Princess Redana has had context for everything thus far: parley with a god, a daring feat of piloting, the discovery of a paradise inside a beast caster than worlds. All of that was understandable; all of that fit inside her understanding of the cosmos. There is no context for a brainsquid, and so her brain tries to provide one: is it a Servitor made in octopoid form, or a child of the gods, or a creature of the ecosystem tamed by the Ceronians? She latches on to the title: Assistant Secretaries might still be outside her experience, but she knows [i]of[/i] them. So she offers a nod of acknowledgement, not offering insult by either ignoring the introduction or treating the Assistant Secretary as an equal[1].

“A pleasure, Assistant Secretary,” she says, and for a moment her voice is her mother’s, centuries past, her diction elevated and her inflection precise. The effect is uncanny. She doesn’t have the walk down, though, that stride that eats distance and sets her apart from the unworthy masses. She’s too eager, head forward, sneaking glances at the undulating Servitor(?). “If you don’t mind me saying so, that’s an... well, it’s kind of an unusual department.” Here it comes, the magic words: “Tell me more!”

***

[1]: if you treat the Assistant Secretary as an equal, you bestow more expectations on them than they have accepted, and expect them to know more than they do and make decisions they have no authority to make. If they have to explain that they are unable to meet your expectations, the shame will destroy them. Therefore: never treat a bureaucrat with unearned rank.