Foxbox flips forwards into front almost instantly on hearing the energetic music, and adjusts her bracelet to match. 

She puts her book down on its splayed open pages, and comes over to the kitchen and jams in the free space where Sable isn't working. She does the ear flaps again, of course.

"Spent some time doing ear research last night. They don't have any that move, but I can probably make some. Tried to see if I could tie the motion to mood with brainscans, but we don't have the pattern-matching to do it yet, I don't think. Might be able to find someone who sells a set of stationary ones though?"

Foxbox nods along, distracted by the lyrics of the song currently playing. 

Let's start, start, hey!

Why do we like to hurt so much?

Oh why do we like to hurt so much?

That's what you get when you let your heart win!

Yeah, that sounds so, so true to her. And for some reason she's tearing up a little? 

She exhales hard, and hops up onto a bare patch of counter while she dries her tears a little. The song plays on, and ends, and she dries her tears and presses her hands over her heart, hand over hand like she's clutching something precious to her heart, and bows her head in what might be prayer or might just be wordless hope. 

Maybe this life here won't be so bad. 

Awww.

She hugs Foxbox during a pause in the cooking.

"You okay, hun?"

Her voice has maybe become a tiny bit quicker, a tiny bit tighter, while she's been cooking. Or maybe not. Either way, she doesn't seem to have noticed.

She manages a smile. "Yeah, just... had to take a moment to focus. Please don't talk over the music." 

She nods and gets back to cooking. Soon enough, everything is done and she plates it up. Cheesy eggs with mushrooms, onto buttered toast, with some more shredded cheese on either side of the eggs. Cup of milk for her, cup of coffee for Foxbox, and all of it to the table.

Foxbox eats, quietly, and listens to the music as the album plays on. And thanks the Graces for the gift of artistry, quietly, under her breath when she doesn't think Sable is listening.

Sable notices Foxbox saying something under her breath, but doesn't feel it's particularly important enough to ask what was said. People mutter to themselves for lots of reasons. Probably even more reasons when they're multiple people.

She eats. It's tasty, as usual.

And slowly over the meal the album plays to its completion. 

"I liked that fifth song best," Foxbox says after a moment. "It was really good. Something's not quite clicking, I feel like the twenty-year-old me isn't remembering something important..." She exhales and shakes her head. "Just... the distance hitting me, but there's still so much beauty in this world. DSes and music like this fighting against all its chaos and confusion and people like you doing your best with everything they have..."  

"... I think I might really want to save this world," Foxbox says, almost consideringly. "Even with all its stupid ideas about sexuality and children and lack of any clue how to self-regulate and -" 

She blinks. 

"I think your world might be a child," she says. "A confused, lost, abandoned child that's never had the good fortune and chance to develop to ever think for itself. And I think that's beautiful and awful and I want to save it. Even if it's really hard. Even if it takes eight years or more. Maybe even if it's impossible." 

She grins, a bit wry and a bit rueful and a bit determined. "Yeah, I think you're right about this world. It's a child. It's young and dumb and had no one teaching it. Saving it is probably going to be really hard, but. That's a lot of lives. Seven billion or more. We'll see if we can't do something about those AI problems you predicted."

"Yeah. I don't know that we can, but - if we can solve this magic, if we can crack it open to the alternate-physics beneath - then I think we'll do okay. I think we'll get there."

She nods resolutely, and exhales.

"I hate to be the person here who starts talking religion, especially when it's the source of so much pointless hurt in my world and probably also in yours, but I do believe that there's grace in the world. The capacity for love isn't random, it's something that falls out of natural selection, but there's no reason it had to be implemented that way. Some things are luck and chance and the shape of the universe, and for those things I think it's appropriate to be thankful. I guess that makes me Asrai, in a little way. I don't believe there are really three Graces up there who decide what beauty the world will have, but I think there is such a thing as beauty and such a thing as being blessed. And I'm feeling really blessed for having you, right now." 

She exhales. "So. I'm going to pray, even though I almost never do. Just because I feel that I have to acknowledge the burden I'm taking on. And because..." She taps her chin. "Because I feel that this planet might want that, might want someone who acknowledges that part of it." 

She coughs. "But please never mention this to my family when I get home, I am supposed to be a staunch atheist and I'd never live it down. Especially since until literally a day ago it was blatantly obvious all the evidence was against there being any supernatural agency in the world, and I still felt this way. Sometimes the heart's not rational." 

And she clasps her hands over her heart, in the same contemplative pose as Sable saw her a few minutes ago, and closes her eyes and prays wordlessly.

Sable smiles softly and sits silently while her adopted daughter prays.

Foxbox holds the pose for perhaps five seconds, then lowers her hands and nods. "Alright then. I will now proceed to put the silly spiritual bit of my brain out of the proceedings as best I can, since this is not a place for me to start basing hypotheses on vague hopes rather than actual usable data." And she cracks a smile. "I feel silly. None of this is going to be solved in a day. It did at least make me feel better, though." 

"There sure are worse things than a moment of solemnity when you're committing yourself to do the 'impossible,' darling. I'm glad it helped you feel better."

"... can I get a hug now?"

"Absolutely."

Around the table she goes, and Foxbox gets hugged so tight.

And Foxbox hugs back, tight as tight. 

"Okay. Let's... look at the nintendo DS? Because if anything is going to keep me happy and sane during this whole thing it's having a cute little gaming console."

"Yeah, that's a pretty solid idea. I'm pretty sure there's a pink one, and the store'll open in an hour."

"Okay!"

Foxbox grins and bounces on her feet and unhugs from Sable, warmth and life coming back to her with a short-term goal in mind. 

"Once the breakfast plates are in the dishwasher then?"

"Well after that we could head out to a furniture store, look at desks since I think that store'll be open a little earlier than GameStop. Or we could watch a local show."