Seeing Samael's psychic-invisibility at work was eerie. Whenever someone's gaze would have fallen upon him, that person's pupils would contract to pinpoints. Their gaze would just move on after that. Supposedly the same thing happened to their other senses. "Biological brains throw away an amazing amount of information, only letting what is deemed important reach the consciousness. So it isn't that they don't see or hear me, it's just that their brains perceive me as beneath noticing," the demon explains. Yue is unhappy about it though, since it's something she's been trying to accomplish for years now without success.
Over the next few days, Sam shows Tasha various disturbing places in the temple-city. Places that the other researchers seem to overlook for some reason - until it's pointed out that the Wellstone is able project psionics that do more than cause fear. It can also produce effects like Samael does to hide things in plain sight. But they aren't always on their own - sometimes they join the other researchers in their explorations. Whenever one comes across something that explains the real purpose of the ceremonial chambers or the true identity of T'thogga, the demon will whisper something into their ears, supposedly to scramble the message, but Tasha can't know for certain. She hasn't been getting much sleep, given her determination to make sure Samael doesn't do anything behind her back. He hasn't eaten or drank anything at least, so there's no need to hide the loss of extra rations.
This all leaves Tasha looking rather blank faced and subdued, something she noticed belatedly and hopes others attribute to exploring a spooky horror-filled corpse-city. At least the tour and the introduction to peculiar psionics has been interesting for her, even if she doesn't feel she understands psionics any more than she understands hyperspace travel. As per the usual lately she's following Samael around, trying to look like she's intentionally going where ever it is she ends up going. "So are any of the things T'thogga tries to hide dangerous or useful? Is it protecting itself, or its masters?"
"It's pretty mindless, which probably a desirable quality in a working god," Samael says. "The Stonecutters used the old binding and taming rituals that dad so helpfully supplied, but those were really just to make it do what they wanted with the Wellstone and.. probably the bodies of the sacrifices. Not sure how those were recycled. Didn't really seem important at the time." They're on their way back to the campsite, moving at a leisurely pace. "You look terrible, by the way. I it a side-effect of that black liquid you consume? Coffee, Captain Akkers called it."
"I'm fine, it's not the first long watch I've had to do." Definitely not; Tasha's time on The Rake was full of long hours watching Pteras, the sky, rigging, and whatever else needed watching at the time. Usually her watch was as part of her duties as a drover, but occassionally she'd have to fill for a sick crewmate, which meant a lot of staring at clouds. "So T'thogga isn't intelligent? It won't mind if we relocate it, or, well, would it even mind if it lived or died?" If T'thogga were simply like a living machine, without self or sense of preservation, Tasha's choice would be an easy one. A pause, a question half-remembered. Oh. "Coffee just lets me watch longer."
"T'thogga-hem is not alive or dead, it's.. hard to describe," Samael attempts, waving his hands. "It's in a state of inactivity. Ogdru-hem are either detectors or doers. Pretty sure T'thogga is a detector. The bigger they are, the less they do."
"I think I've met another one like that. A detector, I mean. I wish I knew what they were detecting, though! They always hint they're watching and waiting, but I don't think they even know what for." Tasha reaches up and rubs the bridge of her muzzle, where it curves up against her head. She's seen Humans do it. That or Nora learned it from Humans to seem more Human, and she learned it from Nora to seem more Nora-like. "But we can't just leave it here alone. For one, it's detecting. And two, it's like what you said. Someone will come along and try to do this again. I know I'm not supposed to condescend people by helping them when they don't ask, but I already need to deal with this, so I might as well protect future-people too."
"It's possible that whatever the Sifra did to wipe out the sapients was enough to wake T'thogga-hem up enough to cause the puppet-people to vanish," Samael notes. "They pretty much existed because T'thogga was.. dreaming.. they were still real. Of course, dreaming isn't the precise term."
"I've noticed a lot of these things can never be explained precisely." Tasha has wondered at that ever since her unnerving conversation with Samael hours..? days..? earlier, if she can ever actually understand any exotic life form she's been dealing with enough for it to really matter. So, she asks again, in a new way. "Is it really impossible for me to understand things like psionics, T'thogga-hem, even you?"
"I have no idea," Samael insists. "Well.. psionics has been reduced to something that can be created with technology, so you probably just need to find the instruction manual. Do you need to understand things in order to use them?"
