He laughs. "You could have said we were ahead of the curve!"

"Congratulations on figuring out that it's okay both for men to be gay and for them to eat a girl out."

"We aim to please!"

Rose and Asher are going to TEAM UP for questions about how Great Tang works.

Asher has settled on questions about restaurants.

If you want macroeconomic data about restaurants, he can certainly give you that. And if you want information about Tang dining culture, he has that too. He is so full of opinions about different restaurants, whether they're worth their price, et cetera, and so rarely does he have such a captive audience for it.

Asher is SO fascinated by restaurants!

Eventually he's going to wander off to type up his notes about restaurants, muttering about professional publication.

Lev joins him.

"Well, at least I'm earning my keep."

"Forecasters are all like that."

"Prone to disappearing mid-conversation to write things?"

"Yep. And insatiably curious about random things that most people are not curious about."

"It'd be useful for the job. --Sorry if this rude, somehow, but how's Cascadia been treating you?"

"I don't have a uterus anymore so there's a limit to how bad it can be."

"That's... good?"

"I mean I could say other things, it's a great country, but mostly my feeling is that I'm never going to get pregnant ever again."

"I mean if you don't want to be, that's a good thing--" because he likes to think he is getting some skill at giving the Cascadian answer to things. (His actual answer is more "AAAAAAAAA?")

"--I had six kids."

"--That's... many." Ooh he does not like that past tense. He does not like it At All.

"Five of them died before they were three months old and one of them I've never met."

"...I'm sorry." It really does not seem to be enough. "How do you not even meet the baby you gestated, and if the answer is 'fucking Gilead'--"

"I was a pervert, you don't get to be a Handmaid if you're a pervert."

"And so they just-- what, stole the baby from you? I Am. So Sorry."

"Well, I consented. I didn't want to hurt her either. They won't do anything without your consent, in Gilead, not unless you're a criminal."

"Oh, I really trust Gilead's ethics about this. -- time travelers offering to help kidnap people is almost certainly not the help you want."