This is truly a curious symbiote. It prefers not to follow, not to lead, but to learn.

"I came into being upon my world's conception," Illyria tells it solemnly. "In the time of the Primordials, there was no learning except in the ways in which we dismembered our foes. In living so long and knowing so much, my knowledge is infinite, but the space it occupies," she looks at her shell in utter disgust, "finite."