And if she had been expecting anyone probably she wouldn't have been expecting a tattooed young woman with silver hair holding a shockingly ugly baby.

She definitely would not.

"How did you do that?" she asks because that question is slightly faster to articulate than what are you doing here and are you going to matter to the war.

Oh, I walked into a monster, says the woman after a moment, after checking that her ugly baby is okay.

That clarifies almost nothing and now she has more questions. So many more questions. "Where did you come from and are you really talking in my head or am I imagining that?" are the ones she asks first.

I don't speak your language so I'm doing this instead. I came from Angband.

"I have never heard of Angband. Are you reading my mind? Are there other magic things you can do?"

Yeah I am. And I know some magic songs.

Well, now her mind is filled with internal screaming very briefly until she pushes through it and gets completely calm.

"One of our neighbors just declared war on us. Rumor has it they intend to destroy our government and our way of life." Rumor also has it that they plan to spare the civilians, or maybe sacrifice them to Azan's gods, or - well, the rumors are sort of confused. "I am sure an ability like that would be extremely useful if you wanted to help us protect ourselves. In exchange I expect we'll find things to offer you - I don't know what exactly you want, of course." But she could probably have jewelry or slaves or clothing or food or a house. Could Azan outbid them? Teru has no incentive to entertain any arguments that they could, but they might not want to, they seem alien and hard to negotiate with.

I guess I could do that?

"Good. I can find a soldier - the ones in my family might not have gone too far yet, or if that doesn't work I'll go to the city garrison - can you wait right here? Do you need anything faster than it'd take me to run across town and back?"

I don't know how fast your species is. Or how big your town is.

"I am not going to take more than a twentieth of a day and probably less. The sun might move about this much on the floor before I get back." She gestures, and pictures pretty clearly how the light from the windows moves. "Will you be okay that long?"

I don't know what a sun is but I think I can wait as long as you're thinking.

"Good. I'll be right back, don't wander off or - anything." Don't do unspecified alien things to her cousins, except she doesn't have any idea what things, and it'd be rude, and anyway it doesn't matter very much what comes out of her mouth. She runs. She assumes she'll get out of range at some point but she doesn't know when that point will be. (She does not, in fact, get out of range.)

She'll be back as soon as she can but that'll still be a while. In the meantime there's a little to look at and a a lot to eavesdrop on, if their visitor is so inclined.

Beka settles the baby on her shoulder and looks around and listens to sounds and minds.

They have books, in the room where Beka is, but there's no way she can read them. They've put less effort into aesthetics than any elf society but they have put effort in, painting the walls an unobjectionable color and getting chairs with canvas seats in complementary colors with geometric patterns.

There are a couple of kids in the courtyard, wondering where Teru's off to in such a hurry, and beyond that - well, the entire city. It's not a happy city. People have said a lot of goodbyes recently, and still are as the last few people finish packing, the soldiers to go to war and their wives and sisters and mothers to go stay in the capital to keep them exactly as safe as Sesat itself. But that's not most of it. There are slaves here, who know it's not off-limits to torture them to death, and there are poor people and sick people and people who aren't either but know that's temporary. There's a lot of discussion of whether foreign soldiers might target the crops in the nearby fields, and how long the city can last under siege. There's someone optimistic about the market for his swords; there's someone jubilant because she's opening her flower shop today and it's what she's always wanted; there's someone hoping he's not coming down with anything. There's someone praying, with no expectation that any god is actually going to answer.

Teru finds a group of men just outside the city finishing up checking that there's nothing wrong with their chariot; there are four of them and they're waiting for one more. She interrupts.

"I have a thing that might mean the difference between victory and defeat in the war," she says. "I need to show someone who can do something about that."

The captain frowns at her but the archer vouches for her. (Because he's her brother, which is why she came to him first.) They leave the other two to wait with the chariot and head back with Teru. Faster, actually, once she's told them where to go, but they pause at the courtyard gate to wait for her to catch up. (Teru's brother talks to the kids a bit while they wait.)

It's not, in fact, very long before the door opens again and Teru shows the others inside. They're all very confused, and two of them are surprised to see the baby. All three of them are pretty sure it's their job to make a good impression and be polite somehow and none of them have any idea how to do that.

"Hello," says the captain.

Hello replies Beka, who has been eavesdropping on the happy florist since first noticing her because that's the nicest part of this very nice place that isn't even slightly Angband.

(Then by now she'll know a lot about renting commercial property in Leopard Hill and recognize a lot of local flowers.)

"I hear you're, um, new to Sesat and might be interested in getting involved in the war. What can you tell me about that?"

I'm from Angband? And I got here by walking into a monster. It seems nice. Teru thought I should do war stuff because I can read minds.

That sounds very dangerous and she should definitely stay away from the king and - really most people - they need to figure out her range but she could lie about it, or in fact she could be lying about this. "Can you? What number am I thinking of?" Purple. The correct answer is purple. If the correct answer were a number, it wouldn't be a very good test.

(Valan meanwhile immediately worries she'll find out his father was a slave and then determinedly starts thinking about flowers of no strategic importance.)

Um, purple.

Well, it's... promising that she's considering helping with the war and not just trying to take over - at least not openly but frankly he doesn't care as long as there's plausible deniability and she's not worse than what they have. "That might be spectacularly useful - what's your range? What would you want in exchange?"

It depends how well I know people. I think I can hear most of this town from here? I mostly just want to have a place to live with my baby and like food and stuff. Also flowers. There are flowers here, people keep thinking about them, and she wants them.

If they win they can probably get her a house with space for a flower garden and send someone in to plant the flowers and watch the baby, he thinks, it'd be expensive but that's within the normal range of lifestyles for a soldier. - Also, eek, what a range. They'll have to figure out logistics for taking her to the front - there'll be rumors if she goes with them alone, they could maybe bring Teru along but then they'd have seven people on the team two of whom are women. Plus the baby.

"Well, how are you hoping this might work?"

...I dunno, I didn't have a plan or anything.