Koen knelt in front of a trough, looking down at some swimming animals that were in no way "fish."

At first glance, they resembled eels. Long, dark, sinuous shapes in the water. Except those weren't the tails of vertebrates. Nor were they the arms of cephalopods. The leaf-shaped appendages protruded like mustaches from the front ends of fist-sized, goggle-eyed creatures. Acladotrophic rotifers.

The "fish" flapped their pairs of ribbon-like jaws to move, or whipped them around to wrestle with each-other, or wrapped them around their bodies for protection. Koen visualized one of these creatures using its jaws to pull itself onto land, and looked back up at Twine, the proprietor/LARPer.

"What will you rob me of, raider?" Twine recited.

"Everything!" urged Laura, flushed and in-character.

"A dozen?" Koen said. "The meat's all in the fin-jaws, right?"

"Of course, but the abdomen houses organs filled with flavorful galls, and the hard parts can be boiled for stock."

"Nothing poisonous, right?" asked Laura, remembering her anxiety.

The Quotidian's eye went still, her equivalent of a shrug. "Not to us. You, I don't even know. What are you two, anyway?"

"Humans," said Laura.

"Never heard of them. What did you evolve from?" Twine scanned them with a professional and bulbous eye. "Some kind of priapulid? Or an echinoderm? Is your meat concentrated in the middle of your bodies or on your extremities?"

Laura crossed her arms. She didn't like being called "meat" or, for that matter, "echinoderm."

"Uh, no," said Koen. "We're mammals. Vertebrates?"

"Like the Adventurians," said Laura. "They're famous."

"Not that famous," said Twine. "I've never heard of them."

Koen tried again. "We have an internal skeleton and a spinal cord."

"Spinal what?"

Koen spread his hands, about to launch into another exploration of the pharyngeal slits of the acorn worm, but Twine hooted out of her anus and said, "Wait a second. Skeletons! I remember something about skeletons. Who was it who originally built the Tensors? Some kind of giant prehistoric monster with huge fossil skeletons, rights?"

"Clarify?" asked Laura

Koen narrowed his eyes. "You mean dinosaurs?"

"Yeah! Dinosaurs! I went to this theme park once…Hey, are you two related to dinosaurs?"

"No," said Laura.

"But our ancestors were hunted by dinosaurs," said Koen, eager to please.

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Twine shook her eyeball, and Laura said, "Aren't you supposed to be pretending to be at war with us?"

Twine twitched. "Oh, right. Yaar! Throw at me your letters of reprisal and I shall throw your fish at you! Just let me wrap them up for you first."

She flicked out a limb like a switchblade made of scissors and snagged the end of a roll of waxed cloth. This she whipped around into a net-shape, with which she snagged a "fish." A jab of another limb skewered the animal through the head, and now the net became wrapping paper.

"How do we pay?" asked Laura as Twine worked.

"Well, I thought the same way we pay for the bus," said Koen. "The translator bug logs the transaction, which gets added to the embassy's tab, right?"

Laura shook her head. "The translator bug logs our 'transgressions against municipal generosity,' and the embassy gets fined."

"Is that how it's supposed to work?"

"We're not sure," said Laura.

"We really need to get a better grip on Quotidian history and culture."

"Invaders, your fish are ready!"

"Well, let's just play along, right?" said Laura. "We 'steal' these fish and the proprietor fines us."

Koen nodded and turned to Twine. "Um, hand over the booty, sailor." He grabbed his translator bug out of the air and held it out. "Here, you can log my – gah!"

Still holding the bundle of wrapped seafood, Twine tipped up on her hind limbs, exposing the jaws on her underside, and leaped. As she she flew through the air, her jaws telescoped out, snatching the translator bug from Koen's hand.

She landed, flexing origami joints, squealing, and crunching down on the bug.

Koen and Laura stared at her.

"Yes!" said Twine. "And I stuck the landing, too. Three points to me! Coastal Paladin class unlocked! Here are your fish."

"What?" said Koen. "You destroyed my translator!"

"You let your guard down."

"How am I going to get another? How expensive are they?" Koen clutched his hair. Laura grabbed the bundle of fish before anything else could happen.

She did not say, "I told you so."

Laura had actually enjoyed her experience, but Koen felt like this was all his fault. He wanted to show her that he could protect her, and he had failed. Since he did not admit that to himself, he had no way to control the passion that now possessed him.

"This is impossible!" raged Koen. "I cannot work like this! I can't go through this – this gauntlet! – every time I want to prepare a meal."

Twine swallowed the bits of translator bug. "Well then, why didn't you just have your groceries delivered like everyone else?"

Koen growled to himself. Laura detected another problem to solve.

"Delivered from where?" she asked, adjusting her blouse.

"What do you mean from where? From a wholesaler like I did, or from a comestibles aggregator."

"Clarify?"

"No need," said Koen, eager to win back Laura's favor. "An online supermarket. Is there one that sells food from our Earth? Something like our Earth?"

The Quotidian shook her eyeball. "Look, I have work to do."

"The dinosaurs!" Koen said desperately. "Are there any dinosaurs in the Convention? Something like them?"

"She's not going to know," said Laura, but the Quotidian who played under the name Twine had studied her role. She might not know much about biology, but she knew grocery supply chains.

"Sure," she said. "They're called the Pick. Allies of the Tensors. Big species. They eat stuff with internal skeletons. All the time!" And, belatedly, "Yaar!"

"The Pick!" said Koen. He turned to Laura. "Can we contact them? Maybe they can be our food supply."

Laura imagined a tyrannosaur gulping down a bloody haunch of meat. "Maybe," she said.