She leans back with a soft smile, sighing tenderly. This is certainly shaping up to be an interesting night.

A few minutes later, Ishaza returns bearing a large red-and-black lacquered platter. She slides out the table from the wall and sets the platter down before Sable so she can see the contents.

From left to right, there are three skewers of lamb, three skewers of pork, two chicken wings, a small salmon filet, and an assortment of spiced sausage slices with thin crackers and what looks like pâté. Four dipping sauces are arranged along the right-hand side - guessing from the consistencies and colors, they look like tzatziki, honey garlic sauce, barbeque sauce, and soy sauce. There's a silver fork and knife nestled in against them. 

"I'll be right back with your tea," Ishaza says. "Is there anything else you'd prefer?"

"No, this looks amazing. Thank you very much."

"It's nothing." 

Ishaza curtseys and sweeps out of the room.

She leans forward to smell the food, then leans back with a delighted sigh and a smile. This is going to be a delicious meal.

A few minutes later, Ishaza returns with a black ceramic teapot and two matching cups. She fills Sable's cup, steam rising from it with the distinctive scent of chamomile, then sits across from her. 

"Do you mind if I join you for tea?", she asks. 

"Please do. I hope you don't mind that I'm waiting until you're done to start."

Ishaza pours herself a cup, raises it to her mouth, and sips lightly, her silver lipstick leaving a mark on the dark ceramic. 

"Please, don't stand on ceremony; I've already eaten."

She picks up her tea as well and sips, a soft, happy sigh spilling quietly from her lips. "Oh, that's excellent," she breathes, setting the cup down.

"Less ceremony and more that my mental model of the choice to be a courtesan involves very strong empathy and an enjoyment of inspiring strong positive or cathartic reactions in others, so I'm saving my genuine first reactions for when I can share them with you."

She cuts a bite of lamb and dips it daintily in the tzatziki lookalike, puts it into her mouth, and a quiet moan escapes her.

"Goddess, I haven't had lamb done that well in well over a decade."

Ishaza's lips curve up and she giggles. Quietly, but that was definitely a laugh!

She covers her smile with one hand and quickly recovers her composure. "That's the most intellectual way I've heard "I want you to feel the joy of service" in a long time."

She takes another sip of her tea, and stops bothering to hide her smile. "If that's part of the joy of this for you, I'll hardly deny you it. Yes, it's good to see you enjoying yourself and know I had a hand in it. It makes me smile to know I'm lightening your burdens." 

"I've worked in some service professions myself," she replies with a pleased giggle while she cuts another bite, "and the 'joy of service', as you called it, was what kept me going."

She dips a bite of pork in the barbecue sauce and moans again, biting her lip.

"We didn't have anything nearly so sensible as a courtesan's guild where I came from, and generally didn't treat service professionals of any sort very well, but seeing that vivid relief on someone's face when I solved a problem they were panicking over, or the spark of delighted surprise when I made some piece of technology fulfill a request that they hadn't thought possible, remains one of my favorite things.

"So yes, your getting to share in as much joy as I can manage is definitely part of the joy of this for me."

Ishaza's lavender cheeks darken just a shade. 

"Well, thank you. You're very considerate." She takes another sip of her tea.

A faint, happy blush only makes Ishaza all the prettier, in Sable's opinion. She smiles and blushes back.

A cracker gets spread with the pâté this time, and answered with a long, pleased sigh.

"This is all quite lovely," she says, taking another sip of tea and smiling. "I've had a very long and bizarre past few months, and this is quite the relief after all that time."

She briefly frowns and adds softly, "Not that the time before was a picnic either."

"I'm glad you feel a little better. I'm here to listen if you'd like to talk about it." 

Ishaza takes another small sip of her tea.

"Thank you for that. I..."

She pauses and tries the salmon. Her eyes flutter shut for a moment, something between a moan and a sigh spilling from her lips.

"Oh my, that's lovely. Where was I... right. So, this is going to be a bit bizarre of a story."

She takes another sip of her tea, then looks Ishaza in the eye. "Have you ever considered the existence of worlds other than this one?"

Ishaza tilts her head slightly. "I can't say I have. Though I know they must exist - summoning magic must summon from somewhere, after all."

"Just so," she replies with a nod. "Well, I'm not originally from this world. I was born in a world with no apparent magic, much higher technology, no known sophont life other than humans, and a much higher population. I was born in a masculine body with — though I didn't realize it until maybe a year or so before the event that brought me here — a female soul. My life before coming here was very lonely, and the province I lived in didn't support even the meager approximations of gender transition our science could manage. I was very slowly saving up to move away, and then..."

She spreads her hands slowly. "I died."

Ishaza simply nods. "I see. It's a bit of an outlandish story, but I can't see why you'd lie..."

She taps her fingers against her arm. "Some people do reincarnate, but generally they're favoured of the Charity Queen... If what you say is true, then clearly the gods must have had a hand in it. Only they have authority over the transmigration of souls."