"Just be sure to keep your wits about you, then."

The bus rolled on through the now very-dark night, illuminated only by clusters of purple lights, a few shuttered windows, and the effervescent white glow of a massive statue that stood silently in the plaza ahead.

 

"I am not saying it is a bad metaphor!" Shinobu said matter-of-factly. She was covering her ceramic cup with her paw while Vlad--face flushed pleasantly and glasses sitting on top of his head--poured a bubbly amber liquid into Liya's cup. Figures moved in pale shadows around their table; the lights were low and smoky purple. "It is just not entirely accurate."

"Why not?" Liya asked curiously. She picked up her cup and sniffed at the liquid. Yoshi, seeing her do it, cracked a smile.

"It's alcohol," he murmured.

"Your 'bubbles' are random, for one thing," Shinobu explained, and plucked an ink pencil from the table next a platter of round dumplings. "The multiverse is tightly organized into, eh--what is the word, Vlad?"

Vlad blinked. "Mm? Fractals?"

"Yes," Shinobu agreed. Liya took a cautious sip of her drink, and Yoshi laughed softly at her immediate and absolute recoil from its taste. Shinobu had pulled a napkin from the pile next to the platter and was now drawing on it, holding the ink pencil with relative ease in her paw. "I will show you--like this."

The drawing she produced was a sketch of a series of circles, all touching each other at the edges, curled into a spiral with smaller spirals splitting off from it that got gradually smaller and smaller. Looking rather pleased with herself, Shinobu held up her cup for Vlad to fill.

"Of course, this diagram is too simple to be accurate. Worlds overlap and intersect in infinitely small multi-dimensional spaces. Vlad's pouring reil through an infinite number of worlds right now," she added, and Vlad promptly overfilled the ceramic cup, which frothed over. "Represent that on a bar napkin."