That's how a lot of chimera actually are, too. But if you push them hard enough for long enough, they're capable of change. Just look at Jethro, everything he does right now is based off his programming, based off Tannusen's own subconscious decisions. But any day now, the kirin could sprout actual legitimate sentience... and the tiger's pushing him in that direction, always.

This doesn't feel much different from Tannusen's perspective.

Tannusen turns his phone so the hologram can see the images of a specific type of flower, the phone set to auto-scroll through the small folder of pictures. "My suggestion is 'Lilly', because of these. These are Lilium Starlette, in specific."

He could even still use Lil for short.

But it wouldn't just be for 'little' anymore.