The pharmacist produces four bottles of pills. "Adrenda is a brand name - it's what would be known in your world as cyproacetate. Cycloterine is a hormone system regulator that doesn't exist on your world - it helps with libido and preventing hot flashes. All four are pills."

"Well that's handy. All four daily, or more often than that?"

"All four daily, yes. Best taken together in the morning."

"And if I'm coming off a twice-daily regimen and my body thinks it's evening due to the time difference, should I just take a round now and then get on the normal routine with breakfast tomorrow?"

"Yes, that should be safe. If you prefer a split dose for more even hormone balance through the day then I can do the estrogen split, but with the Cyloterine involved it generally doesn't make much of a difference. I'll give you the medication sheets for full disclosure. The cycloterine shouldn't have side effects, but if it does it'll likely be making you a little more susceptible to cold or a little more prone to dehydration. There are the usual cases of rare but serious side effects as well, but practically you don't need to worry about them."

"Thank you, Docila. I'll stick with the daily for these. Anything you need from me?"

"In the longer term the doctor will probably want bloodwork done, both for your hormones and as a screen for any earth-native pathogens in your system before you leave the housing complex for the first time. I don't know what all would be ordered for that, you'd have to talk to the doctor. All the staff have been vaccinated against the major earth diseases but that's not the case of the general Balacian population."

Clematis gives Sable a small shrug. "Up to you whether you want to do that now." 

She frowns thoughtfully. "Much as I love getting medical stuff out of the way, I think I need food and to settle in before I do that. Probably tomorrow, I think?"

"Entirely reasonable. Do you want to drop by the bistro now, or pick some stuff up from the convenience store, or see the rest of the complex? Right now you're stuck on the complex until that bloodwork is done, but there's a couple other places to see — the offices for therapy and bureaucracy, the rec room, the library, the lacrosse courts, your apartment. You can also get things delivered to the complex if there's something in particular you need, such as more extensive groceries." 

"Bistro, I think. I'd been pretty close to making food before the summoning caught me, and I can take the pills at the same time."

She shakes her head. "I probably should be worrying about how much all this costs, but I don't know how much my stipend is or how much stuff that amount of currency buys, so the numbers probably won't be meaningful to me yet."

"Don't worry too much; the stipend is intended to let you live comfortably on the complex, and while it won't allow you many off-complex luxuries, if you need funds for essentials your expenses may be reimbursable. We want to give our refugees a chance at a real start. That said, if you decide to, I don't know, purchase a new high-end television with your funds and then not have enough left for food, we might have words at that point. But so long as you're not blatantly profligate we'll work with you during your adjustment period."

Clematis leads Sable across to the bistro, and gestures to the offerings. "Pick whatever you like, I'll cover it this time."

There is quite a range of tasty-looking things for sale. Persine-nut meal bars, persine and squash cassserole, persine hand pies, barbecued pineapple and chicken skewers, wraps (sliced persine and cheese, halibut in a spicy sauce, persine nut butter and jam, persine flesh and berries drizzled in honey), mini chicken curry, cornbread muffins with persine nut butter, fried eggs and hashbrowns with goat sausage, goat rib sandwich with persine chutney to dip in, persine nut cake... 

It is quite an extensive menu and almost all of it uses persines somehow. 

"Yeah, that should be more than enough. The most expensive thing I'm likely to get in the next several months is a computer to look into learning the local programming languages, in hopes of making my main career skill usable here. Probably save up for that or something."

She looks over the menu, then licks her lips. "Wow. all of this looks good. I think I want the sandwich and dip, and probably something to drink."

The woman behind the counter speaks up, adjusting one of her hoop earrings. "We have calvera — sort of like hot chocolate, it's made from ground persine nuts — wintergreen soda, several flavors of fruity yogurt drink, goat milk, apple-orange-persine juice, straight persine juice, and honeyed chamomile tea."

"Ooh. Calvera sounds lovely, thank you," she replies with a warm smile.

The woman behind the counter plates up Sable's order, and Clematis steps forwards and pays with a tap of her phone. 

"Here you go, enjoy!"

There's a small bar along the side of the bistro counter, or Sable can take one of the lounging-booths and sprawl out a bit.

"Thank you!"

Oh now this is a tough decision.

<The bar will get you more conversation, which I know you want,> Hailey points out.

Maya counters, <But the booth will let you ask Clematis some more-private questions, and we do have some of those.>

She settles on the booth.

Clematis comes and settles on the far side of the booth from Sable a minute later, sprawling out casually. She's bought a paper cup of calvera and a sliced persine and cheese wrap, which is bundled up in a paper wrapper and on a paper plate.

"So yeah, if there's anything you'd like to talk about go ahead, or you can just ignore me and I'll research that pleat list on my phone. It's fine if you're not interested in conversation, I know this is a lot to take in."

Sable takes a deep breath. "I do have a few questions. I'm... embarrassed, even though I know it's probably not taboo here like it was on Earth, but... getting over my nerves about it will take time and practice. Given how much more present sexuality is here I need to ask this stuff, so..."

She looks down, gathering her thoughts.

Clematis nods thoughtfully and sips her calvera, giving Sable time.

She blushes, but steels herself and asks, "What's the range of known and accepted kink look like here? Just in generalities?"

"Let me see..." Clematis folds her hands in her lap. 

"Speaking generally, there's a broader variety of accepted kinks on Forest, or things that are merely considered part of sexuality. Pleat is one of those things. It is generally accepted that what you pleat is not, in a real sense, a choice, but instead is an expression of something core to you. I've seen people pleat everything from the color blue to mythological creatures to siblings, parents, teachers, doctors, villians, heroes, predators, persines — yes, I do mean the fruit —, abusers... the words for kink from your world don't translate exactly but there's approximants for words like slut, whore, bitch, and so on, though in our language they are not perjorative. For slut or whore we say instead Voluptaten, one who causes pleasure, and for bitch and other words that exist to degrade we instead say Denigre, one who is lower or worthless. Similarly language such as sadist and masochist transfers — we say Dolorate, one who inflicts pain, and Dolorin, one who suffers pain. Most kinks on earth have an accepted equivalent in Balacia."

Clematis taps her fingers against the tabletop.

"In our world fantasies based on sexual violence are rarer, fantasies based on pregnancy and child raising are considered somewhat more extreme due to the degree of effort required to eliminate persines from the diet in preparation for pregnancy, and the rest are broadly more accepted."

Sable nods, taking a breath.

<Sounds like I'm covered, at least,> Hailey notes. <Actually, since you're this nervous...>

Hailey steps into front smoothly. Clematis might notice a change, comparing Hailey's voice and diction to Sable's — consonants a bit sharper, resonance a bit tighter.

"Is there a word that straddles both Dolorate and Dolorin? And what about kinks that cannot safely be implemented physically?"