Her roommate, a pretty young woman in a white dress with long trailing sleeves, smiles graciously right back.

"Good evening. I am Jacinthe Desrosiers. Who might you be?"

"My name is Ilsa. It's a pleasure to meet you. I hope you won't insist that we stand on ceremony; I was looking forward to a more relaxed atmosphere away from home."

"Oh, I apologize if my speech patterns are unduly formal. I don't mean to construe it as an obligation on your part."

"Think nothing of it." She looks around the room. "I see the accomodations are as lovely as advertised."

"I suspect that producing such accommodations is trivial, given their resources."

"Yes, I imagine so."

She gravitates to the side of the room with less ornate furnishings, gazes thoughtfully at the desk, pulls out the comfortably upholstered wooden chair, and sits.

"It's nice to be somewhere that isn't at war. Less... urgent. What's your world like?"

"Dreadfully dull, I'm afraid. I'm the crown princess, but I've little to do until my father dies but listen to my tutors and attend to petty court intrigues." 

"Oh, I see. I'm sorry to hear that. Hopefully you will find this place to be an improvement on that front. A happy medium between too interesting and not interesting enough."

"One merely hopes it does not manage to be simultaneously too interesting and not interesting enough."

She laughs softly. "Yes, I get quite enough of that at home."

"Don't we all."

"It's part of what I came here for—hoping I would find a solution to the problems I'm facing in my own world. If I'm lucky, maybe it'll even work."

"I wish you luck in resolving your war. Those are always a nasty business."

"Yes, very much so," she agrees. "Thank you."

"If you don't mind my asking, what is the war about?"

"The short answer? Expansionist neighbours. The long answer will require some history, but I don't mind explaining, if you have the time to listen."

"I'm all ears."

"Since time immemorial, the continent has been divided into three regions: D'Hara in the east, the Wilds in the west, and the Midlands between. The Midlands are a place of many countries and many peoples. D'Hara is a single unified empire, and always eager to expand its borders. So they'd scuffle with us and take some of our territory and we'd push them back and so it would go, on and on for centuries. And then, not too long before I was born, the most brilliant wizard in history decided he'd had enough of that. He created an impassable magical barrier separating the Midlands from D'Hara." She pauses briefly. "Last year, it came down, and they were immediately at it again."

"That sounds like a problem much more difficult to solve without mind control."

"Very much so! And the current ruler of D'Hara has a grudge against the brilliant wizard for killing his father, but for unrelated reasons the brilliant wizard vanished while the boundary was still up, so I suspect that in the absence of the man he's actually mad at he is taking it out on the Midlands as a whole."

"Oh, undirected flailing, that's ever so productive."

"Darken Rahl is many things, but emotionally mature is not one of them. Unfortunately for the Midlands, he is both magically and militarily powerful."

"Well. I'm sure you'll be able to take away his toys before very long."

"That is indeed the hope."

"I will be greatly disappointed in this place if it fails to deliver."

"Mmhmmm. And how about you, whose toys are you aiming to take away?"

"I don't so much have a specific person who can't be trusted with their toys and more a court that could stand to operate more efficiently and with less infighting. My half-sister, I suppose; she wasn't going to succeed in usurping my position regardless, but," shrug. 

"A tense family relationship? My sympathies. And best of luck smoothing out your court. Infighting can be such a tragedy."

"I'm a princess. Warm family feelings are for commoners. And thank you."

"I'm a Confessor. My sisters are my best and closest allies. No feelings required."

She stands. "It's been lovely meeting you. I look forward to spending the year here with you." With an outstretched hand, "Do they do handshakes in your world?"

"They certainly do!"

She reaches out and clasps the other woman's hand. 

There is a rush of air, a minor shockwave that stirs Ilsa's skirts, that would lift the dust from the floor if there was any.

And all of a sudden, the world is a very different place.

She flinches, first, from the pain, and then is absolutely terrified that flinching was the wrong thing to do. 

She opens her eyes and focuses all of her observational power on the woman in front of her, terrified to miss a clue as to what she wants. 

The woman in front of her is smiling gently. "It's all right," she says, giving a slight comforting squeeze to Jacinthe's hand. "First, I would like your honest answer to this question: do you have any contingency measures that are likely to inconvenience me in this situation?"

"No. The only relevant thing I already knew before coming here was chemicals, and I don't know how to set up anything that complicated yet. I have allies in my world of origin who will get tetchy if they find out, but they can't reach you here and they can be kept from finding out."

She nods understandingly. Her demeanour is still gentle and caring, focused on Jacinthe. "Thank you. My next question is: how are you feeling?"

"Afraid. Uncertain. Relieved. Elated. I do not yet know you and so I cannot anticipate what you'll want and that distresses me."

"We have time to get to know each other," she promises. "I understand that it can be overwhelming at first. Please ask clarifying questions if you're confused about what I want or what I mean by something, and communicate honestly with me, and in time we'll understand each other much better. I intend to take good care of you; I want to understand you so I can understand how best to do that."

"What do you want me to call you? Do you want to know more things about my world? Do you want me to know more things about your world, so that I can help you deal with your war?"

She smiles warmly. "Thank you, you're doing well so far and I appreciate it. I would like you to call me by my name, and I would like to hear about your world and what you have been doing there."

She nods. 

