"You don't... drink wine?"

XIII's mouth falls open. Her hands pluck stupidly at her dress, as if there were answers to be found in the fabric and not loose threads that burned her cheeks with the shame of her own shoddy needlework. Because she needed another reason to feel inferior on this obscene nightmare passing itself off as a spaceport. Her stomach feels like it's shrunken three sizes in the past few seconds. She's going to vomit again. Her eyes dart over to the fragments of the coin she broke, not even remarked upon. 

"That's, what? Impossible. That doesn't make sense, wine is the underpinning of civilization! When... when Empress Nero invented the first servitor wine it lifted the last class in the entire galaxy up to being true citizens! Everybody knows this! How can you just let it sit in random buildings? How do you toast blessings? How do you pacify the gods? What do you... what? What?"

She sniffs the air. And again, and harder this time. But Thist doesn't have any of the smells she knows to look for that help root out lies. Sweats have so many aromas specific to different emotions, but this lout only smells like dust and... cucumber? She can't place it. Her nose is useless. Her education, however borrowed it is, is useless. Alien. Unknowable. Only her posture and facial expressions seem remotely familiar. It's like being blind. [i]How[/i] could they not drink wine? Was it like that cigar? Is everything this different, here? Is that why the food was so bad?

XIII holds her head in her hands and massages her scalp with her fingertips. The difference in feeling between the side of her head with its close-cut hair against the fullness and luxury she's used to when she plays with her hair leaves a hollow pit inside her chest. Her stomach gnaws at what's left of her insides; Gods, she's [i]starving[/i]. 

And Thist just sits there, smiling. Like she's just waiting for XIII to finish her outburst so she can answer every question at once to make herself as helpful as can be. It's something she's pulled on humans for as long as she's been alive. What the fuck was wrong with this woman? How could somebody with as much power as she's got be so servile? Was the whole damn Azura Empire like this, just slithering up and down the chain of command as it pleased them with no consequences? How was she supposed to know where she stood with any of them, then?

She swallows air. Her mouth feels so dry. She licks her lips, and swallows again. Slowly, she brings her hands to her sides again. She smooths out her dress, and then turns her attention to her tail, until she's got every bit of fur pointing the way it should be and every bit the picture of beauty it's supposed to be. 

"...Sorry," she says with another fake smile, "Culture shock. Bad reading materials. Long trip, nothing to eat. Or drink. I've only had Apollo for... never mind."

XIII can feel her smile opening to show too much teeth, her own most telltale sign of hiding stuff. Maybe Thist would miss it. Redana always did. Maybe she was just as much of a puzzle for this place as they were to her. But she feels a hand press on her spine to lift her straight. And when the fingers press into her sternum, they push truth out from between the teeth that would hide it.

"I'm after the Imperial Princess, Redana Honorius Claudius. I don't care where I'm going, as long as I get there before she does. I made a promise to her mother, and I'm going to keep it if it kills me."