After Mordecai examined her, Fuyuko stayed as curled up in her papa's lap as she could manage. It was a little awkward given that she was taller than him, but it felt safe and a little bit like she could hide there, which she wanted to do now that she was feeling embarrassed.

A few moments after that examination, her message ring activated and she silently accepted the connection from Shizoku. "Hey, are you alright?" the younger girl asked. "Your dot disappeared briefly on our rings, and when it came back, it was a lot fainter."

Oh, right, Fuyuko had forgotten about the rings' ability to point at each other. It was a good thing she hadn't tried to sneak up on them yet for her game. She concentrated on silently replying by 'talking' with only a hint of sound. It was hard, but she had been practicing so that she could use the ring while being sneaky. "Yeah, sorry, I'm fine and with my parents now. I tried to make too big a jump, I can tell you about it later." She didn't want to say a lot, partially because she wanted to listen to everyone talk and partially because this sub-vocalization thing took a lot of concentration.

"Alright, good," Shizoku said with relief, but then her tone shifted to mischievous. "Well then, this should be entertaining in a little bit, make sure to keep me updated."

"Um, sure?" Fuyuko replied in confusion. The little fox was up to something —the little fox was always up to something— but Fuyuko had no idea what it was this time. So she turned her attention to listening in on the conversation around her.

Papa's friend Seshadri was kinda strange, but he seemed nice enough. He even said to not worry about the cost of the window that Carnelian and Sparks had broken — it had been broken as a reasonable response to a situation that his people had caused. Seshadri also thought a lot of things Mordecai told him about what had happened were funny, which Fuyuko didn't get until she thought about if one of her friends was saying all these things had happened to them. Then it made a lot more sense.

Then Mama M asked about Amrydor, and the reason why she asked became obvious when her friend stumbled in through the door. Oh no, he had run here because of her, hadn't he? That was embarrassing, but worry drove her to shove that aside as she got up and dashed over to his side.

"Amry? Are you alright? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you worry. Shizo was worried too. Here, you can sit up against the wall, it's nice and cool." Fuyuko helped him shuffle over to the side and then roll back to sit against the ruddy sandstone wall so that Moriko could close the door. "Here, let me get you some water."

She was interrupted by Mama M who said, "No, not yet. If he drinks anything right now, he'll get sick. Let's cool him down a bit first."

Fuyuko fidgeted from the lack of anything to do while she worried, but that did give her enough time to remember what Shizoku had said, so she sent a message saying, "You saw Amrydor running, didn't you? He's recovering, but he doesn't look good."

Shizoku replied with, "Wait, he's there already? You must have scared him a lot; so what didn't you tell me?"

Guiltily, Fuyuko said, "I couldn't actually complete the jump. Papa had to yank me out. I think I was falling all the way into the shadow realm."

There was a moment of silence followed by a deep sigh before Shizoku said, "And your parents were upset about me flying to the nexus as an owl. I think your stunt was worse."

Fuyuko frowned. She wanted to argue as she was pretty certain that it would be easier for Mordecai to fetch her than it would have been to find Shizoku in the snow, but if you didn't include someone being able to rescue you, then maybe the jump was worse. "Maybe." That was all she was willing to say on it for now.

When Amrydor had recovered enough to talk, and he'd drunk down both water and a recovery potion, he pointed at Fuyuko and said, "Your life aura normally just sorta fades in a weird 'direction'. You disappeared this time. Please don't do that."

Fuyuko was about to promise, but she found herself unable to speak suddenly. Then she caught up with what part of her was already thinking about, and, well, she couldn't lie. Instead, she smiled sweetly and said, "Thank you for giving me a tip on how to sneak up on you."

Amrydor's eyes widened for a moment, then he closed them and hit the wall with the back of his head. "Girls are impossible sometimes. Speaking of, um, it seems Gemeti followed me. I think she's flying?"

Gemeti? Oh, that must have been the girl he'd been talking to. He must be able to sense her life signature too. Fuyuko got up and opened the door to see Gemeti carefully landing a flying carpet on the walkway outside.

"Oh!" Gemeti said with a smile, "It looks like I was right about where he was headed. He was hard to follow by the time I got this rented, and I wasn't going to try running like he did. Thanks for the coins by the way, I could only afford to rent this because of them."

The 'carpet' in question did not lie nearly flat like the drawings Fuyuko had seen before. Instead, it was a much thicker material that had raised edges and was slightly concave, even when laying on the ground. It also had a bunch of pillows or cushions built along the back edge, for more comfortable seating.

At a command from Gemeti, the edges and pillows folded in to somehow lay flat, and then the whole thing rolled up tightly and stood on edge for Gemeti to grab.

Fuyuko shook off her surprise and stepped back to let her in. "Um, he's right here, don't trip over him, I don't think he can move yet." As the girl walked in, Fuyuko decided to make introductions since Amrydor didn't look up for it. "Gemeti, right? I'm Fuyuko. That's my papa Mordecai, my mama Kazue, my mama Moriko, and-"

Before Fuyuko could make the next introduction, Gemeti stiffened with surprise then gave a small bow, mostly with her head, and said, "Sir."

Seshadri raised a brow and asked, "Have we met ?"

