Are they building a fucking facility around her? This she has to check out. Invisibly. Taking the time to cover the door with an illusion of a door that's not doing anything.

It pricks her paranoia.

They are constructing a series of the kind of white multipurpose tents that you often see set up as mobile shelter for unexpected or temporary operations. The tents are opaque, but she can see things being brought on carts and unloaded, including:

• Tables
• Computer equipment
• Big boxes with a purple circle surrounded by some writing stamped into it
• Several beds
• Several large fans
• A larger collection of sandwiches
• Sunlamps

Notably the tents are not blocking off the street, or even her door — although she can see some people in white, puffy, all-concealing clothing setting up some kind of barricade at the far end of the street. Someone is also up on the roof of a building a few doors down installing a very big spotlight pointed down at the street, with a bunch of different fabric screens that can be swung around under it.

...Ugh. What the hell is up with the spotlights, did they misinterpret 'moonlight' as something completely different?

She spends a few minutes sniffing around for gunpowder. Or, she guesses, laser guns?? Anyone acting cop-ish and not FEMA-ish, really.

Nope, no gunpowder. There are two people sitting up on the roof of a building with the potential ability to cover the whole area, though. They have megaphones, and what Weiss may or may not recognize as paintball guns.

They're also wearing fancy purple hats and seem pretty at-ease.

The attitude of people on the ground varies, of course, but there's nobody whose attitude shouts cop. There is one person dressed in a bodysuit with very thin black, purple, and gold pinstripes who carries a clipboard and watches everything happening closely. But they're unarmed, and nobody seems to defer to them, even if they don't stop them from walking around and inspecting whatever they wish.

...She's shutting down a whole fuckin' section of a city with her presence.

Back into the random storeroom, open-shut the door, try to take a nap, fail, eat sandwiches with some chili powder from her tail of holding's held spice jars on top.

Then she'll 'peer out of the door curiously' for real, clothes no longer en-reddened.

Outside, the street has finished its transformation. The tents are mostly quiet and closed, although she can hear that there are people inside them. The spotlight is on, and bathing a random section of the street in bright sunlight-spectrum light. A handful of people are trying different cloths in front of it, tinting the light in different ways and making measurements with a hand-held instrument of some kind.

And directly in front of her door, sitting at a table with a tablet, a notepad, a whiteboard, and a smoothie is a beautiful woman in a floor-length sparkly purple dress. She has laugh lines around her eyes, and somehow manages to give the impression that even though she's just sipping a smoothie and taking some notes, that she is someone to listen to.

When Weiss opens the door, she looks up and smiles warmly.

"I'm Tatenika," she says. Her accent is noticeably better than Kyaris's. "It is fun that I am here and you are here, Weiss."

Ahh, a CHA-build person. Figures.

"Hey, I don't know how much your ridiculous eagerness has translated yet. If you're trying to make artificial moonlight over there it's not going to work, it has to be the real moon. Actually, it might have to be Tirra's moon. I dunno. But any of the five, technically six, things is ... sufficient, is good enough, I'm not going to get moon scurvy or whatever. Kyaris okay? Oh shit I just threw a lot of words at you all at once, pausing now."

She shakes her head and takes a deep breath.

Tatenika listens closely. She takes a moment to respond (someone is confirming her translation through her earpiece), but she makes it look natural.

"There is a moon here. It might be good for you, it might not be good for you," she replies. "We have food to share, so that is good."

"Kyaris is good — she is a ..."

Tatenika pauses and considers how to phrase it.

"Kyaris is good. She is in her tower. Kyaris is a: humans are fighting, suspicious. Kyaris talks to them. Humans stop fighting. Goodest in city. I am a: humans are suspicious, don't share, don't be fair. I talk to them. Humans share, be fair. Goodest in world. I hope I am a talk to kitsune, kitsune and humans share, kitsune and humans be fair and good."

So probably about as fine as can be. "...Okay. Tell her I'm sorry? You want 'best', not 'goodest'. I kind of wish I wasn't such a big deal. This was supposed to be fun, go to new places, see new things, not... Be important. I'm not the water sorceress but I am a little like her, 'there are people I could help a lot by doing hard things' is... Bad."

"I talked to Kyaris. I told her she did a good work," Tatenika reassures her. "I do not think she wants your sorry, but I will tell her. Being important ..."

She shrugs.

"The humans, we were alone. We were alone and lonely and wanted to find our neighbors. And now you are here. You can't not be important to us. But your helping ..."

She makes a deliberately uncertain face, and wiggles her head a bit.

"Maybe you can helping us, maybe you can't helping us. Maybe we can helping you. We want the helping. Everybody wants a helping. But you helping us and miserabling you is not fair. Right now, we don't want the helping. Right now, we want the meeting our neighbor."

"...You know what you should do, if you all really have to make such a huge deal out of it, get people to make sweet food," pastry-cake-chocolate illusion, "Special for me. It's magic, like the moon, so it's hard to explain, but the more they care about people liking their food, and the more they try hard to make it the best, the better it is for me. I will say how good it is. Maybe people compete for the best? If I have to do this, I might as well do something fun with it? Also, I don't have to block a big road in a big city if there's somewhere I am not in the way."

