It was the smell that told Zaria that the trip was complete without needing to open her eyes. She opened one eye to a slit, but even with her eyes closed, the light produced by the pendant seared her retinas and made everything a little blurry. She dropped Gu Cheng and Saito's hands and stretched her arms over her head to work out some of the tightness that took over her muscles with the last attack and the loss of Ito.

"Well," she said, forcing some calm into her voice so that the others would be calm as well, "At least I didn't fall this time."

The little blobs of color faded as her eyes adjusted, and she opened them all the way. They were standing in a warmly furnished office, comfortable chairs with pumpkin orange upholstery sitting in front of a massive walnut desk. The rugs and draperies were all a warm yellow, like the sun shining outside the bank of windows to her left. Even the two men who were staring at her with shock and a tinge of fear were wearing suits in creams and browns that made her think of ice cream on a hot day.

"Uhm....Hello?" She lowered her arms and tentatively waggled her fingers in a wave before dropping her hands down to grip each other in front of her. "We mean you no harm?"

The younger of the two males dashed around their group to stand next to the older man. He rubbed his head ruefully and looked toward the end of the universe-hopping conga line. Zaria followed his eyes and saw Yamashita being helped up off the ground, rubbing his own forehead. She carefully stepped in front of the others, her arms outstretched in what she hoped was a peaceful manner as she put herself between her new friends and the strangers they had burst in on. "Please forgive us," she said in her manager voice. "We must have taken a wrong turn and ended up here. We didn't mean to intrude, and we will get out of your way now."

The older man watched as she patted her hands backward, indicating the others should back up toward the door. His eyes narrowed, but it did not seem to be in anger. "You speak English?"

"... Yes?" Zaria froze when the man moved, but after sitting in a broad, burgundy, executive style chair, he rested his hands over his waist and continued to watch them.

"You came through a gap, didn't you?"

"I don't really know what you mean by a gap -"

He cut off Zaria before she could come up with a good excuse for why they appeared in the room while people were watching. "I can feel the magic coming off of the tall one, but he is not a Lykos. You must have come through a gap from the other universe."

Gu Cheng tried to move in front of her, but she pushed him back to the side gently. Nobody was calling for guards or brandishing weapons or trying to eat her brains, and she was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. First sign of something suspicious and that would change.

"You don't seem surprised by that."

"The only things that have ever passed through that we know of are muses. Never a whole person or a tangible thing. The muses have caused enough trouble, it is probably for the best that you arrived here. Please, sit down. I can have my assistant bring more chairs -" he cut off as Gu Cheng noticeably stiffened, "Or not. You do not need to fear me."

"We mean no offense," Zaria assured him, linking her fingers through Gu Cheng's nonchalantly between them. "Our last world was a hostile one. We are just travelers, passing through."

"You are lucky you came through here first. There is much interest in the stories passing through the muses at the moment. Your arrival would have caused quite a stir somewhere else." He smiled broadly, sharp canines glinting in the artificial light.

"Son of a-" Zaria bit her tongue to keep from completing her swear.

"What is it?" Gu Cheng murmured in her ear.

"I think this is a world we both share a connection with." She whispered to him. "Lycos? Red eyes and pointy teeth?"

He stared at her with a look that she knew to be a confused one. "Lykos, lycan? Wolf, CEO Gu..."

"Werewolves?" He looked back at the man who was still smiling from ear to ear. "Vampires and werewolves?"

"Yes!" The other man exclaimed, clapping his hands. "That is what the stories that pass through to us call our kinds! Although the details are all wrong..."

Consternation flashed in the bright red eyes, and the smile faded. "It is good that you came here indeed. The stories from your universe are causing some trouble at the moment. The details are all wrong, and some of the Anis are starting to believe that those stories are accurate."

"What kind of problems?" Zaria gingerly lowered Saito into one of the seats facing the desk. The pretty nurse looked to be especially unsteady, as though she had not really believed they would go anywhere and was having trouble accepting her new predicament.

"Would you mind if I ask a few questions first?" Zaria shook her head no to his question, she didn't mind at all. "Wonderful. Did you come here intentionally?"

"Not exactly." She considered how to explain. There was no obvious threat that she could discern, but her time with the Duke at least taught her that not all villains went around twirling their mustaches and tying damsels to railroad tracks. "We are being pushed through universes until we get to our home universes. We aren't guiding it, and we can't control when it will be time to hop to the next. This universe has some traces of ours in it, so we were stopped here for now. "

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All of the information was technically true, if not entirely accurate. She hoped that she wasn't showing on her face how much she was hiding. He did not seem to doubt her words, and if he suspected that she was leaving things out, he did not voice them.

"Are you not all from the same universe?"

"No. Three of us are from the same universe, one that faced a calamity that killed off all but a handful of humans. They are coming with us to somewhere safer. None of us here wish to harm anyone, but we are all a little jumpy and will not respond well to any threats of violence or containment..."

"No, no, you misunderstand me! It is good that you ended up here only because there is a small group of people that are sowing discord, and if they found you, they would use you to try and further their agenda. I have no desire to contain you or hurt you, and I believe that I can help you. I am Speaker Vlachos, and I speak for the American Sanguine Congress."

