Erman woke up. Today was the day. A vehicle would be arriving in only a few hours to pick him and Nagisa up. He stood up off his bed and reached over to Nagisa, shaking her awake. He'd learned that not only could she sleep at pretty much any time of the day, but that he could easily wake her up with just gently shaking her. She was a very unusual girl.

Nagisa's eyes opened slowly, and she sat up. "Oh, it's morning."

He sat back on his bed and looked across the room at her, smiling. He wasn't sure what she'd said exactly, but the word 'morning' had been a consistent one she'd always use when waking up first thing in the day. It didn't mean she was awake, since she never used it after waking from a nap in the middle of the day. He was pretty certain it referred to the time of day. It was something for further investigation, and hadn't been his main focus thus far.

He leaned forward, his hands on his knees. "Nagisa." She looked up at him. "Today, we meet General. He see we talk." He hoped that would get the message across. It was far from perfect, but it was something. She just needed to be able to understand him.

Nagisa nodded. "General." That word had been really hard for them to work out, since the General hadn't been around. They'd resorted to drawing people with spears, and then making a diagram to show one person above many people with spears. Spears, since the modern weaponry they used here was significantly different from what she knew, but both of their cultures had once used spears for war. The General was the guy in charge of many people with spears.

"Yes. General see we talk, good."

This General had a vested interest in communicating with Nagisa, and she'd gathered that Erman was the translator. That was fine by her, though she was a little suspicious of his motives. She was pretty sure Erman's motives were at the very least neutral. He probably just wanted to get paid, but there might have been more to it. She could tell he was an intellectual, and a linguist at that, so perhaps this new language that she spoke was of an inherent interest to him as well. Writing papers on it, codifying the language, learning about her and where she came from; they would all be cause for great recognition from any anthropological community with a shred of decency. Part of her wanted to help him earn that recognition.

Sometimes she wondered if he had further interest in her, beyond the money and furthering his career. Maybe it was silly to think that. These people weren't even Human, so how could she hope to understand how they showed affection. As for how she knew they weren't Human, they all had silvery hair and a reddish-brown skin with very little variance. Some darker gray hair for older members of the race, and the skin could be more reddish on some than on others. That alone wouldn't have been enough to convince her that they weren't even some kind of offshoot of Humanity, but there was more. The day and night cycle in this... this biosphere. It was long. Too long. A Human who slept as long as they did would soon find themselves weak and probably unable to get up in the morning. And yet, somehow, as soon as the world got dark, they went to sleep and stayed asleep until the light came back. There was some sort of internal clock that their species used, something that prevented them from waking up in the middle of the night.

Then there was the biosphere itself. Some towering dome that made up a pretend sky. It provided them with enough sunlight to farm, as well as plenty enough water overnight. She was sure either they had made it themselves some time in the distant past or it had been created for them by some other entity. She was leaning towards the former, as they seemed perfectly content with how it operated, but that still left her with several unanswered questions. She had to test those questions. Either Erman would explain it to her, offering the information freely, or he would refuse. She didn't want to think about what it might mean if he were to simply explain that he didn't know the answers she was seeking.

But for now, she needed to eat. She probably didn't really need to, but she was undeniably hungry and he was a good cook. Thankfully, there were two words she'd been able to teach him to great effect. "Breakfast. Baka."

He smiled knowingly. He knew that 'breakfast' meant food, especially early in the morning, and 'baka' usually just meant him. Very well then, but she needed to be presentable. "I make breakfast. Nagisa..." She perked up at the sound of her name. "Bath."

Well, that was regrettable. Nagisa sighed, getting up and heading down the hall to the bath. She listened for Erman's footsteps going downstairs before she stripped and slid into the bath. It was really just a wooden crate, a really simple vessel for holding warm water, but the baseness of it was balanced out by the fact that it was automatically filled first thing in the morning so it could be used. Clean changes of clothes were kept in the room next to the bath, which was also convenient for her, and Erman always picked up her dirty clothes later on. That last part might not have been normal for his culture, but she was prepared to let him assume it was normal for hers.

