—there is a girl discussing animatedly with four guys—a set of triplets and a very, very tall dude—about the pros and cons of just revealing the existence of other universes to various governments while the five of them are snuggling.

He lets the door close behind himself.

"We might need a chart to organize all possibilities: disclose that Elsewhere and its publicly known worlds exist; disclose that there are secret other worlds attached to Elsewhere; disclose that Milliways exists..."

"We also have factor to whom we are telling what. That second Earth would handle 'there is another type of magic' better than ours, I am certain. The news wouldn't be as shocking."

"And each world we discovered is a branch of its own. There is telling Earth one about Earth two, or the reverse, or telling them about the ocean world and so on."

"I am going to get something to write this up," says the super tall dude, getting up and noticing the new arrival. "Oh, hi? New to Milliways?"

The new arrival's mouth opens and closes a few times, like a fish out of water.

"...you alright?"

"Uh... Do you need to sit down? Milliways is safe."

"Yeah, it's just your average multidimensional hub."

"I—I—I—"

"Let's... get him some water, shall we?"

Felix does that, moving at a speed that no human should be capable of.

"Here," he says smiling, offering the glass to Sadde.

He looks down at the glass. Then at Felix. "No, thank you. I need to tell the five of you something and it is quite overwhelming and surprising."

"—well that isn't ominous or anything."

"Oh? Okay, do you mind sitting with us then?"

"—sure." He zips to the couch and sits, way faster than Felix did.

"Oh, sweet, magical powers! So, what is the overwhelming surprise you wanted to tell us?" Thomas says snuggling up with the also returning Katur.

"I'm not human, I'm a vampire, and when a vampire finds someone they would be mutually romantically compatible with, they fall in eternal unbreakable monogamous magic love with them. It becomes symmetrical when slash if the subject is turned into a vampire. The effect is usually subtle enough that the vampire in question does not notice it. I noticed it, because it happened with all five of you."

"...there seems to be a problem with the 'monogamous' part of that description."

"Yes and my brain is telling me I should have a lot of sex with the five of you right about now."

"That last part hardly sounds unusual."

"More importantly, vampire?"

"And how's that 'mutually' part work, exactly?"

"Used to be human, got turned, now am a ridiculously overengineered species with perfect recall, incredible senses, speed, and strength, don't need to sleep, got prettier, smarter, much more durable, unaging, it is impossible to kill me without tearing me to pieces and setting them all on fire, and if it weren't for my personal witchcraft I would sparkle in sunlight. Disadvantages include the magical soulmate thing, and ridiculous craving for human blood. I use my personal witchcraft to turn off smells most of the time so they won't bother me. The 'mutually' part is just that, if I lay eyes on someone who would definitely work out, romantically, with me, then I am in eternal love with them, and no one else—except, apparently, if there are multiple people for whom this is true and I see them at literally the same time it happens with all of them."

"—wow."

"That is... a very remarkable set of traits."

"Okay, Fernando, let's focus on the love thing because it might be psychologically important. Is it psychologically important?" Felix asks Sadde.

"It is very psychologically important," he says vehemently.

"Oh... do you need a hug?"

"I don't need a hug, but I very, very much want one. What are you all called? I'm Sadde."

"Kaede. Why do I feel you're playing that down?"

"Because I am."

"Felix Vaesteri," a round of introductions happens, "and I won't mind giving you a hug," and he does that.

Hug hug hug so much hug this isn't just a hug this is the hug of someone who is in complete love with the person they are hugging.

"Wow okay yeah I get you. He looks like you do when you look at the triplets," she says, directing that last part to Katur.

"Wait I look like that? I didn't know it was that obvious... could you explain the love thing further?"

He does not let go of the hug, but he does look like he'd rather everyone else there was also hugging him.

"It's—remember that part where I said my brain is upgraded? Everything is upgraded, every emotion, every thought, everything. If a human felt like this they would literally die of an oxytocin overdose. And then there's the magic part, where it's completely instantaneous and impossible to break—no magic can undo it, even magic that can destroy every other emotion or relationship. And it is really symmetrical. Like, if we spend long enough together, it will become very, very obvious that we would all get along like a house on fire. Or—I would get along with each of you like a house on fire, but as far as I know mating on more than one person is literally unprecedented."

Well, if Sadde is going to look at them like that, then Katur will just have to go over there and hug him too.

"Kaede, do you think this is the sort of thing your magic can figure out? Weird mating interactions, that is."

She blinks. "Probably, yeah—" Squint. Blink blink. "Wow. Okay this is—wow. I could not budge this thing if I wanted to." She reaches for the air between them. "There's... it's coming from him, and it's connecting him to each of us, yeah, and it's—wow." She starts moving her fingers unconsciously.

Eeeeee more hugs!

"What is up with your fingers?"

"Do you think you would be able to tell us how it reacts to five mates? Also, Sadde, it might be relevant that the five us are dating?"

"I figured something like that was the case, with you all snuggling like that," he says. "Oh, vampires don't have to breathe either, so when I sigh contentedly it's purely for effect." And he sighs contentedly.

