In any world, there was very little that Mila found more peaceful than a bookstore. The largest, most warehouse-like bookstores of Scienceland were just as serene as the magically-tinged cozy affairs of Fantasyland, and both were perfect. Not that she was particularly meditative, but the homes of books always filled her with a contentment that she associated with how others described their deep relaxation exercises.

It did not magically erase her run-in with Ouran. She expected the sour encounter to hang over her for hours if not days, but it did help it along. The two cats that lived in the store, a big grey boy and an adorable calico, also helped, even if their healing attention was for their own selfish feline ends - after all, it was an open secret in housecat circles that the people with stubby claws gave the best scritches.

That Mila was weighed down under the glut of sweets she had overindulged in, not quite to the point of feeling ill but close, just gave the book shop all the more of a warm, heavy feeling. It made her want to plop down in one of the overstuffed armchairs, much too large for a kobold, and bring both cats with her. Maybe live out the rest of her life in the shop, dispensing wisdom alongside her two new familiars.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to be, as nice as that sounded. And not just because the grey-blue perma-kitten, Gustus, muscled his way after Rora as she wound her way into the deep stacks of the crowded shop. Mila also quite suspected that her wisdom was some mix of blatantly wrong for most other folks and wildly hypocritical. It was easy to tell someone else to stand up for themselves, but like many things, straightforward and simple was very much a different league than easy. As she had just so brutally demonstrated to herself.

No, esoteric advice-granting cat-lady was out of the question, as pleasant as that might sound overall. That left her to start her own tome-spelunking, the yowling Celty demanding constant pets as she too moved to follow.

Mila wanted to show her appreciation to Rora, even if she felt it had to be in the sneaky polite way of not actually saying thanks. With that in mind, she set off to the left, where the store’s loose organization tended to house its mix of romance books that might, if glanced at out of the corner of your eye, be confused with another genre. Something that she could pass off as having picked up for the other genre elements, be they fantasy or action or mystery.

They were hardly high literature, but if you wanted to purchase such esteemed reading materials, you would be better suited to going to a shop closer to the center of the city, whose books were all dusty. If you wanted books that wanted to be read, though, this impending collapse was where you wanted to browse.

As such, it was almost all practical nonfiction and pulp novels.

The first flicked through book that she actually took up with intention to buy was a science fiction horror affair about a dinosaur in an icy climate, with some cliche romance b-plot to tick a box. The romance being for the people, not the dinosaur, of course. Pulp romance in Fantasyland was not emotionally prepared for Chuck Tingle, no matter how raunchy some of the books she put back might be.

A couple more tickled at her notice, picked up but mentally assigned to a ‘maybe’ category reserved for stories that did not have dinosaurs. She had a hard time not thinking too much about the cultural differences between her two worlds she was already starting to feel forced to the forefront of her mind as she meandered. That Fantasyland had pulp novels that she associated with a certain rosy, if problematic, place in the literary history of Scienceland was fascinating, even if she could feel and smell that these were made differently. She had no idea how - the Mila from here had never seen one of those encyclopedias full of cutaway diagrams of architecture and machines that might explain the Fantasyland book printing methods - but it was still clearly different, the pages even having the faintest orange tinge that was not from aging.

The science fiction felt quaint and airy, while the books that Rora would call fantasy all felt peculiarly small-scale. There were no grand evils or great armies, and all the twiddly fantasy elements went out of their way to highlight how alien it all felt. Which made sense, Mila supposed, if magic via divine cooking was a relatively mundane thing to get used to for the nonfiction books. Trying to swallow that lump set off another burst of dissonance in her mind, but she tried to center it all. The feline tail that wound its way into the palm of her hand several times over the buzzing period helped, even if the cat head to the hip did less great things for her balance.

Not too much apocalypse talk, nor some of the more politically charged fair that Scienceland Mila knew came alongside the pulp literature revolution. She did not know if Kurt Vonnegut had any half-romance novels, admittedly. It did not feel like his kind of work. His Fantasyland equivalent following that trend was clearly a missed opportunity.

Conan-type stories had whole shelves, and none of them sported the same names as what came to mind for similar books from Scienceland. It had not quite consciously occurred to her before she started looking and comparing, but Mila reckoned that if she was trying to reach out to folks in a similar position, isekai’d away from Scienceland, then doing so by media and stories would be a good way to do it. ‘Red Sonja’ in a title would not have anyone bat an eye unless you knew of her as the chain mail bikini-clad badass - a trend that was not widely mirrored here.

No battle swimwear was almost a disappointment. While she did not quite have the equipment to handle the bikini top, kobolds being hatched and not needing milk, it would have been an amusing thing to play around with. A decent distraction from the stuff she promptly steered her thoughts away from, for at least a little longer.

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The barrage of cat-induced distractions continued to siege Mila’s book shopping, but eventually she emerged, thankful she had experience with cramped tunnels back where she grew up. She was rarely thankful for any of it, so she did not linger, shaking out her back and shoulders, juggling her finds. Mila was not absolutely certain, but she half knew that she had somehow spent several hours lost within the tomes, and had come out with only five books. Five books she was looking forward to reading, admittedly, even if she had chosen them in part because she thought Rora would enjoy them. The others read too, to one degree or another, but their tastes were further divorced from Mila’s own, and none of them quite matched the kobolds in their reading rate.

