Somewhere else, Tamamo laughs.

And she's suddenly elsewhere. 

She is amid a honeycomb of tall skyscrapers and parks, each cluster of buildings surrounded by green space and connected by high-speed rail, and a network of side roads going by along the hex edges. People, mostly women with braided ponytails and maxi skirts, are strolling through the gardens talking to each other. 

She appears amid the bushes, within eyeshot of someone wearing an extremely realistic pair of fake fox ears she can only tell isn't a kitsune because they don't smell right. 

No-one seems to have noticed her translocation, but this doesn't seem to be earth, exactly... 

Yikes sudden translocation!

Her ingrained reaction to surprises is to leap away immediately, while also making herself invisible.

However, her danger sense is not actually going off? She's not in danger.

So she just invisibles, instead.

...Huh, a new species of demi? Or... Something seems off about those ears.

No getting distracted! More importantly! What! Is this Earth? Shall she have fanfic and memes once again?? She peers up a skyscraper, shock slowly turning to awe. She forgot how big they are.

Nobody notices, and people's days continue on without her. 

At a closer second look, it seems the gender ratio might be off, for earth: there seems to be a marked lack of masculine-presenting people. Almost everyone also wears a bracelet on their right wrist made of some form of tough plastic or steel, with tiny glowing lights inside in different colors. Most of the lights she can see seem to be purple or red, with a few one-offs in other colors. 

Further down the path there's what looks to be some form of café, a single story building with a sign saying "Sweet-berry il'ka" that sprawls out a bit. In the other direction the path meanders on for quite some time before stopping at the foot of one of the skyscrapers. 

Overhead, a train passes at what must be well beyond highway speeds, off on a journey between hexes. 

"Hmm... All girls... Or mostly girls? This is the future that liberals want..." She snorts at her own joke.

This place is, like, Hong Kong or something. Or Japan. Towers, trains, clean. Except it's not Japanese, she thinks she'd recognize the look of kanji? Or any other language she recognizes, really.

...She has been gone for. A while. Probably. Or maybe much longer than a while. It's unclear, to her, if Ancient Tirra is related to Old Earth, and Tamamo never answered either...

Boop.

She felt it, a physical noseboop in addition to the sudden magic power addition: Language Edition.

"...Aaaaand Tamamo is paying attention. Okay." Best not to think about that too hard. It always backfires, with Tamamo.

Uh. What now?

Sweet Berry ??cafe?? now. A nice berry smoothie sounds delicious and she has a sudden craving as soon as she has the thought. Hopefully they accept gold, lol, lmao.

She will de-invisible and walk in that direction!

The cafe (?) is quiet, and seems to serve coffee, hot chocolate, and a selection of fruit smoothies. There's a back section that people are paying for the privilege of entering, that's new.

All the people who've paid have paid using what seems to be a form of credit card, except one who pays with some odd glass coins that are hexagonal and stamped with numbers on each side. 

The barista looks over at her. "Ordering anything?"

Though the soundproofing of the cafe is excellent, her whiskers can still distinctly pick up the vibrations of more than one couple... or group, it seems there's at least one threesome... going on in private rooms in the back of the café. 

(Well, it's quite faint, but she has learned to recognize this particular rhythm and try not to pay too much attention. Her fellow kitsunes are not too shy, usually. Odd that it's going on in a cafe though???)

"Uh, I'd like to but I only realized I don't have my card on me just now..."

She appears some gold and silver coins from her tail by waving it forward and digging her hand deep into the fluff for a moment. "I've got these, but, uh, I can't exactly expect that to work, right?"

The cashier laughs. "Nice magic trick. No, I'm sorry, you'll have to come back with a card or proper currency."

Forced casual (though her ears go back and low), "I don't suppose you know where the closest place for that is? I'm really craving a smoothie, like, right now."

"Uh, I think there's a pawn shop three stations down? Transit's free even if you don't have your card on you." 

