Claudia gave him a saturnine glance. "Have you looked around, Ben? Odd was born here, dear boy." She gestured, indicating the Outside and all its peculiarities. "It's out there that's horrifying." The whiskey was starting to loosen her tongue; for all her habitual sipping, the Chareut heir was still a lightweight.

Glass propped on her chin, she mused thoughtfully, "When I was going to college in New York, I saw things that absolutely terrified me. And everyone else just treated it like normal happenstance. But when I returned here, and slipped back into 'normal Deck life' and was forced to deal with this idiocy, well, that always struck me as funny, for some reason."

She slowly refilled her glass, adding, "Probably because it's more acceptable to snicker at it than run down the hall screaming."