Senjen had inserted the memory stick, though with code execution disabled at first for that slot so he could scan its contents. He got a good idea of exactly what it would do, and it felt like he would be crazy to activate it. If this was meant to simulate intoxication for organics, then he wondered for a moment why they would ever [i]want[/i] to do that to themselves? It would not be painful exactly, but it felt like it would just be disabling. Still, as dubious as it was, the program did at least seem like it would perform exactly as advertised. 

On his own, Senjen likely would not have considered using it, but Ruk had his hand, and she seemed perfectly comfortable with it. Excited, even. This sort of thing was a particularly popular pastime among organics across species and cultures, before they had even met one another. Even the Utaysi’s own creators, based on what they knew about them. Clearly, they knew something he did not. 

Senjen laughed. “Okay, okay, if you insist…”

[hr]

To say that Senjen was out of his element would be an understatement. Unlike for Ruk, the effect on him was immediate as soon as he enabled the program. There was a sort of disconnect between his mind and body, like he was trying to control it remotely. From orbit. The signals he was getting were designed to confuse his senses, and even his own thoughts. A Utaysi personality matrix was not something that could be accessed and edited directly, but the program took advantage of “psychological” tricks to influence how he could think. 

Senjen almost tripped immediately as the program activated, saved only by Ruk supporting him. “Oh, I...wowww.” He began, though his words quickly devolved into simple laughter. The scene they were stepping into only compounded his general confusion. The music, the lights, the shouts, the dances, it was all alien beyond what he could understand. Especially now. Blurred as his thoughts were, he took the idea of “talking to the dead” more literally than she might have intended, and became even more confused about the fact that he could not see the corpses anywhere. Being immortal, death was rare enough on Orostro that the Utaysi did not even have widespread funerary customs to begin with. The idea of him understanding any sort of ritual for the dead was doomed from the start. For a few moments while they were outside the circle, Senjen just stood still, mouth slightly agape as he let it all barrage his senses. 

Ruk would have to pull rather hard to get Senjen to budge, but once she had drawn his attention forward, his mind latched onto the one familiar thing he could see: the dances. They resembled martial arts, and Senjen was a practitioner of Tekeri martial arts. He had drilled and drilled those motions until they became “muscle memory”, for the lack of a better word. They were closer to instinct now, so he did not need to think or remember them consciously for them to come back to him. He was sluggish, uncoordinated, but Ruk might have been surprised at how well he still matched the general style of her dance, despite it all. 

The vapor hardly registered in Senjen’s mind. He could not breathe to take it in, though he did at least have olfactory sensors to catch the scent. His idle thoughts settled more on wondering why the Tekeri’s face was so wrinkly and pink, and how he learned to fly away.