Tish Ahtemik and Haemi Fanu are rural blue lesbians who spend most of their time on their farm estate and are very keen on adopting a cute alien! They meet Meelia at the shuttleport.

Meelia waves enthusiasticly!

"Hi I'm Meelia and I just got here and I'm very excited to meet you and also what's that and can I go on it!"

Meelia points to a moving walkway.

"You sure can! It's a moving walkway."

Meelia bounces and jumps onto the walkway and turns to see if the couple is following.

One has joined her and the other is jogging ahead to receive her on the far side!

She races the jogging one! 

She can win if she has a way to get around the yellow family ahead of her!

She cartwheels on the side railing, passing them.

"Yay!!"

She wiggles to celebrate till the couple catches up.

"Whew!" says the one who jogged on the normal floor. "That looked scary, but you pulled it off, you're a regular little gymnast, huh?"

She nods! 

"I'm good at doing scary things sometimes."

"And if you get a bump on the head you're fine, right? Tougher than you look." Haemi scoops her up.

Meelia hugs Haemi a little bit after she's scooped up.

"Well it hurts and sometimes and I cry a little but it goes away later."

"Yeah. So I guess you can do all the gymnastics you want even if it'd be risky for an Amentan and we'd want to have spotters and padded floors."

Meelia nods.

"Is that what you use when you want to do gymnastics?"

"Yup! Not us personally, we're not gymnastics types, but for people who do."

"Oh, I have some friends back home who don't like gymnastics I guess."

She remembers that she has such a friend with her, and, after some searching her clothes, holds out what appears to be a small mouse.

"Like this friend! Her name is Cheep! She's a monster-mouse."

"Oh also, what'r'your names?"

"I'm Haemi and my wife's Tish! Hello, Cheep, what a nice name - what makes Cheep different from a not-monster mouse?"

"Cheep lives longer and she could do gymnastics like me if she wanted to. And had stronger arms. Also I don't think most mice are as smart as her."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Cheep," says Tish, catching up. "You ready for a train ride, Meelia, or do you want to look around this city a bit before we take you home with us?"

Cheep cheeps in response before scrambling back into Meelia's sleeve.

"I think I'd like to see your home right now if it's quieter there then here, since I haven't been in a very quiet place for a while."

"We can visit the city later, right?"

"Yeah, of course! Our home is really quiet, it's out on a big farm. And we can get the quiet train car to go there."

Down the elevator, into the train.

The elevator feels a little bit like part of the spaceship ride but less so. She guesses this is cause they both go up and down.

The train also feels like that, cept side-to-side. She looks around at all the strange new Amentan people on the train. 

The quiet car has a yellow on it, knitting, and a sleeping green and a reading green, plus her and her caretakers.

"What's she doing?" Meelia asks, pointing at the yellow.

"She's knitting! It's a way of making fabric out of yarn."

"Oooooh, can I try?"

"I think she's in the middle of something but we can get you some knitting things to try when we're home!"

"I can ask the staff to pick some up now and they might beat us to the house."

"Oh, good idea, love."

Meelia claps her hands together excitedly. 

"This is gonna be so much fun!"

"Oh good! We're really excited to show you lots of stuff like that!"

Meelia wiggles happily and swings her feet as the train continues zooooooming along.

Eventually they reach a local station where they take a bus the rest of the way because these people really live out in the sticks, but it's a short smooth bus ride and then here they are at their farm! There are purples in the fields, very brown, who wave hello before going back to their work, and a lovely manor in the middle of everything.

She waves hello back!

"Who were those people? Is this where they live?"

"Some of them have houses near here, some of them travel here from houses farther away! They work on the farm."

"Oh, that sounds fun. Do you work on the farm too?"

"Sort of. It's our farm, but we don't do much with the plants most of the time - we do things like talking to people who want to take kids on field trips here, and managing all the people who do stuff with the plants and the fences and the machines and the markets for the crops, and buying more farms or selling bits of ours when we think that's a good idea. We do pick fruit when it's in season, though. Nothing's as delicious as a peach you got off the tree zero seconds ago, mm-mm," says Tish.

"Oh yeah those are really good! I don't usually have peaches another way, how do you do that? Oh also how do you manage all the people and what sort of machines they use and sorry for having so many questions but there are so many new things and it's really good!"

"Oh, we sell some of the peaches, and they get shipped to towns and cities farther away from here so people there can have peaches too! They just get a little less tasty. And some of it is turned into other foods, like jam, which is good for seasons if you don't open it but not the same as a fresh peach."

"It's good to have questions! We wanted to have you come stay with us because we were excited to answer all those questions."

"Do you want to come with me into our office and watch me work? I'm not sure it'll be very interesting but maybe it will be since so much of it will be new to you."

"That sounds fun! I've never seen peach managing before."

"Did you learn to read Tapap or just speak it?" asks Tish, leading her to an office inside their house. The house is very pretty and spacious.

"I can read, though it's sorta hard."

"Let me know if I'm going through emails too fast and you want me to slow down or read them to you, then." And will Meelia sit on Tish's knee while she answers emails signing off on trying a new pesticide in a particular subsection of an orchard, and chooses a name for a new cultivar of grape, and looks over the bank statement for the month, and agrees to let a wedding take place among the plums?

Meelia sounds out some words aloud - enough to get the subjects but not to under-stand much. 

"What's a pest-ic-ide?"

