The weird baby jumps, and at the peak of its arc manifests a pair of glowing wings which beat once before disappearing again.  It falls back towards the ground in the same floaty style -

- but just before it hits it it's enveloped by shadow and lunges parallel to it.

And then it lands.

"She... came from above... and was touched by the void?"

Apparently not!  Bodyshake bodyshake bodyshake.

It fwooshes back to its original standing position.

"What we have here," Peter mutters in English, "is a failure to communicate."

     "That film was at best passable," says the extremely goth girl who is abruptly looming behind him. "And you are misquoting it."

Peter closes his eyes; this does not stop it being visible that he is rolling them. "Hello, Dulcinea. Does that really qualify as my lowest moment?"

     "No. I appear mysteriously at other times as well. What is this little muppet?"

"A warrior and seeker of glory. Also, a thing of the void. A paradox that I'm figuring out."

     The girl's attention sharpens. "You do know how to have a good time." She gets down on her haunches and extends her hand to the creature. There is colorful dust on her white gloves; it smells like sugar, if sugar were made out of glass. "Do you speak?" she asks the creature.

The little muppet does not even headshake-bodyshake at her.

     She huffs. "Your muppet is rude."

"It likes me better."

     "Everyone likes you better. There is no reason for this to extend to muppets."

"Perhaps it would like you better," Peter suggests, "if you stopped calling it that."

     "I apologize if I have given offense, prince of the void," she says stiffly. "I am sure your soul overflows the very oceans, no matter how extremely muppetous your external appearance."

Look-up look-down look-ahead.

     "Hmf. We'll get nowhere like this," Dulcinea declares. She shrugs off her backpack and begins extracting its contents, none of which should be in a private school student's backpack. There are spines and curlicues of black metal. There are jars containing black flames, or swirling purple oils, or more of that colorful dust (which seems to be somehow rusting the glass from the inside). There's a vintage glass Coke bottle containing a sleek black model ship.

"...what are you looking for?" Peter asks.

     "Whatever will work," she mutters. "Aha!" She pulls out a wriggling tongue, forked at the tip but clearly not reptilian in origin. She pours on some of the purple oil, then takes out a BMW-branded lighter and sets it ablaze.

     The words she speaks over the flame should not be heard, and are not heard. There is an absence in the ear where they might otherwise be. But there is a rhythm, a cadence, even a rhyme - and as soon as it begins to make itself clear, she casts a powder into the fire, eliciting a flash, and it's done.

     She turns to Peter. "There. Say something."

Peter looks, frankly, a bit shell-shocked. But he says "...hello, traveller. I'm not sure what just happened, but she didn't hurt you, did she?"