"Oh, sure, thanks. I'll go see if I can sniff it out."

With a closer look at the ears she's pretty sure? They're not fully biological? They look pretty convincing, but it's the little things. They don't smell right (though that could be any number of things with modern soap and plastics in play), they don't look warm and fleshy in some vague indefinable can't-point-to-it way. It's really subtle, but... Not a new demi species, just humans? Another tick in the 'not Tirra' column, as if it needed help.

Anyway. Surely the transit system can't be that confusing, probably. Hopefully maybe. There are (probably?) two directions the pawn shop could be three stations in, so she'll just guess if there aren't any other context clues.

With a little investigation, she can determine the train station is up on an archway in the skyscrapers. She'll have to go through the building.

Well she COULD parkour up onto a balcony if she was invisible for it prooooobably a bad idea, Later Maybe TM.

In she goes.

There turns out to be a lobby with maps. Down and upline are marked... for each of three different lines. There is the green line, going north-west to south-east, the blue line, going south-west to north-east, and the cross line, going directly east-west. There is a map of the broader area with grid stars laid out, displaying on a large screen that takes up all of one wall. 

It's anyone's guess as to which line the barista meant to go downline on.

Blarf.

Okay, option one: Wander aimlessly, hoping to find the pawn shop. Plus: This is a weird new place. Plenty to see. Minus: Could be boring and go nowhere.

Option two: Flee to a different country and never return. Plus: Satisfying on a petty emotional pique level, she guesses?? Minus: Cowardly!

Option three: Slink back with tail between legs to ask which line and in which direction it was. Plus: Actually solves problem? Minus: Embarrassing.

...Man, why does she even need a pawn shop anyway? It's not like she NEEDS cashmoolah. However much she WANTS it, for the snacks and the vidya. The moon is enough for her, technically. Maybe she could, like, busk? She smells not a whit or a hint of cursed ground: No monsters to earn bounties on. What DOES she want to do next, anyway?

She devolves into pacing in front of the screen in a thoughtful pose, tail a-swish in erratic agitation, as she thinks it through.

A passerby stops and looks at her. They've got a little pair of brown black brid wings, too stiff to be real. "Hey," they say. "Nice tail." Then they step up to the screen and tap on one of the small halos around one of the distant stations, which causes a whole goddamn interface to show up on the screen displaying a regional map of that hex of the train system. 

She bristles in surprise a little bit, then holds her tail close and hugs it, self-consciously. "Uh thanks?" 

Yeahhhh sneaky is not her game. But they're taking it as great cosplay instead, which is a little funny.

Also WOW, really?? Go for minimalist design, so minimal it doesn't even look interactable! It just looks like a circle is the icon for a station!

(Vague memories of phone screens and an annoying button combo to turn it off...)

Deep breath.

Anything look like a search bar there, while they're looking at it? Either way, she can attempt to flail with all interface about all six direct line three-stop-away stations when they're done.

With the interface up there's a local search bar for the node, looks like. And her unwitting tutor has demonstratrated that you can pinch to zoom out, as well; apparently they're planning a longer trip. 

With the map zoomed out there's another larger halo around the whole city, and if she taps that she gets a city search interface. It's kind of intuitive... if you know that a circle means it's interactable.

With only a little more effort she's able to find a pawn shop three stations away, as the barista had said. Apparently it's down the green line.

You know what, sure, to the pawn shop. She's not that attracted to her gold. Unless she starts spending gobs and gobs of it. Gold is pretty expensive, right? A whole string of Northern coins is a LOT of Tirran money but also weighs, like, two kilos. That ought to be plenty.

Hopefully the train isn't awfully crowded. And the thing about no charging is true.

The train is packed when it arrives, but no-one bothers her for a ticket. Many people in various styles of clothing are aboard — slogan t-shirts with v-necks advertising one's kinks seem to be in vogue, as are leather jackets and stompy boots. She even sees one or two locals with visible facial hair, a comparative rarity. 

