"I'm so glad," says her mother. "We will ask if he's busy, then. Do you want to go home now? We can go home now, but we can stay here for a while if you'd rather, or go see something else."

"We can go home," says Haneo. "I heard there was a yard."

She doesn't say that she hasn't had a house before and is a little curious about what it's like to have a house; it seems like the sort of thing that might make people sad again.

"Okay!" They are thinking that she might not say if she didn't want to go home but probably it doesn't help to worry about that.

Huan comes bounding in to join them a minute later. Her parents look delighted.

"Let's go home."

Haneo is also delighted. She doesn't know what dogs are supposed to be like, exactly, but she knows that Huan is a good one. She pets him and then follows Tehlan and Aicassë home. 

(She tries thinking "mom and dad", but it doesn't sound right, so she keeps thinking Tehlan and Aicassë.  She's not sure if this is going to interfere with her mission, but hopefully it'll be OK.)

The Elf city is very pretty and built into the hillside. The streets are spirals. There are lots of trees. The buildings are mostly about five stories tall. There are Elves, walking around thinking about music and the weather and the flowers and Huan.

Haneo bounces and looks through everyone's eyes at all the pretty. She tells Tehlan and Aicassë that the city is really pretty, because probably they should get to hear that about their city even if they already know it.

They beam at her, and then remember that won't be very helpful to her and beam at each other. "We try very hard to make our cities pretty! It's very important. Do you see anything you want to look at more? Not necessarily now, but we could come back to look at it later."

"I want to look at everything," says Haneo, very seriously. "But I want to see the house first."

She's not used to thinking so much about what she wants, but it seems important, so she's trying her best.

"Okay!" The house is on the first floor and second floor of this building here. It has big tall windows that fill it with light, and then it has lots of swirly nooks that are lined with books and full of pillows. It has three bedrooms. Her parents invite her to pick.

They are all very nice rooms. Haneo doesn't tell them that she's never had a room to herself before, that seems like it might make them sad (and it'd be a really pointless sad, too; she wouldn't have wanted to be away from the other psyons for too long, and being one room over wouldn't have made any difference anyway). But she's supposed to pick a room. She picks one of them essentially at random, and then reiterates that it's a very nice room and that she's very glad to have it.

Her parents are maybe slightly less reassured by this than she was hoping for. Aicassë is worrying that she might think she'll be in trouble if she doesn't like things or wants something different. But they thank her for picking a room and invite her to the kitchen to watch them cook dinner - "and help if you'd like to".

They seem like hard people to reassure. That's OK. Sanae didn't say that this mission would be easy. 

"I can help!" she says brightly. "How do I help?"

If she would like she can pick leaves off plants and taste them and add the ones she likes to this sauce, and she can get jars from the pantry and bring them over and pour them into the bowl, and she can roll this dough flat, and she can go to the garden and get some berries to go with dinner.

She can definitely roll dough flat! She can maybe get jars, and she can get berries if someone watches her, but she doesn't know her way around yet and navigating is going to be a lot of effort for a while. She would totally taste leaves, except that she can't actually taste anything by herself. It doesn't occur to her that this is probably upsetting until after she says it.

She decides to make sure to do a really really good job with the dough.

They are upset about her not being able to taste things. Not with her, with the Alteri. Tehlan really hates the Alteri, they hurt Haneo, how dare they. They do not act upset about it but they both think about it a fair bit. 

They tell her she is great with the dough.

She beams at them when they tell her she did a good job, though she can't talk very well until she finishes using her hands to roll the dough. She can still taste things other people eat, so she's sure that eating will be really nice even if she can't taste it herself. 

She hopes Sanae's mission isn't as hard as her mission. She did just start it, and she's pretty sure she's the right person for the job, but it's harder than most of her missions have been, and she's pretty sure it's also way more important. 

Hopefully the Elves won't hate the Alteri forever. She's not sure if she's supposed to hope for that, because maybe things'll be better for the other psyons if the Elves all have really uncomplicated feelings about the Alteri. She just doesn't like people to hate other people. Probably the Alteri don't know how not to be bad, and that's not really their fault, exactly.

They roll dough and make puff pastries and pasta and sauce and put the leaves in and get some berries and make a fruit salad and continue to hate the Alteri though they don't think about it much. They sing. They compliment her dough-rolling more when that makes her smile.

Haneo compliments their singing and excitedly waits for the food to be done.

They finish the food. They serve her more food than one small human could possibly eat. They serve themselves some also.

It's good! (Getting to taste what two people eat is probably better than being one person with a tongue anyway.) She feels weird about leaving food behind, but there's so much food. Can she maybe save some for later?

"Yes, of course. You should only eat what you want." (Oh no, they should have realized she might expect she was required to eat all of it.)

She eats about as much as she can eat without making herself very sick (there is SO MUCH FOOD), then tells them that it was a very lovely meal and folds her hands in her lap. She is not entirely sure how you politely signal that you're done eating, and pays extra attention to see if she can hear any thoughts that make it more obvious.

That was a lot! They're glad she ate a lot. They fret that they should have warned her to save some room for dessert, but it's not a big deal, they can have dessert later. "Do you want to design your room to be nice for you, or read a story, or go for a walk?"

"Or anything else."

Haneo knows what dessert is! She didn't know before the elves thought about it, but she knows now and it is a fantastic concept. Later is going to be great.

"I don't think I know how to design a room. I know how to go for a walk!"

"Okay!" So they bustle outside for a walk. The streets continue to be pretty. They point out an ice cream shop and a concert hall and a building with music practice rooms. "There isn't a playground, but we can build one if you'd like."