She lowers her fingers. "Just fidgeting around the magic. And, er, if I could compare it to someone with a single mate bond I'd be able to figure it out, but as far as I can tell the five are... independent. They seem to just be five copies of the same, extremely durable thing." And she decides she wants to join in on the hug.

He purrs. It's a sound a human would be completely unable to make.

"Aaaw, we are being left out of the hug, Fernando. There is no way we can fit in there now."

"We should focus on figuring this out... For all we know it might be a weird reaction to Milliways, but I admit that doesn't sound likely," he looks at the conglomeration of hugged people, "Sadde... could you describe yourself?"

"Hmm? Like, what, ten adjectives?" he asks, grinning. "Curious, ambitious, extremely extroverted and sociable and generally good at people, very intelligent even for vampire standards, kinky, impatient, resourceful and good at planning, that could probably count as ten. There's also the basic census information, like very bisexual and very genderfluid."

"—I am starting to see why your magic thinks we'd be romantically compatible. And, apparently, very similar."

"Yes, this is a high concentration of bisexuals. And... assuming this bar was empty when you got in and that you knew you could get any published work or non-dangerous non-living non-magical object from Bar. What would you do with this resource?"

"Get synthetic blood and reverse-engineer it," he answers immediately. "—let me give you some context. Vampires can survive on either an animal diet or a human diet. Humans taste—and smell—good enough that it tends to overwhelm all other senses and thoughts, to the point where otherwise normal people would routinely murder humans and the vast majority of vampires cannot be exposed to blood without going into an uncontrollable frenzy and killing everyone in sight. Animal blood, on the other hand, tastes about as rancid as spoilt eggs. The previous shadow government used to have only one law, which was 'do not expose vampires,' while the current one has some more sensible laws like 'do not murder people' and 'do not forcibly turn other people, no, not even your mate.'"

"Oh, that is definitely an improvement. Also, yeah, you're sounding like someone... compatible."

"And we are not overwhelming?"

"Vampires eventually—usually takes around a year—learn to control themselves. That plus I have personal magic—biokinesis—and I deactivated my sense of smell." Snuggle snuggle. "When I turned—that was... a couple of years ago, I actually lost track of time—I was planning on overthrowing the evil shadow government myself, but that ended up happening anyway while I was distracted."

"Distracted by what?"

"...my mum died. Because. There was a car crash and I tried to turn her and I—"

"Oh no." She hugs him tighter.

Well, they all can hug him tighter.

Yeah, Thomas and Fernando can join the hug now.

He is not going to complain about this.

"It's—alright, it's been a while, I can mostly not think about it anymore. And, erm, apparently the mate magic is... helping with that. A little. Displace the thoughts."

"Well, the multiverse is a very big place. We just have to find a way to bring her back."

"—yeah you said that. Multiverse. What... exactly did you mean?"

Milliways: is explained.

Sorcery: is explained.

Eslewhere: is explained.

Elan: is explained.

Galatea: is explained.

"...and we figured out just recently that there's a second Earth attached to Elsewhere with idiosyncratic magic that some people get during total lunar eclipses."

Sadde listens to all of that in fascination, and then says, "Might be a good time to mention my world is also an Earth."

"Uh, given your name and how different your vampires are from mythos I was assuming that the word 'vampire' was a translation convention by Milliways."

"Wow, Bar did tell us that Earth was pretty common, but still, a third one? You guys are everywhere."

"Yeah, and that is why I was voting for that for the name of our Earth."

"Yeah. Masquerade, although the Empress Regnant is planning to slowly peel it off and has a pretty competent staff in charge of everything. And in addition to vampires we also have a form of shapeshifters that aren't quite werewolves, and some people have personal magic like my biokinesis or the Emperor's telepathy or the Empress's mental shield. There's even a precog."

"What were you voting for?"

"Names to distinguish Earths from each other."

"Ooh, do I get to pick the name of mine? I bet the Empire will be thrilled to find interdimensional visitors—does your magic dovetail? Is it transferable?"

She squints for a second and—" There, I've made you a sorcerer and wow I think we just found an infinite lifeforce hack in him he is really really immortal."

"This is the best bar ever. We should check if human youth and vampire youth are compatible. What would you name your world then?"

"Something about the Golden Empire... or about diamonds, we sparkle very prettily in the sun."

"I think the youths are compatible, yeah... He doesn't have literally infinite youth and health but I think that's just a technicality with how much he's generating... But breath, stamina, and wakefulness don't seem to be there. Probably because of the whole thing where his kind of vampire doesn't need to breathe or sleep or... stop? Do you need to stop?"

"I never get tired, I could stand still like a statue for a thousand years, I could run at my top speed for a thousand years, 'stamina' is I guess a nonsensical concept for me," he agrees.

"Your kind of vampire is kind of unusual," Fernando remarks. "Would you be able to not drink blood for a thousand years? And maybe your world could be called Golden Empire."

"Well, no, if there's anything other than fire that could kill me I suppose not drinking blood that long would be it, but in my particular case I can generate new blood directly into my throat."

