She smiles, nods, and noms more stew.

"Anything you want me to bring back from the city, since we're heading out there?"

Shrug. "I get what I need when the caravan comes through. I'm keen to see what you make of those iceless iceboxes, though."

"Well, for that, the best thing is just to hurry my cute ass to the city." She finishes up her stew and clears the bowl.

Lily clears her own bowl, and says, "I'll likely be out harvesting when you get back, so just find me in the fields and I'll let you into the house to pack vegetables out of the pantry."

She smiles softly, tenderly at her. "Thank you, Lily, for being our first friend in this world."

Lily smiles wryly back. "Sure. Now get out there and make more friends."

She laughs. "Yes ma'am!" Out the door she goes. She waves fondly, and then strides off.

Hmmm, can she do the travel thing too? Probably. Can she do it as well as Maya? Remains to be seen. She focuses her mind firmly on going to Palla's, to see if Torok is there.

And she strides.

Not quite as dramatically as Maya, but she can get to Palla's plenty fast.

Torok is there! He and Palla are eating breakfast.

Instead of the worn and comfortable work clothes obviously bartered from Lily that he was wearing yesterday, he's covered in a gleaming black carapace of finely articulated armor in a glossy black substance very reminiscent of chitin. He still has the same roomy leather backpack he did before, but it's hanging from his shoulders loose and light and obviously empty.

"Good morning, beautiful people," she calls out! "Especially with your gorgeous new armor, Torok! I'll let y'all finish breakfast, but then I need to borrow the cute boy for a hike to the city."

She hops up onto Palla's deck, grinning shamelessly.

"Somebody's chipper this morning." He seems pleased about it, though.

"Despite the tech thing yesterday, things are going really well. So yeah, I'm in a good mood."

"I'm glad!" Om nom fish.

She scoops a cup of water from the barrel and sips it while she waits.

Doesn't take long.

"Thanks, Palla!"

"Anytime."

"So, the city?"

She leads the way. "Lily's first. We've earned quite a few vegetables over the past couple days, and rations to feed ourselves and our handsome bodyguard seem prudent."

"—you keep flirting with me and I keep—I guess, feeling like you don't really mean it, or something? That's not quite it. You seem—friendly and interested and—something feels wrong but I can't tell what it is."

"Oh. I... part of it is I'm not used to knowing any guys worth falling for, only girls. Part of it is I still don't expect that interest in someone means I get to keep them. Part of it is I'm obligate polyamorous and instinctively don't want to inflict that on people, since I'm from a culture that is obsessed with monogamy. Part of it is I'm still recalibrating for this world being about lust where I'm about love. And I cope with that combined mess by teasing and flustering people I'm interested in if possible, because it's safe and commits to nothing."

"Oh. Maybe that makes sense? ...what's polyamorous mean?"

"It's when you love multiple people instead of just one. I'm wired weird and basically can't love just one."

"...I guess... most people do do the just one person thing... to be honest it sorta hadn't occurred to me to try it. I think I mostly just... have friends... and also some of them want to have sex with me? I wouldn't even know how to start not doing that."

She giggles and grins. "We can be 'I don't understand monogamy' buddies! More seriously, the only thing I think is really different from the thing you're doing and the thing I'm doing is that I get really attached to all of those people and have warm squishy feelings about them, while you just hang out and sometimes fuck, and maybe don't also do all the warm squishy feelings."