"Of course. Someone's probably working in any given room right now, in fact. Which room?"

She's not picky - painting, maybe, and she'd like to see the library.

They go into the painting room. It's an open space with easels, chairs, and a few tables, plus shelves, cabinets, and a couple of sinks. Natural light is coming in along the walls somehow. A man is painting something impressionistic, lots of silver and grey, what looks like the tall spires of an imagined city.

"Hello, Dorian. Don't mind us - this is Dusk Glory. A lost visitor. I'm giving her the grand tour."

Dorian nods. "...Wings?"

"They're not dangerous, the thing that created them is under control."

"Ah. Good. Well, nice to see someone new."

It's nice to meet him. Is that a real place?

"No. Well, it might be, but I've never seen it. It's supposed to be Noctis City. On Mars."

That's cool. It's very pretty.

"Thank you. I wasn't sure whether to do the background red, or more green... Mars is supposed to be red, but they also say they turned it green under the domes."

She's from an Earth, but her world's Mars doesn't have cities yet, so she doesn't know how they look. Mars is this shade of red, though, she thinks the green he picked is nicer.

"Yeah, I think it is. A little green against the red might have been nice too, show something growing, but I'm already past the background."

It would have, yeah. Well, he can always try something like that next time.

"Yeah, next time. I'll probably finish this one and try something else for a while before using more paint. Enough to go around won't be anymore if nobody thinks like that."

(The President is tidying up the art room a bit and watching them interact, smiling slightly.)

She can make paint if it's just for practice or trying things out. She has magic - that's why she looks strange, she's a magical girl - and one of her spells is making fake things.

The President comes back over. "That's a good idea! Especially for the little kids. They'd find it fun."

Yeah. And art is important. (Wingflutter.)

"I wonder about that," the painter says, "I like it, but there's lots of other things the time and effort could go to. Art's probably worth it, it's a luxury in itself."

Art gives people hope, and makes life tolerable when things are bad and better when things are good; of course it's worth it.

"I'm not arguing with that. Art is nice. The murals around our commune are very good. I'm just saying that art might trade off with other luxuries, sometimes." He shrugs. "In any case, I think I'll keep working on this tomorrow some time. It's probably about time to check on my apple trees."

She looks forward to seeing the finished piece.

Library, next?

"Of course. Mind, library is a bit of a grand title - I don't want to get your hopes up. Reading room, perhaps?"

He leads Dusk across the hall. The library has eight tall shelves, mostly full - some books in proper bindings, some scrolls. There are comfy-looking chairs and tables near the front with more natural light, plus a couple of lecturn type things with stacks of blank paper and scrolls and some relatively crude writing supplies.

It's little. Seems like they care about it, though. (She keeps these observations to herself, and looks through the titles.)

It's cozy, she likes it. How often do they have a chance to get new books?

"We write some. And sometimes visiting ships will be interested in buying or selling books. I'd say, once every month or so we get something new."

That's not so bad. Is the poetry written here?

There's three shelves of nonfiction, mostly textbooks and bestiaries and such. Much of the rest is various flavors of novels, but poetry has a decent sized area.

"It's what we have. Even this much of a library is a luxury - books are heavy and a bit expensive. Glad you like it, though. Most of the poetry is copies of older things. There's a few collections from locals, though."

That's cool.

She thinks she'd like to stay here, at least for a while. She's not sure she'll be okay someplace this small in the long run, but she does like it enough to give it a try, if there are adults here she gets along with or she can figure out how to manage on her own.

"Alright. We can dig up a room for you, perhaps introduce you to some folk you might get along with. I'll let you know, most places at high altitudes tend to be small, like us. Down lower is where you get really large towns."