She closes her eyes to better focus on the sensation, and just sort of drinks it in.

And then she has a terrifying, wonderful idea, and opens her eyes to look intently at him instead.

Because she can't tell what most people are thinking from their body language. But Traveler makes it abundantly, viscerally clear, in a way she's never really experienced before. And the universal truth of human brains is that neurons that fire together, wire together.

So she watches his face, and his shoulders, and his hands, and tries to sear the feeling into her brain.

It probably won't work. But she can hope, and listen to him talk about the salamanders.

He is pretty expressive. It's not something he's doing on purpose or even that he's particularly conscious of, so it mostly doesn't show up in his crafting that this expression means this or that gesture means that, but the expressions and gestures are there, and so are the meanings, and he doesn't mind being watched. When he runs out of salamander observations he can talk about other salamander species he's watched back home, from tiny little ones like these to gigantic ones bigger than a chicken.

And it's fantastic that she doesn't need to keep time in her head and guess what a reasonable length of time to spend listening is — because if he were getting tired, she'd know.

Hearing about alien salamanders is also plenty interesting, but eventually she starts to feel a bit mentally tired and cold.

"Thank you," she writes. "Many words I don't know. Hard to word you the thanks. I swim, learn words, letter you the thanks."

Sure. She can come by, too, if she wants, he doesn't mind having visitors. Is it all right if he puts the net back up once she's past? He'll be here maybe another hour at most.

She nods.

"It's good," she responds. "My territory I swim back to."

She gives him a wave, and then stands and takes a running leap into the water, skimming under the surface in a shallow dive and then smoothly transitioning into a breaststroke. It's good that it will take her a few minutes to get back to her apartment — she has a lot to think about.

That was pretty neat.

He hangs out for another half hour, sketching examples of the flora and fauna, before he packs his things up and heads back home.