She nods.

"Yes, there is a charger in the box," she agrees. "The vvvvv should be about half charged, so you can use it right away, but it will only last about half of its normal time until you should charge it."

She points out the buttons for 'on/off', 'harder', 'softer', and changing the pattern.

"There is also a paper with how to care for it in the box, but it isn't in Notal, so I will translate — don't get it very hot or very cold, you can damage the electricity holder. Don't store it touching other things made of that smooth stuff, because they can merge together. Only use it with sex oils that have this picture on them—"

She picks up a bottle of water-based lubricant and points out the standard 'water-based - safe for toys' manufacturer's association logo.

"— other sex oils can make the skin of it get less smooth, no good feeling. But it is fine with your sex water."

She gestures vaguely downward.

"And wash it when you are done with it. Not because it will hurt the vvvvv, just because you want it to be clean and not get gross. If you care for it right, it will stay working for five years, or we will give your money back."

"If you are happy to get it, put your phone there and it will pay me. Or I can answer questions!"

She pouts a bit. "Oh, only five years? -I get attached to things, I pay one of my friends to make them magically last a very very long time, sometimes. But this is for trying out."

Phone can be held in vaguely the right area.

The phone beeps, and Evevertin nods.

"It might be more than five years," she admits. "I have a vvvvv that is ... three sixes years, I think? But we only agree to give money back for five years. It does matter how much you use the vvvvv."

She shrugs.

"The shaking, it is hard on the parts inside the vvvvv. The ones that are strong enough to last many years are big and you can fix parts of them."

She points at a device that looks a bit like a cross between a sawhorse and a dentists' chair along the back wall.

"The small ones, they are hard to fix. We make them good, but only five years good, not a lifetime good."

She bites her lip, looking at the chair. "Ah, creativity. Well, I think it's time for me to head out, then. I hope you have a lovely day."

"You too!" Evevertin agrees. "Have fun the Chilling Point."

She sits back down in her chair, and flips her book open to its bookmark.

Outside, the street looks much the same as when she detoured into the shop. An electric van rolls quietly down the street at a walking pace before passing around a corner and disappearing.

Straight to the club, then!

As she approaches the door, a device by the lintel makes a little warbling sound; her phone responds by chirping.

Just inside the door, there's a small room with a man behind a desk. A water fountain burbles in the corner next to some potted plants, and a number of low benches sit around the edge of the room. A person sits on one of them, fanning themselves. To keen Kitsune hearing, the sound of energetic electronic music is clearly audible through the far door.

The greeter — who got a very unexpected call from Emergency Services a few minutes ago to make sure he had started learning Notal ­— waves at her.

"Hello, ma'am. The computer says you're all paid — I will give you a bracelet and you can go in. Can I tell you, uh, how the bracelets say?"

Some time that is not today she will worry about how alarmingly easy it is to spend money that is not physical coins.

"Yes, please!"

He nods, and points at a sample of the four bracelet colors on a little display rack.

"White, they are just here for talking and doing things, not sex. They can ask you to touch them, but mostly won't. Try don't touch them without ask."

"Blue, they are here, and might enjoy dancing in the sexy way, but they aren't expecting to sex anyone new. You can ask, but they might say no."

"Pink, they are here looking for sex or meeting new people. You should talk to them!"

"Black, you do not need to ask to touch them. But if you are going to do a lot, drag them off the dancefloor so people don't run into you."

He gives her a stern look.

"If anybody say, 'stop touching me', you stop. If anybody touches you and you don't want it, you say that. If they keep touching, we throw them out. This is very important rule which makes everybody feel safe enough to dance and have fun. In private rooms, you can play pretend with people. But on the dancefloor, we want everybody to feel safe and it be very clear, stop means stop."

He smiles at her.

"What color bracelet do you want?"

"I see... Yes, I agree, stop is stop! Idiots who do not understand this are what make taverns unpleasant at home. Hmm. I'm feeling... Bold."

And turned on.

"May I have a black one and also a pink one and change it out if I change my mind a bit later?"

He nods.

