(He smiles slightly.)

"Thank you. It's all right."

"If this happens again, I won't." 

"That's good to know," he says.

"Would you like to stay in our room with us?"

...She considers the unknown figure in the room that is technically hers. 

"Yes. Yes I would." 

He smiles.

"My name is Atali, and this is Liamar."

"I'm Elodea! Crescentlake. It is a genuine pleasure to meet the two of you." 

"Very much likewise!"

Mmsnuggles. "So what's up with the 'my lord' thing? If it's not prying." 

"It's the appropriate way for me to speak of him, given our relative stations; he's the heir to a minor landholding, and I am his servant."

"Okay. I'm a random nomad." 

Liamar, smiling, finally speaks. "'Tali, the only reason you're still calling me that here is because you think it's funny."

"That may be so," he acknowledges.

She giggles and snuggles down closer to the both of them. "I like you. All the telepath had to pick up on at the time was how hot you were but I like you." 

"We like you too. How convenient for all of us."

"Yeah." 

Elsewhere and earlier: 

Lucy picks a key at random off a peg that still has both. Probably she can deal with anyone who tries anything on her. 

One of the other people who was standing near the back—the androgynous one—takes the other key from that peg and heads out without seeming to pay attention to who their roommate ends up being.

Hmm. 

Well, she follows them. 

Their room turns out to be... big. Very big. Mansion-scale, not in the sense that it would fit inside of a mansion but in the sense that a mansion would fit inside of it.

"Huh," says her roommate, stepping inside and looking around. The decor is tastefully elegant, and the room appears to be approximately circular and divided into three roughly equal sections: a walled-off bathing area, a relaxation area with human-sized furniture including numerous varieties of bed and couch, and a pillow-lined pit about four feet deep and easily broad enough to accomodate three elephants having a sleepover.

"Whoah." 

"Party-sized," her roommate comments. "Hi."

"Um. Hi. I'm Lucy. Lucy Whately." 

"I'm Dima." They smile at her. They have cute dimples. The door glides shut and they swing their bag down off their shoulder and toss it at a couch, where it lands neatly even though they weren't looking. "So, what brings you to spooky brain crime school?"

"Well, they promised to feed me."