Lhemur adopts a look of puzzlement and contrition.

"Well, I've never actually been to a city myself. So I'm not sure exactly what they're like," he explains. "But if I had to guess, I'd probably think that people missed their privacy? Here, you can always just go for a walk in the woods and get away from people pretty quickly if you want to have some privacy. Well, most of the time. In winter, sometimes you just need to hide under a blanket and ask everyone in your house to stop talking for the day. I guess flight also makes that easier, though, so maybe people wouldn't mind as much."

"I'll have to talk to some people in cities and see what they think. Also, regarding blankets I think there's ways to improve on that with magic. Either through being able to go for walks in winter or just being able to isolate yourself better from sight and sound."

"Oh, yes — if we can all fly, and not worry about getting hurt and freezing to death, I suspect winter will be less of a problem," Lhemur agrees.

"There are still reasons you might want to isolate yourself from sight or sound, though," Penþa points out. "Someone who gets overwhelmed by sensation, for one."

"How does isolating yourself from sight or sound with magic work? Unless you just mean producing better blankets."

"Let me show you." She stands up from the bench and takes a step away so she has a bit of space. "In just a moment we won't be able to hear each other." Then a cylindrical mirror appears around her. She holds it for a good ten seconds.

"Huh! Well, that does seem pretty thorough," Penþa agrees once it drops. "It looks the same on the inside?"

"This version does at least. Magic is pretty flexible."

They make the affirmative hand gesture.

"Well, it sounds like we'll all have a much nicer winter, then."

The others agree.

"... I'm sure I must have had more questions, but I think this is enough to get started with, at least. We'll need to change a lot, but it doesn't have to be decided instantly. I'll talk to people tomorrow. Did you have any more questions for us before I turn in?"

"It's possible I should talk to Oskeli and Bardamma about this instead but how common are prophets and how common are lesser sendings from the other place?"

"Oh, that's an easy enough question," Gornet responds. "We have two prophets in the village right now — Oskeli and Bardamma, and Kapan. So that's two people in four sixes of sixes and three. And that's not a terribly unusual rate — a little bit low, I think. The village normally has two or three prophets, which is comparable to the other places around here."

"As for lesser sendings ... well, it's a bit hard to tell. When people are children, it's hard to tell what's just a child using their imagination, and what's a real message. But children are also more likely to get messages or visitors — prophets usually get a visitor before reaching four sixes years of age. Among adults old enough to tell what's imaginary and what's not, about one in three people ever receive a message, and for about five in six people that do they only ever get one. Usually those are simple warnings — like letting someone know to avoid a place where bears have taken up residence, or letting someone know that if they go out fishing they'll have an accident. The remaining fraction of people get more complete messages, like seeing colors bleed through from the other place, hearing snatches of conversation, or just having a thought turn up that isn't theirs, but it varies from person to person."

"Often, someone who is receiving a lot of messages they don't understand can make a change in their lifestyle, and the messages will taper off. So we generally assume that, like the ones who visit, the fair ones who send the messages are trying to help by aiming them at people who need to be prompted into making a change. So it may also be that messages will get less frequent as the population grows, since there will be more people to help," he explains.

"Thanks that's very helpful." The mention of precognition is both stronger evidence than she's had so far and also concerning. Still whatever is happening seems inclined to be helpful and there are explanations other than true precognition for that example. She sends a priority marked message anyway just in case.

"I imagine it must be a bit strange, if the summerlands can't reach your world, so you're not used to it," Gornet replies, sympathetically. "Traveling here is so hard for the visitors who do make it, though— Oh!"

Gornet fishes around in his bag, coming up with a necklace with a simple clay bead painted with a red symbol.

"If you don't receive messages, you probably don't have privacy indicators either," he surmises. "Here — I keep a spare, for patients who don't have one. Don't wear it all the time, or you might run into a bear or something equally bad, but you can wear it to ask the fair ones not to bother you, for a time."

