Through the other side, there's an empty hotel lobby in a twining red rose pattern, all gleaming mahogany and polished fixtures. A letter is sitting on the front desk.

She strides swiftly up with a curious swish, reaching out to pluck the letter from the elegant countertop and read it.

Dear Sable Douglas, 

Welcome to the Rose Bowers. You have room number nine. The wards are keyed to your presence, so no key is necessary. Enjoy your stay. 

She nods to herself, that's simple enough. Hallway-ward she goes, eyes flitting across everything she passes, until here's room nine. She's really doing this. She takes a steadying breath, puts her hand on the doorknob, and then in she goes.

A good-sized hotel room lies on the other side of the door, with a king-sized bed, a couch and a television, and a small table in the center of the room stylized to look like an unfolded rose. Atop the table is another sealed letter, a small box of chocolates, a hairbrush, a tablet showing the Bowers' rose logo, and a large booklet open to an double-page advertisement for a "Club Coze" with a small inset for "Club Farseek". An advertisement for an escort is tucked in; it shows a pink, semitranslucent woman with a big smile and a gooey consistency.

Sable steps slowly inside, taking everything in, and closes the door behind her. She sets her backpack down on the floor, puts her drink and purse on the table, and sits heavily down onto the couch.

Her mind flits instinctively to work. Do the changes she made to the fate scanner's code work for the new batch of refugees? Is everyone getting placed in neighborhoods where they'll feel safe and grow? Can James handle the hiccups in testing and integrating her upgrades to the Graph's inference engine? Will everything be alright for that one family of —

No. Stop.

Everything is going to be fine. Chief promised that the team would be okay for two weeks and no refugees would fall through the cracks. James can damn near run the interpersonal-logic parts of the Graph on her own brain, so she'll be able to handle triple-checking and then live-testing Sable's upgrades. For the next two weeks she's off-duty.

She's... done. There is absolutely nothing she needed to fix, no crisis left in reach. Her breath catches in her throat.

All those late nights coding, all those frantic calls tracking down someone to add another hab last minute, all the interviews with families to make sure the systems could handle their particular edge cases (case coverage takes on a whole new meaning when the edge cases are people's lives), the nerve-wracking meeting pitching the Graph to the Chief's boss, it's all done for now. She can stop. There's no work for her to do.

Why are her eyes so blurry? She blinks, and something wet rolls down her cheek. Is... is she crying? Her breath hitches again, and a sob spills from her lips.

Oh.

She sniffles, clutches one of her tails to her chest, buries her face in the soft fur, and wraps the other two tails tightly around herself. Her shoulders start to shake, and a sob-wracked whine builds in her throat.

She has no idea how to be done. How to trust that things will be okay without her constantly making sure.

She scoots back into the corner of the big couch and tucks her knees in close to her chest, rocking with the sparking electric rush across her nerves, tears pouring down her cheeks, shaking with sobs and hiccups.

Her thoughts curl inward and turn sharp — she's not needed, she's not helping, there's no work to do, no fires to put out. She can't fix anything, can't save anyone, can't work can't serve can't be enough. She's useless here.

She clenches her fist and pounds it against her thigh, muffling a frustrated scream through gritted teeth. Why can't she be good enough not to need a break? Pounds her fist again. Why can't she keep going? Pound. Why can't she be good?

Pound. Pound. Pound.

Sobbing and sniffling, she rocks in place, little screams wringing out of her with ever swing forward. She's a wreck. She had to be ordered to take a break and she can't even let go. She's just going to keep going and going until she falls over and has to be put back together by professionals who have better things to do with their time than waste it on her.

She squeezes herself smaller, screams worn down to whines. Her nails dig into her palms. She rocks, and rocks, and rocks, and sobs. Her heart pounds in her ears and her skin stings and burns.

Why? Why!? Why-why-wHy-why-why-WhY-whyy!?

Why can't there just be a simple action? Simple "next right thing"? She doesn't know how to have a vacation! What the fuck was Chief thinking, telling her to take a break?

Her skin is thrumming. She's practically vibrating. Every nerve feels like it's full of static, and every muscle feels like it's being dragged through tar.

What if they miss someone? What if someone gets placed in the wrong community, or misses out on an opportunity that would've fulfilled them? Missing even just one would be awful. Every single refugee counts. How many times has she said it? "You count too." Every single one is desperately important, every single life is a story of its own.

The thrumming energy tightens in her jaw and her arms.

She knows she's told them all about this. They all get it; it's why they're all in Refugee Services in the first place. James definitely knows. She can recall sitting across from her over lunch, explaining why she says it. That the worlds are all so broken and keep teaching people they don't matter. Remembers the way her face lit up, the way she understood it so easily. Remembers what she said nex—

Oh.

"Someone needs to tell you that," James had said.

She freezes. The thrumming electric tension rises to a taut peak across her body.

This is because they do get it, isn't it? They're trying to preserve her while they've still got her, keep her from burning out entirely. Something might get missed while she's gone, but... they'll lose more if she pushes too hard and starts fucking it up.

Oh this is going to suck.

She sniffles hard, tries to unclench, hiccups into another round of sobbing. She's gotta accept that losses while she's gone are the cost of preventing losses from not leaving.

Ow. That's... That really feels like it's her fault. That just wrenches to admit. Feels like a cold hollow torn open in her gut.

She tries to unclench again, has some success.

The thrumming across her skin fades a bit.

She can hear sounds other than the rushing of her own blood, other than the crackling screams in her throat. There's a soundscape playing: waves washing up against a seaside cliff, and heavy rain.

Well, she'd better actually consider her options if she's going to try to do this "vacation" thing...

She takes a long, ragged, rattling sigh, and gradually evens her breathing out, forcing each breath to be a little slower than the last.

She sits up, slowly, and grabs a tissue from the box that apparently showed up on the table while she was bawling. Wipes off her face, blows her nose, grabs a fresh tissue and dries her eyes.

And she spots the booklet, and the included advertisement, and blushes.

She sighs, shakes her head at herself, and reaches for the letter, carefully unsealing it.

Dear Sable Ellen Douglas, 

It's not often I write to someone who I knew of before their file crossed my desk. 

Let's set aside, for the moment, everything you've done for the teeming multitudes of people from Skanthivus and worse. Let's talk about this place. The Bowers. Near and dear to my heart. 

Your code is running here, too. It's not a total replacement for what we had before, but your brilliant mind has improved the partner matching and the logistical routing and a dozen other smaller things besides. In small ways, perhaps, but a small number times seventy five billion people per year is beyond the capacity of most people to dream. Don't worry about QA: I personally vetted the modifications.

Because some things are important.

You, Sable Ellen Douglas, are important.

Let's do that fermi estimate, shall we? Let's conservatively assume one minute's efficiency per visitor per year. Times seventy five billion visitors. Divide by sixty for hours. Divide by twenty-four for days. Divide by three hundred and sixty five for years. The answer comes out at 142,694 years saved per year. 

Now you may ask me, "Sunaira, what are you doing with your 142,694 years saved per year?" Well, that's a bit complex. I'm already holding the Bowers as closely as I can without breaking it, so you won't see much effect on the guests. The added efficiency is tiny in percentage terms - less than a thousandth of a percent - so you could be forgiven for thinking that it doesn't really matter. How it comes out is in resource uses. 

What this actually means is that eighty-three of my oldest traffic controller machines - which are still very sound hardware, just not the newest shiniest thing - were retired from active duty on the computer cluster yesterday. Each of them used to run a single instance of the Rosethorn Hotel. 

Those eighty-three traffic controllers went to a number of places. The worst-aged of the lot - fifteen of them - were sent to refugee worlds that are already well established, to serve light duty as teleportation controllers for growing cities. Most of them - 58 - were sent for heavier duty in temporary refugee routing and housing areas, taking the load of stabilizing mass gates between universes. The ten best were assigned to a refugee extraction team yesterday morning and have already been used to evacuate 257,000 people directly from crisis situations. I could say "we got a city the size of Earth's Reno out from under Tyranid infestation that we otherwise wouldn't have", but of course it's messier than that, pieces and fractions of many smaller locations on a particular planet in the hot zone. 

The work goes on, as it always does. 

You have to ask yourself: Why, then, the Rose Bowers at all? Why is all this equipment tied up making a paradise when it could be actively saving people? 

And the answer is people like you, who are worth 257,000 people saved each day (I laughably underestimate) plus efficiencies, forever and ever until the OTC dies or we win for good. Why on earth do you think you have an immortality policy, darling? 

The Bowers exists so that people like you don't forget what they're fighting for. Because we need to be responsible enough to strive for what we should do, and not for what we merely can manage. A world where people are allowed to rest, and be themselves, and - not to put too fine a point on it - fuck every once in a while. 

I hereby entrust to you the sacred and heavy responsibility of having the best time you can possibly have while you're here. Not to worry, we've got a whole team on this. Just like all the people you helped. 

Odd, isn't it, to have the shoe on the other foot?

- Sunaira

P.S. Don't forget to eat.

She doesn't move at all, for a long moment.

What did she just read? Did the Goddess Sunaira write her a personal letter? Did her boss³, the multiversal director of OTC humanitarian outreach, personally explain her impact and value?

The tears have started up again, she feels them rolling down her cheeks. She reaches up to wipe them away, and realizes that her mouth is hanging open in shock.

When she closes it, she finds herself smiling — a vulnerable, hopeful smile that comes with a warmth in her chest and more of these gentle tears.

She rereads the letter, taking deep breaths and letting it sink in. She's done well. She did a lot of good. Sunaira said so.

She did some good. She's good.

Wow.

Sunaira assigned her to have fun, eh? Told her to have "the best time [she] possibly can" here.

She starts to grin a little. Okay then.

Then her eyes catch the postscript, and she chokes on a gasp, a brilliant violet blush coloring her pale cheeks.

Um.

And then she collapses into teary, blushy giggles. Guess she should've expected Sunaira to be able to land a triple-entendre on her in a compassionate personal letter...

She shakes her head, the giggles slowly subsiding, and carefully folds the letter back up, tucking it into the envelope, and then carefully into a pocket inside her notebook to keep it safe, and then puts that back in her backpack.

She plucks her Latias plushie from the backpack, while she's in there, and hugs it tightly, taking a few deep breaths and grinning. Then she shifts the plush into just her left arm, and returns her attention to the table.

First she picks up the tablet, taps the power one-handed, and sets it on her lap. It opens to a selection of different teas, with an elegant filter to narrow what she was looking for — calming, motivating, citrus...

The first suggestion is a blood orange and ginger tea, lightly caffeinated, and spiked with aphrodia essence. Sable grins blushily, sighs, and orders it, along with some crunchy pretzels covered in dark chocolate from the snack menu.