Just as the golden woman in question picked her way into view, a stray thought wandered across Mila’s mind, drawing a snort. An eye ridge went up and made Mila laugh a bit more before she managed to explain, “Sorry, just thought about how you’re such a bookwyrm. Like, as a pun, worm and wyrm?”

The faux-affronted look Rora put on only made having to retell and explain her joke that much funnier, setting Mila to laughing as Rora managed her approach. Gustus was still there trying to bowl her down, and meant that every careful step Rora took around a leaning tower of pages, she had to brace herself to bounce the tomcat off of her, slowing her progress.

Both kobolds, once next to each other, hefted their hauls and eyed the other’s titles, making sure they had not grabbed copies of the same book by mistake or accidentally picked up something that their group already owned, stacked up high in the trunk dedicated to books.

The big chest of books was a stopgap more than anything, the desire to keep books for rereading or lending to others infecting the whole group, but it was also very distant from the grand personal library that both Milas dreamed of having one day. Unfortunately, neither had been able to afford such an extreme purchase as ‘personal home ownership’ yet - Scienceland Mila had been quite well off, but the housing market in the city she had claimed as her own had kept that goal out of reach. And even with the much cheaper prices for housing here in Fantasyland, a home with a room for each of the group, ignoring her aspirational library dreams, would be too much. And getting a home without her gang did not quite cross her mind.

Probably all the free food Naw-Naw poured into her gullet like the world’s most enthusiastic garbage disposal.

Thoughts of a book haven at home aside, Mila’s overview did not catch any duplicate books in Rora’s selection. She did note that the novels looked particularly intriguing though, and voiced it, “Feeling more adventurey than usual today?”

“Just in the mood for something a little different, is all.” The golden kobold gave a smile, marginally less toothy than Mila’s own, but then gave a nod at Mila’s stack, her own choices having evidently passed the ‘no duplicates’ check.

Having double checked, it was time proper to pay for wares and head out. The felines seemed to have an acute sense for when their job was done and allowed the two kobolds to approach the store’s owner un-body checked. For reasons unknown, although Mila suspected amounted to an aversion to sunlight that would make the deepest cave-dwelling ‘bold proud, Orist kept their counter at the far back of the shop, a sitting bench having been repurposed as a place where smaller customers could step up to get to the counter.

Mila flowed up to the bench first, struggling to lift her books up until green-brown hands moved to take some off the weight off her hands. Orist was a terrestrial elf, and rightfully insistent about folks being specific. Far too many were more than willing to call them an elf and be done with it, along with any other terrestrial elf, but then go on to be finicky little bitches about sea elves or river elves or stone elves not being ‘elves’ like the terrestrial elves. Orist’s hardline stance on people trying to use that kind of othering was a strong point in their favor.

Hell, it would be even if that kind of language didn’t personally effect Mila too.

“How are my two favorite customers?” Came the question, and Mila just turned to help get Rora’s books out of her hands and onto the counter, letting the other woman field the question and trying to not think too much on how the meditative trance of the book store was already slipping away from her at that well-intentioned question. It gave her whiplash, and this was much less pleasant than immersing herself in the store’s ambiance had been.

Thinking about THAT just hastened the whole ordeal though, and Mila started to feel herself begin to spiral once more, further and further down into her own thoughts and learned helplessness and inability to process her own feelings constructively and-

And Rora broke through, reaching up to grab hold of Mila’s hand to assist in her own clambering up to the top of the bench. “I think Mila has a few errands back at the Wander Inn to take care of, but I’m sure she could help you out? For a discount next shopping trip, of course.”

The elf’s head was thrown back with a heavy laugh, closely cropped hair catching the light. “That could put me out on the street with how much the two of you buy! Practically keeping me in business single-handedly.”

Mila cracked a smile at the thought, even if she was confused at what she had been volunteered for. It was a teensy bit annoying, that she was in a foul mood and was getting another thing she would have to do, but she remained silent on that front.

“How about this, she can’t fix your issue, no discount. Nothing to lose then!” Came the counteroffer, which didn’t help the sense that she was getting work put on her, possibly only to fuck it all up and not get anything out of it. She hadn’t even been paying attention so was not sure what the work even was!

Orist gave it a flicker of a second’s consideration before nodding, tallying the books’ costs across their fingers at the same time. “Only because I know I hear you do good work for Darimash, and I’ve hired two people to do it and they’ve both failed! Took my money anyway, too. Bah.”

Mila’s eye ridges rose a bit hearing that apparently Darimash was bragging about their chores around the inn, but the growing sense of doom at the work continued to grow. Or at least, it was until Rora shifted, bumping her shoulder into Mila’s and then following with a soft bump of her hip to match. She held it for a moment, warm and supporting and fully knowing that Mila could tackle whatever problem Orist was having. And for now, as Rora handed over the money and got some change back, along with two borrowed, waterproof bags for the books, that was enough.