When she awakes, she's lying atop a wooden door, painted green, with a brass knob. It seems to be set into the rock.

What the?!

She looks around frantically. Is she in a different place than where she fell asleep?!

Nope. Same place. Just, a little bit of rock has been replaced with a door.

…Oh.

She's seen things like this before. Humans use them. She's pretty sure humans make them.

It's scary that something human-made appeared near her while she was asleep. It might mean a human saw her and she already owes some god a debt.

But… she would have expected the god to have notified her while she was asleep, if that were the case.

And she really doesn't see how a human could have made a door and put it under her without waking her up, let alone embedded it into the rock without waking her up, unless they were using magic. In which case it doesn't matter if they saw her.

So… No need to panic, probably? Hopefully?

From observation, she thinks these things are openings into buildings. Like a lid on a container, except the container is a building.

But how could this one lead to a building? And if it doesn't lead to a building, why did someone put it here?

Well… If they put it here by magic, maybe they carved a chamber into the rock underneath. Or maybe they could make the door lead wherever they want.

And… If they're a human, and they're magic, or even if they're only one of those things, maybe they can help her.

She puts her hand on the doorknob and tries… pushing it.

It rotates, a little.

Oh?

What happens if she turns it as far as it'll go?

She might be able to hear the latch opening, but the door doesn't move. The hinges are on the outside.

Twintails doesn't know what a hinge is.

But she does hear the click. And she does know that if this were a lid on a container, it would open upwards.

She drags herself off the door, turns the knob again, and pulls up.

The door opens. Within is a room, mostly empty but for some coat racks and lanterns mounted on the wall. Also, the floor of the room seems to be perpendicular to the shelf of rock she's sitting on.

!!!

She did it!!

She peers into the chamber.

She doesn't recognize any of this stuff. It doesn't look like anything mermaids make, and it doesn't look natural, so it's probably human stuff.

(Is this what the inside of a building looks like? She's always wondered.)

They're probably magic humans. In fact, at this point she's pretty sure they have to be magic humans.

…Unless some unrelated human connected their door to her. In which case these might be totally ordinary humans.

…

If it was up to her to take the initiative, to go further inland and find humans to ask for help, she probably never would have done it. Not just because it's scary and unwise to owe a god a debt for uncertain gain (after all, she doesn't know she'll die otherwise), but because she's been so weak and exhausted that the endeavour just felt impossible.

But if the opportunity just appears before her like this, how can she pass it up? If it means she just might live, how can she pass it up?

She might not ever get another chance. Not in the amount of time it'll take her to starve to death, anyway.

She opens the door all the way, and drops into the chamber.

As she passes the threshold, the direction of the gravity acting on her body changes in a very disorienting way. And then she is inside the room. The door closes behind her, quieter than she might expect.

The flickering of firelight and the soft murmur of indistinct conversation emanate from a bend in the hallway connected to this room.

Oof!

…Ohhhh, that makes sense actually. She did wonder why there would be a hole in the bottom of a chamber for humans. And this explains why the door was… sideways from all the ones she's seen before.

(She doesn't even look at the door she just came through. It hasn't occurred to her that she might not be able to go back. Or, frankly, that she'd even want to go back, unless it's to escape some Veiled humans.)

The voices put her on edge. She has to fight the instinct to get away, to hide.

Is she really doing this?

She can't take it back if she's wrong.

She drags herself to the doorway leading into the hall, but she doesn't peek around the corner yet. She just sits there and listens.

She doesn't expect to hear anything she understands, but maybe she can get an idea of how friendly they sound.

Or she can stall while she waits to feel less scared.

It sounds like a couple of people having a friendly conversation. She can actually make out a few words or short phrases that suggest they're playing a game. Strangely, she can tell they aren't speaking her language, but she's still able to comprehend what they're saying. Also, something that sounds like... the vocalizations of small mammals?

…

Well that's a weird feeling.

But it makes her more confident that the humans here are magic and it's safe to let them see her. (And of course, being able to understand them is a plus either way.)

What kinds of… small mammal vocalizations… is she hearing? …Not that she'd actually be able to tell, unless it's either a seal, or one of those animals she sees with humans a lot. Is it one of those?

They sound more like a seal or a dog than anything else, although the pitch is much higher, which suggests a smaller animal. And it's obviously not a bird making those sounds.

Huh.

…Well. The humans sound friendly enough. And relaxed. And they can probably do magic. So hopefully if she makes her presence known, they won't immediately freak out and treat her as a hostile trespasser and maybe even sic that animal on her?

She peeks around the corner. Does she see anybody yet?