She's not hassled, though her ears and tail get a number of approving looks. 

Three stops later — and a very fast journey across the countryside, skyscrapers whipping by quickly despite the frequent stops — she is let out into another apartment complex. This one seems to be enfolded by a large orchard of some kind of peach tree. The fruit don't smell quite right to her to be peaches — they're like peaches, but there's an underlying buttery note.

Where's the urban sprawl?? She didn't think she was getting an intercity trip. How long does it take??

She keeps her tail very close to her chest, literally. It's kind of magic and will resist damage from incidental rubbing and pinching, more or less, if needing combing later, but still... It's just kind of private. Like the back of her neck, or her calves. Should not be touched without warning and consent!

...Ooh, orchard. Of some sort of mystery fruit. It's got nothing on primeval wild forest for the foxiest side of her but it's still nice. Now she wants a weird peach smoothie... Or an apple one...

Anyway. She Is On A Mission Right Now. Sniff fruit later. Pawn Shop: Where Is?

The pawn shop is in a large mall complex that takes up the whole first through third floors of the skyscraper, filling in the area around the train station and below it. There's a fountain with a sculpture of dancing silver dolphins, several sweet shops and a food court, a lot of fast fashion stores, and one or two stores selling electronics, including devices recognizable as smartphones. 

The pawn shop itself seems to be a combination jeweller and antique shop, and the woman behind the counter is in around her early forties with silver-dyed hair and a small smile. "Afternoon," she says to Weiss with a small smile. "Buying or selling?"

She's feeling a bit worn out, especially being cashless in a shopping center, but her goal is now here!

"Heya! Selling. I've got gold and silver coins- Should be pretty pure though I'm not actually sure how much so."

She even got out a leather pouch with leather-cord seams and drawstring earlier, so it doesn't have to be a direct pull from her Tail of Holding to show them off! She's chosen the square-holed Atsosi coins for this, chunky and impressed with Atsosi characters and a stylized dove carrying its own, smaller coin in its beak.

The store clerk's eyebrows shoot up as she deposits a whole handful of golden coins onto the counter. 

Several people's gazes shoot over as well, and the clerk pinches the bridge of her nose. 

"I'm not sure how you came by those," she says, "but assuming you did so in a sensible fashion, they should be cleared for sale on your ident. Please tap your card, ma'am?" She presents a small scanner.

...Well, fuck.

"I've lost it, that's why I need cash."

"Ah. I see." The cashier's lips purse like she's just bitten a lemon. "Then I'm afraid I can't do business with you, ma'am. You'll have to replace your card at the government offices just like any other citizen."

"...Okay, sure."

The vibes, they have shifted.

She feels unaccountably nervous as she gathers the coins back up in the pouch and - illusion, deposits them in a pants pocket - reality, deposits them back into her Tail of Holding.

Caaaasual exit, twitching ears now on the lookout for any particularly urgent movement.

A few people are looking her direction still with vaguely disapproving vibes as she walks away, but they return to their own days afterwards. 

No-one comes barrelling towards her. It seems that no-one has been sent to speak to her.

And very quietly, Asteron starts to wake up a little. A suspicious attempted transaction has been noticed, from a citizen that did not provide an ident card.  

There is an organization for this: its name is Asterism. It handles stars that are not part of a greater constellation. 

Now she's worrying about cameras. Do illusions even work on them? Does invisibility? She... Does not know. She looks around, trying to find telltale lens shapes; They won't all be big boxy things. The train, the public concourses, surely are recorded if there's anywhere near the kind of surveillance state she expects from vague memories. Smaller places often didn't bother, or went about it lazily... She's been not bothering to hide the ears and tail. What are they gonna do, shoot her?

Maybe. And it'd actually hurt if she didn't see it coming. Which she would. Because danger sense. But still...

Gods, her heart is pounding. She wants to transform and sprint.

