Before they asked any questions, they got well out of sight of the gate, just in case others started coming through. It was evident that the Deuxan side was nowhere near as prominent, but the chaos in Nlukoko could well spill over. Particularly if the Landguards were still involved, though Theo hoped that they had finally slipped their scrutiny.

Once they had reached safety behind a hill of bronze, however, they all turned on the strange creature following them. Senka stared up at them with a look that wasn't even innocence, just a vapid blandness. Since he'd apparently brought the problem, Theo decided to begin.

"Why did you follow us?"

"Because there are bad people in the city, and you seem like a bunch of fumpets!" Senka proclaimed the words cheerfully, but Theo narrowed his eyes.

"Earlier, you said that there was a 'fumpet' looking for you."

Senka stared at him as if he was babbling nonsense, then abruptly began giggling. "That was a mean, bad fumpet! You're all good fumpets."

That didn't satisfy him, but before Theo could ask another question, Fiyu spoke up. "I do not understand. What is a fumpet?"

"A fumpet is someone who's full of blook!"

The three of them exchanged a glance, which itself indicated that none of them could understand her. Considering that they had just gone through a gate, they should all be speaking the local Deuxan language, including Senka. It was possible to forcibly speak a different language, even selectively, though that usually required more intelligence than Senka had displayed. His only plausible theory was that the words she was using were so alien that their souls couldn't translate them, yet he'd never seen it happen and the words didn't actually seem very alien.

Apparently deciding that it was irrelevant, Nauda bent down on one knee and regarded Senka, her gaze kindness wrapped over steel. "We want to help you, Senka. Can you tell us who is looking for you?"

"Ummm... did you see the fancy floaty fumpets? Not the winged fumpet, the other ones."

"Landguards?"

"Senka doesn't know that word! But, umm... Senka fell into that other place, and the fumpets are looking for bad things. They want to sporp Senka because they think Senka is bad. So Senka ran away because you were running away and now Senka is here and this place is different but it is okay because you're a bunch of fumpets."

"I see." Nauda's smile looked completely authentic to him, but he knew there was more behind it. "Do you know why they're looking for you?"

"Senka doesn't know!"

"No theories at all? Who exactly are you?"

"Senka is Senka, you silly gurfoop!"

That tautology stymied them for a time until Fiyu made her own attempt. "Hello, Senka. I am Fiyu, I am an Ichili from the Inner Moonscape. What are you?"

"Senka is a Senka from Senkaland!"

Hesitating, Nauda glanced up at him, and the best he had was a shrug. She was about to say something, but then Fiyu knelt down beside them and spoke quietly. "I will take care of Senka. Why don't you and Jake discuss where we should go next?"

The fake name jolted him from his thoughts and Theo realized that Fiyu was right. Though Senka seemed harmless, the unknown variables were themselves a threat. Though she claimed to be escaping the Landguards, that didn't preclude the possibility that she was lying, or even that she was some kind of innocent construct that was still being used against them. Given that there were many things he didn't know about the Nine, he couldn't dismiss the possibility.

Though Fiyu drew Senka into her lap and began stroking her hair, she had intentionally given them this opportunity to discuss the matter separately. Theo retreated along with Nauda until they were out of earshot, then finally turned back to one another.

"I take it you don't know what she is?" Nauda asked. He could only shake his head.

"I've met people from all Nine Worlds, and while there are other species I've never seen, she doesn't seem like anything I've heard about."

"I can't pin anything down either. What bothers me is that you bound her with gravity, right? If she had some way to escape, she might be more than she appears."

Theo shook his head. "I'm not strong enough to maintain gravitational fields from a great distance, so they would have lessened, then she could have followed us. Obnoxious, but not suspicious. Besides, it doesn't seem like she can use cantae... or do you know something about that?"

"Let me show you." Nauda grasped his arm and drew him inward, briefly floating through her soulhome before using her brass telescope.

Soon after, his spirit floated outside a planet of garbage. That was his first impression before he reconsidered, but even once he got a sense of scale, it was hard to shake the image: where Senka should have had a soulhome, there was only a sphere made up of refuse. He saw stones of many types, fragments of boards, twisted pieces of metal, and objects he couldn't identify. All felt vaguely like sublime materials, yet he didn't know how it was possible to lump together so much. Or why anyone would do it, considering that the solid sphere couldn't store cantae and wouldn't grant anything special.

"She can use cantae, but extremely ineptly," Nauda's spirit explained beside him. "Her soulhome is refuse all the way through, so cantae just flows over the surface. She might be subconsciously making herself a bit tougher and faster, but it's useless for essentially all other purposes."

