33

The fire kicked Alecia’s defenses into overdrive, burning the remains of the drugs out of her body. Her human-looking skin contracted into smooth flawless perfection, or it’s natural state now. The raging fire felt warm pleasant even like getting under the covers on a cold night.

Her flight suit that Alecia had tried to make on the higher end of the fire-resistant scale caught fire quite nicely. It started bubbling as gelatinous bits sloughed off, falling to the ground where they continued burning merrily. They mostly burned blue, like the initial flames that had ignited the suit, but there were flashes of green, and violet. 

Most of the remains of her suit stuck to Bluebird, and the sides of the table since it couldn’t find any purchase on Alecia’s skin. Bluebird hadn’t maintained the fire, just created a quick flash most likely why there were and remains of the suit at all.

Alecia did her best to keep smiling, but getting set on fire wasn’t something she was use to. A least not fires that could burn through the outfit she was wearing at the time so quickly, she did her best to keep her voice steady. “Well that’s not very nice, you shouldn’t set your sister on fire.”

“Then put me down so I don’t have to do it again,” Bluebird replied. “You tall humans are always so inconsiderate, although most of you are more flammable.”

“I went through a lot of effort and pain to be less flammable than the average human thank you very much,” Alecia said as she set Bluebird down on the table. “I must say, Mal Meg is almost exactly what I thought it would be, creepy fairytale castle and everything.”

“I’d say we try our best, but we really don’t. Rose just seems to like things this way, and as far a the land is concerned his word is law.” Owl said she didn’t seem to have been affected by the fire. Despite the fact that she was close enough that she should have suffered clothing damage. Alecia assumed she had something worked out since Owl had to live with Bluebird. “Now, why do you want to borrow a spaceship?”

“Uh, before we talk shop, I’m feeling a little exposed here.” Alecia used one hand to indicate her own body, and it’s lack of clothing. “Could I get something to wear before someone I’m not vaguely related to shows up?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, you’re vaguely related to everyone here. Most of the people here have the same body as you, Blackbird is asexual and we don’t know that Rose is, but he’s never acted on it. But still this way.” Owl indicated the only entrance to the terrace and started walking towards it setting a quick pace.

“Ok I get it no creepy dudes wandering around, but what about all of the people you give sanctuary to? Also, just because we share the same body doesn’t mean we won’t ogle each other.” Alecia said as she followed Owl, with Bluebird slightly behind. The hall on the other side of the door was made out of a singe piece of dark metal, and it seemed to stretch farther than the castle should have been able to accommodate. Looking back Alecia saw the hall stretched out behind them as well, no sign of the terrace.

“We don’t ogle each other, that’s unique to you and the Terrorist. The rest of us are normally adjusted alternates. And we don’t keep the people we give sanctuary to, we drop them off in different universes.” Bluebird sounded more annoyed than disgusted, as she discussed the ogling. “People we dislike end up in universes that are their personal hell, preferably in an ironic manner, people we like get personal heavens.”

The metal hallway ended in a rather abrupt manner with a massive walk in closet. The walls were covered with racks that were absolutely packed with various articles of clothing. They covered a range of different styles and colorations. Alecia started picking through the racks as she mulled over the implications of what Bluebird had said. She pulled out a black silk robe, that seemed to change their size as she chose it to fit her better. It had been embroidered with a single very long yellow string.

“How does this place work anyways, I get that Rose is running it but Gaslight is the strongest reality warper I’ve seen and she couldn’t make Mal Meg, only modify what already exists,” Alecia asked as she twirled in front of a mirror that hadn’t been there when she entered the closet.

“We actually don’t know what Rose’s powers are, he doesn’t talk much and when he does it’s not very coherent. This isn’t reality warping however, it’s glamour all fairies can make glamour just normally not on this scale.” Bluebird said as she absentmindedly picked through some dresses, looking at them longingly.

“All of Mal Meg is glamour? I have trouble believing that.”

“Do you understand what glamour is Alecia?” Owl asked.

“User-friendly illusions of extremely high quality?”

“Illusions trick the senses of the people they fool, glamour tricks the universe it’s in. It can only be generated by someone, not from the universe it’s being generated in. Also the farther away your original universe is the higher quality of the glamour. You were able to buy glamour, and install it in Keanan because whoever made it told it to act that way.” Owl explained as she picked through some sports jackets.

“Cool stuff, so Rose has to be very far away from home to do this?”

“He’s from a universe very very far away, from a very very long time ago,” Bluebird said. “Now enough stalling, your private bits are covered, why do you need a spaceship?”

“I dated an alien shapeshifting lizard when he was a spy on earth about a year ago. I figured him out and took measures to prevent the invasion. It worked out in the end, but he survived and got away. In the process, I might have promised to marry him, and I haven’t been returning his calls since. I think he got sick of it, and now he’s invading again.” Alecia said.

“Damn, I kind of want to know specifics but at the same time I really don’t.” Bluebird responded. “So what do you need the spaceship for?”

“I want to get to him before he gets in firing range of earth, also he can totally blow my cover so I can’t get heroic or villainous help,” Alecia said.

“Damn it sounds like you screwed this one.” A young sounding voice said from the door. The person on the other side had a face where her age could not be placed. However she still looked like Owl, so Alecia assumed that this was probably Firebird. “If I had raised you you would have dealt with this properly the first time.” Yup, definitely some version of her mother.

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