"I prefer 'stumbled dramatically,'" Ren said, because apparently his mouth had a death wish his brain didn't share. "Crawling implies intent. I just kind of... existed incorrectly until I ended up here."
The child-princess tilted her head, studying him like a particularly interesting bug that might be poisonous. "You claim to be human."
"I am human. Card-carrying member. Well, I would be if I had my wallet. Which I don't. Because it probably got dissolved with the rest of Tokyo." The words tumbled out, his standard defense mechanism of humor flickering like a dying flashlight. "Look, I understand this is weird for you. It's weird for me too. Yesterday my biggest problem was disappointing my parents. Now I'm apparently an extinct species in a world that operates on Studio Ghibli physics."
"I don't understand half of what you're saying," White-hair said flatly. "Princess Mayfell, this is clearly some form of demon or void-spawn. Let me end it before—"
"Silence, Elanil." The princess—Mayfell—raised one small hand. The gesture carried enough weight to stop armies. "I'll determine what he is."
She stepped closer, and Ren felt power radiate from her small frame. Not physical power—something deeper, older, connected to the bones of the world itself. When she spoke again, her voice had harmonics that made reality pay attention.
"You entered our realm through the Cursed Mist. The same mist that destroyed the last settlement of impure elves fifty years ago. The mist that consumes anything with even a trace of human blood." Her green eyes narrowed. "Yet you live."
Impure elves? Not humans?
"I don't know anything about impure elves," Ren said carefully. "The mist hit my world—Earth. Killed everyone except me. I don't know why I survived. I don't know why I'm here. All I know is that dying hurts and I'd prefer to avoid repeating the experience."
"Earth." Mayfell tasted the word like foreign wine. "And this Earth—it had humans?"
"Seven billion of them. Well, had. Past tense now, probably." The weight of that hit him again—everyone gone, dissolved into purple nothing while he got isekai'd to fantasy hell. "We were doing a pretty good job of destroying ourselves anyway. The mist just sped things up."
"Lies." Elanil's sword cleared its sheath with a whisper of steel and promised violence. "Humans destroyed themselves ten millennia ago. Their greed, their wars, their cursed technology—"
"Elanil." Mayfell's voice could have frozen flame. "Sheathe your blade. Now."
The warrior complied with visible reluctance, crimson eyes promising creative dismemberment at the earliest opportunity.
Note to self: Elanil wants me dead. Plan accordingly. Or don't plan and just die surprised. Both seem likely.
"Tell me about your world," Mayfell commanded, settling into a chair that looked like it had been designed by someone who'd heard of comfort secondhand. "Start from the beginning."
So Ren talked. About Tokyo's electric nights and digital days. About convenience stores and smartphones and a world where magic was just technology you didn't understand yet. About failing university and disappointing parents and a grandfather who'd believed in him anyway.
The elves listened with expressions ranging from confusion to disbelief to (in Elanil's case) murderous skepticism.
"You're describing artifacts," Mayfell said finally. "Devices we've found in ruins. But you claim humans built them?"
"Built them, mass-produced them, threw them away when newer models came out." Ren shrugged, then winced as his shoulder reminded him about the arrow incident. "We were wasteful. Part of our charm."
"Show me your memories."
"I—what?"
But Mayfell was already moving, small hands weaving patterns in the air that left light-trails. Geometric symbols materialized around Ren's head, beautiful and terrible and definitely not designed for human interaction.
"Wait—"
The spell dove into his mind like luminous parasites seeking truth.