[text] [audio]

[eldesthatter]

[The message is hand written, but you can hear to sound of it being written down on paper.]

To do:

1. Order one hundred yards of pink ribbon, three boxes of feathers, at least one bundle of lace.

2. Make sure Lettie and Martha clean their room before Friday.

3. Ask Fanny about the budget this week.

4. Visit the book shop?

[You can hear her scribbling out the fourth item and sighing heavily.]

No. Not today I think.

[Other voices can be heard, though they are faint. Perhaps calling from another room.]

Oh Sophie! Come look! Howl's Castle is coming into view!

Here to steal another heart perhaps? [Sophie is muttering as her footsteps echo off into the distance.]

Comments

[notmyfirstrodeo]

Happens to a lot of people.

Still sort of bizarre. So, well, I'd say "welcome" but it's an odd situation, isn't it?

[eldesthatter]

The oddest I've ever seen.

[notmyfirstrodeo]

Sorry to say it gets stranger, Miss. This is just the beginning of that.

[eldesthatter]

And there's really no way to get rid of it?

[notmyfirstrodeo]

No reliable ways that I've heard of. Some people manage, but it mostly seems as though the community chooses to leave them rather than the other way around.

[eldesthatter]

And that is why people think it has a mind of its own?

[notmyfirstrodeo]

Among other things, yes.

[eldesthatter]

Other things?

[notmyfirstrodeo]

The viruses, for example.

That and the community itself crashed my birthday recently.

[eldesthatter]

No one has really explained the viruses to me yet. I was told to speak with a Jane Foster about them.

[notmyfirstrodeo]

Dr. Foster is definitely the expert on that around here, yes.

But generally it's the community reaching into your reality and altering you or it someway, without regard for whether you want it to or not.

[eldesthatter]

And there are people who really think there is no magic behind all of this?

[notmyfirstrodeo]

Some people want a more scientific explanation, I think. But sometimes the line between the two blurs anyway, I'm beginning to find out.

Magic's not really... real. In the world I'm from.

[eldesthatter]

Do many of the worlds connected to this place not have magic?

[notmyfirstrodeo]

I think there's a fair share of places that are magical, places that aren't magical and places that seem to think they aren't magical but actually are.

Maybe.

[eldesthatter]

Maybe?

[notmyfirstrodeo]

It's difficult to say. People are from... a really wide variety of places.

[eldesthatter]

Where are you from? If it is alright to ask...?

[notmyfirstrodeo]

Of course. I'm from, well, all over these days. The United States. Currently New York, but that's liable to change soon.

What about you?

[eldesthatter]

Market Chipping, in Ingary.

...I don't suppose you've heard of it, though. [since she's never heard of The United States.]

[notmyfirstrodeo]

Afraid I haven't. Seems we're from different worlds, Miss. That's not so surprising around here.

[eldesthatter]

It is a very strange thing to consider, just the same.

[notmyfirstrodeo]

It certainly is that. I hate to say it, you get used to it.

[eldesthatter]

I'm not particularly glad to hear it, either...

[notmyfirstrodeo]

Yeah, that one is a lot less reassuring than you'd expect.