"I need to understand these beings in order to understand their intentions. Not just that, but how alliances can be formed, if they're using me, if we even understand what the other wants and who is my friend and who isn't. If I'm just going along being wrong, or, um, deluding myself my job as a speaker-to-gods might be worse than useless. I even thought about giving up, except I still think I've managed to somehow make progress and at least understand them a little. And they keep talking to me." The young woman shrugs her shoulders, unable to quite express the complex situation better than that. What goes unsaid is that she isn't sure what she'd do with herself if her role and crusade seemed pointless.
"Tell me, do you understand the intentions of anyone?" Samael asks. "Or just what they choose to present as their intentions?"
"I try to look past what they say and, um ... I try to feel who they are. What they want. I use experience and knowledge about them and, well, feelings to figure them out. The more exotic they are the harder that is. I also think higher, more intelligent beings can 'fill the gaps' for me using their own intelligence and knowledge, but that's risky because it's hard to know if they're manipulating me, especially when their plans span eons or even span beyond time itself." After cocking her head to the side, she shakes it. "I think I understand mostof my crew, anyway. My mother."
Samael holds up a taloned finger. "See, it would be much easier if you just assumed that anyone communicating with you is also trying to manipulate you. Because.. and this may just be me.. how a being responds to manipulation is one way of getting to know them and their intentions or motivations. Because you can't really know either of those for certain. But by pushing in a certain direction and seeing how easily they move with the push or resist it you can get a notion of them - because it's easier to manipulate someone into doing what they intended to do in the first place. Does that make sense? I've been pushing you since we met, for instance, to see what things you're willing to accept."
"I don't really like being manipulative, though." Tasha knows it sounds a bit childish, a bit naive, but it's not a life-long belief from a child that never grew up. Her desire not to manipulate people comes from a desire for them to trust her, to not enwrap herself in lies, at least when she can manage it. Sometimes she does lie, and lately it feels like she manipulates people a great deal, but she can never quite like it. The old her would have liked it just fine, though she lacked the sophistication to employ it at higher levels. She wonders if she has manipulated everyone from the start, if she would have the people she has, have met Atum. Somehow she doesn't think so; at the very least 'Lord' Yama would have destroyed her. "There's power in truth, too. If everyone manipulates, they're probably not able to deal with someone who speaks the truth. Unlike lies, the truth can't be destroyed, just ignored. But to ignore it means you have to manipulate yourself."
"There are different types of manipulation," Samael points out. "Can you say that I have been trying to manipulate you into doing what I want? That is probably the type you're thinking of. But we also manipulate our environment to see how it works.. so we can manipulate it better. When faced with something new and unknowable, you have to experiment. So far I've learned that you are oddly sympathetic to the Ogdru-hem - although this is hardly universal. I'd say you're mostly sympathetic to the ones that seem trapped or enslaved. You don't like seeing things suffer, even when the suffering is due to their own actions. But you aren't weak. So.. I surmise from this that in your past you did enjoy the suffering of others for personal reasons. Everything feels personal to you now though, doesn't it?"
Tasha mutters something about demons and their intelligence. "Yeah, that's more or less me, I guess," she confirms, deciding, like how Kaa once did with her, if Samael can negotiate an understanding so well then she might as well just admit it and go with it. "I used to really hate being me. A hybrid. The only one like me anyone knew, because I thought my mother liked Karnors more than her own kind and that my father thought she was a joke. So I took it out on others, and I didn't really care. I wanted power, and control, and I wanted someone to pay for what happened to me because I was tired of paying for it myself -- and why should I have?" She throws up her hands. "Then I learned things, wanted to change, and before I knew it I had so much of what I wanted I felt guilty about being so lucky. I also knew a lot of slaves, and outsiders, and I learned I'm semi-artificial, so I relate to them and I know what it feels like to be trapped, powerless, and outside. Angry."
"But it's not like I'm completely nice or innocent or what-ever now, either. Like this world?" Tasha kicks a small bit of black stone gently, indicatingly. "If this was a populated world and it was, I don't know, this world or Gabriel I'd pick Gabriel. I killed someone I loved for an ideal, because I thought she was vicious, and because it was the only way I knew how to save everyone at once."
"Because if I hadn't they'd have tortured her before she died," the hybrid adds, shrugging again. "But I still think I killed her for a bunch of people I never met. I mean, as well."
