Okay, her new guess is that local etiquette calls for people to present themselves as brusque and objectionable with questionable motives. She tests this. Her voice is getting noticeably brittle and she's at the point of digging her fingernails into her palms but maybe that'll just add to the effect.

"I'm mostly worried about how impressively I will come across because I'm obsessed with seeming cooler than I really am and would like it if people were vaguely under the impression that I might be royalty."

He smiles at her; apparently that was right, or at least closer. "Well, now you have an impressive story to tell everyone, so there's that. Most people have never been kidnapped." Then he crinkles his brow. "You - want people to know you are royalty? Then why not tell them?"

Why! Okay. Okay, she can do this. She can just - wait - being kidnapped is impressive, not something that makes her less valuable?

That is not making it easier not to cry. She tries to focus on the question even though it's a non-sequitur. She literally just said she's not royalty, what the fuck is her move here? Probably not to claim she is, right? Is it? Is it? "I mean - I mean -" Teru would really rather a hug instead of a high-stakes fairy etiquette test. "- uh, I mean, I'm not part of this country's royal family," she says with a very slight and plausibly deniable emphasis on this.

Snort. "Well I think it's cool being royalty at all! I'm not royalty at all, I'll tell you that. - it's cool as long as you're not related to Prince Andrew. Did you hear, he's a pedo. If I found out I had a relative like that I'd kick him in the nuts."

"What? No, I hadn't heard that! What?"

"Oh, he went with that sonofabitch Epstein, to his island, and he stayed out of the public eye for the longest time but eventually a reporter with the Daily Mail cornered him and asked, and he said, yes, I had sex with three different fourteen and fifteen year old girls on Epstein's private pedophile island. One of them cried. There's video - YouTube took it down, but I saw it on reddit."

ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THAT MAKES ANY SENSE. ...The conversational norms maybe make sense now.

"How could he do something so - so - I guess at least the girls have an impressive story to tell everyone, now, but still - that must be why the sky briefly turned orange with purple polka dots."

" - the sky turned orange with purple polka dots? Wow, wild. I didn't even know that could happen."

The important question here is whether he actually believed that or is just really committed to the bit but why would you do this if you could just not.

Maybe everyone thinks everyone else is pathologically naive and is trying to fit in, though.

Or, you know, maybe she's going to be horribly punished for this by whatever force is making this happen in the first place.

"It is completely unremarkable for someone in my position to go hide someplace in this store and it would be polite of you to let me know when you call the cops."

" - yes, that makes sense," he agrees cheerfully, and keeps mopping. 

She hides.

She cries quietly and tries to get her mind in order enough to stop. People here are - not people - maybe people? - weird, and she doesn't have to worry about them thinking less of her for this, and she can just go somewhere else in this general area and tell people the exact truth instead of her inferences about it and then have them corroborate her with perfect confidence and that'll be okay once her people -

- how exactly are her people going to come save her? What if, instead, she never sees any of them again? What if she never even knows whether they won the war?

She has a vague sense that her brother wouldn't be having a breakdown in her place but is that something she can imitate? It would be if she were going home - not that she actually knows she isn't, maybe she still is - is this even real, yep, not a dream - well, she might or might not be going home, people here might or might not actually believe everything...

...although why choose the exact things they said if not? And the reaction to her talking about wanting people to be mistaken about her - that's weird, why not react to it as confessing a shameful desire to do something extremely taboo?

What would someone do who wasn't panicking? Teach the weird honest aliens to lie? Maybe just survive here until she can figure out how she got here and how to get home.

Right. Okay. That sounds like a viable plan. Figure out this place's weird magic and go home and maybe turn out to be able to turn the tide of the war with her new magic. And on an immediate level... well, if she can actually trust that these people really don't care if she steals, fine. She evaluates the nearby foods for easy concealability and checks whether there seems to be anyone looking at her.

No one's looking at her; they're busy moving pallets around in the other end of the warehouse. 

Nearby foods include an enormous pyramidal display of apples and a lot of brightly colored packaged things.

She sticks an entire giant apple in her pocket. (Maybe this is the normal size of apples here.) If anyone asks she'll claim it's not stolen. The packages are mysterious but as long as she's waiting for Jimenez to call the police she might as well read any text she can, maybe it'll orient her better than sitting around freaking out.

Quaker Oats
No One Involved In the Making of This Product is Guaranteed to be a Quaker
We Kept the Name Because You Had Brand Familiarity

Mixed Nuts
Half Peanuts Because They're Cheapest And That's the Maximum Allowed By Law
Also Some Cashews, Pecans, Walnuts, Almonds, varies based on product prices

Dried Cherries
Pits Were Removed But Some May Remain

Why would they have a law against selling a product that's more than half peanuts? Could she get away with claiming to be legally inspecting one of the bags? ...Could she get away with just saying it opened by itself and the nuts fell into her hand? Oh, or just tell Jimenez Jala sold them to her and Jala that Jimenez sold them to her. Or tell everyone they're her own nuts that she... stole from her kidnappers?

Her lies are really underconstrained here and anyway she can probably come back later and steal whatever she wants. ...Also, what if eating their food turns her pathologically honest? ...Also, what if it is still a test and they want to know if she'd steal under these circumstances?

She puts the apple back with the rest of the giant pyramid of giant apples and waits.

Jimenez calls the cops, and then trots across the warehouse to find her and tell her that they're on the way. "They wanted your name and I realized I never asked it."

"Teru of Leopard Hill."

"Well, I can't tell them that now, I hung up already, but okay."

"Of course, that's fine."

"They should be there in five, ten -"

        "Jimenez! Flirt on your own time!"

"I'm on break, bitch!"

       "Well, I'm watching the clock, and when your break's up you'd better come unload the trucks!"

 "Pretty sure she knows I hate it specifically. Anyway, the emergency responder said the cop's'd be here in five to ten minutes unless something weird happens."

"I would not flirt with you because you're not as important as I am and I don't see any need to avoid drawing your attention to it, but if you ever come into possession of a country or something, let me know."

"I didn't think that someone who's British royalty or something was flirting with the janitor at Costco but it's still slightly upsetting to have that confirmed. I will let you know if I ever come into possession of a country though I really think that's not how things work."

"Don't worry, I think you're more appealing than many people who aren't royalty and if I had to pick someone who wasn't royalty I would consider you."

"Awww, I'm gonna quote that in my Tinder bio. Are you a princess, so I can say 'a princess once told me...' Or a Duchess? Or a - I forget what other kinds there are -"

"Um, I don't remember all of the correct terminology in this language, it's not my first." WHICH IS BIZARRE. "'Duchess' might be right."