Yes. It's a large room, mostly empty, but an old man is sitting at a table playing cards with a scaly snake-headed humanoid and two cats. In a chair by the fireplace at the end of the room, there's a woman, wearing a cream dress and a veil draped over the top of her head. She appears human. The woman makes eye contact with her when she peeks her head out. She seems friendly. None of the others notice her.

It's reassuring that the one person who's seen her seems friendly.

And they've already got at least one other mythic creature here! Which means everybody here is Unveiled and it's okay if they see her! Thank goodness.

(She still quickly checks that she still looks and feels like a mermaid. She does! Phew!)

She keeps eye contact with the human and says as meekly as possible, "Hello."

(It's hard to tell from such a short utterance, but she sounds a bit like a beatboxing starling, albeit lower-pitched.)

The woman stands up and walks over to her.

"Hello. I take it you live primarily in the water?"

(Yet again, she's not speaking Twintails' language. It's also clearly a different language from the one(s) she overheard from the people playing cards.)

The people playing cards look over to her when she speaks, and the old man waves to her. Once it's clear that the woman has the situation in hand, they return to their game.

The people looking at Twintails see someone who first and foremost is very small. By height and width, she looks like a 6-year-old child. However, her proportions suggest that she's more mature than that for her own species.

If the people here have any concept of mermaids, that's what she appears to be. Her upper body looks basically human; the skin looks like normal human skin. Her skin tone is the sort of brown where it's not clear if it's a deep tan or just her default skin tone. Her lower body is scaly and silvery. It may stand out that she has two tails. Sort of. About halfway down, or maybe a little further, her tail forks into two ends. It… doesn't really look like it's supposed to be like that, though; one of the tails looks a bit… supernumerary.

She's almost completely bald, though a few strands and patches of brown 'hair' hang down to the ends of her ears. (The human standing over her is close enough to see that the strands aren't really hair strands. They're too thick, for starters.)

Although she's completely naked, it's not clear whether she's a girl or a boy. She has no immediately obvious genitalia, or perhaps the angle just isn't right; and her torso looks like a buff man's, except without any nipples or areolae. If anyone here is thinking of her as a 'she', it's probably mostly because of her voice and her 'hair' length; and who knows, maybe they aren't thinking of her as a 'she' at all.

She's missing an eye. (Either that, or she's been keeping her right eye persistently closed for no apparent reason.)

(Yet again, she's not speaking Twintails' language. It's also clearly a different language from the one(s) she overheard from the people playing cards.)

(Wow, this language magic is really powerful. It must have been the work of several mages.)

"…Yes. I'm from the ocean." This time the meekness in her voice is genuine, not a conscious effort to sound non-threatening. No human has ever spoken to her before. This human is much bigger than she is, and is now standing over her. And Twintails is an outsider in a strange space full of strange people. The fact that the humans seem friendly does not make Twintails feel significantly less vulnerable.

She breaks eye contact and looks down at her hands instead. "I sort of intruded on purpose, but I don't mean any harm."

A faint smile graces her face.

"You're not an intruder. Everyone who comes here is welcome."

"We'll find some way for you to get around more easily out of the water, but in the meantime, would you like me to carry you to a lake or indoor pool?"

Twintails isn't looking at the human's face, so she can't see the smile.

But she hears the words. Everyone who comes here is welcome.

She releases emotional and physical tension she didn't know she was holding.

Everyone who comes here is welcome.

She's not sure whether she believes that or not, but… just the fact that they're willing to even temporarily treat her as if she's welcome is… not something she thought could ever exist for her again.

She shakes her head. "I don't need water. I need…"

…

Even Twintails is startled that apparently the next thing that happens is she bursts into tears.

"Would you like a hug?"

She nods automatically, without even thinking about it.

The woman leans down and pulls Twintails into her arms.

Twintails wraps her arms around the human's neck and keeps crying.

This is the first time another person has touched her in nine moons. She cries even harder. She knew she missed it, but she didn't know how much.

She is suddenly terrified to ask for what she needs. She's scared that despite all their magic they won't be able to do it, or they'll refuse to do it.

So she just keeps crying.

"You said you needed something?"

She nods but doesn't say anything.

It's several long moments before she can say anything.

"I don't – I don't know if you can…"

"Fewer things are beyond my power than you might imagine."

That's… actually terrifying, in the grand scheme of things. Is this person actually a human at all?

But, okay…

Twintails takes several deep breaths, trying to at least calm down enough to talk.

"I… I can't eat." She barely gets out the word 'eat' before she starts sobbing again. "It gets stuck in my crop," she pats a spot just below her neck, "it won't move past that, and – and I don't – I don't know what to do! I don't know how to fix it…! I tried, but…!"

Please help me, I don't want to die.

"That's easily enough fixed. Can I take you to our physician?"

That's easily enough fixed.