"I take it you are still relatively new to the whole empathy thing then," Samael suggests. "It would explain how you project yourself onto beings that you do not - or possibly cannot - understand. That killing could part of the reason as well. That was someone you understood, or thought you understood. You want to sympathize with your potential enemies, even if it means seeing your reflection in them so that you can convince yourself not to destroy them. Or I'm completely off, and this is the realm of things that I cannot understand. Even in this universe that is so alien to me, I've connected with some of its inhabitants. Others have been completely beyond my comprehension. That's why they have such standardized methods of communication. Well.. had.."
"So many people trust me to lead them, but sometimes I wonder if I'm making therigth choices, or being what they expect of me. Maybe I could have saved Blackwings if I turned on the Knights. Was that Silent-Ones family of strangers as important as her? But if I left her alone, would she have hrut me again? She'd have definitely hurt others. But Sinai isn't my, um, 'jurisdiction', I didn't have to interfere. But, I couldn't watch her be humiliated and killed." Tasha's muzzle wrinkles -- so many contradictions! It makes her head and heart ache, but she can't avoid them. As for the other part ... "I guess being psychic doesn't help any of this, does it? Being able to see their moods and thoughts directly, I mean. And what do you mean, standard? Like, rituals? The whole 'psychic flesning' thing?"
"No, the Galactic Languages," Samael says. "Even had one for communicating with hydrogen breathers. Some of those lived in the photosphere of stars. Completely foreign to life that was.. solid."
Tasha's eyes widen a little. She's met truly alien life, and compared to that the local variety isn't as amazing as it might have once been, but it is still pretty amazing to her. "I wonder how that went. Mathmatics? Psychics? I don't know, I've never spoken to anything like that. A lot of the higher beings I meet already know how to communicate with me, and the others use something a being like the Ogdru-hem left in me. Some kind of mark they can communicate through, a resonance."
"Just keep in mind that no two Ogdru-hem are the same," Samael advises. "What works with one could be totally ineffective on the other in terms of communication. I'm not sure how much is embedded in Hakeber, but I'm betting she doesn't understand it."
"You said that before, that there was something strange about her. I mena, beyond the usual and the knowledge embedded in her." Tasha walks faster, ending up beside Samael rather than behind him, looking over. "We're all worried about her. I've spoken to the ebing that changed her, decided not to destroy it, at least for now. It said it saw only a few futures, one where the Sifra win, the Ogdoad win, and it lives, but maybe it's just manipulating me. It also wants us to free another, um, Sedu-hem, which the Khattans are using to make their stators, off on Daltoona Station."
"So one of the new races has learned how to control or capture one of the Ogdru-hem already," Samael notes. "I wonder if Thotep had anything to do with that. Or.. the situation is different than what it seems."
"More importantly though, it implies that the Ogdru-hem do communicate with one another," the demon points out.
"It's really hard to know, isn't it? I agreed because Katha-hem hasn't actually killed anyone, and was acting out of self-defense and a weird kind of sympathy." Tasha then nods to the point. "That do, at least some do. They may not all communicate; I'm not even sure they're all allies. They seem to exist as individual tools for the Ogdoad, with enough awareness to do what they need to do, but also maybe enough to change and grow if they're allowed to think. They all seem shackled at some, um, fundamental level to their tasks, which is the hardest part for me to try and beat. Because if I can beat it, then I can get them on my side, free them, and maybe they can help us and help themselves doing it."
"I think the best case is just getting them to leave," Samael notes. "Or turn one into a beacon for your Waybuilders."
"The Waybuilders didn't exactly hand me a manual or give me a thumb ... uh ... fin, antenna..? One of those, up. They just sort of looked at me and then left, which I assume means they know everything about me, but it was very one-sided. I don't even know how to contact them, and getting back to where they are will be harder this time." As they walk along, Tasha shoves her hands in the pockets of the coat she'd brought along, retrieved from her camp. The old city is colder than the surface, or perhaps it just feels colder from the chill of anxiety. A leather coat made from red Abaddonian leather, given to her by Raehab as a going away present. "I thought about making them leave. They can't do their jobs if they're detached from this universe, can they? I got He-Who-Moves to leave, once."
"Sounds like a harrower name," Samael notes. "Those are altogether different from the Ogdru-hem. But I don't see why an Ogdru-hem couldn't survive in Elder Space. They're hybrids after all."
