"What's 'cavalry'?"

"Oh! Soldiers that ride on horseback. Horses are domesticated herbivores that are used for riding and as beasts of burden. Very important in preindustrial Earth."

Sid will also attempt to draw a horse, with a human to scale.

Wow! Tak thinks horses are amazingly cool and also like they would kill themselves all the time if not carefully tended to, like Vorks do.

Nope! They can in fact survive in the wild perfectly well.

...Why does Tak so strongly expect them to kill themselves?

"Well, there's barely any large animals anywhere- They're just too big and too vulnerable to too much stuff. Especially poison, since most animals can only eat a few things and big ones can't find enough of what they eat."

"Oh, Earth has plenty of large animals. Horses, and many other ungulates, mainly eat grass, which grows in very large quantities in some biomes."

"I don't think most Earth plants are poisonous. I mean, I can't digest the cellulose in grass, but I don't think grass evolved anything specifically to poison predators."

"...Most plants are poisonous, or at least indigestible to most animals. It's been, uh, there are a few dozen crops that have become mostly safe by taking out all the weird stuff. Those bird bites for example, the birds eat insects that eat dead grass, but we can't eat either species."

"Yeah, I'm starting to see what happened here. The makers really fucked you over. Earth has probably hundreds of food crops, and plenty more things we just don't eat because they aren't very practical."

He snorts. "Hundreds of staple crops? Welcome to Iwami! Plenty of folk, especially the older ones, think the makers got fucked over by a cosmic radiation blast or a black hole or some unimaginable fucking thing before they 'finished' and it's lurking out there, ready to end us if we poke it too. A few nutjobs even worship them and consider the whole... Situation, a test."

"No, only a few dozen or so staple crops. Hundreds of different fruits and vegetables different cultures all over the world regularly eat, to say nothing of herbs and spices."

"Anyways, uh, if you want I can try to draw some more Earth animals."

"Eh. Plenty of time for all that later. Naya would love that a lot more than me, too. If anything I'd want to fight you, but that's a stupid idea when you're our only alien. I just hope you end up..."

Tak scratches at the ground with his bare clawfeet.

"Where you want to be, and don't drag the rest of us around too much getting there, if that makes sense."

"If we fought you would definitely win, I don't really know anything about fighting."

"...Why and how do you think I would drag you guys around?"

"It's a metaphor. Your existence and importance has weight. Everything interlocks, everything has circumstance and gravity. It'd be fuckin' stupid to just ignore that."

"I know that, but like... what concretely do you imagine happening, that you wish wouldn't?"

"I'm gonna be 'the guy who tried to blow up the alien!' forever to some people, regardless of intentions. Mika's missing her chance for space school. Fei is gonna limpet to you. Teko is hoping you'll know some arcane alien secret to saving everyone. All of us are going on watchlists forever."

"Sorry, what is space school?"

"Astronaut training. They're expanding lots of roles to twos 'cause the launch loop will come online in a few years. She didn't quite make the cut as a one but they're lowering standards now."

"What is the 'launch loop'?"

"D'you not have one? I mean, I don't really understand the engineering, but it's basically a giant magnetic slingshot. So we can get stuff into space without having to rely so much on giant rockets. They've been building it for at least a decade, over near Shen."

"...No, Earth does not have that. I don't think I've ever even heard someone propose such a thing as a realistic near future possibility. What, exactly, is the objective of this space program? This seems important."

"I dunno, man, to build a moon city. More space stations. Space science, space industry. Asteroid mining gets mentioned a lot. But since we found out about the makers it's been a lot more 'orbital defenses' and 'new weapons' and 'space warships' too. They have this nuclear powered rocket now."

...Something about this doesn't add up. A mystery for later, he supposes.

"Anyways. Uh... do you think it won't be possible to convince everyone to keep the dynamite thing a secret so you don't become known as the guy who tried to blow me up?"

"And why do you think Fei is going to limpet to me?"

"...Don't think anything can be done about the watchlists. Fuck that."

"I'm sure they've already sworn all their friends to secrecy about it. Nothing for it. Knew that when I did it. Fei's been flirting with you since you showed up and made the moves on you as soon as she could? I heard from someone you were hanging out with her, and she is, well, known to be into the alien characters in stories. One imagines you and her may be expecting different stuff."

"I will have a conversation with her about expectations, then."

"In general I would prefer not to fuck things up for you guys more than is already inevitable. Let me know if you have any ideas on that front, I guess."

"Yeah, I got nothing. Lots of vague worries, no fixes."

"There you are!" Mika's voice calls out loudly. She jogs up and hands him a tablet computer. "It's in first time setup mode and has the medical stipend on it. Let me know if you have questions. Tak, are you gonna plant the garden? It's summer, so we'd need-"

"Nah."

"-To order- No? What are you gonna do, then?"

Tak shakes his head. "Stuff I can be alone for."

"Laundry?"

Tak shrugs. Mika nods, glances at Sid.