We learned that the short man’s name was Yori. He didn’t say much beyond that, but he did ask where we were from. Upon receiving our answers, he merely looked at us all critically and nodded. Like Mae, he also seemed to regard Nadrire with a slight dab of suspicion.

Yori drove a lot slower than Mae, and as Sollainyi’s silhouette approached, he had to slow down even more. As soon at the road changed from dirt to gravel to stone, it became so congested that we were forced to a snail’s pace. I could hear a crowd, shouting, but I understood almost none of it because there were so many things being yelled at once, in several different languages.

Ella and I tried to poke our heads out the window to see what was going on, but the traffic blocked our view. “Hm.”

“Sir?” I called up to the man in the driver’s seat. “What’s going on?”

“Another protest,” he said softly.

“What for?”

“The Phika here feel that they have been treated unfairly,” he explained, barely loud enough to be heard over the chanting. “Lih’tanyi is a Whaigorre-controlled state, and Sollainyi is its capital, so it’s commonplace to see people airing their grievances.”

“Ah. I see.”

I took a closer look at Yori. He was clearly Whaigorre himself. He didn’t have the bright eyes or hair or animal features of a Phika (although he did have bright blue skin and one eye). He lived in a Whaigorre-controlled state, yet his tone indicated, despite his best efforts, that he was highly sympathetic to their cause. It was a possibility that he was simply a decent person with egalitarian values, but… it seemed to run deeper than that.

All of a sudden, I heard a loud, distinct gurgling sound. Shei flushed red and placed a hand on their sternum with a quiet “excuse me”.

Nadrire frowned. “Was that your stomach?”

“Yes.”

“Hm. I suppose none of us have eaten lunch…” she mused, then leaned forward. “Sir, do you know any good restaurants near here?”

“I do. Would you like me to drop all of you off?”

“That would be lovely.”

———

Nadrire thanked Yori warmly after he got to the curb and let us all off. I was the only one who caught the flash of gold between her fingers as she shook his hand. Shei, Ella and Abi were all busy standing around and chatting about the restaurant. It was another square wooden building with sloped roofs, but its roof had been painted red, and there were elegant designs detailing the columns out front.

The waitress inside was taken aback by the fact that we wanted both Abi and Ella - one automaton and a ghost masquerading as one - to sit with us, although I could not fully interpret her expression, since she was a skeletal woman with a towering hairdo adorned with flowers (her name tag said HARU). Thankfully, she seemed to interpret this as a strange thing foreigners did, rather than something offensive.

The food was rather delicious, although Shei did struggle a bit with the chopsticks (they were mortified when Haru asked them if they wanted a fork). A little ways into the meal, Nadrire asked the waitress if she knew of any airship repair shops nearby.

“Hm… They aren’t very popular around here, but…” Haru tipped her skull to the side, one of her flowers tilting precariously. “I think there’s one just past the market district. Would you like me to get you directions, Madam?”

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

Nadrire tipped the waitress well, then we went on our way.

The route Haru had given us was unfortunately somewhat meandering. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but it was very very humid. And hot.

“My hair is throwing a fit,” I growled, tugging it out of its now-frizzed up ponytail. “This is why I live in Engaerra.”

“Why are you still wearing your gloves?” Shei was frowning at my hands.

“Because they look nice. Leave me alone.”

“Maybe if you were not wearing them, you would not be as hot.”

“I am not going to be taking advice about heat control from a pyrokinetic.”

We turned a corner, and were met with the protestors we had heard earlier. The sheer magnitude of the crowd was a little stunning, and the group fell silent. As Yori had said, most of them appeared to be Phika - though I did see a few obvious Whaigorre in the crowd. Most of them appeared to be Yianjinian, too. I saw a number holding signs, some in Common, some in Nyhanese, and some in Phikan dialects that I didn’t recognize. There was so much noise that although they were chanting and shouting their slogans, their demands for change, I could not pick out anything in particular. What really struck me was the lack of press: I saw no reporters or anyone who could even pass as a reporter. The news would be all over this at home.

It was then I noticed the police. I normally tended to glaze over them, since they were my people, but there were a lot of them, and they appeared to be heavily armed, and they were carrying what I knew to be large, metal edged lightshields, that expanded when you channeled magic into them. Riot police. While the police did not have their shields up, and the protestors seemed more focused on the building in front of them than the officers forming a loose ring around the crowd, the tensions were there.

Haru’s directions then led us past the crowd, and down a street that was blocked off from any sort of traffic (“The Grand Market District”, a multilingual sign declared). It was lined with stalls and filled with people buying, and selling, and bartering.

“Amazake here!” called a rather plain looking old woman. “Get your amazake!”

“Spell books, spell scrolls, anything you might need!” crowed a middle-aged woman in fraying robes. Her cart was overloaded to the point of giving me anxiety.

“Tofu! Tofu! Tofu!” A small boy with a large head and purplish skin held out a tray of jiggling tofu. He was not wearing shoes. His toes had claws on them.

We then passed a pair of what appeared to be people with the heads of two different lute -like instruments seated on a bench. They were both playing their instrument heads, and the music was rather lovely. Nadrire tossed a coin into their bowl as we passed.

I saw another police officer - why are there are so many constables in this city? - running after a young woman with very long arms. I then noticed that her arms were covered in multicolored eyes. She winked at me as she ran past, and so did the eyes of one arm. Huh.

The shop we had been directed to was relatively small. It appeared to be crammed into a space that appeared to have once been an alley, but then someone had valiantly endeavored to place a shop there. A sign out front proclaimed it to be The Guiding Star Airship Shop. Something was rather odd: the shop gave no indication that it was closed, permanently or otherwise, but the shelves in the front window were bare.

We all filed in, one after another. A bell tinkled as we entered, and we all came to see quite a scene.

Yet another police officer was standing in the shop. His physique and the fact that he was munching one of the pastries we had seen being sold a little way down the road suggested that he enjoyed food. He leaned nonchalantly against the counter, a sharp contrast to the young man behind it. The young man, whom I presumed to be the proprietor of the shop since he was the only one in here, was visibly upset. He was rather petite, with black hair that dangled around his ears and very dark eyes.

“Why won’t you help me?” the young man snapped, his hands pressed forcefully against the counter. “Is that not your job?”

“Sorry, kid,” the officer said, still munching his pastry. “You know that we can’t interfere. All contract negotiations with the tsukigami must happen between them and the shop owners. The city only records them. If you’ve got something I can actually help with, stop by the station later. Good day.”

He tipped his hat at the young man and at us, then squeezed past to get through the door. I heard him whistling as he walked away. The young man let out a groan of frustration and collapsed to the desk. I then approached him, slowly and cautiously.

“Excuse me, sir, are you the owner of this shop? And… um.. are you all right?”

“Yes… and no, I suppose not,” he sat up, the emotion still plainly visible on his face in spite of his attempts to school his features. “I really hope you weren’t coming to buy something.”

“Well… unfortunately, we were.”

“Our ship crashed,” Shei said quietly. “None of us were hurt, and the damage thankfully is not too bad, but… a few of the parts got damaged badly enough that we need new ones.”

The shop owner buried his head in his hands. “I… am so sorry. I really wish I could help you.”

“We came at a bad time, didn’t we?” I asked softly, looking around.

“...Well… you see…” the shop owner took a shaky breath. “I have just been robbed.”