2022-07-05 - The Midnight Walk of Una Irving

Hephaestus is a good kitten, unlike his sister: he sleeps through the night, curled up in the curve of Una's body, where it's warm (but not too warm) and the blankets, even in summer, are soft and cozy. He's the one that wakes up first (Una, who has spent so many years of her life sharing old, non-soundproofed houses or apartments with all kinds of people, sleeps through most things), stretching himself out-- and then yowling.

It's the yowling that gets Una up, of course, though she's sleep-eyed and not quite with it. It takes her a few more seconds for bare feet to hit the floor, and for her to pad (Hephaestus curling himself around her legs as she walks) towards the door to open it.

Una's brown eyes track Athena from the doorway all the way onto the bed. The kitten may not be distressed, but the redhead peers sleepily at her. Accepting the presence of another cat is one thing, and fine as it is, but-- what's sent Athena out of Della's bed?

Sleepy though she is, there's something up with that.

Hephaestus continues to curl himself around her ankles, waiting for her to come back to bed to follow (it's cute, right?), but Una hesitates, sticking her head out into the corridor to eye Della's door.

This requires another glance back at Athena in the covers. How did she get through? Apparently the question is pressing enough that-- despite her yawn-- Una is awake now, at least more or less. "Back to bed," she murmurs, leaning down to scoop up Hephaestus so he can be reunited with his sister in the covers.

"I'll be back," she promises, leaving the door ever so slightly ajar as she heads into the corridor, pausing just for a moment outside of Della's door. She's not going to wake the other woman, naturally, but--

Standing there in the dark corridor, Una hesitates. It's maybe more instinct than anything that has her reaching out with her mind: testing for consciousnesses. Jules is out sailing with Mikaere; the two kittens are in Una's bedroom; and--

Inconclusive. Una turns, now, descending the stairs on bare, mostly-silent feet. She's slept in a nightgown that was probably originally a lacy tablecloth, white and old-fashioned but perfectly acceptable as summer nightwear.

It's dark, of course, but her eyes are adjusted to it, and the stairs are broad enough not to be an issue-- one and then another, and then she forgets to skip past the one that creaks, and it creaks, but that's fine, right? Another step.

There's some part of Una that has half-decided she's still dreaming; or perhaps she's Dreaming, and this really is a horror movie. Old houses, though-- they're known for their noises, and so she takes another step. The only way to make this more atmospheric, likely, would be for her to have a lit candle in hand to light her way.

Instead, she has only her night-adjusted eyes.

Another step. Another creak.

Some part of Una is now wishing she'd brought the kittens-- at least one of them-- with her.

"Hello?" she says. It's not quite a whisper, but not quite out loud, either.

Una just barely manages to hold in her scream; it turns into a gasp, instead, as she grasps blindly for the bannister to hold herself up-- indeed, perhaps, to ground herself.

"Who's there?" is hissed more than whispered, urgently audible through the dark.

It's the eyelids that do it for Una, probably-- or anyway, they're the final straw, the one that sets her to screaming as she frantically attempts to find a light switch on the wall.

When she can't find out (of course), she goes for the next best thing: a ball of flame in the palm of her hand, illuminating the night. It's not as good as an electric light, but...

Beggars cannot, in the end, be choosers.

Yeah, no.

Una hesitates a moment more and then flees, running back up and up and up the stairs, the little ball of flame flickering out as promptly as it arrived. "Della?" she calls-- yells, really-- as she goes. "Della?"

Nooooooooooo!

Panic threatens to overtake Una again, but, surprisingly, she manages to teeter on the edge of it without falling in. She does freeze, though: standing there as she's swamped by children. "I'm--" Not Della.

Not Della.

Where is Della?

Where are the cats?

Una breathes, and attempts to smile, mouth frozen in a rictus.

"Well... sure I am. Want to show me around?"

Sometimes the only way to beat them is to join them. Right?!

Curtains and tablecloths. Some part of Una's mind may be amused by this, but that part is fairly distinctly overpowered by the intense sense of weirdness and that's harder and harder to fight back. On the other hand, she's had weirder Dreams than this, right? But--

"There's enough of me for all of you," she promises, and probably regrets that immediately. It would be so like a bad dream to turn that into a horror show. She does, however, let herself be pulled by the littlest, and smiles, even as the tallest girl examines her lace.

"What a lovely nursery you have here! We'll--" Pause. Una thinks for a moment. "Have some lovely times in here, I'm sure. Won't we, girls?"

Una's gaze flicks towards the cats. Towards the children. Towards the littlest child.

"First," she says, sounding as cheerful as she possibly can (which is less than normal, but oh, this is still so disquieting), "I'd like you to introduce me to your cats. Would you do me that honour?"

Glitter. Of course there's glitter. Just as long as Una-- Della?-- is not nursery maid and general dogsbody as well as governess.

Una sucks in a deep breath, crouching down so that she can get a better look at the cats in question (it's only polite to meet people face to face, after all!). "Aphrodite and Ares! What excellent names. Such fine cats. It's a pleasure to meet you both as well. I wonder... would the cats," and the rest of them, "enjoy reading a story together? Who wants to choose the book?"

When in doubt, right?

Una's hands are more used to petting cats than they used to be, thanks to the past few weeks, and she's not too proud to dedicate those skills to these stuffed ones, quite as if they were nuzzling their heads into her hands for scritches. Good cats. Very good cats.

It gives her a moment that ought to be used attempting to work out what she's going to do next, but evidently that moment's not enough, because when she glances around again to consider each young face in turn, her mind goes positively blank.

"My story?"

Una's inner turmoil manages not to express herself across her features, not too much, though she stiffens distinctly as her gaze drops back towards the cats. Did that-- did he-- well. She swallows.

"We don't want to make the cats move," she decides, with more bravado than she clearly actually feels, drawing herself up onto the bed carefully, so that the cats can curl up here too, if they so choose, and the children can gather around.

There's a certain amount of 'hell no' in her thoughts, but-- "Why don't you start it off for me?" she prompts. "Once upon a time--"

Una exhales again, but this time, the breathing seems to provide some clarity. "Once upon a time," she agrees. "There was indeed a little girl who met a cat. She didn't have a cat all of her own because her--" momentary pause, "mother worked very hard and still couldn't afford to feed another creature. She wanted a cat, but she wanted her mother to work less hard more, so she satisfied herself with petting the little black cat who lived next door, which worked out, because when her mother worked she stayed next door, so it was like having a cat, even if it wasn't the same."

Two houses? That's a generous way to put it, and the upturned corners of Una's smile could well be ready that way, though perhaps that would take more nous than most children have.

"The cat's name was Twinkle," answers Una. "And she was an old, old cat. She didn't like to play much, and that made the little girl a bit sad, but Mrs Archer always promised that if she was good and still and quiet, there could be pets. What was your old cat's name?"

She focuses on the children. The purring of cats that aren't supposed to be alive will not draw her gaze. Not, not, not.

"... arrows?" repeats Una, a little bewildered.

Oh. Oh. Una flushes, and then giggles.

"Sadly," she reports, "she did not shoot arrows. But perhaps her ancestors did, once upon a time? Twinkle liked to watch the birds, more than anything, but she was an indoors cat and never went out to catch any. Maybe when she was little, but that was long before the little girl knew her. Mostly, she found herself sunny spots on the window sill, but occasionally she deigned to sit in the little girl's lap, and that always made the little girl very, very happy. Did Millie like laps?"

