"They might have one at the next stop but you'd have to get off and wait for the next train to grab one."

"The next stop works fine, I'll have a look at it and then I can teleport there if I have trouble finding it again."

"Cool." They roll through ten more stops and Zoi says this is the place. There are signs to the reenactment village.

The village has cute little burrows with bricks laid down around the entrances and wooden doors and shingled roofs thereover to keep water from running into the dwelling. There's an herb garden, an a barn which has various spren-wrangling gear but no live animals - they do have a dead one someone is illustratively butchering, though, and someone making sausages and jerky.

Cute, and much more like the tech level he's used to, it's a little surprising how comforting that is.

He wants to look in the burrows, if that's allowed, and also check out the butchering display - he doesn't actually have a good idea what a whole spren looks like, yet.

He is allowed in the burrows, though not through all the doors in the burrows.

A whole spren is a large six-legged animal only a little smaller than an adult female person. They have some obvious similarities even beyond the six legs but spren have three-toed hooves instead of claws and long silly-looking snouts and larger eyes and some downy fur, though not on all parts of their bodies. Their tails are short and stubby.

Also neat. He bets spren leather would be worth something at home; he'll have to remember to mention that if he meets someone who seems interested.

He wanders through the rest of the village, and - is there a gift shop? He'll check out the gift shop, too.

There is a gift shop! He can buy semi-authentic charcuterie (there's a sign saying that while the recipe is authentic, theirs is a good deal tastier because it's made with spren farmed using modern methods) and pickles and old fashioned tools and some history books and kids' toys and pottery and watering cans and wall-mount hooks and even some spren-leather goods such as leg-strap pouches he could probably get around his waist if he bought a female's size or sheaths for various sharp objects.

He'll buy a couple of their fanciest female-size pouches and a carved wooden puzzle, and keep an eye on his companions to see if they seem to want anything.

Kiv is inspecting a jar of pickled flowerbuds and Uamok is flipping through a book.

"Something you can't get at home?" he asks Kiv.

"I mean, everyone makes pickles differently," he says. "I have regular pickles at home."

"Still, it's nice to try new things." He gets a regular-sized jar and a little sample sized one, tucks the latter in his belt and offers the former to Kiv.

"- oh, thanks!"

"Don't mention it."

He'll continue looking around until they seem ready to go.

They poke around a little more and eventually are all set.

"You know, I might be able to teleport us all back to the station by the school - I'm not actually sure, my spell is limited partly by size and I'm not sure how females count. We could try it with a short-range teleport, though, and then if that works we won't have to waste time on the train."

"Ooh, sure," says Uamok. "Though I'm not actually sure school is closer to home than here is..."

"Didn't you want a train map?" says Zoi.

"I was thinking I'd get it tomorrow or something. But if it's just as convenient for you to get home from here we can check the magic another time."

"Trouble is Zoi and Kiv don't live with me," sighs Uamok.

"I'm not sure there's anything I can do about that on short notice. Maybe head home with you and then I can teleport us all back to town, if that's what the boys want."

"It's getting late, I should go straight home," Zoi says, and Kiv nods.

"All right," he shrugs. "Do you two want a telport as far as the station with the maps?"

"Yes please," says Zoi.

He says his goodbyes to Uamok, takes Zoi's hand and offers Kiv his other one and a few intoned words later, pop, they're at the station.

And they split up onto separate trains from there.