Old-Paril doesn't have any memories of Conversion, so he can't comment on whether he would want that or not. Old-Paril was quite interested in drone psychology though, and the reason Old-Paril was friends with Damin is that Damin taught him hypnosis. If there existed some even more efficient and powerful way to bind and control drones, well, that would be delightful! Old-Paril's memories suggest that he would have felt that way, at least.

She paces and frets and combs through borrowed memories and tries to figure out what she wants and can't figure out what she wants and paces and frets some more. By dinnertime she's feeling pretty dispirited, and it's hard to keep up the outward appearance of a thoughtful, distracted, placid Paril.

Her crown shyly nudges her mind.

(She's not sure she's ever felt the crown being shy before. Has she? It feels pretty strange...)

What is it?

Well... her new body has some features that the crown has been exploring, and it thinks—thinks—that, if she lets it operate some of those features, she might be able to sleep tonight. Restful sleep, with dreams and everything.

...the Lamb is immediately torn between suspicion and longing. Features?? What features???

The crown clumsily attempts to point her in the direction of some Paril-memories.

Body control! Remna have nerve clusters distributed all around their body that allow them to consciously control what would normally be autonomic functions. You can use these to diagnose and treat diseases and injuries, but one of the uses of body control is to induce various types of dormancy. Old-Paril's memories will have the time he tried aestivation and hibernation for the first times, as a child. No one does that anymore, even back then, because they have good shelter and enough food for everyone, but it's considered Culturally Important that children still be taught body control dormancy techniques. Aestivation and hibernation protect from hot and cold temperatures, and also greatly reduce the need for food and water while dormant. It's not without risk, though, the body is at risk of infection during these times, so it's important that the place where people go dormant be kept very clean. Also, they're going to be really hungry and thirsty and tired for hours to days afterward as they recover.

Sleep is the simplest type of dormancy, and is the only mandatory one. Remna must sleep at least for some portion of the day: usually six, but can go as low as four if you've done little thinking or moving in the day, or up to twelve, for drones doing grueling work like pulling carriages quickly by running. People can also sleep longer than that to recover from disease or injury, in which case they may remain in sleep for most of the day, waking only to eat, drink, and relieve themselves. Sleep requires no complex technique – if you get tired enough you'll actually go to sleep against your will – but you might need to do something extra if you have to sleep under adverse conditions, such as changing your sleep schedule, or the room being bright or loud.

Unlike other body control techniques, this one doesn't require poking and prodding, and instead only requires mental motions. Old-Paril will have many memories of his favorite one to induce sleep.

The crown explains that, although as its bearer she can't sleep normally, and that would by default include sleeping as a remna, it thinks it can get around this limitation by taking over her body control and applying the dormancy techniques to her.

She's so, so torn. On the one hand, she misses sleep desperately. It was the worst thing about a very bad situation, that she couldn't go to bed at night and wake up refreshed in the morning, couldn't take a nap to work herself out of a bad mood, had to just keep going and going and going and endlessly, endlessly going. But. It's... a lot of trust, to let the crown screw around with her brain like that? What if it messes something up?

(The crown promises to be very careful!)

In the end, the longing wins out. After dinner, and another walk through the flower gardens and the closest part of the orchard, she goes to bed and (reluctantly, fearfully) lets the crown apply Mandatory Cozy Time.

This just in: dreams suck.

She does wake up rested in the morning, though, and (somewhat grudgingly) admits it was worth it.

Thanks, crown.

It's so glad it could help!

Fels will, just like yesterday, ask Paril whether he wants to have breakfast here, or at the table.

"Please be reminded that Sir Damin will be arriving later this afternoon, Controller."

Today she feels adventurous enough to have breakfast at the table. She tries to be less distracted, and also to immerse herself more fully in the role of Paril, though these goals trade off against each other somewhat because it's distracting to always be checking what Paril would do.

[Old-Paril ate at the table when he felt like eating more than he usually did.]

"You seem tense, Controller," Fels says. "Is there anything this drone could do to fix that?"

(Old-Paril, context? The Lamb strongly suspects you did not destress by gardening.)

[Old-Paril's destressing methods by decreasing order of commonality:

Sleeping.
Eating.
Taking a walk.
Being massaged by a drone.
Being "massaged" by a drone.
Punishing or torturing a drone.

In this respect he's quite similar to the median Keeper.]

Wow, she could take a nap. That's a thing she can do now. She's so grateful to enormous alien biology and also to her crown.

It wouldn't actually solve her problem, though, since her problem is that she's stressed about impersonating Paril successfully. And a massage sounds mildly horrifying to her non-drone-accustomed instincts, and a "massage" sounds even worse.

She makes a noncommittal noise and says, "Maybe I'll take a walk after breakfast."

"Yes, Controller," Fels says. "Sir Damin said via teletype that he has set off and expects to arrive here around noon.

There are no other scheduled tasks or events for today or for tomorrow."

She gives an acknowledging nod and tries to focus on her food in a more natural-seeming way, with mixed success.

