She laughed. It was a high, cruel sound. “Would you like to know what
alterations I have, Din, that make me so averse to stimulation, and so
reluctant to leave my residence?”

I looked at her, startled. To have her so cavalierly propose answering a
question I’d debated for months was bewildering. “Well, I…”

“None,” she said.

“What?”

“I have no augmentations that afflict me so. Rather, I have always been
this way. This is my natural state.”

There was a long silence.

“Truly?” I said.

“Truly,” she said. “I have never liked the company of too many people,
Din. I have always preferred patterns and the consumption of information to
socializing. I have preferred and will always prefer staying in my residence
and will avoid stimulation at all costs. This is simply who I am.”

“But… but your abilities, the way you…”

“My situation,” she continued, “made me amenable to an…
experiment.” She was silent for a bit, as if debating something, before
finally saying, “An alteration. The nature of which should not bother you—
for you would not be able to comprehend it. But if I hadn’t been the person
that I was, then the alterations would not have been a success. It was my
choice. I changed and became. I self-assembled. Just as you have done.”
She leaned forward. “Sen sez imperiya. The Empire is strong because it
recognizes the value in all our people. Including you, Dinios Kol. And
when the Empire is weak, it is often because a powerful few have denied us
the abundance of our people. That is exactly what has happened in Talagray.
And I was assigned here specifically to amend that—and I mean to do so.”

- The Tainted Cup, Chapter 39 pg. 351