It was a house. At first she didn't recognise it, from the angle, the lack of surrounding environment, and the way it looked far newer than she was used to, but she knew it. A specific, particular house. Wooden in construction, perched on a stone-strewn knoll, large enough for a small family to live comfortably. Brisa's house.
"What in the wild?" she murmured. "That's home."
They 'landed' on a patch of dust outside Brisa's front door, and she walked forward to push the door open before she lost her nerve. Everything was familiar, for being the same rooms and windows and air she knew, but unfamiliar, for being organised a little differently, for having not quite the same items in quite the same places.
Light was seeping out from the crack under the door to Jesse's room.
She looked over her shoulder to Dave. Yeah, he was still with her, his face and tail looking even more askance than usual. Good. Brisa tentatively paced over to the door, and gave a firm knock.
"It ain't locked, let yerself in," came the reply, in her father's voice. It was unmistakeable. Enough of a townie drawl to pass as a local, but with the occasional clipped vowel hinting at the alien accent he'd worked to lose. It was how she sounded.
She opened the door.
Jesse Stranger was sitting in his office, pushing off against his desk with his hindpaws so as to rest his chair's back against the wall. His hat and jacket hung on a peg nearby, and his wands rested in their holsters on the desktop. He looked... tired.
"Sierra?" he said, one brow rising quizzically.
He peered at Brisa. She shook her head, frozen in place.
"...Brisa."
Jesse dropped his chair to the floor and stood. He was significantly taller than her on his hindpaws. He looked about at the room, at Brisa, at the poochyena standing by her side.
"This ain't a dream," he said, quietly. "I don't get dreams like this no more. What the hell is this?"
Brisa opened her mouth, and voice her voice stalled. How could she begin to explain?