After breakfast (so much breakfast, why do these enormous aliens need to eat such enormous amounts), she goes on the indicated walk, some distance into the orchard and back. It does help clear her head a little, and brings her borrowed memories into slightly better alignment with her conscious mind, because she feels some kinship with Paril when she walks among his trees and thinks about the fact that they're her trees now. They're good trees.

Perhaps by the time Damin arrives, she'll be capable of acting... reasonably normal.

Damin will arrive with six drones on a carriage, which is giving a rococo aesthetic, except with yellow and blue as the main colors rather than yellow and white. Two drones are pulling the carriage – with their replacements in the back when they get tired – with two attending to him directly.

He's going to go up to the gate, whereupon one of Paril's drones will let them pass through, since it has been told to expect them.

Damin will ride all the way up to near the front of the house, where he will park the carriage and wait for either Paril himself or one of his drones to attend to him.

He's wearing a similarly blue and yellow patterned garment seemingly made of a few long pieces of cloth draped and wrapped around the body, like a sari. His drones are wearing similar wraps, but only on their torsos – they're wearing regular pants.

"Paril", in a red and black outfit that the crown picked out, will—

No, it's going to be unsustainable to think of things this way. It's not like she even has a name anymore to begin with. Let Paril, then, be the name for what she has become: an amalgam of who she was before all this, with the presence and influence and assistance of her crown, with the memories of the alien whose body she stole. Unified under a single flag, under a single name, under a single luminous red eye.

Paril, wearing a red and black outfit that goes very well with their strange new hat,* greets Damin personally and accompanies him into the house through the massive main doors set in what was once the castle's outer wall.

"Good to see you. Have you been well? When would you prefer to eat?" they say, with customary levels of abruptness, mild distraction, and conscientious thought for the future.

*Their strange new hat is doing such a good job impersonating an inanimate object and will be getting pats later.

"Thank you, and yes. I'm not very hungry right now."

Damin flicks his tongue – a little bit off to the side, not in Paril's direction – and vigorously oscillates his aftendrils.

"The air here tastes so fresh. It's absolutely delightful. You can smell the fruit tree flowers."

Damin will follow Paril or his drones inside, presuming that Paril or his drones will lead him inside. He'll dismiss his drones – [he's come over to Paril's house enough times that there are already arrangements for his drones to be accommodated by Paril's].

"I love your outfit. And that new crown – it looks splendid on you. I didn't really peg you for a hat person, but clearly you have excellent taste." He smiles.

They smile. "It's a very good crown," they agree. "Thinking of taking a new aesthetic direction. Not sure of details yet, but the crown is a good first step."

They do in fact lead Damin into the house, and around the corner and into the main living room, at the bottom of the old keep. Their gaze darts around the room as they consider their redecoration plans.

"It's a very pleasing direction. A good first step indeed."

Damin will look around as much as Parilamb does.

"Are you planning to do a metamorphosis ritual, given your desire to change your aesthetic? I know you don't really go to church, but I have acquaintances in it if you feel like having someone help you. Or buy supplies for it."

...hey, stolen memories: metamorphosis ritual? What??

And in the meantime, to give her time to process whatever results she turns up, "Not sure yet if this is change or... refinement." Hopefully that lands well.

[When someone feels like changing something significant about themselves, they conduct a metamorphosis ritual to banish or say goodbye to the old self (depending on one's relationship with it) and welcome the new. Usually the figure of Zasybix is invoked, the exemplar of flexibility, adaptability, change, and resilience, unless one seeks to change bad habits, in which case Jitbad is invoked, the exemplar of steadfastness, protectiveness, borders, and separation. There's more to it than that, but that's the extent that Old-Paril remembers – he doesn't really do rituals generally. People vary in how much they use them.]

"That makes sense. You don't really have to do one if you don't want to, regardless of the extent of your change.

Is there any particular reason why you want to change your aesthetic, or do you just feel like it? I know your family has had this keep for a very long time."

"Do you have a lot of experience with these rituals? I have little."

As for the question, that will need more consideration (and more internal consultation) to answer. (How did Paril relate to this keep's aesthetic? How would he have related to the question of whether to change it? She thinks she can see a possible shape of an answer—that Paril has been mildly dissatisfied with this aesthetic for being insufficiently specific, but has been unable to come up with a more tightly coherent and expressive aesthetic that he finds sufficiently satisfying to be worth the change, and was recently inspired with the seeds of an idea that he hopes to eventually grow into... well, in the end, the aesthetic here is going to be the crown's.)

(It doesn't quite consciously occur to her, yet, that a ritual of metamorphosis might be a practical way to both memorialize Old-Paril and account for the differences between old and new. The thought is floating in the back of her head, just out of reach.)

"Somewhat? I've done a bunch of them, but if I'm being honest with you, a lot of the time I just use them as an excuse to throw a party afterwards or before. Which technically is a ritual in and of itself but it's not centrally one. And yes, I know you're not supposed to do rituals like that, but whatever."