate abilities are far from unheard of, here, although unique ones are significantly rarer."

"Well, everyone has a selfspace - at least on my planet - and some people, the magically talented, can do magic with theirs. Conjurors bring things from their selfspace into the real world; shapers change things in the real world the way you can change things in your selfspace; shifters change themselves in the real world the way you can change things in your selfspace. If you can make or change things in the real world so they're magical themselves, like the Door could, then you're a Legendary Talent. There's only one of those every fifty or a hundred years."

"I have never heard of selfspace or any of the associated terms."

"I was afraid of that," she sighs. "...How do you dream, with no selfspace?"

"You hallucinate poorly-conceived and frequently disjointed scenarios that can frequently be traced back to things that happened in waking life."

"...But then where do they go?"

"They vanish when you awaken. Sometimes you can't even remember them."

"That's unsettling."

"We don't particularly have an alternative to hold against it and find it lacking."

"I wouldn't have any idea how to even begin explaining what a selfspace is like. And I can't show you; I have no idea what happens if I try to make a sharespace with someone who has no selfspace of their own..."

"Practical aspects of it can presumably be explained as they become relevant. For the moment, 'like dreams, but persistent' seems a sufficient representation."

"I'm not sure what to do now," she admits. "The Door I used only goes one way. I have no idea how to get home."

"That would appear to be a problem. Fortunately for you, you've landed in the home of the most skilled magic practitioner in the world."

"Oh." She smiles tentatively.

"Unfortunately, I don't currently have any spells that can breach dimensions, but I have several centuries of research and development experience. Can you move away from where the door was? I'd like to cast an analysis, in case there's any lingering trace, and a person within the boundary could confound the results."

She moves away from where the door was, glancing back doubtfully at the lack of any visible trace whatsoever.

He gets up and circles the spot where the door was, circumscribing the area more precisely with his hands and murmuring under his breath. When the circle is completed, he pulls out a quartz crystal, tilts his head, and runs a finger around one end. "There's something there," he reports. "It's hard to interpret, but that's not an unsurmountable obstacle."