Redana laughs. It explodes out of her, and when she tries to rein it in, she ends up making an undignified snort[1].

“Me? Saffron? Are you [i]kidding?[/i] Saffron robes are for [i]smart[/i] people. People who understand cosmic enlightenment and want to upgrade their bodies! Like you, you’re a great Hermetican. You don’t just know how this stuff works, like, even I could figure that out! You know why it was made like that in the first place, and how it fits with the rest of the device[2].”

Redana shakes her head with a rueful, oblivious smile. “Besides. I was born almost perfect.” She doesn’t turn her head. There’s no need. The Auspex sees all. “And then that was fixed. So Mom would have a fit if I started taking the body she gave me apart and sticking on tentacles and plasma kidneys.”

She doesn’t answer the question of what she wants to be. It’d be easy to assume that it’s because she’s running from the question. But, really, it’s not like she can rewind the conversation and remind herself of everything the Hermetican said[3].

***

[1]: Redana Claudius is many things. “Capable of composed, elegant laughter” is not one of those things.

[2]: “And an interlocking system made of interconnections between disparate but mutually necessary components we shall term a [i]device[/i] henceforth...”
— The Traversal Catechism, origin disputed

[3]: she does have this capability. It’s just throttled along with all the other information the Auspex summarizes into basic instructions and chibi figures. And conversational aptitude is not the primary concern of Baby’s First Auspex Framework.