"Oh. That seems really sad for the red people! What if one of you or someone else went and just told them that I would shower when I leave and than I'll stay there on my own." 

"Do you actually want to have to shower again? You didn't seem to like it!"

"I don't want to but sometimes there are hards part of an adventure, like really long showers or hard climbs or being on fire or running away for a really long time or getting eaten or getting smushed by a rock or walking across a deep dark part of the ocean for too long."

"- I'm not sure this qualifies as an adventure? It's just a polluted part of the city that reds live in."

"It's an adventure. I've been on a lot of them and I can tell."

"What makes it an adventure?"

"It's hard and important and there are confusing parts and scary parts and fun parts and new parts. But I think even if something didn't have those things it maybe could still be an adventure."

"Why would it be important or fun to barge into the reds' place and bother them there?"

"I went around the city with the other amentans earlier and that wasn't barging in? Also why would it bother them if you told them that I would shower afterwards?"

Hm...

"Also, even if you have answers to those it's still important I think."

"So, the city has a part for reds, and a part for everyone else. You're not a red, you're an everyone else, so everything in the city you're supposed to visit is in the everyone else part. Even if they were told you'd shower afterwards they still might not want to hang out with you because they were busy or nervous about meeting an alien or if they didn't trust whoever told them. I haven't ever worked with reds but what I hear is that they're not very trusting and might be scared of you no matter how many times they were told you wouldn't hurt them."

"I've gotten to know a lot of monsters who were scared of me at first. Sometimes it can take a really really long time but it's worth it."

"Can you tell me about one of those times so I can see if it sounds the same?"

"There was a giant white sorta bat sorta moth monster that would hide from people at night and I was worried about why so I went looking for her and she would hide from me if I saw her but also she didn't seem very happy and I was worried that she was not okay so I spent a lot of time leaving out treats for her each night without looking at her and eventually I was able to pet her as long as I didn't look at her. I eventually figured out that she was lonely but didn't know how to make friends 'cause she was noc-turnal and scared of light and things so I became her friend and then helped her make more friends."

(picture of her)

"Okay. I don't think the reds have that problem, there are plenty of them and they all live together and can be friends with each other."

"Mhm. They might have different problems. There was another time with a group of amaliens who thought everyone was fake cause one monster was making fake amaliens and that was a different sort of problem but I solved that too."

"This planet doesn't have monsters, so it's not going to be something that would be that - special and surprising. They're just some red Amentans who live together in a district and need to be careful about not touching things outside of it."

"Sometimes there are smaller problems too."

"But also I'm not sure you're right that it won't be big."

"What are you going to do if you go there and knock on doors till one will talk to you and you find that they're just what I said?"

"I dunno."

"It's not like no one ever," yawn, "looks in on them, you saw a purple there today delivering them some things - maybe that wasn't a particularly nice individual but it would be other people sometimes too."

"I um. Think you might be sort of young and not used to things being hard and needing to check on things. ... Sorry I'm not good at saying things nice sometimes."

"Oh, honey, I know you're a lot older than me, but Amenta is different from your planet in a lot of ways and I've been here for thirty years. You just got here. There's a lot of stuff to see and do and this one isn't a good," yawn, "use of anybody's attention." Yawn. "Well. I need sleep. You don't need a bath since you took an entire decontamination shower, twice, so you can go straight to bed if you're sleepy, do you want me to tuck you in?"

Meelia doesn't think that being around one place for a long time is actually a good way to notice problems with the place, usually.

"You can sleep now if you want."

"Okay, honey, see you in the morning." And up she lurches.

Meelia sits and thinks.

She doesn't trust Tish about this. Tish is new and nice and friendly but... something about how she talks about the people with red hair feels. Wrong. Like Tish isn't taking people being mean to them or them being sad seriously. She's worried that the red haired people are right not to trust people with different colored hair.

So. If she's going to do something about it what should she do...