"...Thanks. It did kind of come off that way. And I should probably be making friends, now that the secret's definitely out."

"Sorry, I'm kind of a busybody. Are you interested in men at all, for the record?"

"It's not stigmatized here. Okay.

Theoretically? Especially closer to the side of 'cute' than 'handsome'." He makes a vague gesture in Cocoa's general direction. "'Nother thing I'm skittish about though."

"That's alright. I'll let you get used to the standard arrangement first before I start nosing about. You'll find that most rel'he are, not to put too fine a point on it, sluts. Rosalie excepted."

"Been getting that picture." He halfsmiles. "What kind of coding or whatever other work do you do?"

"I cook, and I do the usual sorts of rel'he things - lights, kitchen appliances, and so on. I've never really made a specialization of it, I just find it fun and it supports me so why not do it? I spend a lot of my time on the rel'he'ar too, answering questions and just chatting."

"Mmhm, makes sense. I'm kind of a nerd, so I'll want to invent. Ooh, say, do you have magic dishwashers or is it wash by hand?"

"It's wash by hand, there've been a few attempts with kinetics but it tends to break plates or else not get everything off."

"What about streams of hot water mixed with soap? That's what we did. Eh, probably not urgent compared to sugar sickness..."

"Good thought, kinda fiddly. Might be doable though. And yeah, sugar sickness is a higher priority if you've got a fix for that."

"Not a cure but my world figured out a treatment that works. I'll need to do some searching. Should maybe get started now, even."

"Don't feel like you've got to fix everything right away. It's fine to take some time for yourself first."

"...Not really. It's well... You read my heartsong. Those are who you are, more or less, or something, right?"

"They're an expression of a core part of your soul. It's not all of you, but..."

"Yeah, I guess.

It's not rude to look people up, is it? And now I'm sort of curious. Satura-anske Cocoa."

NAME: Cocoa
USERLEVEL: User
HYMN: ••
~Categorize This~
STATUS: •••••
CORE DRAW: ••◘
Heartsong Analysis:
INT: •••
WIS: ••
CHA: ••••
Heartsong: 『Ordinary』
Your Int, Wis, and Cha are all increased by one for the purpose of modifying someone's Heartsong or body.
Passion Core: ◘

"If you use the full syntax of satura-anske rel'he'ar rel'he Cocoa you'll spend less Core Draw," advises Cocoa. "And please don't give me shit about the natural heartsong-modification ability, I just don't like to see people stuck in ruts."

"I'll remember that syntax. And it's all about consent, isn't it? Not my business who or what as long as there's informed consent. I'm not really used to the implications of heartsongs and modifying them, though. We didn't have any. Or the Hymn."

He nods. "In any case, you have work to do, yeah? So I'll leave you to it."

"Good to meet you!" He glances over at Hannah again, then starts... Attempting searches to get medical journals. More specific means less core draw, but he doesn't actually know the names of any medical journals...

He tries 'satura-anske wikipedia latest page version insulin'.

He receives a copy of the latest wikipedia page for insulin!

...Biochemistry is complicated.

He reaches around for his instinctive-somehow grasp of the language for a command to take notes with.

What he gets is a text editor not dissimilar to emacs.

He reads the Wikipedia page and takes notes, including useful-seeming references. But the page for 'insulin' takes like half an hour to read even once through. This isn't going to be as easy as he hoped, even if he can definitely notice his heartsong kicking in as he studies...

Hannah will find him staring off into space a bit and maybe muttering.

"Hey, you doing okay? You're projecting a bit of an aura, you learn to sense these things as a rel'he. Getting carried along by your Heartsong?"