Sparkles in Dreamshard
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Sadde is running.

There is no particular reason why she is doing this. She just hasn't really done much of anything properly fun for the past five years, at least for the sake of having fun, so the wind in her hair and the occasional glimmer her skin projects on random surfaces when she's hit by the sun are enough.

Until she finds a key.

She comes to a halt and peers at it. It's on the ground, half-hidden by grass, and there's a tree right over there that would have obscured her view had she been running a foot to the right. But as it is, she found the key. It is a very small key, as if sized for a child to hold, and it has a certain shine to it that's not quite like any other keys she's seen during her vampire life.

She explores a radius of about a mile around the key. There seem to be no houses or cabins or mansions or anything like that where such a key might have come from. She returns to it and peers at it, then shrugs and picks it up.

She doesn't pocket it, though, because the moment she touches the key she's quite certain it's a magical key.

It doesn't actually do anything, it doesn't explode or shoot fireworks or glow, there's no mysterious voice saying that he has found the Artifact of Doom or anything like that. She just—knows.

When she straightens up, she notices how she knows it. There seems to be a certain sense produced by the key, a feeling of sorts, that shifts and moves about as the key is moved through the air. She waves it around a bit, and reaches two conclusions: one, most spots in the air don't feel like anything; two, what a spot in the air feels like depends on the spot itself, and if she waves the key around a given spot multiple times she feels the same thing each time.

O-kay, this sounds fun. Now what does the key actually do?

...well, it's a key, presumably it opens doors. It's a magic key—does it open all doors?

After thirty minutes—during which she runs to the closest town, finds the least observed door, and tries to open it with the key, followed by several further attempts on several different doors—she has determined that the key does not in fact seem to have the property of opening all doors.

She has also determined that locks consistently don't feel like anything to the key. Which seems to suggest that, if she wants to use it, it's not going to be on an actual door. So she decides to try the obvious thing. Except not here, this is not a good place, so she finds an isolated spot in the woods to try the obvious thing.

Upon finding an appropriate isolated spot, she waves the key around until it feels like something, then she pushes it and turns it, as if she were unlocking an actual door.

That one works.

She pulls it, and the door opens before her. And the image on the other side is... quite fantastic. A frozen lake—ocean?—with water everywhere, and a few floating rocks in the distance, with—are those houses?—on them. She removes the key from the door—good, the door still exists—and gingerly steps onto the ice, wondering whether it can hold her weight.

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The ice holds and feels very solid under her feet. The air is oddly still, but doesn't smell any different.

She catches movement from one of the houses, it was only a glimpse but there is definitely a person in there.

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Well, alright. She checks that the door doesn't insta-close once she's on the other side, then—

runs.

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Vampire speed means she gets there in no time. There are about three dozen floating rocks, each the size of a house, a handful of them have cottage-like buildings on top. When the angle is right Sadde can see an angel-like statue on the rocks. The entire thing is connected by bridges made out of rope and chains.

The person was inside the biggested cottage, and there is a chain ladder hanging from that rock, a bit too high for most humans but she can reach effortlessly.

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She shifts into a more human appearance, and jumps, then climbs.

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There are two young men inside the cottage, and here are few things about these young men in order of importance:
1) One is reading a book while drinking tea. The other is listening to music with his eyes closed.
2) The one reading is completely naked, despite the cold winds outside, thank you very much. The other is dressed in an awesome cool red leather jacket with matching red jeans.
3) They both have wings. The one reading is actually floating above the ground without using them. The other's wings are firey red, orange and yellow.

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"Hello."

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The floating one is mildly startled by the "Hello." and very surprised when he looks over and obviously fails to recognize her. Now that she can properly see both their faces they are obviously identical twins. Except for the wings. Maybe Almost-identical twins then?

"There is someone outside." He whispers to the other, then more loudly "Felix! There is someone outside!"

After a pause to look at her, the not-Felix covers himself with the book and floats away from the window.

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The same mildly-startled-then-very-surprised expressions repeat on Felix's face. He gets out of the couch he was reclining on and whispers "Go cover yourself, Fenris. I... will get the door and see how she got here."

Felix takes Fenris' silence as ascent and gets the door.

"Hi..." Felix says and after a moment he rejects using "How can I help you?" and "How the hell did you get here" and instead asks "Are you lost?"

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"You could say that. I used a magic key to open a magic door and found this place and you and your naked twin."

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"Huh," Felix says sounding way more casual than his heartbeat indicates, "Where is this door? We assumed we had mapped them all, unless it is new." Newer than the last time Fenris slept? Unlikely. "Where does it come from?" He adds.

Apparently he is not curious about the terms "magic key" and "magic door". But again, he is a winged twin standing inside a cottage floating above a fast frozen body of water.

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"Somewhere in Scotland. And it is new, given that I used a magic key not five minutes ago to open it."

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"I heard something about Scotland?" Fenris returns, now wearing some loose fitting pants.

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"You didn't have to cover yourself on my account, you know."

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"Thanks!" He says and takes the pants off.

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Felix gives his twin a look that means "wish you didn't do that because we are identical", but Sadde might be forgiven for not knowing that.

"Why would opening it have anything to do with being new? What do you mean with Scotland? We are not even remotely coplanar with Scotland." Felix asks like he is talking to a very confused person.

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"...we appear to be talking past each other."

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"Would you like to come in?" Asks Fenris "Also, where is the door?"

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"I already asked that, but she didn't answer." He gets out of the way so she can get in. "Sorry, completely forgot how cold it is outside."

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"I think you two are comfortable enough with magic that I don't need to pretend I actually mind the cold. And the door is that way," she says, pointing precisely, "in the middle of the frozen whatever." She comes in. "Can I also not pretend I have a human memory? That'd be grand."

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"Okay, so it is going to be an interesting day. I mean we are obviously comfortable with magic, but I bet we are all going to learn something interesting today. Maybe the value of friendship."

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Fenris is momentanly distracted by looking where she pointed, then his minds catches up with the rest of what she said. "What kind of memory do you have that isn't human?"

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"Perfect recall of everything that's happened since I got turned. Into a vampire, that is. That's a thing I am. Don't worry I'm not going to eat you, I have a nifty witch power that means I can generate vegan blood on demand and when I do that I usually turn off my senses of taste and smell."

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Stunned silence... in stereo!

"I don't see how we can learn the value of friendship from that." Felix finally says.

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"Okay. Priority question: Explain what you mean with 'witch power'? Please."

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