Places that probably don't have cameras... Bathrooms? Less busy and more run-down streets. The orchard? If they let people wander in. The wilderness. What about drones? Satellites? How discernable is she against a bigass space telescope? She doesn't know.

Ughhhhhhhhh.

(The thought of just, interacting with the government, does not at any point occur to her. It sounds incredibly foolish and likely to fail messily. What, the government? ANY government? Competent? Sane? Surely you've been drinking, friend...)

...She walks out towards the orchardy areas, fretting.

Whereupon she chances upon a woman that looks like she grew up in the back-country harvesting corn, or would, if not for the large golden hoop earrings spoiling her farmer chic look. She's wearing overalls, a straw hat, a flannel shirt which shows off her muscles a little, and a silver ring at her neck that looks like a classic heart. 

"Afternoon, missus!" She doffs her hat with a huge sweeping bow. "Welcome to this here persine orchard which's been in my family some unbominable number of generations. Want a guided tour? There's few who bother getting out of the damn mall to see the local sights these days." 

Pop, goes the train of thought.

"Oh, hello! Sure, if you're offering. I could use the distraction..."

...She can't help it. People haven't blinked at her foxiness so far, which is surprisingly nice, soooo...

"...You sure I'm not a danger to any chickens you might have around, though? I thought farmers were supposed to be wary of sneaky foxes." 

She pulls at the side of her mouth with one finger and bares fangs for a moment.

She laughs. "Best for both of us then that I haven't any chickens to look after! And lovely teeth you have. I wonder how hard you can bite with 'em. Care for a persine? They're free for any passerby, we keep the old rules here." She reaches into a large basket next to her and tosses Weiss one of the peach-like fruit. "Catch!" 

"Free and food are two of my very most favorite words!"

She catches and takes a big juicy bite, no hesitation.

It tastes a little like a peach, but with a rich, buttery overtone and a little less tartness.

"Used to be these were the only food poor people could have. They grow like a weed on practically anything and the crops are so large the ground flour from the nuts can last you a winter. You could wander from one side of the continent to the other with not much more than a habit of eating these." 

She spreads her hands. "Of course, that comes at a cost. You eat a steady diet of these and you're sterile for a season. It'll wear off if you stop eating 'em but it takes time. These days they've made all kinds of modern drugs from the compounds in persines, libido boosters, immune system strengtheners, all kinds of things — but back then all they knew was you eat these enough and you won't be gotten with child. That's where the modern idea of a catching period comes from, all the way back then." 

She stretches. "Which, well, who knows how the world might've gone if not for that. Maybe I wouldn't be a voluptaten. Maybe I wouldn't be a farmer. Maybe I wouldn't live next to a shopping mall. Maybe a lot of things. I dunno." 

"M' Liv, by the way. Stands for Lively Ember. And who are you, foxy miss?"

.............Otena, is that you? Probably not, right, because it causes childlessness. Then again, it apparently has all sorts of medicinal uses- Illumine? Ragni? And grows everywhere, a phenomenally useful calorie source/fallback, Alteri?? ...And also helps prevent overcrowding and you can still have kids if you REALLY WANT TO and put in the effort, which kinda acts as a filter........

"I never really thought about it like that before," she hedges, which is technically true. "Uh, call me Weiss."

"Nice to meet you, Weiss. The orchard house is just a half-hex thataway through the trees if you'd like to join me for a more sophisticated meal from these. I don't get company that's interested in the orchard too often, everyone goes past by train these days. I'm not registered as a landmark in the system and that's how I like it. People give me my space, usually, 'cept when someone's hongry and then I usually end up givin' em the whole tour." 

"I've had a day. Not that much of one, nothing actually happened, but, egh. Don't wanna talk about it. Sounds like a nice way to be. Out of the way, but close enough still. Peripheral. Are you sure it's not intruding?"

Like living in the forest and wandering into the one village that seems to have chosen her specifically as a protector spirit, and leaves offerings,  and hanging out with people and playing games with kids who aren't scared of her giantness, but leaving whenever she feels like it.

