Naterta laughs.

"I don't think it is like that. I thought that, at my age, I could plan for things. But I suppose I should have learned at some point that the world doesn't care for plans."

She sighs.

"But no, I don't think it's a bad thing either. It's just ... complicated. It will take time to get my head around, as our guest says."

"It is different," Maenik agrees quietly. She keeps looking up at the stars. This is what she's here for to give people choices and the space to contemplate options they wouldn't have otherwise had.

People slowly trickle away. The village is quiet, not because it lacks sounds — on the contrary, the slapping of waves, the murmurs of conversation, and the sounds of animals in the forest are all clearly audible — but because the sounds that it does have are quiet, rhythmic, and soothing.

Penþa swings by to let Maenik know that they're heading to bed. Ðani eventually drags Anþasta off to sleep, on the premise that she needs lots of rest to finish helping with the magic rollout tomorrow.

And eventually Naterta gives Maenik a nod and levers herself to her feet. Her mind is not made up, but it is more settled than it was. She makes her way between dark houses, and opens a door. The faint sound of a child who will not be soothed echos through the quiet streets.

"Here, give her to me," she says, closing the door behind her.

Maenik just relaxes outside for a little longer before she sends a short update to the rest of her weave and then goes to bed much the same way as last night.

This time Penþa manages to not trigger her proximity alert, but they do leave a breakfast collected from the cookhall just the same. Today there is a hot oat cake, a cup of tea, and the normal morning roll of dense bread.

There is also the soft pitter-patter of rain. Penþa's house is well-thatched (more for the preservation of its contents than because the village is full of particularly thorough thatchers), so the inside remains dry, even as the streets outside quickly turn to mud.

Penþa sits in the corner sipping from their own tea and running their fingers over a net. The net is unfolded across their legs, but in a fairly tidy fashion.

Maenik wakes up and once she shakes off the sleepies she sits up and smiles. "Thank you for breakfast."

"You're welcome," Penþa replies. "I think things should still be hot, but you can warm them by the fire if you'd like."

They reach the end of the current segment of net, and spend a moment carefully folding and unfolding it to read the next section.

"I'm sure it will be fine." She does warm things up a touch with her magic before eating. She'll eat quietly and leave Penþa to their reading.

The rain seems to have people mostly pinned indoors, although Maenik will spot various groups sitting on porches, mostly working on handcrafts and talking.

Maenik is happy to just have a quiet morning. It makes sense that rain keeps people in when most of the paths turn to mud.

Not everyone is being kept indoors. Daskal is using the air-walking template to walk around above the mud puddles — occasionally stumbling and getting covered in mud anyway. His mother watches with a simultaneously fond and worried expression from her porch.

But if she doesn't approach anyone, they're all content to let her have a quiet morning as well.

Around noon, the rain mostly peters out, and a large group of people head off into the woods.

"Do you know why a large group is going into the woods?"

Penþa looks up from their reading.

"Oh, they're probably heading out to the outlying farms. Some people came in for the meeting, but not everyone. I imagine they're going to do rounds and let everyone know both about the planning changes for this winter, and also share magic."

"Oh, that makes sense. I think I'll leave them too it. I think I'll go spend some more time with Anaþasta if there's nothing you're looking to talk about. It's possible we should talk about numbers at some point but it's also possible nobody here needs to know about things at that scale."

"I'd love to talk about numbers at some point," Penþa agrees. "They're pretty much always helpful, in my line of work. Anþasta is ... probably in her house, I would guess. Do you know where it is?"

"I can see her from here."

"Ah, alright. Be well," they say, running their hand along another rope.

Anþasta is, for her part, sitting on her family's porch with her knees drawn up against her chest. She has been staring intently at a leaf for about an hour, and shows no particular signs of stopping, even once the rain does.

Maenik smiles and clicks an acknowledgement before heading over to join Anaþasta. "Trying to understand the fractal better?" She asks softly once she arrives.

She startles and blinks, but then uncurls into a more normal sitting position.

"Yes," she agrees. "There's just ... a lot going on. I'm not really sure where to start, so I've just been trying to figure out what the, uh, ..."

She pauses to construct a neologism.

"What the knotwork-but-tiny-and-everywhere is for. I think that there are different kinds, and the ... chimney one is exchanging the ... larger excited stuff for something else. But it's kind of hard to keep track of everything."

"I'm not quite sure which part you're referring to. I don't think anyone can keep track of everything though. The trick is to learn to focus on the parts that are important. My offer to give you words for some of the symbols is still open but if you'd prefer I can also give you a template that lets me see what you're seeing so I know what you're looking at in particular."

"It's a tempting offer," she concedes. "I wanted to see if I could work out a schema independently, but it would help to have standardized names for everything. Yes, please."

"Makes sense, here." She holds out a template bubble and a small language bubble. "The template will settle the language in the right place."