Huh! Opalyn must have a provisional rank based on Trāho's report.

She's pretty happy to be getting on with the process, and also meeting Iilasir in the process!

"All right. Let's go!"

She'll be escorted, then, to a prison transport much resembling the one that brought her to the Facility, and seated next to other prison inmates who don't particularly look like they're excited for this upcoming experience.

This is Opalyn's chill look. Opalyn is very excited, actually, but it seems like nobody else is, and she doesn't want to make them feel bad.

This is kind of like the atmosphere right before everyone does the math section on the SATs. She tried to be chill then, too.

The prison transport approaches a lightline.

A much huger metal structure--looking almost like a space station, except there's no hint of rotation or spherical design--also floats into place toward that lightline.

Other prison transports can likewise be seen, converging on the ritual location... no, on where the space fortress will be, more than on the light line itself.

They dock, on the lightline-charging station, even as it continues to move through space.

A metal-clad guard escorts Opalyn out, and towards one of many platforms that rise up out of the station, each platform crowned by an obvious magical circle.

The platforms vary in what else is on them besides a magical circle, but many of them have what look like bondage furniture: pillories, whipping posts.

(The platform her escort is leading her toward does not have any of that exciting stuff, though.)

Opalyn looks around at all of the infrastructure, trying not to gawk too openly. Apparently they have to go to a specific spot on the lightline to... charge that spot, maybe? Is that what's going on?

There are two others who look like they may be approaching toward the same target platform: a man in a simple black robe, a metal-clad woman.

"I am Iilasir," the man remarks as he approaches.

"Hello, pleased to meet you. I'm Opalyn. Thanks for inviting me."

"Ah, good.  I was worried that any number of supposed facts might have been miscommunications, or worse, deceptions."

"You are said to have been asking strange questions."

"Yes, I suppose I have been. There is much I don't understand about this place, and I learn faster when I ask about it than when I pretend I already know."

"For example: I know I'm here to help you charge the lightlines, but I don't know how that works. Will you explain?"

"I am a special case and I cause other special cases to happen around me.  In my special case, you will perhaps enable me to feel some faint spark of feeling about possibly finding a new friend or at least an interesting anomaly, depending on how this conversation goes.  I will end up not actually charging the lightline very much, but I have managed to arrange a special case around myself whereby that is not how I get most of my credits and the Facility accepts that outcome so long as nothing rule-breaking happens along the way."

"Once I am done, you will then be taken off to your own platform and get your own chance at charging the lightline.  There are aids you can request to help you feel more strongly, about that, if your recent changes of circumstance are not enough.  It is however acceptable to spend the first time more on getting used to the process; they do not weight it as strongly as the next few occasions."

"Okay! I can try to help you with that! I do not guarantee that you'll actually have feelings, but I can certainly be myself and we can see what happens as a result."

"Would you be willing to tell me about some other friend, past or present, and what draws you to them?"

"For a start, they've almost all been female.  That way there's at least some possible payoff at the end, for solving whatever problems are presented by trying to talk to someone else, which keeps the process bearable for me."

"Oh, so friendship to you is an exchange of problem solving for sex?"

There is no judgement or pity in Opalyn's question. If anything, she's projecting warmth with a tinge of faint approval or understanding.

"Not at all.  It's just that most other conversations don't have any winning condition, or obvious goal or point to them, or if they do it's about preventing something bad from happening rather than making something good happen.  It's hard to form a friendship if all the conversations are unpleasant and you can't even tell when they're over."

"I might see. So: when you're talking to a woman, there's a potential winning condition in the form of sex. But if you're talking to someone you'd never want to have sex with, there's nothing else there for you."

"And so talking to me, and possibly finding a new friend in me, means seeing if there are sexual possibilities here?"

"No, in your case, if you fail to ask interesting questions I'll quickly despair.  I'm currently not polyunsaturated enough for sexual interest alone to sustain forming a new relationship."

"On the plus side, you're literally able to repeat back what I say in your own words, which I suppose isn't very much intelligence in an absolute sense but is so surprising that it raises the possibility of further surprises in the same direction."

Opalyn laughs. "It's always surprising to me, too, when people get that right!"

"I don't know what questions are going to interest you, but I can ask some questions that interest me and then you can tell me what you thought of them. How many would you like at a time?"

"We can start once I'm set up for charging.  Hope, disappointment, it all becomes fuel."

The station they're on is slowing, as it approaches the lightline.

Opalyn and Iilasir and their escorts have almost reached the end of the walkway leading to the obvious ritual platform.

Other ritualists are mounting their own platforms.

The man mounts his own designated platform, his guard behind him, and speaks without turning about.

"So.  Questions?"

Really? This is how this works? He just stands on the platform facing away from her while she yells questions at him? This is so not what she was imagining for the last day or so!

Also, it's hard to have a connecting, intriguing, deep conversation while yelling at a busy person's back!

Well, here goes nothing.

"So I can shoot jets of fire out of my hands, and another prisoner asked me what was ON fire, and I had some ideas about that but he didn't want to talk about it anymore."

"My current theory is that my magic is conjuring very fine, flammable dust and that's what's on fire, but I wonder if you have any better ideas?"

"Or if you think that question is boring, I have dozens more, but it would help if you would criticize the question so I can make sure the next question does not repeat the same flaw!"