"Gladly! I got a very arty recommended cocoa, didn't read the details closely." She takes a sip, and smiles wide. "Mmm~, delicious. Tastes like... extra-dark chocolate, wait, two kinds of chocolate?" Another sip, then, "Yeah, that's semi-sweet as well." Sip, "And there's hazelnut, aaand a lovely bit of orange zest."

Pigeon smiles. "I'm glad you got something nice."

She looks down and away. "Um." 

Sable suddenly remembers why they're here, blushes, and looks down as well. "Um, right. Want me to go first?"

"... That would be really nice, thank you."

She blushes harder, nods, and grins nervously. "So... I like you. You pet me well, you're pretty and adorable, and I'm extremely curious about you. Your attitude and reactions suggest you're concerned about good things, what I know about your stresses and your coping strategies sounds extremely relatable, and I have a visceral urge to make your life a snugglier place. Also I'm really curious what cute noises you make, too."

"Um. I... have trouble relating to people, and it's... hard, for me, being at the Bowers and... trying to connect, you know? But you... were very kind and gentle to me and you make nice noises and... stuff." She flushes slightly and takes a long sip of her strawberry drink. "So... it would be nice to... get to know you."

"I'd really like that." Sable can't help but wag at this. "And yeah, I used to — still do sometimes — struggle a lot with connecting with people. Such a mood. S'part of why I care so much about making things safer and kinder for people."

She takes a sip of her cocoa to steady herself, but she's still grinning when she speaks. "So, tell me a little about yourself? What you like to do, where you're from, anything else? Or is there anything you're curious about?"

"Um, I'm a - not an illustrator - a graphic designer - an artist? I work for the OTC's advertising department. I don't... write copy or anything, I do digital drawings, and things like fancy borders and fonts and composing things together and... you know, graphic design stuff. I want to illustrate storybooks, but... the money..." 

She looks away and takes another slurp of her drink. 

"... I grew up on a trade world called Valimer, which is mostly populated by Aevii - that's what I am, I'm an Aevis, I'm, um, like this naturally, with the wings - and it's a very... quiet place, very law-abiding, very... nice. It's very concerned with genuineness and authenticity and modesty and service. And... I never really fit in there, so... I tried for an OTC position. The OTC has a bad reputation on Valimer, they really aren't trusted, but there's no jobs for fantasy illustrators under the Winter Hymn. And... even if I have to sell things, have to make the OTC look good, have to - you know - it's better than the clerical job I used to have. A lot better."

She manages to meet Sable's gaze. "So, um. Your turn?"

Sable nods at the mention of graphic design. "I mostly only interact with graphic design (apart from as a user or reader) when I'm working on user-facing code — which is almost never. Illustration, though... That's lovely. Taking a story and making that gorgeous extra step realer for the reader is a beautiful thing, and a beautiful dream. I... I'm moderately aphantasic. Means I can't visualize worth a damn unless I really really work at it, and even if I use every mental trick I've got it still never compares to well-done illustrations, not nearly. So I really appreciate good illustration."

She shakes her head frustratedly at the mention of money, and the imposed modesty of Vallmer.. "It ought to be easier than that, safer than that, to chase an artistic passion. To chase something that breaks with 'tradition' in a beautiful way. I can understand why the OTC has a bad reputation in places like that, but... it still frustrates me. I'm glad you like what you currently have better, but I won't think things are right until it's easy and safe for you and every other frustrated artist out there to take the time you need to really go for your passions."

"I have it comparatively easier in that I love my job, and come from a fairly cosmopolitan world like Arcbright. I'm an OTC software developer, primarily in Refugee Services though one analysis program is used rather more widely than that, as are some other pieces I wrote."

She grins lopsidedly. "All the beauty I add to the worlds is through enabling other people to have the chance to do so, I suppose~."

"I kinda envy you for your wings being natural. Literally all of this," she gestures from her head down her body, "is aftermarket, you could say. True Persona is one whammy of a spell, for sure."

She hums, tilts her head, grins curiously. "D'you think... I could see some of your art, maybe? Stuff you did for the love of the art, rather than because the OTC pays for it?" She swallows hard. "I.. Um, I mean I'd love to see any of your paid work you felt proud of too, I don't mean to like... exclude anything, just that what I'm really hoping to see is the stuff you love doing."