Her order appears smoothly on the table in the space between moments, the tea steaming faintly in a gold-glazed ceramic mug, and the pretzels in a reclosable bag. She sets aside the tablet and picks up the tea, taking a deep breath of the aroma — citrusy, tangy, with subtle scents she's not familiar with yet. That's probably the aphrodia.

She breathes slowly there for a few beats, savoring the warmth and the smell, before taking a cautious sip.

It's just the right temperature, not quite hot enough to hurt her lips or tongue, and has a faint spicy tang — not the usual black tea she's had before, it seems — and a peaceful warmth flows through her body as she sips. Her shoulders loosen a bit, over several swallows, and the raw feeling in her throat from crying eases. An eager peace settles in her limbs, spreading from a deep warmth in her throat, her gut, and pooling in her cunt.

She blushes, and squirms just a bit. That'll take some getting used to, but she thinks she likes it.

Another few sips, and she leans over to take a look at the booklet.

The double-page spread advertises Club Coze as "a laid-back space to meet other Bowersgoers in a cozy, fun environment." There's a schedule of events for the day that lists candlelight dinners, open tabletop gaming, public cuddlepiles, and other such soft pursuits.

The inset for Club Farseek advertises it as "The novelty-seeker's club where you could meet the love or your life or just someone - or a couple someones - for the night! Live music, arcade corner, full bar, always bustling." No table of events - maybe there's not space for it in the inset. 

The tucked-in escort avertisement is mostly taken up by the large, glossy photo of a pink slimegirl. She's only not baring everything because her body currently has barbie doll anatomy. "Mayu Nuru", the advertisement says. "Selected just for you from the Bower Escorts! Connect now on the Bowers Contact App! (See your phone or room tablet.)"

Sable swallows hard, looking Mayu Nuru's picture up and down, then looks back at the Club Coze schedule with a renewed blush, biting her lip and grinning lopsidedly. She absently makes sure the Bowers app is on her phone while she reads.

Rotating 24-hour schedule, subject to change; all event themes available on demand, speak to a staff member for specific bookings. 

The schedule lists light trance music in the mornings, followed by pet therapy, then a smooth jazz lunch, book club, open gaming time, candlelit dinners, then a series of evening cuddlepiles, one of which is called out specifically as a trans and intersex cuddlepile. Much of the schedule is left as simply "open use."

Those look like some nice options, she thinks. What's "pet therapy", though? Play with pets, or get petted? Play with petgirls? She blushes a bit more. Probably people variously distributing petting other people and being petted, based on who's gonna benefit most from which.

She sets the tea down and runs a hand over one of her ears, sighing warmly and smiling a bit wider. It's been a long while since anyone scritched her. Be pretty great if that's what the pet therapy turned out to be.

A glance at her phone tells her there's a good while left before pet therapy. She sighs softly. This has been a very raw start to her stay, but an important one probably. She probably needs to rest after all this. She pushes the booklet aside, picks back up her tea, and leans back, squeezing her plushie and sighing.

There are plenty of worse things than being an emotional mess of a foxgirl, she supposes. And this tea is pretty good. She takes another sip and smiles, wriggling a bit contentedly.

She reaches out and grabs the bag of pretzels, a soft smile playing across her face, and opens it. The smell of dark chocolate fills the air, and shoe pops one into her mouth. Crunch. Her eyes flutter closed; a gentle sigh slips out as she savors the contrast between salty pretzel and rich chocolate.

Yum. She eats another, salty-savory crunch of the pretzel washing through her mouth on the solid support of the intense chocolate. Then another. Her world simplifies: tangy tea and rich chocolate and salty pretzel and crashing waves. She sighs again, a soft, satisfied, slightly moaning sigh, as she gradually finishes both tea and pretzels over the next few minutes.

She stretches cutely, squeaking a bit, then kicks off her shoes and stands up. Her tails swish behind her as she considers what to do next. Best freshen up if she's going out, she figures. She tugs her blouse over her head, burgundy fabric pooling on the couch when she tosses it aside. The light and airy black skirt swiftly follows, once she unhooks the bit that hooks around the base of her tails. Basic black bra and panties follow after that, leaving her naked save for the hourglass pendant around her neck, which winds up on the table.

She pads daintily into the bathroom, looking around curiously.

There's a large jacuzzi bath on one side, with a showerhead above, and a counter with a sink and another spread flower, this one with lavender shampoo and soap and conditioner. There's a broad brush with stiff bristles and a smaller brush with soft, wide-set bristles and a small bottle of deep violet nail polish with a built-in applicator in the neck.

Her eyes widen as she takes in the array of care products. She's heard that the Bowers can do product recommendations and cover anything you might need, but it's another thing to see it in action. That's even the uncommon wide-bristled brush she uses for her curls, she realizes, marveling at the smaller one. And what a perfect color for her nails! She just sighs contentedly at the lavender aroma from the soap and hair products.

A quick twist to the faucet starts the water running, piping hot from the first drop, and she adjusts it for a moment until the temperature is just a little bit short of painful, then switches it to the showerhead. The spray is strong, just the way she likes it, and every drop seems to fall faster the closer it gets to the edge of the tub, not a bit of water escaping. That handled, she fetches a washcloth from a shelf and then steps in.

The rush of steam inside the shower wards softens and soothes her lungs immediately, clearing up the lingering rawness from her sniffling and crying earlier. She stands there for a long moment, savoring the bracing spray on her face and chest, and then starts scrubbing. Face, neck, shoulders, arms, chest, and on she goes, slowly and peacefully washing every inch of her body, taking a little extra time on her breasts, and the folds of her sex.

Her body clean, she wrings out the washcloth and drapes it over the faucet before picking up the shampoo. She squirts a generous helping into her palm and starts tenderly massaging it into her tails, one at a time. She carefully scrubs all nearly-four feet of soft fur, and then gently rinses. Then she does the same with the conditioner, slowly working it into every bit of her fur, and leaves it in for now. Another handful of shampoo — that lavender scent really is a nice touch — and she starts washing her hair and the soft fur of her ears, carefully working through the whole length of her pink curls, and brushing them with the soft-bristled tangle brush. Rinse, then conditioner slowly and tenderly goes in with another brushing and stays in.

Finally, she rinses the conditioner out of her tails and switches the water flow from the showerhead back down to the main faucet, and stoppers the tub. She sits down in the tub and leans back, hot water gradually rising up her body, and eventually stretches out to turn off the water with a foot once the water's up to her neck.

She reaches out a hand and turns on the jets of the jacuzzi, sags against the wall of the tub, and sighs contentedly, her eyelids drifting closed as she savors the peaceful soak.

The jets of the tub gradually massage out the tension in her muscles, stress melting away in the hot water. She soaks and rests, her tails floating gently at the surface of the water, the lavender scent soothing her mind.

Eventually, though the jets seem to be continually warming the water back up, she nods to herself and scoots forward a bit, dunking her head below the surface and rinsing the conditioner out of her hair and fur. She rises into a crouch and then stands up, flicking a tail forward to unstopper the tub as she goes, a peaceful smile on her face. She reaches out to pluck a sinfully soft towel from the shelf, and gently dries herself off, taking care to get every bit of dampness out of the inside of her ears, softly scrunching and blotting her curls, and slowly wringing down the length of her tails, as well as drying every bit of skin. Finally she steps out, drying each foot as she does so, and then hangs up the towel.

She sits down on a little stool near the sink and starts carefully painting her nails, marveling at how the polish dries instantly, and taking care to get everything neat and smooth. First her toes, then her fingernails, slowly and patiently. On her right ring finger, though, she fumbles it a bit and gets a bit of the edge of her finger, just past her nail. To her delighted surprise, the mistake evaporates over the next second or so, leaving her skin neat and clean.

Then she bounces to her feet and steps back out into the main room to get dressed, picking up the tablet to take a look at her options.

The Bowers flashes up an outfit recommendation for her on the screen, showing her all dressed up. It's simple and casual, if a bit daring; a thigh-length black skirt, a midriff-baring black tee that hugs her breasts tight (with a picture of vampire fangs on it) and heavy black combat boots with big snappy buckles and tall black-and-purple striped thighhighs. She's also got a couple black rings on her fox ears, and her bare midriff exposes a tattoo on her lower belly, of a violet heart with a trail of black ink dripping down beneath her skirt.

Above her image are three buttons, labelled "edit clothing", "edit lingerie", and "edit bodyart". To the right, there's a menu displaying a number of other graphic tops in thumbnail - mesh arms, entirely mesh, with the Bowers' blackberry logo, etc. Tabs on the top offer "bottoms" and "footwear" and "accessories", along with a few other categories; along the bottom there's a header with the legend "Describe your ideal outfit" and a text box to type in.

Nnwhat?! That is a lot more daring than she planned on. She's got the body for it, now, at least, but... wow. This is the Rose Bowers, though. If she's not going to wear daring outfits here, will she ever?

A blush colors her pale cheeks. If she's going to be risking flashing her panties from twirling too hard then she'd better make sure they're cute, at least. She taps the lingerie tab to see what the tablet is suggesting there.

Her fascimilie's clothing melts away, revealing a strappy black-and-violet bra and a matching pair of side-tie panties with little bows at the hip. With this view it's very apparent that the heart-and-ink tattoo makes a trail down from beneath her navel directly to her sex. The right-hand panel shows various other panties on the same theme - something strappier that matches the top a little more closely, a simple striped one that matches her thighhighs better, a more practical pair of black boxer briefs...

She swallows hard, briefly tempted to pick the boxer briefs, but shakes her head, her expression blushy but firm. If she gives in to the urge to be secretly boring now, how long before she gives up on something else? Will she start dyeing the pink curls her True Persona gave her basic black? Plus, she's looks so hot in the picture. If she hadn't seen some of the code herself at work, she'd wonder if the tablet was enhancing her looks. The Bowers are above such lies, too.

If she abstracts the question away from being her, what looks cutest? What looks right? She tries out the various options — and gradually relaxes into thinking of the picture as being of her again — eventually deciding that the little bows on the first set just make her feel cute to imagine.

She gulps again and orders the whole outfit.

The outfit appears on her bed, all neatly laid out; top and skirt to the left, bra and panties (bows already all done up) and stockings to the right. The boots appear on the floor beneath, clasps open to recieve her feet. 

There's also a little pulse of warmth against her ear and below her navel. Bodyart Applied, flashes the tablet. Would you like a mirror? Yes/No

What, already? Those little flashes of warmth? She should've tried modern bodyart magitech sooner! Yes, she taps. Yes, she would like a mirror. Getting dressed can wait; she needs to see this.

A full-length mirror appears a few strides away from the bed, showing her in all her nudity. It's the spitting image of her from the tablet; the black rings gleam dully in her ears, and the inky heart perches neatly above her sex.