Her brain trips over itself.

'Easily enough fixed'?

Just like that?

She's… not going to die?

Well, she'll believe it when she sees it. Maybe when they get there, the doctor will say 'Oh no, there's been some mistake, I can't fix that.'

But for now, she'll allow herself cautious optimism.

"Okay."

The woman picks her up and carries her through a series of hallways before reaching a door, which she opens.

Inside is a room with dark slate floors and cabinets and shelves lining the walls, most of which seem to contain glass jars of various dried plant parts, white powders, and pills. A small brazier burns in the corner, a smooth, smokeless flame with no apparent source of fuel. The woman sets her down on a sort of padded table, itself covered in paper.

A moment later, a man enters the room from another door. He's tall and slender, with green skin, pointed ears, and six fingers on each hand. He wears a colorful sleeveless shirt and shorts, adorned with what seems like entirely too many painted wooden beads. Most of his visible skin, excepting his face, is covered in tattoos, which primarily seem to depict fire, pigs, trees, and acorns.

"Hello, girl. I am Ton'guni. You have a problem with your crop passing food, no? I will start with some simple diagnostic magic. If you have questions, you can ask, and eh... maybe I can answer. Specific questions are easier. The Hearthkeeper can stay, or go, if you care about medical privacy."

He speaks with a relaxed manner, revealing pointed teeth. As he does, he walks around the room, pulling various dried plant parts out of jars and boxes.

(What's a 'girl'? Probably it doesn't matter.)

"…Okay." She doesn't know what 'hearthkeeper' means, but she assumes 'the Hearthkeeper' refers to the person who brought her here. "They can stay."

"I'll get started then."

He casts the handful of dried leaves, roots, and bark he spent the past minute gathering into the brazier in the corner, which begins to produce a thin, fragrant smoke. Then he starts chanting. It's in a different language than the one he had been speaking in, though Twintails can still understand some of what he's saying. There are a lot of words that don't translate, and much of those that do seem to be indecipherable metaphors and appeals to various entities associated with fire and oak trees, or perhaps the same entity. It's unclear. The entire thing is in some kind of poetic meter and lasts about a minute and a half. When he's done, he takes a deep breath of the smoke.

Ton'guni now has fairly detailed knowledge (by the standards of Earth doctors, at least) of any significant medical issues afflicting Twintails. What does he find?

Twintails is weak and tired from not eating for a few days. But it's clear that she was already undernourished before that. Not in ways that were going to kill her, but in ways that were probably affecting her cognition and mood and overall health in ways she didn't even notice or would have chalked up to other things. In the way that a human can spend years being anemic and not even consciously notice that they're tired all the time.

She seems to have some nebulous neurological issues. Fatigue. Random pain, random dizziness, random headaches. Doesn't seem to be from the malnutrition, or at least not entirely from the malnutrition, so maybe it's lingering sequelae from some kind of toxin or something.

Looks like the problem with her crop is aperistalsis in the tube leading to her stomach; but it's not clear what caused that. Nothing looks infected or inflamed or anything. Maybe it's just part of the same neuropathic package as everything else, but why it started now is anyone's guess.

Her right eye is missing, but he probably didn't need diagnostic magic to figure that out. Fortunately her vision in her remaining eye is at least normal by mermaid standards. (It's up to him whether he notices that she's nearsighted by human standards.)

The second tail is a genetic anomaly. It doesn't seem to be causing her any health problems, aside from maybe imposing extra metabolic costs on existing. Probably makes it harder to swim, though. Oh, and some of the bones in the second tail look like they broke a while ago and then healed a wee bit out of alignment.

Her 'hair' has been falling out as a stress response to, well, stress, and to not eating.

"So, you have a couple of problems. I'll start with your crop."

He grabs more dried plants from his jars, crushes them with a mortar and pestle, and mixes them into some kind of oil, which he pours into a cup.

"Drink this. Should clear it up within an hour, faster if I give you a massage."

Twintails takes the cup.

She stares at the liquid inside.

…She doesn't dare believe. She decides right here and now: She won't believe until she's eaten a meal and the meal has moved into her stomach in a timely fashion. Or maybe not until the meal after that and the meal after that have followed suit.

She doesn't dare believe. But she does dare to hope, just a little.

Before she drinks, she looks up at Ton'guni.

"I was rude by accident. Maybe because I haven't talked to anyone in a long time. You gave me your name and I didn't give you mine. My name is Twintails."

And then she drinks.

"Ah, yes, that is also something I will have to talk to you about."

It tastes herbal, and oily. She can feel it go down her throat and into her crop. It seems like it's having a lubricating effect, maybe more than oil ordinarily should.

"Are you alright with a massage to speed it up? It may be uncomfortable, but it won't be painful."

