Aleph felt like she should have the mother of all headaches. But if anything besides the jumbled confusion of exactly what had just happened her head was clearer then she ever remembered it being.

Her muscles were sore certainly, her heart felt like it must have beat a few years off her life before she...

Did she pass out?

It was really hazy exactly what had happened and in what order. She remembers everything getting really bright and really fast but also simultaneously slow.

She remembers feeling like she could run up the side of the rim wall.

She kind of feels like maybe she sort of tried to do that in the confined space of the bubble?

Her nose wrinkled at the sudden accosting of putrid stink. A mix of vomit, shit and sweat along with a bitter metallic tang.

But even with the awful smell that seemed to be permeating the bubble’s air she felt amazing.

Just what the hell had been in that sludgy jelly the ‘sensatiologist’ had mixed up under the restrictions of Terran biology and health?

It had tasted like sweet milk or light fluffy butter honestly, almost like a firm whipcream. But with a consistency like a firm fruit or very tenderized meat? A kind of tough pudding?

There was resistance to her teeth that was pleasant but not overly tough. The texture was just fibrous enough to be satisfying and and a fresh and clean feeling to her teeth and mouth after she finished chewing and swallowing it.

She would have enjoyed it as a desert or something. Maybe not a full meal?

Quarti and Omega had waited a bit while she eat it, then when she didn't immediately throw up or explode they had tried theirs daintily.

Quarti had made some kind of lewd joke which Aleph had found incredibly funny for some reason?

Then she had started noticing just how VIBRANT all of Omega’s colors were or how incredibly nice everything felt and the jolt of energy had started rolling up and down her spine.

Her own heart beat had felt like it was playing it’s own wonderful music and everything was just suddenly so happy and nice!

There had been a lot of lights, and then motion. At some point her and Quarti had gotten a hold of the controls of the walker and then everything had just been so much more fun! They had gone just SO FAST and the colors?

Omega had said something about spirits leaking, but Quarti had started to talk all slow and smooth and it had made sense.

Like it had been important for them to remember they had to drink a lot of water? And to breath and that was like vital but somehow that had become incredibly hard to focus on against literally everything else.

They had eventually stopped being surrounded by whirling colors and flashing and then Omega had started talking to a wall she thinks.

It was probably some kind of person because then Quarti joined her and the two of them had apparently struck up some kind of bargain? Then Quarti sang and there was an exchange of stuff and then they were drinking something even MORE delicious or maybe it was the same kind of delicious and everything just got kind of sideways from there.

And now Aleph was a little unclear on if she had actually had a conversation with her own toes. Like it was completely possible that had been an alien on the outside of the bubble that LOOKED like her toes, but in her previous state she was not sure she would have been able to tell the difference. And just what had it meant that the meaning of truth was to count the bubbles?

She was pretty sure she had not been in her right mind for quite some time. In fact thinking back she was pretty sure Quarti had been making perfect sense the entire time which more or less cinched it that she must have been off her gourd.

Aleph had tried a bit of a wine and danced when she was younger in the village, and the few times Omega gave her breaks during her training. She had gotten ‘pretty drunk’ but that had been NOTHING like this. She still could not fully puzzle out what had occured.

If this had been back home on Terra at least two thirds of the things she remembered she would have been certain were impossible.

But she was apparently in an alien habitat with rooms bigger than her entire home country. So all bets were off how much of the past-

She tried to reach for resonance to get a date stamp from her amulet and felt a burning ache of exhausted symbiotes.

Okay whatever time it was. However much had passed she was unsure what portion of it had actually occurred.

Was that whole period where she felt like she was falling into the eye of a giant fuzzy puppy real? Or was there really a giant animal covered if adorable fluff lounging around somewhere?

Did the sun slip out of a hallway, turn into a spectacular rainbow of threads and then dissolve away with a little chirp of embarrassment or did she invent that one?

Did quarti actually recite the entire history of the Mesocarid Empire’s thousand year golden age in limerick form? Aleph could not remember half the words or whether they even ryhmed properly with one another.

Did they eat the shiny glittery stuff before or after the third drink run that had the delicious water that tasted like spice and salt?

Had she actually kissed an alien or had that been a piece of plumbing she pulled into the bubble?

Was it both?

Either way Aleph was surrounded by awful and she was starting to suspect someone (possibly her) had soiled themselves INSIDE the bubble.

And wait... what had woken her up in the first place?

It hadn't been the smell.

She noticed that afterwards.

Oh yeah it was the nice massage.

That was much too many fingers to be Omega or Quarti, or even both of them combined.

She looked around with protesting neck muscles to confirm.

Yep that was not Omega or quarti kneading the aches out of her joints with the care she might give an injured baby bird.

She sneezed when one poked up her nostril.

Why was she being gently massaged and prodded by soft scaled silvery tentacles all over?

Oh yeah she should probably talk.

“Zgrk?”

Oh right she had been singing WITH quarti a lot during the romp, the burning rasp of her throat confirmed it.

Well damn.