"What name are you gonna choose?"

"Who's having a wedding. Also what's a wedding?"

"Pesticides are things that bugs and other stuff that are bad for plants don't like, so they'll stay away. We have to test new ones to make sure they're not bad for the plants, too, or for anything that's good for them, like pollinators, or for us, like if they made the food taste bad."

"I think I'll go with 'splendiferous'."

"Looks like Shian Safikt and Osas Teft are having this wedding, and a wedding is when people have a party to celebrate that they're getting married, like me and Haemi are."

Meelia cracks up at splen-dif-erous. It's really funny.

"Why'd you celebrate it? Also why'd they need to ask you to have it?"

"Weddings are celebrated because they're happy occasions! They'll invite their family and friends to congratulate them on finding who they want to spend their life with. They're asking because they want to do it on my land, and they can't come on my land without my permission, especially not with a great big party full of people."

"Oh, I don't think most amaliens would have lots of people in their private places that they have to be alone in. I might try it once I guess to see how fun it was."

"We have more and less private places. The farm isn't very private, but it belongs to us so we need to give permission before someone can throw a whole party here - if nothing else they wouldn't want to try to have their party at the same place and same time as other people they didn't know so they want to make sure they've picked a good day for that. The house is more private, we wouldn't let strangers have a party here at all! And our bedroom is more private than that, even if someone is here to visit us at our house they usually won't go into the bedroom, but we share it with each other and the staff do clean it."

"Why are the staff different than people?"

"The staff are people! But we don't want to clean our own rooms and that means we have to let the cleaners in there."

"Oh, why don't you clean your own rooms? I think I'd clean my own private space if I had to to make it so someone else didn't have to go in."

"We don't think of cleaning as very fun so we hire other people to do it. It's more important that they're not in there unexpectedly, so we can be sure we're all by ourselves when we want, than that they're never in there at all."

"Oh."

Something occurs to Meelia, causing her to bounce up and down on Tish's lap.

"Do I get a room?"

"Yes you do! Do you want to see it?"

"Yes!"

Up the stairs and over thisaway is Meelia's room! It has a nice big bed and a toy chest and some pretty draperies in sunrise-pink-and-gold-pastels on the walls. "We didn't know what you'd want in here so we guessed; if you want to change anything just say the word."

"Ooooh!" 

Meelia backflips onto the bed excitedly.

Tish laughs. "Comfy?"

Meelia bounces up and down a bunch.

"Weeeee!"

She stops for a second and holds her hand out to Tish.

"Want to join?"

"Sure!" On Tish flops. She's heavier and doesn't bounce much but her flop bounces Meelia!

Bounce!

Meelia bounces up and down to try to bounce Tish!

The bed is not really springy enough to bounce Tish, but Tish laughs happily anyway.

"Hm. Could be bouncier but I guess this works."

"Well, it's meant for sleeping on. If you want to bounce and not sleep you get a trampoline."

"A tramp-o-line?"

"A trampoline is a big sproingy piece of material held up by a rigid frame, so you can jump on it." She pulls out her pocket everything and finds a video of someone on a trampoline.

Meelia makes a high pitched squeak so excitedly that Tish can't even quite hear it. 

"D'you want a trampoline?"

VERY RAPID NODDING

Tish laughs and orders one.

"Where is it? Did you just look for it on your everything? Can I have an everything?"

"You can have an everything!" There's one already in the nightstand drawer, here it is! She can tell it her name and teach it her fingerprint if she has one and sift through the apps available. "And yes, I bought it on my everything, my everything knows how to let the shop that sells trampolines get money out of my bank account so they just got some money and they'll send us a truck with a trampoline in it soon."

"When's it gonna arrive?"

Meelia says this while setting up the everything. She also teaches it all her toeprints too, just in case.

"Looks like... four hours!"

Tish giggles about the toeprints but the everything is just as happy to learn them.

Meelia is really happy and excited but also should probably sleep before that. She's had a long day and skipping sleep usually isn't a good idea, even on adventures. Unless you really really need to.

"I should prolly sleep before that, will it still be here later?"

"Yup, I'll have them set it up in the yard. Do you want help figuring out the shower before you sleep so you can be all clean before you get under the sheets or can you figure that out on your own?"

"Showers are kinda stingy actually so I prolly won't take one, if the sheets still work that way?"

"Hm, do you like baths better?"

"Yeah, those are fun!"

"Then that works fine. Let me show you how our bath works, you've probably only seen the spaceship showers and so on." Behold, the bath!

Behold, a splashing amalien!

Adorable. And then she can be dried off in a snuggly fluffy towel and tucked into bed.

Fluffy! Snuggly! Bed!

Meelia goes to sleep with a big smile on her face. This is the coziest adventure she's been on in a while.

Tish takes pictures, and Haemi comes in to look and also take pictures, and off they go, shutting the door behind them so she can sleep in peace.

Meelia has a few nightmares but she wins in most of them. Overall it's a good night's sleep.

She wakes up early and very excited to go exploring!

Haemi's a morning person! "Good morning!" she says when Meelia pokes her head into the downstairs. "Want some eggs?"

"Nope! I'm going trampolining!"

"Oh! All right, have fun! It's out back, through the sunroom that way - can't miss it." Point.

*Sproing*!

She is welcome to sproing to her heart's content. After a bit Haemi and Tish go sit in the sunroom and watch her at it.

Meelia is very good at trampolining.

