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Pylo was thankful for the practice she had gotten with Omega.

It had never exactly been a problem she considered before. Yes the mechanism of enzyme matching, mutualistic sub-organisms and immune response was obviously very much in the realm of talking.

Her family’s dialect was rich in many flavors of those very same things.

So in principle it was not out of the question to be trying to translate the intricate chain of immuno-chemo-receptor-to-ganglia-network-associative-complex that was meant when Aleph described a ‘flavor’.

But it was a kind of talking she’d never had to translate between two people far as she remembered.

It might have even caused her to stumble in the past with it.

But she had gotten practice.

Watching Omega struggle outside her niche to perform the task with Pylo had been amusing and kind of quaint at first.

Terrans were obviously a poor fit for the niche of translators. Their cognition was by several measures actively obfuscated!

Even from themselves.

But the results of The Cake spoke for itself. Omega had performed beyond adequately even by a siren’s standards as far as Pylo was concerned.

It gave Pylo a bit of a cooling pleasant feeling to see someone succeeding so far out of their niche.

Granted she had performed it working directly with a Siren so there was certainly some portion of the credit due to Pylo herself.

Regardless it was an incredible, personal and bizarre exercise that should probably have been entirely lost in its unique and inapplicable oddity.

But the exercise was amazingly proving to be immediately topical and relevant to this exact moment such a short time later.

Who would have predicted that?

Probably ▙◀ honestly.

Which was apparently getting overly distracted by all the sights and sounds and chemical traces and all manner of other interactions.

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It was a side of the Micro-polity Pylo grudgingly had to say was kind of endearing. For all the stuffy self centered canner philosophy that bled off the entire arrangement of ▙◀ like a sterilizing curse there was that one endearing quality.

The Micro-Polity was as wide eye’d in wonderment at the new and profoundly strange as the Terrans.

They had not left Redweed for generations of franchises.

And this was all a place of new wonder and amazement for them.

Before the Terrans Pylo would have had some confusion over that.

She had learned.

It helped to think of them all as like infants.

She was never going to be a creche sister taking care of all the youngest sisters and nieces. There was little appeal for that and she knew she was far too incompetent for it.

But she was a Siren.

And she had to admit that when you let the situation go fuzzy and indistinct in that way things in the deeper cortices sometimes were this behaviour was like being an infant.

The Terrans and even ▙◀ (revolting as the association was) were like children, still learning.

Unsure and stumbling in something strange and new and fresh and raw and unaware of all the dangers or delights to be had.

It was even more true in regards to the Clerk that Aleph had made a reasonable attempt at properly acknowledging and caring for in a non-abusive arrangement.

But back to the momentary tasks at hand!

Translation!

Life of her lineage, depth of her cortices.

The pride of her family and clan!

In her own personal quarters a thing that Pylo suspected she was never as good as her sisters at.

The Hospitalitor Tilafareidola was eager to serve and honor Pylo’s guests. With a flavor and sense to the intent that was so close to Omega’s adventure in baking from earlier the entire process flowed like a well used metaphor.

Pylo whispered an underlying explanation as each Terran spoke, found the enzymic parallels and immunological and heritable associatives factors. The baked-in (Hah!) niche associations.

As Omega had done for her before. So here Pylo did for them and more. Taking the words and sensations and precise contacts, smells and scents and showing to the Hospitalitor the ingredients and knowledge that would mean and evoke in the Terrans.

Each of them was different. Quarti had old associations and deep strange flavors in her preference. Reimagined with each iteration of her host flesh.

Omega had a deep love of salt and sugar in a quality and blending that disgusted the other two.

Aleph was all about the fat and flavor of flesh.

Pylo needed to unwrap that and reform it into both the truth of it and also the sensational pattern as would match Tilafareidola’s own senses so that she could understand it.

She-

Oh that was a bit much!

The poor Hospitalitor needed her to slow down in the sharing and associations. It was fortunate they were presently swimming through such a Terran friendly soup of fizzing fluid.

It made heat venting so much cheaper for one of The People.

Still that was a stupid childish mistake.

She offered a sincere apology to poor Tilafareidola. Which was dutifully and by honor and politeness waved off. Even though silently the relief acknowledged and appreciated the courtesy.

Pylo was certain that none of her perfect sisters would have made such an awful faux pas to even begin to overwhelm their speaking partners unintentionally.

She was such a sorry excuse of an example of a Courtesan.

Something she knew was only going to become all the more obvious and biting when she finally got around to reading her Mother’s cache of pollen.

Memories and context lighting up fresh and sharp and clear. Things that she had quite comfortably buried into nothing but a dull ache and sense of inadequacy.

Wounds of the past changed so that they were easily ignored and drowned in drink and labor.

She shuddered and turned her attention back to the upcoming feast.

There would be plenty of murmuring and conversation and subtle little interplays between all the different clans and orders and countries and classes and layers and interplays of society that The People and Tradition formed and shared.

Plenty of distractions and delights and things to do so she could not think about the upcoming upheaval of her family’s many missives and updates and love and well wishes and so many other things that Pylo did not even properly remember.

But knew she would.

It would all be fresh and raw and painful like every other time.

And it would take so many more trips for her to bury it.

Forget it.

Finally let the memories die agai-

Oh good Tilafareidola was cooled down enough to take in the rest of the update!

Now how to get across the concept of sweetness?

Terrans were very keen on it and had several different nuances in detecting many associated and distinct variations on the idea from very different chemical sources.

Far in excess of The People’s simpler appreciation for glucose or caloric density.

Hmmm well metabolically Pylo supposed that she could maybe explain it as being similar to that?

Maybe.

It was such a rich and diverse distraction.

No need to think about the imminent future and the turmoil of the soon to be recovered past.