"The Blacklock place? Yeah, I've been wanting to try them out."

She stands, offering El a hand up. "Does a restaurant work for you guys?" she says to their guests. "We can pick up the others on our way out."

"That is fine with me," Elesse says, also standing.

"Me as well." She joins them.

So Bellona takes El's hand and leads them out, picking up September and Luka and Leya. The halls are underground as well, of course, arching easily five stories up, with apartments along both sides of a broad avenue. There's no plants evident, but there are public works of art - and the facades of the building are incredibly well designed, with mosaic tiles apparently a popular cladding. There's electric lamps with beautiful casings, and dedicated sidewalks and a road for cars (which don't go very fast). Bellona decides not to take September's car - especially since it's currently being 'upgraded' - since the restaurant's in walking distance.

Their neighbors greet the Elrics with joviality but not much blatant curiosity. Most of them seem to be dwarves - stout folk, with long beards and barely any difference between the sexes - with a few humans, the odd halfling - especially short folk, who go about bare-footed - or orc - a folk usually the height of humans or shorter, with tough and mottled skin, who seem to be regarded with a small amount of suspicion, but no open scorn. (The orcs and halflings are far more chatty than the dwarves.) The restaurant they're headed to is run by a dwarf, advertising 'traditional southern Eastern Halls cuisine,' and they're able to get a booth fairly easily - the food's good, too, though anything best enabled by electricity (especially cold foods) is somewhat experimental still.

(Bellona does not, actually, seem to be at all shy about acting romantically with her sister in public.)

If it makes them happy, then that's fine. The city is not quite cosmopolitan by galactic standards, but the food is still good.

It'd be cool to someday get that cosmopolitan... Though it might be a bit of a culture shock. Still, probably not worse than the existing ones.

Some non-humanoids require very specialized accommodations, and you also get things like ammonia-breathers, though those tend to already have developed technology for carrying their particular gases with them.

That's actually really cool. How different are things like medical needs - ?

Not precisely her area of expertise, but she knows at least basic first aid.

Probably something for Bellona to bother an expert about, then, when they get transport back to Elesse's world. (Does she probably need this information anytime soon? No. Is it absolutely awesome to learn about? Yes.) There's some really interesting differences between humans and most of the other Arda species - subtle ones, actually, they all have the same basic body plan, but at least two of the species were almost certainly the result of intelligent design...

Actually intelligent or simply purposeful?

Giggle.

Well, whoever designed elves and dwarves actually seems to have done so sensibly - their bodies are effectively optimized for the body plan, though elves have a few systemic tweaks making it so their bodies won't die of old age, unlike dwarves who usually live about three and a half centuries, which as far as she can tell was intentional... Of course she's working to change that, but there's a difference in how elven souls interface with their biology that makes direct replication in other species difficult - the most easily replicated improvements are in the immune system, actually...

(She's bouncing as she zooms off into info dumping.)

It's cute when her sister does that.

Brief digression to kiss El! Then more nerdery. (Trying to explain some bits slightly so they're more accessible to her audience, of course...)

Appreciated. They are starting from more or less nothing.

September successfully lures her into actually explaining alchemy and not just anatomy nerdery - she successfully charms some paper and a pencil out of the wait staff (a common request, apparently) and sketches out the basics of some simple arrays (not closing them; that's an important safety thing - full arrays can accidentally trigger).

Probably they should eventually head back, but she's having fun for now, and long meals aren't culturally weird, here.

They can order a second round of coffee, with those little biscuit things.

Essential provisions of every scholar.

Among other things.

Kiss. "Charming colleagues are the most important part, of course."

"Do colleagues really count as provisions?"

She hums, tapping her chin. "Well, knowledge is a potential trade good..."

"The heads containing that knowledge are generally not."

"Probably depends on whether you define 'trade' to include service and labor... But not all provisions are necessarily traded, either - though knowledge, unlike food, does not deplete with use." She grins at her sister. "Though you can certainly exhaust your colleagues."

"Exhaust their patience, maybe."