"I'm sure. You can hardly intrude when you're my guest and all, can you?" She shrugs and smiles, and gets up from her seat next to the fence. "On we go, then."

"Well... Thanks. I'd feel better if I could, like, chop wood, or pick some, to help out, though."

She follows, trying to take deep breaths and appreciate the orchard.

"You can pick some for sure. I put out a big basket in the mall most days and usually it all goes. Lot of people coming and going."

"I'll make sure to do that, then. Sometimes ya want something simple to do. Or at least I do."

"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?"

"Well, I don't wanna intrude."

Feeling blue, eh. Mood.

...She has a vague thought about... Factory farming? Follow up later.

More nom. Ears twitching a bit.

"I have to say, those ears of yours are really realistic. I've never seen a rig that got the movement right like that before." 

Gack. They go flat for a moment.

"Oh, well, I can't take too much credit for Tamamo's work, you know."

She laughs. "Don't worry, don't worry, you're not the first oddity I've met and you won't be the last. Sorry to intrude. Though if you want to share your story I'm, ah, all ears." 

"...Maybe."

She's scared, though. Irrationally so. It shouldn't matter. But what if what if what if. Some of the Inquisition had the ability to contain a kitsune, even barring them from the Spirit World... They have to be able to, to deal with the most offensive bitches who just do evil with Tamamo's powers.

That's one thing she doesn't understand. Why Tamamo allows... Rapists and gaslighting to continue. There's a few particularly infamous kitsunes. One who likes befuddling people so thoroughly they can hardly exist in society after. One who likes murdering and replacing peoples' wives. Maybe they weren't like that at first. Maybe she couldn't have seen it and can't revoke it. Maybe it's some higher point about the Greater Good. Maybe Tamamo just doesn't care THAT much.

Sigh.

Well, she's not on Tirra right now, which is its own problem, really.

"I'm sort of... Thinking about how to sanitize and anonymize it?"

"I can relate to that. FIitwing's got a complicated history too. Take your time." Liv takes a bite out of her pita wrap.

"Okay, so, I don't trust... Systems. Institutions. I interact with them when I absolutely must, but historically it's been shit sooner or later most of the time. Just. Ugh. Too much messy to get into. You... There ought to be room to exist at the fringes. There ought to be a way to say, no thanks, I'm not going to do that, you don't get to know things about me faceless bureaucracy. I guess I am a nomad. I don't have an ident anymore." It's back on Earth. "But that makes it rather difficult to actually... Interact? With most things? I can't pay for a game console or snacks or rent with gold and silver coins that aren't part of an ident. They'll glare at you for it. Apparently. Maybe I'm oversensitive. Maybe it'd be fine. I also know that the system, the government, it makes things predictable, which is really valuable and helpful to most people. But sometimes shit happens, and the system does something back-asswards because there are ten thousand invisible rules that each individually exist for a good reason, ostensibly, but add up to a pile that no single person can possibly comprehend, and it's just... So, very, irrationally, infuriating!"

"Yeah, I can sympathize with that. I'm one of the holdouts from when they put in the facet system. A lot of people sold their land to the government for a big paycheck, but not my grandmother. And I've inherited the rest. Not having an ident is super inconvenient though, it's got to be hard to be undocumented..." She shakes her head. "The system does its best, and usually does well for most people, but sometimes..." She sighs. "Yeah." 

She's getting more and more convinced that this is a really alien culture, much like Tirra itself was at first. The wanderings, the Tall Cities, fealty and the Light Gods... What's a facet? She doesn't know. What's a pleat? She doesn't know.

"The system isn't even all one thing, is the individual incentives of a million different groups and roles all intersecting at once... I can trust people, if they're good people, if I know them. But systems? Once bitten, twice cautious... I hate complaining. There's always a nagging little voice that says, 'well, someone else has it worse'."