Sable gasps, blushes, and grins. Her tails swish back and forth behind her as she checks herself out. She reaches up to run her fingers along the edges of her ears, giggling as the rings tug at her sensitive ears. Wow, those are actually pierced! She slides her hands down her body, stopping to give her perky tits a squeeze, violet nipples crinkling up with the cool air and the attention. She slides her hands lower, tracing across the ink now coloring her bone-pale skin. It's perfectly smooth, no inflammation at all, and every color is vivid, every line crisp.

She grins wider. Modern magitech is so great.

Why did she wait so long to try this? Sure it's not *free* outside the Bowers, but she gets paid pretty damned well. Probably nerves and self-esteem issues. She shakes her head a bit at that, smile turning a little sad for a moment.

This art though! It's so great! Are there other options? What is she thinking, this is the Rose Bowers, of course there are other options.

She grabs the tablet again and takes a look.

The tablet opens to the bodyart catalog, currently selecting "pelvis". The violet heart and ink tattoo is shown, with a little dropdown menu of variations - dragon wings curled around the heart, overflowing violets surrounding it, a cage of a circuitboard pattern that apparently glows purple, additional scattered hearts in a diffuse cloud, inkdrops that are themselves heartshaped, a purple rose holding the heart with a ring of thorns, elaborate inkswoops and flourishes surrounding it... 

All of them seem to follow a general pattern of the central violet heart with elaborations, generally in a particular winglike form that, once you see a dozen variations of it, is clearly reflecting the shape of a uterus and ovaries. There's a list of selected tags to the right: "Stylized Womb", "Color: Violet", "Color: Black", "Enclosed Heart", each with a little x next to it to remove it, and an empty space to write in new tags. 

"Meep!" She blushes bright violet. Um. She squirms in place for a few beats, tails lashing with embarrassment. She takes a deep breath, then nods. No, skipping out on turning her heart tattoo into a stylized womb is not going to turn her boring. She switches the view to recommendations for arm designs.

The designs page for her left upper arm opens. Color: Black and Color: Violet are still selected, but the other tags drop out. There seem to be three major categories here - "Encircling" shows a woven ring of thorns, a ring of purple-glowing circuitboard, and a repeating circle of waves in the preview, while "Spot" shows an 8-bit violet heart, an anchor, and a Master Ball. "Partial Sleeve" shows a dragon whose tail wraps around the arm four or five times, stopping just short of the elbow, a purple fox whose nine tails similarly wrap around, a larger tattoo of crashing waves with a stormtossed ship caught among them, and the emblazoned number 257,000 written vertically from the side of the shoulder to the elbow. 

These are great options (and not stylized wombs at all). The encircling thorns and waves are very pretty, and the circuitboard is so ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ. The spot options are nice, but not quite capturing her. The partial sleeves are gorgeous, though. The joke briefly flashes through her mind that the purple nine-tail is what she wants to be when she grows up. The storm-tossed ship is achingly lovely. And then she chokes on seeing 257,000. But maybe she does need to remind herself of that. Perhaps on her forearm or wrist so it's easier for her to see it herself, rather than advertising it to everyone else. It's not other people who've been underestimating her value. Why does she keep coming back to the ship and waves, though? What's captivating her about those?

She shakes her head, then taps an icon — a stylized heart made of rose petals — to save her favorites: the encircling thorns and circuitboard lines, the storm-tossed ship, the purple nine-tail, and the number. Those last two she's mostly saving to consider trying in different sizes and shapes and placements.

Then she flips through to some more encircling and partial sleeve options.

Under Encircling, the first page offers:

- A ring of braided tentacles, with octopus or squid suckers or neither;

- A dozen variations of celtic knotwork, working in the love knot, the shield knot, and the Dara knot, among others, most interwoven into a backing of the fisherman's knot; 

- A ring of black teeth, with human, vampire and shark variations.

- A stylized bank of capsule-hotel windows, like those used to temporarily house refugees who have been evacuated but not yet been settled in a new world. 

- A ring of twining violet fox tails, sans fox. 

- A row of keyboard keycaps. The keys currently spell out 257,000, but there's an editing field to put in your own word.

- A black chain with a sharp break in the center separating it into two falling-apart halves; the whole version is also available. 

- A black iron arm-ring inset with sparkling amethysts; 

- A weave of glowing runes and inscribed lines that suggests a pentagram drawn around the arm; the runes are editable. 

- A ring of weathered black stones, suggesting a well; 

- A ring of blackviolet dragon scales, drawn so as to give the illusion that the skin is peeling away to expose the scales beneath. There's similar illusions with violet foxfur and mechanical parts as well.

- A console prompt: "Sable@Tattoo:/RUArm:$ Sudo, Bitch"

- A simple purple ribbon wrapped around the arm, with a bow; 

- A series of black ropes with elaborate knots in them, giving the impression of rigging;

- A simple pattern of glowing lines, emphasizing the firmness of her muscles and the smoothness of her skin.

The first page of partial sleeves offers:

- Elaborate squid, octopus, tenta-pet, or tentacle-girl options. For the tentacle-girl options there's a range of explicitness and options for where the tentacles come from. (Lower body, from her back like wings, from her long hair...) 

- More elaborate broken-skin illusions, "exposing" much more scales, mechanical parts, or fur; 

- A black iron pauldron with dark leather straps attached to the shoulder and upper arm. 

- A tall quill along the upper arm with the number 257,000 written in cursive below; Once again, the text is editable.

- A row of carefully braided and managed cables "plugged into" the skin, imitating corded muscle; 

- A broad pool of spilt ink spread from an overturned inkwell, which drips down into the number 257,000 (again editable.)

- A large area of completely blacked-out skin, which gleams slightly with ink. 

- A braided lace pattern with a cup of tea cradled amid it all; 

- A pattern of dark stormclouds, with a glowing bolt of violet lightning crashing down her arm to the elbow; 

- A "torn" part of her shoulder, overlaid with black clawmarks; 

- A dark-feathered raven perched on a branch, with an amethyst key in its mouth; 

- The two kanji "Tsuyoi" (strong) and "Kokoro" (heart), written in brushwork calligraphy from the shoulder to the elbow.

Her jaw drops as she starts scrolling through the options. Those tentacles are kinda hot. The Celtic knots are beautiful, too. She favorites those and keeps going.

...She needs to not be standing. She absently steps back to the bed and flops down onto it, pulling a few pillows under her chest to lay on and resting the tablet on the bed in front of her. Her feet kick idly in the air and her tails swish excitedly. What an amazing array of designs! Nnnff, wearing a ring of teeth like that isn't quite right for her but they're so hot.

At the hotel windows she starts to tear up, grinning fiercely. Yeah, she's definitely seen quite a few of these hotels, and helped both fill and empty them. That's part of what's up with her, isn't it? She's carrying the refugees with her all the time. Maybe carrying them visibly on her skin will help her give herself credit for that.

The ring of fox tails is gorgeous, and it feels very personally fitting. Maybe save it for a day she's not going for the nine-tail sleeve design. The keycaps make her swallow hard. Those are a lovely way to display that number, but... she likes the other one she's seen better so far. The broken chain is teary again and very satisfying to see — her work helps lots of people reach freedom, and she's apparently in need of finding her own freedom from her struggles with shame.

The iron and amethyst arm-ring and the glowing pentagram are both gorgeous and worth trying at some point, and something about the black well-stones makes her heart ache with familiarity. The exposed scales, fur, and mechanisms get a bright grin, and at the console prompt she can't help but giggle. The ribbon and lines are very pretty, as well, and the rigging hurts like she's missing something.

She shakes her head and starts looking at the partial sleeves. Wow, those tentacle-girls are hot. The exposed insides are even lovelier in larger form, and the pauldron is just badass. And then her breath catches in her throat.

This, this quill design... she swallows and tries to steady her suddenly shaky breathing. This is right. It's... this number is something Sunaira wrote to her — wrote on her — to remind her of her value and guard against her shame. This is a good way to capture that. And then there's another one, right after the fun cable design, ink spilling out to write that number again. Gorgeous.

She takes a few deep breaths before continuing.

The blacked-out design with gleaming ink is fascinating, and she's not even sure why. The lace and tea is lovely, too. The stormclouds and lightning are riveting. The raven is fascinating, and then the kanji just stop her.

She slides the tablet away for a moment, sighing tenderly and flopping a bit lower on her pillows. Wow. Wow. She's in the Rose Bowers, having been given — by a goddess — a number of incidental lives she saved in one day, and being shown tattoo designs featuring this number and calling her things like "strong heart" to remind her of her value ongoingly.

What even is her life?

After a few moments letting that sink in, she shakes her head with a giggle, propping herself back up and sliding the tablet back into place. She's seen enough designs at this point, she needs to start putting them to use. Her fingers dance across the screen, first saving the search results into a combined palette at the edge of the view, then expanding her rendered form to take up the majority of the view, and finally dragging the body-region selector off the edge of the screen and dropping it onto her avatar. Faint highlights paint across her body, mapping the overlapping regions in different colors, before fading from view.

She grins.

Okay, what's first? She flips through the palette of designs and grabs the nine-tailed fox, dragging it high on her left arm, high enough that the tails mostly can't fit and will have to sprawl across the rest of her body. She pulls the quill design out next, drops it onto her right arm, and drags the elegantly-written number down onto her forearm. She keeps flipping between the Celtic knot designs and the black well-stones, unable to decide between them, then grabs them both and squishes them onto each other in a blank area, before dragging the result mid-high on her right arm.

She hums, nodding to herself, tapping her lips thoughtfully. What else? Ah! She grabs the capsule-hotel windows and drops them low onto her left bicep, wrapping around her arm just a bit below the fox, and then drags the storm to her left forearm, twisting it so the lightning runs down the inside of her forearm.

She finds herself coming back to the broken chain design again and again, unsure where to put it, and then blushes, giggling softly. Yeah, that might work. She drags it onto her left thigh, then pulls it down nearly to her knee and toggles her skirt visible again on the model. She slowly drags it up her thigh until it's just peeking out below the skirt, and will show if she moves at all. A grin stretches her lips. Yeah, that fits.

Hmm, that's the body-art done. What else does she want here? Oh! She zooms in on her face, taps her lips, and quickly finds a wet-looking, glossy violet.

She takes a deep breath, nods to herself, and then taps in a final instruction to refine and balance everything from her rough placements and sizes and then apply it. Then she stands up and heads to the mirror again.

There's another soft flash of warmth, this time distributed all across her body.

The kitsune perches high on her left shoulder, tails spilling down her upper arm and mixing with the storm-clouds that gather along her bicep and lower arm. The capsule-hotel windows gleam amid the storm, held close by the kitsune tails like a surreal cloudbank; electricity crackles along the lowest of the fox tails, lashing out into violet lightning that ends at her wrist. 