"I don't really know very much about what it's like on other OTC worlds, I only moved out like a month ago. My supervisor said I needed to - 'get the vibe', (she makes air quotes) - and told me to take my yearly vacation early and go to either Sensefest or the Bowers. Sensefest was - too far for me to go, it's literally held up as everything wrong with the OTC on my homeworld - so Bowers it was, you know? My apartment is nicer, now, we don't have dimensional housing on Valimer, it's considered too risky in the case of failure - I still worry about my apartment, like, imploding on me, or drifting off into space, or something - but it is bigger than my old one and the city is nicer and more green and the local park is a really great space to draw in - " 

She takes a breath. "Sorry, I'm getting off topic. You wanted to see some of my work? I guess I could bring some up on my phone - or, wait, I could request prints from the Bowers, probably, if I supplied the files -" 

She picks up the tablet for the booth's rose console and taps at it, and after a couple moments, a small pack of cards appears. She turns it around and spreads the cards out on the table for Sable; there are half a dozen of them.

"I can definitely see it being a very different perspective," she says with a nod. "And that makes sense as a reason to take some time off getting used to it. I..."

She blushes, and grins sheepishly. "I had to be ordered to take my vacation." She shakes her head a bit to clear it, the worry about work fraying her smile slightly for a moment. "Similar reasoning about picking the Bowers over Sensefest, though: it just looked like the experience would be too much, y'know? What do they complain about most, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I'm glad to hear you're liking the new place, too. The right environment makes such a difference, from what I've seen. One of my favorite projects at work was improving the placement analysis algorithms, to support better matching of incoming refugees to well-suited places to live. Learned a lot about how important the right environment can be to a person, working on that, especially the ways that subtle differences can have profoundly different impacts on different people."

She smiles fondly as she watches Pigeon conjure up her art, then looks down at the cards as they're spread out before her.

And stops, for a moment, completely frozen for a beat. Then she takes a deep breath, a tender, enraptured smile on her face.

"Oh. These are lovely. They're so elegant and bright and... I think the best description that comes to mind is 'tender, elegant glory'. I love them."

She gazes happily at the art, back and forth between each piece, with a happy sigh.

"Mostly the drugs and the bloodsport. I know, I know, everything's supposedly safe, I don't actually believe it though. They talk about how people try to imitate sensefest in their actual lives and how it never goes well. I'm happy you get to do something... Happy and uncomplicated, relatively speaking. Getting to change people's lives. Getting to help people. I don't expect my art will ever make that much of a difference to anyone. Though I am glad you like it. These were for a dressup game that a friend was making, but they didn't deliver on the code or the writing. I still really like them though."

"I worry about that too, the bloodsport especially — though maybe partly because I'm really curious about that. Drugs don't worry me as much. They mostly only turn endemic when there are deep ways the surrounding society is hurting badly. Have looked at a lot of studies, done meta-analysis of the mess. But eh. Not the point." She shakes her head. 

"I don't... I love my work, but I don't know that I can call it uncomplicated. I'm always worried I don't have the assessments accurate enough, or that I'll miss some need someone has, and someone we could've a great life to will wind up in a situation that's not right for them at all, and they'll hurt for it. Get someone's hopes up that they're escaping to someplace better, drop the ball, dash their hopes."

"I'm not wor—" She takes a shaky breath. "I have a hard time seeing myself as worthwhile, as good enough, while there are still hellworlds we haven't emptied, while people we rescue don't get as good a life as they could."

"Oh." 

Pigeon looks away. 

Sable's eyes widen, and she looks down briefly, guilty. Why did she bring that up? Terrible, terrible, terrible idea. Maudlin fool of a fox.

She shakes her head, opens her mouth to speak, closes it again, looks back down. Running away wasn't how she got through the feelings in the first place, and it won't save the conversation now.

"Sorry," she says, her voice soft and somber. "Not great 'getting to know you' banter, kinda derails the casual lightness. D'you wanna... hear the whole story, and more specifics of what brought me out of it? Or we can talk about something else, anything you'd like."

"I... yeah, let's please talk about something else." She takes a resigned slurp of her shake.

Sable nods with a bittersweet smile, looks down at her cocoa, and takes a sip, savoring the rich flavors for a moment.

Yep, that was a bad play. She rolls her eyes at herself internally, and casts about for a topic.

Ah, maybe this? "Tell me your favorite things about Vallmer?"

"Um, well, it's really clean and there's really nice achitecture. They go in big for stained glass windows. I used to dream about making them, but... they're all portraits of saints and things, and you have to be a devotional artist to get that kind of work, and just. The church left me cold. I like faerie tales. They're wild, and real, and they don't have so many rules in them. Every so often the Winter Hymn tries to ban them, but..." 

