Hibiscus gets out her staff, and gets going. It seems like a nice enough day. 

Sable collapses the house back into her inventory and gets going as well, walking beside her. The birds are chirping, the clouds drift by on the breeze, but the best thing about the day by far is the woman at her side.

The feeling is so, so mutual. 

And onwards they go. Hibiscus seems content to drink in the sights and sounds. Occasionally she points out passing birds with more enthusiasm than skill. "That's a, um. A bird! That is definitely a bird. I don't know what kind of bird it is."

Sable giggles fondly. "I don't know either. Wanna see if I can find an online reference guide? Or just make up names for 'em together?"

Her hand reaches out and snags Hibi's, pulling it up to her lips, where she kisses the back of it.

"I'd rather know their real names. My family were birders and a little bit of it rubbed off on me."

She flushes a little at the hand kiss but doesn't comment on it except to crack a smile.

Sable smiles and nods, opening a search window. A few moments later, she nods. "A starling!"

"Awww. I was hoping for something better, I didn't recognize the call. Those are invasive in the real world. I wonder if they're native here or not."

"I think a lot of this is modeled after Europe, so probably?"

She minimizes the bird guide but doesn't close it all the way, so she can pull it back up quickly.

"That's nice. It feels... more correct."

"Never seen a starling in person before. Really pretty plumage."

"Yeah. I like it too. It looks dark until you get up close and then it has all those colors. Sort of like with magpies."

"Today I learned I need to pay more attention to birds, because they're really pretty."

She squeezes Hibiscus' hand with a smile.

Hibiscus squeezes and leans in a little.

"You're really wonderful."

Sable hugs her close, wrapping her tail around her waist. A faint blush colors her cheeks. "Thank you. I try. Y'all really deserve to have more great in your life, in my opinion."

"Same to you, honestly." 

Hibiscus kisses Sable's cheek and walks on, making up a hummed tune as she goes. 

And Sable smiles and steps along beside her, enjoying the hike and the company. Eventually, the sun rises high in the sky, and all the hiking works up an appetite. Somewhere in the sparsely forested hills, Sable stops in a clearing.

"What do you think about a lunch break?"

Hibiscus has gradually slid back into Hyacinth over the last few hours. 

"That makes sense." 

She feels a bit subdued, honestly. It's been a long few hours of walking with not much to occupy her, and she's starting to get bored. Sure, there's landscape to see and Sable's company isn't bad, but she's kind of run out of conversational avenues.

Sable stretches and kisses the top of Hyacinth's head, right between her fuzzy ears, before placing down their house. That's a nice-feeling phrase: their house. Makes her feel warm and fuzzy.

<Romantic dork,> Hailey teases fondly.

Sable just smiles and holds the door for her girlfriend.

Hyacinth heads in, and flops into the pillow pit in the — she guesses it's a living room? Lounge? Dungeon? Whatever it is. She's tired. 

"... Come hug me?" she asks. 

"Gladly."

Sable dequips her boots as she walks inside, flopping down gently beside Sin. She draws her into her arms and holds her tenderly, running her hands softly through her hair. She presses a soft kiss to her forehead.

"I love you."

Hyacinth closes her eyes and leans against Sable. 

"Thank you." 

It makes her feel warm to be cared for like this. To be loved. To be kept. 

She blinks away tears and takes a slow breath.

She holds her tenderly, fingers combing tenderly through lavender tresses, soft wing draped across her, tail around her waist. 

"Always," she murmurs.

"... I'm kind of... still getting used to all of this. It's strange to realize that I can just... go on. As long as I like. UBI means I won't starve, and I don't have to ever see my family again. And now I have you, and this world..."

She leans her head against Sable. 

"It's a lot to take in. There are so many things that could be done or should be done and I don't have to do any of them. I don't even have to go on dating you... I mean — I obviously do want to, please don't confuse my intent — but the point is that I can screw up my life as much as I want to, or make it as good as I can, and it's all up to me. And..." 

She looks down at her lap. "I guess I expected it to feel different. It should be earth-shattering, being free. But I feel like in a way I'm..." 

She sighs. "My own jailer, in a sense. I don't know what it is to not be taken care of. I step away from my family and now I'm leaning on you. I can — commit to a new life, I guess — but I can't make my heart less anxious about the real range of Stuff out there."

She half-smiles. "I mean, I've taught myself stuff before. Sexuality, importantly. But it's been... having someone else to structure my life for me, this whole time. It's scary to be free. I don't know what it's like to not be in a comfortable cage. And I'm scared of ending up... exchanging one cage for another, you know?"

She settles in even closer. "Sorry. I'm — I had too long to think on our walk maybe. I'm anxious by nature. I want to be yours, the question is... what that even means, I guess. In a world where we can live together and be a — proper couple. Thruple? Quintuple? However many selves we've got?" She giggles. "Plus anyone else we end up dating..."

Sable giggles and boops Sin's nose. "Yeah. It's a lot, I remember struggling with something like that, when we first moved out and started living on our own. I... made some mistakes in that process." She strokes Hyacinth's cheek softly.

"My biggest goal with our relationship is to avoid... imposing a direction on you. There's a lot to explore, and I don't want to overcorrect and fail to share my own ideas or goals at all, but... I know a thing or two about getting worshipfully swept up in implementing someone else's vision."

She strokes Sin's hair softly.

"I guess what I mean is that I want 'being mine' to mean being safe to be you."

Hyacinth smiles softly. "Yeah." She takes a slow breath and lets it out again. "There's, I mean... life, I guess. All the things you do daily. Questing, cooking, sex. All that is real and good. But there's a part of me that... wants to keep improving, you know? Questing helps with that a little, but I worry with games that if they ever shut down I'll lose all my progress. CORA's maybe a bit better about that because it uses real skills..."

She leans in. "Time with you is good in itself, but some part of me wants a capital P Purpose and that's not really... the kind of thing that you necessarily get, or should necessarily even want. I mean, I'm more or less existentialist, I believe that you get to make up your own, I just... from stuff my family's taught me I want that to be something like excelling at an art or a craft... And I don't know how much of that is me and how much of that is cage, you know?" 

She lays her head against Sable. "It's revolutionary to consider that maybe my purpose could just be to have fun, or to love you, or to — be good at questing, or cooking, or something else my family would think was trivial. Not even to get through university or anything."