After soaking for what she figured was long enough, she stood up in the bath, with the water only coming up to her knees, and pulled a coarse cloth off of a rail that hung over her head. There was a small compartment next to the bath that opened up, and there was a soapy substance inside. Getting the cloth wet in the water and rolling it in the soap thoroughly, she set about scrubbing herself down with it. The cloth was coarse enough to give her a real good scrub, but it definitely didn't scratch or hurt, which was something she really liked about it. After scrubbing her arms and neck properly, she had to do the usual yoga nonsense to sufficiently clean her back. Then it was on to her rear and her legs, putting her foot up on the edge of the bath in order to scrub the whole thing and then repeating the process with the other leg. She finished with her front, getting everything as soapy as she could for the best clean possible.

There was a knock on the door, and Nagisa dropped into the water like a rock, hiding from sight in the event the door was opened. "Don't come in!"

Erman knew better than to walk in on her while she was bathing. "Breakfast." He just wanted to let her know that their morning meal was ready.

She hadn't been too worried, as he seemed to know well enough not to barge in on her, but she was always prepared for that one moment of memory lapse. More importantly, it was time to eat. She dived under the water, getting all of the soap off of her with the cloth, and once she was sure she was done she got back up and stepped out of the bath. She grabbed a larger towel that had been on the rail beside the cloth and began drying herself off, running it along her body quickly before wrapping her hair up in it. There was a full set of clean clothes for her, but that would take more time, and right now she wanted food, so she slid on the underwear and then grabbed the shirt, sticking her arms through the sleeves and heading for the door, draping the pants over her shoulder at the last moment. The bottom of the shirt barely went down past her underwear, but it was enough for stepping into the dining room at this early hour of the morning, so she started buttoning up the front of the shirt as she made her way down the stairs.

When she walked into the dining room, Erman was standing next to the table, waiting for her. He let out a little sigh when he saw her. He understood her love of food, but he didn't quite get that breakfast was more important than pants. She would have to teach him about that important part of human culture. In the meantime, she did notice that his eyes were quite drawn to her bare legs.

Well... it had been a year since they started living here together. She wasn't so dense to not notice his special attention to her. Not in the way he was supposed to, to learn her language and maybe teach her his own language, but in a different way. She could tell, and she was willing to accept that given enough time, but she wanted to actually be able to properly understand him when he told her. And then, if there was still no sign of the others, she would accept. It had been a year after all. She had to consider, at some point, that she may have been left behind somehow, and that they would never find each other again.

She plopped the pants down on the table next to the food set out for her and sat down. It was like eggs, though it wasn't from a chicken, and toast, though it wasn't made from wheat, with a glass of milk, though it didn't come from a cow. She was familiar with their tastes by now, but the things her food was made from were foreign. She still hadn't seen the animals that made the eggs and the milk. At least they were decently edible, otherwise she would never have been able to get used to living here.

"Nagisa." She looked up at him as she shoveled the last bit of food into her mouth. He pointed at the pants on the table. "Wear them, please."

Nagisa sat on a bus that was, other than Erman and the bus driver, completely empty. She had put on the pants, of course, and then they had walked the mile to the bus stop, where they were picked up. This would be her first time leaving the farm since that first night. She watched out the window as the fields went by, then as they passed through a tunnel. It was several minutes, possibly half an hour, before they left the tunnel again, coming out into a different district.

It looked entirely different from the farms, that was for sure. There were tall trees standing at the side of the road, separating the vehicle traffic from the people walking about on sidewalks. Here were sights she found more familiar, almost nostalgic. No, they were totally nostalgic. There were shops, windows, markets, children, cars, rural blocks! Civilization! This felt so much more like home. Still, not a single building was nearly the size of the skyscrapers and office buildings she knew, but there were so many things here she felt like she'd been missing out. Libraries, parks, fountains, arcades, lampposts, streetlights, and a camera on every corner.

Upon closer inspection, she realized that there was indeed an inordinate amount of security cameras. It was of some concern, but not so much at this very moment that it distracted her. As the bus turned a corner, she could see a building coming into view ahead of them. It was still somewhat distant, but it was without a doubt the biggest structure she had yet seen inside this biosphere world. It had to be very important, given that it was at least two dozen stories taller than any other building she could see.

Erman leaned forward, pointing to that building. "We go there. Meet General."

Right. They were here for business.