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"I'm not," she says, laughing. "Tea. I mean, I've tried coffee, I'm not an alien, but I'm not a regular drinker."

A pause, then, "Man, I don't envy you trying to kick a heavy caffeine habit as soon as you arrived, though."

"Tea has its moments," she agrees, and it is the tone of someone who loves tea, really, but whose blood runs closer to espresso. She groans a little, laughing, and rests her head in her hand.

"You can get it here but it's not the same." A singularly tragic moment, and her smile is self mocking, again. "The world is in turmoil, but what about my coffee?"

Her life is hard, and doesn't she know it.

"Given every coffee drinker I know, I'd say the priorities sound about right. But hey, at least there's alcohol?"

Subpar coffee, no weed, but there's always getting drunk on reasonably potable ale if the new reality gets to be too much!

Ruby laughs, raising her stein to knock it against Cosima's. "Here's to long term liver damage, no matter the poison."

Annnnd a pause. "So, I've done the inter-world rodeo before, at least. You seem extremely chill about... all this."

"Oh."

That's... completely a fair observation.

"...I think I'm kind of in shock, to be totally honest? Not to downplay - everything. But I guess my world's been rocked a few times in the last year," understatement, "and I don't know what to do except move forward."

Cosima pauses, then says frankly, "I want to get home. But I'm in no position to know how to make that happen. I don't know what now."

"Shock is... it's more than fair," Ruby replies, leaning forward and resting against the table. "I mean, it shouldn't be possible. Or real. Ideally this is just a really, really intense tequila delusion." Her smile a shade self deprecating, and she reached out to lightly touch Cosima's wrist.

"We'll get you home. I don't know how, but we will. And there's good people here. It... isn't going to give you a roadmap for what to do next, but knowing you're around decent people is a good start?"

A little apologetic, because this all sounds cliche as well. "You'll be okay, Cosima."

"I thought about the delusion thing," she says, because of course she did, "but it's so internally consistent that it can't be unless I've had a total psychotic break. Those are rare. And even if I have, there's nothing I can do about it from inside if it's this acute, so it sort of comes out the same either way."

A pause, then:

"Not that I'm accusing you of being a hallucination. That's rude."

It's halfway a joke.

"Well," she says, sipping her beer, "I've been called worse."

With a wry smile, tilting her head just a little. "I don't think me assuring you that you're not having a psychotic break is going to mean a whole bunch," Ruby starts, "but if I'm a figment of your hallucination, or whatever, then you need to hallucinate someplace with tequila and Madonna records, stat."

So deadpan, for all of half a second before she smiles - an easy, sympathetic thing.

It makes Cosima laugh, quiet but genuine. "Tequila's not usually my poison, but I wouldn't be picky."

She sits back. "How did you cope? When you first came."

"Figures," Ruby laments, overly dramatic as she falls back in her seat, arms hanging woefully by her side. "Finally someone from a world like mine, and they don't appreciate margaritas."

This, Cosima, this is true tragedy.

Her expression sobers a little, then, softens, and Ruby chews the inside of her cheek. "I actually arrived the same time as a friend, so that helped. I was kind of focused on trying to get involved so I could help Emma, and... make a good impression while she was sorting some personal stuff out." The effort to smile doesn't make it too far. "She disappeared, though. I, um. I actually went on a bunch of trips and expeditions looking for her or for clues but came up with exactly nothing, so... it was really hard, after that. Working helped."

"Oh shit, I"m sorry. That sucks." Cosima tilts her head. "Is the consensus that there's any way she could have gone back, or...?" Given total disappearance, that seems like the best case scenario, at least.

Cosima's idly thought about having one of her sisters here, but having one and losing her might almost be worse.

"Yeah. But—"

How to try and lay this out in an optimistic way? "But yeah, that makes the most sense, I think. I looked for ages and couldn't find a sign of her or of struggle or if anything bad happening to her anywhere. So... I think she went home? I mean, I hope so."

Not to be all doom and gloom, though, Ruby conjures up another smile. "Plus side, though, the more rifters turn up the more chance there is that someone who knows how to make a blooming onion'll be here, too."

