Thunder did its thing.

Rakkel ducked under an awning. Xe fumbled in xir messenger bag for a poncho, grumbling, tail swishing in annoyance. This was not how xe had wanted to encounter Forash Market for the very first time.

Objects clinked in the messenger bag: Metal rings, small pieces of ceramics, a burnt-out AR device xe'd been meaning to try to repair for weeks now. Stale clothing. Empty food wrappers, which spilled embarassingly out onto the ground. Xe put a foot down on them before they blew away, picked them up, and stuffed them back into the bag. Why, xe asked xirself, haven't I learned yet to keep the rain gear near the top, where I can actually get at it when I need it?

Oh, but here it was. Xe pulled it from the pack, shook it out, and donned it. The plastic crinkled noisily. It was bright, cyan blue, with a neon-pink kangaroo on the belly. The kangaroo winked at the viewer in a way that Rakkel always thought was somewhat lascivious, although that hadn't likely been the designer's intention. Underneath, the name of the restaurant: "Hoppy's Harvest - Fine Eatery".

Rakkel's ears poked out through two holes in the hood that xe'd torn xirself.

This was not, Rakkel would be the first to admit - happily, and at great volume - the world's greatest poncho. It was, in fact, extremely cheaply made, as well as tasteless, and as poorly-sized as a poncho could reasonably be. But it basically worked. The plastic kept rain out. Rakkel's fur stayed dry.

"What's going on out here?"

Rakkel spun around. The awning xe'd chosen to hide under fronted a little shop or booth, currently closed, a metal shutter covering its service window. The shutter had a long, thin pane of glass in it, and a pair of eye was staring out at Rakkel through this.

"Hi," said Rakkel, smiling xir most charming smile. "Don't mind me, I'm just hiding from the rain." Said rain had increased from a spatter to a deluge since xe'd taken shelter here. Xe had to raise xir voice to be heard over it.

The shutter slammed open. The man standing behind it glared suspiciously out at Rakkel, the rain, the alleyway beyond the awning, and the world in general. His eyes were piggish, and his skin, for that matter, was about as ruddy-pink as Rakkel had ever seen on a stock human. His head took a kind of frustum shape, narrowing to a little spherical hat that sat above his head as though the face were being projected downward out of it. His chin, to the extent that it existed, badly needed shaving.

"I can go somewhere else if I'm bothering you," said Rakkel. Xe took a step backwards.

"You one of those weirdos?" The merchant scrutinized xir. His gaze lingered on xir pointy ears, xir stripy, fluffy tail, xir snout, xir big, reddish-orange eyes, xir black and white fur.

"I'm not sure what you mean," said Rakkel. "Weirdos?"

The merchant snorted. "Some kinda kangaroo-person, then?" His gaze dropped to the poncho.

"What? No!"

"No? Eh... a bat?"

"A bat? What? Do I look like a bat?"

"Hey, I can't see what's under that poncho. Could be a big pair of leathery, flappy wings or something."

"I'm a lemur," said Rakkel, who wasn't entirely unused to people getting this wrong, but wasn't at all used to them getting it quite as wrong as this.

"Oh? What's one of them, then?"

"We're primates," said Rakkel. "Kind of like monkeys."

"Oh." The suspicious glare ran up and down Rakkel's body again. "Like monkeys? You sure about that? Don't really look like a monkey to me. Sure you're not some kind of raccoon or something? Or a squirrel?"

"Pretty sure," said Rakkel. "Er, listen, I don't mean to bother you. I can move along."

"Nah, nah, it's fine. You're not hurting nothing."

At this point, the rain was so thick, it was difficult to make out the alley's opposite wall. Droplets splashed all over the lower sides of the poncho, and the puddles underfoot had begun to join forces into an increasingly unstoppable-looking army. Already, it had conquered the territory around Rakkel's bare foot-pads.

"Listen, do wet leburs smell anything like wet dogs? Only I can't have you stinking things up around my shopfront, or you'll drive customers away."

"Oh... uh... I don't think we do, but really, it's no trouble, I can-"

"Maybe you'd better come in," said the man. "It'll be much dryer in here." He moved away from the window. Rakkel heard the sound of several locks being unlocked behind the adjacent door.

