It's sand as far as the eye can see, but they can't see very far: they're in some sort of natural depression, perhaps a dry lakebed; there's a spot over thataway where the sand has piled up to make a tempting-looking ramp out rather than the much steeper climb up the ridge that otherwise surrounds them. That said, it certainly does feel like they're in a desert; it's hot and very dry, with no sign of clouds and only a few scrubby plants visible at the top of the ridge.

The sun might be a bit off, too, or maybe it's just the clearness and brightness of the sky making it seem unfamiliar.

Val squints up at the sun for a moment before deciding that investigating it's slight weirdness is not worth giving themself eye damage, and also probably shouldn't be their first priority right now. They stand up and dust themself off, and then take a running start and launch themself into the sky. After a few hard flaps they're airborne, and they start circling higher to get a better look at wherever the hell they've ended up.

The terrain is somewhere between desert and badlands, leaning to desert; the ground is covered with sand and loose rocks ranging from gravel all the way up to large boulder size, plus occasional scraggly brush and even the rare twisted tree, where it's not instead taken up by pillars of banded, wind-scored stone. If they fly high enough, they'll be able to spot a smudge on the horizon that might be a town; nearer by, in another direction, there's a small cluster of buildings made of white adobe - it's too far to make out details, but there's movement near them, perhaps a person walking around.

Val is not generally inclined to gravitate towards people, but they are generally inclined to not die of sunstroke, so they go invisible and angle themself towards the white adobe buildings. They figure they can sneak inside, cool down and find something to drink, and figure out where the hell they are. It's far from the first time they've been portal'ed- their sister plays with them constantly, Val steps trough portals several times a week- but this is the farthest they've ever gone, and the first time they've done so involuntarily. 

They make it closer to the buildings, then stop and hover in midair when they catch sight of someone

There's three buildings in the cluster, with a garden laid out between two of them and a tall thin sculpture of twisting metal in what appears to be the front yard; all three buildings are flat-roofed one-story things, and one of them has a sun-bleached wooden platform on top, with a tall long-haired figure in loose black clothes (black? in this heat? they must be nuts) standing on it, scanning the sky in Val's direction.

A moment or two after they switch to hovering, the person suddenly looks right at them, and a sword's length of coherent red light extends from their hand, pointed relatively unthreateningly at the ground for the moment.

Val balks and immediately tries to go invisible, before realizing they already are. That's impossible. No one can see them when they're invisible, not even other superheroes. No one ever has before. Panic rises in them and they almost turn around and fly in the other direction, but they think of the vast expanse of desert and the oppressive heat of the sun and think better of it. They draw closer, hands raised in a I won't hurt you please don't hurt me gesture, and study the figure on the roof for a reaction.

The figure resolves to a woman in her mid thirties, lean and muscled and glaring but not quite tensed for a fight, yet. Her clothes are practical, comfortable pants and a light shirt, with a splatter of embroidery on the shoulders and cuffs and a holster on a belt across her hips. Her hands are oil-stained, but her long hair flows freely behind her.

Her glare sharpens as they approach, but she doesn't otherwise move, even to track them with her eyes.

The fact that the woman on the roof doesn't track Val with her eyes gives them a bit of relief. At the very least, it doesn't seem like she can physically see them, so their cloaking powers must still be working somewhat.

For a moment Val and the woman on the roof just stare at each other as Val decides what to do. Their original plan of "waltz in undetected and steal some water" has been foiled by this stranger's unnerving ability to sense them through their cloaking. As much as they hate talking to people, especially strangers, it seems unwise to continue approaching cloaked. They may not be very socially aware, but they know enough to figure that that would probably be perceived as threatening. And this woman's preternatural ability to sense them through their invisibility means they must have superpowers too, which makes Val much more inclined to trust them.

Taking a deep breath, still hovering in the air about fifteen feet away, Val uncloaks. They hook their thumbs around the straps of their backpack, just for something to do with their hands, and say "Uh........... Hi."

"Kam - kam khutrai kash anas," she wonders, and then declares "-niekada dvasi. Galia ant."

She brings the glowing sword up into a guard position, keeping it close to her body so as not to suggest a threat as it moves, and closes her eyes.

She's not a ghost, she's definitely right there in the flesh, but Val can hear her the same way they can hear them. "What the fuck."

Val relaxes a little bit; ghosts are comfortable. Ghosts are familiar. This is clearly not a ghost, but hearing her talk like one is reassuring the same way it might be reassuring to hear your mother tongue in a foreign country. They know the rules for interacting with ghosts much better than they know the rules for interacting with living humans.

"Hi," They say again, this time in ghost-speak. "Um, it's really hot and I'm kind of lost. Do you have any water?" They fidget with their fingernails as they speak, not making eye contact.