"My father is the King. My mother the Queen died last year, at which point he brought in my half-sister, a bastard from a tryst with a commoner, to threaten my position in order to gain leverage over me. She doesn't know anything about courtly intrigue, so she isn't that much of a threat on her own, but my fiance, a prince from our closest neighbor and ally, is more interested in her than me, so between my father and my fiance I have a lot of damage control to do. My staunchest ally is Lord Vivian Thorne, son of Duke Thorne, the most powerful nobleman in the kingdom after my father. He's in love with me, but he respects my priorities in maintaining my political engagement to Prince William. Vivian is himself engaged to Amalia Muet, a merchant heiress with relatively few connections at court but a very healthy array of capital. Vivian's younger sister is engaged to Lord Hadrian Verbena, with the understanding that his barony will be promoted to a countship when they marry; Lord Verbena has been incredibly valuable to the kingdom and is likely to get less useful fast without appropriate acknowledgement. Duke Thorne's main political opposition is a coalition headed by Count Ramo and Viscount Tige. My father is more strongly aligned with Duke Thorne overall but sometimes favors the coalition to keep him from getting above himself. Count Ramo and Viscount Tige will almost always cooperate against Duke Thorne, but each is also the head of their own faction within the coalition..." 

She goes on to explain the rest of the complicated interpersonal web that is her court. Noteworthy information includes:

-She has a habit of bribing servants to gain blackmail material over other nobles. 

-Despite the fact that public affirmations of virginity are socially critical, she regularly sleeps with Vivian Thorne and has manipulated several other nobles through the use of sex. 

-She has on multiple occasions arranged for marriages to violently collapse to keep political inconveniences occupied at critical moments. 

-Her machinations against her half-sister included arranging for Vivian Thorne and a handful of his friends to gang-rape her. 

-Before Ilsa took her, her highest priority was her own power, and her second-highest priority was the efficient and healthy running of her kingdom. 

Ilsa listens to all this with great attention, interrupting only once, to pause for a moment so she can bring her chair across the room and sit close to Jacinthe to listen. She keeps that same gentle smile, and small nonverbal signals of interest and approval, throughout.

"Is there magic in your world?" she asks eventually, once the summary of court politics has concluded.

"Yes. It's fairly rare in humans and I don't have any. There are magical species, like dragons and fairies and unicorns, and magical places, like the Moonlit Springs or the Cave of the Lost, and sometimes humans with a little nonhuman blood have magic."

"There are many magical species in my world, and additionally some humans are born with the gift of magic. I haven't ever heard that they might have nonhuman blood; that seems like a difference between our worlds. What form does the magic of humans with nonhuman blood usually take?"

"It depends on what kind of non-human blood they have. My half-sister has a little bit of unicorn on her mother's side, and she's supernaturally graceful and can purify food and water. Count Ramo can do some small fire magic; he says he has a dragon ancestor, but it might be any number of less glamorous things. Lord Verbena has the ability to energize and support men under his command; there isn't any known species that can do that, so he must have throwback genes from multiple species."

"Interesting!" she says, with a slightly surprised smile. "The implications of that being possible... very interesting indeed. I believe I will set a long-term goal of visiting your world and studying how its magic works, for after I have accomplished my more important projects."

She settles back slightly in her chair.

"Which brings me to the question of what my goals are. I imagine you want to understand them; I also want that. Let's see if we can make it happen. First, of course, I want to free the Midlands from the D'Haran invasion and reestablish our independency. But the reason I want that ties into one of my larger goals: when I am part of a system, I want that system to function efficiently. When I am part of a system made of people, such as a country or something like the Midlands that is larger than any individual country, I want, as much as possible, for each of those people to be occupied in a role that suits them, doing work they find fulfilling, improving things both for others and for themselves. I want to minimize waste, especially of people, either in the sense of wasting their lives or of wasting their potential to flourish. When I have power over someone I want to use that power in ways that benefit that person as well as myself." She pauses briefly to let that sink in. "Do you have any questions about any of that?"

"What kind of system do you imagine the Midlands operating under, afterwards?"

"It might be necessary to change some things, but for the most part I hope to keep the current system of a coalition of independent countries with very little in the way of central authority."

"What do you intend to do with D'Har?"

"I'm considering many possibilities but one of the likeliest is that I will conquer it personally and then join it to the Midlands as a member nation. If possible I'd prefer to have it ruled by someone I trust rather than take it myself, but I'm not sure yet whether that will turn out to be practical."

"Do you have anyone you trust yet?"

"I have you, but it's likely that the best place for you will be at home in your own world."

"Why would you trust me?"

"I trust you because I took you with my power, so I know that you are devoted to me, and although I don't know you very well yet I do judge you to be competent."

"Oh. Okay. No more questions for now."

Smile. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling very good, Ilsa." 

"Are you hungry? Do you have any other needs or desires at the moment?"

She hesitates. 

"I'm not hungry yet, Ilsa. I..." she falters, heat rising in her cheeks. 

Gentle smile. "It's all right. What is it?"

She hesitates another moment, then kneels at Ilsa's feet, resting her head on Ilsa's knee. 

...Ilsa smiles, and rests her hand on Jacinthe's head. "Thank you," she murmurs. "I appreciate it when my people express their preferences to me."

She melts, all the tension draining out of her. 

"Thank you," she whispers. "I was afraid you wouldn't like it." 

"I understand," she says. "I'm glad you were able to overcome that fear. Even if you ask me for something I don't want to give you, I will still be glad to know what you wanted." And she gently pets Jacinthe's hair.