Eorzean food recipes are typically single-serving. Yes, you usually make three servings at a time, but those are three single servings. Like, cooking aldgoat meat results in three aldgoat steaks, not one aldgoat roast that needs to be cut up. There are specifically multiserving recipes, meant to sit on tables in guildhouses where anyone can grab a serving and go, but those are mastercraft recipes which might require ink with more oomph than our copper-based ink.

So rather than the apple pie I'd envisioned, we adapted the faerie apple tart recipe to the red delicious we got in Stillwater. Two bushels made a lot of tarts, which means a couple days' labor will net us a few weeks' income. They came out looking a bit like what McDonald's calls an apple pie, so, mission accomplished?

Bicycles on Amazon start at $150 and we need two. That's going too nuts for one shot. So, Craigslist. Found a few listings for used bikes in Tulsa. I figured Tsu'na could use a look at a real Earth city, so I found a bus that goes along the main highway and stops in Wyatt. Baby steps for Los Angeles.

Eorzea doesn't have mass transportation. All the means of travel are single-person (except for multi-seat mounts). So Tsu'na liked the idea of a bus and wondered why there wasn't something like it back home. Not that she'd use it if there were, between flying mounts, chocobos, airships and teleportation, but still.

It took half an hour to get to the outskirts of Tulsa. The farms came first, then single houses along the highway, then the townhouses and strip malls. Tsu'na had the window seat and was pretty much glued to the glass. There were so many little details we were passing by that she didn't notice the skyline at first. Then she made out the buildings and her eyes got wide.

"That is Tulsa?"

"I believe it is."

"Is that the biggest city in this world?"

"Forty-seventh biggest in the US, second in Oklahoma, according to Wikipedia."

The skyline got bigger. "There are larger than that?"

Baby steps.

"What are all those buildings for?"

"Some are business, some are residential. The residences are like inn rooms...the Mizzenmast might look like one of those if all the rooms were stacked up."

The bus stop was in the center of town. We got off, and Tsu'na stood on the sidewalk, turning around and around looking at the buildings towering over her. I steadied her after a bit in case she was getting dizzy.

"I thought I knew what a city was," she said softly.

I smiled and wrapped my arms around her from behind as her gaze passed over the storefronts. She relaxed against me. I felt her breathing steady.

"Did you grow up in a place like this?"

"No, just near one. My home was more like what we passed on the way in. I can show you some time."

"Is it far?"

"About fifteen hundred miles. We're close to the middle of the country...I come from the east coast."

The bike seller I'd contacted said he was heading into town anyway and would bring the bike in his pickup. We were a couple blocks and a couple hours from the meeting, so we wandered down the street. Tsu'na looked in all the storefront windows she passed. Lingering at the hair salon got her some pointed looks from the people inside. A child waved at her from inside an ice cream parlor; she smiled and waved back.

I'd arranged for the meeting to be near a particular business I wanted to show her: a gaming parlor. I'd checked and found they had a few machines set up with FF14. After telling her about the player end of things for more than a year I thought it would be good to show her. I'd coordinated with Original Me to use his account for a bit; he'd switched off to other games anyway.

The machine we rented for an hour was shinier than anything in the Wyatt library, literally and functionally. Better processor, more memory, bigger screen, and a stupidly button-endowed mouse (never did understand what-all people did with those). Tsu'na and I pulled up chairs, I inserted the timecard, and I loaded FF14. Original Me's password was what I remembered.

Tsu'na sat politely, watching while I logged in. I handed her the headphones. I navigated to the cinematics and was about to launch the trailer for A Realm Reborn, when I saw she was simply holding the headphones and looking at me. "What am I to do with this?" she asked.

"You..." You wrap them around your head to cover human ears you don't have. Hm. I took them from her and stood. "Hold still..." The headphones wouldn't have had purchase on her head in a way to cover her ears, but the beret gave some shape that could hold them in roughly the right place. "Okay. Can you hear the music through the beret?"

She nodded, so I brought up the trailer. She stared at the scenes of battle, the freeing of Bahamut, the sacrificial spell that contained him again and the aftermath. "So this is what happened. This was long before I came to Limsa."

"Yeah, I don't know how historically accurate it is from your perspective. For you it might be an artistic rendition...like, a bard song."

"This is the game?"

"No, this is what they call a trailer. It's a little video they made to make people interested in the game." I hit escape to get to the menu, clicked Start and brought up character selection. "This is the game."

Her jaw dropped. "That is...me."

