"Oh, no," Xas says, peering at Wolfgang through the dark and holding back a barrage of his own questions: is he uncomfortable, is he always awake at this hour, has Israel always been around in his world or did the Zionists succeed? He refocuses and shrugs. "I was just there when the war started."

Back home, this is when he would say that he doesn't care for politics and just swore allegiance to the first country willing to let him fly, which is mostly true, and that he's actually from France, which is mostly false. It's a lie he's told a few times in Baedal, too. But in the meantime he's met a few creatures much more impressive than himself, and it's rained monsters that almost succeeded in putting the fear of God back into him, and Wolfgang has loaned him a sweater.

So, "I'm not really anything. I'm not human," he says, then smiles, feeling at once embarrassed and pleased with himself for saying it aloud. "Do you want to sit down?"