Lev is sitting very patiently in the middle of Milliways, reading a history book from another world and waiting for someone to show up with magic powers that can turn him into a girl.
There are things Jing Yi expects when he flies through the window to his rooms.
Like his rooms. Like the floor being where he expects. Like all the furniture being out of the way of anyone flying through a window.
He finds none of those things.
There may or may not be a crashing noise. Or a very undignified yelp.
There's a moment of brief confusion about living on a planet, you know, those bright points in the sky that move through out the year. Those things. Very liveable, in his experience.
But there are probably better things to be confused about, like the person sitting in front of him, dressed like... that. "Like a foreigner" doesn't quite cut it, because he is aware of the fashions of nations around Great Tang and This Is Not One Of Them. And he's better with people than astrology, anyway.
(And he's better at people than existential questions like "How did I get here? This isn't where I meant to be?")
He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "No, it's just a bad habit." He waves vaguely in the direction of the window he just fell out of. "More fun than going through doors though."
"Welcome to Milliways. It's an interdimensional bar which connects people from a variety of different alternate universes. If 'alternate universe' is not a concept which exists in your homeworld I've been working on an explanation for that. First drink is free. I recommend trying something not from your homeworld but specifying that it should taste good to you and shouldn't have any unexpected effects on your body chemistry, one of the guys I talked to tried a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and that did not end well."
Jing Yi picks himself up from the floor.
He knows what a bar is! He knows... basically none of the other adjectives or nouns there, but he can work with 'bar'. 'Deeply, deeply weird bar' is a starting point and he will take it.
He will also take 'pumping the first friendly face for information.' Always a good strategy, that one, and the person in front of him does seem reasonably well-meaning, if not easy to understand.. "Do you have any recommendations? Other than 'not the pan galactic gargle blaster.'" (What a delightful string of utter nonsense to say.)
"Napkin" is not something he's used to being a verb, but. When magic doors are involved, weird verbs are the least of one's worries.(Thing to worry about later: working out whether this is an incredibly over-elaborate con, or if somehow magic is real. Neither option is great! Neither option is his main worry right now.)
He heads in the direction of what he's pretty sure is the bar? and, us asks it? (This is probably a prank played on newcomers. But playing along will let the other's guard down, and that's worth a little egg on one's face. Especially seeing as he already has egg on his face on account of the crashing.) "Do you have any recommendations? Uh, 'that will taste good ti me and won't have any unexpected effects on my body chemistry'?"
Oh god is that sweet. And rich. It's not the sweetest or richest thing he's ever eaten, but it's probably the richest thing he has ever drunk? It's A Lot. He nearly chokes on the Chewy Sweet Balls of Mystery because he didn't entirely expect them to be so solid.
It's good but--
--okay, he is never going to be able to explain it as 'I was given a drink so sweet that it convinced me magic was real,' not and sound sane, but. There is a rapidly shrinking number of explanations were nothing supernatural is going on at all.
"So, this exists," he says, gesturing at the cup, and it's not the most appropriate or coherent way to continue the conversation. But in his defense, the bits of his brain that aren't rattling around in confusion are preoccupied going sweeeeeeeeet~~
"Okay, so, you can imagine universes that are different than yours-- uh, this would be easier if I knew what traits your universe has, but maybe a different person rules your country or a war went differently or some great scientific discovery was made at a different time?"
"A different person could rule my country, that is something that is imaginable." Should be be saying something close to treason to this man? It'd probably be fine; it's not like he knows who the Emperor is. (He is enough of a Chang'an native and a member of the nobility to find the idea of someone not knowing who the Emperor is weird, like someone not knowing what a mountain was, but he's not so self absorbed as to not be able to imagine it.)
"Right, so, it turns out those universes actually exist and Milliways lets you meet people from them. Except sometimes they're different in ways like 'magic exists'-- or 'magic doesn't exist' if you're from a world with magic-- or 'cats are people' or 'everyone breaks into songs about their feelings constantly' or 'instead of humans everyone is octopuses.'"
(There are brief mental images of some of the ways the world and his life could have been different, which get very quickly stuffed back in their box for being Irrelevant.)
