"Huh, I didn't know that, that sounds like fun."

"You get to meet interesting people! And Azan's looking like an easy sell on membership so that'll streamline things."

"Huh. Even with all the, uh..." Fere gestures vaguely.

"The maiming and slavery and stuff? Yeah, turns out the king's not attached!"

Fere nods and looks around at the merchandise a bit to see if it's the same as in Sesat and lingers to hear someone else tell a story. The shops are busier today, or maybe there are fewer of them in Azan or something.

It's mostly the same with slightly different emphases due to responses to local demand.

Fere has the sense that if she were really smart she'd be able to get more from this than just that Vanda Nossëo seems basically honest and really rich and important.

She does vaguely remember where the Azani peninsula and the river are relative to Sesat, though, and how to figure out directions from the sun, and heads in the right direction.

And heads in the right direction.

And heads in the right direction, probably.

The Azani countryside is different but also kind of not. There are farmers, and some of them yell at each other, and the more practice Fere gets at reading power dynamics in Azan the more sure she is that there are people who are more and less important - but not by half so much as in Sesat. She sees a young couple kiss in public, and someone unloading a wagon of imported goods - there's what looks light a fight brewing, a weaver's afraid for her job when she hears how cheap fabric is, and it's settled when someone hands her a pound of beef and tells her as long as the shop's there she can tell stories for whatever she wants and if the shop disappears she'll have her job back.

No one really seems afraid of a stranger at the edge of earshot, and that does mean Azan's been happier all along.

It's a long walk. The farther Fere goes the sweatier and tireder she gets and it's nowhere near her limit but... the worse she looks, the more she looks like how she's looked when they've seen her before. She turns back. She goes back to the shop.

It's still there! The shift has changed, though, a different human is manning the store now. "Welcome!"

"Hey. Can I get stuff for stories here?"

"Sure can! What catches your fancy?"

"I would like enough food to eat for as long as the food will stay definitely fresh and not even be a little bit off, and I want to look different, and I want bus tokens. And advice about Vanda Nossëo."

"Look different? I don't have - wigs or anything here, and if I knew illusion magic I'd probably have a non-retail job."

"I don't know, maybe you could recommend me a store in another world that has things? Not wigs, though."

"Oh, sure," says the proprietor, beginning to stack up packages of trail mix and instant entrées next to some tokens. "If you get on the bus and go one stop you'll be at Station One in Edda and then you can go down from the swapspace levels to level eight and get on anything that says it hits Space Arda, most lines do in at least one direction from Edda, and in Space Arda you get on the local circuit - I think Anticlockwise Maple gets you there fastest, and you go to Ambaróna station, and there is the most exquisite department store I've ever seen and it's just full of Elves who will give you a makeover if you give them an inch. - they won't touch your hair but they'll give you a scarf for it if that'll do you, and they're dab hands with makeup. Do you have Vanda Nossëo money though?"

"Uh, some but I might need more? Do you have advice about getting more?"

"If you wait a bit Azan's going to join up and then you'll get your basic! If you're in a terrible hurry you could try to find some Dwarves around Ambaróna and ask for a loan, I guess."

"The basic is enough to cover makeovers?"

"I mean, I suppose that depends on what else you're spending it on, doesn't it?"

"Hmmm... does it cost more than the amount of food I'm getting today?"

"Yeah."

"I'll figure something out, thanks. Anyway, stories..."

Fere's not going to share gossip from Sesat here, or try to get away with single sentences. Or talk about things she's eaten in Sesat. Or say something that'd identify her as someone who's died since they made contact.

She tells bedtime stories she only half remembers, trying to edit them on the fly to sound more Azani but probably failing in some way - there's one about a boy who goes on an adventure despite being three inches tall and one about a boy who boasts impossible things...

...She runs out of bedtime stories too soon and adds, "I went to a clothing store in Vanda Nossëo where everything was really well made and I got this outfit there, if that counts?"

"Sure, why not! I wasn't sure if you'd gotten it on planet or not, could be somebody was stocking Hawaiian shirts, it wouldn't be the strangest thing I ever saw in an outreach shop."

"What is the strangest thing?"

"Crazy straws. Apparently they really like crazy straws in this one corner of Achudiran. I never did find out what for."

"That's so weird. Hey, are there cheaper places for makeovers, even if they're not as good?"