The Mysterious Magic Potion can do whatever it wants as long as it makes her better.

…What will Ton'guni have to talk to her about? Being rude? Well, that's fine. It's probably better if she's educated about the local etiquette sooner rather than later.

If it means she can eat sooner, she's pretty sure she'd accept the massage even if it would be painful.

"Go ahead."

He gently presses his fingers into the skin above her crop, encouraging the oil to percolate downwards. After a few minutes, it reaches the bottom of her crop, and continues moving downwards. As it does so, the tube leading to her stomach begins to move. Eventually, the oil makes it all the way to her stomach.

"I think you should be able to digest food now. How do you feel?"

"…I feel the same. I don't think I'd feel whether it worked or not, I think I just have to eat something and see what happens."

She pauses.

"…Thank you. Especially if it works, but… even if it doesn't work, thank you for trying."

She blinks away tears.

"Hmm. I was hoping you had more proprioception than that. Whatever. It should be worth trying to eat something anyways. If the infusion I gave you wasn't enough, there are other things I can try. You won't have to throw it back up."

He turns to the Hearthkeeper. "Can you get me some of the—" she produces, seemingly out of nowhere, a warm loaf of bread. "Thank you." He cuts a few slices onto a plate, and hands it to Twintails.

"Try eating this. It's, uh, special bread. It will fill you up more than normal and help with the effects of malnutrition."

Twintails doesn't know what 'proprioception' is, or why Ton'guni is disappointed she doesn't have more. She is frequently disappointed with herself, so she's surprised to find that she feels a little bit resentful about someone else expressing disappointment too.

Also, she was proud of herself for remembering more of her manners and saying thank you — and also, she was genuinely thankful and wanted to say so — and Ton'guni didn't say "You're welcome" or anything else that sounded like a response to that.

Maybe Ton'guni is annoyed with her because of her being rude earlier.

She takes what she's offered, but doesn't eat it yet.

"What is 'bread'?"

"It's uh, if you lived your life in the water you wouldn't know a lot of the background, so I'll give you the basic explanation. There are some plants, called grains, that are very convenient to grow as a way to provide large quantities of food for people who get most of their food by growing it, which is common on many worlds. The easiest way to eat many of these grains is to grind up their fruits, or parts of their fruits, into a fine powder, mix it with water and other ingredients to make a dough, and bake the dough. This bread is made from ground-up acorns. The acorns have magical properties, and so does the bread. If you want to eat fish or something instead, the Hearthkeeper can get you some, it will just be less nourishing. Does that make sense to you?"

Enough sense to be getting on with, at least. She's still confused, but she understands that this is made of plants. "Yes. I would love to have some fish or crabs or something, but it doesn't have to be right now. I'll eat the magic bread."

She eats the magic bread. In fact, she devours all the slices on the plate rather quickly.

The food is still going to take time to move into her stomach — unless the potion is temporarily making that happen faster — so she doesn't feel physically better yet; but she very much feels emotionally better.

Ton'guni gets to work making another potion of some kind (this one is water-based, and involves a lot of herbs and some of the white powders).

"You also seem to have some neurological damage—fatigue, dizziness, headaches, that kind of thing—did you maybe eat something that was poisonous? Anyways, I'm making you something for that, what else... you want your eye replaced?"

Wow, Ton'guni's magic is really good. "Yeah, I think I ate a poisonous fish or something a couple moons ago, and I've been getting headaches sometimes and dizzy sometimes ever since." It's been getting better over time, but if Ton'guni can make it go away right now she won't say no.

Her eye…

"…Usually, a mermaid can heal completely from almost anything, as long as it doesn't kill them first. Unless…" Why is this so hard to say? "Unless the injury is… emotionally significant, in a bad way. In that case, the injury becomes part of them, and it rejects any magic that tries to fix it.

"But…" she adds hopefully, "maybe it depends on how strong the magic is? Maybe your magic is strong enough?"

"That makes it a lot more complicated, but I should be able to do it. Not today. I'll need ten or twenty days to prepare."

He finishes mixing the potion, does some more chanting, and hands it to her.

"Drink this. I don't know how you feel about it, but I can remove your second tail if you want. Doesn't seem very hydrodynamically efficient. If you want to keep it, I should fix the bones. One of them is a little fucked up."

A dark look comes over her face, but Twintails resists the urge to grab hold of her tail protectively. After all, Ton'guni seems to be implying that they'll leave the choice to her, that they're not going to remove it against her will.

"…You can fix the bones."

She takes the potion, but doesn't drink it yet. "What will this do?"

"That's for the neurological damage. Should clear it up."

Oh, right. She already forgot about that.

She drinks the potion.