"—endlessly? Just—generate matter?"

"Yes!"

"...so about having a lot of sex with the five of us..."

"Was that a change of subject or are mouthfuls of blood a turn on?"

"Not mouthfuls of blood in particular, but the ability to generate endless matter. Also he's awfully cute, did you notice?"

"Well, I must say that I was wondering how much of that was natural and how much was from biokinesis."

"I've had the biokinesis since always; if that question ever had a clear answer it's been gone for years now."

"I must say that you have good taste. But I feel there might be relevant information before we can act on your cuteness?"

"I cannot overstate how much I will enjoy giving you whatever you want."

"Well, do you think you have more relevant information to share?"

"Yeah. So, let's see, vampires, I've mostly described. There used to be an evil shadow government until a couple of years ago, their only laws involved avoiding exposing us to humans—no turning immortal children, no newborn armies, no feeding out in the open, no walking out in the sun. And then they were overthrown by now-Empress Regnant Isabella Swan, who has added sensible laws like no murder and no forcible turning. She's also planning to slowly peel the masquerade, revealing the existence of vampires—and vampire-human hybrids—to the population at large one individual at a time. People are allowed to tell their friends and family but not go to the media or make a ruckus. And also, yeah, hybrids are a thing, male vampires can make female humans pregnant and the offspring will be a half-vampire hybrid, who would normally kill the mother but nowadays they're just turned.

"And by the way, when someone's turned they spend three days in terrible incapacitating agony, enough to make many people actually beg for death, and while vampires are unanimous about it being worth it it really really does not feel like it is. To turn someone, you inject venom into their bloodstream—venom is produced in our mouths and possibly other body parts. Nowadays the Golden Empire turns people under the supervision of a witch called Alec who can make even turning vampires completely insensate and that's a marked improvement.

"For the first year or so, vampires are extremely strong and have a harder time controlling their impulses, and their eyes are red. The eyes of vampires who eat humans are red when they've just fed and fade slowly to black as they get hungrier, and the eyes of vampires who eat animals are golden, like mine. Most vampires are not as—soft as I am, their skin and muscles are hard like stone.

"Aaaaand that's probably about it for vampires and the shadow government, less some details about incentives and law enforcement."

"I am guessing female vampires can't get pregnant? How about hybrids? Are they fertile? How do witches work? In our worlds it's an old term for sorcerers that drain lifeforce from others. Oh, do you guys have other species?"

"Sorcery rituals should be able to do things for the pain and likely for the hunger and self-control too."

"Female vampires can't get pregnant but hybrids of either sex are fertile as far as we can tell. Unlike vampires hybrids have to sleep, and can survive on actual food as well as blood. They have a heartbeat and age faster than humans do until they look about twenty-five and then stop aging. Their physical and mental characteristics vary depending on what fraction vampire they are, at least according to a sample of like a dozen or so.

"As for witches, that's the name we give people who are born with personal magic. I have my biokinesis, the Empire has the Empress as a psychic shield, the Emperor as a telepath, they have a precog and an empath and a teleporter and a power copier and the analgesic witch—Alec, I mentioned him—the old ruler could download a copy of your brain with a touch, et cetera. My pet theory is that the other types of sapients came from witches.

"And other than vampires and humans and hybrids there are wolves. That's genetic, they're regular humans until they go near a vampire after puberty and then they gain the ability to turn into very big wolves who can communicate with each other telepathically while phased. After they first phase they age much faster and then stop when they look about twenty-five, too, and are immortal for as long they continue phasing somewhat frequently. In human form they run hotter and don't get sick and are tougher and stronger, in wolf form they can rival vampires. Also when a male wolf sees a female person with whom they'd be able to have wolf puppies they fall in eternal magical devotional asymmetrical love.

"I would be very surprised and very pleased if your rituals could get rid of the turning pain, especially if it scales well, that could be the single highest-leverage thing we could do for my world right now."

"But even if you know that witches created vampires and wolves, then you have to ask where witches come from. And the turning anesthesia should be scalable, or at least more scalable than the current situation - it is hard not to do better than a single person having the necessary skill."

"Well I'm taking witches for granted, here, actually, since it seems anyone no matter what species can be one, so it seems more—basic? fundamental?—and I like to think the world is reducible to basic common pieces."

"...so was there anything else you needed to tell us?"

"Vampires, hybrids, Golden Empire, wolves, witches... I'm pretty sure that's the extent to which my Earth differs from the other two."

"And did you have any more questions?" she asks the others.

Thomas covers Fernando's mouth. "We are good for now. Since time is stopped and everything."

Sadde squirms a bit (while being snuggled by the five best people in all universes, objectively speaking). "I'm curious about what he was going to ask, even if time is stopped it's nice knowing about these resources and I bet he'll be happier that way."

Fernando glares at Thomas. "I was going to ask more about the interactions between lifeforce and vampires and possibly lifeforce and witches, hybrids, werewolves, etc. But none of those questions are actually easy to answer and some of those actually involve unpausing time."

