Her name was Athalie DiPomme! Like the person assuming her identity, she was twenty-two years old. Her birthday on Earth would have been sometime in late June, but here on Gaia it would be the 1st of Maselledy.

She was five-foot eight. Her near-white hair curved into a low ponytail. This, combined with an almond skin tone lighter than most and the upturned peaks of her ears, gave her away as elven. Yet the ears weren’t quite as sharp and long, the eyes not quite as luminous, as one would expect. She was, of course, half-human. The blanket term for all people like them was “halfling.”

Athalie hailed from one of the smaller, more obscure islands of the Tellurom-Barkneys. Unlike most places in Darshanna where one race had a clear majority, her island, Nmita, had near-equal numbers of humans, dwarves, and elves that often intermingled.

If she ever decided to settle down someplace, she couldn’t do it here in her homeland, because obviously, she wasn’t real, so nobody would recognize her. That was a shame because her Earthling designers couldn’t help but think of their old home, the United States—knowing full well that their thoughts were as romantic as any daydreamer’s. No chance in the twelve hells the groups always got along. Luckily, towns like Hierkopp in the northwest was similar. Plus, it wasn’t so hot there.

A local adventurer beat his way through the long forest grasses with an iron bar. The loud rustling sounds echoed for many meters—they were meant as a warning.

He came into a clearing and found -- nobody. But Athalie had just been there.

***

A demicrow passed over Nmita, then told them what he’d seen.

At the edge of the rainforest, border between village and grove, three women appeared and agreed to pretend to be sisters.

Agi’s tips helped the human and the imps plan their outfits. Felicity looked overdone and fussy: her up-do and three-layered pattern dress, decked out even further in bright green coiling necklaces and belts, perhaps did not look impossible but certainly suggested that she never left the house. Dodd’s red-and-yellow striped dress was straight and even. Ethel had elected for the plainest outfit she could imagine still fitting in: near-white shirt and pants, baggy and flowing but a little rough against the skin.

They looked down at their clothes, scanned their arms. Thanks to Nyx’s transformation perfume, they certainly did look like half-elf sisters...at least, physically.

“Maybe we should have coordinated our outfits,” Felicity whispered now at last.

“It’s fine,” said Ethel. “Nothing about this situation is normal anyway. Hey, Dodd, are you...cold or anything like that?”

“Nothing of the kind,” she said, and seemed to bob in a curtsy as she did. According to Nyx’s report, frozen Dodd had been tossed in the furnace a few hours before. She’d immediately screamed to life, causing Nyx to worry...but then Nyx remembered that Hellfloes was literally a constant inferno anyway and it was probably just a shout for joy. Dodd crawled out of her own accord, feeling as rejuvenated as if she’d taken a steam bath.

Three sisters wandered into the village ahead, watched from the shadows by a demicrow. Their goal was simply to look around, take in the sights and the people, and report what they’d found to Lord Nyx later as best they could.

Nmita was a hilly place, broken in two by a modest river that weaved through the rocks and flowers in curves. Now and then it became short waterfalls, turning wooden waterwheels about eight feet high. Huts and tents dotted the hills. Only scattered shade trees, fenced crops, and mild grasses grew here—the rest had been cut and pushed away. Even seeing dead autumn leaves on the earth was rare.

Had they come on a special day? The village felt busy, active. The roads—more like grassless indentations—were trod constantly by people of all three races of man, sometimes with carts or goats in tow.

No sooner had they stepped into this village than a local stopped to greet them, with very obvious concern.

The local had been interrupted mid-thought and mid-journey, but couldn’t help turning to these strangers. He was a young dwarf, a head shorter than the sisters, and his downward-pointing ears poked through dark hair. In his surprise, he could only say, “Ah...”

The three sisters looked around as if they were just as confused.

“Foundlings, are you?” he said at last.

“We don’t know...” said Dodd.

The dwarf bowed his head slightly, in acceptance.

Foundlings rarely knew. They were the detritus of demon interference in the mortal realm—people who, for whatever reason, had been picked up and tossed off by a supernatural tornado. Sometimes they were true innocents, untouched by whatever magic had just assailed them. Other times they were time bombs. Some villages would not tolerate them for a moment. Others...

“See if the chief’ll recognize you,” said the dwarf. Then he put his hands together at his front and bowed more deeply. “Harzy, and this is my home.” He was sharing his name: Harzy of Nmita.

The sisters bowed in the same way. When they came back up, he stared for a long moment.

Then he said, rather awkwardly, “You’re elves...and this is an elf land...”

Well, strictly speaking they were halfli—

Ah: they hadn’t noticed it earlier, but Harzy’s clothes—they were colorful, but the colors were dull, and loose fibers from their coarser, thatched fabric jutted out in places. The milling people behind them were sometimes vibrant, sometimes plain—and sometimes, like Harzy’s, aspired to a vibrancy they could not reach.

“Who are the elves here?” asked Ethel.

Harzy looked away. Didn’t want to give too much to an unknown foundling.

“Sorry. I meant the elves as a group.”

“That is hard to say...”

“Are you speaking out of fear?”

Felicity snared Ethel’s hand and squeezed—a warning that this might be a question too far.

Harzy shifted the subject as one might shift nervously to the other foot. “This is a place of elves, dwarves, and humans. Elves have the first rights,” he said. “Now, come in and let the chiefs show you the greeting, maybe that’ll bring back a memory or two.”

They followed him in, and the shadow of a demicrow trailed in their wake. Even further behind them was the shadow of Athalie, seeming to gain strength.