A genetically modified raccoon is pushing it even for Kaidan, who hails from a time and place where aliens are commonplace, but that level of genetic engineering is banned by Council law. That they're in the middle of the woods, around a campfire, drinking potent alcohol and now a raccoon is talking to him is just the right level of absurdity that Kaidan blinks in inebriated befuddlement before he remembers the bottle of mead in his hand. (He's been drunk by a campfire in the woods before, and there were raccoons, but they weren't the talkative kind.) "You," he informs the Barrayaran Resistance's oddest recruit with heavy pauses between his phrasing, "Have no appreciation for art."

He does, at least, hand over the booze.