"And I'm not sure how to answer these questions any better than Kaede did, anyway, she's the one that's good about figuring magic interactions out."

"And I'll need to squint at him a little bit more to be sure but having become a sorceress myself does give me a lot more intuition to go on. Far as I can tell, regenerating youth and health, nada of the rest."

"I wonder how turning interacts with existing sorcery gifts then, if they stay put then maybe the vampire can covert health into the other lifeforce aspects? They might not."

"Well I can convert the lifeforce aspects into one another, I'm pretty sure, so Sadde plus me is a two-step infinite lifeforce hack. But that's a good question, about existing sorcery gifts. I'd... probably need to stare at a gift for a much longer time to figure this out."

"Regular sorcerers can convert between aspects too, even between species, but it causes loss of total lifeforce. Which incidentally is why we can't sacrifice trees to make people immortal. But vampires are unprecedented."

"Yeah, I can usually do the conversion lossily between my world's types of mana, but in this case I think I might be able to do it without losing anything, or losing very little. But, er, he," she boops Sadde on the forehead, "seems to have more youth and health than the five of us together, several hundred times."

He beams.

So does Fernando.

"Well... I am pretty sure those are all the questions that we could answer right now, so..."

"So...?"

"So I think I want to kiss you."

"Far be it from me to deny you that," he says, and turns around enough to do that.

"Hey, do you have enough of that to share?"

He pulls away and grins. "I most certainly do!" And now Thomas is being kissed.

"Should we perhaps vacate the main bar area?"

"Lest we scandalize the next person that walks through the door."

"Also the bar has decency rules, I think."

"Let's try not to break any of its rules, then, I quite like this bar."

"Well, Kaede did get us a nice room with a large bed. I'm certain it can fit six people."

Kaede deserves another kiss for that.

Eeeeee!

"I'm thoughtful like that."

Since she is so thoughtful she can get a kiss.

"We should be moving upstairs then."

"Which does involve us stopping snuggling."

"I could carry each of you upstairs."

"Okay, that sounds like a logistical challenge, maybe we could pair up? Oooh, each triplet, grab a non-triplet."

"I can take a second for each of you, vampires are really strong and fast."

"Alright, take us with your powerful sparkly muscles."

He grins and—

"Okay where exactly is our room?"

She gives him the room number—

(Click here to skip the explicit content.)

Zip! Zip zip zip zip! They are all in the room.

Oh, look, Felix is ""suddenly"" naked, gosh how did that happen?

"Well aren't we fast," Sadde says, smirking, and oh look he's naked too.

Blessed be biokinesis.

Very blessed. So blessed that Felix is feeling like kissing Sadde all over.

Sadde is perfectly content to be kissed all over by one of the five hottest people in all universes.

And Kaede, who also borrowed superspeed, has decided clothes are no longer necessary either.

Well, maybe they could help the nonspeedster members of this group strip?

Well now Sadde is torn because there is a Felix kissing him but—!

Kaede has no such constraints and can give Thomas a hand. Or two.

Oh, in this case Thomas will reciprocate with a hand or two as well.

But what about poor Fernando and Katur?

They're removing each other's clothes while kissing, but they wouldn't mind taking a turn kissing Sadde.

In fact, they insist!

So he will find out more about kissing technique variation that's not strictly genetic, won't he? Plus there's Katur, who's a gorgeous bonus.

Well, if he really wants to find about kissing techniques he is going to need a large sample size.

Yes he is!

Well she kinda wants to kiss Fernando, then.

Well, look, Fernando is here! Ready to be kissed!

Eeee!

Are there any more clothes he needs to get rid of in this room?

Nope. Good riddance, clothes.

Good! So he thinks he will explore some more skin with his lips because just "face" is no longer cutting it. He's having to expend some effort here not to get stuck in analysis paralysis over the five gorgeous people around him, reasoning that it's better to be doing stuff to at least one of them even if it's mostly at random than not doing anything.

His efforts are appreciated and possibly reciprocated.

Oooh reciprocation!

...so he has more than just one side, right, she can also start kissing his skin.

Yes, yes she can.

It is such a lovely skin and they're doing such a amazing teamwork.

Mmhm! And her kisses trail down his back and... she has an idea.

Also a tongue. She has one of those.

"Oh fuck—"

"Language!"

Sure, who needs a language, he'll just... enjoy the feeling.

She's very glad to be able to provoke this kind of feeling in him!

And Fernando is happy to provide feelings on the other side.

It is so good vampires don't have refractory periods because otherwise he would be trying much harder to contain himself, here.

Being a vampire just keeps getting better and better!

It does, doesn't it? They continue on this vein for a while, but eventually even vampires have to rest.

(That is a lie. He could spend days doing this. But cuddling his mates works just as well.)

And he has a large amount of mate to cuddle.

Yes he does! It is great and amazing and beautiful and time is stopped he doesn't even have a tiny shred of guilt for spending this long with them.

"I love you," he sighs, in general, to everyone.

"I can't say I reciprocate, yet," she muses, pausing her nibbling of the back of Thomas' neck, "but if your magic's any good we probably all eventually will."

