"It's for modesty," Tisarwat explained, feeling relieved and pleased on more than one level to find that Vette was willing to be as cooperative on it as Kuroko had been. "Someone without gloves is practically the same to us as someone being naked, so you can imagine what this," she gestured at the picnic as a whole, "must feel like for me. It would make me more comfortable, if you wouldn't mind. Otherwise..."

She let that trail off with a faint laugh, an embarrassed duck of her head.

"Anyway," she said, as if brushing that aside for now, "everything where I'm from is connected to technology, so being here without it makes you just feels sort of...cut off. It'll take some getting used to."

Though perhaps not nearly as bad as the feeling from being suddenly cut off from your dozens and dozens of selves.

"So you're used to more of an advanced society yourself? What's it like? And how did you end up here, of all places?"