The Traveller:
"Smoke, I am literally fucking *dying* here, and you're making hair color jokes. Hah hah hah!" Trav's laughter is joyous. Wow, talk about gallows humor.
'So you are dyeing your hair?' Smoke returned, her grin wobbling, laughing even as she cried, with brightness and sadness in her dark eyes as a tear rolled down her cheek, streaking the grime there. Because a Kang should be brave and bold, even to the very dead-end of the carrydoor.
'Mayhaps— mayhaps you could— could go blue?!' she burst out, her laughter at last turning to sobs.
Trav said she was going to change, like the Very Hungry Caterpillar into a butter-fly. She'd talked lots about all her faces and names and lives, so mayhaps it was no dead-end, no to-do. She was not going to unalive, outgoing to her Great Pool in the Sky. But she was going to change, and the Traveller she knew would be
gone, with her hair and the hats, and her face and her clothes, and her attitude and her life, and their friendship. All gone. She rememorised their how-you-do on Farhaven, their talks in the talkiphone box, Trav fixiting Puddy, show-and-telling how babies were made, all of it. Never more.
Smoke Alarm broke, and footed all speed across the console room. Heedless of the golden lights, she flung her arms around Traveller for a last hug, her blue head on her chest.
'I'll rememorise you all-ways.' she promised.
'Pinky-swear. I'll outlook for you and show-and-tell you smartypants things and the ways of the carrydoors, and I won't ever take-care of you. Just like I all-ways have. Just be brave and bold as a Kang would be and rememorise all-ways: no ball-games, no fly-posts, no wipeouts.' she sobbed the most important lessons, before she detached and backed reluctantly away from the insistent golden flames.