"Yeah, I think that whatever's up with you we're going to need to get you a place to stay." He presses some buttons on his phone. "OK, texted Asher and Rose to let them know I'm leaving for secret work reasons I don't want to discuss on a non-secure connection, called a car, and sent in a lab order for someone to look at your clothes."

"Car?"

"A sort of horseless driverless carriage. --Are you hungry? We should maybe grab you something before we make the walk down."

"I would not say no to a bite to eat."

He double-checks that he is in possession of the correct rectangles, is satisfied, and starts walking away from the camp.

"Welcome to Cascadia, I guess. I'm Lev."

"Jing Yi. So far I'd say there are worse countries to fall on."

"From my perspective it's the best country in the world. --Shit, you're not going to recognize any fair food, are you."

"I understand a lot of it fried! But that's mostly smell and context clues."

"I have no idea what fair food is broadly acceptable especially to people from the Tang Dynasty." He stops before one of the booths. "Fried corn and corn dogs sound good to you? And cotton candy."

He has no idea what 'corn' is, but this seems like an excellent time to find out what it is. "Sounds good to me!"

Lev purchases it by taking out a very thin rectangle and putting it inside another rectangle.

Cascadians are very fond of rectangles.

They really are! And even though he's paying for something, he's getting the same rectangle back? Cascadia is Truly Mysterious

The person manning the booth presents Jing Yi with some sort of odd vegetable on a stick, some sort of breaded thing on a stick, and some wispy brightly colored thing on a stick.

Lev takes the wispy brightly colored thing and hands the other two to Jing Yi.

Jing Yi takes the mystery fried things.

Mystery breaded thing: Has a sausage inside. 10/10 excellent fried festival food, Cascadia seems to know what its doing.

Mystery vegetable: Good, but loses points for the fact he had to think about how to eat it, and also having a hard thing inside that hurts to bite down on. 7/10

Lev hands over the wispy brightly colored thing with a look of utter delight on his face.

Oh my goodness is that sweet. And mouth melty? But mostly absurdly sweet. In a good way though.

"Good?"

"It's do sweet? It's wonderful but oh my god--"

"Oh, man, they don't even have sugarcane in Great Tang, do they-- I want to show you chocolate chip cookies and Skittles and ice cream with sprinkles--"

"I mean yes, but maybe not right now? I'm not sure my tongue could take it."

"Fair enough!"

They arrive at... a vehicle? It's like a carriage, but black and made of some kind of metal, and there's a flat sloped rectangular bit at the front and the back. (Cascadians love their rectangles.) Lev swipes his phone near the door handle and the door opens automatically. 

"We've got like an hour and a half to get to the nearest immigration social worker-- you, unfortunately, did not land anywhere near the border-- so if you have any questions about Cascadia you should probably ask them."

"I feel like the most important question personally is 'how do you feel about foreigners?' but the helpfulness and lack of heads on pikes kind of answers that."

Lev slides into the car and gestures for Jing Yi to enter as well. 

"Cascadia accepts immigrants from everywhere in the world," Lev says proudly. "If you step foot on Cascadian soil, you can stay here as long as you please."

He sits down. "Which is highly convenient!" He's not so sure how well that would go in practice, but personal usefulness wins out right now.

"I do have some other questions, but I'm worried they'd be... Sensitive?"

"I recognize that you're either psychotic or from a thousand years in the past and either way am not going to take offense."