Andrew sat there for a while, eating, drinking, and pondering. "Simolions," eh? So that cursive F on the coins was actually an old-style S; but wasn't that outdated American slang for a dollar? And that little girl on the street called her mother "maman," which Andrew thought was French. That was an interesting combination, for a world that had neither America nor France in it.
Which led her back to wondering about the nature of this place. Clearly, there was more to this world than what was defined in the game, but was this a real, physical other world, or had Andrew's mind somehow wound up in the arcade machine? (She had stopped nitpicking over what was "possible" when she'd been teleported to another world and turned into a harpy, but this notion still rubbed Andrew the wrong way in terms of plausibility.) And which would be worse? The "Matrix"-type scenario would be easier to hack out of if she could just find one of those exploitable glitches that were so common in these older games, but getting back into her body would be problematic. On the other hand, the "physical place" theory presented the dual challenges of becoming a human male again and finding a way to return to Earth...
Someone sat down next to Andrew. Turning to look, she saw that it was a young man in his mid-teens, about the same age as herself. He smiled at her, and she returned to her meal, trying not to wonder whether he was staring at her breasts. Why did that thought bother her? She'd almost forgotten she was naked until just now, but all of a sudden she felt flustered and embarassed. She placed one wing where she thought it would block his line of sight and hoped he'd go away, but it wasn't much use; she needed both wings to keep her balance when eating with her talons, and he wasn't going anywhere.
"Good day," he said. Andrew continued eating, hoping that this conversation would end before it started.
"My name is Fritz," he said. "Yours?" Andrew sighed inwardly. Okay, self, she thought, just because you have a lot of problems doesn't justify being an asshole to people. Besides, he didn't seem like he was leering so much as just curious.
"Andi," she replied. She hated it as a nickname, but it would serve as a gender-neutral version until she was back to normal.
Fritz nodded. "Right, Andi. So what are you doing down out of the mountains? I thought most harpy-folk liked it up in the rocks."
Andrew tried to keep from rolling her eyes. Was this guy going to continue making small talk the whole time she was trying to eat? "I'm headed towards the cities," she said. "I've got some things I want taken care of."
He looked surprised, and then a little excited. "Oh," he said. "I'm actualky headed in to sell my wares in a couple weeks. If you want to wait until then, we could travel together and I'll help you figure out how to find what you need."
Andrew was freaked out. She couldn't tell if he was trying to chat her up or was just being genuinely friendly and helpful, but there was no way she was camping...out under the stars...with a young man her age...
Okay, that was even freakier. She needed to get out of here, now. "Um, well," she said, hopping down from her stool and grabbing her money-pouch, "I'm actually...I'm leaving tomorrow." Yeah, that was it. "But thanks anyway. Maybe I'll see you there." She actually had no intention of seeing this guy again, but it kept him distracted as she slipped out the door.
Outside, Andrew breathed a sigh of relief. Then she was off to run her errands; first, she had to obtain a bra and stop this damn bouncing.