That first crossing through The Hinge, I wore everything I owned because it was all on me at the time: one jacket, boots re-soled twice, and a debt to the off-world that would have bought a small car. Crosslanders talk of portals like they're doors with handles, but The Hinge is less a door than a judgment - it takes your measure and passes you through, and what arrives on the other side is whatever you actually are when everything else has been removed. Van made the same crossing the same way, apparently: nowt but a dirty vagrant tyke, his exact words. Nearly died that first week, same as him, which in hindsight is how you know you made it through properly. Anyone who arrives in Hellsborough, S6 and doesn't nearly die in the first month has probably not actually crossed.