"I think I have a job for you. So, compensation. What will you need during your stay?"

"We will need shelter and food. We can eat some of the things humans eat."

"The price of shelter around here varies by location, amenities, and size. And humans eat nearly every food anyone eats, I couldn't guess from that how hard it'd be to feed you."

"We need enough space for the five of us. We mostly eat eggs, fish, and rice."

"That should all be doable. So if we measure in fish, about so big, say," she says, gesturing, "since you won't know our currency, what are your usual rates for making animals dance?"

"We cannot eat that much fish before it attracts pests."

"...We can preserve things but it's not that I'm going to pay you entirely in fish, it's that you don't have any chance of answering if I ask how much you usually charge in Hari imperial rings."

"If we imagine we are going to bring most of the fish home with us to distribute to others, we could make an animal adopt a habit of dancing for forty-five fish that size."

"Do you do bulk discounts?"

"We are not familiar with the idea. It would be cheaper to purchase our services many times in the same location, because we would not need to travel separately."

She'll try to pin some more details down and maybe haggle them down a bit, if that's possible, but then they should figure out what to do for tonight. She can let them stay in this room and borrow the downstairs bathroom for the night, or she can cover renting rooms for them elsewhere if they don't mind owing her.

They do not mind owing her, or at least they acknowledge that this will result from accepting her offer and then accept it.

"That'll do, then. And just - you won't run into many chances to break laws while you're here, but the laws say you mustn't touch people without permission, or take things that aren't yours, or lie about things you're selling, or try to hold anyone prisoner who doesn't belong to you. Or turn objects into empty space by magic. All of that make sense?"

"We must be able to touch each other."

"Yes, quite. Families often touch each other. But strangers might get angry if you touch them."

"We will not touch other people."

"That'll do, then." She gestures to one of the men with her. "Seli will show you where to go and carry the rings for you."

The strangers follow Seli.

They pass through a big house that clearly houses a lot of people although very few of those people want to be between them and the front door right now. Seli grabs a necklace of magical color-changing coins on the way out.

A couple minutes away on foot, past a fenced-in area of tall straight trees and an oddly-shaped blue building that looks like its third floor floats about half a foot above the top of its second floor, there's a building advertising rooms for rent, short- and medium-term, the ground floor of which has two walls made entirely of archways. The lobby is manned by a small bird on a perch on a desk, beside a pad of paper and a jar of honey, who greets them when they come in.

The strangers are interested in the floaty building but do not try to linger there. They are mildly surprised about the bird talking.

"We need room for five for - tonight's what I'm authorized to pay for right now, but they might end up wanting more time than that," Seli tells the bird.

"Together or separately?" asks the bird.

"Together."

A drawer opens and some notes come out and hold themselves up for the bird's inspection. "There's a caralendar-style suite on the fourth floor that might suit you. How late were you hoping to rent it for, would you be leaving or renewing by dawn or will you need more time than that?"

"I do not know what time it is here," the spokesstranger says to Seli.

"It's around dusk. Something like five twenty-fourths of a day before midnight. Ish. Something like that."

"I can show you exactly for a ring," says the bird.