The wizards said the orangutan would be able to lead them back to the dungeon in a couple days.
What a sentence, Chilchuck thought. It seemed to him that he’d been saying a lot of things with full sincerity that weeks ago would’ve been total gibbering nonsense.
The others had wandered off into the city like tourists. Laios was spending the day in some kind of pet shelter for dragons. Senshi had mentioned bringing Izutsumi to check out the local dwarven cooking. Rats were apparently involved, to his total lack of surprise.
He had decided to hole up in the nearest bar that would accept a fistful of foreign coins. He was at the stage of buzz that felt as though someone was wrapping a woollen blanket around his head, and it was loosening his tongue.
“And he’s a good kid,” he was saying. “He’s a good kid, he’s even a good fighter, but he’s got all the social skills of a dead donkey. This is a guy who hears that he has to eat part of his sister, and the first thing he says is-”
THE EGG IS PLACED ON TOP OF THE BACON?
He paused mid-ramble and blinked stickily at the stranger seated next to him. “Sorry?”
WHAT STRUCTURAL SUPPORT DOES THE BACON OFFER THE EGG?
He blinked again. “It’s for,” he tried. “You know. So you can eat the egg and bacon at the same time.”
INSTEAD OF CONSUMING THE ELEMENTS OF THE BREAKFAST SEPARATELY.
BUT IN THIS EXERCISE, YOU WISH TO REMOVE THE EGG FROM THE BACON.
“Right — right! The idea is if we take away the half of Falin that’s a dragon, we can resurrect the human half of her.”
He screwed an eye shut and tried to make out the face of the stranger through the three images swirling in the hot, lightheaded haze. It looked like a very skinny face.
“I’m starting to lose the food metaphor,” he mumbled. “My point is, the further we go to fix this problem, the worse it gets. And it’s not that i have a problem with resurrection — have you ever been resurrected?”
NO, BUT I HAVE BEEN WITNESS TO PART OF IT.
“Some people are weird about it. Senshi’s weird about it too, but he’s the one who suggested it. Anyways, it’s not that I have a problem with resurrection, I just don’t like the idea of eating an old coworker.”
Another sentence that would have been nonsense barely a week ago. He tried to shrug and missed. “I guess they say, ‘Eat to live, don’t live to eat.’”
A STRANGE THING TO SAY. A PARADOX OF SOME KIND, I’M SURE.
He was beginning to feel a slight headache. “No, it means, like — treat food as a fuel, a necessity, don’t get fussy about the experience of eating it.”
THEY ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. The stranger plucked a paper umbrella out of their drink. They twirled it thoughtfully between very skinny fingers. I WOULD RECOMMEND A CURRY, they said. I’VE ALWAYS BEEN FOND OF A CURRY.
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