On her right arm, a well engraved with celtic-knot designs circles her forearm, a black quill pen crossing it at an angle. The number 257,000 is written below, in delicate script from her elbow to her wrist. 

The broken chain wraps her left thigh, the break in the chain along her inner thigh and scattering fragments everywhere. Above it, near her navel, the inky heart still drips its ink down to her sex. 

Her violet nail polish and lipstick complete the look, matching perfectly with the tattoos engraved all across her body.

There's a prompt on the mirror; "Show back?"

This is even better than she expected! Her tails start wagging excitedly. It's interesting that the system put the kitsune facing her up her arm rather than down, but she can't argue that the resulting tail/cloud tangle works far better than what she was originally envisioning. She twists her arms and leg variously to get a better view of a few spots, then gulps and blushes hard. That is not where she expected the break in the chain to wind up. Um. Um. It's not wrong, though. If anything this placement is better.

She gulps again, then nods and squeaks a "yes" at the mirror.

A little inset in the mirror pops up, displaying her from behind. On her left side the storm and tails spill across her shoulder and onto her back, and cover her full arm as well, the capsule-hotel windows still visible. The chain is visible on her thigh as well. On her right, the engraved well-stones make a band around her upper arm; the quill and the number can't be seen from this side. 

Gorgeous design. She twists this way and that, checking herself out. True Persona is really a marvelous piece of magic, and this combination of tattoos suits her so well. It still shocks her a bit, even months later, that this is her. She gets to look like this. She gets to go to places like the Rose Bowers and get lovingly bullied into being nicer to herself.

How is this her life?

She blushes, grins, and starts getting dressed. Shimmies into the panties — those little bows look even cuter in person, blush — pulls on and clasps the bra. Steps into the skirt and slides it up over her hips, then fits her tails into the little hole for them. Finally she tugs on the shirt, slips her hourglass over her head, and puts on the socks and boots.

Okay, one last look at the completed ensemble. Damn, who said she was allowed to look this good? (Sunaira, apparently.)

Okay, purse, phone, deeeeep breath, and out the door. Let's go find Club Coze.

After a few turns through the hallways, she comes to a small café, which seems to be mostly empty at the moment, just a few people sitting around eating waffles and chatting.

Across the room, there's a whiteboard set up against the wall, above a large pit full of pillows and stuffies. Written on the whiteboard are the words PET THERAPY. 

A dark-furred kitsune in a pink kimono lounges underneath the sign, and waves at Sable when she sees her looking.

She smiles shyly and waves back, walking curiously up to the cuddlepit, then takes a steadying breath and speaks, her tails swishing slowly with nervous excitement. "Hi. I'm Sable, new here. I saw this listed in the schedule and was kinda curious?"

"Hey! I'm Kumi, I run this group from time to time. You're the first to arrive. The general idea is to give and get light petting from a bunch of other people - it's a really good antidote to touch starvation and a good way to ease into feeling more comfortable with acts of affection. I'll go over the ground rules once everyone arrives - it'll probably be another ten minutes or so. In the meantime since you've got me, anything you'd like to ask a Bower Escort?"

She giggles softly, and flops into the pit before she can question the decision. "Yeah, makes a lot of sense." And then her mind freezes up at the last part. Um. Um.

She manages to reset past the sudden nerves, and asks, "Um, what's it like, being a Bowers Escort? And, um, do y'all mind getting recommended at people?"

"It's not so different from being a permanent visitor. There's no quota or anything, you're free to fuck who you want. Sometimes the system matches you with people, same as if you were a guest, but that's just a recommendation, you don't have to follow through. I happen to like organizing soft stuff like cuddlepiles and petting sessions, so I do it pretty regularly. Other escorts have their own styles."

"Huh, okay, cool." Her expression turns thoughtful, drifting for a moment. She snags a plushie to still her mind a bit. Her hand lands on a pink shark with a familliar cutely derpy expression, and she clutches it to her chest with a giggle.

"That makes a lot of sense," she continues after a snuggly moment. "I should've expected it, honestly. S'very like Her to make sure y'all get the same kind of sexy paradisical life She insists visitors be able to enjoy, at minimum."

Squeeze. Mildly anxious trans girl squishes a blåhaj against her chest, news at eleven.

Across the room, a gaming group breaks up, going their separate ways. One of them comes over to the cuddlepit, her crimson tail swishing behind her. She's wearing a shapeless black bathrobe, tied off at the waist, and nothing else. 

"Hey," she says. "Pet Therapy soon?"

"Another ten minutes or so. Want to introduce yourself?"

"Anna," she says with an easy smile. "And you two are?"

"Kumi, Sable." She points at herself and Sable in turn. "I'm the organizer."

"And I'm the newbie," Sable adds. One of her tails has curled up around her, while the other two spill out into the pit next to her, trying not to take up too much room. She gives the shark in her arms a reflexive squeeze.

"How new, exactly?"

"I checked in maybe a couple hours ago?" She tugs her phone out of her purse and looks. "Two hours and forty-eight minutes."

"Gosh, this must be practically the first thing you've done. I'm flattered."

"Feels like a good introduction, to me at least. But then I love petting."

"Bitches love skritches." Anna grins. 

"Mmmhm." Kumi raises her hand and waves to somebody across the room.

A feather-winged girl in a purple dress and a tiara comes across the room from the door, fidgeting with the cuff of her dress. 

"Um, hello?"

"You look like you could use some gentle petting and comfort."

"Is it that obvious? Ummm..." She looks down at the floor.

"Come on in, the pillows are soft and the company's good. Nobody's going to do anything weird."

Weird? What counts as weird? She probably counts as weird. She—

Stop.

She squeezes the shark tighter, smiles shyly, and waves with a tail since her hands are occupied.

The winged girl hesitantly settles herself into a pillowdrift next to Sable. 

"Um, hi," she says. "What's your name?"

She twists in the pile a little bit to face the winged girl better. "Sable. Yours?"

"Well, you can call me Pigeon." She looks away, only to end up looking at Anna on her other side; she looks back at Sable, then back at Anna, then down into her lap.

"Don't worry, Pigeon, you're in good company. I'm staff, and it's Sable here's first day, so everything will be soft and gentle, alright?" She looks over at Anna.

"Didn't I already say that? But yeah."

"This is Anna, I'm Kumi. How long have you been here?"

"Um. A couple days, maybe? I've been... kind of... hiding."

"Oh, you poor thing!"

Kumi frowns at Anna. "Everyone is allowed to progress at their own pace. Don't make a big deal out of it."

Pigeon shrinks down into the pillow pile.

"You're right, I'm sorry."

"Thank you. Now, our ten minutes of waiting for people are almost up..."

A gold-furred kitsunemimi in a kimono much like Kumi's wanders across the floor and bellyflops wordlessly into the pile of plushies. 

"Oh, hi Aya."

"Mm."

Kumi casually reaches down and skritches Aya behind the ears. 

"Mmmmmmmmmmm."

"This, ah, is Aya, my coworker. She does this."

Oh no, Pigeon's even more nervous than Sable is! She starts to shift, gets distracted and giggles at Aya's unceremonious flop, and then turns all the way toward Pigeon, scooting back to avoid crowding her.

"S'okay, Pigeon. I'm really nervous too," she says quietly. "Y'wanna know a kinda-sorta secret?"

Pigeon nods.

She blushes, swallows hard, and takes a deep breath. "I spent my first hour after checking in crying my eyes out. Absolutely bawling."

"Oh gosh." Pigeon blushes. "... do you mind if I ask...?"

She shakes her head. "Don't mind. I'm embarrassed about it, but..." Another deep breath.

"I couldn't handle letting go of my work, couldn't stop worrying about what might go wrong if I wasn't there, and I was really feeling guilty for taking a vacation at all. Got myself halfway out of it, then got kinda lovingly-scolded about it in a letter that made clear why enjoying myself here was actually really important."

"I wish it was as simple as crying it out for me..."

(Meanwhile, Kumi is saying hello to a pink-haired girl wearing a blue visor and an oversized shirt and introducing her to Anna.)

She shakes her head again. "It wasn't, for me. Not really. I probably would've worked myself up again eventually — still might, if I'm not careful — because I still didn't quite believe I deserved this. It was the letter that really made the difference."

"I see..." 

She sighs. "I don't think I need a letter. Maybe I need a hug. I don't know." 

"Well, you've come to the right place for that."

"The Bowers is a place where all are welcome to experiment and push the bounds of what's possible!" The pink-haired girl grins and stretches, shimmying her shoulders. "You two seem kind of occupied, the show's starting. I'm Lianne, by the way."

"Hi Lianne, I'm Sable. And yeah, Pigeon and I were just talking about it being okay to be nervous and hurt and need comfort. We're starting?"

She turns to pay proper attention to Kumi.

Kumi nods. "Yeah, we're starting. Ground rules for pet therapy - this is for light petting, no heavy petting. Now, naturally some of you may become aroused anyway, that's totally natural when you're being touched and caressed by someone you find attractive, and that's okay. But if I see anyone deliberately going for erogenous areas they'll be asked to leave the group. Aside from the usual groin and chest areas, it should be noted for this group that the bases of tails and wings are commonly erogenous and should be avoided during this event. You may use your hands or a provided brush, we have a wide selection. Always ask someone if it's okay to touch them before proceeding; this is the Rosethorn Hotel, consent is paramount. The house safeword is safeword."

She raises a broad flat purple brush. "There are two main ways this event can be organized; either we can pair off and pairs can brush each other, or we can all take turns being in the center being brushed by everybody. The session runs for an hour normally, so you'll get either thirty minutes of being petted by a partner or ten minutes of being petted by everybody at once in the time slot. We can also do it more informally and let people just do what they prefer, so long as people don't mind getting uneven shares of the petting. If we've run for an hour and everyone wants to continue, I can extend the event for another hour, but that requires a unanimous vote. I think that's everything. Everyone got that?"

"We vote to decide which way to go, right? I'd like the informal petting session, no need for too much structure. I'm mostly here to pet others anyway."

"I'd prefer the group petting sessions."

"Um. Partners would be nice."

"Mn."

"Mmm, I'm the opposite of Lianne; if we don't have structure I'll forget to get petted and I probably really need that. So either partners or group, please."

"I think partners would be best, then. Lianne, you can pair with Aya if you just want to pet and not get petted in return."

"Sounds like a plan!"

"Sable, Anna, Pigeon, you can make a trio or the odd one out can get petted by me, your choice."

"I'm fine with whatever."

"Um, I would prefer to be petted by just Sable."

"Sable, is that alright with you?"

