Oh hell.

Val should have known better than to go near the portal, but she had been curious. She had never been able to create portals and her experiences with them hadn't been favorable so far, but still, the ability to create a hole in the air with the ability to go anywhere....amazing. She wanted to know how it worked, wanted to know if the cyborg used magic or science. Could a machine even use magic?

She knew she had been in trouble from the moment she felt the portal's draw, she knew she had to get away before it pulled her through, but she'd been foolish. In the split second before she was drawn through she had a fleeting thought that she should have thrown herself aside, should have grabbed onto to the bar, should have done anything but stand up. The slippery surface of her stockings caught no traction on the floor—save to catch on a rough piece and tear a little bit more as she was pulled through and into Lucifer's lab.

Through the portal she stumbled and fell down to her knees, swearing loudly when she collided with the lab's floor. Her vocabulary is a colorful mix of different Earth languages since English just doesn't seem to convey the same bite as many others do.

She had started to get up, but one look around the ruined lab had her slipping back down to her knees and she frantically sought out Lucifer with her eyes.

"Uh. Hi." She gave him a sheepish grin.

"I didn't mean to!" She replied defensively as she surged up to her feet. "I was just curious and I got a little closer to get a better look." She made up for his lack of emotion in spades. With every word she was getting a little louder and a little more frantic.

"It was your portal that sucked me through here. What do you MEAN you can't send me back!?" Uh oh. This wasn't good at all! "I've seen you open those portals like it's nothing! Just....just do it again!" She waved a hand at him like that would help him where he failed.

"I don't want to be stuck....where ever here is!"

She made an indignant noise. "I didn't mean to!" She repeated like a petulant five year old. She even stomped her foot. It was not an attractive look for her. And then he just had the nerve to start reading books and he blamed her"!

"You could have warned me not to go near the portal. A little heads up that it acts like a Hoover would have been nice!" She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. She began to pace around the lab, looking at things.

"Where exactly are we" Maybe I can find some other way to get back."

"No! She didn't!" She replied in a huff. The middle of an ocean. Dead planet. She stared at him, mouth agape. Well shit. That's certainly not good!

She actually stayed silent for a short while, too flummoxed to come up with anything. What could she really say to that' There's no forcing your way out of that.

Eventually she deflated and she heaved a mighty big sigh. Dragging her feet every step of the way she approached his work bench and peered at what he was doing.

"You sure you can fix it' I think I might go insane if I have to stay here."

No, no. She was done with being infuriated. At least for now. Instead, she was deflated, defeated and quickly turning glum.

She shank down into a crouch, hanging on to the edge of the table and just watching him work. All of the tiredness she'd felt earlier was coming back in full force, added to by the emotional drain of this whole mess.

"I'm tired," she complained. "Do you think it's going to take long to fix?" Obviously he must. He had his demons putting together a room for her. That sounded dreadful. "Because if I'm going to be here a while I'll need stuff. Like food. And clothes."

"Well hopefully the next being who opens up a portal near me will have the decency to warn me it might suck me through." She couldn't muster up the strength to put any real anger behind the words, but it was closer to a whine.

Using the table to help herself up, she rose back up to her feet. "Of course a bed would be more comfortable than the floor. Unless it's a bed made out of floor. Who even knows what kind of thing is in there." She was muttering to herself now instead of talking to Lucifer. She wanted to rip the rest of her hair out! After one last glare at the cyborg she stomped her way into the newly made room to check it out.

It was nicer than her room at the Inn. At least, it was more modern and more spacious, though the bed there was decent enough and it had everything she needed. She hadn't brought much in the way of clothing, but she'd already been adding to her collection and the wardrobe there was filling up quick.

She walked the edges of the room to check it out, paused to check out the spines of the books and then she checked out the clothes. She couldn't complain about them so long as they fit. After all, who was she going to try to impress" The cyborg" She doubted that was even possible. Not that she wanted to.

Her head hurt. For a minute she considered going out there to see if there was any aspirin, but again, she doubted it. Food wasn't something she needed either, but she did need sleep. She didn't want to, she wanted this to be over, but maybe he would work fast and would be done by the time she woke up?

She didn't intend on falling asleep. She'd merely sat on the edge of the bed hugging one of the smaller pillows and staring at the obvious wall, but at some point she'd drifted off and listed onto her side, still clutching the pillow to her chest.

Maybe, just maybe this would all turn out to be a bad dream.

Val understands very little of math. Her homeworld had very little science, so they had no need for the higher forms of math. Sure she can do all of the basics, but a great deal on Earth had confused her. Percentages, even, had taken her forever to learn. There was no way she'd ever understand what Lucifer was doing.