"Being a hybrid always feels like being able to be in both places but never really fitting in or being comfortable in either. I don't really like exiling them, but maybe they'll be better off there than here -- especially if I end up having to destroy them if they won't go." Tasha's head shakes. Her hooves make a steady clatter along the old not-stone. "I guess we'd need some way of exiling them, if they can't do it themselves. Like, um, a drive system that can let them exit, or some kind of weapon. What's Elder Space like, anyway? Incomprehensible to me?"
"Dark and sideways," Samael says. "You want Thotep to tell you how to kill one of them though, don't you?"
The young woman nods, shifting her gaze forward now that they're nearing the camp. She can't appear to be talking to someone beside her, after all. At least in seeming to talk to herself she can simply state she was addressing any number of machines. "How to use the ship, which can do it, except the ship also has an Ogdru-hem. Tatha-hem, one he 'broke', which he didn't elaborate on. Our target said the being inside is the real danger, not the ship hull itself. Besides that the Titanians have some idea, too, and I have a few more, but the ship builder's thought their deisgn would be best, and they were hunters so advanced even the other Old Ones couldn't grasp their brillance easily."
"Before we get into quiet-time," Samael says as the get closer to actual people, "I have a great and profound truth for you: time is eight eyes and three elbows. Once you understand that, you will be closer to understanding the Ogdru-hem."
The phrase makes her head hurt already. Tasha nods, though; it's not the first seemingly impossible thing someone has urged her to accept. After all, didn't she learn the universe was more than land, sky and sea? That it was biggest than even the seemingly infinite gulf of space? What, after all, is one more revelation? "I'll, um ... I'll think on that." And despite her apparent reluctance, she will.
Samael goes quiet then as they enter the camp. Some of the tents are being broken down, and a few of the scholars are not looking well - especially the Silent-Ones, who look about the same as Tasha - not getting any sleep.
"Can't sleep with all the fun and excitement?" Tasha asks, having a pretty good idea what the others are suffering, even if she has her own personal buffer from the brunt of it the buffer itself takes management. "Don't want to stay, maybe open a resort here?" She isn't sure her well-meaning sarcasim helps any, but she is sure she's too tired to come up with anything better.
"Everyone is feeling.. pressure," Dr. Broom says as he helps Miss Asimov pack up their gear. "Headaches and nightmares. You must feel it too. I suspect there's a lot of old psionics working here that are not tuned to our sorts of brains."
"Well, you're right about that." Tasha then does not elaborate, happy to be the mysterious and incomprehensible one for once. Isn't that what people expect of Khattans? Business acumen, high technology, automation and rare and exotic things, including knowledge. "I didn't notice it at first, but this place has psionics everywhere, and some of them may be a bit hostile. Like, well, anti-intrusion measures, just not deadly hostile. It's good we're leaving soon, anyway."
"There are probably special rituals pilgrims had to perform to be exempt or.. something," the Neo-Chimpanzee says, waving a hand. "Even reading the inscriptions is painful if you aren't in the proper mindset. Or things are just broken." He lifts up a newly packed crate and easily carries it towards on of the bugsters. "I hope going back is easier. Assuming there is a way back, in case everyone coming here was supposed to be on a one-way trip.."
"There is that possibility," Tasha notes grimly, frowning at the idea. "If that's the case I'm sure we'll come up with something." Or Kaa will, after we signal him. She'd rather risk that as a last resort, however. Her ship experiences a kind of sheering pressure near large masses, disrupting both the vessel and the 'surface' area in real space. She knows Kaa has taken it in to asteroids, but a planet is a whole other ball of mass. "Do you need any help, Doctor?"
"I'm good at carrying heavy loads," Dr. Broom says, and gives Tasha big grin full of square teeth. "Also a decent wrestler. I just want to crawl back into a goo pod growing out of a giant bug's ass so I can sleep the rest of the way back."
Asimov looks like she's about to chide the doctor.. but the Karnor also looks worn out and decides it isn't worth it.
Tasha barkas a laugh at this. "You make it sounds so glamorous, Doctor. I might envy you now." Alas for her she's stuck awake for the trip, if there's a trip. She then turns to the tiny Karnor woman and asks, "Do you need any help, Miss Asimov? Otherwise I'll be heading back to my crew and bug." She thumbs off to the side, where her crew was last she checked.
