"I'm a little short on money."

"Oh, that's right. I'll advance you your wages tomorrow." Bluemoon shook his head. "How bad was it, really? You seem to have bounced back quickly from the ordeal."

"It looks like whoever attacked me, just rifled through my bags and left. I'm all right otherwise. I... am in better shape than I have any right to be."

"I'm sorry if I seem unconcerned. I'm just relieved, really, because I don't need to gather the family and take up our weapons again for revenge."

His matter-of-fact tone made Selen's tail twitch uneasily. "Glad to hear it."

"Now off to the Shrike with you, shoo!"

#

Selen went next door to the tavern, and fumbled around asking questions until she figured out she had a standing tab here, discounted for being a near-daily customer. There was a menu on a board, with pictures. She tried asking the bored Human teenager behind the counter -- some things carried over! -- for "the usual".

That turned out to be a plate of vegetables, something like sweet potatoes served with a skewer of unidentified berries. She asked for some utensils and got a funny look from the nearest serving-bird. "You forgot yours?"

In hindsight, the other customers had mismatched sets. "Uh, looks that way."

They loaned her a crude iron spoon and she got to figure out how to eat and drink with a beak. Was she supposed to swallow pebbles to grind food up? She seemed able to handle this meal and didn't need to cut it up. Now, if only she had something to read.

She tried to learn what she could from watching. Mostly copper coins, mixed-species crowd, mostly people in groups with a little dice gambling going on. There was a dartboard. But hold on; this was a bar with no pool table? She could invent it and get the credit.

Selen paused in mid-bite. There was a basic question that her mystery benefactor hadn't answered in much detail: Why am I here?

What limited answer she'd gotten, amounted to "it might be amusing". She'd committed to filling in as the new Selen. But otherwise, what did she want to do with this new life? Magic, definitely, but maybe she could invent a few things too and make this world a little better-off. While getting rich.

Meanwhile, she had some responsibilities. She finished off her meal and headed home to start learning her actual day job.

First, up in her room, she rummaged for more intact clothes. Her cedar box held only a broad sash, one spare shirt, a skirt, and two pairs of underwear. She changed into the sole backup outfit and looked at the messenger bag sitting beside the box. Then at the leather backpack on the other side of the room.

That thing caught her eye. Unlike everything else here it looked brand-new. Focusing on it brought up a System notice saying, [Unique gift.]

Her wings stirred. She'd been told, in that space between worlds, that she could have one special item handed to her. So this was it. Well made but not clearly magical. She hefted it and found it quite light.

She was about to delve into figuring out what it did, but remembered she had work to do. She put the bag down and headed downstairs to the basement.

The Two Hoots cellar was a post office. Bins and shelves littered the room, attended by a Human girl, two Aves and even a Centaur.

The grey-haired Centaur boy -- nobody here looked older than Selen -- waved to her. "Hi! You're just in time. I need to head out; can you handle the sorting?" He patted an already-full pair of saddlebags he was about to carry off.

"I'll try," she said, since she was a little intimidated by all those hooves and legs.

He squeezed past her, very like a pony trying to pass her in a hall. That left the others looking expectantly at her.

Selen scratched her head-feathers. "I don't know if you heard, but I got knocked around the other day and I'm kind of forgetful right now. Can you all please pretend I don't know what I'm doing and give me some re-training?"

The Human snickered. "We get to explain it to you? Good practice. Come on, look here first at today's incoming bin."

One of the birdfolk looked skeptical, his seagull-white head tilted. "Is that a real thing, forgetting your job? Do you lose levels and skill points too?"

"I'm just getting started with the System anyway."

The group seemed puzzled by Selen's ignorance, but played along with explaining the filing system. The Two Hoots was basically the only post office in town and worked on principles developed by her adoptive father and his siblings, "back in the war". They offered delivery even well outside town. They could take advantage of each species' advantages, too: Centaurs for heavy hauling and quick jaunts. Humans for their "terrifying hiking stamina", as the girl boasted. Aves couriers offered air mail, but it took skill to get the endurance needed for anything but rapidly bouncing and gliding over the ground like a kangaroo.

"I need to get a lot of skills," Selen said, while beginning to sort the various scrolls and envelopes and wax-sealed papers and packages. "I'm a flimsy bird for one thing, so how do I get, what, Toughness?"

The seagull Aves said, "You're lucky you get to start doing that stuff. I have it all planned out. I'm gonna be a Fighter. So I need Toughness and Will for Health but then I also need Stamina, so --"

"So what will you do?" asked Selen. She then realized that the pun didn't work in this language.

"To get Will based skills? Meditation, Resist Hunger that I really would've already earned if I had the System yet, and I dunno, that magic-pushback thing."

"Repel Magic?" said the girl. "But for your flight stuff you kind of have to decide if you want more Mana or more Stamina. Or Health, yeah. Did you crash yet?"

Selen blushed. "Just a little!"