Dawn

Jdahya begins to move around the room, rather than just staying still in one corner as he had when Lilith first encountered him. At one point, Jdahya goes into the bathroom and comes out carrying a ripe banana, the first recognizable food Lilith has seen: “It was literally the best food she had tasted in two hundred and fifty years” (27).

Jdahya removes his jacket and Lilith sees there are tentacles all over his body. To her surprise, she gets used to the sight quickly and merely thinks they make him look even more like a bizarre sea creature. Lilith asks if any of the tentacles can sting; Jdahya replies that all of them can, though he would never sting her. Jdahya has been in isolation rooms before with humans, some of whom tried to attack him, but he had not stung them, either: “I’m not interested in killing your people. I’ve been trained all my life to keep them alive” (28). Only the ooloi can sting without killing.

Jdahya gives Lilith an orange, which she breaks into pieces to share with him. They sit close together and eat the orange. Lilith realizes that some of Jdahya’s tentacles are touching her.