"Oh no! Did they put you up here before they finished making the building?"

"Huh? No, they just put in the screens before they were done with the plaster. Maybe it was buggy when they were working or something. Anyway I popped the screen out to wash it and left it to dry overnight because it wasn't buggy yesterday evening and I didn't expect anyone to climb the hotel."

"Oh. Why wouldn't people climb a hotel?"

She doesn't know what a hotel is but it sure seemed climbable.

"Well, that's not what it's for? And you're kind of not supposed to go in people's rooms without permission. - I'm not mad, I know you're an alien and everything. And it's really high up and if you fall I think you cry a bit and take a nap but if I fell from this high I'd probably die."

"I'm not an alien, you're an alien!"

Fika pouts. She should probably say sorry for the going in here since she didn't want that but she left a way in and also Fika's mad at her for calling Fika names.

"Sorry, I mean, like, you're a different species."

Fika nods.

"Sorry for yelling."

"Anyway you should probably not do that again. Even if you find missing screens. Somebody could be doing something private in their room, or just want to be alone."

"Oh, okay."

...

"Also sorry for going into your room when you didn't want me to. s'important to have alone spaces."

"I'm not mad. Just like, for future reference. How do amaliens do alone spaces, don't most of you live outdoors and the rest in a monster-village?"

"Lot of us have little nooks we live in for bits, even buildings sometimes. My old big tree would bend to make little bits that were secret and only one of us knew about so we could have our own spots."

"Oh, neat. Is the tree still there?"

"Mhm, she's been there for a while."

"How come you moved out?"

"I 'membered there was a pretty rock here!"

"- ah. I'm not sure it'll still be... here. Since there's a city here now. Do you want that one specifically or will any pretty rock do?"

"I want the shiny white one,"

She holds her hands apart to demonstrate that it's a couple of inches big.

"Okay, well, I'm not sure anyone will have noticed it specially while they were clearing the place to build a city, but nobody will stop you from looking, I guess. Do you need help figuring out the elevator?"

"If they didn't notice it was pretty where'd they put it? The elevator?"

"I assume they dumped all the extra rocks and dirt somewhere but I don't know where. And it's also possible it got buried and something was built on top of it."

"Hm."

Fika tries to 'member other times she's looked for rocks in places where a bunch of animals or people moved.

"I think if the pretty rock is under the buildings it would still be there in a while when the buildings are gone? So I can check the extra place first."

Fika is twiddling with her silverware a lil while saying this. They are fun sticks.

"...yeah, probably, if you're okay with... waiting that long... for your rock to turn up."

"I can come back later if I really really need to. But buildings don't usually last very long. A big ice chunk once picked up something I wanted to look at and it took superduper long to melt."

She screws up her face to think.

"I can't remember what it was that I wanted to look at that time though."

"These buildings might last longer than ones you're used to, though."

"Oh, why's that?"

She clinks the silverware together as a fidget some more.