"Okay, I'm getting tired and there's nothing else urgent. Come back in a few days, and I'll fix the bones and do some more detailed readings for your eye and shit. Should take about three quarters of an hour. Take the bread with you, eat as much as you can over the next day or two. It will help you heal. Any questions?"

Twintails doesn't know what an 'hour' is, but… Oh, apparently now she does. 1/24 of a day? That seems like a weird fraction to use. And… how do you even tell time precisely enough to know when it's been exactly 1/24 of a day, let alone three quarters of 1/24 of a day? Do humans all have the same size fingers and hands? …No, she knows for a fact they don't. …Maybe they make markings on sticks, and as long as they make sure all their sticks are the same, they can keep track that way? But what if you lost track of where the Sun was last time you…?

She's getting sidetracked.

"Okay. I don't have questions. Thank you for… for everything. If this works then you saved my life." She blinks away tears, and wipes a stray one with her hand. "I don't have anything to pay you with, but I can probably work somehow."

She does not have to be told twice to eat more. She starts chomping on the loaf of bread.

"It doesn't cost anything. She pays me." He gestures towards the Hearthkeeper.

"…Then what do I pay you?" she says to the Hearthkeeper.

"No payment is needed. You are my guest."

"You said she was a new arrival? How much did you explain to her?"

They share a look. He laughs a little and departs.

No payment is needed?

Well, now she's confused and a little wary. Them sharing a look doesn't really help.

But, well, this 'Hearthkeeper' is very powerful. Maybe there genuinely isn't anything they want that they can't just get themselves. And if they mean Twintails harm, it's not like Twintails can do anything about that.

"Why am I your guest? And for how long?"

"You're my guest because you arrived at my refuge, and I extend my hospitality to all comers. You will probably remain here for the rest of your life, as there usually isn't a safe way to leave. Even if you did, it would be almost impossible to return to where you came from—that door is a one-way trip. That's not up to me, to be clear, and I don't control where the door appears either."

Hospitality…

…for the rest of her life?

"So there's going to keep being food?"

"Yes. We have a magic pantry that is capable of creating as much food as you want, of any kind that you want. You'll probably have using the kitchen without legs, but I can think of a few workarounds for that."

"And if I get sick or hurt, there's going to keep being someone who can try to fix it?"

"Yes. I pay Ton'guni to do that for all of my guests. Although if you get sick or hurt frequently, we will probably just try to find a way to stop that from happening in the first place."

"And nothing's going to try to eat me?"

"No. My guests are not permitted to harm one another."

"...If you exit the refuge, by traveling through a red door, there are things out there that will try to eat you, or at least kill you. I do not recommend doing that."

"…Okay. And… no one's going to try to get rid of me for… for being a way they don't like, or… If you decide you don't like me, are you going to kick me out if something changes and it becomes safe for me to leave?"

"Anyone who doesn't like you can avoid interacting with you. If they take it further than that, I will get involved. I do not kick anyone out unless they have harmed or attempted to harm another of my guests, and there doesn't seem to be a good way to stop this from happening in the future."

So that's it, then.

She did it. She found a place safe enough to stop. A place where she's allowed to be. A place where she doesn't have to be scared all the time.

She doesn't want to believe it. She's not supposed to, she's supposed to wait until it's real, until she's seen it, until it's not just words anymore.

But she can't help it. Relief fills her heart, and doesn't stop when it overflows.

She bows her head and starts crying, hugging the loaf of bread.

She can have another hug.

By this point, she's crying even harder than she was when she had to explain that she couldn't eat and thought she was going to die.

Sometimes, she couldn't stop herself from realizing that she didn't really believe she was ever going to find a place safe enough to stop. She wasn't really looking for that place, because it didn't exist, or if it did she was never going to find it. She was only telling herself a story, because the thought of things someday somehow getting better was all that kept her going.

But that story was real. That place did exist. And she found it.

She has a home again.

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you."

"You're quite welcome."

She cries for a while longer. Possibly a somewhat long while.

Eventually, she winds down enough to say, "Can you show me the thing that creates food?"

"Yes."

She picks Twintails up and carries her back through the large room with the people playing cards, and then into a large kitchen. There's a door in the wall—a walk-in pantry. A few pots are simmering on one of the stoves.

"This is the kitchen. Sometimes, people make enough food for everyone to have some if they want. You can also get raw ingredients from the pantry, like fish or vegetables. I'm not sure what you'd like to eat, or what is nutritious for you—although that's something Ton'guni can tell you later—but the pantry can provide you with anything you're familiar with. Just think about what you're looking for and open the door. If you're having trouble getting something specific you want, ask me and I can help."

She stands in front of the pantry so Twintails can open it if she wants.

Twintails thinks of a marlin and a barracuda and a ray and a dogfish and a giant crab.

