The shuttle landed promptly in the snow a distance away, a steel silhouette shining in the night sky. Once the snow settled, the two girls made their approach, eager to at last escape the freezing weather.

Rosa was still trying to come to terms with exactly what in the world was going on. Rosa hadn’t even yet accepted the idea of even being known as Rosa, a concern she knew her companion had yet to come to terms with either. Apparently, whatever instrument the girl had been using had somehow identified her by such a name, and Rosa was coming to terms with the idea that the girl at least believed such sources would be reliable.. except for how it simply isn’t believable. Rosa herself could definitely understand the part of it at least not being believable, clearly it was a matter of mismatched identity, being mistaken for someone else. She was Lyun, not Rosa, this was all just some extreme misunderstanding. However, it didn’t help that there was very little she herself understood right now. They had escaped that obnoxious cave, a place feeling so absolutely unreal in its intensity, especially when the world went stiff and still for her in a few moments. At least, those moments seemed equally as surreal for her companion as for herself, even if such a companion still seemed much more informed in the current circumstances. Clearly, Rosa had failed to properly grasp the exact nature of her companion’s naivety, it wasn’t that she was crazy, it was that the world she came from really was so different from the Ruixse that Rosa knew.

Watching the shuttle land brought all of such feelings to another level. By the divine, what in the hells was that monstrosity. Rather than being made by crystalline composites, it looked to be high density metal, possibly the least efficient thing to use for flying. Rather than using either wind or dark elemental for propulsion in any variety, the entire system looked to be using some sort of strange blue light. Did everything here run on light? The girl was even making use of some sort of strange light earlier too, while looking up some information. That had also surprised her, she hadn’t even located the instrument being used. To her, it was like she had conjured up a bunch of strange lights from nothing with nothing, like she was using some kind of strange magic. It was a ridiculous idea, magic was just a thing of fantasy, there had to be another explanation. However, finding an actual instrument that defied every principle she knew, she didn’t even have the slightest idea what sort of explanation might even be rational at this point.

“Hey Kori. Wait, what happened to Fiona, and who is this?” “Everything just got complicated, please don’t ask any questions, I’m still trying to figure out everything myself. Just bring us back to civilization, please.” “Alrighty then, no questions on the job, got it. Just keep in touch then, let me know if you need anything.” The guy who appeared to be in charge of their transportation slipped back into the strange craft as quickly as he had appeared, the girl having hardly looked up from her light-based research the entire time. Rosa was surprised, faintly hidden under the guy’s unfamiliar uniform, she had been able to identify that same strange shine of a gem sparkling from the guy’s forehead, the same blue one the girl had. Just what kind of purpose did that actually have for such people? Not only that, but they both shared that strange accent in speech as well, making it a bit harder for Rosa to follow along. She did catch that the girl she was with had a name as hard to pronounce as the one that had come up for her just earlier, Kori being about as hard to pronounce as Rosa. By the divine, those strange deep sounds in their regular dialogue make it seem like something had died in their throats.

“Ka-Ke-Kaeri?” “Huh, what? Oh, Kori, as in Korinna. … Yeah, that won’t make any difference either, will it. Your dialect just doesn’t do the O-thing very well.. which means being named Rosa makes even less sense. You just couldn’t be Fiona’s sister… Wait! Fiona does have an older sister though, we should roll this over with her and see what she thinks of it. She should be at work right now, but her nights are pretty quiet. Here, don’t just stand there, come and take a seat.” Rosa followed Kori to the seating area, still perplexed about how unfamiliar everything was. Sisters.. that reminded her about Yhzia’s sister, a promise she had still left hanging. Of course, this far from home, she had no way to fulfill such promises, but it still left her feeling bad about it. The worst part would be letting Yhzia’s family know what had happened, something she had no idea how to explain. Just how would she explain anything when…

