"...what would you have expected? What do you think I'm here for?"

"I am able to pick up that you care, but at least partially I think that's due to my having spent a lot more time interacting with Amentans than most amaliens have. By amalien standards you.... Hm. If you were an amalien I might guess that you were dissociating in order to be able to pretend you weren't having emotions for some reason?"

"Um. I guess maybe you are doing that and I can't tell?"

"I wouldn't put it that way. I'm - there is no straightforward way to work on this. Not for a grey. I could do some damage trying to be dramatic about it, if I wanted, but that would just get me killed and probably whoever I was dramatic near too. I was trying extremely low-probability strategies for lack of a better way to go but the most likely thing was always that I would fail completely. And I didn't see anything so likely to help that I wanted to be broke or sterile or dead to get it. People who try to get things they want that way don't get them, by and large. While I have been doing all the things that I have been doing, therefore, I have also needed income - grey income and I have a balance disorder and don't fit well in grey culture - and to pace myself so I remain sane. If you have a promising solution I will throw myself at it but I did not have one."

Oh, she is a good.

"I think there are a bunch of possible way amaliens can help solve - among other things there's a hundred thousand of us and about as many monsters and we're going to try our very very best."

"I'm um. Happy to have you as an ally for this."

"Likewise. Finessed right, adorable aliens wanting reds to be okay is the best news for reds we've ever gotten."

Lucien is going to be so good at finessing. 

"I'll be right back."

He returns to Keetim proper to see Meelia.

Meelia is busy getting hugged by Keeta who has missed her and is happy to have her back and is proud of her for doing so well and knows she did as much as she could and is going to keep loving her even if she did mess up and hurt a bunch of people. 

"Everything okay?" she asks Lucien.

"No."

"Want to join the hug pile 'bout it?"

"... for a bit yeah."

Keeta can hug two people at once - it's an important skill for a mayor.

"Meelia, you were right. About everything."

"We're all gonna work together on this and we will try very very hard to solve it. Won't be you alone."

Hugs. Meelia has complicated feelings about being right. Hugs...

"How can I help?"

"I need to gather people here. Same sort of group as during the first contact. Plus Vira."

Hugs.

"Okay."

Meelia has one last big hug with both of them and disentangles herself. 

Lucien takes a bit longer to disentangle himself. He is um. A little bit hug deprived.

... but he has a lot to do so he leaves soon after.

"Sorry um. Where were we?"

"I said something about how cute aliens wanting to help red would be the best thing that ever happened to them if we handled it right?"

"Oh yeah. We were also going to talk about you needing income?"

"Usually what I do is write a blog about sports statistics, with some politics articles and other stuff insofar as I have the wiggle room. I could probably toss off some articles about amalien sports if those exist and coast for a while on that. I'm also getting paid for having escorted Meelia here. But if you have money and wanted to call me your security guard that would be lowest-friction."

"That's exactly what I was thinking. Not sure if Vira is close to getting income set-up, we can ask her while we wait."

Lucien would also like to know if Pelape needs to make more than his rent in the short-term.

"Not in the short term, no, I can pay even the local food prices for weeks if not months."

"Okay. Would you accept a promise of future compensation, with some amount of bonus to make up for the poss-ibility that things go wrong and we can't pay you?"

"Yeah, that will work fine. I'll need a few days to get used to the local cost of living to be any help at coming to a figure."

"We could also provide you with living accommodations outside the city. Might be that's important to you being able to work with us depending on what plan we end up going with."