"I'm sure Millie felt very loved," Una feels compelled to say. This time, she can't help herself and glances at the cats. "And now you have Ares and Aphrodite," is a little hopeful. "Was Millie short for anything? Twinkle," she adds, "was buried in a garden too."

That's an absolute lie. Twinkle went to the vet and was cremated.

Babysitting is one thing. This? Una may as well be going cross-eyed, the way she keeps having to shift her gaze around and try and take in the whole lot of odd von Trapp look-alike children. (Perfectly nice, of course! But odd, unquestionably.)

"I don't know," she admits. "The little girl and her mother moved away to a new apartment," where the rent was cheaper, "and she never saw Mrs Archer again. She didn't then get to play with another cat regularly for years and years and years, until one day, when she was all grown up, two little kittens showed up at her door and she invited them in."

"She missed Mrs Archer and Twinkle very much, both of them," has a note of wistfulness to it; a memory half-buried and now re-emerging from that quagmire of childhood recollection. "But she loved her new kittens very much. They were called Athena and Hephaestus, and Hephaestus liked to sleep in the curve of her body at night-- and she liked that very much."

"Cross my heart!" Una promises. "Athena and Hephaestus. Ares and Aphrodite are good names too, though. And good cats."

'Bedtime' is the cue she needed, though she's not yet ready to move precisely, not while there's still a tail about her wrist, and cats that need to be made friends of.

"Has everyone brushed their teeth and washed their faces?" she wants to know. "And while we're at it... promise me you haven't left anything slimy in my bed?"

"Thank you," says Una, sunnily and approvingly, and that goes for middle-est child and the next-eldest, both of whom are being helpful... well, now, if not for always. She strokes her fingers idly upon young Ares, finally drawing her hand away so that she can scoot herself off the bed.

"Into bed, those of you who're ready," she instructs. "If everyone is in bed on time, tomorrow-- well, we might do something special, okay?"

Una rubs at her hand idly, though that claw-or-pin-prick is the least of her worries.

Violet's concerns tug at the redhead's heart strings, turning her face a little pale. "It's good to meet you properly, Violet," she murmurs. "I do like it here. I like you all. I-- I don't know, but I promise I will do my best not to hurt anyone. And if... if I can't stay, I'll still watch out for you, okay? That much I promise, too."

Una's heart is breaking inside her chest, but no matter about that: she's blinking hesitantly over Violet's warning.

"Why, Violet? What's in that room?"

"I promise," says Una, firmly, casting a quick glance about the room, though mostly she's just listening for the other children and their inevitable return. "I won't let her out."

Let who out? She's dying to ask, but-- curiosity won't kill this particular cat.

"I was on the stairs earlier," she agrees. "Before I found you. Will you all be okay, if I do go?"

Una's mouth shapes the words, even if she doesn't speak them outloud: the over and over.

She inhales, sharply, struggling with her emotions for all that she's doing her best to be strong; she is, after all, the governess. For a few minutes more, at least.

"Shall I tell another story, before-- before everyone sleeps?" she wonders.

Una reaches out to take Violet's hands, holding them within hers. It takes her a moment or two after that to realise what wasn't asked outright, and that's when she drops those hands again, reaching out to put her arms around the girl.

Never let it be said that Una Irving has not learned how to show affection.

And if the other girls wish to join, when they arrive? So much the better.

"Ok," says Una, once the hugs are done (and they're good, nice hugs, and maybe hugs really are a good thing, even the damp ones). "Into bed everyone." She moves to stand by the door, though she's not leaving, yet. She has, after all, promised a story.

"Once upon a time," she begins. "There was a little girl called Una. And do you know what she wanted more than anything in this world? A sister. Oh, a brother would have done too, but a sister. But she didn't have any sisters, or brothers, or even a daddy. She just had her mother, and that was not nothing, but still. She went to bed and wished and wished, that she'd wake up surrounded by sisters, older and younger, so that she'd never be lonely again."

There's something seductive about that wave of her name, especially coming from the sisters she never-- in childhood-- got for herself. "Just like you," she agrees. "And oh, if she'd had sisters, there would have been times when she'd have wished to be alone, because isn't that always the way of things? You want the thing you don't have, and forget the benefits of the thing you do."

But although that's a worthy moral, that's not the point of this story, either.

"She did indeed meet Twinkle-cat, and Mrs Archer, and that was not nothing either. But she was lonely, so lonely, for a long, long time. Until one day, she moved into a big old house and invited two other girls to move in with her. And you know what?"

Stories have a familiar structure to them: it's easy, mostly easy, for Una to lean in to the familiarity of this one, to pull the pieces together while she's still trying so hard to maintain her own composure. She half-leans upon the wall and the doorway, and turns to look at each girl in turn, one by one.

"Those girls became her sisters. They were found family, but blood family, but the end result was the same: they had her back against the monsters beneath her bed, and she had theirs. And she knew that they would grow up and old and move in different directions; but she knew she could hold their faith with her. Sisters."

She hesitates. "Because that's what sisters do. Protect each other. Right?"

"Girls." Una's voice lifts, not sharp but firm. Do they really want to see the disappointment on her face? Really?

Una's babysitting experience comes to the rescue: she leans down to scoop up the littlest before she can cling on to her leg, drawing her up into her arms. "Come on," she says. "We're going to all get into bed now, and get some sleep. Tomorrow you can find your marbles," a nod towards that girl in particular, "and see what else is in store. Let's get you back into bed, missy."

Littlest gets a gentle kiss to the forehead, and Una goes around in turn after that: one by one, tucked in and kissed (for those that desire it), with a hesitation by Violet that ends in a, "Good night," that is a little heavier than the others.

The lights go out, and Una closes the door and escapes into the hallway-- and across the hallway, too, to find the room so helpfully pointed out as her own. She hesitates, though: the door on the right. It's not that she intends to let anything out, but she does hesitate.

Una lingers, at first, just to listen. But that ringing, that vibrating? She scrunches up her face and after a few moments more, retreats.

She goes into her bedroom, instead, closing the door firmly behind her.

"Breathe, Una," she reminds herself. "Breathe."

How many times, as a child, did Una read novels about canopied beds and imagine having one of her Very Own? It crept into her imagination: a way to shut out the world and hide away, where noise and mess and the sheer presentness of other people could disappear. Una may have been a lonely child, but she was also a child for whom privacy was rarely a possibility.

This room-- yes, it's everything little-girl-Una could have imagined, and much of what all-grown-up-Una could desire, too. She exhales as she enters, sighing out her contentedness with the room, with its contents.

It could be so easy to stay. The children, in their room, this room of her own, and--

-- but this is not her home.

"Wardrobe," she reminds herself, forcing herself to turn away from the rest of the room and to focus. "Through the wardrobe. That's what Violet said."

(It leaves a pang. She's going to abandon those poor girls.)

It's tempting. It's such a perfect room. Perfect for Una. Just to stay. Just for a little while.

No.

Una tugs out the brass key, for reasons that probably she can't even explain, turning it over and over in her hand. Her other hand? It trails through the costumes, one by one, then pushes them all aside further, so that she can stretch her arm in a little further.

It's silly, to hold on to the key. Dream or dream, Una's never brought anything back from them, and what does she need with a key? She holds on to it anyway, though, as she tugs at the curtain, and then steps deeper into the wardrobe.

Curtains, indeed.

"Am I on my way to Narnia?" wonders Una, beneath her breath. "Or am I returning from it?" She can't help but brush her fingers past the fabrics and furs and feathers she passes, identifying them all as best she can with a touch of her hand, or a glance from her gaze.