She opens the door.

They're all there, dead, gutted, and sitting on a bed of ice, along with a few other fish she doesn't recognize.

:D

She starts trying to wriggle out of the Hearthkeeper's arms so she can go get the ✨food✨

(It has not occurred to her that she could simply ask the Hearthkeeper to move closer. Or simply ask the Hearthkeeper to let her down, for that matter.)

"Do you want me to set you down at a table with one of these?"

Blink. "I don't know what a 'table' is."

"It's a type of furniture, used among other things for eating meals. It's pretty late, so if you want to eat on the kitchen floor you can, but if you did that at other times of day you would get in the way of people who want to use the kitchen."

She doesn't know what 'furniture' is, either. "I care about not being in people's way, but I don't care where I eat."

"I suppose you might as well get used to it sooner rather than later. Which one do you want?"

Fair enough. "The barracuda please."

Twintails is already chomping on the barracuda by the time the Hearthkeeper starts talking.

– AGH, why is it so cold?!

…haha like she cares, she's literally starving! CHOMP.

She tries to take in what's being said to her, and considers the chair. The part she's actually sitting on is kind of soft. "I don't know. I'm used to sitting on harder things than this, but I'm also used to weighing less." Chomp. "…But I've also been lying on a rock for two days, so anything softer than that is comfortable by comparison." Chomp. "Anyway… I don't think I can tell if it would be comfortable an hour from now, but… it's comfortable for now."

Chomp.

"I don't think I know what you mean about my spine bending."

"I mean your posture, the shape your body takes."

"This… posture… is fine, I think. I sit basically like this sometimes. And I don't know what other position I would even use to eat when I can't just free-float. Aside from lying down, I guess."

"I can get you furniture that will let you lay down, or mostly lay down. I think you will probably also want your private space to have water to swim and float in, and you can eat there. The great hall—this room—is just the more social setting for meals."

Twintails pauses.

…

"…Maybe I'll want water eventually, but… It's…

"For a long time, the water has just been… the place where I was going to die before I was fully grown. Right now, I'm kind of glad I don't have to go back in it."

"As you wish. I think it will be good for you to have a wheelchair of some kind. That would be either a chair like this one or something that lets you lie down more, with large attached wheels that you could push with your hands to move around. How does that sound to you?"

"I'm having a hard time picturing what you mean, but if it'll make it easier to move around on my own then I think it sounds nice. And I think I'm okay with sitting."

"Alright, I'll speak to some people about that then. They should be able to have something ready in a few days."

If Twintails doesn't have any further questions, she'll wait for her to finish eating.

Twintails eats the entire barracuda. It doesn't take her very long. By the time she's done, the skin just below her neck is bulging outward like there's a balloon underneath it.

She ordered more food than she can eat at once. That was deliberate — even when she's literally starving, she's not under the delusion that she can eat a ray three times her length in one sitting — but it's now occurring to her that the magic food room might not keep it for her.

"Will the other food stay in the 'pantry' for later? I know I can just ask for more if it doesn't, but… Even if you were to tell me that it creates the food from nothing, it would feel wasteful to ask it for something that's just going to disappear."

"Those specific fish will not persist, no."

"Oh. Okay. Sorry."

…

"Would it know if something is poisonous to me? If I asked it for something I never ate before — like if I saw a human food and I wanted to try it — and it turned out it was something that would make me sick, would the 'pantry' know that and not give it to me?"

"It's not actually able to give you something you've never eaten before, but if you tried something that someone else got out of the pantry and it wasn't safe for you to eat, the pantry wouldn't be able to give you any of it. And once Ton'guni does some more thorough magic to examine you, he'll be able to tell you what is and isn't safe for you to eat. The acorn bread definitely is."

Oh. Darn. She was hoping that at some point she could ask it for that weird type of ray that had a barb in its tail so she could get second-hand revenge on it. But she's never eaten one, so she can't do that.

But it's really good to know that she can't accidentally ask for something that will make her sick!

"Did you make all this stuff? It's really powerful!"

"In some ways. It would be more accurate to say I found something that was already here, and changed it to be more useful. That the pantry is capable of creating food from nothing isn't my work. That it only creates food and not potentially other more dangerous things, and only food that is safe for the operator to eat, is my work."

That's so cool!

"Do you know who made it? The food room, or… I guess this whole place, if you didn't make this whole place."

"No, I don't. I don't if it was made by anyone at all."

Oh wow.

That's cool but kind of scary.

"…I hope it wasn't made by someone who might decide to unmake it at any moment without warning."

"I've been here for more than three hundred thousand days, and it's been around for at least that long. I don't think it will stop existing anytime soon."