Wow! Tish takes a video of this.

"Do you want to try?"

"I think it would be pretty bad for my ankles," says Haemi.

"Not when I've just eaten, maybe a bit later," says Tish.

"Oh, this feels better for my ankles then doing it how I mostly did this at home."

"My ankles are pretty delicate, I don't jump much at all," says Haemi.

"Oh no! I sorta forgot how Amentans can break like that. Sorry."

Meelia stops bouncing on the trampoline for a bit.

"It's okay, dear, it doesn't bother me, just means I can't jump like you can. You go right ahead."

Meela will jump for a bit longer but visibly starts getting bored after a bit.

"Hm. I think I'm going to try going exploring for peach trees. You want to come with me?"

"Sure thing!" says Tish, getting up to join her. "Do you want me to show you the way or do you want to just wander?"

"Hm. I want to try it for myself so I can practice wandering on Amenta. It could work different than my home."

"All right, lead on!"

Meelia is really good at exploring! Cheep also helps by finding cool things along the way and directing her towards them. 

"The peaches won't actually be ripe right now, but they might still have flowers. They bear fruit a few times in a year, when their pollinators have been active, and the white bees are working on them right now."

"Oh, that's also how it works at home but I didn't realize these ones wouldn't have fruit now."

She's a little disappointed, but maybe Cheep will find something exciting on the way.

"They will in a few more weeks! The white bee crop is my second favorite peach crop after the migratory bat crop."

"Ooooh. Do they taste different?"

Cheep returns, excited about something he found.

"I think so! A lot of people can't taste the difference, but I think tasting the peaches right off the tree lets you pick up on a lot of subtleties... Is he safe running off like that, I'm not sure someone with a tractor or a harvester would notice him..."

"He's pretty tough! Monsters aren't as tough as amaliens but they are still tougher than animals and Amentans."

Meelia follows Cheep to see what he found!

Cheep has found a dropped earring!

Pretty!

"Huh! I have no idea whose that might be or how long it's been there, so I guess you can keep it if you like it, though you don't have pierced ears."

"How do ears get pierced?"

"With a needle!"

"Do you have a needle? I sorta want to try it, this looks really pretty."

"If you want your ears pierced we can take you to a place where they do that, I wouldn't be sure I could do it right at home."

"Oh, okay. What direction is a place that could do it?"

"- that way, approximately, but usually I wouldn't walk, I'd call a jitney."

"What's a jitney?"

"It's like a bus but it doesn't come here every ten minutes, it only comes when someone wants it and around commuting hours, because we're not near much other stuff."

"Oh, so if I wanted to go to the city it would come and pick me up like a friendly monster?"

"Yeah, very much like that."

"How do I let it know?"

"Your pocket everything can do it. Do you want to go all by yourself or should I come along?"

"You can come along if you'd like."

So Tish shows her how to summon a jitney and one is along in about fifteen minutes, plenty of time for them to take a meandering route to the road.

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."

"- you might be fine, since you can sleep off any injuries you got, but it'd really scare anyone who you ran in front of since they might not notice right away you're not an Amentan kid, and also it could damage their vehicles, so it's better to cross with everyone else."

"Oh I think I could dodge, would that still be scary for people?"

"Yes! Imagine you were trying to walk through a field with a bunch of little mice, like your mouse but not as tough, so they'd be badly hurt and maybe die if you stepped on them. And there's plenty of room for you to step, so you go real fast, because you're in a hurry - and then mice start running across where you're trying to run. Would that be scary?"

"Oh yeah, it would be! I probably wouldn't run there once I realized that."

"Right, but these vehicles do need to get where they're going, so instead we made a crossing for us - like we're mice, and there's a place where they pause to let mice go ahead of them. You could also solve it by making it impossible for people to get anywhere the trucks drive, but that would be harder to build, and most people don't mind having to wait at a crossing like this for a minute when they cross some streets."

"I don't think I mind the waiting it just feels silly to wait when it seems like it would be fun to go across while cars are zooming and less fun when they aren't. I guess that might not be true for amentans though cause you're more deli-cate."

She bounces, wanting to keep moving even while they're waiting.

And then the signal indicates they can go. "Thanks for waiting!" says Tish. "If you like running and dodging we could play paintball or something."

"Is that when you throw paint at each other? We do that at home sometimes and I'm really good at it!"

"It's like that but they have paint guns so you can make paint fly at other people really fast!"

"Oh wow! That does sound fun. Are you good at it?"

Meelia continues walking to explore the city while she chats. Also, Cheep runs off to see if he can find anything fun.

"I'm not good at it at all but I'd try it with you if you want."

Cheep can find trash cans and streetlights and bus stops and train stations and public bathrooms.

If he looks really far afield he might find other things too.

"I bet I'd be really good at it. I'm really fast at rea-cting to things."

None of those things looks different than other things Cheep's seen here, so he'll keep searching.

Cheep can find apartment buildings and office buildings and schools and stores! He can find purples and oranges and greys!

He can find a garbage alley and a red in it picking up some things that spilled out of a bag!

Cheep hasn't seen that color before when he's been here! He also hasn't seen garbage really, it smells sorta nice. He'll watch here for a bit to see more.

The red glances at the mouse and starts picking up the garbage faster.

Cheep hides nearby where he can see and keeps following.

The trash is all picked up and loaded onto the truck. The red sprays some red spray chalk on a few spots of the alley and hops into the truck and drives on.