(There is also the brief mental image of Xiao Jinyu in one of those worlds where everyone bursts into song all the time, which is is allowed to stay because it is hilarious. ("♫ I care about Justice so much~♫"))
"You sure know a lot about this stuff." (Yes yes its very tacky to get someone talking about themselves to get information, but tacky works.)
"I've been working on a form to simplify the meeting-people process!"
He presents an odd glowing rectangle with words on it. The words say:
I am from:
-An Earth
-An Arda
-A Valdemar
-An Amenta
-A non-repeating world[These are illustrated with pictures of the geography of each.]
Lev is from an Earth.
My world's tech level is:
-Stone Age (counting, oral tradition)
-Bronze Age (arithmetic, writing)
-Iron Age (geometry, scrolls)
-Medieval (algebra, books)
-Age of Sail (calculus, movable type)
-Industrial Revolution (mechanical calculators, telegraph)
-Mechanized Age (electrical calculators, telephone and radio)
-Nuclear Age (mainframe computers, television)
-Digital Age (personal computers, Internet)
-Microtech Age (artificial intelligence, real-time virtuality)
-Robotic Age (nanotech, brain transplants)
-Exotic Matter (cellular regeneration, portable fusion)
-Extreme High Tech (full regeneration, black-hole bombs)
-Magitech (faster-than-light travel, zero-point energy)
Lev's society's tech level is Digital Age.
My world's magic level is:
-No Magic
-Very Low Magic (almost no one can do magic; magic is very powerless e.g. predicting the next card in a deck)
-Low Magic (a few people can do magic; magic is relatively powerless e.g. lifting a small object)
-Normal Magic (magic is limited to a small percentage of the population; magic is powerful e.g. healing)
-High Magic (many people can do magic; magic is relatively powerful e.g. resurrection)
-Very High Magic (everyone can do magic; magic is a routine part of every part of life)
Lev's society's magic level is No Magic. (He thinks.)
Ah, a glowing rectangle. Truly a thing he knows exactly how to interact with.
It takes a bit of squinting at the maps, but he can recognise the coastline and some of the mountain ranges on Earth. (And he is not going to question the large extra land masses to the south and east, not right now.)
Also the technology section is jarring. Just lists of things he does not recognise and that sinking feeling of failing a test you didn't know existed. (Except it's not you that's failing, it's somehow your nation, and the test is "do you know what television and black hole bombs are?")
"Earth, Medieval, and no magic unless it is very sneaky."
Bounce bounce.
"Oh, man, you gotta see this--" He puts his fingers on the tablet and then presents it to Jing Yi with a flourish.
On the glowing rectangle, a man is dancing around. Strange music plays, and someone sings: We're no strangers to love, you know the rules and so do I.
Jing Yi traces the borders on the map with his finger. (The smartphone scrolls wildly, until his works out to hover his fingers over to do the tracing.)
"Do 'Emperor Xuanzong' or 'Duke Chang' ring any bells?" (He means zero disrespect, but if anything was going to change in an alternate history, it'd be around that whole situation.)
(Also he's talking to someone who could, hypothetically, know his life as 'history' which is... a potential existential crisis he is going to ignore.)
"My parents moved from here"-- he points to Russia-- "to here"-- he points to New York City on the North America map-- "for... various complicated reasons... but mostly that if you try to get all the peasants to own everything communally instead of individuals having property rights it doesn't work very well and makes your country very poor. So, uh, write that down somewhere I guess. Communal ownership of the means of production is a bad idea."
"Noted, communal production ownership is bad."
Look. Look. Sometimes to find out things you have to ask the really dumb questions. Even if you cringe as it comes out of your own mouth. He points in the general direction of the Americas. "Is making land masses a digital age thing, or has that-- always been there."
It turns out that when Lev is excited he bounces up and down in his chair.
"Actually we can make land masses! Uh, let me zoom in"-- he expands the map so it's only showing the place where he grew up-- "from there to there wasn't there originally, they just dumped a bunch of garbage and soil there and then it became new land. But that's not very cost-effective most places, they only did it in New York City because an acre of land in New York City costs-- uh, let me think-- about as much as ten thousand laborers make in a year? But of course we're much richer than you. Oh! Sorry. I got distracted. Yes, the Americas were there all along, at least in our timeline."