Lavender for devotion; rosemary for remembrance, and then-- Una nearly trips over things in the dark, but she moves as carefully as she can, finally reaching that crack of light. She stretches out her hands, fingers aiming to pull or push or anything at all to find a way through the crack, and into the light.

Una puts one foot, hesitantly, onto the floor of 5 Oak's hallway... and then carefully adds the second. She turns, too, to glance back at the door through which she's come, as if to identify it (or is it, to reassure herself that it really existed?)

Una turns away. Okay. That's the usual closet. It's fine. Is she safely home? It's so hard to tell.

Kitchen. That's where she needs to be. If she is home, she needs at least some tea or something. And if she isn't-- well, that one will sort itself out soon enough, won't it?

She creeps down the hallway.

Okay. That's weird.

Not out of it yet, then, Una concludes, turning around, casting around for familiar things-- surely she can't get lost in her own house.

Surely.

Una tries the light switches, of course. She opens the fridge doors, too, but only for a moment: it's enough to register the weirdness.

She sits down at the kitchen table, instead, and puts her head in her hands.

"Okay," she says, speaking out loud. "I'm not home. I'm not awake... at least, that's the most likely explanation. I'm dreaming-- or Dreaming-- and this isn't actually my home. So either there's still something I need to do, to end the Dream, or I just need to wake up. Everything is... well, no. Some things are reversed. That's weird."

Una gets up again. No, no, no. It's all wrong.

Forget tea: she abandons the kitchen, heading back out into the hallway. It may all feel wrong, but surely she can make her way to the staircase and then up without incident?

Una freezes. The railing being on the wrong side is weird and leaves her strangely unmoored, as if the whole staircase might run away with her (or perhaps, worse, without her).

But that door?

"Hello?" she says, carefully. "Who's there?"

Una's bare feet climb the very last of the steps, and she stands there, hesitating over the sight of her housemate (or is she?).

(It could be worse: at least she's not got button eyes like the Other Mother.)

"Della? ... Della, is everything reversed for you? What are you wearing? Della." Now, this time, Una sounds a little bit like she's panicking.

"No? What, why would it?" Though maybe Della just hasn't noticed; she hardly looks calm herself and, close-up, she sure doesn't smell like Della. Della works out, Della sweats like just about every human, but this is layered with an extra animal funk.

And then Della's looking down, like she's seeing herself for the first time, and looks that much more surprised. (Della doesn't have bare feet. Della has boots.) "Um."

Una takes a step backwards, managing not to fall down the stairs in the process.

"You're not Della," she says, slowly. "This is the dream-or-Dream. Tricking me."

Maybe-Della, startled -- "I was in a Dream." She's taking a half-step back of her own. "It's me, of course it's me. Is my hair awful or something? I can't see."

Della... without her phone. Can it be?!

"Flick a light switch," commands Una, sounding distinctly as though she does not trust anything Della has to say.

"Tell me something only you would know. The staircase is backwards, and I went through a wardrobe, and--"

She might well cry.

The maybe-Della gives Una a peculiar look but, all right, goes along with it; she crosses to the bathroom and -- "Shit. When did the power go out?"

Maybe she just adjusted to the light switch being on the other side. That's it, right? Or maybe upstairs is normal, electricity aside? It could happen.

Looking out again, crossing to the top of the stairs -- "Like Narnia?! Was there a faun? I hope it comes back on quickly, not that the food spoils..." oh, wait, there was something else. "Something only I would know. Um." The maybe-Della shoves her hair back, thinking. (Stalling?)

Una takes another step backwards, down the stairs, keeping her distance.

"Like Narnia. And the Sound of Music. And--" she stops talking. Maybe-Della hasn't answered her question, and maybe it's better not to give any more information to this probably interloper.

"Edelweiss~" comes out on cue, and of course one can't sing the word just once, there have to be two -- so the maybe-Della does, ay-del-veiiiss.... only she (she?) cuts herself off in favor of a twitchy look back down the hallway. "I want to grab my phone," she says.

Instead, she sits down on that top step: she isn't chasing (yet). Her teeth look to be of perfectly normal length. Those boots have seen better days, and absolutely aren't the real Della's favored oxblood red, just a scuffed, shabby brown. "I don't know what I'd know that Jules wouldn't," the maybe-Della admits. "Or what the Veil might have overheard," which probably isn't helpful, but there it is. "Ask me a question?"

"I don't know," admits Una, slightly desperate. What would Della know that the Veil wouldn't? How can she possibly work out what's real and what isn't?

"What side of the staircase is the bannister on usually. Answer fast."

The maybe-Della's hands twitch, like she's reaching -- but then she's realizing, "Going up or going down?"

She shuts her eyes (but maybe she's peeking): "This way down," she waves a hand, "and this way up," the other one.

"Now open your eyes," Una commands. "Tell me what you see."

What does the maybe-Della see -- "You're wearing the tablecloth! It turned out so cute!"

Not the correct answer, though some part of Una is pleased anyway.

"No," she says, a little frustrated. "The staircase. Is the bannister on the correct side?"

No? The maybe-Della looks a little downcast. Or maybe more than a little, given how she sighs and slumps right down there at the top of the staircase, legs dangling. (She probably can't leap onto Una and ride her down the stairs, unless her sense of balance is much more than human.) "My head hurts," she admits. "It's not as bad as the glitter headache, but..." she is wearing breeches with interestingly-stuffed pockets, even if they aren't a faerie dress, and even if the boots rank below a goat bridle when it comes to desirable souvenirs.
But this should be easy. She sticks out a hand, reaches for the rail... and finds herself patting the air by the wall in unintentional comedy.

She stares at it. She rubs her temples. She stares at it some more.

Carefully she shuts her eyes, hums something to herself, and starts narrating under her breath instead: "I reach with my..." mumble mumble reach. Wall. Her other hand moves to pat... and bumps its knuckles instead. "But it's right there," she says plaintively, opening dark eyes to Una in white. "It's not supposed to be there but I see it."

Una studies Della as she tests, so silent and still she may indeed be holding her breath entirely. It escapes in a rush when those dark eyes meet hers again.

"Yeah," she says, sounding a little more like herself: less suspicious, more simply tired. "It's all reversed. I don't know. I woke up, and Athena wanted in, and ever since--"

She gives Della a hesitant little glance, holding on to the bannister-that-shouldn't-be. "Are we still asleep, do you think?"

"Oh, Athena did it," this Della tries to tease, though she can't put much effort in it. "She wou -- no. No."

"It must be a Dream?" comes out wavery.

As does, "Have you ever gone from Dream to Dream before? Or a Dream within a Dream? Or..." she's rubbing her temples again.

Una shakes her head: no, she's never done that. And very plainly, she does not much like the possibility.

"So what do we do now?" she wonders, out-loud. "The kitchen's all wrong, too. I came in through the wardrobe-- well, the closet. But. I don't know. I want to go home."

The Della's nodding. "Me too." She glances back over her shoulder, briefly. "I want my phone. I want my bag. But... I also have a weird feeling about going back there." She doesn't exactly bite her lip; the press of her teeth is momentary, fractional. Unusual.

"Should we try the closet the other way?"

Una's gaze slides over Della's shoulder and towards the upstairs hallway. She doesn't want to go that way either; it's eerie and uncomfortable, and somehow, the only way is down.

"Yes," she agrees, swallowing thickly. "Let's try that. And once we're back, you can tell me where you were."

She turns: back down the stairs.

