"As long as we're talking about cultural differences, when you say 'my Lucien'..."

"We are in fact dating but I just mean it in the identificatory sense."

"I could just as easily say my Haru if there was a second Haru for some reason. What does it mean when you say it?"

"I mean, he can say 'my dom' and that's, as Haru says, just identificatory, but when I say 'my' it it's half that and half he's mine. If that makes sense."

The delivery guy arrives with McDonald's and Haru takes the bag and thanks him and distributes burgers and fries and shakes to the psions.

"Oh my god thank you" nomfnomf.

Isabella's Lucien had forgotten how amazing real food was: really really amazing.

That explanation wasn't at all reassuring but the food arriving sort of ended the conversation for now.

REAL FOOOOOOOOD

"Lotta Uber drivers won't let you eat in the car but it doesn't look like you'll have much trouble putting that away in a hurry. Paula's got you a hotel room."

"Did you tell her to charge me?"

"I can if you want."

"Yeah I'd prefer that - I offered to pay after all." And he is feeling like asserting his ability to do things right now.

Text text. "Paula's my agent," he clarifies to the psions.

"Mm." He should have asked for a second burger but he can start in on the shake instead.

"You must be really hungry."

"Fish and bananas." Fries in face. "For days and days and days."

"I never knew bread was this good."

"Potatoes!" Her fries are gone. Shake time. "And ice cream!" Slurp.

"I guess I was sort of the same way when I first came here. Though with less... energy."

"Right, so time travel is a thing here?"

"Not usually. My leading theory is that there's a time travel themed dungeon and one of its monsters went back and time-traveled Lucien but we haven't seen other signs of it besides him yet."

"It was an adjustment but the future turns out to be better than the past in a lot of ways."

"Oh, what sticks out on that front, I'm curious."

"More variety in food, fewer people dying, the Internet and Wikipedia are amazing, and lots of things that only sometimes worked badly now work consistently very well."