"How shallow of you," Thomas teases, "you have to love someone for their personality, not for the size of the things their have to offer."

"Ow, don't squeeze that hard, Thomas."

"I was talking about the mate magic," she says, rolling her eyes then grinning.

"I guess it does streamline the process, but I could see it happening the natural way too."

"That's pretty much the point, if it wouldn't happen the natural way then I wouldn't have mated on you at all."

"I meant it could happen fast the natural way too. Not a lot of people with multiverse spanning prosocial ambitions around."

She props her head up on her elbow and looks around at the bed. "There's at least six of them, it appears."

"Yes, but divided between three to four planets, that averages to less than two per planet."

"For what it's worth I'm sure the Empress Regnant would be interested."

"Fine, seven people out of three-to-four planets." Kiss?

Giggle kiss.

"I love you."

"I will be able to reciprocate that soon."

They snuggle and kiss and make the most out of the fact that time's stopped in their home universes but, being who they are, eventually do get itchy to start working on their large-scale prosocial projects.

"...so I guess the inevitable conclusion is that one of the four of you should hold the door while Sadde and I serve as foci for portals in Elsewhere to our home worlds, yeah? Then we don't need to rely on Milliways."

"I can do that."

"It might be worth it to have two people on this side of Milliways just in case, likely me as the second since I am on super-fast book-translation duty."

"Sadde, mind loaning us a bit of youth for spell-casting purposes?"

"Why, since you ask so politely—" he figures out how to do it and "—here you go, a duckton of youth." He proceeds to dump a fuckton of youth on every one of them.

"Wow, an entire fuckton of youth! Just for me? Gosh, thanks. That is so swell."

Kaede's frowning, though. "What did you say just now?" she asks Sadde.

"Hm? 'Here you go, a duckton of youth'? Did that not translate? It means—"

"'Fuckton,' yes, which includes a swearword which you did not say and instead replaced with a similar word in your language."

"—right, yeah, I don't really swear. My mum used to tell me not to, when I was little, she used to say that you should only swear when you really mean it, but I'm pretty sure that—"

"—she only said that so you wouldn't fall in the habit."

"Er, yeah, that, exactly. And nowadays I still refrain from swearing as, I dunno, a form of—"

"—remembrance," she says at the same time he does.

Felix looks between Kaede and Sadde. He squints. Then he goes to Bar, asks a question and returns with a napkin.

"Okay, this is weird," Felix says offering the napkin to Sadde.

He glances at the napkin (which is of course enough for him to read it and memorise it) then blinks and looks up at Kaede, offering her it.

"Er."

She takes it. She blinks at it, then looks up at Sadde, and the movement is... eerily similar, now that they're all paying attention to it.

"Er," she agrees, and that's also eerily similar. "Did you say you were genderfluid?"

"Yes. Did you say you were genderfluid?"

"Yes."

Thomas make a dramatic show of hugging Katur. "Don't worry Katur, I know that you're the only one here without a double of some sort but I still love you."

"...okay this is weird. Am I really narcissistic enough to actually fall in magical love with myself?"

"You know the answer to that question."

"Yes but still."

"Does mean you and the four of them are also probably meant to be, though."

"That is... reassuring? Weird, but reassuring."

"I'm still—this is weird, what does it even mean to say he's me? What else do we have in common? I kinda wanna narrate my life story in minute detail here..."

He gives her a look.

"...oh, that's what it means, I guess."

"Does that mean something that we should know or is that an alt secret?"

"No, I just—knew exactly what he was thinking—and it was 'yes you can narrate me your life story but later, now we both want to go open some portals and fix some problems' and he is absolutely right."

He beams.

"Oh shut up."

"Okay, so it's my time to shine as a doorstop?"

Kaede and—

—Sadde look at each other—

—and decide they should kiss Katur.

Katur is very happy with this development!

So are they!

"I could get used to this."

"Come on, Mr. Doorstop, let's go," she says, after planting another kiss on his cheek.

Mr. Doorstop holds the door.

Sadde might notice immediately that the stars in the sky aren't real, but crystals floating high above. The sky color is a bit off to his vampire eyes too. Otherwise, Elsewhere looks like a regular world at first glance.

They climb (or fly) out the window and go to one of the warehouse spaces and set up the portal-making ritual there. The portals are cast and reach random locations on Galatea and Sadde's Earth. After spending some time using their excessive amount of available lifeforce to do some scrying they end up with convenient locations on both worlds.

Well, not that convenient. The portal to Sadde's Earth (he is not content with 'Golden Empire' as a name but hasn't thought of a better one) seems to have landed on a desert and that... really doesn't narrow it down much.

"I think I should go through to explore and come back once I've figured out where this portal is?"

"We are pretty sure it's in the Northern hemisphere, but yes. Do you want a lift up so you can see a better distance?"

"Can your magic do invisibility?"

"Mine can," says Kaede, sending them the meaning of the words telepathically at the same time.

Having Sadde as a source of infinite mana is truly great.

