"Names're important. People can make their clothes matter too, but names... names connect you to who you were, where you're from, what you've done. Names have roots."

The Winsome Guttersnipe shimmies up a nearby non-fruiting tree and hangs from it by one ankle. "Then again, so do trees, and they hardly matter at all."

"Huh. So where is this place? What plane are we on? Is there a way to get back to where that dragon was without getting ability-drained again?"

"We're in Parabola just at the moment. Close to the Mirrormarches, but still in the Waswood border. And I could put you back with the dragon, but I dunno why you'd want to go. Not your city, is it?"

"In the medium term I want to go home, but a dragon attacking a city is a big enough deal that I want to help. It doesn't matter whether it's my city. It's what Iomedaeans do--find the biggest problem they can solve and solve it."

"S'not the real city, either. ...people aren't dying. They just wake up in a sweat when it burns 'em. Not fun, but not the biggest problem around."

"Oh, excellent! I've seen people wounded in life by things that happened in dreams; if this isn't one then I needn't worry about it. Is there a way to get back to where I was before I started dreaming? The Isle of Kortos on the planet Golarion in the Material."

"...never heard of it. Don't mean there isn't a way, you can get lots of places through Parabola, but I'll have to do some askin' around. Might take a while."

"I'd appreciate it. Are we still in Parabola or is this somewhere else?"

"Still in Parabola," the Guttersnipe says, patting a nearby mirrorframe. "I'll drop you somewhere more hospitable while I work, since you wouldn't know cats from snakes out here. Prolly London, since the tigers don't take to grown-up human visitors."

"Thanks! I can speak with anything that speaks a language but if you put me somewhere with humans I'm less likely to fall afoul of a misunderstanding."

"Misunderstandings with tigers go pretty bad. Oh –"

He fishes a silver ring out of one pocket, set with a tiny mirror. "Wear that? Or keep it close, at least. It'll let me find you when I've found where you're from."

"How does that work? I can't see any magic on it."

"Course it isn't. I just know the mirror, and I know my job."

"Ah, you can find familiar mirrors? Clever. Does it need to be somewhere with light or can I stick it in my bag of holding for safekeeping?"

"Doesn't need to be light. What's a bag of holding?"

"A bag with more insides than outsides! Take a look." She opens her belt pouch wide enough for the Winsome Guttersnipe to stick his head in. It has more insides than outsides and contains a lot of miscellaneous objects.

He takes the opportunity to stick his head inside, obviously. Then he emerges, shaking his head dizzily.

"Something tricky going on there, but I think I can work with it. It does at least follow you 'round, even if it's not the same place."

"If the bag is annoying I can wear it, it's just more likely to get battered that way. Shall we start off for London?"

"Yeah."

He takes her hand, and then walks in some direction which is – not, quite, any of the directions she knows. And pulls her with him.

It feels interestingly different from the Plane Shifts she's used to. Smoother. She walks/allows herself to be pulled thataway.

They step out of a mirror in the master bedroom in an abandoned manor house. It was once sumptuously upholstered; all of that is moth-food now, and the moths spider-food. It's dark outside, but the lights of a gaslit city flicker and flare less than a mile away.

"You can probably tell which way to go," the Guttersnipe says, looking at Samora to the exclusion of anything else in the room. "I'll get in touch once I've found your place, alright?"

"Thank you very much! Don't hesitate to ask me if you need anything healed, fought, or diplomatically negotiated with!"

"I'll keep you in mind."

And he steps back through the mirror, and then out the side of the frame, and he's gone.

Right then, quick sweep of the house for anything interesting and then out into the city!

Of interest in the house: little, apart from a couple of dusty black-and-white pictures of a boy who looks like if the Winsome Guttersnipe, a few years younger, was somehow inveigled into a sailor suit and induced to stand still for a portrait. Also, an infestation of saucer-sized spiders.

The city, once she reaches it, is strongly reminiscent of the burning city she dreamed of. Identical, really, bar all the burning and destruction, and the dreamlike stretchiness of the architecture. It's still rather sooty, but chimney-soot stinks much less of sulfur. There are beggars on the streets, but orphans are under-represented.

People are staring at her, a bit. And her sword.