"I've been hugging Kyeo some."

"I was already acclimating to a new planet."

"Well that's good.  - Uh, the first part."

Kyeo agrees that it is good that Sarham has been hugging him.

They finish the Kularan med sheet and make another copy.  It goes faster since they don't have to translate it; they deposit one in each bag.

"Oh, um - you two seem pretty close but I was supposed to ask whether you're like, share-an-apartment close or if you want separate ones."

"It's - it's complicated but we can share an apartment."

"You sure?  It's not - apartments aren't that big of a deal and you wouldn't get like, worse ones, if you wanted them separate."

"Would they be right next to each other?"

"I'm obviously not in charge of that so I can't say for certain, but it can probably be arranged like that if that's how you want it."

"Next to each other would be best."

"Noted.  Did you think of anything else you might need?"

"I'm sure I'll think of things eventually but I don't have anything else on my mind right now."

They nod.  "Oh - I'd thought of one earlier - I'm pretty sure trade wagons would have candles already on them but - correct me if I'm wrong here but from the way you guys were looking at things in the clothes store and stuff, I kind of got the impression that maybe you can't see in the dark as well?  And so maybe you want more than they'd have on hand."

"That's true, we can't see in the dark well - though we can adjust with time and also mostly sleep at night when we're not changing schedules unexpectedly."

"Okay.  I can just give you some of mine anyway; we don't have to go out and buy those."  They retrieve some from a cupboard and divide them up between the bags.  "Um, so we still have to buy food, was there anything else . . . probably you want showers before you go?  I'm not sure whether there'll be stops at places that have those on the road."

"I wasn't actually sure there'd be showers instead of just baths, here - does the water run hot?"

"Yep!  I think they're cheaper if you go with just ambient temperature, but not by very much; I pretty much always go with hot ones."

"Then yes, showers first sounds good."

"All right!  Um, so, if that's everything we thought of, do you want to take care of those and the groceries now, or just hang out for a bit, or . . ?  I could try and teach you some Cretari again; we got kind of sidetracked from that the first time.  - Oh, I didn't say, the trade wagon they're going to have you on leaves tomorrow morning, so we have a while before then."

"Let's get groceries out of the way in case that's unexpectedly time consuming and shower before we sleep tonight?"

"Sure!"  And off they go.

The selection at the store is much the same as the sample Lornell had, lots of things they don't recognize but several things they do.  There's less grains and bread than they might've expected compared to the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables, depending on what their expectations were.  A reasonable number of fish and seafood, given that they're on a bay.  But still, it's not too hard to get enough food for a week's travels; they have a decent number of cheeses and jerkies and things preserved in glass jars, even if they only want to stick to things they recognize.  Lornell has maybe a little sticker shock when they go to make the purchases but they're getting reimbursed for this too so whatever.

"Is it hard to grow grain around here or do people just not like it very much?" Kyeo wonders, inspecting a jar of pickled herring.

"- this is all actual dead animals, isn't it," mutters Sarham.

"- wait, what else would meat be?"

"Cultured meat. Preferred on most planets for animal welfare reasons. It was invented before Ibyabek was colonized but it wasn't widespread in the system before the revolution."