Re: Sitting room, at the bar with brandy
So perhaps she had been traveling through the doors more and more often lately. It kept her away from the restrictions of her own, the rules that were laid down that she was perhaps (stubbornly) trying to ignore for the moment, even as they lingered and lurked in the back of her mind. She'd found that most of the doors she stepped through took the greater shape of everything she was and distilled it down to a singler personality in a single human body. It was freeing and stifling all at once, but also a little addictive, to have those moments where the greater didn't rely on her quite so much.
Of course, there were still some doors, few and far between (as the saying goes) that kept the essence of everything that she was and simply transferred it into the new world. The door of fairy tales had been that way when she visited those many months ago - needing only a few moments for the world to shudder and adjust to her presence before settling again as if nothing had changed. And, she found, this new door was like that as well. She had received the invitation to a party, as many others had, and it had piqued her interest, wondering what a different London might be like.
Stepping through the door was a moment of blankness, still feeling expansive, but with things so silent for a few passing seconds. And then the pressure of uncountable lives came rushing in, like a tsunami filling a great, deep trench. When it finally stilled, the universe settling like mirrored glass with her in it, she knew every soul and every presence in this new world. Perhaps not quite as well as she knew those in her own world, but there when she focused and let it come.
She cold move the same easy way she was accustomed to, finding herself suddenly on the street outside the Murray House, and then within with only a thought. No one noticed her sudden appearance as she blended into the gathering, no one announced her, and her usual jeans and comfortable shirts switched out for something a bit more period appropriate, though didn't it make her smile to find herself in a mourning dress, hair tamed as much as possible on the top of her head with a ribbon and pins, though curls still escaped to find their way down toward her shoulders.
As she moved through the rooms, she found that most everyone was already occupied with others, allowing her the opportunity to watch and become more accustomed to the door and the certain rhythm that everything had that was just a little bit different than the rhythm she was used to. But by the time she reached the sitting room, she was comfortable enough with everything to help herself to a glass of brandy (not quite the same as the margaritas from Los Tacos in Gotham, but still good) and ease herself up to the bar next to the mustachioed man there (Watson, she became aware) and give him a nod and a soft smile, keeping her greeting of Doctor behind her teeth for the moment.