Meander! Meelia likes meandering with new friends.

The jitney picks up a couple other people but mostly takes them pretty expeditiously into town, where they can find a piercing place.

Meelia is sorta scared when she sees how piercing is done. She hugs herself a bit.

"You don't have to get your ears pierced, today or ever, if you don't want to," Tish assures her.

"It's okay, I'm very brave."

"Do you want to do both of them? They can do it both at once so you don't have to psych yourself up twice."

"I only have one earing so I think I should only do one right now.

She displays the pretty earing Cheep found.

"- oh, I was going to buy you a new pair, but I guess we can have them sterilize that one for you if you prefer."

Meelia nods!

"Cheep found it for me!" she says, proudly.

In that case they can put the earring in the sterilizer and she can pick an ear.

Her right ear please!

Annnnnd - poke!

Eep! Meelia does her best not to cry and only one or two tears fall out.

"Good job holding still!" says the piercer, clipping the backing to the earring. He holds up a mirror. "What do you think?"

"It's great! You did a good job poking me!"

"Thank you! Now, I don't know how amaliens work, but an Amentan would want to leave that in - being gentle on the ear in the shower and sleeping and so on - all the time for about a week, to make sure the piercing heals pierced; and after that you can swap out other earrings if you want. If it starts to feel worse, especially if it feels hot or swollen, or it looks weird, you take out the earring right away and go to a doctor about it - might lose the piercing but better that than getting an infection."

"I don't think I can swap out the earring - would probably heal? I had a spike from a monster stuck in me one time for a while and when I pulled it out it healed up after a bit."

She holds her hands a couple of feet apart to indicate the length, and gestures to a spot on her abdomen to indicate where it was.

"Huh, do you think it would heal too fast for you to put a new earring in even if you did that right away?" asks Tish.

"Prolly would be fine but might heal tinnie tiny bit each time?

Meelia pokes the earing to see how it feels right now.

Well, it's a thin bit of metal stabbed through her ear.

"It's perfect!"

Meelia gets down from the chair and twirls around.

"I'm so glad you like it!" says Tish. "Anything else you want to do while we're in town?"

"Adventuring!"

She sets out very purposefully to explore the very busy city.

Tish laughs and follows her out and gives her spot advice on things like crossing streets that have motor traffic when they come to one of those and waiting in line if she wants a frozen dessert from this cart.

"I think I can probably run across the street and be okay."