He blinks. "It wasn't horrible at all, other than the whole 'getting exiled' thing I quite liked it."

"I've tried to explain the problem to him but still failed," says Taharqi, returning once more with another two bowls and a jug. He sets them all down then gestures: "Roasted rhino haunch, desert berries, desert nuts, desert berry seeds, assorted leaves, cactus paste, and desert berry juice. Help yourself," he adds, starting with the meat and pulling pieces of it apart with his bare hands while Sendhei gets some nuts and cactus paste into his bowl.

"Thank you." She starts getting various helpings of all non-meats available. "I guess I could try to explain why it's horrible, but I'm honestly trying to wrap my head around, uh. About four strange new concepts at once. Concubines? Concubines are a thing. It is a word you have. Why is it a word you have. I mean having multiple partners and wanting to watch is normal but enslaving people just for sex? Really?"

Sendhei opens his mouth but Taharqi reaches a hand towards him to shut it. "How about we take this moment of relaxation and rest to resume that conversation about our widely different backgrounds and assumptions, hmm? You seem to be from very, very far away, and I believe my original assumption that you were royalty who got on the wrong side of someone with the right connections is probably woefully incorrect."

"Right, yes. Uh. I am definitely not royalty of any form, where did you get that from?"

"Your extremely elaborate clothing," he replies, and Sendhei nods along at that, pushing Taharqi's hand away to get some food. He serves himself and Taharqi juice and then motions with the jug in Saevetei's direction with an inquisitive eyebrow raise.

She accepts the juice and pours herself some! Then she looks down at herself and says, "Oh. Uh, no. I made this. With magic. Actually, by my culture's standards, this is only moderately elaborate. I gave Taharqi a quick summary of my background on the way here, but I guess I can expand on it more?"

"I would like that, please. I only really sort of get it, anyway, although you mentioned the end of the world and, as you see, it has not ended."

“It hasn’t. That’s part of why I’m so confused about being here. So where I come from, there is a lot of magic. Of a bunch of styles and practices and with different ways to use the same basic set of tools to get different results. And then, people being people, the different groups got into arms races with each other, and sort of. Sucked all of the essence out of everything to power the competition. Thus draining all of the life out of the land and everything in it. This desert is a bright cushy paradise in comparison, really. Trees and everything.”

    Trees and everything, Sendhei mouths when he hears that.

"So... you're from a different... world? Like the same way the dominions of the gods are different worlds, but yours is like ours with people and animals and plants and all that?"

    "She just said there were no trees."

"Presumably there were trees before they drained all the life from everything."

“There were trees, yes. And there are trees again, now, I put some back. I... think I’m from a different world? It’s that, or I was killed in my sleep, and unknowingly stuck between the dream world and the waking world for a couple millennia or something before I finally came back. But resurrecting where I died implies I’m a great distance away, I haven’t resurrected where I died since the first time we tested my resurrection thing. Usually it takes me back to the last place I’ve fallen asleep. So as not to get stuck in horrible death loops.”

"Hers is a different thing than ours, though," Taharqi explains to Sendhei. "Her body disappears instead of staying behind, although her possessions stay. I saw it, she got killed by the Darfari in front of the Dregs."

    "Oh, so you just happened to run into her right there?"

"I saw her just as I was getting back to Lucky, yeah."

“I’m still very offended that they decided to eat me,” she sniffs. “But yes, I was uh. Very lucky he was in the area to help me with shooting them.”

    "Of course they decided to eat you, that's what they do, they're the Darfari cannibals, it's right there in the name."

"Pretty sure her world doesn't have any Darfari cannibals. Or Stygia, or the Exiled Lands, or any of that."

    "...oh. Huh. That... huh."

“No, it doesn’t,” she says, a little amused. “Or cannibals that I know of at all, really. If they’d wanted to kill me as a blood sacrifice it would have been more intelligible than just. Eating someone. Because a god likes it.”

"Well. Is it my turn, then?"

“Yes please!”

And since she’s not talking as much she can eat more! Dying makes her kind of hungry, and it’s been a while since then.

"You are in the Exiled Lands," Taharqi starts with. "There are many countries that use this place to dump undesirables that they do not want to quite directly kill. All of us, really. Not all of us deserve it," he adds, cocking his head in Sendhei's direction, "but many do, which means that lots of the people around here are not the most savory of characters. It's surrounded by the Cursewall, which is a magical wall that is impassable by anyone with one of these." He points at Sendhei's bracelet, as his own is still obscured by his armwraps. "If we try we just die, and I haven't tried it but I suspect it might even be the kind of dying where we don't come back at all."

Saevetei winces around her berries.

"Really. They gave you a resurrecting translation bracelet just to keep you in one place? That seems so convoluted."

"So, remember how I said I thought I was cheating somehow? I don't think it works very... reliably. I'm not sure why, most people who die only die the once, I discovered this by shall-we-call-it accident."

    "But it worked for me, too, that one time."

"I usually think of myself as pretty impulsive but I still think that was a very stupid idea."

Snort.

"Well, now I'm curious. That sounds like an interesting mystery. Do they make these specifically for your confinement, or are they salvaging them and adding convenient extras to it, or?"

"Their existence is a very well-guarded secret, actually. I thought they were just wild myths before I was exiled and I was the sort of person who should have known about it. I don't know where they come from or how people came about them. I do think their original purpose was not exiling us—there are a bunch of ruins around here in the Exiled Lands that react to them, and the ruins themselves seem to be from a long time ago. Way older than any of the kingdoms and empires that exile people to here."

"Huh! That's fascinating. At some point I'm going to want to see if I can get a spare to study, and go exploring ruins. ... Probably after I set up a garden and build my own house, though." She gives one of the many dead animals staring into her soul a look. "I'll need actual equipment to figure out anything interesting, anyway."

    "There are ruins everywhere, it'll be very easy to explore some."

"Build your own house, huh? Want help with that?"

"I would appreciate it, but it's not necessary!" says Saevetei, brightly. "If you help I'm making you carry the heavy things."

"You mean I will have another chance to show my body off to you in a less life-and-death situation? Sounds perfect to me."