...well that's baffling, how would Wanda not know... oh... riverwalker really wasn't kidding that she's an unfamiliar species, were they. 'Cannot go into houses' is a property of crafters, not of houses - has riverwalker said anything about it being okay for her to go in without his invitation?

Humans make entrances do 'cannot move entrances'.

She doesn't remember clearly if he has or not. She thinks it would be alright but does not want to be rude.

If she's operating as a crafter and goes into someone's house without their permission that's basically saying it's not actually their house. It might be that riverwalker is thinking of her as not-a-crafter clearly enough for that not to apply but that's a hell of a risk to take if she's anything less than rock-solid certain about it.

That might be a human thing. Or a from-far-distance-place thing. She won't go inside without asking.

Do crafters have a thing that can be traded for anything, and that anything can be traded for? A thing that isn't useful except for how it can be traded for anything? That is 'money' and she's used to doing work to get money and trading money to get a house and food. As opposed to building a house and food herself.

...no... crafting materials are common to trade if you don't have anything else the other person wants, that might be close enough to what she's asking about. Trade itself isn't that common, though, and working for someone outside your own household is especially rare; she'll have a much easier time trading goods rather than services. Or possibly finding a household to join, if she's inclined to that; most crafters aren't but she has no idea about Wanda.

She doesn't want to make everything herself. She especially dislikes cooking and cleaning.

She can probably make things that are worth trading. Joining a household is (big uncertainty).

Joining a household is a big decision, yeah. Especially since Wanda barely knows anyone here.

She might be able to get a crafter to join her household; having an assistant to take care of things is reasonably common. Again it'll be trickier since nobody knows her, but probably not impossible - it'll help if she's open to having people on a short-term basis, six months to a couple of years, lots of teenagers want to do something like that between leaving their parents' households and starting their own and there's never enough households that want them.

She is so not qualified to be the head of a household. She's also a teenager!

She has a concept called 'roommates' where two people... Live in the same place on a temporary basis and are friendly but have no deep attachment or obligations beyond politeness and chores to each other, is that a thing?

Pebbleclinker's species doesn't do that - they're a little more social than other territorial species but they don't live together without a clear hierarchy. That said, having someone join her household temporarily could work a bit like that if she wanted it to - the head of a household will often assign a member a sub-territory of their own, usually just a room or a small building but it can be bigger, and can task them with looking after their own day to day needs.

Being head-of-household and giving a sub-territory and assigning someone to take care of themselves is still different from being roommates. She will think about it.

Red would like pebbleclinker to call riverwalker now, please.

Pebbleclinker does so, whistling loudly; it only takes a few minutes for their host to appear and invite Wanda back into the house.

Hey Riverwalker,

Red uncertainty will need to sleep a lot. Call Riverwalker all(go to bed) uncertainty? Want go to bed not(call Riverwalker) uncertainty?

He doesn't mind being called to let her into the house but he can build her something temporary to sleep in if she wants, sure.

...Red leave house good? Red enter house not(Riverwalker open) bad?

...right, alien. She's always allowed to leave - the house or his territory or whatever, it's a very general principle, if she wants to go she can. Going into his house without him is... it's his house? If she tries to claim it for her own he will be pretty upset about that? (He's pretty upset just thinking about it, in fact.)

Not claim house!

...She draws two stick figures, purple and green. Purple: Human, head-of-household. Green: Human, guest.

Purple says green is a guest. Green can enter house without purple. Green can go in house-center without purple. Green can go in green's room without purple. Green can take small food without purple. Green can NOT take not-food things in the house or go into other rooms.

...Humans have territory think territory small. Riverwalker have territory think territory big.

Pebbleclinker thinks Wanda shouldn't push on this, it won't go well - Wanda is a different species but she looks like theirs, it's not surprising that riverwalker is reacting to her the same way he'd react to a member of their species, and if she keeps going he's liable to kick her out entirely, for very good reasons.

She writes-

'Not enough words to write. Will try to speak.'

She screws her face up in concentration, in focus, and tries to send to both of them that- She was trying to explain, not demand.

Who knows if it comes through.

...Ugh, headache.

Yeah, that didn't work.

Pebbleclinker thinks riverwalker should let Wanda in to lie down and then go get started on the building, and she will try to write up a better explanation of the problem for when Wanda wakes up.

'Sorry. I will not go in your house without you.'

She's feeling very, very tired and lonely, suddenly. It's kind of hard not to start crying.

Riverwalker can get a dog for her to cuddle, if she wants. Anyway, here's the house.

"Mm, no..." Sigh.

Aliens. Gotta remember that. It's a wonder this is the first hovercraft eel incident. When she's a bit less... Nano-shredded by spatial warping... She's definitely going to go make her own place.

On the way to the bed, she writes: Red sad for making riverwalker feel bad. Red did not mean to do that. Riverwalker is good at give guest. Red will go claim empty territory when not(danger). One two days uncertainty.

It's okay, he's not upset at her. This is mostly his and glowing-pebbleclinker's fault, they're the ones who can communicate properly right now, he's just never had to explain why territory matters before. She's fine to stay for a few days; more than one or two, if she needs to, it'll probably be fine once she has her own subterritory.

Humans feel bad when humans crafters they like feel bad. Feel more bad if human made feel bad. Most of the time.

Crafters not in territory not(can move) uncertainty? Feel danger uncertainty?

...Red wait this if riverwalker thinks wait good.

(She's calming down some now.)

Most crafters can function pretty well in unclaimed spaces, it's mostly being in someone else's territory that does it - it doesn't feel dangerous, it's just taboo, going into someone's house or messing with their things just isn't done, it's hard to even think about except very abstractly. It's a felt sense that's hard to act against, the same way that someone would have a hard time touching a cooking tool they knew was hot, even if they weren't scared of it. And that's the real problem - if he lets her do something that looks like claiming his things, even if he tells her she can, it could very easily start feeling like they're actually hers, and then it doesn't matter that they both agree that the things should still be his, he won't be able to use them.