"Yes, this is okay. Just make sure you are always wearing one or the other, not none or two, so people know what you mean."

He reaches under the counter and brings out two bracelets for her. They're reusable cloth bracelets, slightly stretchy — but pretty cheap, because the club does go through a fair number of them.

"Past the doors is the main dancefloor," he tells her. "On the ..."

He blanks out on the Notal word for 'right' and just points.

"On that side, there is a place where you can buy food or things to drink. Water is free. Don't run out of water, it is no fun to fall over from having no water. Don't take food on the dancefloor, please, so there are not spills. On the other side there is some private rooms for sex or for taking a quiet break from the music. If the music is too loud, we have ... uh ... ear-clouds for that. If the music is too quiet, and you have a helps-you-hear thing, your phone can sync with the feed for the music."

He smiles at her again.

"If you need anything else, you come and ask me, and I will help. Do you have questions?"

"I think I understand! This is very exciting."

She puts on the black armband and puts the pink one in an inside robe pocket. She also withdraws her favorite tail brush from that pocket.

"-Oh wait. Ah, kitsunes cannot have babies-" pregnancy-belly motion, then crosses her arms to deny the concept. "We are made by Tamamo, not born. But are people worried about this, usually?"

He blinks at her in confusion.

"Um. Most people who want to have babies do not make this happen by dancing," he informs her. "Most of the people here want to have sex for fun, not for babies. They will use ... a medicine for making babies not happen, or they will use a ..."

He flails blindly for words.

"A condom, a thin thing that stops the baby-stuff from going. So no, people will not care that you can't have babies. Plenty of people can't have babies, and this is okay because they can still have sex."

"No, no!" She giggles. "No babies' is what I thought most people want if they're here! I was wondering about the medicine or the condoms because most people aren't kitsunes. So they might worry about yes babies. Okay. I think I'm good?"

"Good!" he says. "I hope you have fun!"

Beyond the door is — a room. It is one of those rooms that is carefully designed to be stimulating to the senses, so it is perhaps best to take the description one part at a time.

The ceiling, which arches above the open space, is covered in twining strips of LED lights arranged like the roots of some great tree. They slowly pulse and morph, in a way that casts shimmering bands of color across the dance floor, but that always seem to add up to fairly steady white light around the edges of the room. Contrary to Earthly clubs, it is actually quite brightly lit overall. Putting þereminians in a dark room full of people is a great way to make them stressed and depressed, which usually does not result in them coming back.

On the far side of the room, there's a stage that is slightly set apart. A man is dancing using a large pair of aerial silks. He doesn't manage to perfectly time things with the music, but he has nonetheless attracted a small crowd of people who are watching and bopping to the music.

More people are behind them on the dance floor. Some of them are doing the kind of dance that clearly has actual expected moves, and some of them are just improvising. The club is not packed — there's plenty of space to move around. Perhaps it is more occupied at other times.

The people are roughly equally split between pink and blue bracelets, with only a handful of black and white. White bracelets are more common over at the tables on the right, where people are sipping beverages, eating little finger foods, and generally recovering from dancing.

Along the wall by the door, the wall is covered in cubbies, and there are some benches for people to change shoes more easily. As Megi comes in, a man wearing short pink shorts, an obvious chastity cage, and glitter is shrugging on a green outer robe. The cubbies seem to mostly contain boots and robes — which makes sense, because it is winter outdoors but pleasantly warm in here. Despite the warmth, it isn't particularly stuffy. Sensitive Kitsune noses might even pick up the smells from outside, circulated through some vents behind the LEDs to keep the room comfortably fresh even with so many people exerting themselves.

The music is strange and upbeat. The words are, of course, in Smaller Continent Official Language. But the instruments sound cheerful and electronic. The music is loud, but ... loud by the standards of a world where people tend to have sensory processing issues. It is not remotely deafening, at least not to humans. Although she can still spot a few people wearing earmuffs. A set of thick tapestries hang near the edge of the dance floor — not low enough to block the general flow of traffic, just helping to soak up some of the sound and allow people to converse at a reasonable volume. Although mostly people seem to be signing, actually. Even some of the dancer's movements look a bit less random and a bit more communicative if she watches for long enough.