She smiles and nods. "Works for me!"

"Alright, who would like a brush?"

"I would! Please make it pink and cute."

"I generally prefer to use my hands. Hope you don't mind."

"Not a problem. Sable, Pigeon?"

"Ummmmm..."

Mmm, y'can't brush feathers. "I'm leaning hands, I think."

"Pigeon, would you like a brush to brush Sable with?"

"Oh! Yes, I would."

Kumi stands, and hands over to Pigeon - is that the special brush? That is absolutely Sable's special brush. Another copy, anyway. Then she turns to Lianne and hands her an elaborate pink plastic one, and finally sits back down next to Anna. 

"Alright, take whichever order you want, I'll say when it's been half an hour. If you want to take shorter turns say so now."

Lianne settles in next to Aya's prone form. "Do you mind if I brush you?"

"Please." She doesn't stir.

Anna runs a hand lightly down Kumi's side. "You or me first, Kumi?"

"I'll pet you first, if that's alright. Can't risk a guest going unpetted, now, can we?~"

"Alright. Shall I just lie in your lap, or...?"

"That works for me." She leans back and pats her lap softly.

Anna lies down and Kumi's lap and wriggles a little.

Sable's mind hiccups for a moment on seeing the brush, but she recovers quickly and turns to Pigeon.

"I'm glad to go first unless you have a preference."

"Do you mean get brushed first or give brushing first?"

She giggles. "Oops! Give first."

"Ummmm... Honestly it's kind of awkward whichever way we do it, so... If you'd prefer to brush first, that's okay."

Kumi has sunk her hands into Anna's hair and is skritching behind her ears.

Meanwhile, Lianne is slowly brushing out Aya's tails.

Sable scoots up next to Pigeon. "Where would you like me to start?"

"Ummmm... I don't know, I've never done this before... but maybe the back of my head?"

She scoots directly behind the winged brunette and gently brings her fingertips to the back of the girl's head.

She hunches over, and flinches down a little more as Sable's fingers touch her head. Her eyes are scrunched tightly closed and she's got her arms and her wings wrapped around her legs. 

She smoothly brings her hands to her knees. "It's okay to be scared, Pigeon. Would a hug help, or a listening ear? I've got two big, fluffy ones~."

"Please don't hug me. I'm just... getting used to it, okay?"

"That's absolutely fine. I'm going to stay right here and not do a thing other than hug one of my own tails until you're ready for me to do something more. When you're ready, you tell me what'll be the most comfortable, and we'll do that."

She brings one of her tails into her lap, taking care not to brush it against Pigeon at all, and snugs it tightly, breathing deliberately slowly.

"I already told you to pat my head don't make this difficult please?" 

She hunches down even further.

For a long moment Sable freezes completely — she's clearly ruined everything and has no idea what she's doing and doesn't belong here among people who learn how to relate to each other or how to heal themselves and others — and then everything falls away. She has a task, and she'll do it gladly. Pigeon's scared and hurting about both touch and being assertive. Do what was asked, trust her to safeword.

She lets go of her tail, wraps it and the other two tightly around herself, and brings her hands back to the winged girl's head, slipping her fingers through the dark tresses to scritch gently along her scalp, prepared to follow through the now-expected flinch and maintain contact uninterrupted.

She shivers a little, and presses her face into her knuckles - but she doesn't safeword. 

Okay then, she's still half-expecting to get told off, but... She keeps scritching, gentle strokes of her fingernails spreading out to cover the whole back of Pigeon's head.

She sighs, and shifts her position, stretching out her legs a bit more. That makes it awkward to hug them, so she lets her arms fall into her lap, crossed close across her chest.

Something in Sable unclenches at that sigh, and a tiny smile slips onto her face. She keeps scritching the back of Pigeon's head a bit longer, then starts spreading her range out a bit, nails reaching up to the crown of her head and dragging back down to the nape of her neck, then back up.

Pigeon keeps hugging herself and holding very still, but... was that a slight lean into Sable's touch?

Maybe? She certainly hopes so! But for all that her tails are loosening up around her — one even spilling out alongside both girls — Sable is still not going to call her petting a success until she sees some more blatant relaxation and contentment. She scritches small circles that start from Pigeon's hairline and slowly walk all the way back and then forward again.

That smile on Sable's face sure does look a little wider and softer, though.

Pigeon still has her eyes closed, but they're not all squinched up anymore. 

She's definitely leaning into the petting a bit now.

Oh that leaning is just really satisfying to feel. She widens her hands a bit, spreads out to cover the sides of Pigeon's head better. Scriitch, scriitch, scriiiitch...

How long has it been? Did she leave her phone out where she could poke it with a tail and check? Nnnoo, boo. Should she say something? Probably make the winged girl nervous again if she brings up the time or switching to her wings. Oh well. Keep scritching and let her suggest it if she wants to. It's not like she isn't enjoying giving this head-scritching.

She smiles, lets out a faint, contented sigh, and keeps scritching.

Pigeon lets out another deep sigh, and unhunches a little bit. Now that her face isn't buried in her legs, her blush is very obvious. 

"... um. You can... touch my wings, a little, if you want to. Just be careful of the bases, alright?"

Sable smiles and nods — then realizes Pigeon probably can't see her face very well. "Okay! I'll take care to avoid them. You're really cute, but this isn't even a first date, let alone whichever date a girl could earn the right to pet there."

...Did she really just flirt with the absolutely adorable nervous winged girl? Did that just happen?

Well, Pigeon is definitely not the only one blushing anymore. Sable gives a few more scritches to Pigeon's head, then gently brings her hands to her wings, stroking gently down the feathers, starting from where the texture looks like it changes just a little past the base — and taking care to not to let her hands slip if the girl flinches again.

She smiles wider. Wow, she can really feel a kind of springy strength in the feathers' structure, even though they're still so soft. Pet pet pet.

Her eyes widen. "You - um - what? Did you just - what???" Her blush is even deeper now. "I... hold on with the petting, I'm trying to think -" She flicks a wing irritably. "- you think I'm cute??"

She stills her hands, hugs a tail, and nods, vivid violet coloring her cheeks. "Um, yes? Extremely?"

Eep! Is she mad about being flirted with, or disbelieving in her own cuteness?

"Why??"

Okay, definitely the latter. "Well, um, your hair is really pretty and dark, it contrasts gorgeously with the grey of your wings, your eyes are a beautifully vivid violet (which is totally my favorite color if you hadn't noticed), you're totally rocking that tiara, your nerves are an enormous mood, the way you started leaning into the petting was really sweet and sincere and innocent and satisfying, your height only adds to the cuteness, something about the way you talked about hiding makes me think you've probably got really great taste in chill-out homebody activities, and I don't know something about your whole cute vibe just makes me want to hold you close and growl at the whole multiverse, and oh my Goddess I just started talking protective about a cutie I literally met less than half an hour ago shutting up now."

She shrinks down a little, then straightens back up, fighting the urge to hide her face in her tails. It's not like anything she said is a lie. Definitely hugs the tail in her arms tighter, though, blushing even brighter.

"... are you, like, crushing on me...?"

Oh no, is she!? Yep, that breaks the resistance to hiding and with a squeak she buries her face in her tails.

"Um, I don't know, maybe? It sure looks like that, huh."

A faint, embarrassed whine slips out of her.

Pigeon giggles. 

"I mean, I guess, it's the Rose Bowers right, so, um..." 

She looks back at Sable. 

"... keep petting me and we'll figure out what it means later, okay?"

A faintly disbelieving squeak, and then she peeks blushily out of her tails, grins, and starts petting Pigeon's wings again — slow, gentle, smooth strokes along the pretty grey feathers.

She smiles, and leans into the petting, and closes her eyes again...

... and not very long afterwards, Kumi calls time, and swaps off with Anna.

Lianne just keeps petting Aya.

Aya doesn't stir from her flopped position.

Pigeon picks up Sable's wide-toothed brush. "Um, can you... show me how to use this? On your tail maybe?"

Sable meeps, blushes again, and nods. "Yeah, it's meant to fit snugly in your palm. And y'see this strap?" She taps a smooth strip of elastic that wraps across the gently-curving back of the egg-shaped brush. "It goes over the back of your hand, holding the brush in place without a handle."

She squirms a little. "And, um, yeah, I'd really like a tail-brushing, but my tails are really sensitive all over. They get more intense and, um, special, by the base, but I'll be reacting a fair bit even without that."

She gives Pigeon a nervously inquisitive look.

"Um... Thanks for the warning..." 

She slips the brush on over her hand. 

"... I really want to repay you, though, so... if you really don't mind...?"

She nods, and lays her tails out toward the other girl. "Yeah, I don't mind. I'll show you with one, and you can follow with another."

She turns and scoops her left hand under the left-most tail. "So, when you're brushing my tails, holding gently from the other side like this helps keep it from flopping out from under your brushstrokes. I normally start at the ends, but I'm grabbing up here at the top to show you where the really intense bit starts — everything higher than my hand right now." She's holding it just before the fur starts to taper inward sharply, about two or three inches down.

Then she slides her hand down near the tip and demonstrates a few smooth strokes with her right hand cupped around an imaginary brush. "S'about like that. All downward, usually make the strokes a bit longer the higher I go."

"Okay. Um. Is it okay if I... hold your tail in my lap and just brush the part of it that's in my lap and then that should help support it and also, um, prevent accidents?"

She nods, turns back around, and scoots a bit closer to make this easier.

Pigeon carefully settles in at the proper distance, pulls a tail into her lap, and gives it a tentative brushstroke.

Sable inhales a bit sharply, shivers very minutely, and lets out a warm sigh. "Yeahh, that's gonna work fine..."

She reaches out and grabs the largest pillow or plushie in reach, tugging it into her lap to hug and lean on, a soft smile on her face.

The plushie is a big soft penguin the size of a couple pillows put together.

Pigeon blushes, and takes a few more cautious strokes, longer than the first one. She's quite careful not to touch the special part.

She shivers a little harder, lists forward a bit, and lets her eyes start to flutter closed. A very soft coo slips out of her. She rests on the penguin. snuggling it close. What a good, supportive penguin this is.

... brush, brush, brush, brush. She's behind Sable, and Sable has her eyes closed, so she can't see Pigeon's expression, but she's starting to hum softly while she works. 

Occasional shivers roll through her, each seeming to leave her a little limper, a little more relaxed, as layers of tension and guardedness and anxiety soften and peel away. After a bit, she starts purring, nuzzling her face against the penguin plush contentedly.

Wait, what.

"Eep, um, did I just purr? I'm a foxgirl, not a catgirl? What?"

"Foxes can totally purr as well! Or close enough."

"I purr all the time when I'm, ah, in a good mood~"

"It's not weird."

Pigeon pauses in her brushing. 

