1-05 Proof
"Just hear me out, alright?" said Horatio.
Augusta nodded.
"Your universe is one of many," began the professor. "Seven hundred sixty-seven, at least. I am from Universe #2 and we are all presently in Universe #314. I know your great grandmother because we met in Universe #7 when she was developing her theories. But due to a slight miscalculation, she ended up here in this universe nearly a hundred of your planet's revolutions ago. By the time I found her, she had decided to stay."
"I'm going to test this photograph, but I already have a hunch that it's authentic." Augusta took a few paces back and forth. "So...I'm supposed to believe that you are time travelers? So you are Doctor Who."
"I really don't know what you're talking about, but, no, we are not time travelers. I told you before. We travel the multiverse."
Augusta held up the picture, waving it at him. "Then how are you in this old photo?"
Horatio winked at her and waited.
Augusta rolled her eyes. "...unless you are over a hundred years old."
Horatio grinned. "Did I mention that Universe #2 is a very stable universe?"
"You're going to have to give me more than this."
Horatio nodded. "Of course, of course, my dear. Your intelligence is why I'd like you on our team, if you are willing to see places and worlds you've only dreamed existed." He motioned to STEVE!.
STEVE! opened his satchel. He drew forth a staff, which glowed a faint blue light. He muttered a few arcane words. The air around them shimmered. Lights danced. Stones flew from the ground into the air and danced about. Water flowed into ribbons that danced around one another, shimmering like liquid rainbows. Flowers bloomed in the cracks of buildings.
Augusta held out her hand and touched the ribbons of water. She sniffed at the flowers. Her lips pursed. "Impressive. And astonishing, I have to admit. Magic?"
"Tha. Draoidheachd," grinned STEVE!
Horatio looked at Augusta in an expectant grin. "So?" He wiggled his eyebrows for added effect.
Augusta folded her arms. "You're going to have to show me something else, I'm afraid. Magic in a world of physics cannot be trusted, and I am a scientist at heart."
Horatio nodded and rubbed his chin in thought. His eyes lit up for a moment, then he hesitated. He looked to STEVE!
"Chan eil," STEVE! said, shaking his head. He brought his staff down and the flying rocks and ribbons of water ceased their flight. "Na dèan e."
Horatio nodded and frowned. "I have to trust her if she is to trust me. It is probably the only way she will understand."
Augusta cast glances at them both. She tensed for a moment when Horatio reached into his breast pocket, but relaxed when he withdrew a very elaborately decorated pocket watch.
Horatio held it up in the light. It sparkled as if catching all of the surrounding streetlights, the moonlight, and, somehow, even the light of the sun on the other side of the world despite its setting some many minutes ago and breaking the photons themselves into pieces.
Augusta was transfixed by the form and watched carefully as Horatio wiggled a finger over it, like he was tickling a surface. She drew nearer and saw the watch transform into shapes and colors folding in upon themselves and yet... not. It giggled forth a series of colors and was accompanied by a soft cooing-trilling noise like that of an electric bird swimming through bubbles of light. For yet another time that day, Augusta gasped and held out her hands like a cup. For a moment, the shape appeared in both their hands, and then only in Augusta's.
STEVE! shifted uncomfortably. "Ach... Is e ar dìomhair a th 'ann."
Augusta giggled as she watched the dancing thing in her hands change rapidly between hues and varying levels of brightness and saturation. She nodded a few times, and the smile on her face reflected the shimmers. "Well, why didn't he just say that in the first place?" A few more colors rippled. "Yes he is, isn't he? Well, we will just have to see about that now, won't we?" She reached her own finger into the form and wiggled it. The form seemed to giggle and encircled her arm a few times before materializing back in Horatio's hand looking like an elaborately etched glimmering stopwatch."
Horatio's mouth was agape. STEVE!'s moreso. "You..." stammered the professor. "You..."
"Faodaidh a 'bhoireannach bruidhinn ann an dathan!"
Horatio closed his mouth and nodded in agreement. The closed mouth then transformed into a delightful smile. "I knew it! I knew you had your great grandmother's DNA strands inside you! You speak Fligbug's language!
"Fligbug?" A smile of her own laden with secrets trickled on her lips. "Is that what you call them?"
Horatio stopped short? "Them? He's more than one?" He and STEVE! exchanged shrugs.
Augusta rolled her eyes. "It's the best I can use English pronouns for your five-dimensional friend there."
"And you know he's five-dimensional too? But how?"
"How do you think? They told me."
"Tha i nas glic na thu. Tha Steve air inntinn Steve atharrachadh. Tha Steve a 'còrdadh ris a' bhoireannach seo a-nis."
Augusta sighed. "I just wish I understood whatever your friend here is saying. He seems to understand me."
Horatio was busy giving STEVE! a disapproving look when he spoke. "Well, you aren't missing much."
STEVE! stuck his tongue out at the professor in traditional dwarven battle mage style.
"But I can fix that. May I see your spectacles, Miss Constantine?"
Augusta frowned, but carefully removed her glasses and handed them to Horatio. "'Fligbug', as you call him, and I have an understanding now, so I guess I can trust you."
Horatio removed his recorder again, which looked to Augusta like a thick book. He opened it up to the middle and retrieved a stylus nestled in there. He took it and placed the glasses in the book. Writing a few words in the recorder-book, it sighed a delighted perfume.
Augusta flinched when Horatio snapped the book shut. She squinted to see the fuzzy blur of his hand retract them a moment later and hand them back in one piece. She put them back on. Nothing seemed different. She wrinkled her nose skeptically at them. "I don't get it."
"CAN YOU HEAR STEVE! NOW?"
Augusta winced and rubbed at the inner ear facing closest to the dwarf battle mage. "Unfortunately, yes."
A Rough Translation of STEVE!'s Phrases
Tha. Draoidheachd.Yes. Magic.
No. Do not do it.
But...our secret.
The woman can speak in colors!
She is smarter than you. Steve has changed Steve's mind. Steve likes this woman now.
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