Cheep is sorta curious where the truck is going and will follow it for a bit if he can keep up!

The truck goes pretty slowly and stops often. The reds in it collect more trash.

Cheep keeps an eye out for any pretty trash as he follows.

The trash is, by and large, not pretty. Though there are things like shiny aluminum foil in there if one doesn't have very refined tastes.

Cheep will try to grab one of them but is mostly still trying to follow. He's going on an adventure, just like his Meelia.

The red's pretty careful about not letting trash get on the ground most of the time so there are no great opportunities to snag aluminum.

Cheep is sad about this but can keep following without getting any.

Eventually the truck gets onto a bigger road and speeds up.

Cheep hops on the truck when it speeds up, since be can't go that fast on his own. He's a bit nervous about going away from his Meelia but she likes adventures and so does he.

The truck goes at a pretty steady pace so it's not all that hard to hold on once he's found a good niche on the bumper.

The truck drives out of the city, dumps its contents into a pit, and then turns around and drives back in to the city again.

Cheep hops off the truck at the pit - this place looks so different then the other places near her and Meelia will be so proud of him. Also it's his chance to find the shiny foil!

Finding the shiny foil is not going to happen, it's really not set up for that to be doable. The pit is crunching up all the trash and turning it into compact chunks and conveyor-belting them into a deeper pit-section.

There are a few little buildings around the giant machinery and the people in them have red hair.

Cheep would still try to get the foil but thinks it seems too scary and isn't as good at figuring out ways to do things as his Meelia. Instead he goes to find out what the New Color people are doing!

One of them is monitoring some instruments displaying various numbers. One is watching a video feed of trucks as they approach. A group of two are meeting one of the trucks before it can dump anything, and taking some of the stuff off it and putting it on a different truck.

Cheep is investigates all the different things people are doing, saving the Different Truck for until he's done exploring here.

Numbers Red appears to be scared of mice and yelps and stands up on her chair when he approaches.

Oh no, Cheep didn't mean to scare her! He wiggles at her to let her know he is friendly and okay to meet.

She grabs a broom and attempts to sweep him away, yelping!

He is okay being swept away even if he's a bit sad about scaring her.

Meanwhile, back in the city, Meelia is on her own exploring adventure.

Does Meelia want to crash this park party full of purples? Does she want to watch a green put a mural on the side of a wineshop? Does she want to buy a swimsuit and go swimming in this swimming pool? Does she want to tag along with this field trip of little oranges at the science museum? Does she want to splash in this fountain? Does she want to listen to this string quintet playing an open-air theater?

She wants to do all of the things!

Then she shall! Tish is endlessly indulgent about this. Eventually Haemi meets up with them at the fountain.

Meelia likes trying all the things but likes swimming the best - she's also really really good at it though she might scare Tish a little when she doesn't come up for air for a while once or twice.

She had gotten dry after the pool but now she is wet again from the fountain which she is doing splashy gymnastics in when Haemi shows up.

As long as she's still moving around down there Tish will figure she can just hold her breath a really long time or something.

"Awwww!" says Haemi. "Hi Meelia! Having fun?"

"Yes"

Watery spinny flip! 

Awww. They will sit and watch her <3

She does things sorta like this, 'cept she's better at it and fancier and smaller.

They are very impressed and clap when she completes tricks.

"Do you want me to teach you? I can do some that aren't ankle hurty."

"I think gymnastics is harder for people who are bigger! If I were going to learn even non-ankle-hurty tricks like that I'd want to start somewhere with a softer surface than a fountain," says Haemi.

"I can teach you on the grass and can do easy things? Like stretches that look sorta fun or jumping jacks."

"Yeah, all right," says Haemi, and Tish gets up too and they go over to the grassy area.

Meelia shows them how to touch their toes (or their knees if they can't reach cause they're too tall) and to do jumping jacks and then if they're ready she'll show them how to do handstands with someone else holding your legs so it's easier.

They will gamely attempt these things, giggling a lot about it in the process.

Hee!

"You did a really good job! Should get a treat to celebrate!"

"All right! Haemi's favorite is mini waffles."

They can go to a mini waffle place and get mini waffles rolled in various sugar mixes for everyone.

!!!!!!

Meelia is so happy the Amentans found them! These are really really really good. And Haemi and Tish are also really good!

Awwww they are also so happy they found the amaliens! They hug her.

Elsewhere:

Cheep has finished exploring the first place and has hitched a ride on the other type of truck to see what other things he can find for his Meelia. It's a big adventure but he's an adventuring mouse who can handle it.

The other type of truck goes to the city, and into a part of it with only red-haired Amentans around, no other ones at all! They start unloading the truck; different ones come by to grab different things.

Cheep spies on all the different things they are taking out.

It's a variety of things - looks like some clothes and some electronics and some packaged food.

Cheep'll follow some of the New Color people to find out where they are putting the things.

Some of the things go in a store, and some go into apartment buildings.

He heads into the apartment building to explore since that seems exciting and like it will have new friends for him and his Meelia.

The apartment building has linoleum floors and it is occupied by reds. The one Cheep has followed home brings their new clothes up to a second floor apartment and lets themself in and greets a kid who is there.

Oh that looks sorta like an amalien cept with the different color hair! He saw some like that before but never with this color. He's pretty sure that Meelia will be excited by this place.

He sorta misses her so it's time to leave and find her. 