Cosima smiles, letting Ruby change the subject. It's clearly painful, and she's not going to push.

"Dude, or mozzarella sticks. Can you imagine how popular that guy would be?" Fried appetizers, clearly the innovation Thedas has been waiting for.

"I wonder if that's something we can reverse engineer. Do they have soft white cheeses?"

"Oh my God. You could be rich. And yeah, this place is wicked into cheese, it's... kind of weird, actually. I think one time I saw a guy using a cheese wheel as a shield? That's not an exaggeration, I mean seriously. Cheese wheel shield."

She shakes her head.

"It's all gouda, I guess."

"...that's awful," Cosima says, after a second. "Truly, exquisitely awful."

It does seem to work as far as distracting both of them, though. After a moment, Cosima laughs, briefly, shaking her head. "I can't imagine cheese is a super-effective shield material, though maybe it's a good distraction?"

"Un-brie-lievable." A moment of consideration, "I'm going to go with the exquisitely and filter out the awful. I think you added that by mistake, anyway."

Someone stop her. Someone stop this problem child.

Just.

Just slowly smiling. She's not going to pun. She's not.

She's definitely not.

"Where there's a wheel, there's a way?"

Cosima groans, burying her face in her hands. "Oh god."

Can someone die of puns? Probably not. Still.

"Please tell me at least the cheese-wheel-shield guy is real and you didn't make him up in order to set up this series of puns."

Ruby's laugh is far too pleased. She is the queen of puns. The big cheese, even.

"Please. I'm an opportunist, not a sadist."

She nods, before drawing a cross over her heart. "Hope to die. If I'd had this set up in advance I would have thought of a way to make a pun out of gorgonzola. Also, you are the one that mentioned cheese first, not me. This is all your fault."

"Okay, you got me. A few weeks in, and all I can think about is varieties of fried appetizers. Oh man, or spinach artichoke dip, I could murder a bowl of that."

Please don't make a spinach pun, somehow.

"I mean, sure, I miss the internet, but I do have priorities."

"Thankfully, I spent twenty-eight years working in my Granny's diner. Not in the kitchen, but I'm pretty sure I can remember a few recipes. Spinach and artichoke'll be a cinch."

Ruby laughs, and shakes her head. "They're so innocent, here. Imagine the horrors they've been spared."

"Oh god, I can only imagine. Did you ever have those cheddar puffs, the one with the pirate on the bag? I used to devour those." Mainly while high, but still. "It was like eating packing peanuts, but in a good way."

"No," she admits, brow furrowed curiously. "Storybrooke is kind of a weird anomaly. Most stuff there is only anything produced before 1983. We got some music and tv shows and random things coming through, like— pop culture kinda stuff, but nothing consistent. I'm disappointed about the pirate snacks, though. Hook might've gotten a kick out of them."

Although, she frowns, pensive. "Or Granny would have gotten a kick out of insulting him with them." It's really hard to say which would win, there.

"...Hook like Captain Hook? Did you mention him before, because I really feel like I would have remembered that." Cosima leans on the table. "Sorry, is that weird? It must be weird to have people recognize names but with mostly bogus stories attached."

"Hook like Captain Hook. I don't know him very well, but he was staying at my Granny's motel for a while. Drinks a lot of rum. Smells kind of like seaweed." She frowns a little. "Lots of eyeliner, actually. No bad perm. I think I like Tinker Bell more, personally. She's very sassy."

Ruby shakes her head and grins. "I've seen some Disney movies. They got Snow White so, so wrong. So wrong. Also there were originally eight dwarves, it kind of sucks they don't include Stealthy. I mean, I never met him, but he sounds like he was a cool guy."

Cosima squints at Ruby, unsure as to whether that's a joke. She decides on not.

"I mean, if it makes you feel any better, Disney isn't even accurate to the folktales they're based on most of the time. I'm not totally sure without looking the Brothers Grimm included a particular number of dwarves at all. And look, I know there weren't singing gargoyles in Victor Hugo, so."

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