Elsewhere:

Today has been going.

Which, like, the fact that time has not spontaneously started behaving weird is always a good sign. Small mercies. Villanelle isn't always that lucky.

Her ship's in critical need of repairs, though, or at least time for the spelljammer helm to realign itself so she can limp to a better port. She needs food, too, and water - the automated systems are on the fritz. The locator's still working, so she even knows to curse up a storm when she slides out of the astral sea and into the nearest stable plane, leaking aetherial fluid from far too many valves.

Earth. Fuck. She's not going to find everything she needs here, not even close. And she'll need to keep her head down; supposedly the local head honcho dislikes blatant magic...

She engages the invisibility drive, biting her lip. This is really unideal - she'll have to move fast to get a handful of supplies - but at least sticking the ship in Earth's atmosphere for a bit will allow the air envelope to refresh. And she can stretch her legs.

As far as Ellie's concerned:

A woman with a guitar slung over one shoulder drops down from a faintly shimmering rope in midair - invisible until she's close to the ground. The rope vanishes when she lets go of it, and she doesn't seem to have spotted Ellie.

This startles her. A sudden spark jumps out to zap the woman, prompting Ellie to curse.

She whirls. She doesn't seem injured, at least.

"Ah - didn't see you there." She rubs the back of her head, sheepish. "Sorry."

"I feel like that should be my line."

Hmmmm. On the one hand, magic is taboo here. On the other hand, something very minorly shocked her. Villanelle hums a bar and focuses on the girl. It'll take a bit for her detection spell to calibrate itself, unfortunately. Too long to just pause and stare.

Still - "Haven't gotten to seeing invisible things yet?" she teases.

"Apparently not," she says, gesturing vaguely above the other woman at- whatever she climbed down from. "Who are you?"

"Name's Villanelle." She bows with a flourish (still concentrating on her spell). "Third circle bard, mostly from Aitania but inclined to wander. At your service."

Man is she going to have to move her ship. That'd be obnoxious.

"I have never heard of Aitania. Or a third circle bard."

"Bard's a type of magic user. Circles are a shorthand for spell power; 'third circle bard' means I can use zeroth through third spells. Aitania is an empire." Grin. "One a bit farther out than you're probably used to, though."

"I'd say that's likely."

"You know, this world's supposed to ban magic... But you don't seem too surprised."

"I found out a little bit ago." She points at a rock on the ground and levitates it. "Kind of."

She claps. "Mage Hand! That's a zeroth, though one that's a bit tricky at times. You figured it out on your own?"

She shrugs.

"Things started happening around me. I figured out I could control them. At least sometimes."

"Huh. Sounds like you're one of the sorts of magic users who only need training to master magic, not to get it in the first place."

"Is that... common?"

She hums. "The majority of magic users overall don't have innate magic, I think, though there's some places and species where that's different. It's easier to scale wizard schools than sorcerer bloodlines..."

"There are schools?"

"Yeah. Some're a bit hard to get into, though." Grin. "Depends on how smart you are."

She hums, thinking.

"You," she says slowly. "Have a ship. Or something. Some way to move around."

"Yup! A nice one too, if I do say so myself."

"Take me with you."

"Far be it from me to not rescue a fair maiden from this backwater rock," she says, teasingly. "Though if you've got any local money, I'm gonna have to charge you for passage."

"What if I don't have enough?"

"I'll bring you with me either way, but we might be here a bit longer while I figure out how to get supplies - I'm on this backwater because my ship's a bit busted, and I don't have enough air, food, or water to make it to the next port reliably. Air'll refresh itself, but I'd want to buy or steal food and maybe water - water purification system's on the fritz, but I can probably get pure enough water if I hop over to a glacier. Also could use some miscellaneous materials to try and repair the worst systems myself, give us a bit more range, but that's less needed."

"I could technically also skip out on the food, but I'd rather not, being hungry's unpleasant."