"I wish I had a cigarette," the woman says, giving a wan smile. "But if we make it back, I'd love for someone to buy me a round of drinks at the bar. So long as Dr. Broom isn't the one mixing them this time."
"I think that can be arranged. You're welcome to come aboard and enjoy our lounge, as well. I think our Scholar would like to talk to you again. Oh, that reminds me ... " Tasha reaches in to her coat, then fishes around a while until she remembers which pocket she stuffed them in and pulls out a cigarillo. "Here, it's not quite the same thing but it's all I have." She smiles, then tilts her head towards where her crew awaits. "Despite being the authority on ship, they still grumble if I don't do anything."
The Karnor girl accepts the cigarillo, and gives it a sniff. "Good stuff I presume.. smells natural," she says and grins. "Now.. can I bum a light?" she asks, twirling the cylinder between her fingers.
Tasha spends slightly less time fishing for her cigarette lighter, another Abaddonian contraption and one she didn't think she'd need to replace. It strikes her, too late, having an 'antique' style quasi-Terran lighter made of steel from a strange world might raise eyebrows. yet she hopes her general exotic and Khattan styling help any oddity she posseses to seem more part of her 'Terra Primest' politics. She leans forward and clicks the unit, still wondering if perhaps she should have used something else. Maybe a laser gun. "Here you go."
"You're really into smoking, I see," Asimov notes, before holding the tip of her smoke to the flame and puffing. "Do you have a smoking gown, and bit brandy snifter by any chance? I've always wanted to try that look.. but I guess you need to have a proper wood-paneled study for that."
"That didn't seem like useful cargo for the trip," Tasha admits with a grin. She waggles the lighter, then adds, "But think about the offer, maybe we'll invite others aboard to discuss our hoperfully successful adventure. Won't the ones who stayed behind be jealous!" She winks, then turns to incline her head to the good doctor before heading off. While she'd like to stay and chat, the idea that they might not be able to leave pushes her to return quickly, to make plans.
"We're mostly packed up," Gabriel notes when Tasha and Samael reach their bug.
"Good. Doctor Broom thinks we may not be allowed to leave, that this is a one-way trip for the soon-to-be-flensed-and-copied dead. If that's the case we may have no choice but to rely on Kaa." Tasha looks around at the effienct packing and nods in approval. "We should try to be ready to exit in to the hangar and side hatches as quickly as possible, maybe assign some of us to guide the other personnel in to side or rear entryways so we know who will be where and what they're doing."
"You told the guide you were here to see Fessus," Gabriel points out. "Now, why would anyone go to see the wizard if they couldn't get back out of Oz afterwards with the knowledge?"
"Because Fessus requires sacrifices, and we still have all our personnel. The city isn't just made of Fessus, either. There's also T'Thogga-hem to worry about, too, and whatever ancient and maybe half-broken psionics remain. It might not happen, but we should be ready. It's not like there's much else to do, anyway." Despite her navigational skills being put to use, the trip here wasn't exactly non-stop entertainment. Even her fix taking and plotting only needed to be used now and then. "The others are almost ready, we should work out roles and then mount up."
"What's wrong with what we were using on the way out?" Gabriel asks. "Our Eeee friends seem the least affected by the place. They still get headaches though."
"I mean roles for evacuating the others, if it comes to it." Tasha decides they're definitely both tired. She almost wants to call Kaa just so she can get a decent nap without worrying Samael will haunt someone or blow up the planet while she snoozes. "C'mon my big wolf, lets go be leaders for a while longer. Then maybe we can sleep."
The journey back is a repeat of the journey, in reverse - and with a demon taking up extra space in the cabin, when he's not sitting on top of the carapace outside. Since satellite photography of the surface is always blurry, this seems safe enough, and reduces the chance of their Eeee pilot finding out about the stowaway by bumping into him. But it also means not talking to Samael for entirety of the journey. That leaves talking to Yue.
"Waffles," the small human says to Tasha. "I need to make waffles for the crew. If I can find all the ingredients."
It also leaves sleeping, which Tasha finally manages to do, if just for a little while. Half-drowsing the hybrid woman crackes open an eyem her head resting on her bunched up coat. "Waffles..?" She asks blearily, blinking a moment before sitting up. "You can cook?"
"I can cook some things," Yue says. "Mostly breakfast things. I learned at university. Well, while I was at university. Not from the university. My boyfriend at the time taught me, which was really an excuse to be around until breakfast."
