"We're having a party to celebrate Mik and Tafe having enough for a child credit next year!" explains someone.

"Sausage!" says the one who offered the sausage, presenting a steaming-hot grilled one on a paper plate.

What? -Oh, right, Amenta has to limit reproducing by law to control imbalance. And you buy it with money here. Congratulations to Mik and Tafe! May your lives echo beautifully in your children! I'm too young to do that but I want to, eventually.

(Sausage is nommed. Sausage is tasty!)

She can have another sausage if she wants! There is also pasta salad and grilled pineapple but they heard she likes meat best.

She definitely likes sausage best of the foods present here but would appreciate little tastes of the other things. (And it's so loud and crowded here, it's a bit overwhelming, like being downtown, maaaybe she shouldn't have landed at all but they're not going to hurt her, are they?)

I can sing for a little bit to celebrate with you, if you all would like, but I need to go do my concert soon!

She can have tastes! "That'd be really cool!" agree a couple purples, and the others all nod.

She matches her own voice and the pace of the telepathy to the music that's already playing. New life, always growing, so much potential yet to be brought forth! She throws in images of cute baby animals, of plants sprouting and growing. Who knows what the yet-unmade child will see and do? But they will Mik and Tafe's, a new expression of them formed together, and it will surely be right and good and worthy of celebration!

The purples are super into this and dance around her about it.

She breaks off suddenly and tries to back up and get space, but they surrounded her while she wasn't paying attention.

Aaaah!

She tenses up and arches her back - can't back away with them dancing all around her - and puffs out her head feathers and hisses slightly.

A purple one-year-old starts crying. "- do you not like dancing?" asks one of the adults.

...She holds herself smaller.

-Sorry. I wasn't paying attention, and then you were all around me, all close, that's a little scary.

They back off.

I don't want to scare you all either. I should probably go to my concert soon, can you clear a path for me to fly away? But congratulations, and thanks for the sausage!

They all squish as close together as they can so she has space.

Taking off is slightly precarious here, she can't quite extend her wings all the way until she's clear of the roof, but there's enough room to catch herself and lift up and away before hitting anything.

Back towards the theater to see if it's filling up yet, after a final call of, Thanks! Sorry! Congratulatioooons!

There are people in about a quarter of the seats, and security greys checking tickets of others as they come in.

She swoops over the auditorium and comes to a gentle landing halfway up the park slope. It doesn't seem to be quite time yet, so she lays in the grass and stares at the sky, thinking.

Friendly Amentans in the park say hi and welcome her to their planet and city!

She says hi back, a little vacantly.

(She's in a little bit of a mood.)

...Does anybody here know how pumps work? Maybe they could think about it while she listens. She was curious earlier and hasn't had a chance to find out.

...this purple knows how pumps work, sure?

Draak barely have any of some kinds of technology and this Draak has not personally studied much of what they do have! Pumps are interesting. So is almost everything else. And she can't actually read Tapap, let alone text as tiny as a pocket everything shows, so she has to ask questions when she's curious.

The purple will explain pumps as the theater fills up.

Fascinating. She stays there learning about pumps as long as this purple will indulge her, coming out of her bad mood and occasionally checking for the spirit-signature of her helpful chaperone yellow in the Song. (Mahkemiken always seems to know when things should happen, and River doesn't, so she's assuming she will find her and tell her when to go start.)

Mahkemiken is over there, and does eventually walk over and say, Your start time's in ten minutes, will that be okay?

Sure.

She strolls up to the edge of the theater and considers how trapped she's likely to feel in the center of it. The lack of roof helps a lot. The many, many people present doesn't but she's not about to back out!

How big is the spot in the center? Big enough to move around a bit?

Yup, she can pace around a fair amount.