Muffled or not, it's a word he's never heard before, even in the basic garden-variety sense. His familiarity with it doesn't matter nearly as much as the strange way that hearing the word gives him a sense for the full meaning, the realization that he shouldn't have understood it nearly so well sending a shiver down his spine.

"That's a new term for me," he admitted as he took a seat in front of her stall, his tone still even. Zohvin had always been quite good at acting under pressure, and getting a little spooked wasn't enough to throw him off. "But many things here have been completely new. At least this place is charming enough, for being something of a backwater planet."