Magic hacks are pretty awesome! Fernando holds Sadde up to take flight and then turn invisible.

Kaede casts the spell—its incantation nowhere near as long as the ones she usually uses, she has limitless mana now—which describes how Sadde will be invisible to everyone and everything except for the triplets, Katur, and herself.

"You know, it occurs to me that, while invisible, I could get wings and actually fly all the way there."

"And this was motivated not at all by a desire to appear shirtless to us."

"I am honestly offended by the suggestion."

"And I am offended that you limited yourself to shirtless when you are invisible."

"That," he says, "is a terribly good point."

And oh look he is naked now.

"Careful. My magic system can't conjure new clothes, and if this spell runs out before you get dressed again..."

"How long will it last?"

"Like twelve hours."

"Then I do believe I'm cool."

"You two are perfect," Fernando kisses them both.

His nudity might reveal a rather... well, predictable reaction to the kiss.

"Down, boy, you're supposed to find out where we opened this portal to."

"I have to agree with her, fun time is for later."

"It was entirely involuntary," he defends himself, but closes his eyes and starts producing wings.

And when they're ready, Fernando will help Sadde learn how to fly with them.

Eeeee he's being held by Fernando. Sure, it has a practical purpose, but he is being held by Fernando!!!!!!!

(Yes, he did just spend a few hours snuggled with Fernando and his other mates naked, what's your point?)

Once they're high enough that there are no longer obstacles in the way, he can detect that they are on the Chihuahuan Desert, southern USA. He squirms and kisses Fernando again after informing him of this.

Sadde: too cute for words.

"Good, I guess we are about equidistant to the Florida and Washington capitals right?"

"Yeah but I don't know in which the coven would be, they don't leave all their capitals staffed all the time and since we unpaused time by other means than the Milliways door time might've passed."

"Even if they don't keep staffed they certainly monitor the place, right? At least you can get their attention."

"Yeah. I'm probably not going to try while I'm all naked, though, even if I'm invisible."

"A terrible loss to the world, but worth it for the sake of getting imperial help."

"Hmm, I bet I could figure out where they are without having to actually interact with anyone." He looks down. "And I think I wanna try to use these wings, now."

"How?" He lets go of Sadde.

And he tries flapping his wings and completely fails, dropping like a stone.

Kaede, who was watching, cracks up.

"I would offer tips, but my flight is wingless."

"I'll figure it out," he says, standing up and dusting himself. "Both how to fly and how to find out which capital they're using without interacting with anyone."

He jumps, very high, and tries flapping, and falls again.

"Can you make yourself lighter? Oh, wait, ask Bar if there is a book on flying for shapeshifters?"

"There's no need, the problem here isn't my weight, I have magically strong muscles, the problem is learning how to flap correctly." He tries doing it from a running start—and given his speed, that is quite a start—and manages to glide a bit before crashing.

"The theoretical book would also contain lessons on how to flap correctly."

"I almost did it, I'm getting the hang of it—" He runs and jumps and manages to flap some and get some altitude before crashing again.

"Let him," she advises. "It's a matter of pride now."

Fernando floats down, closer to Kaede so they can watch Sadde's progress.

"Who are we going to contact in your world?"

"I'm not at all sure. A part of me wants to talk to my father out of spite, but overall I think it's better if no one knows I'm involved. I changed my face—I'll pretend to be some elementalist who found this portal or something, and send this up the Explorers' Guild chain of command."

"Good. How long until they offer a reply? Do you need someone to go along with you?"

"Not long, for this, I expect, although we might want some way to control access to the portal—it would be just like Bezanab to send an army through once they heard about it. And, well, I wouldn't exactly complain about having one—or all—of you with me, but it's not necessary if you have things to do."

"Milliways will keep us busy for a while... Maybe you should take Felix, even if he is too much of a pacifist he can take you out of there and his superspeed cheats at ritual casting."

"Well, you can stay busy in Milliways for a long time given that time will be stopped here while you're there."

"It's so bizarrely convenient."

"Very much so, yes."

And Sadde finally manages to stay aloft! He whoops triumphantly.

"I've got to say, Sadde flying naked with angel wings is one of the best sights I've seen."

"You think your alt is hot? How narcissistic of you."

"Yes, we've been over this."

Sadde flies over to them. "I did it! I'm flying!"

"It's great isn't it?" Fernando says flying up to kiss Sadde.

Kiss! "Yes!!!" He wraps his arms around Fernando and spins him around in the air.

Fernando keeps them aloft. While kissing, he might take just a little advantage of the fact that Sadde is naked.

Oh look at all the objections Sadde is not raising.

Fernando does not let himself carried away but he lets the kiss linger for a long while. "You should get in contact with the authorities." He says after catching his breath.

Sadde: does not need to catch his breath. It's great.

"Yes, I do, and joking aside it might be a good idea to actually get dressed."

Just a final peck on the lips. "Good luck with the Empress."

"Thank you. I love you."

He gets dressed at the speed of light, kisses Kaede, then runs back through the portal to kiss Felix, Thomas, and Katur, too.