"You did just purr. It was... nice."

Sable's low-level ongoing blush ramps back up to fully-vivid. "Um, okay, guess I learned something new today? That's pretty cool. And I'm glad you liked it."

She hides her face in the plush, but doesn't hold back the purring when Pigeon starts brushing again.

She keeps brushing softly, with longer strokes, getting most of each of Sable's three tails in turn. She's smiling. 

"... Kind of overwhelming, huh?" She smiles. "It was like that for me too."

She nods, still shivering every now and then, and purring except when she interrupts it to speak. "Yeah. 'Specially 'cause my, um, old body was really desensitized."

"I... nevermind." She keeps petting softly.

Nnn... That's a mood. She frowns a little, then smiles nervously. "Ask. Whatever you were thinking about saying or asking, I'd really like to know."

"... I was just thinking about... how cute your purring was... and, um..." She looks away. "... how I'd like to make you purr more."

Sable squeaks blushily. "Um, yeah, that would be really nice to explore together. Also be pretty great to see what sorts of cute noises you make, too."

She nods. "Your tails are really soft."

She wriggles a bit, embarrassed and pleased. "Thanks. Your wings really are too."

She ducks her head. "Thank you. You're also... really thoughtful."

"Eep, um, really? Thoughtful? Wow, I try for that but worry I'm not hitting it." She shivers a bit more at the continued petting, and maybe a little at the compliments, too.

"You're... how to describe this..." she taps her lips in thought for a moment. "You seem like you're really careful about the right things."

"Aw, thank you." She ducks her head a little.

Sable grins happily, blushes, and snuggles a bit further into the plush, sighing warmly and savoring the gentle brushing.

Pigeon keeps brushing, humming softly to herself as she works.

And eventually Kumi calls time again.

"That's the hour, everyone. We can extend the session but I need a unanimous vote from everybody."

"I think I'm done."

"Alright, then. Thank you for coming, everyone! Especially you, Anna."

"It was no trouble." She flicks her tail back and forth.

Lianne passes her brush back to Kumi, and gets up out of the plushie pit. 

Anna does likewise.

Kumi accepts the brushes back and casually vanishes them. Then she looks over at Sable and Pigeon. 

"Would you like to turn in your brush?", she asks.

"Um yes of course." Pigeon slips the strap off her hand and passes the brush over to Kumi. 

Kumi stands up and stretches with a yawn. 

"See you two around," she says.

"Um see you."

"Bye, Kumi. It was nice meeting you," Sable waves and then turns back to Pigeon, a nervous grin on her face. "So, about that talk... Wanna have it over cocoa or something?"

"Um yeah that would be nice. We can get a booth or something."

She nods, stands (woo, wobbly from all the relaxation), and offers Pigeon a hand up. "Sounds great. You wanna grab a booth and I'll get us each a drink and meet you there?"

Pigeon takes Sable's hand hesitantly and pulls herself to her feet. "Okay."

She lets go Sable's hand and walks away towards the main floor of the café, glancing back over her shoulder on the way.

Sable heads off to the counter, glancing back occasionally herself, blushing and wagging softly, and grinning a bit and blushing harder if she spots (and is spotted by) Pigeon doing the same. She taps her way through "Beverages" to "Recommendations" and sees an unspecified recommendation for Pigeon offered alongside a very arty hot cocoa for herself. She orders both, and two tall glass mugs appear on the countertop in front of her. The first is three-quarters full of pink liquid, with a massive amount of whipping cream on top and several maraschino cherries added. The second holds a dark brown liquid, smelling richly chocolatey and faintly of orange, slightly less piled with whipping cream and with a thin slice of orange perched on the rim.

She smiles happily and carries them back to the booth Pigeon selected, setting the other girl's drink in front of her and then sitting down. "Bowers recommendation. I know nothing other than it looks pretty and smells lovely," she informs her with a grin.

Pigeon looks up at Sable from the booth, her wings carefully tucked away behind her. "It looks cute, whatever it is." She leans forwards and sucks gently on the pink straw. "... hm! It's like a strawberry milkshake-y thing? I like it. Thank you. What did you get?" 

"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.

"Dawn generally has to convince Sun and Moon to help her, they're usually more ambiguous than heroic. Sometimes Midnight can still convey messages through the glass case and she advises Dawn on what to do, that does sound like it could be you. There's a lot of different Dawns, but the ones I like work together with everyone to ultimately triumph. In the bad ones she's kind of a spoiled brat who just insists that she get what she wants and the sun and moon literally move for her, like seriously who writes a story like that?"

"Authoritarians who hate fun, probably," Sable wrinkles her nose. "What a way to try to ruin such a tender and heartfelt tale."

"The Dawns who work to unite everyone's contributions together sound really right," she adds, her expression softening again. "And yeah, that Midnight sounds like a pretty good fit."

"It's such a lovely story. I should try to find a copy." She reaches to pull her phone from her purse, then freezes.

"Oh, I'd love to read one of the really good versions with your art alongside it. I... could I keep these?" she asks, gesturing at the cards with a bright violet blush coloring her pale cheeks. "And could you help me pick out a particularly romantic version of the tale?"

"You can..." 

She pauses for a long moment. 

"... you can keep those if you let me sign them. And I would have to dig for the best one that would be most appropriate for you - I know which one I like best, but..." 

She blushes brighter and slides the cards across the table, dipping her hand in her purse to pull out an elegant black fountain pen with an amethyst inlay on the barrel, then she passes that to Pigeon as well.

She looks at the pen and blinks. "Gosh, that's pretty high-quality for a - technical person - where'd you get that pen?"

"Oh! Um, there's a little stationery shop on Arcbright that caters to mages of various sorts called Miscast Missives that a coworker introduced me to. I've kinda been on a handwriting kick for most of the past year."

"Cute." Pigeon smiles. "I mostly work with digital media, though, so I don't know how to use a fountain pen. Let me get something out of the console."

Sable blushes some more, nodding. Pigeon thinks she's cute!?

Pigeon taps at the tablet, and a pink ballpoint pen appears on the table, a glittery gel coat cushioning the base where it's held. She clicks it out into writing position and starts signing the cards. 

"... so Sable, um... what do you like least about the OTC?"

"Oh, hm! Good question. Probably the cultural losses when we empty some hellworlds, things that nobody takes the time to figure out how to recreate separate from the awful places they came from."

"Like what, for example?"

"That's the fun part! We don't know in most cases, because a generation or so down everyone's forgotten the faerie tales they didn't think to write down on their way out of the universe."

She sighs a bit, shakes her head. "Seriously, though, I've heard of a world where they used to have a particularly unique style of poetry that was only practiced among the nobility, who fought us to the last as we were taking their slaves away. That style is mostly gone, buried as the cost of rescuing those people."

"I want us to figure out how to do better than that."

"I see..." 

She signs the last of the cards, and passes them back across the table; the pen vanishes when she sets it down. 

"You really care a lot about artistry, don't you?"

She smiles warmly and collects the cards, gazing at them for a bit before putting them away safely in her purse.

"Yeah, it's one of the most straightforwardly tangible manifestations of a person's individual expression, their individual story, and one of the easiest ways to tell how suppressed a world is — critical or inconvenient artistry is one of the first things to get censored, as you saw with the faerie tales on Vallmer. Plus it's just a fantastic way to fill your life with beauty."

"Hmmmmm." She tilts her head, then nods. "Then, um. I've been trying not to ask, but. I can't help but notice that you're... showing off kind of a lot of body art. Does it all have meanings to you, then?"

Sable blushes, smiles, and nods. "Yeah, every bit," she says, and then giggles, "which is funny considering that I didn't have any of it yesterday. I've wanted to get some body art for a long time, but first I was waiting until after True Persona, and then I just hadn't realized how much easier it was with modern magitech. What pushed me over the edge was the aftermath of that round of crying. After reading the letter, I took a relaxing bath and then called up outfit recommendations on the room console. The inclusion of tattoos and piercings in the initial rec finally reminded me that we actually can do body art extremely easily, and so I don't have to capture everything in a single set of designs. Instead I can just tell the story of this day, week, or month. So I started customizing, trying to capture something that felt right. After a bit of fiddling, and then letting the Bowers refine it for me, this was the result."

She waves a hand at her body illustratively.

"Every piece has a at least a little bit of a story: some just a theme or a resonance, others a very specific explanation. Feel free to ask about any or all of them — really that just applies in general. I might get blushy or maudlin at times, but I'm not going to get offended about being asked something."

"Oh, so you're the kind of person who goes for really overelaborate designs, got it got it.~" She grins. "Um, well. I've been avoiding asking because it's probably really personal, but you've been taking like literally every opportunity to say you have a custom body so, um, why?"

Sable's mouth drops open, she blushes bright violet, and she buries her face in her hands. After a moment, she starts giggling, then manages to speak while she's collecting herself from the shock.

"Nngh, very excellent question. And yes, I do have a tendency to overengineer or overdesign things."

She takes a deep breath, looks back up, and smiles warmly despite her still-vivid blush.

"I got True Persona cast because I'm transgender. I talk about it so much because I spent so much of my life before then trying to tell the story everyone else wanted to hear, rather than the story I wanted to live, and now I'm perhaps oversharing to compensate for the built-up shame and lost time."

When Sable comes up, blushing and smiling, she's met with a look of concern from a Pigeon leaning in towards her across the table. 

Her confession gets a blink - then, a steadily growing blush. 

Pigeon leans back and crosses her arms over her chest. "I, um. I thought it was like, a status thing, and that you were... bragging about being hot or something..." 

She looks away. "Um. So you... I mean, I can guess that transgender means you - this is really awkward, but - you used to be... physically male?" 

"Ahh, that makes sense. No, I don't like that kind of bragging, though I can see how I accidentally sounded like that. The only 'status' things I can enjoy bragging about are sincere self-expression, skill, and helping people. I can enjoy other people's bragging about more than that, but for me only those ever feel close to right."

She nods at Pigeon's question, still smiling. "Yes, though in the trans community we usually prefer phrases like 'assigned male at birth' to describe that."

"Is that... a common thing, in the OTC?"

Sable nods, smiling softly at the familiar question. "We're around a fifth or more of the population everywhere, give or take, it's just easier to tell in the OTC because there's less reason to hide or give up."

"Gosh, really? That sounds... really implausible..."

A grin and a quirked eyebrow, then she grabs her phone, pulling up a demographic report before sliding it to Pigeon, showing a rough average on more-cosmopolitan trade worlds of 22%, with generation-over-generation trends toward similar numbers as worlds get more exposure and populations get more education.

"Is it so implausible that a world where they try to steal your faerie tales might also suppress inconvenient identities, even just accidentally?"

Pigeon picks up the phone and looks at the report. 