She shrugs. "Stories don't die so easily."

First a soft smile at the pretty description, then Sable's expression sours a bit at the restrictions, then brightens at the faerie tales, and finally a wickedly fierce grin.

"No. No, they don't."

She takes another sip of her cocoa.

"I love faerie tales, and wilder and weirder stories in general. I understand why people try to censor things like that, but," a pause, a breath, that fierce grin again, "people are as much story as we are substance, and we crave stories like we do water."

Sip.

"What are your favorites?"

"Well, there's one about a kingdom that's frozen in time, I based the card art off that, and there's one about changelings that I really relate to, and there's the Earth classics - you know, Loki and the farmer's daughter, Hades and Persephone, Raven Steals The Sun..." 

She stirs her shake around with her straw. "There's a lot of ones I don't know, still. I have a couple big omnibuses of Earth legends, but the stuff from the Trades and the rest of the OTC's network hasn't really reached me yet, I don't know what's quality."

A wistful sigh slips out of Sable's lips as she listens to Pigeon list off fable, and she smiles warmly.

"Oh, tales of Loki, and Hades and Persephone, are some of my very favorites. There's a very nice reimagining of Persephone and Hades that I quite like. I don't think I've heard either of the first two though, and now you've definitely piqued my curiosity." Her tails start swishing excitedly.

"The frozen kingdom is like a twist on Sleeping Beauty, only with an entire kingdom preserved in a single moment, awaiting the return of Mother Midnight from her imprisonment in a glass clock; her daughter, Dawn, is the only one who can return her from her enchanted sleep with a spelled winding-key, but Dawn and Midnight can never meet, so the kingdom is captured in eternal twilight - until finally Sun and Moon take pity, and provide an eclipse, and in that moment of midnight and dawn in the middle of the day the enchantment is broken and mother and daughter finally embrace. There are other variations, where Midnight and Dawn are sisters or lovers, and with Sun and Moon taking larger or smaller roles. Often there's a twilight ball - Sun and Dawn are often lovers, Sun and Moon sisters or lovers... The approved version is Grandfather Moon and Grandmother Sun and Mother Midnight and Daughter Dawn, but I like the ones where there's some romance to it, especially between Midnight and Dawn because I really wish I had someone waiting for me, like that..." 

She pinkens. "Um. Forget I said that."

A gentle, contented smile slips onto Sable's face as she listens.

"Oh, that's lovely," she coos, when Pigeon finishes. "And I agree, it definitely sounds better to me if I imagine it with romance. Oh but which way? Mm, Sun and Dawn being lovers sounds so simple. Yes, they're both light, good good. Sun and Moon, and Midnight and Dawn, those pairings sound much more interesting, especially Midnight and Dawn. Mm, and that's nothing to be embarrassed about. There's something so very tender about the idea. They're waiting, chasing each other around the clock, one frozen and the other wishing she could help properly, each trapped by her own circumstance until things align and they can be free to love each other properly. It's delightful. Mmm, both perspectives really tug my heartstrings, too. I think I relate most to Dawn, ever chasing but never reaching, but they're both a mood in different ways."

She sighs tenderly, smiling and blushing a little.

"... I usually imagine myself as Dawn, too. She's the heroine, after all. Midnight is also kind of a mood because she's - trapped, you know - but she's usually portrayed as older and wiser and that's just not me. Moon is also fun, since she ultimately provides the eclipse that gives Dawn her chance to unlock the clock, but usually she's in a very boring pairing - Sun, or rarely Midnight in versions where Sun is a villain. I've never seen her paired with Dawn. Which is a little weird, since the moon and the dawn can coexist, you know? That's just a real astronomical fact."

"It's true! I've seen it with my own eyes, even!" She giggles. "And wow, I did not expect there would be one where Sun is a villain, but it fits so wonderfully and it's the sort of trope that's done far too rarely — the bright, searing light chasing the cozy shadows away."

She looks down at her cocoa again, blushing. "But, um. I... Thinking of Dawn in terms of being the heroine actually makes her feel like less of a fit, honestly. I suppose it should've been obvious, Dawn being the heroine is the proper pattern, but I got stuck on thinking of Moon as the heroine, 'cause she makes the eclipse possible. Dawn fits me if I think of her story in terms of a futile struggle until Moon saves the day, but once I consider it in terms of Dawn being the heroine who just needed a helping hand then it's obvious I'm not like her at all. Much closer to Midnight, my contributions needing to be unlocked by someone else running the code I write."

She takes long sip of her drink, a bittersweet expression on her face.