She is standing on the linoleum floor of a Midwest suburban house. Two men, one with long braided hair and one with a crew cut, are in the kitchen before her, the braided one washing the dishes and the other drying and putting away, and they don't notice her immediately because their backs are turned.

Aaaaaaa? Aaaaaaaaa! They must be the fair folk because she got here by magic and they're in a weird place!

She looks for a door and considers sprinting out of it, but... she doesn't know where she is, she can't pass for anything other than a slave...

"I'm sorry for being here, something sent me by magic," she says, looking down and raising her hands.

They both look over their shoulders and blink at her uncomprehendingly. The crew cut one says something in a language she doesn't recognize.

Welp. She's really far away. She doesn't answer since it obviously wouldn't help.

They try a few more sentences, between them, muttering to each other in asides.

She starts very slowly moving toward the door.

They don't stop her. Crew Cut is watching her quizzically while Braid pokes a mysterious rectangular device.

None of that makes any sense!

She checks what’s through the door. Just in case it’s worse than this.

Boxy hedges. A driveway with an SUV in it. A street with a Prius going from one end to the other and then signaling a left turn. Trees.

Probably not worse than anywhere else. She runs. She has no idea where she's going but maybe she can find a place to hide or a place that seems like it'd be hard to force her out of.

There is an alarmed, questioning shout from behind her.

She has the sick sensation of being sure she's made a mistake and also sure it's too late to fix it. Well, she's probably committed to dying on her feet, at this point, she doesn't think she can pass running away off as a good faith attempt to follow orders, and anyway it's not like she had any way to know what they'd do if she stayed.

Although it's really not obvious where else she can go. Mayyyyybe she can stop and convince them that waiting for them to object to her moving toward the door was sort of like waiting for permission?

After a few more seconds she stops and turns around and deliberately doesn't get into a fighting stance.

Braid has stuck his head out of the door and is looking at her with immense confusion.

He holds up his rectangle and looks at it while aiming it and his face at her, like he's looking through it at her, though it's completely opaque.

Fere has completely given up on expecting to understand how people interact with objects here. (It has yet to occur to her that this should affect her expectations about hiding places, fights, and social interactions.)

Confusion... doesn't seem as bad as anger?

He pokes the rectangle several times and then puts it back in his pocket and blinks at her. Crew Cut emerges from the house and puts an arm around Braid's shoulders and stares at her in also-confusion. They speak to each other in the language she doesn't know.

Then a nonvoice pops into her head. [Hello?]

Aaaaaaaaaa are they reading her mind? That would suck, most people would want to kill her slowly if they could read her mind.

Maybe she has to try to answer, though, in which case maybe she’s not screwed yet.

[I'm sorry! I think someone sent me here by magic! I didn't mean to!]

[Cool, they didn't seem to think that you were breaking into their house but it's good to be sure. Who'd be sending you places with magic?]

[I don't know. I'm sorry. Maybe it was whoever sent the magic snake but maybe it wasn't, I'm sorry, I don't know anything.] There is something intensely violating about having to try to make her thoughts sound adequately deferential but so far she's mostly succeeding.

[Magic snake? Now that's bizarre. - Jackson, that's the sub, he says you can go back in and sit down, he thinks you look pretty freaked out and he wants to get you a glass of water.]

...Well, when Jackson gets her a glass of water she'll know which one is the sub and maybe be able to guess how you can tell. She'll go in and sit down. (On the floor because the furniture is confusing and also she's not sure if they actually mean to let her use it.)

[Yes, ma'am.]

Jackson turns out to be the braided one. He looks surprised about the choice to sit on the floor but gives her the glass of water anyway. It's got ice in it.

[Where were you before you got magicked to his house?]

Fere does not know what these cold cubes are! She has seen small amounts of snow and frost but not this.

[Near some new construction? In Sesat?]

[Where's Sesat, I haven't heard of it.]

[Uh... east of Niazon - no, wait, west of Niazon. Or maybe north. Near, uh... the ocean? And Azan and Iral?]

She knows precisely where she was relative to Azan and is not going to say so.

[What ocean? Are those - cities, provinces - do they have other names in other languages, I'm cheating at not speaking your language with the telepathy thing -]