Okay, that is highly adorable. 10 out 10 enthusiasm for explaining things. Even if he did explain in the opposite order of usefulness.
And if he can prove to himself and other people that this isn't some failing-at-entering-a-window head trauma induced dream, this is going to be so useful. Cartography! Extra secret landmasses. An inconvenient distance away, the logistics would be hell, but extra landmasses. "This place is excellent. Best window I've fallen through."
Black holes: not 'practical', apparently.
"That's the 'much richer than you' thing? I wouldn't worry about that." Does he have access to arbitrary amounts of money? No. (Especially when Xiao Jinyu is not giving him his salary, the jerk.) Does he have access to relatively arbitrary amounts of money in the name of the family business? If he can convince his father this is real, yes.
"Right. In my culture a book costs-- about a half hour's wages for an ordinary laborer? And I think in a medieval society books cost. More. Than that. So I don't know if Bar is going to benchmark our books as costing a half hour's wages or as costing the same amount as a book does in your society."
The digital age has weirdly cheap books and land reclamation and smart phones, but weirdly cheap books at least makes some sort of sense. Woodblock printing is cheaper than writing everything by hand, ???? is cheaper than woodblocks.
"That's still affordable, considering how useful it could be. Though I wouldn't say no to being steered in the right direction." (Yes, person who has been here for subjective(?) weeks, tell me your secrets)
"Um. I think variolation was invented in China pretty early so I'm sorry if you already know this, but if you scratch someone's skin and put in a bit of powdered smallpox scab they'll get a milder form of smallpox and be less likely to die of it. That's very important. Our society has eradicated smallpox. --Also, check whether milkmaids don't get smallpox, if they don't then they have cowpox and you can do the same thing with cowpox and then no one will die."
"You don't have smallpox?" What is up with the digital age?
He can probably convince Leng Yue to try that. Or maybe Jinyu; he's more in favour of experiments but less medically inclined. It won't be easy, but he could. He'd just have to work out a saner explanation than 'a foreigner from the future who I found in my window told me to try it'
"We don't have smallpox! In my country we don't have malaria or hookworm or rubella. We used to not have measles but then people stopped getting vaccines for measles because they were worried it caused-- uh, 'autism' probably doesn't translate-- intellectual disability?"
Picturing a world where you don't have to worry about smallpox and malaria, where you don't have a plan to leave the city if there's an epidemic, where you don't have a plan to avoid going to the southwest at all costs, is strange. "Wow. Good thing I came here when there was someone looking to be helpful."
"A formal message to the Emperor." It feels odd being so blunt, but this man definitely does not have the context, so blunt it is! "His majesty knows everything he needs to know, so you can't tell him. But he does on occasion need reminding."
It takes a second for the number to hit. "How many?" He's dealt with numbers that big before, but not of people. He tries to picture it in units of Chang'ans and that does not help that much.
Bounce bounce. "It's actually really neat! The thing is that-- at least with post-Industrial-Age technology-- there's no reason to have a famine? We have enough food for everyone. If there's a famine, it's because for some reason the food isn't getting to the place where people need it. And people don't like famines so if there's a famine on your watch they'll vote you out. And the president knows this so they make sure that, if a famine is about to happen, they send in food relief right away."
"Ah, so maybe not so applicable to us." (Which... Isn't great, but has its advantages. He likes working for this Emperor. He likes things not being in utter chaos. And he especially likes his head being attached to his shoulders, which trying to change political systems might give him difficulties with )
"Well, Haber-Bosch process, no famines. --I think ideally if you want to move more towards democracy you'd want an elected body that advises the Emperor and, mm, reminds him of facts he is of course very aware of. Like that he will be very unpopular if he doesn't deliver food aid."
"Ah, I'd love to help but unfortunately--" there's a vague gesture in the direction of the smart phone, and the concomitant 'Earth, no magic, etc'
(Jing Yi intends to sound very sympathetic, but while he is very good at giving the impression he wants, he's not perfect, and it maybe comes out more empathetic.)
"Yeah, well, apparently there's no shortage of people with magic gender transformation powers so if I wait around long enough..."
