"Nothing else tastes like soap. Except soap."

"So before you encountered this 'cilantro', you would have said that nothing tastes like soap except soap. Who's to say there isn't another thing like it somewhere?"

"This conversation is starting to make it sound like I eat soap every changeday or something. Come to think of it I have no idea why I know what soap tastes like."

Ekador giggles.

"Couldn't tell you. I wonder what Loel's making for dinner."

"Hopefully soap isn't involved."

Ekador giggles again.

"I'm gonna go check, actually." Up he gets and he goes looking for the kitchen.

Where Sarelle and Loel are animatedly discussing the differences between Thiyecine and Welchin cooking. Well, animatedly on Loel's part.

Sarelle is more animated than usual but this is not a high bar to clear.

"You don't have any cilantro, do you?" Aleko asks, poking his head into the kitchen. "Just remembered that either it tastes like soap, or that time you made us breakfast you got soap in my food."

"I have cilantro, but I'm not currently using it," he says. "Lucky for you, I guess."

"I wonder what it tastes like to you," snorts Aleko. "What's for dinner?"

"Fried rice. Almost done," he says.

"Awesome." Aleko heads back to the sitting room. "Fried rice, almost done!" he relays.

"And no cilantro," Kiri says, when her brother is in her range again. "Good."

"Although now I'm curious about whether or not I would find that it tasted like soap," says Ekador.

"He said he has some and just wasn't using it," says Aleko. "If you want to try it."

"Perhaps later."

"If it tastes like soap don't say I didn't warn you!"

"I certainly will not say any such thing."

It is at this point that Sarelle's voice says out of (appropriately enough) thin air, "Would we prefer to eat informally in the sitting room or in the nearby dining room with a table large enough to seat everyone? Our host has no preference."

"I'm comfy right here," offers Aleko, looking around as though there might materialize an appropriate direction at which to render his opinion.

"The same," says Ekador.