"Ain't that the truth. Sometimes I feel these modern things just get in the way. Mighty convenient and all, but what's really important is being amid trees, maybe with some nice water to skip stones into..." 

Liv trails off, lost in the image.

"Takes all kinds to make civilization, though. I have things to praise about bright lights and fast action too. Back and forth she goes, like a pendulum with-" ADHD, no, "A short attention span."

"True enough. Guess we all have our parts to play." 

The orchard path winds on. It seems to be a fairly substantial distance to the hex border. 

No hurry here. Calmness is sort of returning.

Then it'll be a calm and leisurely walk back to the orchard house for the next ten or so minutes. Liv points out a few particularly old trees along the way. 

She's seen grander. But manages to resist the urge to say so.

Its a nice walk. Tension visibly bleeds out of her by the end.

Eventually, Liv pushes open the door to a small cottage and flips on a few LED lights inside. "Modernized the lighting a few years ago," she says. "Come have a sit-down." She pulls out a chair from a small circular table and goes over into the kitchen. "Flitwing, there's a guest!" she hollers up a set of stairs, and gets back a sleepy groan in reply. She shakes her head. 

"My girlfriend's staying over after her and her ex — my metamour, then — had a falling out over some damn thing, I haven't been able to prise the details from her, think it's political." She rolls her eyes and shrugs. "Always there's something. Arguments over how to disperse funds, new charismatic women saying transition care's still not good enough, young things without the sense in their heads to know where spirituality leads trying to make a real goddess of themselves. I try to tune it all out. Sometimes things really do change but it's rare compared to there being a whole lot of noise about it." 

"Death and taxes," she mutters lowly. A bit louder, "Last one sounds actually kind of concerning. Being a God's not as easy as it sounds, I bet."

(Tamamo, please do your job diligently.)

"Yeah. It's a shame the pleat's so common. Hard to separate business and pleasure for some, I guess."

Pleat??

"Me I'm tragically allergic to responsibility but also can't ignore problems in front of my face."

"Yeah, I know the feeling. Anyway, want to try a wrap or something? I've got some fixings in the fridge to go through." 

'This is the world that liberals want' indeed; She's seen mostly women but if 'transition care' is a hot button issue... Well, it sort of fits together now that she thinks about it? Things continue to... Not line up. Little things, tugging at the strands and hints of memories of Earth, which to her are indistinct but leave mood.

"Hmm? Sure, thanks. I'm a black hole for most food."

She had a little sing-song thing about it once; Instant ramen, student loans. Crosswalks, new phones. Fake news, lease-to-own. But she hasn't seen hardly any cars, and the place does not... Reek of desperation in the way that debt and inflation and the job market would seem to create. Plus, you know, the peaches thing is entirely new.

How freaking long has she been gone? Is this even Earth?

Deep sigh.

"Old ways, huh... Hospitality and wandering..."

"Yeah. There's still some nomads out there hitching rides on the public train system to this day. 'course these days you've got borders to contend with a little, but..." Liv shrugs. "Anyway, let me see here; sweet persine berry wrap? I've got some mixed berries in the fridge that need to go, blueberries and blackberries and so on. They'd go nice with some persine flesh and maybe a sprinkle of cinnamon." 

"Wrapped with what? I've been craving a smoothie all day but it's not, like, important, really."

"Pita! I could do naan as well but it tears easy. Ooh, maybe add a little honey..." 

Liv bustles away in the kitchen, pulling things from her rather old looking fridge and tossing a package of pitas from her freezer into the microwave to thaw.

Maybe she should bring out her little spice jars... She wonders if they're visibly low-tech... The certainly were expensive back in Tirra...

Weiss stands and follows, fairly casually. Ahh, the Magic Warm Box. She'll linger and arrange food items if it seems called for and not in the way?

"Oh, naan and hummus is something I haven't had for a while... Or bean burritos with cheese... Ignore me, food nostalgia."

"I've got some hummus in the fridge if you'd like some! Afraid I'm out of bean burritos at the moment, the supermarket stopped carrying the brand of frozen ones I liked." 

Liv pulls out a small tub of onion-flavoured hummus and passes it to weiss, along with a spare pita. 

Yay, hummus! Yay Modern Conveniences TM.

Her tail wags happily as she snacks.

"Do you have, like, baskets for the persine gathering later, somewhere?"

"Yeah, they're in the back shed with some of the garden tools. Feel free to go grab one if you want; it's just latched, I don't keep much worth stealing in there." 

"When I go out picking I will. Not right this very second. Any guidelines on which ones to pick? Where to put 'em?"

"The golden-orange ones are ripe, the more yellowy ones need a little more time. They get juicier as they ripen, if you're not sure check the feel, the most squishy ones are likely slightly overripe and should go first. Whack 'em together in a basket and haul it over to the mall, there's a little kiosk in the centre for free items; they know me so all you should have to do is drop off the basket and you'll be good." 

There goes her Clever Plan to use the tail of holding to get more, but oh well. She'll just have to deliver two or three baskets.

"Mm! I'll do that later for sure. For now, some time just to peace out is nice."

"Sure, take your time alright." Liv goes on building her pita, and finally hands over a berry-filled, honey-drizzled, cinnamon-sprinkled wrap to Weiss and keeps one for herself.

"Looks yummy! Thanks."

Nom! Sweet. She starts feeling a craving for meat... But it can wait until later. Was there even any meat in the fridge?

"How is, uh, Flitwing? Doing alright, I hope. Breakups can be bad."

There were a few cold cuts, yeah. But they seemed to be comparatively few. 

"She's managing. I bet she'll be back down sometime soon once she stops faceting cyan. I could text her if you wanted, see how she's feeling?"