"Normally, my guests have their own private rooms that they use for sleeping, keeping their things, and spending time when they want to be alone. Do you want to get one for yourself now?"

Twintails does the math. If you round a moon up to 30 days, 300,000 days is…

1,000 moons. And the real number is bigger.

About 10 generations, give or take.

Whoa.

…She was asked a question, what was it?

Oh right, a place for sleeping. "I think so. Please." She's pretty tired, even though she only just woke up a little while ago.

Then she'll pick up Twintails again, and start heading down one of the hallways.

"Is there anything in particular you want your room to have?"

"Um… What can a room have?"

"For the most part, anything that might be found in a residential building below a certain technology level. I realize that doesn't help you very much. If you'd like, I can show you some rooms the house comes up with and explain what everything is for, or if you know what kind of problems you want your room to solve, I can tell you how it might do that, if possible. I think you'll probably want a bed—that's furniture that's meant to be a comfortable place to sleep—and a toilet—that's an object that's a convenient way to dispose of bodily waste. If you want to eat privately sometimes, you'll probably also want a kitchen, although there's only one magic pantry. There are other ways to get food, they're just less convenient."

Twintails has sometimes wondered where humans sleep. Aside from 'inside their buildings', that is. She can attest that sleeping on the ground is extremely uncomfortable when you're not surrounded by water cancelling out your weight. And grown humans weigh even more than she does, so it's gotta be worse for them. Since they make so many things, she always figured they must have come up with some way of sleeping more comfortably. She wants to see what a 'bed' is like.

One of the things Twintails hasn't wondered is what they do about bodily waste. It's not something you have to think about in the ocean, or rather it's not something there's any point in thinking about. But now that she is thinking about it, she's wondering what humans do with it, since it's apparently more complicated than just leaving it on the ground someplace out of the way.

"I don't really know what kinds of problems I might have… And I don't think I'll need my own 'kitchen'…" She's been eating privately for nine moons; she's looking forward to not having to do that ever again as much. "I think I'd like to see some rooms please."

Then she'll take Twintails on a tour of the (functionally) randomly generated rooms of the refuge. This is a bedroom. This is a sitting room. This is another bedroom. This is a bathroom. This is a kitchen. This is a dining room. And so on.

These rooms are not laid out in any kind of sensible way, and the she'll clarify that to Twintails, but each individual room makes sense and has a specific function in mind. She explains how each of them would be used, if it was in a normal house. Each room has a coherent style, but practically no two rooms look like they were built by the same civilization. The apparent technology level of those hypothetical civilizations varies widely, but the top end is roughly equivalent to victorian England. Most of the rooms look like they're designed for human or humanoid bodies, but not all. Some of the them have windows, but it's too dark to see outside. Most of the lighting is done by wall-mounted lanterns, glass panes covering a bright, smooth-burning flame.

…Huh. Why do humans do all these things in different rooms, instead of one big room?

She'll ask that later. She doesn't want to get sidetracked again; the Hearthkeeper has been very nice to her, so she doesn't want to waste their time while they're on a mission.

So that's a bed. How do you even make something like that? (She wonders, for the umpteenth time in her life.)

Different rooms have different coloured walls from each other. Some of them even have an artistic pattern to them. That's so neat.

"Can I… pick what my walls look like?"

"In the long term, you could paint your walls to be whatever you want. In the short term, if you want a specific solid color I should be able to get you something pretty close, and if you see a room with wallpaper you like—that's the patterned stuff on the walls—I can put that up in your room. But I can't get you an arbitrary wallpaper design."

Ah. Darn. She had the most wonderful idea, but… Well, maybe she could paint it herself, if she ever gets that good at it. It might even be fun, and if she did a good job she'd feel really proud of herself.

But she might as well make the biggest part easier: "Can you make it the kind of blue that underwater looks like when you're near the surface on a sunny day?"

"Yes."

She smiles. "I think I'd like that, please."

When they get to a room with a window, she points: "Is that a hole in the wall? Where does it go?"

"It's a window. A hole in the wall filled in with glass, which is a transparent solid. In a normal house, it lets light in and lets you see outside. Here, it lets you see one of the gardens, which are spaces with plants and dirt and no roof that kind of pretend they are outside."

Pretend they are outside? That's something she can ask about later.

Well, she knows what plants and dirt are. She's seen enough land plants to think that sounds kind of nice.

"Can my room have a window?"

"Yes. Do you want it to persistently display one location, or should I let the house change what's on the other side of the window from time to time?"

A grin slowly spreads across her face. Getting to see different things without having to travel sounds AWESOME!

"A changing one, please!"

She sees some patterned bedspreads and asks, "Are the bed tops like the walls, where you can make them have a pattern but not an arbitrary one?"

