Meanwhile, in another world - 

"Dimensional anchor's cooled off, alternate-physics reach is back online. Targets located and ready to prime. Grab away, Director." 

"On my mark. Three. Two. One. Direct offer!"

Iridescent blue light washes over the control room as the centralized summoning system works its physics. Though the principles involved are only known to a number of very serious people whose time is more important even than the Director's, it's clear that it's doing something.

And Sable Melanie Miller gets a mental offer, wrapped in truth: 

Does she want to be somewhere better than here, that's prepared to receive her and that will help her build a new life? 

A vague impression of the world leaks through: comparatively sexually open, a quarter transgender women, majority plural - 

It feels a little bit familiar, almost. Like it could have belonged to someone she knew. 

Bwuh?

This is a little more intense than the usual daydream about this kind of thing... But. Something feels more believable about it.

Woolgathering later girls. Hailey grabs front, quickly closes the laptop, throws it in a nearby backpack with the charger, and pokes the offer. Yes, yes they want out.

A shimmer of cyan energy washes over them, and concentrates to a glowing dot on the back of their wrist. 

Tap dot when ready for transfer. 

She stares at the dot.

That's new. This really might be real. Okay. Fuck.

Okay, they have any time. Few changes of clothes, solar/crank charger/radio thing, already have the phone, pocketknife just in case, and they can figure everything else out when they're there. She scribbles a quick note on a sheet of paper and leaves it behind on the desk.

Got isekaied.

Earth sucks.

Bye <3

And then she shoves Sable back into front and taps the dot as she skips out.

Huh? Oh.

And then—

There's a wrenching sensation, the feeling of space turning inside-out in a burst of nausea, and then she's suddenly flat on her back on a large couch-bed object draped in deep blue sheets. Her pack is sitting next to her on the bed; she doesn't remember taking it off, but there's a slight feeling of missing time in her head, like she was asleep for a little while. 

"Hey." A red-haired head swims into view, crowned with a braid of laurels. The face below is soft and feminine, with blush-pink lips; looking down at her summoner's body, they're wearing a long pink dress that blurs the boundary between a nightgown and a sundress, with lace along the bottom and a floral pattern. There's some kind of hard bracelet on both her wrists, but it's hard to get a look at from this angle. 

"Feeling okay? The transfer can be a little rough." 

"Bwuh?"

She's maybe not entirely recombobulated from the trip yet. That was wild.

Her rescuer smiles. "It's alright, take your time." She sits down on the side of the bed-couch next to Sable and clips her right hand's bracelet to the side of it by a convenient carabiner on the armrest. 

Closer up, it's apparent that she's wearing pink armwarmers, and striped pink and white stockings with no shoes. The bracelets seem to be made of steel with a plastic backing and many holes through them, and gleam with internal LEDs, currently purple.

Okay. She twists a bit, then stretches, then tries to sit up—

Nope. suddenly dizzy. Pause where she is, let it pass, breathe slowly, then get the rest of the way up slower.

She looks around. "So... this is a new world?"

She's in a circular, metal-walled room with a high skylight and one door out, currently closed. There's a side table by the bed-couch with a set of barf bags on it, along with a small first aid kit. It's lit partially by the skylight and partially by a set of inset fairy-lights that seem to be warm-tone LEDs along the perimeter of the room. From the clouds drifting by overhead and the light coming in, it's sometime in the afternoon maybe?

"Yep. An alternate version of your planet. We don't know what the most common name for it is but here we call it 'Heart.' You're in the republic of Asteron on the west coast of the continent, and we are Star-Bright Songbird, or simply Star to our friends."

...Wait.

"Plural?" She starts to grin a bit.

"Yes, though here it's simply how people are. We call it faceting." 

Star-Bright Songbird reaches into the drawer of the side table and pulls out a pair of bracelets in Sable's size, one hard plastic with a cinch and the other steel with an adjustable locking clasp and several holes through it. 

"Here, take a fracture bracelet. Steel or plastic, your choice, the steel one is made to function as a freecuff as well. Press the button at the left end of the light array to cycle colors. Purple, pink, red and cyan have specific meanings, but any other color can be assigned to a personal shard. These come with a dozen colors, and charge from motion and from sunlight." 

"Freecuff?" She examines the steel one, turning it over in her hands. "And what are the defined meanings?"

"Many people in this world find it comforting to be physically attached to an object or piece of furniture while resting, so many objects come with carabiners to clip them to a freecuff." She pulls up her right hand and demonstrates how it's stuck to the couch-bed now. "It's easy enough to release yourself, but people find it soothing to have a limited range of motion. And of course there are uses in bed." 

She shrugs and smiles.

"As for the codified meanings — purple is your most worn shard, your host. Pink is your most emotionally central shard, your heart. Red is for shards that stem from a fantasy or sexual desire — sparks — while cyan is reserved for shards that handle negative emotions or situations — shields. Any other color is up to the individual."

She hums. "Interestingly complicated for us. We already have our own theme colors, and they collide with most of these. I'm the host and I'm purple, that's fine. Hailey'd be cyan in your system, and her theme's a vivid green, that's fine too. Ruby's theme is red, though, and she's the shyest of us, sexually. Neo's theme is pink and white and brown, but she's a free-spirited prankster, not our heart. That'd be a mix of me and Hailey. Arguably all of us have some sexual fantasy that's deeply held for us, though, so red could apply to all of us in a way."

She shrugs and shakes her head, setting the steel bracelet down and putting on the plastic one. "We're weird. I'm Sable, and we're the Pirates, or Inkstained Pirates to be more formal."

Star nods and smiles. "Welcome to Asteron, Pirates. The signal system doesn't fit everyone, of course. Still, I hope it works out alright for you. Feeling up to standing yet?" 

She tries scooting to the edge of the bed-thing. How's that dizziness? Better? Okay, great. Onto her feet she goes, a little wobbly but mostly fine. She stretches a bit. "Seems so."

"Alright then." Star unclips herself from the couch and stands, and goes over to the door out and opens it. "Follow me, it's alright if you want to take it slow. Some background while we walk... We're going to get you photographed for your state ID. You're expected to register your system name and your host identity in the system, and may optionally choose to name additional shards — if you do then you may be able to claim bereavement benefits if one goes dormant or incommunicative in the long term, particularly if they take important skills with them, but it's not required if you have privacy reasons to not share. Some of the other boxes on the form may be unfamiliar to you, particularly the optional pleat entry, but I can walk you through them."

She nods. "It's quite the trip to be in a plurality-centric world for once. That's... I never thought we'd get to see it. I am a little less than thrilled about being photographed as I am, but that's the price I pay for not having started hormones by the time y'all grabbed me, I guess."