World 1.1

World 1

When Yuri wakes up, the first thing she sees is pink. Not the kind of eye-wateringly bright hot pink one might expect, but more of a pale pink, like cherry blossoms.

"Mmnnnn...?" It's soft...wait...too soft.

Much softer than her sleeping bag.

Cautiously, Yuri slowly sits up.

And the pink moves, revealing it's pink hair that she was apparently using as a blanket. More to the point, there's a person under all that hair!

Curious golden eyes stare up at Yuri through a curtain of pink hair. "Oh...it's about time you woke up."

A woman, having been using Yuri's lap as a pillow, with unnaturally white skin, gold eyes, and long- very long- pink hair. But Yuri's attention is drawn to her long pointed ears and the horns (horns!?) above them- black as night, with white sparkles and faintly visible patches of pink and purple; black horns decorated with something from outer space.

"Umm...who...are you?"

The woman smiles and scoots back, giving Yuri enough space to move her legs. "Well, my name's Andromeda. I'm a star spirit sent to help grant your wish."

"My wish..?" Yuri asks, only for a memory of the previous night to cross her mind as she finishes speaking. "Oh yeah...that wish."

Andromeda nods her head. "Mhm."

"And...you're...a spirit whose job is to grant it?"

"More or less. My main gimmick is inter-dimensional transport, rather than actual wish-granting."

"「Inter-dimensional Transport」? "

Andromeda gestures around herself. "Yup. My power is best-suited for this particular wish, though I can't control which dimension I travel to."

"I see..."

"So, wanna look around?"

Yuri shrugs. "May as well, I guess." She stands up, brushing the legs of her pants.

Maybe I can find some better clothes, too...

Her thoughts trail off as she sees exactly where she is.

In front of her, barely visible through Andromeda's semi-transparent (really, one quarter) form, she sees trees- or at least, they look like trees, if standard trees were redwoods with blue tufts along their branches. It looks like a forest, but there's no pathway of dirt to part the trees.

Behind Yuri is an open field (possibly a meadow if one were generous) of tall (but not so tall as to be a hindrance) green grass and scattered red and blue flowers.

To her left is a worn dirt path, though she can't see where it might lead, and to her right is more of the same.

"You're weirdly calm about this, did you know that?" Andromeda quips, hovering maybe sixteen centimeters above the ground. She floats so she's lounging against the air beside Yuri. "Are you sure you're not....freaked out?"

Yuri shrugs her shoulders. "Oh no," she begins, "inside, somewhere deep down, I think I'm hallucinating." Another shrug. "But I've accepted already that I don't have much control over these kinds of things, so I'm adaptable."

Andromeda hums. "Huh. That's not something you see very often. But it is very telling about your mental health if you're that confident you can't influence even your own life." She rights herself so she's standing on air now. "I'll keep an eye on you though, so it'll be fine".

And given the trend in media of "things being fine and then not", this is when they start to hear the clip-clop of hooves.