The creaks are still on the wrong side, and there the Della is, following her -- hurrying to catch up -- "Wait, wait. Okay."

The creaks are there, but their footfalls aren't.

The closet door is there. Had she shut it? Or hadn't she? It's only a little ajar.

The creaks-- the footfalls-- it just makes Una hurry more.

She looks at the door, and she can't remember, and that's the problem, really. Well. A problem. She glances over her shoulder at Della, smiling crookedly in a way that is not really much of a smile at all.

"Here goes," she says, and opens the closet door.

The Della turns what should have been a smile right back to her. "After you."

It's just their own things, at first glance... with the faintest whiff of rosemary and lavender. Further back? One would have to reach in, get in.

And then the key, wherever Una had stashed the key... it moves. Just a little.

Where did Una stash the key? In lieu of pockets (note to self: future nightgown sewing projects should include pockets) she tucked it into the stretchy boob shelf, which means it... moves. Against her boobs. And that is not something she can miss-- oh no.

The redhead shuts her eyes.

And then, she digs the key out.

And then? She steps into the wardrobe.

Surely this can only go well.

They don't trip (yet), so that's something, right?

Further in... isn't the back of the closet; neither is it fabric-furs and feathers. There are umbrellas, and cans, and boots, and more umbrellas and cans and boots, and then just more umbrellas.

"This is the Narnia part," the Della half-questions, behind her.

The umbrellas are closed, at least until they reach a few that aren't. Some have spiked ferrules. Some show their ribs. They sway as they brush past them, swinging back, touching them again.

They're far enough in that they become more visible in what becomes a dim glow to the right. The humans (at least Una and the Della) are visible; the umbrellas are visible, some solid, some painted, some stained. The key gives another little tug straight ahead.

"It wasn't like this last time," reports Una, by which she means: yes, this is the Narnia part. She may never look at a closet-or-wardrobe-or-cupboard the same way again.

She frowns as they walk. The umbrellas are particularly disturbing, somehow-- and she laughs, ruefully. "This is where all the lost umbrellas go, isn't it? The ones that just seem to disappear."

The key in her fingers, the one that's still warm from her skin, tugs. Una's gaze briefly heads to the right, staring after that glow, but the key wants them straight ahead, and that's where she goes.

"I really don't like this Dream," she admits.

"Ahh." That scritching sound is probably just the Della rubbing her head again. It carries on a little after her own, responding laugh, "I bet you're right." The laugh may not last long, but it's there; it wasn't just imagination. "Socks next?"

A little later, around the time the flooring starts to change to something more forgiving, low-pile carpet or possibly ground cover, "And... why not? Nothing's trying to ea -- E-A-T U-S." Like Veil creatures can't spell.

"No, lost socks go to the sock fairies," comes almost instinctually, Una relating something she's known since childhood... something that, look, it's entirely possible is actually true, come to think of it.

"I don't like... I-T F-E-E-L-S T-O-O A-L-M-O-S--"

She loses track. Maybe it makes sense anyway. Maybe she's distracted by the floor beneath her bare feet.

"The sock fairies." Real Della, or at least a non-blowback-headache-y Della, would not only sound surprised and even delighted, like this one does, but ask questions. As it is....

"Almost something," she supposes.

At least the ground isn't, well, wet. Or cold. A little cool, perhaps, just shy of room temperature. The umbrellas have altered into lightier, airier creations, more like parasols that only have to shade the light. That one over there has hardly any ribs at all, like it would be perfect as an Instagram filter, if one didn't mind turning yellow-green.

Up ahead is a door, an arched door with a butterfly on it; to the right are stairs that lead up and down, as though this were just one big landing.

The butterfly is not alive, has never been alive. It's only painted.

"Too real," is, maybe, the rest of the sentence Una started spelling. Or maybe not; these things are hard to tell, right now.

(Has she accepted Della, this Della, as one hundred per cent real? It's hard to tell. It looks like it. Then again... what choice does she have, right now?)

"Up," she says, now. "Or down? Up or down? I don't know."

"Not like walking into 'Princesses of Power,'" this Della supposes. "Well, hm." She narrows her eyes at the door; at the stairs. She walks over to put her ear to the door, then pulls a dissatisfied moue. "Tell you what. Hold my hand and I'll go a couple steps each way to see what I can see, and then we can peek through the door before committing. How's that?" She hasn't, after all, been pushed through a Door yet.

While she's eyeing the stairs -- and eyeing her hand approaching the rail, as though it might somehow move -- the key gives another little nudge. The key likes the door, it seems.

Of course the key likes the door. Una should have expected that, maybe; she gives it a baleful glance all the same.

"Okay," she agrees, ignoring it for the moment. The key gets transferred to her other hand so that this hand, a helpful hand, can reach out to take Della's, a little tentative but not entirely reluctant.

The key just sits there.

Smug.

The Della, oblivious, takes her hand -- hers is slightly clammier than the real Della's usually is -- and ventures up first, though only as far as their arms can reach. "It's darker up here," she reports. "Warmer. And I think I smell... cumin?"

The key twitches.

Upward is pronounced, "Colder but brighter, surprise surprise, and -- ow!" That's the jerk on Una's arm; that's, "Stepped on a stone," or a bone, "or something. Ow, my ankle. Coming back."

The key was twitchy all that time. Not so smug now, are you?!

It practically jumps towards what proves to be beyond the door: a... waterfall? A few steps away, anyway, arching over the top of the narrow trail, roaring. "But I couldn't hear it," says the Della, disturbed. Clearly the key wants to be tarnished.

"I should have left the key in the door," moans Una, beneath her breath, utterly trapped by indecision. The key wants the door, but is that the right decision? Up, down, door: they're all valid choices.

"None of this makes sense," she adds, for Della's benefit. "And I know that's the way Dreams work, it's just... it's just that it's not usually like this, either."

She closes her eyes, then sighs. "Okay. We're going through the door. Come on." Bare feet? Bare feet.

The Della turns her head -- 'key'? 'bee'? -- but it's harder to hear with the sound of the waterfall.

"Okay. I... am just going to follow you." She tilts her head this way and that, part nervous gesture, part cracking her neck. "Sorry. It's harder to focus right now."

But she does follow, and she does leave the door ajar behind her. It might shut on its own. It might not. That's up to -- everything else. With those boots, she has to be particularly careful on what's not a plain old rocky trail but cold, damp cobblestones that her soles want to slide on. Her hands go to her ears, then to her hips, protecting the lumps there -- but really it's not that wet; her nightgown is speckled, not soused. And, after a few paces... it's not cold the way it used to be, either. Not radiant heating, but almost... refreshing?

It's hard to hear for Una too, of course, but Della's comment must mostly make it through to her brain: she frowns distinctly at the other woman. The woman who may-- but equally, may not?-- but her housemate, her friend. "Why?" she wants to know, but maybe that's hard to hear, too, and in any case, she is taking action, stepping through the doorway and onto the trail.

It's beautiful, of course... but Una? She's wound far too tight to focus on the beauty. That's probably partly, too, down to her lack of shoes: she has to walk as carefully as Della does, albeit for a different reason. It doesn't stop her from tracing her fingers over a mandorla, though, or grasping at the wall as she needs to to keep her balance.

As it opens out, she stops. And frowns.

"If this is Narnia," she murmurs, "I'm a good fifteen years older than I was when I dreamed about visiting. Are you okay?"

Touching the mandorla yields a tingle -- but maybe that's just stone beneath the moss scraping her fingers. In any case, when she moves on, it doesn't linger beyond a few clinging, greenish bits.