"And I take it that neither of us have any idea what she could be."

"Demons have no souls, so it can't be that. Sublime beasts I've examined seem to have a single tier that grows outward instead of upward, but perhaps there are stranger types? Something between a sublime beast and a human."

"I doubt it." Though he still disliked the situation, Theo was fairly certain there was a more probable answer. "It's more likely that she's an entity alien to the Nine Worlds, accidentally arriving here through the cracks. That might explain why she's unintelligible, and it's possible that crossing from her native world had something to do with the state of her soulhome, if that is what it is."

"So she's an outsider like you."

Despite all his thoughts, Theo was still startled to hear that framing. It was essentially true, however: as an outsider to the Nine Worlds, his transitions to them were far more traumatic. Both times it seemed to have created a new body and left nothing of what he'd built in his soul. For a moment he realized that it was almost similar to demons, though of course it couldn't be, since he gained a soulhome as soon as he left Earth.

"You don't like that idea?" Nauda squeezed his arm in a way he couldn't easily interpret. "I suppose we can't rule out the possibility that she's some sort of advanced demon, or perhaps a mangled one. The higher stage ones do seem more intelligent."

"But it's always an animal intelligence, never the ability to speak or reflect." Now that he thought about it, that seemed odd to him, but he brushed the matter aside as irrelevant for the time being. "No, the theory that she's an outsider to the Nine Worlds seems most likely. The question is what we're going to do about it."

"Well, it seems clear that she intends to follow us. One benefit of taking her is that it means we're not a group of three anymore, and we could pretend to be a family. That might help shake pursuit."

"Or just draw more problems down on us, if the Landguards are really looking for her. I wonder if she didn't enter Tatian at the same time Fiyu and I did. Given that she's not exactly subtle, she might be the one that they're putting so much effort into finding."

Nauda immediately gave a warm smile edging into a grin. "Surely not. How could all of this business possibly be about anyone other than you?"

"You mock, but I'm happy about that. Keeping a low profile while ascending will be hard enough without any direct scrutiny." Theo matched her overly warm smile with a mocking scowl. "I expect the two of you to take care of the little brat, though."

"Actually, Fiyu might have that handled." Nauda's gaze wandered back and Theo saw that Fiyu was playing with Senka, swinging her braid back and forth. She might have orchestrated the conversation, but Fiyu wasn't guarded with her expressions, so the enjoyment on her face must have been authentic. Odd that she was so willing to touch the creature, but perhaps children had different rules.

Well, if it kept Senka from annoying him to death, he would take it.

When they returned, Senka immediately looked up at them with a broad smile. "Are you two done sporping?"

"We need a plan for our time here." Nauda propped her staff on the ground and leaned on it, eyes sweeping the horizon as she spoke. "It's most important to avoid the Landguard, but we can't waste our time here. Unfortunately, Jake is the only one who has any experience in Deuxan. Any chance that you're familiar with this area?"

"I definitely haven't been in this region before." As Theo looked over the bronze grasses, he found his mind wandering back to the glorious fountains of Areesi and the silvery forests where he'd first met Brigana. By then he had been an experienced soulcrafter, but the intricate courts of Deuxan had still thrown him until she had found him... "The areas I've been didn't have grass like this. We'll have to look around."

"I suppose it would be too much to hope you have allies here."

"Of course not. You have to remember that every one of the Nine is an entire world. Deuxan has four continents filled with hundreds of different nations, plus several uninhabitable zones." He was lecturing, and they probably knew that, but it helped to ground himself again. "There's only a remote chance that we're anywhere near the regions I knew, so don't get your hopes up."

That left out the larger problem that he'd avoided talking about: time. Though he preferred not to think about it, he knew that time ran differently between Earth and the Nine Worlds, so most likely he was separated from anyone he knew by an unknown period of time. He had spent years in the Nine on his first visit, only to wake up mere months later on Earth. After forty years... well, he would hope that time didn't consistently run like that, or his allies would be mere history, even if they had survived.

Fiyu began to rise and made a soft sound as Senka latched onto her braid, tugging it down. She resolutely detached herself from Senka and stepped back into her personal space, which the little brat actually seemed to respect. Once on her own, Fiyu's warmth faded to cool consideration.

"There was a trail from the gate. We should follow it to a settlement."

"I agree, but we should pick up sublime materials first. They'll be scarcer than on Tatian, but we should still take what we can get." Theo began walking, eyes searching for a shining city on the horizon. "Deuxan... isn't as friendly as Tatian. We've had it easy before now, but that's over."