pajama fashion

[bright_and_beautiful]

Patrick has been hiding his toys again. (And, annoyingly, his siblings' toys as well.) For Jenny, this means that once her siblings fall asleep, she gets to spend the next hour hunting around for all the places he may have stuck something. Her latest find is Anne's stuffed unicorn, which was for some reason shoved under the bathroom sink. She doesn't need to wake her sister up for it, but she can at least go put it outside her door.

Except that when she leaves the bathroom, she's not in the hallway. She's in what appears to be a large, brightly lit bar. None of these things apply to her hallway. She feels rather out of place; t-shirt, pajama pants and stuffed unicorn are not exactly magic bar attire. (She thinks.)

As far as Jenny knows, there's only one person in her immediate vicinity who associates with magic. This doesn't seem like Soph's style, but it also doesn't seem particularly threatening. From Soph's explanations, evil magic is pretty up front about being evil. "I replaced your hallway with a restaurant" does not scream evil to her, it's just weird.

She ventures inside a few steps. "Soph? Soooooph, is this you?"

Comments

[feyfortune]

"...I'm a fairy. And I've looked that goofy plenty." And then, deciding that if someone didn't want an ungulate wandering around their weird...tables...area...they shouldn't have replaced a stable with it and not warned anyone, she opens the door and leads her unicorn inside.

[bright_and_beautiful]

"Holy God in Heaven that's a unicorn!" Jenny shrieks in entirely unabashed excitement.

[feyfortune]

"Oh, yeah, you don't have those in the mortal world, do you? Her name's Penguin."

[bright_and_beautiful]

Trivial concerns like "my hallway was turned into an interdimensional bar occupied by an immortal fairy" are summarily ignored in favor of the actual real life unicorn. "Oh my gosh, she's so pretty!" Jenny sizes up the unicorn. Years of managing eager siblings around potentially unfriendly pets manage to somehow overcome her enthusiasm and actually enforce safety habits. "Can I pet her...? Is that okay?"

[feyfortune]

"Oh, yeah, she's super friendly, I'm nowhere near risk-conscious enough to make a cranky primary mount a good idea."

[bright_and_beautiful]

Jenny moves gingerly towards the unicorn, almost afraid the unicorn will vanish when she touches it. But no vanishing occurs. "Soooo soft," she hums happily. "Yes, you're a good girl, aren't you, Penguin? Such a pretty girl." Then to the woman with a laugh, she adds, "...why Penguin?"

[feyfortune]

"Because of her markings."

Penguin is mostly black with a white throat and belly and a golden horn.

[bright_and_beautiful]

This seems undignified to Jenny, but she doesn't say anything to that effect. What if she's asked to stop petting Penguin?!

"I get it!" she says instead. "How old is she? Where did you find her? Can anyone find a unicorn? What other markings are there? She's so prettyyyy."

[feyfortune]

"She's ten years old. When Mother decided I was responsible enough for my own mount, I chose a calving mother and started training the foal when she gave birth. Just to be attached to me, at first, of course. I don't think there are any unicorns in the mortal realm, sorry."

[bright_and_beautiful]

Jenny keeps petting Penguin, looking rather awestruck, but her brain is starting to catch up to her and think of things in addition to (never instead of) the unicorn. "Waaait, does that mean I'm not in the 'mortal realm' or whatever now? Where are we, anyway?" She pinches her arm experimentally. "Well, probably not dreaming. Weeeeird."

[feyfortune]

"If I'm dreaming, that would mean that someone got me with sleep-pollen while I was trying to get Penguin stabled and combed. Which is unlikely for a variety of reasons. Anyway, I don't know what this place is besides 'not a stable.'"

[bright_and_beautiful]

"And I'm pretty sure my bathroom is supposed to lead to my hallway, not-" Jenny looks around, "a mostly empty fairy unicorn bar." She scowls at the unattended bar. "There isn't even anyone here to ask."

[feyfortune]

"I know it can't be a gate because there are no gates in the Deep South. So I guess it's just a...thing." Beat. "Okay. I can deal with that."

[bright_and_beautiful]

Jenny giggles at that. "I know it probably makes no sense to you at all but now I'm picturing the Deep South where I'm from having fairies and unicorns and it's very, very not working."

[feyfortune]

"We live in enclosed habitats down here. It's still all snowy and icy outside."

[bright_and_beautiful]

"I haven't ever been to ours but it's supposed to be pretty hot! At least within my country, I guess. Swamps? Mosquitos? Palm trees and alligators?" Pet, pet. "Er, these are all stereotypes. See: I have not ever actually been. But not with the icy and snowy." Pet pet pet. "Sometimes it snows, like, an inch, and everything shuts down because OMG SNOW and they can't handle it, aaaaand I'm babbling, I'll stop now." She keeps petting, then pauses consideringly. "...can Penguin walk on ice? Or, wait, you stay enclosed away from the snow. Sooo that's dumb, probably not."

[feyfortune]

"I didn't think the mortal realm's geography was so different...or...no, there are good reasons that it's so icy down here. Did something extremely magic happen? Are there any penguins left?"

[bright_and_beautiful]

"Awww," Jenny goes to pat the stranger's shoulder, "don't look so stressed, unicorn lady, it's okay! There's still penguins, I promise! Many extremely magic things have happened, but as far as I know none of them affected the weather? The penguins are just reeeeally far away. Where there is totally ice and snow and stuff."

[feyfortune]

"...Far away down south? Like, a deeper south than the swampy mosquito one?"

[bright_and_beautiful]

"There is lots of south that is not in my country! Deep South is just what we call the south-iest part of the country I live in. There's lots, lots more. If you go north enough or south enough, it's all ice."

She ceases petting Penguin long enough to hold up Fancy. "Fancy, this is Penguin. Penguin, this is Fancy. He belongs to my little sister but he was totally mine first, so his name is sorta my fault, buuut whatever it's fine."

[feyfortune]

Penguin blows at the doll. Whether or not this is a coincidence is anybody's guess.

"Well, when I say 'Deep South' I mean the southernmost continent on the planet, so I suppose that's a valid cause for miscommunication."

[bright_and_beautiful]

Jenny giggles and makes Fancy solemnly tap horns with Penguin. This is how she pictures unicorn greetings in her head, and now she gets to make it happen for real. (Half real. Three quarters real? Stuffed unicorns count a little.)

"I mean, my world doesn't have unicorns, makes sense that some things are different. Well... I don't think it does? If Soph has been holding out on me, I will be very annoyed, who reveals vampires and demons and not unicorns?" She shrugs. "Sorry for the confusion. My continent's pretty far north, actually. If we had a map I'd show you, but. Nope!"

[feyfortune]

Alcallah holds out her hand, frowns at it for a bit, and--

A globe appears. It's not very good, but it has the oceans and continents in blue and green respectively and the continents are identifiable if not terribly detailed.

"Which one?"

[bright_and_beautiful]

She peers at the globe, impressed. It's a large step above the glitter Soph threw at her. "Neat!" She pokes at it curiously, and ooohs when her fingers goes through. Then she looks somewhat despairingly at the North American blob and sticks her finger into what she thinks might be approximately southern California. "Here? Ish. I'm somewhere in there, anyway!"

[feyfortune]

"So..." she peers at the globe. "The thing you call the Deep South would be...here?" she pokes at Mexico.