"Thank you, that actually explains something I was confused about since you seem to put a lot of importance on privacy." She takes the necklace and puts it in one of her many pockets.

"Well, it's sort of different, isn't it?" Gornet says. "Like — the fair ones can see so much, and they still want to help, you wouldn't expect them to judge you for anything, would you? And yes, they have their own politeness rules that you would have to obey if you went to the other place, but they don't matter here. That's why visitors can lie — it would be shockingly rude in the courts, but here they're just people. Although they still often prefer not to, just because they're used to it."

"Anyway, I think most people don't worry about it, because it would be a bit like worrying about the cats judging you. The cats aren't going to tell anyone or do anything about it, and they judge on such different criteria anyway that it's usually easy to just forget them. But for those that do worry, yes, there are the privacy indicators."

"I can see how that fits. It's similar to other exceptions I've seen people draw around privacy."

There's general clicking.

"Well. I plan to make an early day of it," Penþa says. "So I'm going to go to bed now. Maenik, you can come in whenever you like — I'm a heavy sleeper. Your bed is the one closer to the door. I've pulled out several blankets for you, but there are more stored under the bed if you get cold. Please don't mess with my notes hanging by the door, or enter the archive room between the beds. There will be breakfast in the morning, but if you're not up by then I'll leave it by your bed. Good night!"

"I'll be along before too long. I need some time to think about everything I've learned today and send people messages."

"Of course. I hope that goes well for you, and that you sleep well," Penþa answers, before clicking at the others and vanishing into the house.

"Would you like us to leave you to that?" Gornet asks. "I was going to fabricate a reason to abandon you with Lhemur, but if you'd rather be alone with your thoughts I can take him with me."

"Gornet!" Lhemur protests. "How dare. But yes — I will be up for a bit longer, and would be happy to sit with you or go attend to my own tasks."

"I'm flattered but I do feel like I should clarify; I'm not one for marriage. I'm open to friendships and with the right friends that can extend to sharing pleasures for me but I expect you might be looking for something more committed than that."

Lhemur blushes.

"Er. Well, in point of fact I live alone, and intend to continue that trend," he replies. "But I do enjoy the festivals, and I'm sure I would enjoy your company. Still — friendships take some time, and it's late for all of us. Perhaps I'll see you tomorrow?"

He stands, and helps Gornet stand. "And in the meantime I can walk this terribly nosy busybody who should mind his own relationships back to his child's house."

Gornet cackles.

"Perhaps, it's a small village." She gestures her own farewells and given that she was left alone she puts on the necklace for added whatever value it provides before making a workspace visible only to her.

So the other place. It seemed at first to just be a belief system. There's still a chance that's all it is. People attribute things to miracles and deities all the time without them really being based on those and their stories can sound like the sorts of fortuitous messages they're describing. There aren't any physical interventions among what's been described. She also hasn't seen any trace of unusual metaphysics not even when she looked at the pair the locals call a prophet. That's not conclusive, seeing inside people is challenging and not all means of observation leave traces but it's weak evidence towards the belief system hypothesis. If it isn't this world has Outsiders. Apparently benevolent ones but ones that at least pretend to have precognition. That's concerning. She writes a follow-up to her urgent report laying out everything she's just thought and including as much evidence as she can. She concludes that she doesn't expect to need assistance in the immediate future.

Her next report is on the language and culture. They seem to have somewhat more emphasis on privacy than the mean but not that much more. Overall, they seem perhaps a bit more cooperative than some such cultures a bit less hierarchical but not enough to be especially notable. This report takes a while but eventually she finishes recording everything of note and attached a copy of the language bubble before sending that off.

Last but not least she sends a message to her friends assuring them that she's safe and this seems to be a fairly ordinary world as these things go. She attaches a few pictures and over the next couple minutes she exchanges a couple hugs and starts a longer conversation with one of them. All told it's a good hour and a half later that she wraps up and makes her way to bed.