"... this certainly looks official..." 

She pulls a purple-cased phone out of her dress and types in a query. 

Slowly, her eyebrows rise. 

"... Really? Okay, let me have a look at what the rate is on Valimer -" 

She taps at her phone, bringing it in closer to her. Her eyebrows pinch together a little, and she raises the back of her thumb to her lips, brushing them against her nail.

"... maybe it's different for Aevii? But if it's so significant on other worlds there should at least be statistics..." 

She types in another query, and the corners of her mouth quirk up. "Someone's out there blogging as 'Bird Girl'... how old is this... five years. Ex-Valimerite... And she's making all kinds of wild claims, wow. I think I'll do my own research, thanks... ooh! An official estimate, that's exactly what I was looking for - study by a doctor of sexual psychology, they'd probably know... 'About half a percent among Aevii.' Okay, that seems much more reasonable. I guess it makes sense that aliens would have different gender."

Sable's grin gets a bit playful and she takes her phone back for a moment, tapping her way to another page, then slides it back to Pigeon, the screen now showing an (at the time) acclaimed study from several generations ago claiming a tenth of a percent among humans, conducted on a world that was surveyed at nineteen percent just a few years ago.

"... so it's cultural, then, as worlds assimilate into the OTC there are more transgender people. I guess it makes sense that it'd be more of an option, I certainly never had heard of anyone on Valimer getting a custom body..." 

She rests her chin against her knuckles. "... and you have to account for migration, right, the culture gets more diverse over time... But still, you wouldn't expect half the world to be replaced with weird gender aliens... We can't say anything about Aevii for sure except that it does happen to us, I doubt 'bird girl' is lying when she says she's transgender, and we do have the study... But to call it suppression is kind of... that's an additional step, you know? Just because it's not OTC culture doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong, and those people who might be transgender in the OTC might have been perfectly happy never knowing."

She smiles sadly now. "No, they wouldn't have, but they wouldn't have known why."

She sighs softly. "Can I tell you a story of an awful situation that wouldn't really happen, but that'll show you what it's like?"

"Um... Okay."

"Thank you," she says with a smile.

"On second thought, it's more of a thought experiment than a story," she taps her lips thoughtfully. 

"I want you to think about every single thing about you that's correlated with your having wings, everything that knits having wings into being an integrated part of who you are. These'll be things like muscle memory, body language, sensitivities, maybe instinctive comfort with open skies, and countless other things I have no idea about at all. Take your time, be really sure you've got as many as you can, okay?"

She unfolds a wing, tests the air with it, folds it back in. 

"... I think I have it."

"Good. Now imagine another you, with a physically human body, no episodic memory of having wings, raised among humans, but who inexplicably still has everything else. She has possibly heard of Aevii before. At most, she has seen an Aevis on TV once or twice. And she has all of those instincts and unspoken things that aren't the physical wings or the episodic memories."

"Immerse yourself as fully as you can, for a few moments, in the experience of being her. Live her story."

"... That's awful. Being... haunted by the ghost of wings you've never had, barely even knowing what you're missing - that never actually happens, right?"

"No, that example is made up."

... Someone wearing a dark cotton dress with long sleeves that cover her palms has come over to their table. She's hunching awkwardly. 

"... Excuse me, but I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, and... That does happen. It happened to me, actually."

"... Who are you?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I should've introduced myself. You can, um, call me Pigeon."

"........ This is a joke, right?"

"Goddess," Sable mutters under her breath, turning her misty-eyed face toward the newcomer.

"One, Pigeon, I am so sorry that happened to you. I used what I didn't expect to be your story as an example to illustrate a point. Two," she scoots further into the booth and gestures for Pigeon across the table to do the same, "sit down next to whichever of us and get a hug, 'cause you clearly need one. Three, I'd like you to meet Pigeon, your alt."

"Please don't hug me," says the wingless Pigeon, but she sits down in the seat next to Sable. "And, um, hi. Do you... know what alts are, um, Pigeon? Gosh that's awkward."

"Let me do a search."

She types a query into her phone. 

"... doppelgangers but of your personality? That's a thing?"

The wingless Pigeon nods. "Mhm. I don't know how I can prove that I'm, like, actually your alt or anything... What ridiculous luck, honestly, I'm only here for one day..." 

Sable finishes a long sip of her cocoa and puts it down, tails swishing a little with her intrigue — she's had to shift them around to the other side to avoid accidentally brushing Pigeon, wingless edition.

"Okay, there is an easy way to fix this, because I know this data will be in y'all's client profiles. Everyone get out your phones and open the Bowers app. The request you want is the following phrase: 'my client profile, personal history section, including template data'. Once found, read and then show each other the relevant bits."

Siiip, wag wag.

Both Pigeons nod.

The wingless one gets out her phone and starts tapping at it.

"... Okay, got the relevant section. Nothing in here looks too personal. Template data... lists me as 'Pigeon, #2582'."

"Same, 'Pigeon, #2582'. Here, have a look." 

She pushes her phone across the table.

She picks it up and reads through the history. 

"... Number matches, and, um... do you mind if I read this aloud for Sable?"

"Go ahead."

"Age 24. Born on Videstri, a former refugee world primarily host to expatriates from the Imperium. Has had dysmorphia regarding her absence of wings since her teens, a condition she was obligated to hide given social conditions on the refugee worlds. Emigrated to the Half-Tamed world of Sporifa five years ago, where she took a job as a ...takkarash minter? ...and proceeded to save all her spare funds towards a single day at the Rose Bowers? Why would you do that?" 

"I heard that... the Doors of Night once turned someone into a bird, and I thought - if Sunaira is supposed to be a good goddess - she might. You know. Give me a chance." 

"... faith, huh."

She just nods.

For a moment, Sable can't find the words. Finally, "I am so very impressed with your dedication and your courage, Pigeon. I only know the barest edges of what that must have been like. I described that experience — what turned out to be your experience — to illustrate what gender dysphoria is like, but to have to go through that while growing up on a refugee world..."

She sighs raggedly, shaking her head, ears drooping a bit, then looks Pigeon in the eye. "All I can say is how deeply sorry I am, for not having found a better way to set up the refugee worlds yet, for not having managed to make it easier for everyone in a situation like yours. It's desperately important that we get people out of places like the Imperium, but the results still aren't nearly good enough. I promise you, we're still working to make it better. I work as a software developer in Refugee Services, among other things on tools for policy outcome analysis, and for individual assessments, trying to move everyone to Half-Tamed worlds the moment they're ready, and trying to measure policies to find what gets people ready to integrate even just a fraction of a percent quicker. I'm so sorry that it took as long as it did, and so glad that you made it here and stuck it out. Thank you for making it here."

She takes a few slow, shaky breaths, and then turns to face Valimer-Pigeon across the table with a rueful grin. "Guess I'm telling that story now, huh."

Scooting back and turning to face both, she nods to herself and says, "I've got a bit of personal experience with how good Sunaira is. I had to be ordered to take a vacation in the first place, and when I got here I still had a breakdown about how I was probably letting people down by not being able to force myself onward longer. It hurt to stop. I spent an hour bawling. And when I was all cried out, I finally managed to open and read the letter that had been left for me in my room before I got here. It turned out to be from my third-degree boss, Director of the Humanitarian Division, Goddess Sunaira. I was floored."

She taps at her phone for a moment, and two temporary copies of the letter appear, one in front of each Pigeon.

"Yes, Sunaira is a very good goddess. If she can be this good to me, she can certainly manage to catch your trust-fall through a Door of Night and at minimum give you wings out the other side. You're why we do this, Pigeon. You and countless other people who deserve a better shot than you were given. You count too."

She hugs herself tightly for a moment. "Read that, if you'd like, and then let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

Pigeon skims the letter quickly and frowns a little. "I mean, you're pretty important, I'm not surprised that she'd write to you..."

"... I heard that she writes to everyone in the programs, that anyone in the Bowers can get a letter from her if they just ask. I haven't been brave enough to look yet."

She sighs, and shakes her head. "It's... No. I'm not important. I'm one lone madwoman trying to marginally improve how we do something actually important." She gestures indicatively at the wingless Pigeon. "That's what 'You count too' means. I'm not any more important than either of you. I just have a few skills that I try to help people with. That's why I work for the OTC at all."

She curls a bit tighter and sighs again. "Just pull up a program. Both of you."

After a few moments she manages to take another sip of her cocoa.

The two Pigeons share a look.

The wingless one holds up a hand.

"... program, please."

A program appears in her hand, branded with the rose sigil of the Bowers and sporting a quite nice picture of the gardens. 

She opens it to the front page, and takes a deep breath.

"I'm just going to read this out loud, okay?"

"Okay."

Sable nods, and takes another sip of cocoa.

Dear Pigeon,
Wow. I'm impressed. You've been working on this literally since your teens, and the circumstances of your birth mean that you've had to leave behind everything you knew - and you did, the instant you turned 18, and ever since you've been working for this one moment. 

I think at this point, it's sensible for you to double-check that this is really what you want to do. You're here, the money is spent, in a real way you've already decided - but you can always turn back, and there's no shame in that. 

To be blunt, Pigeon, you hardly know me, and yet you're staking five years of your life on my being worthy of your trust. I'm honored but also rather concerned. Are you really sure you want to put yourself wholly into my hands? Have you considered all your alternatives soberly?

For example, are you aware that there's a charity program working out of the Bowers addressing morphological freedom and especially dysphoria? You'd have to pay a portion of the cost of your treatment on a sliding scale, potentially over years, but you would get your wings, likely within a few weeks. There's no question in my mind but that you qualify; your history is textbook. 

Similar charity programs operate out of a few dozen of the Trades as well, including Arcbright. I'm sure Sable would know someone who would know someone who would be able to refer you. 

I should also mention that if you were willing to emigrate to Valimer, the local leadership is anxious to preserve their species and have a program of offering Mythic Gene-Splices to Aevis to all their immigrants. You'd have most of the conveniences of a Trade world, and would be among other winged people daily; if you want, more than anything else, for your having wings to be utterly beneath comment, I would suggest you put in a placement request under that program.

The Doors of Night are, of course, open to you, as they are to all visitors to the Bowers, but I have a strict policy of making no promises about what lies on the other side. 

The choice is yours, as it has always been. 
- Sunaira

Sable smiles warmly, nodding. "She's right that the Doors of Night are an intense option. I'd certainly be glad to put you in touch with any of those charities, either here or on one of the Trades. You'd have to talk to Pigeon about the Valimer option, though."

She hums thoughtfully and holds up up a finger to request a pause. She taps at her phone for a few moments, winces, then nods firmly.

