She turned to me and gestured for me to come over with her head; I obeyed and started undressing, taking off the brown cargo pants and mauve t-shirt with an aggressively frumpy illustration of a tabby cat and the words "I'm a cat purr-son" in well-nigh unreadable cursive script. Whoever had collected human clothing for me had eclectic tastes, at best. Surely there was less weird stuff to find, even in the Goodwill dumpsters.

"Do you miss it?" I asked, shucking off the shirt and kicking it and the pants to the side. "Your home?"

"Of course," Kamharida said as she dressed me. "This place is beautiful, but I will always miss the home of my childhood. It is good to be alive, but sometimes the cost is very high."

"What were you before?" I asked, and hastened to add, "Only if you don't mind sharing."

"A mother," she said quietly, as she helped me dress. "I had two boys. They were still young when I was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. The doctors gave me four months to live without treatment, and not more than a year with it. We couldn't afford the treatment, and my husband and I didn't tell the boys. One day I went to the hospital and didn't come back." Her fingers laced up the back of my dress, strong and steady. "What about you, your highness?"

"I used to program missile defense systems," I answered, the sorrow of loss rising in me. We all had grief here, didn't we? All us humans, brought here dying and given a new life, with no way to change our minds. "I did a lot of the stuff on the detection side, rather than the missile side." I shook my head. "I was... on vacation," I said, my throat tightening and pain twining through my ribs. "My boyfriend and I went climbing in the wilderness. The cliff... collapsed." I blinked hard, trying to keep myself from crying. "I..."

Kamharida put one hand on my shoulder. "No more," she said with compassion. "It has been years for me, and I had months to be ready to die. It's still raw for you, isn't it?"

I nodded, still trying to keep the tears at bay. "This is a lot for me," I said. "I'm doing my best to stay in the moment, but..."

"People say foolish things about grief," she said, getting a brush and returning to pull it through my hair. "Always saying things about the healing power of time and choosing to be happy. Ignore them all and feel however you feel. We all grieve differently, and how you mourn will look different from how I mourn."

"I feel like a monster, sometimes," I admitted. "Someone I loved died horribly, and I'm pacing around bored. It feels like it should take up all the space in my life, and it... doesn't."