Meelia has been having the best day. She is getting sorta tired but doesn't want to stop doing things. Though she knows that sleep is important even when things are the best...

"I think I should prolly go nap for the night soon."

"Okay, let's get you home and in the bath so you can sleep!" agrees Tish, hailing a jitney.

"Oh, I don't normally have a bath two nights in a row?"

"I can imagine it'd be hard to arrange on your planet! Do you have running water there at all? But here we take a bath or a shower every day."

"Sometimes twice!"

"Sometimes, yep. If a bath sounds boring maybe you'd like a fizzy bath bomb to make it interesting colors and glittery? I have some of those."

"We have streams and rivers and there's running water in Keetim. Also also there's a monster that is made of water that runs around and likes to play but also steals things sometimes and I had to help them learn not to steal important things one time."

"A fizzy bath bomb does sound like a lot of fun! I'd like that."

So they get home and plop her in the bath and drop in a fizzy bath bomb which is purple with gold glitter in it and then into bed.

That was a really fun bath and a cozy bed to end the very good day she has had.

Cheep has a pretty great nose and he's pretty sure that Meelia isn't in the city where he left her. Probably this is cause she went back to the place she last napped? He looks around for something going in that direction.

There are occasional trucks and buses and a surface train in that general direction, though none going very directly, so he might need a few changes of vehicle.

He can jump from vehicle to vehicle, just like his Meelia.

Then eventually as long as he's traveling in approximately the right direction he can reach striking distance of the farm.

Cheep is good at directions! He gets to the farm very late at night.

Everyone is asleep except for the night security grey, who is mostly not looking out for mice.

Cheep is excited to be back home* but won't wake Meelia up cause she should get sleep, even on adventures. Instead he cuddles up to her and gets some rest till morning.

*with Meelia.

Meelia wakes up earlier then the last day cause she is less ex-hausted and is super excited. 

Oh! There is a Cheep! Yay! Hugs for Cheep!

Eee! Hugs from his Meelia.

He is excited and has something to show her.

She can tell cause of how he's wiggle-vibrating!

She gets dressed in a jiffy, makes sure she has all her things (including her wooden sword strapped to her back), and heads out.

Security grey asks if she is going for a walk?

Cheep is taking her on an adventure!

Whereabouts? Does she have her pocket everything with her?

She doesn't know where! Wherever Cheep found an exciting thing.

She does not have her pocket everything, but that's a good idea so she'll get it before she goes.

Oh, good. As long as she has her pocket everything and it's charged she'll be able to let Haemi and Tish know if she needs help, does she know how to do that?

"I'm not sure what I'd need their help with but I think I'd press this button and then this button?"

"Yup, that'll let you talk to Tish, and if she doesn't answer you can try Haemi with this one. Have a fun adventure!"

Meelia sets out, guided by Cheep!

Cheep, running in front of her while she follows, brings her to the side of the big road he came from.

There are sure plenty of trucks on here, and a few buses.

"Cheep I can't just grab onto one of these cars, it'd scare the Amentans in them."

"Cheep!"

"Oh, I could probably do it without them noticing, you're right..."

(Cheep didn't actually say that but sometimes Meelia pretends he is saying things that she thinks he means.)

"That feels sorta bad though.... Like, I'd tricking them into doing a thing they might find scary?"

"Cheep!"

"Hm. You're right, it's okay for you to have done that. I think it's different for me though cause ....I guess cause with you it seemed more im-plaus-ible that they'd end up being scared but for me they might see me somehow even if I'm really careful and that might scare them. I think if I was definitely not going to be seen it would be okay though... But they might have everythings looking under their car or something, I don't know...."

"Cheep!"

"Okay I'll try a different thing first by seeing if one of the cars will notice me and help, and then if that doesn't work I'll try the hidey thing."

"Cheep!"

(Cheep doesn't know what's going on but his Meelia likes it when he adds in cheeps when she's making her sounds at him.)

Meelia waves her hand from the side of the road, trying to get the attention of a car or bus going in the right direction.

One of the buses comes to a halt. The driver leans out. "You lost, kiddo?"

"No! I'm on an adventure. I think your bus is going in the right direction, can I get on?"

"- uh - where are you going -"

"Cheep is bringing me somewhere he found."

She holds out Cheep to demonstrate.

Cheep continues looking like a mouse. He is not really certain what else is expected of him here.

"Where are your parents?"

"I don't have any?"

Oh wait, she can guess what is confusing him.

"I'm an amalien, not an Amentan or an animal."

"- oh. Uh, yeah, you can ride the bus, sure." He opens the door for her.

Meelia will ride the bus! Zoooom.

The bus actually goes between cities but he will stop between stops for her if she asks.

Cheep wants to get off here!

Meelia indeed asks to be left in-between stops, where Cheep wants her to go.

Okay. "Next time bring a bus pass or somebody who's got one!" the driver advises, letting her off.

Meelia doesn't know what that means but will figure it out later! Right now she will follow Cheep a bit off road to their final destination.

This takes her past a hospital and some government housing and a supplemented daycare and a purple school and some apartments and little stores, all a bit less nice than the ones she saw hanging out with Tish in the city yesterday, and then there is the fork in the road marked bright crimson. A delivery truck is trundling in.

None of those things seem very different, so they probably aren't the place Cheep was leading. She follows the crimson marked road, excited about adventure in a new place.