“Nothing makes sense. Fiona is gone now, but now she suddenly has a twin sister that came up out of nowhere. She couldn’t be a twin sister, she isn’t even from our planet. I can’t even find a planet with anything close to the term designation Roiks or anything.” “It’s Ruixse. Oh, whatever. Yes, I’m pretty certain I don’t have a twin sister or anything, especially around here. I’m not sure about a lot of things right now, but that I’m absolutely certain about. Sorry, this whole thing is rather a mess for me too, everything is so surreal. Ever since my friend died, everything just stopped making sense.” “Oh, you too, huh? Yeah, this all pretty much started right when Fiona died. That strange orb, then my arm goes all frosty and she suddenly just goes frozen stiff before shattering.” “That.. that’s a lot like how it went for me too. We find this strange stone fragment, then my arm goes petrified and she goes white stiff before crumbling to dust. Right after that, you showed up, and then.. well, you know the rest.” Kori doesn’t reply, going about as quiet in thought as Rosa at that point. Was it such a coincidence that they had both faced loss, at even the exact same moment then, only to be drawn into this insanity. Rosa then reflected on the conversation earlier, Fiona being mentioned now several times. So like Yhzia, this Fiona had perished in almost the same way. Fiona however was the same person being mentioned as her supposed twin sister. Fiona also had another sister, someone they were going to go visit. This Fiona was then in the middle of everything right now.

Nope, Rosa wasn’t about to believe any of it. A lot of things didn’t make sense, but people were at least still people. Clearly, this was a delusional phase of Kori after having been deprived of her friend, and then left to grieve over it. Certainly, grief was something she could understand, even while much else wasn’t as easy to explain. If Kori was going to be so consumed in grief, Rosa would have to work on her own to uncover the truth of what was really going on. However, it wasn’t as if Rosa had the resources to do such on her own, not while everything was so unfamiliar. She would instead have to stick with Kori and make her own observations, to figure out the truth for herself with her own limited resources. At that moment, she glanced out of the window to witness the approach of the aerospace station below them, a high tech facility which surprised her even more than the craft she was flying in. Making sense of things was looking more and more challenging the farther along she went. Everything was metal and lights. The craft they flew in, it even landed on a platform that formed out of nothing, looking to be made of little more than light itself. Even so, the craft came to a stop on such light, having finally reached its destination.

“Okay, let’s get going. Stick close, I expect things to get a bit more busy going forward, we wouldn’t want you to get lost in the crowd.” “Oh, great, so unfamiliar and busy. That sounds just awesome.” Kori led the way with Rosa not far behind, making their way outside of the craft. Kori meanwhile stepped right onto the path of light with no hesitation, quite unlike Rosa in that moment. “Come on. What, never seen a holo landing before? Don’t worry, it doesn’t bite and you won’t fall.” Kori was obviously getting impatient. In all accounts, it was getting obvious that the things Rosa understood shouldn’t be considered dependable here, nothing here applied the principles of elementals anywhere close to what she understood. However, if she then accounted for the idea that things might then work in their own way, clearly this path of light has proven that it can hold her weight much better than any light she had seen before. A holo landing, that was both unfamiliar and hard to say, she didn’t even bother trying. Regardless, she stepped onto the strange lights and followed Kori into the steel building ahead. Walking inside, she suddenly found everything much warmer than she would have expected for a steel building. Of course, that was just a new way this world worked, she was getting used to such oddities, it wasn’t even surprising at that moment. She did also notice that Kori left on her warm attire, so obviously such warmth would be needed again soon. She also noticed they were no longer alone, the building full of an assortment of people, most of them being simple humans. Actually, she didn’t see a single other elf anywhere. She took a moment to rub her eyes by the strain of looking around, her eyes feeling a lot more clouded than she was used to.

“Hey, watch where you’re going.” “Ah, sorry.” “You better be sorry, I almost tripped there, could have gotten hurt, you know.” A guy had opened up conversation with Kori, something had obviously happened. Rosa wasn’t paying attention at the time either, but it appeared that Kori had suddenly ran into someone else while being so distracted. “Hey, you’re an airhead. Idiot, you scum really are so dense. Pretending to use a holo to actually seem smart then, but it's left you confused? You really need to know your place.” The guy promptly shoved her to the ground then instead, the wet mud across the floor leaving a smear on her clothes as the guy only laughed. At this point, Rosa took note that not only were there no elves, but most of the people present did not have that shiny blue gem either. The ones who did were looking away in shame, the ones without generally standing proud as they walked past. It seemed this was another normal thing around here. Sure, she had just finished accepting that not everything worked around here the same way as she had grown to understand. Regardless, Kori here was very obviously proven so far to not be stupid, to not be deserving of such bullying. Rosa herself was the one more ignorant to all the instruments in use around here, she could then consider this a personal affront, and right now she really wasn’t in the mood for it.