Xe ran through several phrases for turning the man's offer down politely in xir head, trying to decide if any of them would inadvertantly cause offense. Xe debated just running away. Normally, xe didn't have any trouble dealing with people, but now, in a strange city and with some strange stock-human who, xe thought, was being a little bit more generous than xir expectations deemed plasuible, xe wasn't on any kind of solid footing. Somewhere around here, xe thought, there was bound to be a hostel or something. Xe should go find it. Probably xe could talk them into putting xir up for one night even without payment.

The door opened. Apparently, the merchant had been standing on some kind of raised ledge behind the shop's window, because in the doorway he was maybe two-thirds as tall, and much shorter than Rakkel. He had on an olive-green apron of duck cloth over a loose jacket and flared trousers, and his body followed the same frustum shape that his head implied. He had a stub where his left thumb ought to be.

He leaned out, peered suspiciously to the left and right, then stepped back and waved for Rakkel to come in.

"I really don't want to impose-" said Rakkel.

"Eh, absolutely not! Come in, come in! I insist!"

The merchant grabbed xir arm and pulled. The grip, xe, noticed, wasn't actually very strong. Xe could easily break free from it. And this wasn't even the hand that lacked a thumb.

Shrugging to xirself, xe stepped inside.

The merchant's store consisted, it seemed, of just the narrow space behind the shuttered window, immediately to the left of the door and up a step. Opposite that, to the right of the door, a similarly narrow staircase ran up and adjacent to the building's outer wall. The merchant had to angle his body slightly to fit, and even Rakkel, lithe as the lemur xe was, felt cramped. A short ways up, the stairs took a hairpin turn, and doubled back to a room above the front door which was exactly as wide as both flights of stairs combined, and no wider.

This, evidently, was where the merchant lived - obviously alone. There wasn't room for a roommate. There was barely room for the merchant himself.

The only furnishings were a couple of faded, threadbare beanbags on the floor, or so Rakkel thought until the merchant twisted a toggle on the righthand wall, unfolding what had seemed just another piece of wall paneling into a very narrow table.

"Make yourself at home," said the merchant. "Dunno what lemburs eat, but I've got some fixins on the ground floor if you're hungry. It's mostly cheap vat-meat, but it's the best cheap vat-meat this side of Forash, if I do say so meself. Normally I'd charge ya for it, but since you're a guest, it's on the house." He smiled. It was the first time he'd smiled since Rakkel had met him, and it only lasted a moment.

"Thanks," said Rakkel. "Famished, actually." Xe gave xir own smile, though xe wasn't entirely feeling it. Still, any chance to show off xir fangs. Xe was proud of xir fangs. Xe thought they were one of xir cutest features.

The merchant wasn't even looking. "I'll go get my other guest," he said. "Since I'm preparing food and all. The two of you can introduce yourselves. Oh!" He turned around. "Name's Doople." He extended a hand.

"Rakkel," said Rakkel. Xe shook it.

"Never met a legur before. Don't really know much in general about you lot, actually. Weirdos, I mean."

"Weirdos?"

"Yeah, you know. Body modders. Animal people."

Rakkel shrugged. "We're just people," xe said.

Doople had gone to a ladder riveted to the wall on the far side of the room and began climbing it as he spoke. He said something else, but Rakkel couldn't hear it, since his head was already past the ceiling. Rakkel noticed there were bags and nets hanging from every available inch of the ceiling, in amongst the light fixtures. The nets, xe could see through the holes, held all sorts of objects - candles, books, appliances, unrecognizable gewgaws. Judging from their lumpy, uneven shapes, the bags held similar.

Rakkel still felt slightly overwhelmed. At least the merchant hadn't pulled a gun on xir or anything. There'd been this horrifying fantasy playing in xir head in which he lured xir into some abandoned warehouse behind the shop to commit horrible acts of violence in peace and privacy. Evidently, this hadn't been his intention. Certainly, nobody would want to commit horrible acts of violence in this apartment. There simply wasn't enough room.

