Irene blinked at this, looking over at Katia for some sort of explaination.

"Their planet's dealing with all that, I guess. Guess they have some sort of magical evil darkness eating everything and everyone on their planet, mum."

Irene pinched the bridge of her nose at this. She really wasn't prepared to deal with this kind of thing.
"Magic does not exist, Katia. We have been over this."

"Well, I mean, they kinda warped in through a portal and what about all that stuff you can do?"
The moth-girl shrugged to the chagrin of her mother.

"There is a large difference between understanding how matter functions and pure imaginative fantasy." She sighed and flicked her cigarette on the nonskid of the bay.
"But regardless of reason, I'm sure we can get to the bottom of this. What exactly is the name of your planet?"

"Terrarine." The girl said.
"It's got close ties to Earth." Brownhaired said

"If you want proof of magic, here's the proof." The earringed boy said, walking forward, then disappearing and reappering on the other side of Irene. "Dark element, teleportation Gift."

" Also the one who kept the Darkness from taking over the place for 50 years." the girl added. "With a spell."

"That was half done and barely held." the boy grumbled.

(oof I should mention, Kari and Meinke literally harm themselves with their Gifts so....XP)

. :) ><>

(I'm here, might take me a bit to reply though)

"Terrarine..? Not a planet I've heard of in any of our star charts.. If it had any connection to Earth, I'm sure I would have known about it.."

"Mum, what if they are from another universe or something?" Katia perked up her antennae at the thought.

Irene furrowed her brow at this, but she didn't discount the possibility.
"It wouldn't be unheard of.."
But all this nonsense about darkness, spells, and magic.. Well, call it what they wanted.. they were from a society in need of help regardless.
She was just surprised to see these children weren't more shellshocked at where they were presently. Maybe they were used to this sort of travel.
"I think we can take your case. I don't have much of a crew available at the moment, but you three seem more than capable of handling yourselves. Katia, if you have nothing else to do, I would like you to come with. Get yourself changed and meet back here."

"See? I told you they'd get us some help!" the girl said triumphantly to the earringed boy. "Now pay up."

The boy ignored her. "Thanks, ma'am." His eyes were wandering to the various spacecraft around them, clearly intrigued but not wanting to ask further.

The brownhaired shrugged. "I mean, w-we've only j-just rediscovered the c-connections we have with Earth...50 Terrarine years is 250 Earth years."

"Wait, what?" The earringed boy snapped to attention, gaze boring into the brownahired, who stumbled back. "Uh, hehe, nothing-"

"NOthing!? You're saying I'm technically 268 in Earth years? What the Solelelei?!" the boy started sounding like he was cussing in another language as he threw his hands up and walked into nothing....then reappeared back where he'd been before, except this time he appeared in midair and crashed onto the floor.

The girl sighed. "Sorry. He does that a lot. He's sort of been out of the loop for a few years. He'll be fine."

Katia took off further into the station with a excited flick of her antennae and a bit of bound in her step, clearly excited about the adventure ahead.

Irene remained entirely out of the loop now.

"It's fine." She lied. She didn't know what to make of these aliens, but she knew better at this point than to ask too many questions. It was giving her enough of a headache as is.

"I'll need directions to this planet of yours. Coordinates preferably, but we can handle that aboard a ship. I won't be bringing my own, mind you, but there is a smaller vessel near the other end of the bay ready to go we can make use of. Are you all prepared? Is there anything here that you need from me before we depart?"

"Not that I know of." THe girl said. "Um, coordinates...er"

"Exactly 12 thousand light years from Earth." Earring Boy grumbled from the floor. "Don't you read?"

"...I won't even ask how you know that random fact." The girl sighed.

"We do not have coordinates. Our technology is not advanced enough quite yet." the boy said, getting up and dusting himself off."It was already a struggle to find out about your agency with what little we had to work with."

"Noramlly we'd just portal home but....our portalist apparently didn't make it thourhg." The girl said.

"..I had suspected as much. I'll provide a starchart when we get onboard the ship. Just point out where it is when we get there."
Irene chuckled.
"Though I suppose it might be difficult for your society to know of us without space travel yourselves. We typically do not usually interact with any civilizations without it. Too much of a culture shock. Last time humanity did, it almost started a war." She finished her cigarette and motioned them all to follow as she started walking.

"I'll need all your names for the official record as well."