And Felix buys a few supplies from Bar (Sadde's accumulated them quite some credit by selling ivory), copies some useful rituals to have at hand and then follows Kaede on the expedition to Galatea.

The portal opened at the foot of the mountains, so after verifying they're actually on the continent of Galatea Kaede concludes they must be in Bezanab. She casts a ludicrously expensive remote viewing spell to find the nearest town with an Explorers' Guild chapter (actually quite far, Bezanab does not have a very strong Guild presence), and they set off in that direction.

"This is the best day. That was the best Bar." She looks at Felix. "It's not true yet, but given Sadde's existence it will be: I love you."

Felix picks her up and kisses her. "I love you."

"Eeeeee!" She grins.

Kiss again. "Sadde, too. I should've said before he went to visit the Golden Coven."

"We won't lack for opportunities to tell each other that. This should be a quick trip, anyway. By the way, how do you feel about flying there?"

"Entirely positive!"

She describes how silly gravity is and how it won't affect the gorgeous Felix and then he's flying! She describes no such thing of herself, though, and merely lifts up into the air.

Eeeee flying!

Flying!

The country is gorgeous. From the air they can see the mountains behind, a chain extending as far as the eye can see in three directions. Ahead of them they can see grassland and, in the distance, forests, cut by the occasional river coming down from the north.

Oooh, pretty. Felix notices the geographical features around the portal just in case. But mostly he just enjoys the view until they find civilization.

Well, they'll find "civilisation" a couple of times—small towns and villages here and there, self-contained communities. No Guild chapter there, though. The first town with one is a large-ish city surrounding a medium-sized castle.

How Game of Thrones. Felix is happy that they picked him an outfit to blend in. He pays attention to the large-ish city for anything unusual.

It is just a large-ish city. As they approach, Kaede says, "We should land soon, it's impolite to use magic in public."

"Okay, does this also count for emergencies?"

"You're allowed to be impolite during emergencies," she laughs. "But also, it's impolite because using magic is supposed to be a divine calling, and healing is quite divine."

"I was mostly thinking about my super-speed, but I can do healing. I can do a lot of healing, thanks to Sadde."

"Oh, well, it'll work, too, if your superspeed helps with an emergency. In general if you can make your magic pass for the gods' work you can do it, it's just frivolous uses that are frowned upon."

Nod nod. "We don't really have that problem back home, but wasting your lifeforce is bad for you so people would think you're reckless."

"I'm sure the root of the belief is similar, here, but it's not what people think."

They land, and walk into the city. It is, in fact, quite Game of Thrones-y: people selling wares on the streets, a city guard, children running around, houses, businesses, plazas, temples...

Felix runs at triple speed, which should be enough to react to most things without looking like he is hyperactive. He pays attention to how Kaede reacts to things and mimics when that seems appropriate. This is the fifth or sixth world he has been to, but it's interesting regardless.

Something this world has that perhaps the others don't is artefacts: every now and then they see some obviously magical object, like a floating cart or a bag that's bigger on the inside carrying groceries, or magically illuminated temples. Apparently the "no magic in public" rule doesn't apply to using artefacts.

That is true! Sorcery can make magical artifacts, but they aren't made for that sort of day-to-day use.

The Guild chapter is in a plaza with a pretty magically illuminated fountain, next to a blacksmith. It's a simple square building, four stories tall, and the ground floor seems to be a mixture of a pub and an inn and a store.

How Dungeons and Dragons is the place? Any sign of a mysterious old man offering riddles?

Nope, no mysterious old men. There are some people, chilling, but it's the middle of the day so not many. Kaede walks up to a counter where a pimply young man greets her. She bounces the translation of their conversation:

"Hi! So I have a Class S finding," Kaede says. (It's not actually 'S' since their alphabet is not the same but that's the meaning anyway.)

The boy's eyes widen. "Really? Oh man oh man I never thought—I mean, ah," he clears his throat, "may I see your Token?"

And she reveals a stone disc that glows faintly blue that was tucked inside her shirt, hanging from her neck.

Felix will smile politely and not talk unless adressed.

He raises a small stone box from under his counter and brings it closer to Kaede's token. It does a soft 'ding' sound, and he touches a couple of glowing spots on the artefact. "Alright, do you have coordinates?"

"Not exact, but approximate and I can find the place," Kaede says.

"Cool. Is it a red or..."

"Green-yellow," she replies.

The boy fusses with the artefact a bit more, then nods. "Okay can you type in the approximate coordinates? Will you stay around or should we add a tracker to your Token?"

"Hmm, add a tracker—although it might not find me, hmm..."

"What? Why wouldn't it?"

"Oh, the thing I found was a portal to another world," Kaede says, smirking a bit.

"Whooooa, forreal?" Pause. "You're not pulling my leg, are you?"

"Your leg is completely unpulled," she laughs.

"With people in it?"

"Yep! My," she looks at Felix then at the boy, "boyfriend here is from there."

The boy stares.

Felix chuckles. "Should I do something?"

"What language is that?" the boy asks when Kaede bounces the meaning to his mind.