Magic on the other hand, was....more simple. Once you knew a spell you knew it. That's all there was to it. Spells could be disrupted or broken, but it was more straight forward. Crafting a new spell, that was hard as is changing a spell you knew. Val could do that with time.

And that was what she dreamed about.

She was home, in the palace, working in the spelltower. There were many workrooms for the mages, depending on what element they needed. High in the sky where the wide cased windows caught the breezes was best when working with air. On the table were books, so many open books. She was working on an unfamiliar spell, one she'd never learned before. She needed azurite and eagle feathers....crushed beetle carapace and thyme ground into a fine dust. The stone, the powder together in a shallow bowl. Water from a high mountain poured over and the stone melted, the mixture swirling into a glowing blue ink.

She dipped the quill of the eagle feather into the ink and it sucked it right up, tinging the feather end to end blue and every bit as luminescent. That was it, this was what she was trying for. She stepped back from the table and drew in the air. Where the sharp quill tip passed a thin blue line was left in the air. She drew upwards in an arc as tall as she was then down to the floor and over. Up again and there was a doorway there, glowing before her. She'd never managed this before, had never tried. Few were allowed to learn.

The doorway didn't swing open like she suspected so she reached out, prepared to push it open, but when her hand met with the invisible plane she was pulled through instead, plummeted through endless darkness until...

...In reality she woke as she tumbled off the edge of the bed and let out a short shriek of surprise just before she hit the floor. And then a more quiet 'oof'.

Maybe Lucifer should tell her that there are dangerous things so she can be prepared to defend herself. On the other hand, she was also liable to barricade herself in her room and refuse to come out.

When he made it into the room she was still sort of in a half-asleep daze. And a little stunned from the dream as well, though the memory of it was fading fast.

"I....I'm okay. I just fell off the bed." She tossed the pillow she'd been clutching back onto the bed and then she got herself back up to her feet.

"What time was it' How long was I asleep?" She wanted to ask if the device was fixed yet, but she kept it in.

She sighed as well as she followed him out of the room. She was a bit stiff and sore from the way she had been sleeping, so she stretched and worked some kinks out of her neck.

"Well it worked once that I got through just fine and now you know how to fix it, so why not just send me back through the same way again?" She'd lost all interest in being curious about Lucifer. The idea of being trapped in some unknown place for an indiscriminate amount of time had her teetering on the edge of panic. She didn't like to be trapped. Being trapped meant she couldn't escape if she needed to.

"But you don't know how to fix it to do what you want it to do, but you do know how to fix it if I break it again." It made sense to her. "So if you want me out of your hair sooner, it'd make more sense to me to just do that and fix it again." Val logic.

She sighed and started walking around the lab again, this time checking out the damage. "What happened here, anyway?"

He doubted she'd ask for details" Really'

"What do you mean, you happened?" She asked with a heavy dose of incredulity in her voice. How could he not explain that! "You just went all crazy town and destroyed your own lab?" She was giving him a wide berth now.

She nodded a little. It was understandable, sure. Or at least, it was understandable to her, because she has emotions. But coming from him without emotion, it struck her as a little odd as well. So she frowned at him thoughtfully.

"So....they wanted you to be a weapon and you didn't want to?" She was just making sure that she understood him. "And so you destroyed the lab."

She was looking at the damage again through fresh eyes. It looked old to her. "What happened to....the people?"

Let none of them escape.

Was she scared" A little bit. She understood it as well, but there was also that lingering apprehension. Here was a being—not a living one, but one that was sentient—that was powerful, lacks the emotions of a human and that she doesn't quite understand. She understood his motivation, but still....

"Ah." Was her only response. "Good....Good. I'm glad it's almost done." The sooner she could get the hell out of there, the better. "Ah....is there any food around" I can make it myself, I just need....somewhere..." She waved a hand. "To cook it."

"Goodthankyou."

She had fled to the kitchen, eager for another chance to get away from the android. She'd just been through an emotional roller coaster and she was ready to get off of it.

He was interesting, something new, but as terrifying as he was anything else. She'd decided, while she was making herself some to eat—a large something, because she'd realized how ravenous she was and she wanted extra time away—that it really was the lack of emotions. The not being human. She just couldn't understand, because his thoughts and actions weren't guided by emotions but an artificial intelligence and a rather black and white sense of right and wrong.

When she returned to where he was working on the portal device she was wary, hopeful, but she brightened when he said it was done- and even more when he opened a doorway back. Her first instinct was to run right over and jump on through, but she hesitated. It wouldn't be right.

"Thank you....I'm sorry I broke it to begin with. I'll be more careful."