This isn't a highly trafficked area - there's a storage unit over there, a water treatment plant over there, bus garage with a lone fuel attendant in it this time of day. The delivery driver isn't checking her rearview.

Nobody spots Meelia going in, at least not if she finds a good hiding place right away. How about behind that big container full of boxes of shoe covers, conveniently right by the entrance?

That big container doesn't really look interesting to her so she's gonna walk past it.

She isn't trying to hide - people usually aren't scared of her like they are of Cheep.

Then several people will detect her in short order but not the deliverypurple, not right away, not before she has dropped a carton full of flour right on a red's foot and shouted at him to back off; he hops away, tears springing to his eyes. Then she unloads another carton and then she spots Meelia. "Hey, is that kid one of yours whose parents are looking to get arrested or did a clean kid wander in -"

"Not ours ma'am," someone says hastily, after a confused look at Meelia.

"Oh no, are you okay?"

Meelia is focusing on the person who is hurt, the other stuff doesn't seem that important.

The injured red looks at her in alarmed confusion and doesn't answer.

"Kid, you've gotta go that way, through that door there, the white door," says the purple, pointing. "That's the shower exit, it's got instructions on the wall. Do your parents know you're missing?"

"I'm not a kid and I don't have parents. I'm an amalien. And I don't want to shower right now."

Meelia knows a lot about hurt feet, is this one broken?

Hard to tell with the shoe on, but it looks plausibly broken insofar as she can discern information about it.

"Okay, well, amalien, you have to shower whether you feel like it or not," says the purple. "This is the red district and you aren't even wearing shoe covers, it's the law you have to decontam on your way out. I dunno who lost track of you but they'll tell you the same."

"I can shower on my way out I guess. But I'm not going out right now, I'm going in."

To the Amentan with the hurt foot: "I think your foot might be broken. I could help with that if you'd like? I've helped with a lot of broken feet before." Usually her own.

The hurt red is at this point sitting on the ground, propping up the bad foot on the opposite knee and scooting slowly backward. "I, uh. Shower exit. That way." Point.

Nod nod.

"I can go there afterwards don't worry."

She's not used to being scary to Amentans!

"I'm not scary, I promise."

"Not afterwards, there's nothing for it to be after, you shouldn't be here in the first place," says the purple.

Scoooooot away goes the red. Another red helps him up and he leans on them to hop down the street.

"I'm an adventurer and Cheep thought here would be good to explore since it looked different than other places."

Meelia is confused about why the Amentans are leaving! Maybe they have a good doctor somewhere.

"Yeah, it's different, in the sense that you should not explore it. Look, if I have to call the cops to make them put you through the shower instead of you just walking there yourself nobody's gonna have a fun time about that."

"Well, then I guess you shouldn't do it if it's not going to be fun?"

Meelia is really confused! And a bit worried - though she's very brave.

"The only option that is any more fun than that one is if you go, all by yourself, into the shower exit, right now, without trying to pet the reds or anything," says the purple firmly. "If I leave without making sure you're out I'm in trouble, if I stay here while you dawdle I'm late for my next delivery, if you leave any other way you get arrested and probably there's a huge to-do about arresting an alien but better that than you tracking pollution all across the city. You have to go. That way." Point, again, at the shower exit.

"Oh, how would you get in trouble? Also what do you mean by pollution? Also also, I can promise to do my best to go through the shower place when I go out."

"You promising to do your best is not me making sure."

"Oh, why do you need to make sure?"

"So I don't get in trouble. Look, I think probably you can find people way more interested in having this conversation or one like it with you than I am if you take your shower and go out and catch up with whoever you're staying with."

"What sorta trouble?"

Meelia is starting to think this is like the Giant Green Skeleton monster and his valley. The monster kept people away from a valley by crawling around it and swiping at people and someone had remembered from a while ago that there were amaliens in that valley and weren't sure the monster was friendly to them. So Meelia had gotten past the monster (even though it didn't want her to) to find the amaliens and then helped them leave so that monster could protect the valley without hurting amaliens. She was sad she'd had to make the monster angry to do that but she still thought it was the sort of important thing adventurers like her have to do sometimes. 

"With, I don't know, my boss, the cops, the government, anyone who realizes I'm right here and should have made sure you obeyed the law when you look awfully likely to not obey the law. Did anybody explain laws to you before you came here?"

"They said their were laws that were rules for everyone's own good. And this one doesn't seem very important for my own good. You can tell your boss and the cops and the government and anyone else to call me on my everything and I'll tell them you didn't do anything wrong."

"I think you maybe did not understand the explanation you got very well. Look, do you want me to call the cops? All they'll do is show up and put you through the shower without standing around asking nicely for nearly as long first."

"You aren't asking very nicely. I think I'm going to go check on the person whose foot got hurt now."

Meelia walks off, in the direction of the person who got hurt.

"Don't just stand there, you idiots!" the purple snaps at the reds who are indeed kind of just standing there.

"The doctor will take care of him, miss!" blurts a red. "It's very kind of you to want to help but we wouldn't like to bother the police over it!"

Meelia knows a bully when she sees one. Most amaliens aren't like that, but sometimes they are (usually cause they're very sad and angry and confused) and monsters are more often. 

"I can let the police know that there's nothing to worry about. If you really really want me to leave I can but you don't have to say that just cause she tells you to and is mean to you. I'm an adventurer and very good at helping, even when its hard and scary."

