Part 1: The Bazaar
	Pillow's golden eyes tracked the noodly individual who was nudely perusing the wares at the bazaar. Many of the folks there were diffusing faint amounts of mana into the atmosphere. Some wore clothes that reflected or absorbed mana around them. A couple gave off none of their own and simply had mana passing straight through them, transparent to it. The naked alien, however, *apparently* had skin that was a mana insulator. And that was one of the less obvious oddities.
	Pillow wondered where their guts could be; her own were oddly-shaped/positioned to fit her preposterous waist, but they had bones to get along with, which this newcomer's evidently did not. The way every part of them could flex like a rubber hose ruled out all but the smallest and most numerous of bones. No way. This red-and-orange figure resembled something constructed out of clay snakes. And a couple of spheres. Above their bouncing bosoms, their strand of a torso forked in two, meeting up again behind their head. From the sides of that head came their two arms, looped through the torso hoop in a way that gave them a silhouette with something resembling shoulders. The breasts were surely too prone to jostling to host something like a heart or a brain. Especially with that bounding, boingy gait. But the head was occupied by a big green eyeball! Pillow figured that they might be like a Neumono, with a distributed brain. As for the rest, she simply gave up for now. A spell that would give her more info would be too obtrusive; she'd be noticed for sure. She had other, less academic curiosities about this naked stranger, and a more tactful way to find out all she wanted...
	With a swish of her oversized tail, she vanished, reappearing closer to her target and sneaking the rest of the way through the crowd. You wouldn't have thought that someone with such large and obtrusive features as this nearly-8-foot-tall cream-and-brown foxgirl would be capable of sneaking, but you wouldn't have counted on just how much time she'd spent practicing, either. While the noodle was engrossed by some enchanted puzzle boxes, she stepped close-ish behind and to the right, and pretended to be looking as well. Meanwhile, she conjured an invisible hand and gave a quick double-tap on the opposite "shoulder." Shortly, their body was like a single tall eyestalk, twisting up at her face, deftly avoiding contact with Pillow's kimono. The big green eye stared with an expression that was completely ambiguous. 
	"Ah-! Didn't fool you for a second, did I?" she asked the strange eye. The alien seemed to do nothing. "My name is Pillow. I come here every season, but I've never seen you before! Nice to meet you." She held out a white-gloved, five-fingered hand. The alien blinked and then a long orange limb with three red digits slowly poked it. "Aha... I know my way around the place, so if there's anything you're looking for, I might be able to point you there. Some of the regular vendors even know me~" The thick red digits slowly wrapped around Pillow's wrist.
	At a booth selling undersea-themed knicknacks, Pillow observed something curious from her new friend, who she now knew was a woman named Stargazer. Stargazer had placed a hand into her hoop, and when it pulled back out, it brought with it a coin. Upon exchanging it for something prominently featuring a spiny metal shell that may or may not have been a sculpture, she placed that into the hoop, through which it vanished! "Ah, that's a good one!" Pillow nodded, and looked through the hole at a passerby with curled antennae. "I haven't met anyone with a..." She gestured along the curve of either side with her hands, "torus there, before. Very intriguing feature..." She had continued the gesture along more of Stargazer's curves. "And it sure isn't your only one~" While Pillow had only her head and tail and a bit of her neck visible under her pink kimono, Stargazer had magenta nipples and a hint of same-coloured prepuce showing. And while looking downward, Pillow got a good look at the two thick red toes per foot (really just the ends of her tubular legs), compared to Pillow's more humanoid style, clad in white socks and wooden sandals (also humanoid style). Fortunately, the air and the grass were cool and free of sharp debris, though the sun was out and there was certainly a lot of pedestrian traffic.
	Pillow's charms must have worked, because Stargazer accompanied her as Pillow collected the remaining items on her own list, having come, unlike Stargazer, with specific items in mind in addition to just a desire to check things out. The alien stared at the powders, spices, and exotic toys that Pillow collected (seemingly shrinking them and putting them into her mysterious pockets), but then, she stared at everything. "I do a live stream periodically. Lewd cosplay and video games. You should check it out~ This model is designed to have features activated remotely," explained the fox. "It has a lot of them built in, but you can add custom ones. It's open-source..."
	But when the time came for Pillow to leave, it seemed, she wouldn't be able to bring her present company along. "Is that so! Hmm~" She took a card out of her own cleavage storage. "If you want to stay in touch, here's my contact info~" She attempted to insert it into the hoop, but the noodly lady grabbed her wrist en-route, took the card with her other hand, and inserted it herself without breaking eye contact. "Oh, I see... yes, that might have been a little forward of me~ That's my bad~ Sorry~ Ah, I hope you'll be back soon!" The noodle swayed vaguely, but made no sound. "You have a good time too~"