... okay, that's a lot less bad than Tatenika was expecting, actually. It also smells like a story and not a complete explanation.

She thinks about this for a moment — but actually it's not her job to figure out how to handle these things; it's her job to get information for those people so they can do their jobs.

"We have weapons that can kill cities for thousands of years," she tells Weiss. "Everyone knows how to make them, because they are simple. The people of all the world, the Global Minimum Standards Body, tells people not to make them, and mostly people don't. When people do, the GMSB finds out by watching for weapon-building-stuff and makes them stop."

"Is taking dark-god-pieces like making a weapon? People can see it and stop it? Or is it like praying, and people can't tell if you are thinking, and then poof there is a god?"

...Nukes: Check.

"I think the light gods would be more worried if just praying could bring the dark ones back. I think it's more like making a weapon, yes."

Tatenika nods.

"If you can tell us what it looks like, we can ask the GMSB to tell people not to do it. And they know how to look good and stop people. And, if someone does get a dark-god-piece, we won't do what they say anyway."

"Oh good. Maybe you can find the right people to tell and I'll tell them later. After this heavy talk I'm going to take a break and vanish for a bit."

Tatenika really wants to insist on learning details of the potential unfriendly magical alien empowering process now, but she's worked hard on getting Weiss less skittish, and pushing it probably isn't going to help.

"There is a GMSB Inspector here to look at the meeting you process; you can tell them," she offers. "They wear purple and gold little stripes. But if you want to take a break it is okay."

"...So, the thing is, you want me to explain more and help you all be safe. You're not pressing but I can almost kind of tell. I know. I get that. I am trying to be good at this, and say the things that should be said. It's important. But... You said you don't want me to be sad because of this? I also don't! I am not... Mmmrh... I am going to rant, to talk a lot in an upset way, for a bit, because I know myself and I know that I woke that feeling up and now, I won't calm down until I do. It's not your fault."

Pause.

"Thinking hard about what to do, what is best, what is worst, will this hurt people, is this better than that, do I keep secrets, how do I make people like me, will this be scary, will they like this... I can't do that. I am not a Diplomat," she loanwords. "Nobody sent me. I'm just a girl who spends a lot of time out in the woods, hanging out with friends and killing monsters when they're in front of me. And now a whole city, a whole planet, a thousand thousand thousand people and more, are going - Alien! Kitsune! Aaaaa, excited scared! It's too big! It's too big. I can't think about it. I... Will feel guilty, sad that I did not help or that I hurt someone by not helping, and I will help and help and help and help, fix the big problems, deal with the problems of towers and cities not houses and villages, I was suffering to help people who I'd never meet, making decisions that can help or hurt a thousand people at once, agonizing over whether I did it right or I could have done better, until I was tired and miserable, until I cannot think anymore, until I feel so sad and worn-out that I go - wear red in the forest for twenty years. I did that. I tried too hard, and broke myself, and... I know not to do it again."

She grabs her ears and rubs them some, some kind of stimming, then looks like she's feeling self-conscious about it and stops, and her tail lashes around instead.

Deeeeep breath. 

"So I'll help. I'll be responsible, and say the things we need to say, and answer the questions, and be smart and careful and- I'll do the basic duty of - trying to do an unknown amount of good to a billion people I'll never meet. But I'll hate it the whole way. I'll only help so much. I'll be perfectly fine and calm and playing games one moment and just - not at all the next. I do a lot better with small problems, personal problems, people I know. My friends, who I'm going to try to go get when I'm more sure you won't set off one of those giant bombs 'cause you're too scared and twitchy. -I don't think you are, I think you're being a lot more sane and calm than you've any right to be, I'm really glad about that and was worried you'd be sending people with guns to try and lock me in a metal box. Which, uh, would not have worked at all, by the way. But you haven't. It's great. I'm not nearly so competent at calming the fuck down and getting over myself. So, I'm trying. I care that meeting people of another world goes well. Just... Only so much. Only ever so much. Tamamo's tails, most kitsunes wouldn't be half as patient, helpful, serious..."

"...Okay, rant over."

Then she takes down the baffle and sighs.

"So... Yeah. It's not a problem now, it's a problem in six months if things go badly. I'll be back in like... An hour, and tell whoever all about the signs."

And then- It looks distinct from when she just goes invisible, it's like she's turning a corner into nowhere- She's gone.

Tatenika's first thought is something along the lines of "Aliens: They're just like us".

She gives Weiss's former location a fond smile, just in case she can still see her, and then pulls out the storage media from the computer to save their game and puts her earpiece back in.

She stands and heads back to the tent, tapping her earpiece to get a dispatcher's attention.

"Kavri, I've got something that needs attention from Inspector Dafika. Could you send them a message to meet me in the temporary conference room? We can kick out the linguists."

