Huh, neat. He's never been all that musical but he should see about getting some interesting materials to some Helper musicians and see what they do with it; he can raise the friction, too, and do some weird things with vibration dampening that he bets they'd get a kick out of.

"I'm sure they'd want to experiment," he agrees. "Although I almost wonder if vibration un-dampening would be more interesting — although maybe that would make it harder to control. I guess I don't really know, since I'm not a musician."

He's heard some people do interesting things with inverted vibration dampening, yeah; the most straightforward way to do it just makes the instrument louder but it can also make it produce a second note when a particular note is played, or modify certain notes or note ranges up or down, and then if you get into machine-instruments they can do different things with that in different circumstances and get really complicated with it.

They talk for a bit longer as the crowd disperses, and then begin the walk back toward Traveler's house. On the way, Kharet lists some of the pleasant things that he might enjoy doing to Traveler.

"... but I admit I'm still sort of worried about your instincts, just because they're new to me and I'm worried about hurting you in ignorance. Frankly, the idea of not feeling like yourself sounds like a pretty horrible downside. How do you deal with that?"

He hasn't dealt with it: the confused-about-whether-you-own-yourself state doesn't happen by fractions, it's all-or-nothing, and it's rare, at home. He's not really worried about it, though, in this context; it'll only happen if someone touches him in a way he's not giving them permission to, and, well - he was holding off on this until they were somewhere more private, but -

He wants to be touched. He's not saying it, it's just there, as obvious as the pavement under their feet and the light in the windows they're passing. He's not picky; he wants to be surprised, he wants to see what Kharet will do, he wants things to be done to him, and he's quite open to whatever things that might be - he's not desperate for it, in this moment, but there's a potential for that, waiting to be drawn out. There is a sense, somewhat in the background, that he doesn't want to be hurt - he doesn't trust Kharet quite that much yet - but even that wouldn't shake him very much, he's open to it in principle even if he's not including it in the realm of things he'd like to happen right now.

It's a lot to express in public, especially with so many people around, even if he isn't letting them in on it at all. He only does it for a second, and then offers his hand in case Kharet would like some grounding/reassuring touch.

Oh.

Kharet is now really glad that he wore a sporran.

And he laughs, because how could the fact that Traveler is telepathic have faded into the background? How could he have forgotten?

He takes a deep breath to compose himself and Traveler's hand.

"I think," he says, "that this is going to be really fun."

In the morning, as the first beams of sunlight are making their way over the field, Kharet's phone starts to make gentle birdsong noises. He whistles at it to shut up, and turns to tuck his face away from the light.

Traveler is snuggled up behind him - he warned him that he might cling in his sleep; usually when there's another body in his bed it's the dog and she's fine with being held - and starts to stir when he whistles; there's a sense after a moment that he doesn't want to move yet but will anyway if Kharet taps the mattress to ask him to, and a sunshade goes up to shade their faces after another moment.

Last night was really good; he's still basking in it a bit this morning.

He doesn't want to reach for the writing tablet, so he just snuggles into Traveler and hopes that's a clear enough indication that he doesn't want to move either.

Eventually, though, the common þereminian inability to sleep while exposed to sunlight (even indirectly) means that he ends up more or less awake. After a few minutes of lying there enjoying the sun and the skin contact, he tries to see if he can snag his phone without dislodging Traveler too much and then settle back into place.

That's not hard to do; the bed is just big enough for them to sleep without necessarily touching each other, and he had to remove some furniture to make room for that.

He enjoys the skin contact too, and starts thinking about breakfast - he might have some eggs this morning if the chickens weren't too unsettled by their transportation, and he can do pancakes with fruit, or maybe some quick sweet biscuits...

Kharet scrawls a quick note, and then holds it up for him to see.

"Any of those sound good to me — assuming I'm invited to breakfast — but I particularly like pancakes."

Well he's certainly not going to send him home hungry, that'd be horrible hosting. Pancakes it is; he's thinking melon and citrus for himself but he'll bring down a variety of fruit options.

He spends another moment contemplating how delightful Kharet is and then heads off to do that, greying the dining table and bench as he passes them on the way to the stairs up to his temporary rooftop garden.

... man, being able to feel how much someone likes him — directly, and confidently, like he can feel which way is down — is an intoxicating feeling.

He gets up, stretches, and pads over to the table, grabbing his little screen on the way.