The lighting situation is really cool! She'll stay in her robe, for now, but unbutton the front to reveal a simple bra and thin shorts, both also pink, after observing the general style of dress.

She finds herself bobbing her head to be beat as she wanders around and drinks in the novel sight and sound- And goes over to watch the silk flyers, wondering if her tail could be used to emphasize movements in the same way.

Ah, too bad she doesn't understand anything more than a simple 'hello' in SCOL. She should have got Sinnah to bop her with the telepathy herb spell before she left, that lasts a few hours! Oh well.

The man on the silks does an upside-down split, the silks wrapped around his upper legs and held secure with one hand. He makes eye contact with her, double-takes at her ears, and then winks.

He winds one leg around the upper part of the silk, letting the other one go, which spins him to the side and leaves him hanging from one extended leg until he releases that one too and spins toward the floor, catching himself at the last moment just above the floor and then hauling himself back up. He's pretty good. The dance continues for another minute, smoothly switching from trick to trick even though his face is slick with sweat.

When the song ends, though, he lets himself lightly drop to the stage, breathing heavily. He wipes his face on a towel and exchanges friendly gestures with another member of the crowd, who hops up to take his place on the silks.

He makes his way through the little crowd in Megi's direction, stopping occasionally to exchange a few words with people.

...Judging by the amount of sign language going on, well, it's fair that people are doing some amount of communication nonverbally because of the music...

She's nowhere near as good with illusion as Weiss but she can manage little ones. She writes in dimly glowing pink that hovers between her shoulder blades and just in front of her neck, 'I only speak Notal- Sorry!'... In Notal. Maybe she should ask her phone how to say it in SCOL? That sounds a bit too difficult to figure out at the moment, maybe later.

Anyway. Quite the display of athleticism! Very Interesting! She claps politely and kind of wants to take a try up there herself... Oho, is he coming to say hi~? She checks his wristband color.

Pink!

"A good thing I learn it, it is!" he replies, speaking over the first chorus of the next song. "Everybody heard we had beautiful alien guests, but I did not think to meet one."

He glances down at her own bracelet, and then reaches out and feels her ears with one hand. He scratches at the base of them, and then plays with their feathery tips to feel the texture.

Megi is slightly shocked despite herself, for a brief moment, before remembering her own bracelet, and then she just grins and flicks her ears forward a bit, playfully.

"That's a little ticklish! Not in a bad way. I'm quite impressed by the enthusiasm for language. You couldn't get a thousandth of a Tirran city to all learn SCOL-" She says whatever abbreviation is in common usage, as a loanword, "-anywhere nearly as well in a week. Also, all the technology. I am called Megi. And I've never seen a show quite like the one you put on up there- It makes me want to learn it! Though I might just get tangled up and stuck helplessly on display. It's clearly a skill."

He nods.

"I'm Armeŋ. It is hard work, to learn," he agrees. "But you wouldn't be stuck for long — people would help get you down. The bigger problem for people learning is ... how would you say it ... falling but not hurting."

He mimes a belay harness, which might be a more understandable gesture to someone who grew up in a society where many buildings have climbable exteriors.

"A not-falling rope gets tangles in the cloth, so you can't have it. The way you learn first is: someone strong holds you up, you practice not far from the floor. You practice falling onto floor. Then you can go higher and do the fun parts!"

He grins at her.

"If you want, I can help you get started?"

"Learning how to fall safely? ...I would enjoy that a lot, I think. Are there more silks than just the one or will we have to wait for a turn? Though, I'm a bit tougher than I look. It's useful for... Playing rough." She bites on air. "Some people like that."

Armeŋ laughs.

"To me, that sounds like a challenge," he tells her.

He looks thoughtfully toward the stage.

"I think there is a two silks in the back. Normally we just have one, because only a few of us dance them and it's good to rest."

He grabs her hand and tugs her over toward the edge of the stage, where there's a small supply cubby.

"Come on! We find out."