It was also different from the foreign magic she'd chased. She wasn't sure what to think of that.
The elevator stopped with a ding and the slightest of jolts and the doors opened up into another waiting room. This one was smaller than the one downstairs, and a lot cozier, with just a few plush looking couches arranged around a single low table. The walls were a warm brown, there were house plants lining the walls and the ceiling was arched. There were high windows on one wall, and directly opposite the elevator was a large wooden double door.
Tove's head was buzzing with all these new sights and places. And the foreign magic all around her.
"Please, take a seat," said the elf in the labcoat, whose nametag Tove suddenly realised said "Illien". How had she not noticed before? "I shall inform the Director you're here and will call you in once she's ready to see you."
For a second Tove was too stunned to move, but as Celind tugged at her coat sleeve, she stepped out of the elevator and allowed herself to be pulled to sofas. Illien walked briskly to the door, knocked three times, and stepped in.
"I--" Tove started but didn't quite know what to say then. "How can I understand him? He wasn't speaking Esperanto."
"Nope, he wasn't," Celind said with an excited smile. "That little device you got was basically a universal translator. It uses magic to sort of tap into your brain and translates everything you hear automatically." That's when Tove realised that Celind wasn't speaking in Esperanto either. They seemed to notice the shift in her expression and their smile widened even more. "Oh you caught on? I'm speaking my native language right now." A giggle. "This is cool, there aren't many people in Ariolas who can speak it."
"Ariolas is the city?" Tove asked, glancing over to the windows. The city skyline stretched out behind it. Celind nodded and she hummed. "I didn't know this kind of thing was possible."
"Oh, it's still a prototype," Celind said. "We've only recently managed to get it to translate what you're saying too, though it can still only translate the literal meaning of words and it's absolutely brimstone with figures of speech."
Tove let out a short laugh and then the doors opened up. Illien was standing there and motioned for them to come it. She swallowed, a sudden nervous lump in her throat, but Celind was there and cheery as ever, so that made her feel a bit better. She felt like she understood Alaia's whole situation a lot better now.
They walked in through the doors and into a reasonably big office. Again the ceiling was high and arched with another big window opposite the doors. The color scheme of the room was similarly warm as the waiting room outside and this room too was full of plants. At the back of the room was a large desk with an assortment of books and papers scattered on it, behind which was a big black chair and on that chair, sat a woman. Her skin was so dark it was almost like ebony, her pure white hair was curly and chopped short, and her piercing blue eyes told a story of a long life of knowledge and compassion. And she carried herself with such dignity and power that never before had Tove felt the moniker of "Director" to have been a better fit.
Stepping into the room, the urge to bow before the woman was so strong that Tove actually stopped.
"Welcome, stranger," the Director said and smiled. "It is quite unusual for us to have visitors form your plane."
"I... uh. Hi," said Tove, like an intelligent person. The Director didn't seem too judgmental though so she cleared her throat and stepped further into the room. Her head was having trouble keeping up again. "I'm, uh, Tove, nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too, Tove," the Director said and she nailed the pronunciation so perfectly Tove would think she was fluent in Fjellish."Now, if you don't mind, could you tell us exactly how you've ended up in our world?"
And Tove told them. She told them about the oddities that had been happening in her world, about how she'd been researching this for months, about how they'd found Marqués and then about Alaia's accident and the fight they'd had. About how she'd been out one night and seen something, chased it down and woken up here. She thought she might've gone a bit too much into detail concerning her personal relationship with Alaia, but the Director's whole presence oozed understanding and she found herself wanting to tell her every detail. She reminded Tove of her late grandmother in that way, though the Director wasn't quite at the grandma age yet.
The Director thought for a bit after Tove ended her story. "I see," she said, shuffling some of the papers on her desk. "I can't say I know anything about a man named Marqués, but this creature you described," she picked up a paper and slid it forward on the desk, "sounds rather familiar."
Tove took a step closer and looked at the paper. Her breath hitched. There it was, black and humanoid, a long tail extending behind it, somehow lacking a distinct, clear form, like it was constantly pulsating. It was hard to clearly see it, even in a photograph. Except for the eyes. The eyes were big and empty, just white voids staring into you.
"That's it," she whispered. "That's the thing I chased."
"I figured as much," the Director said, rubbing the bridge of her nose for a moment. "We discovered the existence of other planes a few decades ago, and since then have been researching them and trying to develop ways to communicate and maybe even commune between them. That's why the Interplanar Consulate exist. And, I fear, why the Planar Imp, as we call it, started wreaking havoc in the first place. It is some kind of entity that can traverse between the planes as it pleases and it first appeared around the time we started digging deeper into the true construction of our worlds."
"Well, I wouldn't say its 'wreaking havoc'," Tove said, thinking back to the incidents back home. Sure there had been quite a bit of property damage, but no serious injuries as of yet. "It's mostly just been... inconvenient?"
"That's how it started here too," the Director said, and there was a graveness in her voice that made Tove not want to ask her more. "And it seems that it has now switched to harassing your plane."
"Can't we just... catch it?" Tove said and she knew it was a dumb suggestion before it left her mouth. As if they hadn't tried that.
"We have tried," the Director confirmed. "Whenever we're close to catching it, it jumps planes. We've, well, lost several good people trying. They're not dead, just scattered on other planes, like what happened to you. We don't have a way to get them back, and we've only recently figured out how to contact them across--"
A thought hit Tove like a sledge hammer to the head. "Wait!!" she said and the Director stopped midsentence. "Sorry, I just-- you have no way to get them back? Does that mean...?"
The Director's face fell, as did Tove's heart. "Unfortunately, yes," she said and she sounded genuinely sorry. "We don't currently have any idea on how to access other planes physically."
"Oh," said Tove. Her thoughts were going on overdrive, her emotions running haywire. Would she never be able to go home? Would she never see her friends again? Or family? What about Ronja, or Alaia, what would she do without her? She still had so many things she'd wanted to do, so many places she'd meant to visit, so many stories she'd planned on writing.
Could she never visit Ulriika again?
"There is still hope," she could distantly hear the Director saying. "If we can catch the imp, if we can study it, I'm sure we can figure out a way to return you home, to return our people home."
"I..." Tove said. Her heartbeat was in her ears, and she was having trouble concentrating. Her vision swam.
"And you can contact your world," the Director said. "If you have something that belongs to someone in your world, we can use that to contact them..." Her voice was agitated now, desperately grasping to get Tove to calm down.
And then Tove was perfectly calm. Serenity washed over her and suddenly she felt perfectly fine. Her vision was clear, the colours of the world bright and crisp. Her head was light and nothing was wrong.
"Sure," she said, and then she collapsed.
___________________________________________________
Yay? It's some answers at least, so that's good, right? :D
I'm a bit mad at myself for not being able to get any buffer going, but I managed to get myself a flu as well (RIP) so I've just been too tired to focus on writing. With any luck we can manage two parts tomorrow? But we are still on schedule (barely) so it's not too bad. And I am finished at 22:45 instead of 2:00 today lmao
Anyway, I'm going to bed, bye. Next topic is "Retake".
Pie out.
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