He's not gone for too long, and he drops the resulting basket of fruit off at the table before going back to the kitchen for the rest of the supplies - there are two eggs, which isn't bad at all considering everything the chickens have been through, and he mixes up the pancake batter there before bringing the whole kit over to the table for cooking.

How does Kharet like his eggs?

"Cooked so that the white is opaque but the yolk is still a little runny, usually," he replies. "I already know you like yours* fertilized," he adds with a wink.

* Kharet tries to use a glyph specifically indicating inalienable possession — but he's still not quite sure the joke came across correctly.

The joke is horrible but Kharet is more than delightful enough to make up for it. Also: hot.

Well, that's good enough for him. Jokes are allowed to be a little horrible.

"I think you mentioned yesterday being interested in the local daily-happenings letter. Do you want me to translate today's for you while breakfast cooks?"

That would be nice. Also: cuddling (carefully) while he cooks, cuddling would also be nice.

Kharet shifts to accommodate cuddling while keeping his hand free to write with.

Largest City Daily News — 41055-02-02

In brief:
- Group-of-groups debates protections for animals
- Larger Continent metrology meeting postponed
- Temporary train schedule changes

Global Minimum Standards Group debates protections for thinking animals

The arrival of Traveler has spurred a great deal of discussion in the last few days, but now one issue highlighted by his arrival has encouraged GMSG member Orþevar to call for a global state of emergency. According to statements published by Larger Continent Emergency Services and Traveler's recent interview, many species of animal are capable of communicative telepathy. While the GMSG doesn't currently recognize communicative telepathy as a reason to include a group of beings in the global agreements around how to treat people, Orþevar and others believe that it should.

Orþevar made this speech in front of the GMSG yesterday evening:

<I'm skipping this bit because it's long>

Many cities have already established protections for thinking animals, but currently that process is largely piecemeal. Largest City has not yet officially changed the status of thinking animals in the city's agreements, but has recognized Traveler's dog, the crows that accompanied him, and any other Crafters who show up as honored guests of the city, and therefore protected by the traditional agreement around how to treat messengers from other cities. For more information, see yesterday's letter.

Larger Continent Metrology meeting pushed to month 22

In light of the recent crowding and emergency travel restrictions in Largest City, the Larger Continent Metrology Group has decided to postpone their meeting. Group representative Kroŋalh says they may even need to consider another choice of venue, depending on how the situation develops.

This delayed meeting is just the latest setback the LCMG has faced in attempting to simplify the definition of mass measurements to be based on properties of fundamental particles. If successful, the initiative could eliminate the use of reference weights, supporters say. Not everyone agrees, however, since measuring the mass of fundamental particles is difficult even with precise machinery.

"Reference weights are not going away," Elvinar, face of the Largest City Learning About Physics Group said. "What the proposal could do is ensure that the reference weights themselves do not drift over time from interactions with their environments. Which is a worthy goal — but one that needs to be pursued carefully."

Largest City Transport Group announces schedule changes

To accommodate changing traffic patterns in the city, the LCTG intends to pull several trains from the Blue route to run supplemental service on parts of the Grey and Green lines. For more details, see the official LCTG schedule.

Kharet shakes out his wrist.

"There's more in the 'interesting but not urgent' section," he adds at the bottom of the translation. "But those are the big news items today."

He slides the writing tablet over to Traveler in exchange for a plate of pancakes and eggs.

Huh, it sounds like it might be a good idea for him to go meet some of the local crows and elephantiformes and apes and so on and see what they think of the situation between them and the Helpers.

"... well, they don't have Crafting either? So I'm not sure how you could tell," he points out, his handwriting a bit messy because his other hand is occupied with pancake. "We've tried to communicate with animals before with limited success."

"That said, it's definitely worth checking. Maybe you'll turn up something important."

He does expect it to be harder than talking to Helpers but not dramatically so, if they're as smart as the talking animals back home they'll understand 'do this to tell me that' just fine even if they aren't smart enough to put that together without being told and he can check if there's anything major even if he might not guess at everything they might want to say. Or - this actually sounds like something where he might do better working with a Helper group to figure out what to ask them about? At home there'd be no real chance of getting a bunch of Crafters on the job in any kind of reasonable timeframe but it's different here.

Kharet shrugs.

"I study plants. But yes, I'm certain we can get a group of Helpers to come up with ideas and try to help interpret. I know a lot of people are worried about it right now."