"Thanks for that."

Hailey follows her. Presumably they're going to floor fifteen?

They are indeed.

Clematis disembarks from the elevator, goes down a short hallway, and produces a key from her pocket labelled 1504. She hands it to Hailey. 

"Be my guest," she says.

She takes the key, opens the door, and steps inside, looking around curiously.

There's a small living room with a large bed slash couch and a coffee table in front of it. The other side of the room is a fully-equipped kitchenette with a toaster, a two-burner stove and oven, a microwave, a sink, a tiny dishwasher, several cupboards, and an eating-table with two high-backed chairs with arms. There's a window on the far side of the room which looks out over the city; it seems they're on a river near the city's heart. There are open doors to a familiar-looking bathroom, a bedroom, and a small balcony.

"Oh this is really cute. We like it."

She sets the bags down on the coffee table.

"We'll sort this shit out when we get home. To Paperwork Land, then?"

"Yes, that'll be the administration building." 

Back down the elevator and across the courtyard to the cinderblock building they go. Eventually they arrive at a small office, currently unoccupied.

Clematis takes the chair behind the desk and gestures for Hailey to take the opposing chair. "So, legally you're one person, sorry about that but multiplicity hasn't gotten through the courts yet. We'll have to set up a legal identity first, but then there's a whole gaggle of other forms to fill out."

She pulls a folder of forms out of her desk drawer and places it before Hailey. 

She nods, and opens the folder, tilting her head at the forms. "Yeah. Legally we'll put Sable's name on everything, she's the host and the personable one and all that."

She starts skimming through the forms, setting aside the ones that are comparatively simple and don't promise anything they don't know enough about yet — mostly the identity and banking forms — and then starts carefully paging through the laws-and-immigration one. "No time like the present," she mutters.

Clematis gives Hailey time, and offers a few pointers here and there. There isn't anything too outrageous in the forms; the law system of Balacia seems to be fairly similar to Canada's, though with notable differences around sexual services (which are entirely legal.) 

There are quite a few pages to get through, but gradually the stack of paperwork is whittled down. Form after form is filled out, sometimes in multiple carbon copies. And after a few hours, everything is dealt with. 

"Here's your program phone," Clematis says eventually, handing over a sleek black rectangle. "You'll still need to set up your banking app for contactless payments, and it may take a few hours for your account to be created, but everything should work out just fine. Welcome to Balacia; once your forms of intent to stay are processed there'll be a citizenship oath ceremony in a few days."

"Whew." She exhales in relief. "Lotta forms. Glad to get 'em done, though, and glad to have lucked into y'all finding us. Thanks for all the help."

"It's no trouble. I'm going to be off the clock pretty soon, so we should pick up some toiletries and initial groceries with my card so you're not missing anything essential before nine tomorrow morning; after that, I recommend you check out the rec room or library for the evening, they're on the second floors of the apartment buildings."

She nods. "Sounds like a plan. Lead the way, Mentera."

"Of course, Dolorate."

And off they go back to the grocery store. The displays of persines, goat cheese and goat meat, and dried goods with unfamiliar branding are all still there. 

"If you're going to stay here, it's a good idea to get used to preparing persines. There's also plenty of frozen wraps in the freezer aisle if you want something easy you can just microwave. Do you want something more familiar to north american cuisine, or do you want to experiment?"

"I like cooking. Let's go for experimenting. Probably some frozen wraps too, in case we have a down day, but I'm looking forward to learning." She grabs a few packs of wraps and tosses them in a cart, then follows Clematis toward the actual ingredients.

The grocery has a lot of stuff!

Clematis starts with the produce section. It contains:

— Persines, obviously, in great quantity and many varietals and crossbreeds, and their nuts. There are some tempting looking crossbreeds with nectarines (persweets) and plums (plusines).

— Citrus fruit in a wide variety, ranging from lemons to limes to oranges. The "standard" citrus fruit with the most varieties appears to be what would be called a tangelo on earth. 

— Many varieties of squashes, again heavily crossbred; some varieties are advertised as seedless. 

— Berries, including an unfamiliar ridged orange one called "winterberry". Strawberries, blueberries and blackberries are all represented as well. 

— Brassicas. Broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, turnips, cabbage, brussles sprouts, and kholrabi. 

— Carrots and potatoes. 

— Corn, again in a couple varieties. 

— Apples are present, but seem to have been largely outcompeted by persines and citrus for the title of Best Fruit. There's only one variety at this store. 

— There's a display of condensed fruit bars here too, which are mostly persine, plusine, and persweet based. 

That's all that's available on a very first pass through. It's a fairly small grocery store.

Damn, that's a very fruit- and veggie-centric cuisine. She's fascinated. She gets a bunch of persines and nuts, some persweets, a few plusines, several of the tangelo-looking thing, some seedless squashes, several berries, plenty of veggies, corn, and a few bars. Then she starts looking for something tortilla-ish or bread-ish to unlock sandwiches or wraps as a cuisine direction.

She's kinda excited. Been a while since she got to fuck with new cuisine.

There is a whole aisle full of pitas, naan, tortillas, and other wrap-making flatbreads! On the end of it is a small display of loaves, in two varieties. (White and multigrain.)

The other side of the pita aisle is filled with sauces, ranging from persica chutney to a spicy-sweet sauce that Clematis says is a little like sriracha. There's also a small section of dried goods in the aisle, mainly various varieties of cracker.

Hell yes. Pitas, naan, tortillas, yes please. Into the cart those go. She... will not actually get a loaf of bread, just because they've never been as reliable as they'd like at finishing loaves of bread before they go bad. Definitely sauces. The chutney for sure, the sriracha-ish one, a couple others, a few crackers too...

Is there anything else Clematis would recommend she stock up on?

"There's some nice yogurt drinks in the dairy section? I'm assuming you haven't missed the deli completely."

Hailey slaps the side of her head and sighs. "Nope, totally missed the deli. Because apparently Sable's ditziness leaks when we're isekai-lagged." She heads over, grabs deli meats and cheeses, gets some yogurt drinks, and then heads to checkout.

"Alright," Clematis says, paying for the groceries. "Let's get these back to your apartment."

Hailey smiles lightly, grabs the majority of the bags, and nods. "Off we go."

As they head to the elevator, she turns to Clematis. "Thank you for all this."

"Just doing my job. But you're welcome."

One elevator ride later, Clematis helps Sable pack away all the groceries. 

"Check for toiletries you need?" she asks.

She looks through the basics that came with the apartment — unscented baby shampoo, toilet paper, jasmine toothpaste, manual toothbrush still in the package, a couple bars of worn soap that smell a bit floral — and then nods. "This stuff will do until we can do some research on nice conditioner. Need a deodorant but that can wait until tomorrow morning."

She shrugs.

"Alright. Then have a nice night! Any final questioms before I go?"

"Any particular time you wanna see us tomorrow?"