Fifteen years gets the Della halfway towards a smile; earlier, much earlier, either she hadn't heard the question or it hadn't registered. "Better," she admits. "You? Though I can still hear it," of course they can, they're past the waterfall but it's still huge and out there, "shaking my head. Just give me a minute."

She leans back against the rock, her eyes shutting. She might keep leaning if Una went back to walking. She doesn't look at the layers of mountains that roll out into hills and, beyond, what might be a really large lake or the ocean itself. There are no ice sheets; there are no smilodons. No volcano in sight.

A bird calls.

Her eyes open. "Do you smell that?"

Una's answer comes as a hesitant nod. How is she? It's so difficult to say. "I'm in no rush," she reassures the woman who is-- who may be-- her housemate, using the time to explore the immediate vicinity, picking her way across the stones and pressing her hand to this, and to that. She may not feel resonances, but all of this? It's solid and real and both uncanny and perfectly natural.

"Clean air?" she wonders, glancing back at Della, Della with her eyes opened again. "There's no pollution here, wherever we are. It would be lovely, if it weren't... I thought was awake. I think that's what's bothering me the most. It all felt perfectly real and natural until it didn't, and now..."

"Thanks." The Della is quiet.

Only the mandorlas tingle -- and there is one, not far back -- but the rocks of the cliff are their own mix, granite and marble right up to a smooth plane of obsidian, layered with strata of sandstone, as though collected and fitted by a giant for her very own collection. (Within the sandstone, a little whorled... fossil? Perhaps.) Not much grows between the cobblestones, but here and there is a bit of lichen, and growing out of the knotwork is, here and only here, a brave little stem with an array of bright purple bells, so small that they could fit together within her fingernail. When she approaches, they slowly turn, drawn as though to the sun.

Another, deeper breath. "I think you're right. For a moment -- " but the Della shakes her head, only then stop short as if regretting it. "Now it feels natural, to me anyway, but obviously it's not. Just looking at it." She shifts, leaning up from the stone.

Una extends her fingertips, so very tentatively, towards the purple bells: she'll touch, but only with the most fleeting of movements. She's watching them, now, lingering for a few moments more.

"How would you test if I were really me?" she wants to know, quietly, not glancing back at Della. "If you had to. What kind of question would you ask?"

They glance against her skin, a slow shimmer of barely-discernable sound: too fleeting, too ephemeral, to truly hear. They're no kitten; they don't leap.

Neither does the Della. She just leans back again. "Good question."

Her head turns; she looks at Una, even if it's only half-focused. "I wish -- I don't want my head to hurt. But not because it's taken off or anything."

Now that that's taken care of, she exhales, and takes a little while to inhale again. When she does, and then finally speaks, "Right now, I don't know whether it would be a particular kind of question so much as... a pattern? To see how it seems consistent with you, with what I know of you. I suppose it's an opportunity to ask questions we don't necessarily know, too, but would want to, like when Jules was on truth serum. But all that takes time."

"Maybe I should doubt you're you, while we're at it. Maybe you're -- No. That gets us back to iocaine powder again."

"That," says Una, after a moment's hesitation, "makes my head hurt. Sorry. I'm trying not to doubt. You could tell me about your Dream? Unless your head hurts too much still. Which is fine. I can just-- I don't know. It is beautiful here."

It is, and Una's not entirely abandoned the purple bells, still watching them even if their sound is too small for her ears.

"It is." The Della lifts her head to look out, reminding herself.

(The little plant still leans towards Una, a gentle lean into her attention; another touch might affect their chime, or might bruise them, depending on just how delicate they are. Maybe both.)

"The Dream... one of those where we weren't ourselves. We had Paul Revere, but he got offed." A little pause. "But on another note, you remember Pompeii. I don't remember how much you saw, but I took an amphora back. It's cracked around the rim. I'd been thinking that you might like it to grow a plant in, since you didn't get to keep the winged dick," this has a faint teasing, tired not-quite-smile. "But I kept wondering, should I clean it out first? Who gives their friend a dirty old pot? But maybe it's meaningful, what's in it? And things just kept coming up and coming up."

A little pause. "And it's not like it was super smelly."

Una's hand stays where it is, just barely within reach of the plant: there, if it wishes to lean in just a little further, but not inclined to push. She's got half an eye on it, fond in the way she watches the tiny little purple bells, but the rest of her attention is on Della.

"Paul Revere," she repeats, surprised. "And he died? That's unfortunate."

By the thoughtfulness of her expression, and that abrupt blink, she's equally surprised by the reference to that amphora, and maybe this-- more than anything-- softens the way she considers Della. (Maybe this really is Della, for really truly.)

"I missed that. But-- no, you don't need to clean it out. I'd like that a lot. I'll have to think of something appropriate to plant in it, you know? A proper Roman amphora. That's amazing."

Better, arguably, than a winged dick.

The plant does lean in a little, teetering, just enough to touch with its tickly-pointed (as opposed to spiny-pointed) leaves and the edge of one bell. Ting!

"I don't mind cleaning it out!" the Della is meanwhile quick to say. "It was more if it... I don't know, meant something that it had ancient grunge. What would have been ancient grunge, that is. For 'flavoring' your plants or whatever. Special sauce." Which might have made her giggle, another day, but she's quite serious now; her brows even have the bare minimum of energy necessary to tilt up in question.

"I think it rather depends what was in the amphora originally," muses Una, eyes on the little plant rather than her housemate. "Wine? Olive oil? Garum? Does it smell like anything?" 'Special sauce' is worth a giggle, but it doesn't get it from the redhead, either: she's so focused.

Ting! goes the plant, and Una lets her fingers rest there, an instrument to be played upon.

"What's 'Garum'? I don't know. I didn't sniff too hard."

Maybe one more bell can reach -- has the plant grown, just a bit? -- tingity-ting, leaving just a hint of saffron-orange pollen.

"We can go on," the Della offers. "The breather helped." Not that she straightens again right off.

Perhaps the key heard; it gives a little, inconclusive twitch.

"Fermented fish sauce," says Una, and her voice says it all: ew. "I suspect you'd know, if it were that. It must smell awful."

She clasps her fingers more tightly about the key, as if to hold it still, because she has a bell to watch, fingers brushing up against each other to get a feel for that pollen, as carefully as she can to avoid interrupting the plant itself.

"Where are we going, I wonder. You're sure you're okay?"

"...Ew." Then, "No. No, it wasn't that."

The key twitches again in that tighter hold, then relaxes, or possibly bides its time. The pollen could as well be dust, only faintly granular, and leaves a smear that doesn't sparkle so much as it's somehow subtly iridescent. One of the bell-buds has begun to, slowly, expand.

"My head still hurts," says the Della, "but it took days with the faerie glitter." She exhales. "And I'm thirsty, wah wah, so something safe to drink would be nice before I fall off the mountain... but really, we could just stay here." Which leads to under-her-breath singing, just a snippet by The Clash. "What do you do when you don't feel... motivated?"

Pop! and the bud opens.

No garum. This is Una, mildly (more than mildly?) relieved.

"Do you think some healing would help the headache? I suppose maybe not, if it is a backlash thing. I'm sorry, though-- I'm sure we can find some water for you, and hopefully..."

But the bud has opened, and Una squeaks in reply. "Look at this!"

Look at it, Della!

"Maybe?" is a lot easier on the Della than shrugging would have been, although as it turns out she can manage an inward tug of her eyebrows: look at...

