"Often with something called a cloacal kiss," he says, drawing his finger out again, careful of its claw, and returning it to probe deeper, gently in and out. His fox eyes are luminous in the dim light, steady on Ren's. "Or sometimes"—"

—and his finger slips in past the second knuckle, with a small, pleased gasp as he finds what he was seeking, and runs a pad over the top of it—"what they have emerges from inside. At the appropriate time."