"Yeah, go land in the yard and I'll bring you some." She gestures toward the side of the building away from the garden, where the sculpture is.

Val nods and flaps over to the yard, then touches down gently. Usually they're a little clumsy with their landings-- often they drop down too hard and their knees buckle and they land on their ass in the dirt. This time, though, they look like they actually know what they're doing, and not like they taught themselves to fly by jumping off small ledges and crashing to the ground over and over. Which is exactly what they did.

While they're waiting, they take out their phone. No signal. They weren't really expecting to be able to text, there's no cell towers in sight, but it would have been nice if they could.

The metal statue is too latticelike to offer much shade, but there's a tree by the door of the house that casts a more useable patch. The yard between the house and the third building - a garage or storage shed, from the large doors - is mostly flat hard-packed dirt, but there's an empty campfire circle off to one side half-ringed by three seat-sized stones.

The woman jumps down from the roof, landing with an easily audible thump, and comes around the side of the house to let herself in; she's put the blade of light away for now. She's back again after a minute with a glass pitcher of water with a few handfuls of berries floating in it, and a glass of the same; she doesn't approach Val closely enough to hand them the glass, but pauses a few feet away and floats the glass over with telekinesis.

Val takes the glass out of the air and drinks gratefully, folding their wings in now that they're standing in the shade of the tree. They're sweating in their black t-shirt and black jeans. They wonder briefly about the woman's all-black attire; at least they have the excuse of having been in Michigan minutes ago. Maybe she's just really committed to the aesthetic. Val can respect that.

"So, uh," Val says, still in ghost-speak, "Where exactly are we? Arizona? New Mexico? I've never been west of Illinois. God, it's going to take me so long to fly back. Do you know anyone with portal powers?"

"Wrong planet and no," she sends back. "You won't have heard of this one. Empire, though, not rim, I'm guessing you're from the rim."

"The rim of what?" Val blinks, rocking back on their heels.

"The galaxy. But if your planet's uncontacted it's going to be much harder to get you home no matter where you're from." She sighs, "come in," and turns to open the door. "Don't touch the machinery, and be polite to my droid."

On the other side of the door is a workroom, with the bulk of the space taken up by a heavy wooden table cluttered with tools and machine parts and flanked on all four sides by benches. Bins with more parts line the wall to the right, while two machines of unclear purpose and a closed wooden cabinet sit against the back wall and a small kitchen workstation is set into the left, easily accessible from the door. The room takes up easily a third of the house's footprint, with a door along the back wall leading to the rest of the space.

"I'm Lord Sunset, by the way," she sends, pausing to set the pitcher down on the table. "That's -" "Ari Pradnakt" "-to speak it. The droid is Daisy."

"Wait, planet?" Val trails after Lord Sunset. "Like, space travel? Oh God, Shannon is going to be pissed. Have you seen a giant snake around?"

"No, and that means there isn't one - I'm a sensory specialist, I'd know." She opens the door into the rest of the house a crack and whistles a few notes into the room beyond. "Were you expecting one?"

"Uh, maybe." Val stands anxiously by the door, wanting to be able to make a quick exit. They don't like not being able to spread their wings without hitting something. "I guess I'm not flying home by wing. Jesus fucking Christ. Different planet? I don't think even Flare could portal me home from a different planet." They start to tremble a little bit. Without really thinking, they go invisible, as they always do when they're particularly anxious.

Pradnakt tenses, and Val is hit by a wave of calm and the clarity that comes with it. After a moment it recedes a bit, letting a shade of their anxiety return, and there's a sense of how they could mentally step away from the effect if they wanted to. "Keep it together, we'll figure something out."

Val wavers, caught between the desire to keep strangers out of their head and the desire to not have a total freakout in front of this woman. In the end they pick the middle ground, not totally leaning in to the external calm being offered to them but not totally rejecting it either. They try to take deeps breaths like Shannon, their team leader from back home, had taught them.

"I've never been this far from my twin before. I mean, obviously, I've never been on a different planet, but I've literally never been more than like five miles away from her."

"Oh, that'll make it easy, I can follow a twinbond halfway across the galaxy even on someone Forceblind. Here, sit, I'll see what we're looking at for distance between you." She leans against the cabinet, still blocking the doorway with her body, and closes her eyes again.

They pad over to the wooden benches and sit gingerly, still ready to run if need be but hopeful now that they'll be able to get home. At least they'll have a better idea of where they are now.

Pradnakt stays there, unmoving; after a few seconds the door opens behind her and Val can see a silver figure decorated with bright colors behind her until her hand twitches and the door shuts again.

Eventually, backed by a resurgence of the calming effect: "I'm not getting anything at all. They aren't in this universe."