18
He gives a short laugh. "Wow, super blunt!" he says. "Honestly, no. I know I'm miserable right now, but it's nothing I can't get used to. And I really like Tephra. Even with the tail."
You notice that the poor man's body has been slowly floating upward as he's been talking to you, and now he's finally high enough that he needs to push himself back down the anchoring pole to counteract the movement. He wraps his legs around the pole as well, grasping it with both sets of appendages. Like his lungs' preference for breathing, his body's preference for floating will subside, in time.