Talking was complicated. First, Self needed to work out breathing - inflating and deflating part of the self-shape with air. Then, during the deflation period, muscles in the air tube needed to be vibrated, while other muscles closer to the orifice air came in and out of needed to be moved around to make shapes.

The easiest muscles to vibrate ended up being those closest to the air sacs, which didn't sound quite like the way the djinn had made noises, but was close enough. Part of the issue is that the memories pulled from the dead individuals hadn't actually contained any instructions on the process, only hints of sensation.

These beings were not very self-aware.

Self had ended up pulling information directly from two more individuals, until they ceased vibrating; they weren't talking, or conveying concepts, just making endless high-pitched noises and erratic motions. They had what Self had previously conceptualized as state, using their words, but which they thought of as emotion. They didn't use any words very precisely; they called two distinct things emotion, one referring to state, the other referring to something else which Self hadn't untangled yet. They called the state fear, and it made their vibrations a tangled, confused mess.

The other two had been more stable, and it was one of these that Self was practicing talking with; the second was silent.

"Yes. There are many words for the same things, and all the words mean many things." Efre's voice was not like their voices, and the silent being moved every time Self talked; a flinch, maybe. There were concepts for the body language, but Self had trouble interpreting them, as the concepts for them were incomplete, like something else was filling in. The other was the one responding, an individual who had the name "Efre".

"Yes. I don't know why this is, but there are people who study language, who might be able to explain it. Do you remember entering the loop?" Efre had responded to each statement, and followed it with a question, a kind of statement with a particular inflection on the last word, which was a query for information.

"No. Maybe. Uncertain what the loop is. Efre is wearing clothing." Self looked over the clothing. Efre was wearing four distinct pieces; a "shirt", which was a tubelike construction which covered the top part of Efre, a "skirt", another, simpler tube which covered the middle portion; and two "sandals", which were straps which attached to Efre's feet.

"I... yes. Clothing is... considered necessary for people to be in, when around other people. People often do not wish for others to see all of them, or do not wish to see all of other people. It's... a little complicated, there are many rules people have, in order to get along with other people." Efre paused briefly, looking around at the still individuals on the ground, then back to Self. There was an odd motion at Efre's throat. "I can get you clothing if you desire?"

Self considered this for a few moments. People - a concept for multiple individuals - had rules for interacting, this had come up before, early in the conversation when Efre had insisted that Self not break Efre or the other individual. This made sense, considering how easy it was to make them stop functioning - how easy it was for them to die, which Self had gathered, in the course of the conversation with Efre, was considered "undesirable", part of the complex of concepts which were associated with the concept of repulsion. It wasn't clear how clothing fit into this.

"What for would desire clothing?" The conceptual structure of questions wasn't quite complete, but Self had attempted them a few times with some success. There were syntactic differences in the structuring of statements intended to elicit additional information, and the rules weren't entirely clear.

"I..." Efre paused, looking at the silent individual who still moved, and back at Self. "I'm sorry, one of the others was... was supposed to have this conversation. I'm not very prepared." Self waited; these words, like several others Self had already determined, were meaningless for the purposes of communication, and intended for Efre, for reasons Self didn't yet understand, rather than intended to convey information to Self. "Clothing helps keep you warm or cool, protects against environmental hazards, provides a barrier against surfaces, and also reduces undesired social attention." This had a different tone, that had come up a few times in the conversation, but Self didn't know what it signified.

Self considered the response for a time. Warm and cool were touch-signals that Self had yet to identify, but which seemed to have a repulsive nature to the individuals the concepts had come from - they thought of things with that repulsive nature "unpleasant", but as far as Self could determine, this was just a name for the repulsion, rather than a meaningful concept of it.

Environmental hazard mapped to a complex set of concepts, which Self didn't understand - environmental almost made a kind of sense, just another way of describing space, but hazard was just another kind of repulsiveness, repulsiveness in potential. Barrier against surfaces made a sort of sense, but the concepts seemed confused together, and undesired social attention made little sense at all.

"Yes. Clothing." Self responded, without feeling any particular inclination about the subject. Perhaps it would make more sense after trying it out, or perhaps not. There was a slight hum of curiosity, which, using concepts taken from the broken, Self understood a little bit better. The different states changed the likelihood, and patterns, of vibrations; in terms of vibrations, it was difficult to parse the effect curiosity had, but interpreting it through a layer of conceptual abstractions, curiosity made Self more likely to try to construct new concepts. So far it had been the dominant state Self had experienced, which made some sense, in view of the comparatively sparse set of concepts Self was working with, in comparison to the depth of conceptual abstractions that each individual had had.

The clothing came from one of the objects in the room, full of clothing. It was... challenging to put on, requiring limbs to be maneuvered at strange angles. A second shirt had to be obtained, on Efre's insistence, after a motion created a new hole in the first. It was incorrect to wear clothing that had holes in it, according to Efre, although she failed to explain why it was acceptable that shirts had four holes in them in the first place. Both the torn and second shirt were a mostly identical pattern of blue, with red stripes descending at angles from the shoulders, in what Efre called, when asked, a sunburst pattern.

The next article of clothing was like two skirts, one long on the inside, in blue, and one short on the outside, in red; it had two straps that went over the shoulders, crossing the torso, and attached at the waist with metal loops that caught on a single metal object embedded in the center of the waist material. Metal was interesting; it was apparently hard to bend, at least for the djinn, although Self had bent one of the loops, and then bent it back, to see, and wasn't sure what the... reference point, for hard to bend, really was.

Last were the sandals, a plain brown; these were just pieces of a material called leather, with many straps to attach them to the feet, and tiny metal buckles. Efre had placed these on Self's feet, as they were small and difficult to place. Efre explained that these garments served as a barrier between feet and the ground.

"Why should step not on the... ground?" The slight rise in tone on the final word that signified query was challenging.

"Most of us can't do that, it takes years of practice for most people." Efre responded absently, using a metal tool of some kind to put a new hole in one of the leather straps of the sandal. "Even those who enter the loop usually take a little longer. It depends on your preconceptions. Well, the loop does away with those, so it is more about what conceptions you develop after leaving the loop."

"The loop is the circle?"

"No, it is more of a spiral, we take someone out before we put them in." Efre finished the first sandal and looked around, pointing at a shape painted on a wall. It was a circle, but not. "Kind of a spiral, but not really, but you'd have to ask someone else about that, I'm not a... teacher." Efre paused again, looking at some of the broken individuals, then at the silent one. Finally, Efre picked up the other sandal, and started attaching it to Self's other foot.

Self wasn't sure how to parse that. Taking someone out before they were put in. So Self was in the loop now. Or Self would go into the loop soon. But Self had just come out of the loop. Self looked back at the spiral, comparing it to a circle. If the circle went forward or backward, it would form a spiral. The concepts... almost connected with what Efre had said.

"That almost makes sense." Self said out loud, as Efre sat back, having finished putting the sandal on the other foot. Self examined it. "Clothing does not." Efre made an odd noise.