"Oh! Yes, the old holidays, they have a harvest festival. In the today, people want to celebrate other things," they explain.

They draw a picture of a circle in the air, and start pointing at spots along it, starting at the bottom and moving by eighth-turns.

"The winter holiday is — the sun is coming back, the cold won't last forever. The half-way holiday is — quietly watching the snow. The spring holiday is — flowers are blooming, fresh vegetables are here again, the sun comes back faster now. The half-way holiday is — it starts to get warm, fall in love with people. The summer holiday is — things are so hot, stop work and go swimming. The half-way holiday is — our things are so much better than they used to be, people do good things and things get better. The fall holiday is — the harvest is coming in, there is lots of traditional food. The half-way holiday is — the sun is going and things are sad, people have left us, but it won't be forever, the sun will come back again. Then the winter holiday again."

    "Those are the most-places holidays," someone else interjects. "Cities have their own holidays. And the holidays have their foods, and dances."

"Isara would like that. The cycle, continuing, growing, better each year. I think I like the summer holiday. Though, I hate deep water. A river is better than the ocean."

"We have a river!" Orenamis volunteers. "The city name is for it. Central River City — A river goes in the middle of it city. It is cold for swim now; there is ice in it. But in the summer, it is nice to swim."

"There is also the ... a place for everyone to swim indoors, even when it's cold," the holiday-namer offers.

"Maybe, maybe."

Her tail wags slowly.

"I liked the computer game. I like - jokes and stories and puzzles and games."

Orenamis makes a gesture involving wiping a hand across their forehead.

"The people should have gotten you — has anyone talked about getting a computer you?" they ask. "One that it gets the games and books from the Network, and lets you talk to people?"

"Don't think so. I was kind of distracted though."

"You should have a computer," Orenamis insists. "I am not ... I am not a getting-things person, and I am not working, but when you want to, you should ask in the tent and they get a computer for you. Or maybe they already have one, and just haven't given it yet because everyone is distracted, yes."

"Hihihi. Distractions are usually fun. What do you all do for work?"

They go around the group listing occupations. Based on the location, it's probably not terribly surprising that Emergency Services personnel are over-represented.

In the circle, they have three guards, two sudden-infrastructure construction specialists, a contingency planner, two dispatchers, a linguist, and a computer specialist.

Her ears perk up as she gets an idea for a light joke. To mess with the linguist, she starts speaking Atsosi. The Northern Federation's longue, ideographically written. There would have been a few common phrases in it with phonetic translations to Notal in the adventurers handbook.

"Hello, I wonder if you understand this? I don't think you had much to learn from! Hihihi."

The linguist has slightly too much dignity to tear his hair out about that, but he does whine a little and scramble for his phone to jot down the phonetic transcription before he forgets it.

If she's going to tease him with unknown languages, though, he's not going to hold back his own questions about Notal grammar.

This starts a period of lively debate about the cross-linguistic prevalence of different grammatical structures (as is often the case when þereminians are confronted with new linguistic features), regardless of whether Weiss actually answers.

Eventually, however, the sun sets, and people start drifting away to bed down in the dormitories. Weiss is terribly interesting company, but there's a limit to how much people want to stay up and talk. One of the on-duty people pokes her head in to make sure Weiss knows that she's welcome to a bed in the dorm tent, the existing sleeping role in the storage building, or she can let them know if she needs something else.

Eventually, things will be down to just her and a handful of others as the city goes to bed around them. She might notice that the street lights — both on this street, and what she can see reflected off the clouds — are significantly more red-tinted then they would be on Earth, and perhaps slightly dimmer.

She'll definitely answer a reasonable, limited number of grammar questions.

...When people start going to rest, she finds someone and tells them that she's going to go home and fetch more kitsunes. She'll nap in the storage room and then go. They'll probably come out of the rift at the bank again some time tomorrow?

At around noon the next day, a kitsune dressed in grey robes calmly steps out of the rift and into sudden visibility. There's a wooden wand in one of her hands, and a scroll in the other.

She is followed by a kitsune dressed up rather more than either of the other two! She's wearing a dress, and jewelry, and carrying a folding paper fan, all rather fancy for Tirra's tech level.

Weiss comes through last, saying, "-Big opportunities, like I said. But the big thing is going to be stabilizing the rift."

"Rifts just are not stable. Though we have never actually tried to stabilize one, historically they're all either too remote, too brief, or go to places that we don't want a connection to..."

"We've arrived, ladies, let's greet our hosts?"

They didn't know exactly when Weiss was going to be back, so the kitsunes are greeted by an elderly woman sitting in a chair in the Bank's lobby and knitting a pair of socks. They're bright purple with orange spots, and very fuzzy.

Perhaps more relevantly, as soon as they appear she taps a button on her phone and stands to greet them.

"Hello!" she says. "Welcome to Central River City; the diplomat is on the way to greet you properly."

Her Notal is accented, but her command of the language is otherwise quite good.

"Hi. I'm here to be paid a lot of money for magic?"

(Megi lightly swats her arm, for being rude. Sinnah just rolls her eyes.)

"Ma'am if anyone - who can get here - knows what to do with the rift, Sinnah does. Best wizard I know."

She's a little confused about why Megi would swat Sinnah. Maybe they just have that kind of relationship.

"That's good news!" Xolkensa cheerfully responds. "And yes, we will pay a lot of money for magic. I know we want to stabilize the rift so we can trade more, and also buy lessons in doing magic. I don't know the exact amount, but the diplomat will. She will probably offer you a — offer you all the money at once, for certain, or an amount that depends on trade through the rift over time."

"Oh, yes, everyone involved in this is going to be so rich even if they don't want to reach for it. We're going to need a lot of diamonds. And paper and ink- The good ink. Oil based."

"It's very exciting. I'm delighted to meet you- Is this a bank? I go by Megi, this is Sinnah, and you already know Weiss..."