She leans, even. "It's a plant?" (Sotto voce: 'I'm just a plant / yes, I'm only a plant....')

And then it touches Una again, the newest bell louder and a slightly deeper, more sustainable ping that swings a chord with the other two.

"...Oh? Oh." That's weird. "When did plants start doing that to you?"

The offer of healing is (temporarily?) forgotten, because Una's so busy just admiring (or is it just staring at?) those plants and their bells.

"It's new," she promises, though there's an element of uncertainty to her voice. "Maybe it's just here? These plants. These... bells. It's... they're making music. I've never seen anything like it."

So. Charmed.

The bumps are so light, so different than a hungry Hephaestus-head-butt; their tones are differently light, positive if not yet joyful, less a pre-finished piece than exploring what it's like.

"That is so strange," is not a complaint. And, all right, the Della won't hurry her on; she just leans her head back again and closes her eyes.

Una remembers, then, her offer, and turns from the bells (though her hand isn't moving) to consider Della, focusing intently. Once upon a time, she'd've made sure she was touching-- but now, this time, she merely looks, and maybe that's enough: there's her healing energy, all warm and cinnamon-spiced with a dash of vanilla.

"Everything's strange about this place," she acknowledges. "But the key's not pulling me away, yet. Do you feel any better?"

he Della's, "...Oh," is vastly different from before. Della cups the back of her neck wonderingly. "It still hurts, but it's more manageable," she reports. "Beyond it, I just feel good."

But, "'Key'? Is that how you got in?"

Una looks so pleased for that: so pleased. "Good," is what she begins with.

However.

She glances down, not at the bells, this time, but at her other hand, which opens to reveal the key in its palm. "It was in the door of the wardrobe, when I thought I was coming back from-- well, earlier in the Dream. I don't know why I picked it up: I've never brought anything back from Dreams. But it was there, and it felt important. And now it keeps tugging at me, though not, it seems, right now."

So of course the key has to twitch again, right when it's exposed.

The Della's brows go up. She still has that relaxed, eased quality to her, headache or no headache, as though some long-accustomed ache's been assuaged. She reaches out to poke the key with a finger -- and then draws it back.

"Hm."

"Wardrobe. Of course." And just as she's starting to look back up at Una, there it goes again, and again, though it doesn't seem as though the Della can feel the tug that goes down deep. "TK?"

The bells are silent.

"Some kind of TK, maybe," agrees Una uncertainly, the bells at least half forgotten now that she's so focused upon the key itself, twitching there in her hand. "I mean, it must be, right? Because keys don't move on their own accord; someone has to do the moving."

She takes in a deep breath, now. "Key," she says. "Bells. If you're trying to tell me-- us?-- something, then I really would appreciate it if you could be a little more clear. Am I supposed to do something? I can keep walking. We can."

"Aladdin's lamp," the Della murmurs. "The genie's prison."

Then she's quiet: quiet to listen, and watch, and maybe to think some listen to Una, key! thoughts. So she's right there to see when the key stops... twitches again... and then starts jiggling more, slowing only when it finds itself about to teeter out of Una's hand.

She rubs her temples, both hands.

Una shoots Della a glance, chewing on her lower lip, but she's distracted from whatever that thought is by the key in all its movement. She withdraws her other hand from the bell flowers, now, so that she can cup both around the key and give it just a little more space to move in it without the risk of falling, and being lost.

"I'm going to take that as a sign," she says, slowly, eyes on the key now and perhaps forever. "I think to keep moving? I think it must be. If you're ready to go. We can find you some water, hopefully."

The bell flowers sink back -- tinkle tinkle tinkle -- and sigh their way back up to the stone. The key, stabilized, somehow radiates smugness again.

But, "Yes. Let's." The Della licks her lips; straightens; rearranges the waistband of the breeches through her nightgown. Also, perhaps more a sign of the healing (or is it rejuvenation?), lifts one fist in a Rosie the Riveter pose. "Onward," doesn't quite get to be an exclamation.

Key: twitch. Twitch. Twitch. Like their moving feet.

Evidently Una's not entirely forgotten those bell flowers, because she does give them one last sad glance, and is oh-so-careful to avoid them with her bare feet as she takes that first step onwards.

"Onward," she agrees with Della, with a wry little laugh, and a wary glance down at the twitching key. "You came back half-dressed in your Dream self's clothes, huh?"

The key's got her attention, but not all of it, nor Della either for that matter: brown eyes continue to seek, watching for more plants, more mandorlas, more anything. It makes for slow going, the key tucked securely into one hand whilst the other continues to touch and feel, quite as if she could pick up resonances and not, indeed, Della... if this Della even can.

"I'm afraid to look too far down," this Della agrees, wryly. She trudges after Una, not touching, though there's a moment when they pass one mandorla that she turns her head, tempted. She doesn't seem to mind slow. Often she looks not inward but out, out, as though she could manifest wings and leap into that vastness.

Una can handle the trail; Una is handling the trail. The cobblestones don't vary particularly -- there's an array of colors, but mostly variations on gray -- and as they turn a curve, the sound of the waterfall grows dimmer yet.

There's a point at the cliff where there are crevices carved in, no, steps. The key doesn't react to them. The key wants to keep going. Now and again there are flowers, but looking down, dots of lavender and yellow and gold. (Metallic gold.)

The next mandorla, though... the key twitches; the key tugs. There.

Not that the key says what to do.

Una picks her way carefully down the path, avoiding any possibility of treading on flowers (not after those bells!) with her bare toes, which must, by now, be getting utterly filthy.

The twitching key, naturally, draws her attention-- and then the mandorla, too. "Here," she says, reporting the information to Della, as she approaches the carving, hesitating in front of it for a few moments before she brushes her fingertips over it, aiming to push aside any moss and leaves: to be able to see, if at all possible, the iconography in question. "This one. This is what the key wants."

It could be worse. It could be a goat path.

(If it is, they're remarkably well-behaved goats.)

As Una works on the revelation, the Della leans to look over her shoulder; her breath doesn't touch her cheek. (She is breathing, right?) She doesn't try to touch. "What is that. It reminds me of a coin."

To a plant-person, it might be more reminiscent of a hedge maze: a unicursal maze, a labyrinth, within curly brackets -- top and bottom -- of what might be ivy. A bit of stone stem has crumbled off, but the idea's there.

"A coin," agrees Una, slowly, frowningly. "Or a maze. Is that what it's trying to tell us? This whole Dream has been a bit of a maze... twists and turns and I feel like I've kept making the wrong decision, the one destined not to get me back to where I need to be. I wonder if I was supposed to go into the other bedroom after all."

That's a non-sequitur if ever there was one.

Maybe it's just instinct-- plant calling to plant-- that has her pressing her hand upon the mandorla and imbuing the stone with a nudge of her power. It... probably can't hurt, right?

"The other bedroom?" Though the Della adds, "A maze is so generic; it could apply to just about all of the things we do around heee--"

An explanation of the other bedroom will have to wait, because Una's entranced all over again, glimmer (brown! gleaming so beautifully) blossoming throughout her; it invokes a tiny little oh that's more an escaping breath than a proper sound.

She doesn't even pause, and maybe she should, but the door is calling her, and--

She doesn't look back, just steps on through.

-- and what's the Della going to do? Stifle a squeak or a squawk and follow in after. Hurrying. The door snaps shut on her heels.

