She wove the melody with her voice, but as she sang, her entire being vibrated with wonder as the serving dish gave her a glimpse into a flowering rose garden in the heart of a land so different from her own, it almost seemed to inhabit its own reality. Within the configurations of this garden she recognised enough to remember a time when she too was young, and curious enough to want to explore the world of humans in Terra Cognita.

Bit tucked his body sinking under the black water away into the corner of his mind and went to the other place, where there was no light and he was floating without water. Weeds like ropes caressed him. In the drowning, he moved by falling, feeling what direction he needed to go and letting himself tumble that way. The answers swarmed around his ankles in the dark, warm like fur and soft like mud under his hands.