“Leave her alone, atnizhyq.” “Wow, you okay? You sound like you’ve got a broken jaw.” “You sound like you cracked your skull as a child, should have someone look into that or something.” “Hey, don’t tell me you’re actually trying to stand up for scum like this. We’re too good for scum like her, they're like the mud we walk over, just look at her.” “I’m sorry, did you say something, or were you just vomiting what is left of your mind. Oh gross, did I step in it, eww...” Rosa made a dramatic motion with her boots, as if she stepped in something unfortunate, while the guy’s face went red with rage. The guy rushed forward, a clenched fist ready to strike her, but she side-stepped in the same motion, stomping forwards in time to trip the guy in his passage. The guy himself went face first into the mud, now being just as much a mess as Kori. Rosa meanwhile went to help Kori up and guided her in the direction they had originally been trying to travel, unsure of their destination otherwise. The guy rushed to his feet, slipping in his hurry and went down on his back as the two girls slipped into the crowd.

“You.. you didn’t have to stand up for me like that. I’m used to such treatment already, it doesn’t bother me.” “Really, that’s normal around here? I’m sorry, I can get used to strange accents and crazy lights, but.. it’s people like that which I still can’t stand.” Kori was staring at Rosa with a look of pure disbelief, but Rosa wasn’t about to give in. It reminded her of the people who thought she herself had been stupid for trying to fight for success against all odds, to pave her own path instead of just accepting the ways society expected things to be. This is why she hated being around others, society being blind unto itself. It seems, of all things, that one thing wasn’t any different around here. Eager to leave the crowd behind, she pressed forward until the path forked, the crowd in general going in a single direction. Kori took the lead at this point, picking the path less travelled to Rosa’s approval. This path led quickly straight outside beside a couple of metal mounds in the snow, the faint sound of many hums from within. Rosa took a moment to wonder if that was dangerous, but Kori did not seem alarmed, the two pressing forward through another wall of light, this one actually letting them just pass through.

“Yeah, sorry, we could have taken the warmer road, actually get to sit for the entire trip too, but …” “Oh, don’t worry, after that last incident, I can see why you might want to avoid such creeps. I’m not exactly of the mind to deal with more of that trash right now either.” “Well, I expect you might have gotten tired of the cold by now too. Either way, I know I’ll be enduring this hike better than you will, so just let me know when you need a break. I’ll pull out a nice campfire and we can warm up a bit before moving on.” Kori was actually remaining aware of how much better she could endure the cold, but to Rosa it was sounding like concern for the more familiar lack of stamina. Rosa knew Yhzia frequently compensated for such things, but it seems her new companion was being thoughtful there as well. With such in consideration, the two proceeded a good distance along through the snow, leaving one barrier behind to approach a much bigger one in the oncoming distance. Things were obviously only going to get more complicated from here, so Rosa did eventually decide to take up Kori’s offer.

“Thank you for being so considerate, by the way." "Oh, well, I'm used to it. I can take the cold much better than you can. Besides, you were considerate of me earlier yourself, fair is fair." "I fail to see how treating another person as an actual person constitutes special treatment." "You really aren't from around here. Humans have been doing that to us ever since they first showed up on our planet, it used to be even worse. A lot of us died back then, it was quite the massacre." Rosa was shocked by Kori's story, implying a violent invasion. So those people just showed up on this world and started walking around as if they owned the place. As a guest of the world herself, she still couldn't even see the logic behind the approach. Just what kind of garbage world encourages this sort of behaviour?

“The humans I know are way better than that.. like Yhzia. … anyway, I’m pretty sure it isn’t because they are human, it’s probably just a part of the society they came from.” “You speak as if you aren’t human yourself. Well, Fiona wasn’t like that either, I know, but she never really liked fitting into her own culture. Instead of facing her history, she always buried herself in its fiction, imaginary fairytales of forest elves who can conjure fireballs at a whim.” “Hey! That’s mean, we’re not imaginary, totally real. Though, I would give you that calling up fireballs sounds so archaic, no one does that anymore, takes too much out of people. Way better to actually get instruments to coarse a fire elemental reaction than to actually do all the hard work.. but it wouldn’t actually be impossible. The only trick is finding someone who has a gift for calling up fireballs. Besides, isn’t that generally what you did here, with this fire? How exactly is it any different? … Wait, why are you looking at me like that.” Rosa cut herself short, suddenly noticing that Kori had run short on words and had started staring blankly. She knew everything here was so unfamiliar and foreign, but to be told that she herself was only imaginary? It was ridiculous. She was an elf, that’s why she had pointy ears, that’s why she had such sharp senses, that’s why she easily got tired after too much exertion.