It's dark in here. Or, at least, it is to one of them. The Della is swinging her head -- "Hello?" and then, "Una?" as though she can't see the barrel-vaulted ceiling, the hallway less wide than it is tall. Una can see it, or perhaps it's that Una knows it, traced over by luminescent moss while the Della's just patting blankly at the air. Moss, soft moss, like the velvet lining of a (casket) jewelry box, or the insulation of a place where music is made.

The shut door is like one of many, visible (to Una) as blankness within the glimmer, but at least it doesn't disappear behind them. The hallway stretches to either side; in one direction can be heard the faint sound of water, and in the other... nothing.

(The key is still shivering. The key is quiet.)

"I'm here," says Una, reassuringly if distracted. There's a note of vague curiosity there, as if she's very peripherally aware that it's weird that Della seems lost, when she, Una, is not. But it's not at the forefront of her thoughts, not enough to turn her attention from this liminal space.

There's something deeply comforting, somehow, about the luminescent moss, the distant sound of water, the very... essence of this place.

"Follow my voice," she says, turning immediately into the direction of the nothing. Why that way? She couldn't say. It just... feels right.

"Una." Deep breath, not quite panting, but only because it's forced into something quieter as well as shallower. "Okay..."

It's hard to say how far they walk; the hallway is quite a bit lengthier than it looks, though the sound of water only slowly fades. It's a good thing the Della's wearing boots, and not only that, boots that the real Della wouldn't care about wrecking, because there's some stumbling here and there even after she manages to touch a wall as a guide. (The wall will also, over time, not do her manicure any favors.) If ever it gets too quiet, from the redhead not talking or getting too far ahead, there's the worried, higher-pitched, "Una?" from behind.

There turn out to be discreet placards by each door, each with the same curly-bracket top-and-bottom framing, holding individual inscriptions of dots and lines.

To the right of the hallway's end, an alcove with double doors; to the left, the hallway continues. The air is clear, and it's all familiar somehow, as though perhaps in her peripatetic life Una had lived here long ago, or perhaps heard stories murmured to her in a low and comforting voice. Some more turns follow.

Down the latest passageway, there's a different light, not at the end but partway along the tunnel; there are sounds of clinking, perhaps ceramic or glass, something being stirred, put away, dealt with.

Una can't move too quickly because even being able to see doesn't mean she's not cautious about the placement of her feet (still; always). And she talks, too, narrating her steps as if to use this as a beacon, commenting on the dots and lines ("Morse code, maybe? Dots and dashes? But I don't remember any morse code, unfortunately, except 'S' and 'O' and that's no use."), the path, the doors themselves.

(It does happen, at least once, that she goes quiet, and then she's so-quick to resume her narration, and to reassure the woman who may-or-may-not be her housemate and friend of her continued presence, of the general direction of their travel.)

It's tempting, at the end, to go with the double doors, but it's the continuing hallway that really attracts Una's attention. She pauses, anyway, wrapping her fingers more securely about the key, and sniffing thoughtfully at the air. (And, too, checking in on Della: she's still there, can she see the light? See, everything's fine.) Familiarity is a peculiar drug.

"Do you hear that?" is quiet. She's following the sound, now, headed for the light.

The Della hardly minds, and the narration perceptibly helps; it perks her up, even though it turns out that S and O are, sadly, the only letters the Della remembers either. She mutters something about a book, a good book, Code Name Verity; about World War II and having to be in the right mood; otherwise, though, she's mostly just listening with a comment here and there so Una knows she's following along.

And she can see the light, and can walk a little more quickly for it.

The key, the key is huddling in Una's fingers, happy to be grasped so firmly; the air has a scent to it, now, but it's harder to place.

Don't think for a moment Una doesn't take note of that book (and don't think, either, she won't be following it up and !!!!! all over Della once she's read it, and the companion novel, and also a full-length piece of fanfiction too).

But that's for later.

Now: now Una finds herself stepping across that threshold and freezing, just for a moment. It's the woman... it's what she says.

"My father?" she repeats, bewildered enough that it's basically just autopilot that has her leaning in to test what's on the wooden spoon, fingers wrapping around the solidity of it as, eyes closed, she tastes.

A soft sigh escapes-- pure pleasure-- and her eyelids flutter faintly as she breathes in the sensation of the broth, the unfamiliarity of it, rich and savoury on her tongue. "I don't... I can't place it. Who are you?" What is this?

And: her father?

Rich, savoury, like the canonical chicken soup for the soul but amplified, clarified -- but not purified: it needs that variation, that complexity, that barest trace of lovage and other tastes less identifiable but just as familiar. That earthiness, to go with the spirit, and something more. Some of the miniature dumplings float and melt; two are bright, sharp, peppered. The flavor lingers and keeps developing, energy suffusing through her, slow and straightforward as a savoured breath.

The woman's watching her expression as though that's an answer; the Della's watching too, and pulling in her lower lip as though to ward off enviousness (she gets a pat on the head for it, too, right before the woman reaches to take that spoon back). "You may call me Margaret." No fancy name, not even a Morgan le Fay; it's not impossible she could be Mar-ga'ret but... really? Unlikely.

"That's all the time you get," the Margaret tells Una, or maybe it's both of them. Her smile is sudden and broad (and a little toothy). "This time."

The Margaret shoos them off towards the -- not the red door; the blue door. (Had Una seen that there were doors there? There are.) She's too good at what she does, too efficient, for the Della to do more than brush her fingertips across a loose fold of cloth. "Keep turning... let's make it simple: left and left, always left, and you'll get home."

"Don't forget to pack."

"But I--"

But what?

Una's whole face falls, a look of utter devastation and loss, and somehow it doesn't matter that this is a Dream and that Dreams lie and lie and lie, because just for once... for once, she feels like she belongs.

But Margaret is shooing them off, and what can she do, really? The blue door. Left and left and left, like getting out of a maze.

It's only once she's walking, blinking back tears, so confused and bereft and unsure, that: "Pack?"

"Your father? This time?" the Della whispers almost simultaneously -- but Una, that way... she puts her arm around her friend's shoulders, if it'll help and not hurt Una right now, giving the Margaret a sharp look...

Which means that she sees the Margaret's expression when Una's not looking at her, and it's complicated and conflicted and too much for now.

Doors, then. More corridor, with a perfectly normal (if still stone) ceiling and then perfectly normal lighting, leading to ... what might be a perfectly normal human hallway: not of an institution but a home. "Pack? I don't know either." This isn't their home.

For one, it doesn't look like their home, not even reversed.

Two, there isn't any furniture.

Just the soft grey carpet, the serene blue walls with white trim, not new but spruced up, waiting for a new family.

(There's even a bathroom with a mirror and a toilet, but it's to the right.)

"Like that bag to take places just in case of Doors? Water bottle and energy bars and all?"

The morning (morning?) light is soft, not too bright for their strained eyes. Outside is a 'For Sale' sign.

The Della doesn't look twice.

It does help. It's a comfort in a moment of confusion, and Una's shoulders are shaking, and she's not looking back and won't see-- Margaret, whoever she is, will hold her secrets for now.

She's hurrying, all the better to get out of the place she wanted to stay in (so many questions!), and into... she stops. She frowns. The key, in her hand, is squeezed tighter still, but maybe that's just a reflexive thing, a comfort as much as the arm.

"Della?"

It's amazing how many questions can be layered into that recitation of her housemate's name; how uncertain she sounds, how utterly confused.

"I don't have anywhere to go," is quiet, now. "And I don't want to go anywhere, except home. I keep ending up without shoes... and now I'm probably treading dirt into someone's new carpet." There's a note of hysteria in the back of Una's voice, now.

