[There's that explanation he'd asked for not so long ago, and it sends a chill down his spine much as he anticipated it would. For all slugs living in pools of slime is very far from the (meta)physical reality of what a demon was, they sound very nearly like. What a horrid resonance.]

Not so unlike our demons, then, even down to their motives for possession. Though I've never heard of one being talked out of relinquishing a host; your friend sounds a remarkable woman, if she'd do that out of compassion--for both host and possessor, I s'pose.

[Then, a low breath out.] It's been my experience guilt doesn't come to much in most folk, though we'd wish it did. That the creatures can feel it at all would seem to set 'em apart from demons.

[He isn't sure he wants to ask this, but--] What d'you mean about holding the child until the Yeerk starved?