The younger man, the assistant Zaria, surmised, bent over to whisper in the silver haired man's ear.

"That's an excellent idea, Mr. Stewart!" He smiled and turned his crimson eyes upward to meet Zaria's again. "Without knowing how long you will be in our world, I would be remiss if I did not suggest you be our guests while you are here."

Zaria and Gu Cheng exchanged a glance, and the older man hurried to explain himself. "No, no, not involuntary guests! If you wish to eat and have somewhere to sleep, you will need either identification cards or money, and I am hazarding a guess that you have neither. If you allow us to treat you as diplomatic guests then we can settle you in apartments that we have reserved for visiting dignitaries and issue you Anis coded visitor passes that will allow you to eat at any of the restaurants under our Consulate."

"I don't mean to be rude, but why would you do all this for us?" She could hear Yamashita and Yamada whispering behind her, and she winced as she realized that one of their group could not understand anything that was being said. It was never fun to feel left out.

"Ah, you are certainly carrying with you misconceptions of our people if your stories are any indication. We are a peaceful world, with a few tiny exceptions. There is no harm to us at all in hosting you, and maybe we will benefit from your acquaintance!"

"And what would happen if we do not agree to it and want to walk out on our own?"

Speaker Vlachos looked confused and glanced up at his assistant for a moment before looking back at the group. "Then you would leave and walk out on your own? I am afraid I don't understand what you are asking."

"You would not try and stop us?"

Zaria felt a little bad when the man put his hand to his chest and looked truly scandalized. "Of course we would not! Nobody here would harm you or detain you. Long ago, during the species wars, that might have been the case, but it has been almost a thousand years since then. There would be no benefit in doing so!"

"May we step out into the hall to talk about it?" Zaria watched him closely, looking for any tells that the man...vampire?...was lying. She rolled her mental eyes. How would she know?

"Of course! I should advise... no no, not warn, please don't misunderstand, I should advise you not to wander too far since you do not have visitor passes yet. Our guards are mostly for show, but with the current issues we are facing, they will be more alert than usual."

"Whether or not we decide to take you up on your offer, I believe I would like to hear more about those issues if it would not be too much to ask. Especially if it could affect those I aim to protect." Zaria waited until the Speaker agreed, then led her group out the double doors into a well tended hallway beyond.

She had never had reason to walk through government buildings before. In her town, the mayor had an office above the sheriff's station, and both were in a tiny building sandwiched between the town laundromat and a little coffeeshop run by two elderly sisters called Get Roasted.

The hall she stepped out into was plain. White paint over white wainscotting and white wood panels leading to a white tile floor. It did not feel stark, though. The walls were lined with paintings in bright and vibrant hues, paint splashed across canvas in a way that screamed Joy.

"Yamashita-Kun-"

"Please call me Hideki." The spiky haired boy spoke up, blushing at his own interruption. "We were clinging to traditional address before because it was the only control that we had in our lives. I want to be hopeful now. So please, call me Hideki."

"I like Yamada, but I don't need the honorific."

Hideki Yamashita looked inquisitively at Yamada. "I don't think I know your first name, do I? I can't remember a teacher ever calling it..."

"No, and you don't need to know it!" Yamada tried to sound gruff, but his eyes never left the floor, and one hand had begun to rub the back of his neck. Zaria stared at him and tried to guess why he was so eager to hide his first name.

The two teenagers began joking, and Zaria felt a smile grow on her face. There was nervousness in their sounds, but it was the first time she had heard either of them say anything approaching that carefree before. She just hoped that they could find some time to be kids and that there really wasn't anything dark and moody in their near future.

"Saito-san, would you like us to keep referring to you the same way?"

Glossy black, shoulder-length hair swung back and forth rapidly. "You can call me Rika," she said shyly.

"Okay," Zaria nodded, still smiling. Before she could continue, Gu Cheng spoke up stiffly behind her.

"You can call me Gu Cheng, and she is Miss Joseph or Joseph Zaria."

Zaria quirked an eyebrow at the handsome statue. He leaned in closer and whispered in her ear, "In your new world, calling a woman by her first name is an act of intimacy. I ask you to only let me call you by it."

She nodded and smiled at him. There would be many differences they would have to overcome with their different cultures, but being called by her last name didn't bother her at all. "Either is fine by me," she said to the rest of the group. Her smile dropped, and she looked at them all seriously, one by one. "Does anyone feel uncomfortable with the things that were offered to us inside?"

"We offered you shelter when we met you," Saito, no, Rika spoke up with furrowed brows. "He seemed as though he was being helpful to people in need."

"I felt he was being kind as well, but the world before I met you, I was chained up by someone who didn't seem dangerous at all. Sometimes, people are not what they seem."

Not everyone understood what she was talking about, but their light-hearted demeanors instantly grew serious.

"Does he seem like the person who did that to you?" Hideki shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

"I am asking all of you if you felt anything wrong or just didn't feel comfortable by something that was said. I don't trust my own instincts anymore. I was wrong in the past, and I could be wrong again in the future."