It's harder to tell family room from living room from dining room when there's no furniture, when they're just walking, hurrying through it, when they're only going one way.

"Una," says the Della's -- Della's? -- voice, warm and loving. "Let's believe her, for now anyway. Let's keep going. When we find a mat, we'll wipe our feet, how's that?" Goats or no goats, her boots probably need it too.

"What's the key doing?" The key that had scuttled hard against Una's palm when they were back in the Margaret's domain, that would have crawled up her sleeve if she'd had one.

They can tell the kitchen, at least, the kitchen that's up ahead.

The kitchen is very bare.

"'Believe her'," repeats Una, uncertainly. Believe that there's something to know about her father? Believe her that they need to pack? Believe her? "We'll keep going. Right. We have to keep going. That's--"

What the key wants, is on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn't find the words for it, not precisely.

"We keep going," she repeats, this time a little more certainly, though the empty kitchen, it twists her heart, and those tears are still not far away, threatening to fall.

And on an exhaled breath: "I hope someone brings life into this kitchen again. Fills it with cinnamon and sugar and tomatoes and... life. Someone will, right? The way we did, on Oak?"

Her composure is teetering hard.

Cinnamon and sugar and tomatoes. It makes Della (she has to be the Della now, doesn't she?) smile, just a little, and hug Una a little closer. "Someone's got to," she says. "A family, even if it takes them a little time. Here, let me take your arm, or you can have mine; lean on me when you want to. Actually..." she reaches for the familiar weight in her pocket, but no. No phone. Who knows about the service.

"Yes, let's go." The next door is a... pantry?

A butler's pantry, maybe, a walk-through.

No, it's a walk-through to what proves to be a different house: this one with furniture, spare and clean, straight out of a catalog: the sort of place that's designed to be inspirational, yet effortless, that invites people to live in that house and adopt that lifestyle... until they start filling it with their own things, their personal things. If they ever dare to at all.

At least there's a mat in front of the sink, a colorful one, that should hide whatever. And lemons, real lemons, in a bowl.

The key nudges.

There's a somewhat misty smile from Una, the kind that doesn't quite counterbalance the tears in her eyes and the sniffling from her nose, but is genuine nonetheless. She clings to Della, and for now, seems content to let the other woman lead. As they pass through the pantry, she murmurs, "I told the little girls that you and Jules were like my sisters, and it's true," and why is she so emotional? She doesn't know. It's so stupid. This is just a Dream.

Only, "All kitchens need... oh no, not like this. No, this is awful. Houses are for living in. Where's the door? This is even worse than the empty ones."

(Not that she won't gently wipe her feet on the mat by the sink, mind you, even if it means leaving marks behind. Maybe especially then.)

"The little girls?" but Della asks it softly, not requiring an answer. She's guiding Una now; she doesn't rub her temples, she refuses to, even though she has a hand that's free for doing other things than turning knobs. Or than... "Here, I'm going to get a paper towel, just in case." It may not be a tissue, but it's three-ply and extraordinarily soft as well as strong, because of course it is. On second thought, after touching it, Della snags a second one without even much squinting to see if she can tell the brand.

"Does it help to think of it as a dollhouse?" Left, down the hallway; left, down two steps into the sunken living room, by the baby grand piano and the shimmering, perfect plants, by the big windows to look out to... that street sign, there; is that a Gray Harbor street sign?

Left again is just the fireplace. To the right -- but the key twitches left. It's a big old fireplace, preserved in the remodel. They'll just have to duck their heads.

Una doesn't have an answer to give: that's a whole other story, all but a whole other lifetime, in a way. She's not especially coherent anyway, as it happens, and those tears? They've started to stream down her cheeks, though she's apparently inclined to simply let them do so, not even so much as lifting her hand to dash them away, let alone seek some of that paper towel for the job.

It's not as if she can use her nightgown for it, not unless she wants to more-or-less disrobe in the process (and, for the record, she does not).

Left. Left. Left again. Does she notice that street sign? Maybe not, because even with the tears, surely she would comment.

She snuffles, instead, squinting at the fireplace-- "Left," is muffled, but determined.

Through the fireplace? Well, and why not?

Through the fireplace rode the six hundred --

Well, perhaps not. Della's too busy pausing to dab at Una's face -- gently, gently, she doesn't have any moisturizer and this isn't a good exfoliation time, no matter how soft the paper towel thinks it is -- and then helping to guide her through.

It's... reasonably clean?

This house's living room isn't so far off the other one, except that it has windows on two sides and pictures of actual people on the walls, and there's even a magazine (a dog-eared magazine) left out with a remote as a bookmark. Look how much more natural that is!

The key reminds them to walk away from the television set they've just stepped out of, down yet another hallway, up some stairs...

...and then the hardwood squeaks beneath their feet.

Della's dabbing only makes Una cry more: not angry sobs, just those tears, and the snuffling, hiccoughing sound that so often comes with them, the kind that it's almost impossible to stop, except--

-- well, she's still crying on the other side of the fireplace, having been led through, and then there are more lefts: left and left and up the stairs and--

-- freeze. That's a dog. A yappy, yappy dog.

"Run," says Una.

Those are not tears Della's comfortable with. Sitting on a couch, consoling, feeling the hurt behind the tears dry up, that's one thing. But a never-ending cataract of tears --

-- well, she handles it anyway.

And look. Joey's probably a good dog, a misunderstood dog, a dog who's been left alone too long and just wants to say hi -- but,

"Run," Della agrees.

These aren't tears Una knows what to do with - or indeed, how to explain. They flow, and flow, and flow, and why?

Left. Left. Left.

The tears continue, making it harder and harder for Una to see the rooms they run through, her body aching with the quiet shaking of her shoulders, and the occasional snorting sound that comes from trying to catch your breath when you just can't stop crying.

But:

"Stop," she says. The key slides out of her fingers as she does so, and she drops to her knees to reclaim it, but she's frowning, and uncertain. She breathes-- or rather, she inhales, shoulders quivering.

"Stop."

So they stop, Della bent over her, when there's the thundering sound of more feet --

"Meow!" declaims Athena.

"Meow," says Hephaestus, and rubs against his Una's ankles, sniffing.

And Una? She lets out a part-hysterical little laugh, extending her fingers down towards Hephaestus, her eyes closing as she breathes.

"We're home?"

Della looks, really looks. The Athena certainly seems to be her Athena, given how she immediately uses Una as a springboard to hop onto Della's shoulder, while the Hephaestus purrs and rubs up and generally starts making himself at home. Which is to say, welcoming Una home. "We... I think... Is everything on the correct side? I don't trust my eyes."

The key clinks. Ahem.

Una's little squeak as Athena springboards off of her is not unfamiliar-- and it's maybe enough that the next breath she takes is a little less sobby and a little closer to normal. "Let's find out," she supposes, then, gathering Hephaestus up into her arms and-- the key.

She reclaims it. "I bet it wants to go back into a lock," she concludes, drawing herself back up to her feet.

She turns, too, because what better place to return it than, yes indeed, the awaiting wardrobe.

"Of course it would," says Della, darkly. "Right here in River City."

The key does, yes, wiggle its way into the appropriate hole of the wardrobe -- funny how that's never had a key before -- and stops with a contented click. Fair job, humans. You can go now.

Una's breath escapes with a whoosh, and she holds Hephaestus ever so slightly tighter to her (he's not the biggest fan of this, but... oh well, when his human needs him, she needs him).

Safe.