"Yeah...that's the character I created. He created. Whatever."

"There are other names here besides mine."

"I wanted to see what the other races looked like."

She took the mouse and clicked on each of the names, showing the elezen, the au ra, the viera, the lalafel, and finally the hyur. "They are all female. If you are pretending to be in Eorzea, would you not create something that looked like you?"

I squirmed a little. "I think an artist I followed said it best. 'If I'm going to have to stare at an ass for hours at a time, I at least want it to be an attractive one.'"

She glanced at me. "An ass?"

I got the mouse from her and clicked on her name. Her character loaded in the middle of Limsa near Maelstrom Command. "See, when you're...when I'm playing the game, I see my character in front of me from the back. See how I'm moving around? I have to go to some effort to see the face."

"What is the music I hear?"

"Background music. It's part of the game. Different times, different places, different music. You sort of get used to it after a while."

"I remember you once said Eorzea was quieter than you expected."

"Yeah...after playing the game enough I'd hear the music in my head everywhere I went. Kind of heard it in my head for a while when I was in Eorzea. Took months for that to go away."

"Music is everywhere in the city?"

"Cities, towns, wildernesses, dungeons, raids, guildhests. Everywhere."

She tilted her head. "Is this why there was so much in our orchestrion?"

"Kept collecting it, yeah."

"So...you spent a lot of time looking at me."

"At the character you resemble, yes."

"Running, fighting, buying and selling..." She raised an eyebrow. "...Changing clothes?"

"Uh...had to assemble the gearsets..."

"What are all these little squares on the screen?"

"Hotkeyed actions. The grey ones on the side are your gearsets, that's for riding Boreas, those along the bottom are your spells and combat actions." I clicked on the Ifrit button and the familiar appeared in its flaming glory.

"You make me do things with these."

"I make the character do things, yes. Here, give it a try. Move the mouse to change direction and hold W to run. Right-click on an aetheryte shard to go somewhere."

She gave it a try. She ran to the nearby shard and teleported to Hawker's Alley, ran past the shops to the western shard and teleported to the Bismark, ran through the dining area into the kitchen...and froze. She had gotten more and more tense as she'd run the character; now she pulled the headphones off and shoved away from the desk.

"I...remember these places. I remember how they sounded...how they...smelled..." She took a shaky breath and wrapped her arms around herself. "...No."

"Are you okay, my love?"

"This is my home. This is my world. This is my life. This...game!"

I reached out to touch her shoulder. She jerked away.

"You did this for fun! You made me for fun!"

She was having a meltdown and it was my fault. I had absolutely no idea what to say.

She stood up, still holding herself. "I am going home."

"But what about..."

She was gone.

"...the bicycle?"

I logged out, cashed in my timecard and went out to find a bench to sit on until the bike seller showed up. The tires were old and the seat was a little ratty, but it was something to start with. I paid the $20 he'd asked and went to find a quiet alley to Return from.

I stopped in the diner and sat at the counter to check my journal map. Tsu'na's dot was at the Hartman house. Mrs. Hartman came up and glared at me. "What did you do to that girl?"

"Sorry...?"

"I was checking your room for laundry and found her curled up in bed. I said hello and she just pulled the blanket over her head. Did you make her cry?"

"No, it's...well, yes, but...You know what PTSD is, right?"

"Her?"

"She...lost her home and can't ever go back there. Up to now she's been okay, but I think I triggered her."

"Oh. Oh dear...Will she be all right?"

"I honestly don't know. Just trying to get my head straight before I try to talk to her."

I still didn't know what to say when I got to the house. She was indeed curled up under the fuzzy blanket. Only the tips of her ears showed. I slipped in behind her and wrapped an arm around her. She was very tense.

"Why are you not playing your game? Is it not fun?"

"It's a game. You're my life."

"I am not real. You made me."

"You're as real as I am, my love."

"You said that before. What does that mean?"

"I don't know. But it's true. We came to this world together, we're in this world together. I'm here with you. I'm here for you."

"Why are you so calm about it?"

"I'm not. I'm really not. Sometimes I'm scared shitless when I think about it. I try not to. All I care about is you and being here with you."

Her breathing was heavy, but not ragged.

"Scared shitless."

"It means really, really scared."

"Rude?"

"Yes, but common."

I could feel her heart starting to calm down.

"Do not ever leave me."

"Yes, my love."

"Do not play the game."

"Yes, my love."

She shuddered briefly, then her breathing steadied.

"Hold me."

"Yes, my love."