Of all the times to experience deja vu, notifying emergency services about a snake monster before it eats her is an odd one.
She thanks them, strolls that way to look at airships, and then finds somewhere to busk.
And she gets to keep her jewelry! ...can she get an adequately pretty change of clothes and a way to wash what she's got?
She's not in such urgent need that she can't shop around for something nice and maybe a sewing kit to tailor the prettiest thing to fit if it doesn't already.
The city of Skygarden is beautiful.
Oh, it's clear enough that Elves don't live there - a lot of things are dirty or in poor repair, there's litter and so on - but underneath the wear and tear of use, most of the architecture would hold its own in a Valian design contest. The gardens visible along the sides of the island are gorgeous. The palace in the middle is huge and sprawling and exquisitely lovely, made all of stone that rises from the ground in a single seamless piece, with courtyards and fountains and greenhouses and ivy-clad towers and a low outer wall to mark out its territory.
Not necessarily.
She does listen for and ask questions during any conversations in which the Emperor is mentioned.
Inconveniently, people within human hearing range of her singing mostly don't talk. But when she listens farther away than that, or spends time not singing, she can overhear Emperor-related gossip such as:
- remember that time he threw somebody off the palace roof a few years ago? Working at the palace must be terrifying!
- they finally tore down my old neighbourhood and the Emperor came in and built new houses overnight and they're all gorgeous
- my friend's cousin's husband sold one of his maids last year and the Emperor bought her, poor girl
- it's been a while since the Emperor added new land to the island, I wonder where he'll put it on next?
- I was at a party last month, more upscale than I usually go to, and the Emperor showed up, but people mostly weren't frightened - maybe you get used to it, if you run in the sort of social circle where the Emperor shows up to parties - anyway I left early and I'm not accepting any more invitations from that household, maybe some people can get used to socializing with the Emperor but I'm not cut out for it
- my uncle's girlfriend's sister is a palace secretary and she says it's just like any other job really, but she doesn't dare go near the Emperor's personal wing because she took a shortcut right past it once and she could hear the girls screaming, which doesn't sound much like any other job to me
- my ex-landlord's family fell on hard times and had to sell his niece, and he ran into her in the market and she said it was so awful she'd rather belong to the Emperor, I'm sure she didn't mean it but can you imagine—!
Hm.
She goes for a meandering walk that takes her past the palace twice. She listens.