"I don't want them to think I'm picking favorites. We could've landed on them too."

"I agree! Random is not a good way to pick who to meet. You will have to pick somehow, though, there are two hundred countries and they all sent delegates as soon as we said yes of course you can talk to the aliens."

"Oh boy. Uh."

"We can advise but that maybe misses the point."

"I don't know that I can improve on random..."

"You could do big countries before small ones? Big countries have less variance, they are not usually very liberal or very conservative."

"How big is 'big', here -"

"There are two countries with more than ten hundred million people and eight countries with more than five hundred million."

"Aaaah."

"They will understand if you want to wait more."

"That's not it, that's just - huge. Uh, maybe they could send me written questions."

"I will let them know."

"Then I can decide whose questions I like best and meet them."

"Sounds great!" He taps at his device.

Meanwhile, Penumbra turns invisible again and goes out the window.

"Have fun!" they call after her absently. 

She flies. Takes a different route than last time.

Maurabel awaits questions from foreigners!

Foreigners want to know if she'd like to visit their countries and various historical and cultural monuments within, and if they can get her anything or get her world anything, and what her world is like, and what the interdimensional travel is like, and whether her country would like to ally with theirs, and whether she would like to try their food, and whether she would like citizenship and arbitrarily many children for her and her family.

She might travel more at some point. She is comfortable and not yet entertaining trade agreements on behalf of her world. Her world is low tech and undergoing a magical revolution and does not have castes. The colors between worlds are pretty crazy. She is not a representative of her country per se. She would probably like to try their food. She does not especially want kids right now and neither of her parents has even remarried since the divorce.

When she travels they hope she'll come here! Someone hints ominously that they hope Anitam will let her. They can trade her world so many things if it's low tech. They'll send their food. Tell them more about the colors between worlds?

Anitam had better not try to stop her.

Both shine and shadow magic can involve seeing light or its absence differently. Traveling by a combination of the two got indescribably strange.

More questions about her world and offers to give her things pour in. Someone asks if Penumbra would like any of the offered things either.

She'll ask when Penumbra gets back.

"Are the blues being tolerable?" he asks when he brings lunch.

"They keep offering me stuff."