"Thanks!"

Hel suppresses a shudder at the word "parlor", then nods and walks over to the coffee table to look through the books.

There's a stack of five novels and a short story collection and each has a sticky-note on it with a brief overview. Her options are:

Kalun: An Imperial Tragedy ("historical novel, set in neighboring country Anitam, incredibly sad")
Mine, Ours ("classic orange romance")
The Dynasty of Sah ("high fantasy adventure, has seven sequels if you like it")
The Moons Your Eyes ("lowbrow sci-fi drama, lots of wish fulfillment")
How To Say Hello in Oahkar ("immigration experience story meets thriller")
Essential Works of Modern Tapai Short Fiction

Hel picks up the high fantasy and sci-fi dramas, then heads back to her room to change clothes. Once re-dressed she heads outside to see if she can find somewhere to sit and read for a while.

There's some yard furniture!

Hel makes herself comfortable in a lawn chair (moving it into the shade - the sun is still a bit ... bright) and settles in to read for a while. She decides to start with the fantasy novel.

Sah is a fantasy realm with fractal geography; the main character enters at a point where things of objective sizes like atoms are the same as in the world of ordinary physics, but can go along magical paths to larger and smaller areas, growing and shrinking accordingly, forever in both directions along any of the relevant spurs of the fractal in question. It's inhabited by Amentans who settled the place some thousand years ago and have developed differently since then - there's details on the alternate caste system and political structures, descriptions of cuisine based on what grows well in Sah and architecture oriented to the weather in Sah, and so on. The real estate is, naturally, infinite. The plot concerns the first kingdom she meets trying to break free of the yoke of a power center, and the protagonist (purple) helps with war fortifications, though she never touches a weapon, and gets into a love triangle. Because of the locally relevant caste system she is then able to be granted an in to the ruling family of her kingdom - a peripheral branch wherein she is a gentry plantation-lord in service to their rulership, but the love triangle option she selects means her kids will have an in to be at the top - and has an epilogue wherein she is blessed with six such kids.

Hel heads back inside after reading for a while to get some food. She's uncertain what's even available.

Shenno's in the kitchen! There's crackers and a couple dishes of various relishes and cheeses to go on them on the counter under a glass bell. "Hi! Can I get you anything?" he asks.

"I am feeling hungry, but I don't know what to ask for. ... Do you have anything you particularly like making?"

"The stuff I like enough to want an excuse takes a long time, but I can prep something like that for dinner if you like! For lunch I usually do noodle soup."

"That sounds great! It sounds like something one of my friends would make."

He puts the kettle on and preps her a bowl of instant noodles. "Egg? Onion? Mushrooms? Chicken? Bean powder?"

"Egg, mushrooms, and chicken sound wonderful."

He tempers an egg to stir into the broth, and pours the kettle over the flavor packet and some chicken out of the fridge and some dried mushrooms. Stir stir and here is her bowl of soup.

Hel accepts it with a smile. "Thank you!"

She happily digs in.

It's mass produced hyperpalatable seasoning in hot fresh noodle soup with her chosen add-ins! Whether she likes it will depend on her opinion on those things.

It's not too different from some of the food back home - better from the add-ins. She's happy with it.

"So, what else do you do besides cook?" she asks, feeling somewhat awkward.

"I do general high-clearance domestic maintenance stuff! I clean and handle laundry, stock up household items, and basic repairs and gardening and things like that. When your shopper drops things off I'll be getting them all out of their packaging and making sure they're what they're supposed to be, that sort of thing."

Hel nods in understanding.

"Gardening? What sort of things do you grow?"

"Oh, here in particular gardening just means trimming and weeding and edging and spraying for bugs that are trying to eat the flowers, I'm not planting carrots here."

Hel nods, then finishes up her soup.

"Thanks for this," she says as she moves to clean up the dishes.

He takes them as she gathers them up. "You're welcome! It's so thrilling to have you here, really, I'm just glad I get to be near the excitement."