Weiss isn't wrong that people are freaking out. It's a big deal! It's worth freaking out!

But there's a þereminian saying, passed down for generations: the first step of every plan is to breathe.

So there are parties, happening. And people speculating about the other world, and discussing how magic might work, and worrying about monsters, and learning languages, and trying to plan for the future in a world where a lot fewer things are certain.

And then there are the people who have decided that these things are too big to deal with, today, and they are just going to quietly continue living their lives.

Volharmi is a train driver. He arrives at work at precisely 13.00 every morning, checks in with his supervisor, and then gets in his train and drives it until his lunch break at 20.00. When there is an emergency, or some other unexpected occurrence, he is required to adjust the schedule of his train. This is fine — there is a defined procedure that he follows in such cases.

On a modal shift, no such event occurs, and his train runs on time until 25.30, when he completes his shift-end paperwork and turns it in just before clocking out at 30.00.

Then, in winter, he puts on his thick coat, and turns left out of the train station. He walks with metronomic precision and arrives at the little tea shop he likes at 30.22, where his phone has already placed his daily order (unless he cancels it before 30.00).

He drinks his tea and eats a muffin, before walking down the connecting street to his apartment.

Today, there is a quarantine barrier half way between him and his tea shop.

It's not that he doesn't understand this is a bad idea. He understands that perfectly well. He comprehends the importance of quarantine — and, in general, following defined procedures. He knows that it is a completely stupid idea as soon as he thinks of it, for several reasons. Not least of which is that the tea shop will be closed, obviously.

But, with the sort of horrible inevitability of a ship hitting an iceberg because the captain has a critical lack of executive function, he does it anyway.

Specifically, what he does is this:

When he sees the barrier, he realizes that they're going to stop him getting to the tea shop. So he scales the building next to him. It doesn't have belay ropes, so he really shouldn't be climbing it, but it's made of brick, so he's got plenty of handholds.

He pulls himself up onto the roof, and looks out at the crowd of gawkers hanging around the barrier hoping to see anything. There are fewer of them on the rooves, so he starts making his way closer.

Emergency Services knows that people will go over buildings if they can't go around them, obviously. There's fencing set up across one roof, with a sign indicating that beyond is a quarantine area, and that entrance is restricted to permitted personnel at ground level.

But there's a lot going on, and it's hard to completely surround an area, and there is not actually anyone watching this specific rooftop in person, although there are cameras.

He approaches the barrier cautiously, checking to be sure there's nobody watching, and then vaults it and breaks into a sprint toward the fire escape.

But even if they can't post people around the entire perimeter, there are two people sitting on a roof near the center of the secured area with paintball guns.

Their job is simple: tag anyone who should not be there with paint, to make it easy to follow up with them and figure out what's going on. So when Volharmi silhouettes himself against the sky, one of the guards takes aim, and hits him with bright pink paint.

Volharmi nearly falls off the roof, but catches himself on the fire escape rail. Paintballs are less-lethal (and the guards are trained to aim for center of mass, to avoid eye damage as much as practical), but they still hurt, and he was already not in a good frame of mind.

He runs down the fire escape, and then into the side-door of the tea shop.

It's locked.

So he turns toward the mouth of the alley, to see if he can break in through the big windows near the front.

Which is when some of the ground-based Emergency Services personnel tackle him.

"Hey, sir, are you okay? Do you know where you are?"

"I — the alien's quarantine, but my tea —" he responds vaguely, looking forlornly at the tea shop from his position on the floor of the alley.

"Ah, okay, I think I see what's happening."

The mediator rolls off of him and offers a hand up.

"You know that you shouldn't be here?"

He nods.

"I know. I just thought that if I ... or I didn't really think this far ahead. Is there a big fine?" he asks, sounding kind of uncertain.

"Not too large, but there is a fine, yes," the Emergency Services worker explains. "Here's what's going to happen: I'm going to lead you over to the temporary area where we're keeping other people who tried to get into the area. I'm going to ask you a few questions to establish your identity. Once we have your identity, we'll send you follow-up paperwork about how to pay your fine or how to make an appeal in the mail. You're entitled to help managing that paperwork if you need it. Then I'm going to call you a cart, which will take you to the hospital to be given a checkup and stay in there for a little while just as a precaution — we don't have any reason to expect that there are dangerous pathogens or that you've been exposed, we're just being very cautious with potentially completely unknown diseases."

They pat him on the back.

"Does that sound reasonable?"

Volharmi gives a jerky nod. It's not how he wanted this afternoon to go, but now there has clearly been an emergency or similar unexpected occurrence, and he has a procedure to follow in response to it.

"Yes, mediator. I ... I understand."

"Okay, great. Come this way, please. Is that your phone you're wearing? I can get your contact information off it if you've set it to be accessible ..."