Lev is very bad at giving the impression he wants, and so the impression he's giving is that he's massively uncomfortable with this entire line of questioning.
"But if you close the door-- or, um, the window-- then Milliways will go away until the next time it feels like opening the door for you, which could be next week or could be never. --I loaded a bunch of stuff on my smartphone by opening the door and propping it open."
Maybe bed sharing is a cultural thing it would be strange to draw attention to? He can pretend that's how it goes where he comes from, if he has to.
Ooh, look, pretty painting he can stare at instead of the bed. (The painting is impressively bland by 2010s standards. By 8th century standards it's impressively alien.)
"If you'd prefer that? Though I'm not sure sleeping in shifts would be efficient. I'm happy to sleep on the floor, seeing as I'm your guest." (Ingratiating himself to this altruistic stranger is worth a sore back and interrupted sleep. And he is happy to play the guest even if he is literally paying for this.)
Oh no he's cute.
He turns on the TV and silently prays that the channel isn't set to pornography.
Technically it is not. Instead it appears to be set to some sort of... naked shampoo commercial? Except the person's hair is carefully braided?
He quickly flips the channel to something else. This seems to be some sort of... alternate dimension news show? It is very interested in the latest fashion decisions of some person named Princess Mal.
Princess Mal is attending a charity ball! Princess Mal is opening a school! Princess Mal is visiting China!
The depicted Chinese outfits look to Jing Yi rather like it would look to a British person from the twelfth century if someone were simultaneously wearing a toga, a codpiece, 18th century slippers, and a WWII helmet.
"Mostly I like sparkly."
Under the sparkly is a stack of books with titles like Thinking Fast and Slow, Introduction to Behavioral Research Methods, A Brief History of Psychology, and Stahl’s Essential Psychopharmacology: Neuroscientific Basis and Practical Application.
Jing Yi's general conversational strategy is 'wildly 'yes-and' until you achieve your goals or something else happens' and he certainly can say at least one of those things is happening. Don't ask which one.
"To-- to show you're available." There is an audible swallow. "We have clothes like that, too."
Jing Yi emerges emerges also wearing makeup and several dangly gold hair pieces. The dress technically covers most of his skin and in theory is layered to make it extra modest, but the fabric is shear enough that it's really pushing that 'technically'. There's a half veil, too, shear enough one can still see his smile but obscuring enough to give it a bit of a mystique.
And he owns this for 100% work related reasons and nothing else.
"Tada!" He does a spin. "It twirls."
Jing Yi is looking at her like he's actually attracted to her which is... weird and not at all what she's used to.
She imagines she's a version of herself from an alternate universe, one where she was born without the horrible thing between her legs. It's a very plausible daydream. In that world maybe she'd come to love this person from the past with a beautiful smile, and they could have something sweet and lovely and not as sordid as this is.
She kisses his shoulder.
This is already very much like a daydream for Jing Yi. Someone who is willing and interested and adorable and also a stranger from somewhere with very different norms. Who sees him dressed like this and calls him beautiful and doesn't question why he owns this.
Shoulder kisses are Very Good. The sound he makes is technically not a whimper, but it's very close.
"They have videos of-- people pretending to put makeup on you-- and if you full-screen it it feels like they actually are-- it helps people go to sleep for some reason? But I. Jerk off watching them. Because I like thinking about people putting makeup on me. Getting to be pretty."
He shouldn't feel safe but he does, it's not like he can tell anyone--
"Everything about being a girl," she says quietly. "Wearing women's clothing. Thinking about having breasts, or a vagina. Getting pregnant. Getting married as a woman, or having a man take me out on a date. Being called a girl's name."
"It's alright."
He is started to feel kind of silly, mostly naked and covered in smeared makeup, especially with Leia-- Lev?-- so much more dressed by comparison, bu he is not leaving them alone in the room right now.
Also sitting several inches away is very valid but also a little sad.
Well this is awkward. He was kind of expecting some sort of reaction? And then he could work out if more touching was welcome, but, uh. No dice.
(There's also the awkwardness of someone teaching you science while they are clothed and you are very naked.)
Slight increase in the leg touch? Is that welcomed?