so look this is really interesting but actually i have to pee

[lexicality]

This isn't the bathroom, this isn't the bathroom at all.

"Excuse me I will be totally up for learning new magic stuff as is apparently required if someone will first direct me to a bathroom," Lexi says loudly to this bar full of people that is not even slightly a bathroom.

Comments

[manofmyword]

"Over there," says the man in the pink shirt with the green hair and the prominent facial scarring. He points to a doorway about halfway along the wall.

[lexicality]

"Thanks, dude," says Lexi, and she ducks into the bathroom and then emerges again.

[manofmyword]

The helpful dude is now sitting at a table, eating jellybeans out of a large open jar. He gives her a little wave.

[lexicality]

"So hey," says Lexi, heading for his table, "what is this place, why was it here instead of the school bathroom, and also does it do that funky barrier time thing because I could absolutely use another few minutes to study for this quiz?"

[manofmyword]

"Milliways, it does that, and unless your world's very special - " he checks " - which it isn't, when you walk out that door it'll only have been a couple of seconds outside. Wanna jelly bean?"

[lexicality]

"Oh, cool, thanks," says Lexi, and she helps herself to a green one. "How'd I get here? Man, my sister would love just a little pocket dimension where she could hang out forever without it even costing mana, running out of mana's bad apparently."

[manofmyword]

"Some of the flavours are pretty weird," he notes before she has managed to put the jelly bean in her mouth, "but I like 'em. Mm, Milliways has this habit of grabbing people. Shows up anywhere somebody's opening a door, whenever it feels like it."

[lexicality]

"Weird like how?" Lexi asks, eyeing her bean suspiciously. "And why did it feel like grabbing me between bio and gym, I do not understand."

[manofmyword]

"Weird like I don't know whether that's gonna be lime or absinthe," he says. "And nooooobody knows why the door does what it does, except it pretty clearly likes to mess with people."

[lexicality]

"I don't think I even know what absinthe is," says Lexi dubiously, and she sniffs the jelly bean experimentally.

[manofmyword]

It smells like a fresh Granny Smith apple.

The man in the pink shirt giggles.

[lexicality]

Lexi decides it is safe to eat. She eats it.

[manofmyword]

It tastes like a fresh Granny Smith apple.

"Good one?" inquires the stranger.

[lexicality]

"Apple," says Lexi, nodding, "very nice. I dunno if I'll try another one though, I can probably just get my sister to conjure me some jelly beans if I want them, that's what she's working on, and they'd be whatever flavor and Brilliance would eat most of them but I don't even care, he's okay after all."

[manofmyword]

"And who," says the stranger, "is Brilliance?"

[lexicality]

"He's, like, my sister's - device - like, he calls himself a device, that's not me being depersonalizing or anything, he's a device not a human - and he's from space and sometimes he's a deck of cards and sometimes he's a staff thingy and sometimes he's a human - shaped - and he goes through ice cream like it's cocaine, and probably he'd like jellybeans too, I'm kinda surprised he hasn't started trying to eat the furniture really. He's teaching her magic."

[manofmyword]

He laughs.

"What's his deal with ice cream, or is it just one'a those things?"

[lexicality]

"Well, apparently he didn't get around to trying food? For four hundred years. So there's that."

[manofmyword]

"Poor guy!" he says. "And who's your sister? For that matter, who're you?"

[lexicality]

"Oh, I'm Lexi, and my sister and I are twins - fraternal - her name's Bella. What about you, who're you?"

[manofmyword]

He snaps his fingers theatrically, and as his thumb lands on his curled forefinger a card appears between them: a joker. He flips it to show Lexi the dancing jester, then puts it on the table.

"That's me," he says. "Bella, huh? I know some Bellas. One or two," his expressive gestures outline faces in the air that seem momentarily real, one very much like Lexi's sister and one very much like Lexi's sister with golden eyes and skin like polished chalk, "or three or five or ten—" and the air between them is filled with little Bellas, including one who is a boy and one with enormous feathery wings.

[lexicality]

"...That one's a boy, is he seriously named Bella," observes Lexi, and then, "wait what, why do you know ten people who look like Bella - why does that one have wings - wait a second -"

And she looks up and peers closely at his face.

"...Okay what did I walk into?"

[manofmyword]

"Funny little place, Milliways," he says. "You meet different versions of the same people here. A lot of different versions. There's eleven of me, for example, although lookin' at you I'm thinking it's about to be twelve."

[lexicality]

"Well, you look sorta like Brilliance, but I dunno for sure," says Lexi. "Are you also a magic device from space? Do all those other Bellas have Lexis too?"

[manofmyword]

"Not a one of 'em does," he says. "I'm not a magic device from space, but then, sounds like your Bella's not a witch or an angel or a boy. His name's Cam, by the way."