There's some suitable wood.

Justice laughs but not disapprovingly.

Not disapproving is good! Justice probably isn't the person to impress, if you can only pick one, but it's not like Stillness can only pick one. Maybe he's being ridiculous but probably most people who do this are a little bit ridiculous about it. 

How far can he go with the walking stick? 

Depends on how willing he is to keep catching himself, really. He could walk right into the forest... eventually... with a lot of falls along the way. Shouldn't have to adjust much for continued changes anymore, he's almost adult-shaped now.

If he goes far Justice will wander a little closer but still not offer help.

He'll practice some before he walks into the forest, walks in circles and figure-eights and loops until he is falling over less, and then goes toward the treeline. 

Justice comes up beside him and matches his pace.

"I never thought of using a cane when I was new to land. It's clever."

"Thank you." Stillness is slightly cautious about it, but tries to keep that out of his inflection. 

"When you get to the trees I can show you around if you're up for it. Or I can see you to your sibling's and let you rest."

"I'd like to see the forest, please." 

It's a shady forest that's been allowed to look unmanaged. Little patches of light dot the ground. Edible vines have been encouraged to grow on most tree trunks. Near the beach are a few food carts, a few shoppers, someone transplanting a seedling into a clearing.

"People come this way to and from the ocean," says Justice. "Otherwise there's not much this close to the beach. If we head that way we'll find the place you're hoping to work. That way and we'll find some apartments and shops. Straight ahead are some things tourists tend to like but they're farther than anything else, it would be perfectly reasonable of you to save them for another day when you've been on your feet longer. Where to first?"

"The place where I'm hoping to work — please," he adds, because Justice is really helping him a lot. 

Justice shows no sign of resenting the walk or the babysitting.

As they get deeper into the forest there are here and there the domed roofs of buildings, steel painted carefully to look like driftwood, translucent glass windows letting in some of the sunlight. Beneath their feet are who knows how many levels of basements. There are obvious doors in every roof and possibly emergency exits hidden under fallen leaves.

"I used to live down there about twenty years ago. It was very nice then. There was a restaurant I liked on the floor below me until the owner moved up north and sold the space to a novelty clockmaker."

It's not a long walk for Justice but it might be for Stillness.

It's definitely a long walk. The stick is helping, and knowing he's supposed to look new at it is helping. 

"Everything I've heard about the forest sounds lovely," Stillness says, which is not entirely true but is mostly true. 

"Thank you. We work very hard to make it that way."

Up ahead is an aboveground building that looks like a massive tree.

"That's older than most of the places around. It survived the fire a hundred years ago. ...There's a restaurant inside and you might want to get something to eat before your hunger catches up with you. You won't be feeling it much yet but you'll be ravenous by tomorrow, everyone is, you lose a lot of weight when you change."

Stillness nods and walks toward the restaurant. Glances back to see whether Justice is joining him. 

Justice isn't planning to leave Stillness alone until he's dismissed. That or until he goes back to work but that's not for a few days.

Inside are tables and chairs. Stillness might have seen them in movies. People sit on the chairs and rest food on the tables just like they do on TV. If Stillness still has a little nubby tail left he might want to be careful of it but it should be fine.

He's careful. He has indeed seen tables and chairs in movies but they feel deeply weird to sit at. 

There is food. Stillness is tempted to order the cheapest thing on the menu without even looking at what it is, and instead gets the cheapest type of fish, because it's filling enough to last and something familiar sounds lovely. 

It hasn't occurred to Justice that Stillness might intend to pay for his own food. He offers the waiter his card.

Stillness makes sure to thank him for it, arranges his face so he looks softer than he is and younger than he'd usually show. 

Justice gets himself a leaf wrap. He talks while they eat, random facts about life on land. This local landlord goes above and beyond for his tenants, shame his apartments are so old and in need of renovation. This brand of boxed broth has had three recalls this decade, don't trust it.

He starts talking about local zoning ordinances and watches Stillness carefully for signs that this might not, in fact, be something he wants to spend his entire life thinking about.

He's enthusiastic about zoning ordinances! There are a couple laws that sound tricky to enforce, how does that get managed? 

"Restrictions on building depth are usually to give utilities enough space. It would be intrusive to inspect everyone's bedrooms to see if they have any secret trapdoors to secret basements, but damaging a water main is more deterring than you might think. A lot of nice things need to be kept dry. Or causing a gas leak, that's much worse, have you seen pictures of fire damage before?"

He's seen them, but only in passing. 

"It's not the punishment we would choose but it's punishing enough. And if someone can go deeper while making sure never to interfere with any current or future utilities, it's not worth spying on everyone to stop them. Enforcement's rare if there are no accidents and no one tips off the authorities. I don't think there are many cases slipping by us but if I'm wrong and half the population can do it safely it probably shouldn't be against the law. Does that make sense to you?"

"It does," he says, and then pauses. "Do you get used to it being this loud, or is it just that I'm new to hearing sound through air and not water, or is it something about this room?" 

"Restaurants and places where a lot of people are doing things at once are loud. This room echoes a little, too. Sound is quieter if the walls are soft and feels quieter when you're used to the specific sounds you're hearing. If you have to be around any drilling or hammering you'll want to get some earplugs, they muffle sound quite a bit." Shrug. "I don't know if it's from being new to air, I spent a lot of time with my head above water even when I lived in the ocean."