[@Zarkun]

Akagalcia burst into laughter at that, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms over her belly.

"A shock, yes. I think I lived longer in that place than I did on my motherworld, with only my teacher for company." She has another sip of rice milk, her movements swaying like silk. Clearly her drink was finally having some effect on her. "It is a thing that wants to teach people like me who we are so that we don't hurt ourselves. It teaches us to sense things as they are." She held up her hand, raising fingers to count, "To acclimate. To interpret. To subvert. To separate. To open."

She dropped her fingers, lowering her hand to take a final piece of meat from her bowl and ate, letting her words sink in before she continued.

"In some words, my difficulties are because I exist differently to everything around me. In others, everything I do and become exists differently to who and what I am. The pain is in having to understand and become what I am not, while [i]remaining[/i] what I am. [i]Fhaelne--uhm[/i]... working paradox? So... no. I am not from Koprulu, and no sort of near or far that I [i]am[/i] is relative to it. But I am here. As far as I know, this planet is where I will be from... have been from?" Her face screwed up in another frustrated scowl. "...where my being [i]has to have been[/i] before?"

Akagalcia laughed again, frustration giving way to resignation. "Culture shock. Accurate."