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Xander is touching up her outfit - he has shoe ideas, something he saw on In Skirts he wants to riff on - when the snake appears.
He sees it first because she can't see anything around her while in starscape. He pushes her out of the way - she doesn't realize what's going on in time to abort the reflex action of stopping herself on the way down - can't switch targets fast enough to stop the snake, when she notices it, to stop it from going on to eat her after it's already gotten him.
Then -
"Annexations create new government and military roles, new land available, new opportunities to distinguish yourself."
"Yeah, well, I'm not a teleporter, it doesn't matter how pretty you get me, we just have to figure out how to live with this."
"It might be that the principles underlying magic can be understood somehow and that we can engineer a way to send you home," offers the tablet, but not with a lot of confidence.
"People've worked on it at home. I guess somebody here might get farther but I'm the only available test subject, so."
"Yeah, I'm unfortunately having to keep very much in mind both that you were probably designed with an agenda and that since you're a computer she's outright admitted she can investigate whatever you hear. I suppose it's possible she's outsourcing that to an AI but I flatter myself to think I'm more interesting than that and if someone has thousands of herself she doesn't have to delegate a bit more than she cares to. So. Hi Anaander."
"I don't actually think I was designed with an agenda. I might've been modified to have one," it says dubiously. "Anaander's parent was very bad at having an agenda, that's why she died."
"It was a very long time ago. There were - I think the details would've survived if she'd wanted them to, and I can't find them anywhere in public."
"Oh. Well, even if everything you say is completely guileless, everything I say can presumably be read."
"Which reminds me, I need paper, there's something left to be desired from taking notes inside my sleeves."
She gets Xander to consult on what she can put in a pocket without ruining the line of her outfit and winds up with long columnar pages that tuck into pockets in her skirt hidden under her long vest-robe-thing.
She writes for a while, with the tablet in a different room, under a blanket.
She pockets all her notes. It seems like a really low percentage option for someone to try to seize them but if someone does she can destroy them in an eyeblink.
She asks the tablet to teach her some Radchaai.
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