After putting down the last of the papers, she turned to us again, and I got that same sense she was amused at our discomfort.  Just a little.

"Please, do eat. This audience is as much for your benefit as mine, honorable 'Venturers," she said.  "I know you've been on the road and on campaign, and just learned you did so to my benefit."

"What would you recommend?" Alesha asked, then blinked and brushed her hand up her forehead and along her ear. "...Most, uh, Honorable Contessa."

The Contessa' eyebrows shot up to the sky for a long second before she answered.

"The candied almonds are excellent, dame Herezhade, as is this tortilla - they've started experimenting with including that sort of turnip the Yao are selling us, and I must remember to tell the cook it's a success," she says. "If you're worried about coming off as mercenary, don't - my man in Costa Dulce reports that a meal and a chance to speak with me is the very least thing I owe you."

Alesha takes an almond from it's bowl and raises it to her lips; I very slowly take a slice of the omelette the Contessa had called a tortilla. The others, just as gingerly as I had, get morsels from the table. Hikaru uses a piece of flatbread as a plate, and you follow his lead.

I take a bite of the tortilla, and it is delicious. Warm, dense, with a lot of caramelized onions and potato and a bit of pepper and herbs.

"This is very good, Most Honorable Contessa," I say, and the others shift in their seats. "Thank you for your hospitality. I'm... grateful that we had the chance to meet, and hope that I can continue to contribute to the, the uh,"

shit shit shit

"The safety, security and continued prosperity of this beautiful city," Sekhmet says.

"Gorgeous really," Alesha said, then winced.

I bow my head and think fast. "Just so. I've never seen anything like it."

Well... that's not quite true. But it's different being here than it is to see it through a screen, even through VR goggles.

"I have worked very hard to keep it so, Dame Yeowoo," the Contessa tells me, nodding slightly in your direction. "An usual name around here, I may add. A nom de la guerre, I take it?"

I absolutely cannot tell the Contessa that the name I go by here is a joke about having big tits.

"It's, uh, my father was Korean," I stammer.

Hikaru coughs into his hand. "From the Principality of Goryeo."

"Yes," I say, too fast, and I can feel my ears flatten down the sides of your skull.

"So I have heard," the Contessa says. "A very common given name for Vulpecian women there, or at least those who try to make their fortune here."

I blink, and then laugh, scratching the back of my head. "That tracks," you admit. "It, uh, means vixen."

She laughs, putting a fan over her mouth. "Of course it does," she says. "About as many if not more home-grown foxfolk sellswords choose to call themselves Zorro."

Sekhmet barely muffles her scoff with a hand over her mouth, mortified. I privately agree with her that there's other reasons for the name, but...

"We aren't here to talk about your 'venturing aliases, of course, fascinating as the topic may be," the Contessa says, pouring herself a cup of oh good lord that's real coffee. "I came here to ask you all a question. Simple to pose, complex to answer."

"Just ask, Most Honorable Contessa." Alesha says, too quick.

The Contessa deftly pours caramel-colored syrup from a small bottle into her coffee before looking up.

"Why have you all come to Viacruz?" she asks.

I take a very deep breath. There was an edge to that question. Simple to pose, complex to answer. 

The others look at me expectantly, Alesha wincing.

"...speaking only for those of my Free Company present," I say, slowly and softly - turning the words over in my head as I speak them - "we came to Viacruz because that's where most Adventurers near Yberia or Al'Qebulan go to seek their fortunes. But if you're asking why all of us came here, why so many of us came here, we don't know."

The Contessa has her fan over her mouth, eyes closed, and then she nods. And makes a gesture with her fan hand a lot like Jules' twirled two fingers: move it along.

"One moment we were in our homes," I say. "Then there's a... bit of lost time... and we found ourselves on the Shores of Awakening. One of the many, many islands off the coast with Shores of Awakening, I think - I didn't realize how many until we saw the camps."

I sigh. "We don't know what happened, Most Honorable Contessa. We're as confused and frightened as your people are."

"As frightened as we?" the Contessa says, eyebrows up in the clouds. "We, who found an army at our door, overnight? We, who wonder what other sovereigns were shaken awake by a vizier telling them of thousands of strangers with weapons at their gates?"

I try to meet her gaze for a moment.

I can't do it.

And yet...

Head bowed, I say, softly, "We, torn from our friends and children and our homes and our jobs, who suddenly have weapons and need to use them against wandering monsters, without the slightest idea how we got here or why any of this is happening, or how we'll eat or where we'll sleep tomorrow? Our fears are different, Most Honorable one, but no lesser."

Hikaru has brought his hand to his throat, grimacing, teeth gritted. Most of the others have expressions as shocked; Ace has her head in her hands and is staring at her shoes.

Yeah, what was I going to do, lie to her? For all we know she has the Flammite boon that reads motives, and the authority to execute us when it dings and there's crap.

The Contessa looks at me, eyes over her fan, for one long moment.

Then snaps the fan closed and swirls her little cup of coffee.

"You are then very new to this life. And our kingdom," she says.

Everyone slumps in their chairs and sighs.

"It's a long story," I say. "One we don't have time for. But we never... we never intended to come here, and my Company wants to earn our keep until..."

Alesha says, "Until we find a way home, Milady Contessa."

And the Contessa nods, thank God. (Which?  Probably Sylphan.) And steeples her fingers, leaning on the table.

"You will have opportunities to," she says. "My scribes will give your free company the writs of passage they'll need to stay and find work. I appreciate your candor, miss."

And that's when I'm able to exhale.