AJ noted that the alien had avoided his specific question about the ankle, and so she presumed that he was not willing to divulge the answer, which meant that whether or not Algidus' was slowly melting from around the foot or not, she was going to keep a very close eye on the way he walked. If he turned back and saw her gaze had dropped to parts of his anatomy that were not his face, that would be why.

Eventually she called a break. They were not as far away from the encampment as she would have been comfortable with, but she was not tired from grappling a pile of limp tentacles over her shoulder. She wanted to ensure that Algidus didn't wear himself out. "I'm sweating like a pig," she complained, finding a beaten down path and holding steady on it, refusing to move though she also refused to put the big thing down. "This thing's starting to whiff like seafood, too. Can you do something about it? Make it colder?"