Tatenika nods, and then half-turns and signs something at a person standing outside a tent.

"We can get sweet food that people want people liking it," she agrees. "And we can find a different your house. But ... the people here?"

She points to the street.

"They want the meeting-neighbors. They not jealous of we have their place. And ... the tiny curses? The tiny curses that washing hands kills? We know of them."

She points down the road at the people in white at the barricade.

"Different worlds, we think they have different curses. The people there are the people that fight our curses. We can find a different house, but they want to keep people here and wash everything, to best know the curses can't escape them and they make people sick."

"Oh. Tiny curses. Germs."

Well, they've seemed surprisingly non-tyrannical so far...

"A quarantine is your choice I guess."

"What more are good and fun for you?" Tatenika asks. "I in Tirra ... I think I want talking to people, eating their food, seeing the towers they have. Other humans want to know the alphabet, tell stories, see the moon, ..."

She leans forward.

"What do kitsune want? What does Weiss want?"

"...I don't really want to talk about it right now." She is blushing slightly.

"...My friends. Maybe places where you put all the amazing things?" She demonstratively puts up an illusion of the inside of the Glass Tower, a museum of astronomy and glassworking and metalworking. The centerpiece was this huge silver orrery...

Tatenika nods and smiles, pleased to have found something they can do for Weiss beyond just ensuring that she doesn't starve.

"We have places for amazing things," she promises. "The city has a small one; you can see it. And when the germ-fighters know the germs have gone, other cities have big ones."

Then she adopts a concerned expression.

"You say there are no monsters here. But ... your book about monsters says there are lots different kinds. If you look at the rift, can you know if monsters can come the rift? And can I tell questions and you tell us how to fight the monsters that come?"

"-Oh yeah, I'd smell 'em from miles away, kitsunes are good at that. I fight cryptids sometimes, it's not like anybody else is going to. You can't really close a rift early, it's... The magic on Tirra is doing it. Honestly we might want to look for a way to yank it open for good, if you want to trade with Tirra? That's waaaaay above my head though."

Tatenika straightens up and looks excited.

"Yes! Humans are lonely without neighbors. A for good rift and people coming from and to Tirra is good. The best! We will pay lots."

A little bit of uncertainty enters her expression again.

"But monsters are bad. Can you ... someone is human, you magic on them, someone is kitsune? And then they good at fighting monsters? Or can you I ask questions, you tell, I know magic, I am good at fighting monsters? Or can you see our weapons, know if we are good at fighting monsters?"

...Here's an image of an m16 in some generic trooper's hands. And a.... Tank? She thinks? It has a cannon, anyway.

"These would kill most monsters. Maybe not cryptids. Oh also I have this," she brandishes the check from earlier, out of a pocket. "Oh, I bet you could learn magic? Human magic. Only Tamamo can make more kitsunes... Probably."

þereminia has not had as much focus on weaponry as some other worlds, but they do have guns and things of approximately that size. Plus, a single, known stable rift, with all other rifts being inherently temporary is basically the best possible defensive situation. Tatenika thinks that the city will probably be able to get a permit for an emergency nuclear device from the Global Minimum Standards Body, worst come to worst.

Tatenika nods.

"We want to learn magic! A human comes the rift, we can tell questions of human magic."

She points at the check.

"That is a ... money-knowing-thing. I don't know the word. Do you want you I make a your-money-is-known at a money-is-known place? And put that in it?"

She glances around at all the activity and preparations and scowls, ears flattening for a moment.

Then shakes her head to shake it off. "I didn't even get to spend it until I figured it'd be better not to keep hiding! By Galasa and Hekosi, the guy I sold them to must be pretty happy with the profit now that they're alien coins, huh?" She chuckles. "Do you not use money that is an object, like coins?"

Tatenika smiles in amusement.

"The trader will get paid a lot," she agrees. "But one of each coin is coming to the city's amazing-things place. But we don't use money that is an object, no. Money is ..."

She trails off and stares into space, visibly composing her reply.

"Money is ... not real? It is like magic pictures. It is in the people, not in the world. Money is like, if I eat that," she says, pointing at Weiss's check, "the money is yours, not gone. Money places work to know where money is, and use those to help know, but the money is in the trading, not in the those."

"Tirra merchants aren't going to like that."

Sigh.

"...I know complaining about it over and over won't help but ugh. I might go somewhere secret if I feel red again. Like, my rift to my place. It's nice to have that and I don't want y'all to be scared if I poof." (She goes invisible for all of a third of a second.)

Tatenika looks concerned.

"Going to your rift is okay. We don't stop people going," she reassures her.

"You can't be not important, but maybe you can look not important?" she suggests. "We want, you tell us if you leave the city, please, so we are not scared you poof. We want you not come to place of city with yellow quarantine pictures. But you can come other places! You can come to city amazing-things place, or the money-place, or the trader's, or the book place. Can you look like not ...?"

She waves a hand where her ears and tail aren't.

"I can mostly, but- Right, this person who only speaks in Notal and gawks at things is definitely not an alien~ Wow~"