Cynthia tastes it. Tuna is one of the types of fish she tends to like less, but she's super-curious and happy to try it.

It's dried tuna strips! It's really pretty tasteless. Maybe a slight hint of salt. Kind of like gnawing on slightly salty leather.

...she trusts other food to be better.

 "I'm Cynthia! I don't know your name." She looks to Junilla.

"Oh, sorry! I'm Junilla."

Ke glances anxiously at the fire but it seems to be doing fine.

"You have boats, right? Where do you go with them?"

"Everywhere!

I guess that's not really an answer. We usually live out at sea. It's a bit weird to be on land, it doesn't move right, and especially to be out of sight of the ocean, but I suppose that's what makes it an adventure?

Do you mostly just go places on boats, rather than living on them? I guess you do look a bit less - water-adapted."

"We don't live on boats, land has much more space to walk around or do things!"

"There's lots of - stuff there already, though?

Oh, or do you live underground, like they do in mining endeavours?

I suppose you probably don't float as well or glide at all, that might make being confined to a boat harder."

"The stuff helps also! And yes, we only barely float and don't glide at all. So living on a boat would be terrible."

"Oh dear," says Junilla, in a 'this is socially awkward' tone. "Well, I suppose a mining group would probably host you if you don't like boats. We're only here for a few days, but we could bring you back to the boat and you could use the terminal while we're landed..."

"We can't let them just put out a call, someone might blow us up!"

"...Talaskai thinks that someone might think Cynthia is an advance scout for an alien invasion and do something rash about it. To be honest I think it's more likely that nobody will believe them and will assume someone's making things up."

"I guess a mining group makes sense? Actually we have something called uranium where I come from and that has to be mined, and I'm curious about it. So a mining group just makes sense, actually."

The idea of Cynthia loose in a uranium mine does not see to make Talaskai very happy, but ke is not at all sure what to do about it.

"...I am keeping an eye on you and I will stop you running off to inform whatever crackpot defence group you dig up that we have an alien spy," Jeeee says to kim.

Talaskai flops down on a chair to signal that ke is not running off and sulks harder. 

"Um. Is there anything else you'd like? Jeeee can probably walk you to the boat if you want and Talaskai and I can hold down the camp. It's a fair old step though, you might want to start in the morning, I don't know what kind of day you've been having."

"I'm happy to go to a mining group, test out what rice tastes like here, get an interesting look at how mines work. I've been having a relaxing and uneventful day, really. Ending up here was the exact kind of adventure I really felt like having!"

"...we are not going to get all the way to a mining group today, especially not the rice growers. 

We can get back to the boat and I can send some messages out and see who's interested in hosting you.

If you don't even want to travel by boat then we'll have to call the land facilities on this island and see if any of them are willing to send out an expedition, which they probably will but will take a while. 

Otherwise it's going to be several days on the boat to get anywhere, we might be able to call in a faster boat if it's important to you and someone's interested, but it'll be at least overnight and the faster boats tend to have even less space, although our boat isn't exactly big."

"I'm fine spending a few days to get anywhere, it really makes sense to know you better in any case."

"I'm sure at least some bored people will want to talk to you, and from there you can probably prove enough for an expert to show up." Jeeee goes to the food chest and rummages around. "Did you like the tuna strips or should I be packing some other trail food for you?"

"The tuna strips were fine but I think I'm sure I'd like something else more!"

"Okay, we've got trevally, nut and berry mix, oat biscuit, roast salted chickpeas, any of that sound good? Possibly not the berry mix, I don't want you getting ill on the way, I probably could rig up something and drag you but neither of us would be having a good time."

"The chickpeas sound super-tempting! But I will taste everything you have on offer." 

Jeeee loads up kis pouches with a bit of everything. "You can carry the plate if you want to have some now, or you can put it back and just unhook a pouch when you want to eat? It's going to be a long walk, we'll only get there before nightfall if we set a good pace."

"I don't see the need to bring a whole plate, really. And I can absolutely keep a good pace!"