A red kind of stage-whispers to her, loudly enough to reach her but plausibly not enough to reach the purple, "We really really really really do not want cops here. Please do not make her call the cops."

Oh, cops are bullies too. And the mean Amentan here will call them. Its prolly easier for her to come back without letting this mean Amentan know about that then.

"Okay I'll leave. It was nice meeting you all."

She heads out through the exit shower.

The purple watches her, shoving out a few more cartons, and leaves as soon as the door clicks behind her.

There is a box that says it's for clothes and shoes and another that says it's for electronics and other non-textile items and both of these have signs saying that the following list of materials are likely to suffer damage for which the Castile Corp is not liable, and once she's divested of her possessions there is a door for her to proceed through.

The shower has several chambers to go through one at a time airlock style, each with instructions on the wall and buttons she can push to redo a section if she's not sure she did it right and a timed program and audio instructions available if she has trouble with reading in the steam of the hot water. There are a lot of kinds of soap. The complete program takes about five hours.

Meelia gets pretty confused about all this pretty fast! She looks around for a way to get out faster.

The shower doesn't have a way to tell if she doesn't actually scrub when she's supposed to, but it will not in fact let her out unless she pulls the fire alarm.

So. She could prolly break her way through all the glass and plastic and things but ... she's trying to be sneaky so no one is mean to the red haired Amentans. So she'll do this the hard way.

After another couple of hours she really really wants to get out but still isn't and it's so tiring and boring but sometimes adventures have bits like that. She starts doing acrobatic tricks to pass the time.

Eventually she's done! Finally!! She has defeated the terrible really long and bad shower. 

The last chamber returns her belongings and blows warm dry air at her!

Eee, that's sorta nice! She picks up her belongings (including Cheep, who doesn't shower) and sneaks out. She is really confused about what the shower is for but maybe it's just for being mean.

Cheep has gotten the same treatment as her pocket everything, which involved radiation bombardment and high temperatures and passing through some chambers with inhospitable gas mixes. He may have had even less fun than her even if his process was faster.

Cheep did not have a fun time at all! If he weren't a monster mouse he wouldn't be alive but instead he just had a very unfun time and a bunch of his hair fell out and also his body went to sleep even when he didn't want it to and he is really sad and kinda whimpering afterwards. 

"Cheep!!!"

Meelia very carefully hugs Cheep and cries and oh no this was even worse for him why'd they do that oh no oh no oh no.

Eventually she sneaks out, still cradling Cheep.

The door to the outside of the red district is by a police station and a loading zone for a shoe store and a military recruitment office and a lumber yard.

Meelia recognizes that that is a police station! She very carefully sneaks past to avoid being spotted on her way back into the red district. She's sorta scared now - she really really doesn't want that to happen again - but she's brave and adventuring means bad things happen sometimes. 

There is a truck departing the red district, and one coming back in, and they maneuver around each other at the aperture into the district.

Meelia rolls under the one coming in and clings to the bottom, sneaking out once it passes by a shadowy place in the red district. This time she won't be seen by anyone while she explores. She's not sure what's going on but she's going to find out cause that's what she does.

The truck she's clinging to parks in an underground garage and then two reds get out of it and plug it in and leave.

She sneaks out, avoiding people unless she's sure she can hide from them.

She can pretty easily creep around the parking garage, evading reds going to and returning from work in their various trucks.

So many people with red hair! She explores some more, still trying not to be seen.

Everyone here has red or pink hair!

If she goes over to the edge of the parking garage where it's open to the air she can see the street level. Rowhouses, cobblestones, an old lady sweeping the steps up to her home, a one year old playing with a nearly-empty container of red spray chalk and trying to make enough of it come out to draw a satisfying squiggle, somebody perched on an apartment building roof trying to clean out a gutter. She has a decent view into a fourth-story apartment being used as a salon where someone with purplish roots to their hair is getting it trimmed and dyed coral pink and coral red in streaks.

She sets out, looking for the person who whispered to her about not wanting the police earlier. As long as everyone has red hair she'll probably stop trying to hide so much.

The old lady with the broom yelps upon spotting her and disappears into her house.

Oh no! People are still scared of her. Maybe they think she's going to call the police? She'll continue walking around and try to find someone she can explain this too who isn't too scared.

The one year old with the chalk isn't scared! ...but her relative who's watching her from indoors is petrified and scoops her up and rushes her indoors.

"I'm not going to hurt you or tell the police or anything!" she yells to them as they go and hide.

They close their patchwork curtains firmly.

She keeps wandering to see if there's anyone who can explain things to her. She really doesn't want to scare people but she is worried and wants to help and can't do that without knowing what's going on.

Unfortunately, everyone is either terrified of her or caretaken by someone who is.

Meelia's pocket everything goes off.

She pokes at it.

"Why are you making that sound?"

It says that Tish Ahtemik is calling her and has marked this URGENT.

Does this green button work to answer the call?

It does!

"Meelia?"

"Tish!" 

"Are you in a red district? We heard from some people you'd wandered into one before but we were expecting you to come home after you'd gotten clean and now it looks like you're back in it? Did you drop something?"

"I'm exploring. And trying to find out why the person who made me take the Too Long shower was being mean to people here. They also seem scared of me and I don't know how to fix that."