Despite the cold, she pulled down her headwear, exposing her ears as clear evidence, pointing to them soundly. However, at the same time, she also found her hands unable to touch her ears where they normally could be found, cusping the side of her head, she found herself with a set of ears completely unfamiliar to her. It was at that moment that it dawned on her, in everything they have done, even this specific hike.. she should have grown tired long ago, this was probably her new endurance record. Earlier, just before Kori had gotten bullied, she remembered even struggling to see quite as well as she usually could. This was probably the most impossible thing ever, she suddenly wasn’t an elf anymore? More than just finding herself in another world, she wasn’t even herself anymore, completely robbed of even a familiarity in herself. She suddenly felt very lost and abandoned, shaking as dread started occupying the depths of her thoughts.

“Wait, didn’t you actually have longer ears earlier? I remember in that blazing crypt, having got a chance to look, you really did have different ears. It was one of the first things I had the time to notice.” “I did, yeah. One of the most obvious signs of being an elf. Except.. except I don’t think I have any of them anymore. So, not only is this a strange new world, but I’m not even an elf anymore, I myself have become just as strange as this world.” “Wow, Fiona probably would have loved to meet you. She would have loved to hear any stories about elves, one that wasn’t actually so unreal would have been even better. The only stories of elves she’d ever read were the made-up tales the humans brought with them from Earth.” “Wait, Earth? As in from the Terran Mythos? Isn’t that just a fantasy dream-world that someone from Celese imagined one day and wrote books about?” “I wish Earth was just imaginary, that our treatment from their people was just some nightmare I might wake up from one day.” So, the world Kori had mentioned to Rosa earlier, the place that the humans here had come from, Kori was claiming that was actually Earth? On the subject of simply waking up from a nightmare, this itself was starting to feel like it couldn’t be more than a dream.. but it still seemed so real. Rosa thought back to all the things she knew about the Terran Mythos, an expression of the imaginary to her, while reality as she knew it was being called little more than imaginary.

“Well, how about this then. What do you think about things like metallic cubes that float on a spinning blade, taking records of their surroundings with enough perfect accuracy to produce pictures that look exactly like reality without a person ever having to be there.” “Oh, so like a drone? Wow, those things have fallen out of style centuries ago. It would be far easier to just reproduce the same effect with Nanites. Watch.” Rosa was surprised at a sudden holo appearing before Kori, but turned to watch regardless. After a few instructions, a much larger holo appeared closer to Rosa, one revealing a video feed from a Nanite high above looking down on them with perfect quality. Rosa looked up in sudden alarm, not seeing anything at all which would have been responsible for this sort of view. She moved slightly, noticing that the one in the picture far below who should be her moving in just the same way. It really was true, the things here were practically taken from the Terran Mythos.. except it seems such tales were as old as their books, having developed way beyond the limitations of the Mythos itself. This was then the reality behind the Mythos, the reality of the Mythos. She really was just living a dream.

“Interesting, but it reminds me that we really should be going. You did say we have a lot to look into, and we really can’t do any of that sitting here.” “Oh, yeah, if you’re all warmed up again, we should keep going. Sorry for dragging you around like this, though it isn’t like I have any leads that would bring you back to your home yet. I know it’s kind of stupid, but the whole Rosa deal really needs some clarity. If we know why you seem like someone.. someone who shouldn’t even exist.. I don’t know, it should do something.” Rosa could tell the biggest reason for such research was to simply settle Kori’s feelings after having lost her friend, to bring rest to such a memory. It was something she could go along with, because in the process she would get the opportunity to do some investigating on her own. What was the truth behind the Mythos, and in turn, what was the truth behind what had become of her?

With their campfire gone once again, the two of them continued on their journey. The community Kori spent her days at was just ahead of them, and their night wasn’t going to last forever.