Gemeti shook her head and said, "No sir, we're an independent shop."

"I see," he replied thoughtfully. "Well, if your family decides to apply, you've just earned some favor toward that. I like it when people look after visitors, and you took good initiative. Turn this in if you apply to our clan and I can vouch for you." He flipped a silvery token toward Gemeti like a coin.

Fuyuko snatched it out of the air.

Seshadri and Gemeti stared at her in surprise, but Fuyuko barely noticed as she stared at her hand trying to figure out why she did that.

"Fuyuko," Mordecai said, looking thoughtful, "where's your heaviest coin pouch?"

Her heaviest? Oh! She turned toward Gemeti with an embarrassed smile. "Sorry about that, um, that was your mom at the stall earlier, right? I think you might want to talk to her about not being so quick to call the guards if there's little kids involved."

She handed the token over to a confused looking Gemeti, who asked, "Wait, who are we supposed to fetch then?"

"Us," Seshadri said as he relaxed. "I should have guessed she'd be on that path. Oh, and Mordi, did you give her three purses? You should at least give me credit for teaching you that one. Wait," He frowned and looked at the money necklaces Kazue and Moriko were wearing, "Just how much did you give her?"

"Enough so she could feel comfortable giving gifts to any of her friends and peers," Mordecai replied.

Seshadri shook his head. "I think I'll pass on knowing exactly what that means, but it sounds like you're making connections."

Mordecai shrugged and said, "Most of the connections are making themselves, I just have to curate them and there hasn't been a need to do much curating."

While the pair bantered, Gemeti was looking consideringly at Fuyuko, then back down at Amrydor before she spoke up, "Um, excuse me, do you mind if I take these two away? I know where there's a good bathhouse and I think we can afford something nice, then you can all talk without us. We just need to make sure this one doesn't drown, but he needs a bath the most."

Oh, a bath did sound like a good idea.

Fuyuko's parents looked at each other and then nodded. Kazue spoke for them and said, "Alright, Fuyuko should be able to contact us immediately if you need anything. Assuming you want to go?" Fuyuko nodded and Kazue smiled. "Alright, have fun."

She gave each of them a quick hug and then headed back over to Gemeti, who said, "Alright, let's get Amrydor to his feet long enough to put him on the carpet. I think he fell asleep."

Fuyuko shook her head and said, "No, I can do this." She then knelt down and scooped Amrydor up into her arms and stood back up. Nearly as soon as she lifted him, one of the workers grabbed a large plant and slid it over to hide the sweat staining the porous rock.

This was enough to wake Amrydor from his dozing. "Huh, what? Um, Fuyuko, what are you doing?"

"We're getting you a bath," Fuyuko said. "You're smelly now." Not that it was stinky yet, but that much sweat was going to ripen pretty quickly.

"Isn't he kind of heavy?" Gemeti asked as she led the way outside.

"Not really. But, um, I am kinda strong." Fuyuko shrugged. "He's pretty strong too, so he could probably carry me even though I'm taller." When the carpet was rolled back out, she put Amrydor down, who then waved her off as he adjusted himself to sit up on the pillows.

"I'm not that out of it, just tired now," he said. "I could have walked."

"Maybe," Fuyuko said, "but this was easier. So, um, Gemeti, where are we going?"

"Well, I want to ask you some stuff and I don't think you want to talk about it all in public, so I was going to take us to a bathhouse where we could get a private room and have some simple food on the side."

Fuyuko froze. She hadn't really thought about what a 'bathhouse' would probably mean.

Amrydor started laughing.

"Shut up," Fuyuko muttered as she lightly punched his shoulder.

"What? What's wrong?" Gemeti asked as she looked between them.

"Well," Amrydor said, "Let's put it this way: she's from Trionea, but she's still wearing full body leather armor under those clothes. Here, in this heat. Fuyuko is a bit shy that way."

"Oh." Gemeti frowned. "That's a problem. I was hoping to talk with you while we bathed, and I don't want to risk Amrydor falling asleep by himself, or is even just girls too much?"

Fuyuko gritted her teeth. She wanted to just say she would be fine, but that wasn't true. Even when Shizo was sharing her room briefly, Fuyuko usually changed in the washroom and slept in a long shift. Wait, that might work. She still didn't want to, but this seemed like something she should probably try to get more comfortable with. "Um, what if I contact my friends? Derek could share a room with Amry, and Shizo could join us."

Gemeti tapped her lips. "What if you do that, and we get a slightly bigger room and have a divider put in? That way we can all still talk. Might be interesting to see what your other friends are like too."

"Yeah, alright," Fuyuko said, then contacted Shizoku and passed along the information.

When they got to the bathhouse, Amrydor insisted on getting up on his own. Fuyuko was a little dubious, but he seemed steady enough, if stiff. Gemeti talked to the man at the front and asked, "Can we get a large private bath for five, with a divider, and food tables? Oh, and she's paying."

Since it was mostly for other people, Fuyuko paid out of her 'gifting' purse. She also modified the request. "Um, that guy and me both eat a lot. So we're going to need a lot of food. I can overpay and you can just remove, er, I mean 'deduct' the amount for food as we order it."

Once that was settled, they waited for the bath to be prepared and for Shizoku and Derek to arrive.