"Oh, honey, this is complicated. We can talk about it when you're home but I'm afraid you're going to have to take another long shower again to get out of there without breaking the law. I can stay up late if you want to talk about it as soon as possible, I can even come get you at the exit when you're done cleaning up, but it's not a good place to go exploring."

"Last time I look a long shower it hurt Cheep a bunch!"

She also is suspicious about the idea that somewhere is not a good place to explore. 'less it's someone's private place but she doesn't think this is.

"Oh no, does soap hurt him? Is he with you again this time?"

"He's here! I didn't use soap on him cause he's a mouse monster and doesn't shower so I just put him with my pocket everything and he got really really hurt."

"- oh no, that must have been terrifying for both of you! Pocket everythings break if they get wet so they have to do other things to make them clean. This time you should keep him with you and just try to wash him, okay? He has to get clean but he's not a pocket everything at all."

"... The shower is really really long. And seems silly! I'm not even dirty."

"The place you are is really dirty! It might be that if you just walked there, and didn't touch anything you found, that only your shoes are dirty, but we can't be sure, and the law is about making it so everyone can be really, really sure. "

"It doesn't look dirty at all. Are you sure it didn't just used to be dirty and then it rained a bunch or something?"

"Even if some things in there aren't dirty, it's a place where we can't be sure, and we have to be able to be sure. This is really important to do the way everyone expects even if you have a really good reason to think your situation is special, I'm sorry the shower's so long but hopefully you won't ever have to do it again after you get out of there. Do you want me to - come in and help you and Cheep with it?"

"No I don't think another person should have to do the long shower...."

"I am still confused about why I have to do the long shower and it's really not fun but I'll do it and talk to you about it afterwards but it's important to me that you 'splain things to me, okay?"

"It's getting late but if you go through and get all cleaned up right now and take the jitney I'll send you straight home I will stay up long enough to talk about it tonight. Okay?"

"Hrm. Okay."

Meelia goes with Cheep to do that.

It takes so so long but at least she has Cheep for company and she is super annoyed cause she isn't even dirty and and it's soooo long. She runs out of gymnastics she can do without hurting herself for a while and considers doing more dangerous ones but decides she might need to be ready to do them soon afterwards.

When she's out there's a jitney waiting for her and the driver to see that she and Cheep board it as expected and drive them through the darkness back to the farm. Haemi's asleep, but Tish is up waiting; she's got the TV on an action movie to keep herself awake, though she's yawning. She gathers Meelia up in a hug when the driver drops her off.

Meelia hugs back a little, but not as much as she wants to cause she's confused and worried about Tish being wrong about important things.

Tish plops the both of them down on the sofa and turns off the TV. "Okay. You have questions?"

"Yes."

She figured out what to ask while she was in the second really long shower. 

"I have a lot of questions, I can ask them one at a time I guess."

"Why were the people with red hair scared of me?"

"They didn't want anyone to think they were breaking the law, or trying to get you to break the law, or letting each other get away with breaking the law."

"Why not? Also why would they be breaking the law?"

She sorta assumed people wouldn't be scared of breaking laws they didn't want to break, cause then why would the things be laws.

"- well, breaking the law is really bad. There are so many Amentans and we live so close together that we all need to follow the rules we've made that let us coexist comfortably and be sure that we're all doing that together. So they preferred you to show up back here and say 'they were scared of me!' because then we assume none of them tried to touch you or take anything from you or anything like that, that they all left you alone. If you came here and said you'd made friends with some of them we'd have no idea what had happened in enough detail to know if they'd done something they shouldn't or not, not without sending someone to talk to them for more information, and they don't want that, they've got other things to do."

"... Is it breaking the law for them to touch me?"

"Not necessarily, actually! But it'd be much more likely to be against the law than if they don't touch you, so since they want everyone to be sure, they didn't touch you."

"I'm confused about why there are laws about this and why they just wouldn't agree not to touch me without everyone having to get really worried that they did."

"I don't think anyone's very worried that they touched you. You just told us they were scared of you, which I'm figuring means they gave you lots of space and didn't even come close. But the place they live could be very dirty so we were worried about that."

"It wasn't though. Also I knew they were scared of me cause they wouldn't talk to me and ran away."

"It might not have looked dirty, but a lot of the things that can make people sick aren't actually things you can see by looking like that."

"Are the people with red hair sick?"

"Sometimes, yes. And even people who aren't sick can carry diseases."

"Are you saying that the people with red hair carry diseases and that's why they have to be away from everyone and are scared of touching?"

"It's a little more complicated than that but it's a good simplification."

"Please could you tell me the complicated version. I think it's probably important."

Tish yawns, but then sighs and nods. "Okay. Reds are polluted. That's a lot like carrying disease, but it isn't literally the same thing. Things they touch are also polluted. So are poop and pee and dead bodies and vomit and pus. Reds' jobs are to keep all that pollution away from everyone else. You can wash pollution off, like you did today, but they can't, so they live separately and make sure that anything they touch outside their district is marked and we know to get it cleaned. It's illegal to spread pollution, it's one of the most serious crimes on Amenta."

"That sounds super sad! Why aren't people nicer to them?"

"- pardon?"

"They seemed scared like they expected people to be mean to them! And also the delivery person who made me take the first shower called them names and hurt one of them without saying sorry or apol-o-gizing."

"Well, I don't know that deliveryperson or what was going on with them, but they were probably scared because they didn't know if you would be cooperating with helping them follow the law."

"Do a lot of people not co-op-erate with that?"