"Some language from his world—English, I believe it's called," she explains.

"So cool," the boy says, practically bouncing.

"I might leave my Token buried in front of the portal if I go through—"

"Yes, yes! Gimmie it!"

She hands him the Token and he does a thing to it with another artefact then hands it back. "You know how to deactivate it—?"

"Yes, don't worry about that."

"Coool. Okay, so, standard Guild procedure is, ah, please don't be too far away and waste too much time? Green-yellow means it might take a week but a delegation from the Three Kingdoms will show up."

By the way, 'Class S' means something like 'previously unimagined finding of world-changing potential,' almost no findings are that, green means 'not dangerous,' and yellow means 'of political repercussions,' she sends to Felix alone. Best summary of the portal.

That is very organized. What should we do during that week?

The boy starts messing with a couple more artefacts while saying to himself, "Oh man oh man oh mannnn..."

Make out a lot? she suggests.

That sounds like a great idea!

I don't think there's a lot we can do right now, though. I followed proper procedure, so someone should come investigate soon and then it'll be a matter of being a—diplomat? Of sorts. So 'til then, we could go back to the portal and talk scenarios.

Sure thing. I bet Thomas will want to build something around it since it's going to take a week anyway.

Awesome.

She turns to the boy again. "So, we're going off, then, the tracker can ping me, right?"

"Huh?" he says, looking up from whatever he was fiddling with. "Oh! Right. You're—Kaede, yeah? Okay, cool, they'll ping—man I'm so jealous—hey, can I come look—no, the coordinates are too far, I don't get extended holidays like that—I'm Naoh by the way."

"It's nice to meet you, Naoh," she says with a smirk. "You might be able to come with the delegations."

"Oh! Oh yeah that's true! Awesome!"

"Yes," she laughs. "See you later, Naoh."

"Bye, Naoh!" Felix waves.

Out they go and Felix can fly again.

I need to remember to thank Sadde for his immortality. Infinite mana hacks: best thing.

I will thank him and tell that I love him. He will be adorably overwhelmed.

He will, it'll be so cute. I'm a very cute person, aren't I?

You are. He makes an exaggerated pount. I will have to settle for third place then.

You make for a very dashing third place, she says, tackling him mid-air to kiss him.

Ooooh! Flying kisses!

They continue to fly back the way they came, and it starts getting dark. It also becomes clear that there are two moons.

"Your world is so pretty. Is that the total number of moons?"

"Yeah, only the two. I expect the effect on tides is rather interestingly different than your Earth."

"I guess? Naively I would assume our tides would be simpler. I would raise questions about how that affected the evolution of local life, but again we are the same species for all practical purposes."

"There are probably differences, if not at the human level. I'd expect your beaches to be way more permanent? The shoreline changes a lot here. Eclipses are also probably way more common for you guys."

"Really? I would expect the number of moons would increase the number of moon-related events."

"Well, each moon individually gets eclipsed more often I guess, but I mean total eclipses of both moons. It's also rare to have a moonless night."

Nod. "We have a co-apprentice that is never going to believe this until we show him. I kinda want to tell him all about the multiverse and see him deny that it exists."

"I thought you all knew about the multiverse?"

"He knows about our corner of the multiverse and how Elsewhere works. Milliways is rather outside its scope and until now we have been working under the assumption that every world is different, the notion that there are multiple Earths is totally going to confuse him."

"Well, the notion that a multiverse is a thing at all is already plenty bizarre, adding alts—of people and worlds—isn't incredibly surprising relatively speaking."

"Fair enough. But Henry can be quite adorably stubborn about things."

"'Adorably stubborn.' Do I sense history, here?"

"Henry has an anti-magic gift. It made it very hard to show him that sorcery was a thing and he was transported to another dimension. Even when people showed him obviously magical artifacts or Elsewhere's giant fauna. Apparently there was a point where he assumed it was all a fever dream."

"An anti-magic gift. What an appallingly terrible ability."

"Wait, why?"

"Well, I suppose it can come in handy defensively; magic isn't common enough here for that to typically be a problem, most magic is beneficial."

"I wouldn't say that it is more common, but it is more accessible and there is enough conflict that even just apprentices are expected to keep several wards so they can't be made to betray their masters or expose their secrets and the whatever."

"Oh wow. That sounds terrible."

"Mind you, it isn't likely that I would be targeted, but there are more incentives to do so."

"Mmhm."

Huggy, clingy flying?

Clingy flying is absolutely alright! "Are you worried?"

"Maybe."

"Aww, now that we are lifeforce rich we are completely safe from people that prey on apprentices."

"Good." Snuggle.

Snuggles! Flying snuggles!

It gets later and the moons brighter—the night sky is significantly brighter than on Earth—and soon they start approaching the spot where the portal is.

...where the portal should be. It doesn't seem to be visible from that distance.

The portal flickers briefly and several feet away from where it should be. It's gone again after a second.

They are snuggled already, when the portal flickers again Felix flies them as fast as he can.

It goes away faster this time and Felix has enough time to maneuver them away from crash landing on the ground.