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[oom: A regular day at work ends with a new friend.]

Rikki is occupying a table today that is mysteriously under surveillance by a furry someone. Every so often, she takes a break from what she's doing (geometry homework) to pet it on the head or sneak it a piece of her burger (despite the fact that he's had plenty already; she can't resist his face, okay?).

At some point, she glances down at him thoughtfully and says, "You know, if you're going to hang out with me for a while, I'm gonna need something to call you."

A beat.

"How does Benji sound?"

Given that the dog's only response is to yawn, maybe she needs someone else for a second opinion.

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"Got a new friend, Rikki?" Gavroche asks, approaching with his own dogs at his heels - and gesturing them back when he gets a better look at potentially-Benji.

Rikki eyes his dogs and Benji for a moment, not quite sure how he's going to react to other dogs being around, but Benji doesn't seem scared or territorial, so she guesses it'll be okay.

"Yeah. He's sticking around me for a little while, I think."

Gavroche is deliberately keeping the dogs behind him, though they seem curious about Benji.

"He needed a home?"

After a moment, Benji stands up and noses his way over to them, limping slightly.

"Yeah. Or at least someone to keep an eye on him for a little while."

After all, she can't really offer him much of a home.

Gavroche says something to them, quietly, and while Jo' hangs back, Franz comes to return the greeting.

"Probably better than what he had before. He's hurt?"

And much friendly sniffing was had by all.

Rikki hunches her shoulders uncomfortably. "Yeah. I found him being harassed by a couple of jerks - he'll be okay, I got someone to look at him."

He makes a displeased noise aimed at the absent jerks in question.

"He'll be fine now he's with you, I'm sure."

Rikki worries her bottom lip. It's not that she doesn't want to help, she really does, but she's not sure how much she can do at home. Even letting him into her place is gonna be a pain, seeing as how the only entrance is through a window. "I'm gonna try."

Gavroche studies her.

"You're not so sure?"

"I don't really have a lot I can do for him at home."

"You've already saved him once", he points out. "And got his leg seen to, and fed him. That's a lot already."

Rikki leans down and pets the top of the dog's head gently. "Kinda. I don't think he has a home to go back to, though."

"Then if you can't give him one forever", Gavroche says with gentle encouragement, "you can find him a good one."

William has a cup of coffee and is looking for a place to sit when he sees Rikki and her friend, "Hey, you've got a dog?"

A little bit of shuffling around makes room for him, if he wants it. "He's hanging out with me, yeah. You could say we're being strays together."

He sits down and offers the dog his hand, he currently smells of dust and cattle and peers at her books,

"That's nice of him. What are you working on?"

"Geometry. Proving stuff that's super-obvious."

From the look on her face, it is not her favorite thing to do in the world.

"Huh, I thought geometry was math which is usually just true," His math education was fairly basic.

Her expression somehow manages to sour even more. "It's also proofs of stuff like a + b = b + a."

"That sounds stupid."

"It is."

It's probably foundational blah blah and whatever, but Rikki really doesn't care right now.

"But its school, full of stuff that don't make sense but you need to know it so folks think more of you,"

School's important and he hopes that Mark isn't too bored.

"A lot of it makes sense." After all, Rikki attends school voluntarily, more or less. She gets that there's value, okay? "This one is just boring and dumb."

"You could somethin' else and then do it later. I do that with chores sometimes, it makes them go faster."

Fairy Fixit was mite too full of nervous energy to wait around for a waitrat to wander by her table and do some more thinking about her Priffdinas problem in the meanwhile.

So that huge insect that buzzed by, carrying a small milkshake glass, would be her. On her return trip, she actually stops to give the geometry homework a better look.

Oh god what.

Unhappily for Fairy Fixit, the first one to notice her is Benji, who sits up suddenly and starts barking. Rikki looks up, startled, and throws her arms around him before he can try lunging for Fairy. "Benji, no! Not something you can hunt!"

Fixit is quick enough to fly higher, even with the full milkshake glass.

"Ooh, sorry about that, I forget how protective dogs can be," she says from a bit higher up. "Hi," she greets, awkwardly.

Once Rikki's pretty sure Benji's not about to inadvertently break the no fighting rule, she looks up and... huh.

"Hi. Sorry about that."

"What are you working on?" she asks. "It looks interesting." Well, at least distracting and different enough from what she was doing.

Rikki's expression sours. "Geometry. Proofs of stuff that's really obviously true but have to be proved logically anyway."

"How obvious? When you are trying to prove something, there is usually some basic truth andsome definitions of what is what that you can work from, but if not, all you can do is prove to yourself that you exist. No teacher of geometry or logic would be that cruel, I hope."

"This is some sort of practice a teacher gave you, correct?"

There may be slight sulking.

"It's like... A + B = B + A. It's so obvious it's stupid."

Worry crosses the fairy's face in an dramatic way. It... looks as absurd as you would imagine.

"But... that's-- It's more than obvious, it's a huge safety issue. That's should be part of the definition of what the operation A + B means!" If she's shouting, she is shouting at a cruel cartooninsh stand-in for your teacher, Rikki. "You are talking about addition right? And A and B are stand ins for numbers?"

She thinks...

"You could prove it with geometry, I guess, but... no... that would need the fact that A + B = A + C implies B = C and if you don't accept A + B = B + A you probably won't accept that A + B = A + C implies B = C either. That is absurd... it's one of the primary ways you can tell whether a reality is safe to enter or not."

Sorry, none of that was helpful. It is more of a rant.

"Wait. Your world doesn't do teleportation or other sort of reality hopping, right?" She shuts up, thinking that she probably said too much.

And Rikki's not really sure if she's more confused or scared. Because. Wow. That went into way more than she expected.

"Um, some people do? Most of us don't. At least not on purpose."

"Sorry, me and my big mouth." Hawhaw. "It gets away from me sometimes."

"That's interesting. Quite dangerous though; accidental teleportation," she says shudders at the thought. "Uh... I am distracting you from your work, aren't I? If I am, sorry, but geometry is a neat subject. Well, it is unless you are stuck trying to prove something that should be true by definition and not proof."

"I think that's the point? Laying the groundwork or whatever. It's just super-annoying."

And she pushes her book away, because whatever, it's time for a break. "I'm cool, I've got plenty of time to finish this."

"So the teleportation thing. I am a teleportation network engineer and I suppose I am talking to you because I am taking a break from that but I can't seem to get away from it," she jokes. "Anyhow, is that a Milliways grabbing people type thing or something more?"

"Some people can teleport on purpose using tech or mutant powers or whatever, but I think it's mostly within the universe? And there have been some people who went to other universes by accident."

Like her.

Ahem.

"Mutant powers... That's interesting." She looks down at Benji, then at Rikki, then asks, "Are humans the only sentient species on your world? Well, your planet, at least."

"On our planet? Yeah, more or less. Why?"

"Oh, just the word mutant to describe people that can teleport on their own. It was a guess. Most of the humans I know can't teleport on their own either, though I suppose the ones that can are probably mutants. The gnomes are hominids too and they can't teleport, but they can do other things, so it is likely something genetic. It would be pointless and rude to find out for sure, since the humans I am used to aren't that advanced technology and science-wise. Not at all like the ones here."

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