"I'll take this up a notch. As long as you're somewhere within reach, I promise you'll have wings by the end of the day. The Bowers offer the absolute best cosplay semblances on the market, with nerves and sensory response and everything. If you go with any of the charity options, or if you go through a Door of Night and come out without wings and not on a personal journey beyond the reach of comms service, I'll rent a pair of wings for you on my tab, and you'll be able to keep those until it's your turn in the charity queue and you get your wings."

"I can't make this choice for you, but I can damn well try to make it easier," she finishes with a fierce grin.

"Seriously? You just met her!"

She splutters for a moment, then laughs, blushing a bit. "Yeeaah, this is personal. Dysphoria due to missing limbs like wings or tails is at least as bad as gender dysphoria." She hugs one of her tails. "I didn't realize it, when I got True Persona cast, but missing these was hurting me too."

She smiles softly, squeezing the tail close, and then looks back up. "Also I have a habit of doing this. I don't buy much, so I wind up doing some random gifts like this and then giving a bunch to charity, 'cause letting more money than I need for basic savings just sit around feels... wasteful. If I'm not saving it for something specific, I want it to go to helping someone."

"Plus," she adds as an afterthought, "most of the expense here is the deposit, which I'll get back."

"Gosh. I mean, if you're really sure..."

"Didn't Sunaira literally just lecture you on throwing yourself on other people's generosity?"

"Yes, and she does have a point, but this isn't such a large favor for someone like Sable."

She gives the still-wingless Pigeon a nod, and grins lopsidedly at the winged one across the table. "Is that what you took from it? Sounded to me like she spent about half the letter describing more sources of generosity to turn to. So it seems to me like the lecture was less about throwing herself on people's generosity and more about a single point of failure that she doesn't know very well. About staking her dream on trusting someone she doesn't know yet. If I loan her some wings, the risk is on me. Further, she's not depending on me exclusively. I'd just be making the potential gap a bit less miserable."

Her smile softens, a bit of concern slipping in. "Are you up for telling me your real objection?"

"What? That was my real objection! What are you implying, seriously?"

"I'm implying that you missed the primary concern in the lecture, and that you were reactively concerned about my actions, because some other emotion is getting in your way — probably anxiety or maybe vicarious guilt, possibly one of a few other things. You didn't ask, you scolded. That suggests a sharp feeling, a sharp sense of concern or guilt or fear."

"I'm implying that you need to pause, and breathe, and collect your thoughts, before instinctive reactions stress you further. It'll be easier to take the moment wherever you want it to go if stress isn't getting in your way."

"You deserve better than for trauma to steal control of the moment from you."

"I'm not a child, thank you, I can control my own emotions and don't need you telling me what they ought or ought not to be. Seriously, could you be any more condescending?"

The wingless Pigeon's gaze flicks back and forth between Sable and her alt.

Sable's eyes widen, her expression falls, and she sets her glass down heavily. She hangs her head. "Well fuck."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Something to the effect of 'good fucking job, you stupid fox'. Additional undertones of the specific flavors and variations of how I was a fool."

"She was only trying to help..."

Pigeon sighs. "Yes, yes, alright. I'd like an actual apology but I concede no harm was meant."

Sable snaps her head back up, her teary eyes meeting Pigeon's. "Pigeon, I apologize. In my eagerness to help, I made foolish assumptions and crossed boundaries. Your impact of your emotions isn't mine to manage, especially not when my unsolicited advice is both based in my share-heavy style of coping and so sloppily worded as to convey an intent to manage what you felt on top my already-pushy attempt to advise your handling or sharing of those feelings and my assumptions about what feelings might be present."

She sighs hard and shakes her head at herself, looking a bit downcast. "I am deeply and truly sorry for doing that, and I will try to be more mindful of that in the future."

"Do you have to talk in legalese? But okay, apology accepted."

"Um... weren't we talking about my wings?"

Sable winces briefly at the "legalese" comment, but smiles with a bit of relief, and then turns to the wingless Pigeon and smiles wider.

"Absolutely. So let's talk about those various options. You can trust-fall through a Door of Night, you can reach out to a charity here or on a Trade World, or you can join a whole planetful of winged folk by becoming an Aevis on Valimer. How do each of those sound?"

"Um... Well..." 

She tilts her head. "I feel like the Bowers charity option is maybe the best? I don't really want to have to move again so soon, even if it was to a Trade, and I don't think any of the Trade programs would accept me since I'm from a Half-Tamed..."

She nods, humming. "Okay, let's find them."

She grabs her phone and starts looking up the charity.

The charity office comes up instantly, and on the first page there's a link to the request form. It has blanks for income, citizenship status within the OTC, type of dysmorphia, duration thereof, etc. There's a warning that all answers will be checked with truth magic and that if you lie that's reason for summary dismissal of your form. Turn-around time 2-4 weeks, approval rate calculator built in based upon supplied information. 

"Okay, this looks pretty straightforward as these things go. It's an online form that I can send to your phone, or we can pull it up on the main tablet here if the bigger screen is more comfortable to use. Obviously you don't have to fill it out right now, but I'm convenient for answering any questions at the moment. You can of course just text me later, but no guarantees what I'll be in the middle of at the time. And while we're at it..."

She taps a few more times at her phone, flipping back to the wing-rental and adding a few more options, then flicks the page at the table's main tablet and slides it to Pigeon.

When Pigeon looks, the tablet shows a gift rental customization screen, listing the full breadth of options for renting a top-tier set of cosplay-semblance wings. A discreet panel in the corner displays that rental fees, deposit, and damages are all covered by Sable Ellen Douglas, and that there is a conditional rental duration of two months unless she books and then attends a procedure to get her own permanent wings, in which case the rental lasts until the procedure is complete. A note further specifies she can customize and tweak as much as she'd like while on-site, and that the rental period doesn't begin until she leaves the Bowers.

"They say the wait's two to four weeks, but I tied the rental directly to the booking system with a placeholder, so it should just handle that automatically. Go wild with the customization, get it as right as you can, swap it out while you're still here today until you're satisfied with your pick."

"I, um, uh, gosh, this is all so sudden -"

"So is this how you flirt? You bribe girls with expensive gifts?"

Her alt stills. "... You aren't going to... expect anything, right -"

Sable's mouth drops open, and then she freezes completely, even her tails entirely still.

She turns to look at Pigeon across the table. "No," she says in an icy tone. "This is how I act on a deeply personal and fundamental belief about a wrong in the world. Tainting that with expectation would completely miss the point."

She looks down, takes a slow, forceful breath, and then turns to look at the prospective gift recipient, a bit more life and warmth back in her expression and voice. "No, Pigeon, I don't expect anything at all. I have a vague hope that you might let me know if the procedure goes well, but even that is optional."

The winged Pigeon winces, and looks over at her alt. 

She meets her alt's gaze levelly.

"... I'm sorry, I... I'm just getting in the way, aren't I. Should I... go?"

She sighs ruefully. "Ain't that a familiar mood: 'I'm just making things worse; how 'bout I just go.' Been there, lived that, don't recommend it. You can leave if you want to, but I'd really rather get back to trying to get to know each other, once the intermission of helping your alt is handled — y'all should consider having a schema for unique names, by the way."

She shakes her head and gives both girls a bittersweet, lopsided smile. To the wingless (for now) one, she says, "No offense, but I'm only interested in you for the satisfaction of making sure your getting wings goes smoothly. Your alt's the one I'm still hoping to get to know properly."

To the Pigeon she came here with, she says, "Please, stay? Help think of anything I haven't, and then try to pick back up getting to know each other after?"

"Oh. No offense taken. Um, I just... sign here?"

"Thank you. Um, I've never had... a cosplay semblance before, I don't know how they work..."

She nods. "Just tweak 'em how you like 'em, or ask the Bowers to recommend something if you want suggestions, and then yes, you can just complete the order."

Turning across the table again, she smiles. "Yeah, neither have I. I've never had wings before, either, though, and you've had a pair your whole liiiff—oh!"

She grins and looks to the Pigeon on her side of the table. "That reminded me! I had a whole bunch of skeletal and structural differences when I got my tails and ears that cosplay semblances may not simulate properly. In the case of wings, I'd guess probably something like probably some rearranging of the shoulders and adding some extra muscles around the shoulders, upper back, and pecs. I don't know enough about wings to say for sure, though."

"Can you elaborate on that any?", she asks the winged alt.

"Oh, yeah. Definitely some muscles involved there. And there's - how do they even handle the attachment, that's got to be tricky -"

"It says here that they integrate with your back while you wear them... so it's not apparent to any degree that you didn't have wings before, and they're enchanted so you can fly with them..."

She taps a couple options, then looks over at Sable. "You're sure about this?"

She nods firmly. "Absolutely. And once you're done with that, you should just have one form to fill out for the actual charity application, and it'll even estimate your approval chances on-screen."

She wags and watches order-completion, and gives a big grin across the table about how cool body mods and trait attachments and anatomy can be. "I know I could not have predicted how my tails would attach, if I'd thought about it earlier. Whole bunch of added muscles I hadn't considered, spinal changes, hip changes... And my ears! They wrap down the side of my head much more than I would've expected! What else comes to mind about how wings work?"

The wingless Pigeon taps, and a pair of black feathered wings shimmer into existence against her back.

She yelps, and twists in her seat, hugging herself with her new wings. A blush rises to her face; she unfolds one wing.

She gets up from the table, almost knocking it over in the process, and takes a step away, and flaps her wings once, twice - 

She looks back at Sable and grins. 

"- I'll get the forms later, I have to - you know - fly - thankyousomuch -" 

And she's off at a run.

The winged Pigeon watches her go. 

"... Wow. I've never been that happy about anything in my whole life."

Sable smiles delightedly at the newly-winged girl's excitement, sighing happily as she sprints for the exits. A quick few taps drops the form in Pigeon's inbox for when she lands, and then Sable leans back in her seat with a satisfied grin.

"That's what it's like. That's what it's like to have your entire body go from feeling wrong for you to feeling right for the first time in your entire life. Being trans is like that, fixable body dysmorphia is like that... It's amazing to witness how different people feel when they finally have that."

She turns back to Pigeon, grinning. "Maybe you haven't had anything give you that big a rush and that much relief or joy before, but I bet we can think of a few things that might." She hums thoughtfully for a moment.

"Ah, for a first idea — though this isn't as much something I can streamline so blatantly — how would it feel to really think about getting to illustrate a story you felt very passionate about, and see it get published?"

"Ummmmmm..." Pigeon's gaze slips away from Sable. 

"... You're actually a really good person, huh. Or at least really generous. Damn. I was... I don't know what I was hoping for. You started talking about drugs not being bad and thinking you might get really into bloodsports and you have all these tattoos and you just took a chance to make my alt really really happy and - you're saving people, you're working every day to get people to safety..."