Above them, on the rooftops, the paintball gunners have reset and continued scanning the area. Most people in the city (and across the world) are handling first contact with grace, excitement, and poise.

For everyone else ... well, þereminia has had thousands of years of practice dealing with a particular kind of person.

The alien is probably hiding in her personal pocket dimension, if Diplomat Tatenika is right, which she frequently is.

(The fact that Weiss has a personal pocket dimension has caused some amount of envy among the staff.)

So now the Emergency Services people finally have a chance to get caught up. A few minutes after Weiss leaves, things calm down a lot. A bit later, things have reached a holding state. A lot of people go off shift, and sleep in dormitories set up in the commandeered buildings inside the perimeter. Other people double-check the supply caches, food, and other preparations. The Director of Smaller Continent Emergency Services puts out a global press conference with an update.

And a very serious person in thin vertical gold and purple pinstripes listens to Diplomat Tatenika's explanation.

"I see why you want to bring this to our[ex] attention. I will send a secure update to the Body, and remain available on-site."

"Thank you, inspector."

She stands, and makes her way toward the back of the tent.

"And now, if you'll excuse me — I'm going to go rest myself, until our guest returns."

She hangs out in her little patch of Woods, hugging her own tail and feeling like an idiot. Like a zoo exhibit. Like a criminal about to be shouted at for impossible to foresee mistakes and transgressions.

It feels like none of this is going how it's supposed to. Really, her mistake was not being invisible when going through the rift... She could have had fun and explored, if there wasn't immediately a Big Fucking Deal.

Or was it? Can she really say that she made a particular mistake at a particular time if she didn't have a plan or knowledge coming in? And video games are exciting, and there might be TV shows and fanfiction and-

-And something something the value of silver collapsing and fucking up peoples' savings, and maybe whatever abstract follow-on improvements come after don't come for the poorest soon enough. It's not like she has a clear picture of economics. Just a vague notion that it exists and involves supply and demand and maybe a stock market.

Gods. Illumine, I hope this mess turns out okay. Otena, help me see to the heart of things. Hekosi, we're tiptoeing on the precipice, can you see?

The gods do not answer her. Usually. Today, she gets - A hug. A smile. A firm nod.

That calms her down. Haah. They're real, she knew that, but knowing and knowing, huh? And if they're usually quiet, they're mostly just respecting her wish not to get too involved...

All you can do is your best. And she is being responsible, distributing warnings so people don't get themselves killed by a Runner or a Slickling or a shard of darkness and hatred. She doesn't have to be the blazing statue radiant, shining with burning light and holding the sword aloft. She's no Galasa. After all, the comet's tail is a result of it slowly, inevitably burning up... She can just be a fox, or a girl, or a foxgirl, sometimes. And cry. And nap. And play vidya. And that's fine.

Everything's fine.

Weiss takes after Tamamo. She can be having fun, and then cry moments later, and then be over it just as quick. Mercurial foxes indeed.

...She's kind of pissed about the price she got for those silver ecu, though. The scrooge is strong within her.

She'll... Not try to take a nap again, it doesn't seem that much more likely to work now than it did before, but instead she wanders the interior of her Woods and tries to find the place deepest inside her that leads Home. It's still there, far away but reachable, an escape and return if she ever tires enough to walk it. Then she paces the edge of her Woods and starts feeling around the metaphysical surroundings, the Spirit World.

There... Almost isn't one. Just a whisper thin possibility, faint streamers leaking in from the Rift. A hint of potential, the scent of deepest sleep that might not ever awaken, and only that much because of her, and because of the rift's touch. Huh.

And if she goes - sort of up again, further dreamwards where time and space and material have even less hold... There's only her, and the rift, warbling and fizzing at the edges. She could go through easily enough from this half-real place in the Spirit World. That's what kitsunes do. But she shouldn't go back to Tirra just yet. Not without explaining. And getting trade goods.

...A terrible curiosity strikes her, and she has to poke it. Can she even make it more solid, more real? It's like normal dream gateways in Tirra's healthy, awake spirit world, but ten times louder and brighter. Reaching out to nudge it feels like trying to touch a hot stovetop: Something tells her to not. But she's going to anyway. Just... Not directly. Instead, sort of... Form a sort of energy net to drape over it and... Tug at the edges a bit... WOAH NOPE STOP that wobble looked kind of dangerous.

(In the material world, a distorted low warbling tone sounds in the air in the bank lobby for five seconds before trailing off)

...She needs Megi and Tessa and Sinnah to attempt this. Sinnah, at least, will love this place, it seems like a great opportunity for making money. If they tolerate her absurd bluntness.

She'll reappear somewhere very close to where she disappeared soon after, looking slightly sheepish.