"We don't take damage to garlic either. But it is super unpleasant.

And this is not ideal food."

"I started telling her about Paradise somewhat."

"Well, if she doesn't think she understands it, I won't do her the disservice of acting as though she'd made that claim."

'Paradise.' They're so fucking naïve. Seeing a pile of gold and an oasis with leopards in the servants of Rovagug plus some abstruse metaphysical trivia is one thing, but they give it such cult-brained names. She always wants to protest. Luckily, sometimes the others besides Tazich are sensible and do so for her.

To Stranger.

"How familiar are you with general alignment theories? What's your name, by the way?"

"She can't eat if you keep asking her questions!"

"She needs to eat right now?"

"We need a third tank!"

She holds her arms out and sputters.

"She's just asking her name."

The words 'third tank' being used in reference to future!her make her wiggle and blush. "Katie. And uuuhhhh, not much. Law are boring sticks in the mud, Chaos are cool, and Good and Evil are both deranged masochists, or at least I thought so before I met you guys."

"Mm. So nothing.

Well, about some things you seem perceptive.

Tell me, what is an opposite?"

She's not a child.

"Uh, that's one of those words which is so, like, basic that I can't even really define it except by just listing examples. Night and day, short and tall, thin and fat, bald and hairy, do I need to keep going?"

Okay maybe she's a child but mehhhh!

"How do you tell when something's really the opposite of something else and when it isn't? Tazich has accused me of being 'skinnyfat'—that is, notably having the physical characteristics of a fat person, and notably having the physical characteristics of a thin person, at the same time. Normally, with opposites, it is not considered that such a thing should be possible. Can a time be nightday? Can a single thing be blackwhite?"

"I think 'blackwhite' is just called grey. And like, 'nightday' is just dawn and dusk. Things can be in between opposites, but I don't think 'in between' is the same thing as 'both at once'."

"A person who's just of average build isn't skinnyfat."

They're not getting anywhere with this.

"Is Law the opposite of Chaos?"

"I would think so, but I get the vibe that I'm about to be told that's total bullshit and I'm stupid for believing it. And what does 'skinnyfat' even mean, then?"

"It's like, when you're all flab in terms of texture and strength, like in terms of body composition you have a lot of fat of the type that's under the skin, but you're tiny."

"You guessed correctly."

Katie is Chaotic. More Chaotic than anyone she's ever talked to, actually. She doesn't seem to have any need to verbally structure her opinions in terms of principles.

But, of course, that is not all there is, to being Chaotic. Katie is un-Lawful, at least.

"How much belief do you even have in the first place that the conventional alignment system reflects reality?"

"Well uuuh, you guys haven't at all treated me like I'd expect Evil cultists to, so, at this point not much?"

Extremists will grasp at anything to imagine they're important.

She's not going to disabuse Katie of her illusions.

"Not just that the categories contain what people say they contain", she pipes up, "but that there are four alignments structured on two axes."