As refreshing as the plants in his ‘district’ are, though they’re oddly sentient, Jiriki can never fully escape the knowledge that this is no true forest, but an underground network. Loathe as he is to return to the oppressive metallic overworld, the memories of the fight in the tunnels of forgotten Asu’a with Utuk’ku are far too recent to stay trapped below the earth for long. Besides, he must still gain an understanding of this world he’s now a part of.
So it’s with uncharacteristic reluctance that the Sitha is once more in Hive City itself, feeling oddly constrained in the clothes provided to him; the witchwood armor isn’t made for wandering a city, and he won’t risk something happening to it in case he needs it later on. All in all, this experience is tiresome and only makes him wish to return to his people left somewhere in the world of Osten Ard. Do they know he’s missing? Will they somehow find themselves here as well?
But he has more immediate questions than the fate of the Zida’ya army.
“Excuse me, manchild,” Jiriki asks of a passing human, turning inquisitive golden eyes on a redhead youth — he feels a pain of missing for Seoman, though he forces the feeling aside for the moment — “Do you have a moment to answer a question for me?”
Something about the Sitha’s air of patience suggests this isn’t merely an empty formality, and that he’ll accept it if the boy says no.