"Oooh," goes Tasha, who thinks she understands. She's used all sorts of excuses to be around the people she's interested, after all, and also to get them to feed her. "I learned a little bit about cooking, um ... " She glances at the Eeee pilot a moment, " ... aboard ship, and when I was serving my ... patrons. I'm not very good at it. I wanted to do something more exciting." She rolls her shoulders in a shurg. "I sort of wish I had learned more, though."
"There's always time to learn to cook, because nobody else wants the job," Yue notes with a grin. "Except maybe for Shojo. I suspect he uses it as a form of exercise though. But Terran cuisine has the widest range of flavors.. and it isn't even fatal to most other sapients anymore."
"Not being fatal is always a good sign when cooking," Tasha agrees, smiling a little. She pulls herself up more, then leanes against the hull, coat hugged to her chest. "So how did you like the creepy Stonecutter system? My, um, research ... " she glances up indicatingly, " ... suggests the original inhabitants and constructs were probably annhilated in an earlier war. The site may still be very dangerous, though. This world, too. But, weren't you excited by all the psionics?"
"Excited? No, not particularly," Yue notes. "I can block some, but the really annoying 'sub-sonic' level of psionics sets my teeth on edge. They just aren't the same as encountering a sapient psychic."
"It's all still very strange to me. Living ones, computer ones, exotic alien ones ... I guess I should look at it like another form of technology, not like some seperate 'magic'," she wiggles her fingers, " ... but it always seemed more magical than some other technologies. What about the rest? Anything interesting there?"
"Well, I've seen the ruins of plenty of Death Cults. Cargo cults are way more interesting, if you ask me," Yue claims. "This place is very Death Cult-ish, with the difference being the dead people could talk back when you visited the cemetery and probably have sex too. Wouldn't be much of an afterlife otherwise."
Tasha shakes her head. "They could have had a cheerier place, but I guess it needed to look suitably underworld-ish. Maybe a religious thing? Or maybe the living just didn't want to see them except when visiting." Whatever it is, the young woman decides it's sad. "Well whatever it was I'm glad we're leaving. I'll take deep space and derelicts over that place."
"This place is a deep space derelict," Yue points out. "Just not filled with psychopathic robots at the moment. And be careful what you wish for."
"Whatever I wish for it's going to be weird and crazy whatever. I'm not intimidated by your spooky superstition. I am a civilized Galactic, Terran." Tasha grins widely, knowing full well how doubly -- triply -- ironic that joke is. A backwater, dark world girl speaking to an actual Galactic after somehow becoming her boss, and a fake Khattan boss at that. She shakes a finger. "It's not if, but when."
"Well, at least look for derelicts with some decent loot in them," Yue requests. "Give your boss something to put on his mantle." Whether this is just cover banter for the 'Khattan Mezzode' story or a more specific allusion to Samael and Thotep isn't clear.
"We do love treasure," Tasha notes, leaving things equally unclear. She stuffs the coat behind her head and slides down the wall, resuming her lounging. "It'll be back to our latest contact after this. The pasenger would rather not, but he hasn't exactly come up with a good reason not to and I don't want to annoy the contact without a good reason. Then we'll see about that problem in that one system and hope we can deal with it. If we can't, we can come back later."
"There's more to do here then?" Yue asks.
"Welllllll ... I still need to look in to one or two more things before we go, and depending how that goes we'll either leave or we might have-" Here Tasha turns her back towards the pilot, sitting up a little and first pointing down, then balling her hands together, "-to get creative so we can get what we need-" Her balled hands then fly apart, like something coming to pieces. Violently. "-done."
Yue raises an eyebrow. "So.. big job first, then some possibly small job work?" she asks. The 'big job' after all is the size of a star.
"Right, or small job first if it can be done. If the contact actuallys pays us, we might have what we need to do it more effectively, otherwise we'll have to get creative and maybe keep the passenger on for, um, reference." And so Tasha slumps back down. "The crazy train never stops."
"Well, I'm sure the current one will once we reach the city again," Yue notes. "If I don't end up with a weird craving for lobster."
"What's a lobster? Why would you want one?" Sometimes Tasha feels like she unstands Terrans, like she's one of them, but then the hint at or mention things she has no reference for. It puts her in mind of what Samael said, but she also thinks it's at least interesting. If sheknew all, the universe would be an awfully boring place.