Neither beanbag being tall enough to reach the table, Rakkel leaned against the wall at its edge. Then, self-conscious of dripping, xe took off the poncho and folded it up again, though xe didn't put it back in the bag, just in case xe decided to leave in a hurry. Underneath, xe wore just a thin white tunic with a long v-cut neck and a short pair of trousers. Xe typically dressed light over the fur. By xir standards, this was a lot.

Above Rakkel, on the other side of the ceiling, someone was speaking to someone else. Rakkel couldn't make out any words. Xe wondered if the room above was wider than this one. Probably not, or else why attempt to use this room as a room at all? It barely qualified as a corridor. Some architect somewhere hadn't been very good at planning ahead, Rakkel supposed. They'd clearly had some extra space left over on their blueprint and no idea what to do with it. Or maybe the whole building was like this - accordion folds of tiny rooms layered upon tiny rooms, an exercise in pushing the limits of human habitation.

Doople's feet reappeared on the ladder. They descended, revealing Doople's prominent buttocks behind them, and then as he stepped down off the ladder, a second pair of feet appeared above his head. Hooved feet.

Rakkel's eyes bulged. This was the last thing xe'd expected.

The cloven hooves proceeded downward in front of the body of a svelte, pink-skinned, elegantly-but-simply-dressed pig-person, who stepped off the ladder behind Doople, turned around, and gasped in shock. Which made two of them.

"Two animal people in as many days," said Doople. "How about that, eh? Never seen so many weirdos in my life, and now all at once. I'll let you two get acquainted while I go fetch dinner." He squeezed past Rakkel and descended the tiny staircase.

Rakkel mentally re-evaluated xir description of Doople's eyes as "piggish." Even if it wasn't kind of offensive, it didn't seem accurate when compared to the real things, clearly much larger and more expressive than Doople's behind the pair of tiny, round eyeglasses. Not to mention, the newcomer's fuzzy, cream-colored skin didn't resemble Doople's ruddy pink at all.

"Hello," the newcomer said.

"Hi," said Rakkel. Xe gave his grin again.

"I really didn't expect to meet another of our kind here," he said.

Rakkel wasn't sure xe was anybody's kind, as such. Especially whatever kind this stranger was.

"I'm Rakkel," xe said. "I really didn't expect anything that's happened to me in this city so far. Which has been rain, mostly."

"Welton," said, evidently, Welton. "I'm a professional scribe, a collector of rare bugs, and a distant cousin of Doople."

"Charmed," said Rakkel.

"He tells me he brought you in out of the rain."

"Pretty much," said Rakkel.

"Friendly fellow, isn't he? Behind it all, I mean. I do wish he'd stop calling me a weirdo. But nobody'd told him what I was until I showed up at his doorstep a couple days ago, and it didn't bother him at all. I'd never even met him before."

Rakkel said nothing.

"Which, actually, is a refreshing change of pace. Nobody back home is happy with me at all. One of the reasons I came out here, actually. Actually, the main reason. Not that I told them that. But they were relieved to get rid of me, I think. Very traditional family."

Rakkel continued to say nothing.

"Thought for sure cousin Doople would be a non-stop barrage of jokes about pork and bacon and so forth. Him being in the meat trade, and all. But he hasn't mentioned it once. Thank goodness. You should hear some of the things my siblings say back home when they think I think they think I'm out of earshot. Sorry if I'm carrying on, it's just you don't know how happy it makes me to meet someone else who's, you know, one of us. I never have before, actually. I mean, there were some at the facility, of course, but they didn't really count. And that was before I knew what it was like."

"The facility?"

"Yeah, you know, where I had it done. The conversion. I don't have any regrets, of course. It's the porcine life for me, all the way, for certain. Er. I'm sorry, I'm really overdoing it, aren't I?"

"No, it's fine," said Rakkel. "I just, you know, it's been a long day. Feeling a little overwhelmed, here."

Welton nodded. "I take it you're new in town?"

"Yeah. Just got in this morning. And then it started raining."

"Have you gotten a chance to see it yet? The market, I mean. No, of course you haven't, not with the rain and all."

Rakkel shook xir head.

"It's fantastic! I'll show you around tomorrow, if you'd like. Assuming the rain lets up. I hope it does - Doople's apartment is driving me crazy. I don't understand how he can live here. It's like being trapped in a picture frame or something."

