If this happens sooner than in about five hours, then she will totally keep trees-ing until then.

She's guessing that means 'stop', though she's going to need a local for any details.

"That means we're done working for the day! Come on, you did good work."

She's not really used to hearing that kind of thing.  

"...Thank you!" And probably just following them is the way to figure out where to come on to.

Yep.

The smattering of tents around the generator has been expanded, and neatened up, and a few other buildings have been started - a surprising amount of progress for one day, all in all. People are gathering and talking cheerfully to each other in a little clear area near the Generator.

And the Captain is standing on a little pedestal in front of the Generator, making a speech. "...Whether it's by grace of God, or dumb luck, we have been given a great boon. There's a lot of work to do. It won't be easy. But we can do it! We will build a new city, safe from the Lords, safe from the frost, where we all work for ourselves. We have hot food, and somewhere warm to sleep - enough to rest up before our work starts anew tomorrow. We have a sawmill and workshops to start to rebuild the machinery we used in England. We've made a good start, and it's only the first day! I am proud of you all, and I thank you all for letting me lead you here. I also want to thank Aye and Genea. Mysterious strangers who we greeted with good will, and who have come to our aid. Helping each other like this is surely one of the noblest features of the human soul."

And he steps off the pedestal to clapping.

She is rather unclear with the concept behind 'by grace of God', but that doesn't seem like the important part of the speech. 

She smiles, and will wave if anyone looks at her.

(And where has Genea been, meanwhile?)

Genea has been sorting scrap and then building a cookhouse, if she's gone along with what the rest of her little crew were doing. They've been chatting to her amicably, trying to teach her more English.

She has no objections. 

She is glad to learn the language better, even as Aye continues to translate for her as needed.

She claps with everyone at the speech. (If it can only be true, this time...)

And then everyone is invited into the new cookhouse where there are individual hot meals, all a fair but not huge portion. One for each person.

Do you think we can eat it?

I guess the Settlers ate food they found just fine...

Let me try it first. Pretty definitely won't kill me, and I might be able to tell if it's something you shouldn't be eating for some reason.

Food?

Food. Some kind of beans, some kind of other vegetable, some sort of bread, a little meat. It's kind of bland. Doesn't seem to do her any harm.

The rest of the crowd chatters cheerfully while eating!

That's not very surprising! But it doesn't seem like anything that should do Genea harm, either.

(And if what she wanted out of life was elaborate food, she'd have stayed in the towers.)

Sit together or separately? Think people are a bit wary of me; might be less that around you if I'm not around.

Her mental tone makes it pretty clear what her expression would be, if she were physically making it.

Together.

They can sit together, then (a bit easier on the conversation for her too, if she doesn't have to do two at once.)

What are people chatting about?

"This 'new city' thing might actually work!" "Aye, emphasis on 'work'."

"Do we know why the great frost has come?" "I've heard half a dozen contradictory rumors. So, no."

"A toast. To absent friends." "To absent friends."

"Those tents remind me of the New Poor Law. Shanties." "We'll make real houses in time. This is practically the end of the world after all."

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name..."

What's the concept behind 'New Poor Law'?

The last thing and the concepts behind it is helping her out with the 'grace of God' thing.

The concept behind the New Poor Law is roughly 'the Lords trying to control us, keep us weak and half-starved!' There's more to it, something about reorganizing and reducing charitable donations? But that's most of it, and the sentiment behind it.

"What is the New Poor Law?" she says outloud.

"A travesty, that's what it was!"

"A few decades ago-" "Five" "-Yes, five decades ago, Parliament decided that poor relief was costing them too much money. So they stopped most of it and would only feed the poor in workhouses, and workhouses have horrid, awful conditions."

"Goes back on basic decency, it does."

"People got sick and died in workhouses with alarming regularity. But it did make the poor cost the government less money. It's just a bastardly thing to do to people - the rich only care about staying rich, and not caring for their fellow man."

Nod. "I'm sorry."

"It's all moot now, of course. Just another line in the catalogue of abuses."

Nod.

And what do people here do after dinner?

Either hang around chatting, or go to their tents and fall dead asleep, apparently!