And she sees a room with a sculpture on one of the tables and asks, "Is that art? For decoration? Can I have decorations in my room? Can you make them be a certain kind?"

And also, at some point, "If you make a room for me, and then a few days or quarters or moons later I realize there's something I want in it that I didn't think to ask for in the beginning, will there be a way to get it or make it?"

"Yes, the bedding is like the wallpaper."

"That is art. A sculpture, made by one of my guests a long time ago. There aren't very many that don't already belong to someone, but you can have anything you want from any of these rooms. If you want something specific, you'll have to make it yourself or get someone to make it for you."

"For most things, it won't be very difficult for you to add them to your room later. There are some things that you'd need my help for, and a few where you'd just have to get a new room, but if you do I can move your things easily enough."

Oh, the decorations weren't generated by the Hearthkeeper? Darn, thwarted again!

That last part is good news, though. She doesn't have to worry about whether she knows absolutely everything she might ever want a room to have.

"Okay. I don't think I care too much what the top of my bed looks like, but maybe it would be nice if it was the same colour as the walls."

"I can manage that."

This is so nice. Getting to just… have things. And have at least some of them be the way she wants. She could get used to this.

…Actually, supposedly she can literally get used to this. She's supposedly spending the rest of her life with a host who… cares about how she wants things to be.

That's. A lot.

"…I think that's everything. Maybe I could think of more things if we did this longer, but I'm pretty tired."

"Then I'll find a room for you."

And off they go through the hallways and rooms of the refuge, along some inscrutable path. After a few minutes of walking, several of the doors along their path begin to open of their own accord.

"I will eventually need to explain to you how this place works, and how to navigate it. But that may be an extended conversation, and considering that you may have to wait a day or two to get places on your own, I think it can wait. In the meantime, I can carry you around if you want to go somewhere."

"Thank you. …If I'm somewhere you're not, how do I get your attention?"

"If you call for me, I will hear you. That doesn't mean I hear everything—what you expect to be private will be."

Finally, she comes to a door, opens it all the way, and walks inside. It's a bedroom, with a futon mattress on the floor so Twintails can crawl in and out of it. The walls and comforter are colored aqua. It has two floor-to-ceiling windows with aqua curtains and a door leading to a bathroom with a shower, squat toilet, and low-set sink. There are lanterns on the walls for lighting, each set about a foot and a half off the ground.

"Here you are. We might need to redesign some things later—I wasn't sure exactly what would be comfortable for you to use—but I think it will do for now. Would you like an explanation for how things work?"

✨ Ooooh ✨

She LOVES how big the windows are! She'll be able to see the 'gardens' really well! And she loves that they have coverings the same colour as the walls, so that the 'underwater' theme can still work when she wants it to.

"This is great!" Her few remaining strands of 'hair' are wriggling and undulating and flapping around. "Thank you!"

She saw a bed like this in one of the other rooms during the tour, which had her wondering why there are different bed heights, but that's something she can ask about later.

"I think I need you to explain the bathroom again. Please." This one looks different from the one she saw before, anyway.

Then she'll explain how to turn on the shower and faucet, point out the soap (it's a bar), how to flush the toilet, and how to turn on the bidet.

"I don't actually know if you'll need or want to shower, but if you spend extended periods of time outside of water, it's possible you'll get stinky."

…How, though.

Wow, she's racking up so many questions to ask later. She wishes she could write so she could make sure she doesn't forget them. She needs to find someone who can teach her how to write. …Well, first she needs to find someone who can teach her a language that actually has a writing system.

Anyway, she's pretty sure this question counts as relevant enough to not be wasting the Hearthkeeper's time:

"What is the soap… for."

"It helps remove oily substances that are hard to wash off with water. To use it, you get whatever you want to wash wet, rub the soap on it, then rinse off the suds."

She washes her hands to demonstrate.

Twintails is still confused, but she gathers that the soap serves a cleaning purpose somehow, and that's good enough. "Okay."

…Oh no, she just thought of a problem that really should have occurred to her sooner!

"What if I vent when I'm not close enough to the toilet?" Presumably the point of the toilet is to not soil anything you don't want to get dirty, and she doesn't want to get any of this other stuff dirty. What if she vents while she's asleep and soils the nice bed?! What if she vents while she's outside her room and gets someone else's stuff dirty?!

"It's involuntary? That is a problem, yes. The house will automatically clean hard surfaces when people aren't looking at them, though not immediately, and any messes might be unpleasantly stinky in the meantime. But it would be problematic if you vented in a common area, or on something made of fabric—we can clean those too, it's just more complicated."

"Ton'guni can probably modify your body to make venting voluntary, and then you could just do it every morning and evening in the toilet. How would you feel about that?"