Rakkel blinked. "I've only just met you," xe said.

"Yeah, well, you seem alright. Doople clearly thinks so, or he wouldn't have brought you in out of the rain. And like I said, I've never even met someone else who-"

Doople came up the stairs with a tray which scraped along the walls with every step he took. In the center of the tray stood a steaming bowl surrounded by three cheap-looking plastic bowls and a styrofoam container full of round buns, which also let off a little steam.

"Dumpling stew," said Doople, proudly. "It's not fancy, but it'll fill ya. Best of all, nothing died for it. One hundred percent vat-grown. I can guarantee it - I was there."

Rakkan stepped aside so he could slide the tray onto the narrow table.

"Nobody found the stools? Welton, I know I showed them to you last night."

"Oh, yeah," said Welton, stepping forward. "Some kind of catch over here in the corner, right?"

"Exactly," said Doople.

Welton reached down with slender but thick-nailed fingers and did something to the bottom of the table. Four stools unfolded from its bottom surface and extended slightly outward until they were hanging in the proper sitting position.

Doople set out the bowls and distributed a helping of dumpling stew to each of them, then placed a couple of buns on each plate. "Help yourself to more," he said, "I don't stand on ceremony here. Or for it. I'm just serving you now while I'm standing up so you don't have to reach too much. Kinda awkward with this table."

Rakkel's stomach growled.

"Listen," xe said, "this is way too kind of you. Way, way too kind. I don't even know you or anything."

Doople grinned briefly again. "Nothing whatsoever," he said. "I couldn't let anyone stand around in that rain, weirdo or no. Dunno what you're waiting for - sit down!"

Rakkel sat. Rakkel ate. The food tasted, in part thanks to the urgings from Rakkel's hungry stomach, utterly delicious, cheap street food though it was.

As xe ate, Doople and Welton had a running conversation about some mutual relative, which they left Rakkel totally out of - to Rakkel's surprise. Xe thought they'd have questions for xir. What was the point, after all, of having a house guest if you didn't talk to them? But perhaps they sensed that Rakkel wasn't in the mood to talk. Which xe wasn't, really. Xe hadn't know what to expect from Forash to begin with, but if xe had expected anything, this wouldn't have been it.

Cheap street food? The meat felt juicy and perfectly tender on xir tongue. The buns turned out to be stuffed with a meat paste, and these, also, had been baked to perfection, a thin, crisp crust over fluffy white bread, and the meat paste delicious and smooth underneath. Doople clearly knew his trade.

"Of course I don't object, but will there be enough room?" Welton was asking.

"Sure. Why not? I can sleep down here. Just don't step on my face if you wake up before me and want to come down for something."

"Oh, alright. Then I guess that's settled."

"I've got some more sheets in one of these bags. Once we're done eating, I'll go remake my bunk."

"What?" said Rakkel. "No, you can't mean-"

"It's still raining," said Doople. "I'm not sending you out in that. We can clear things up with your hotel in the morning. I'm sure they'll offer a refund."

"I haven't got one yet," said Rakkel. "But-"

"No argument! You're clearly exhausted, anyway. You'll sleep here, and you'll have breakfast with us in the morning, and you'll enjoy it!"

"But I don't even know you! I've barely even met you!"

"What, they don't have hospitality where you're from?"

Rakkel's eyes were watering, in defiance of xir lemuroid form. "Thank you," xe said. "I really didn't expect this kindness here."

"Truly, it's nothing. We're civilized here in Forash, after all. At least, most of us are." Doople looked thoughtful for a moment. "At least, I am. But you've got to start somewhere."

After that, they cleared away the plates and bowls, raised the stools, refolded the table into the wall, and brought Rakkel up the ladder to a second room - just as narrow as the one below it - where a pair of vertically-layered cots were built into the far end, accessable only from the foot.

"Welton's got the bottom one, so you can sleep on top," said Doople. "Bathroom's through the hatch just above the ladder. You'll have to give the pump a few pumps if you want more than a few seconds of water, but once it's running, it'll keep going. Gets warmer after about half a minute, too."

Rakkel hung the poncho up in the bathroom to drip dry. Then xe stripped, climbed into the top bunk, and fell asleep on xir messenger bag in an instant.