Itxaro rushed through the party and slipped past attendees. It seemed to her some grotesque masquerade now, as the aliens shared their games and traditions with the humans, who did so likewise. She watched a Tekeri perform some crude magic trick with a cup and small metal ball and she couldn't tell if it was slight of hand or something else. Elsewhere cards were being dealt, games of chance or games of skill with personal items used as stakes. Guitars squelched and tuned on the improvised stage mixed with native drums bound with the skins of some unknown creature. All the forms spanned the gamut of biology and geometry, an uncanny parade of entities that defied the natural order that she knew from her home. Strange, stilted conversations surrounded her, disjointed and fragmented with her brief passing. She was [i]glad[/i] for the escape Kerchak's drunkenness offered. Things were getting... Surreal.

She slipped into the grass after Zey and her companions, following the broken trail they left behind. Itxaro stepped carefully, aware she was [i]slightly[/i] intoxicated, and wondered if the ship's medbay had any hangover enzymes in their medical supplies. The drug, a sort of prophylactic, replicated the liver's metabolic breakdown by dumping enzymes into the stomach which rapidly expedited the body's digestion of alcohol, leaving one with a slight hangover an hour later and nothing more. The drug was heavily regulated in the USASR, thought to promote alcoholism and used only to treat it, but Itxaro knew you could pick it up at any corner store in many countries on Earth. [i]Ugh, I'll have to check with Dr. Feng though. Might just want to suffer whatever hangover this horse beer gives me.[/i]

Itxaro caught up to the others now, the only sounds out here the rustle of grass in the wind and distant voices from behind. Also, vomiting. As she laid her eyes on the retched figure laying in the grass, she felt more sympathy than disgust. It'd been a while since she'd been [i]that[/i] drunk, sure, but the feeling was not one you quickly forgot. She couldn't exactly empathize with the shapeshifting element though. The Tekeri was no longer a Tekeri, but something else entirely, his flesh warping and roiling like a rough sea, a pinkish mass of limbs and eyes. 

[color=fff200]"Just too much to drink, is all,"[/color] Itxaro said to the group that formed a semi-circle around him, putting on her best impression of a sober person, which honestly, wasn't too bad. [color=fff200]"Nellara told me this can happen with life mages. Too much to drink, and they kind of... lose control of themselves."[/color] She gently put her hand on the barrel of Ezra's gun, as if to keep it there. 

The others were working to get Kerchak, or what seemed to be Kerchak, onto his feet while Itxaro watched from a distance. [color=fff200]"I've been drunk before, but never [i]that[/i] bad,"[/color] she said to her human companions. She cast a sidelong glance at the two S'tor bound in chains. It was the first time she'd noticed them. Itxaro wondered if they were prisoners, slaves, or something else. [color=fff200]"Any idea what their deal is?"[/color] Itxaro tilted her chin to the pair, her translator switched off. She felt a surge of anger at the thought they might be slaves. [i]We'll have to change that.[/i]