A Morning of Indulgence, Part 2

The lunch crowd in the Dance Hall was starting to swell. Most of the ambient noise came from the long tables at the windows, where a patchwork of women were mixing at random, working through plates of roast chicken, iced fruit, and bread torn into irregular hunks. The sunlight had a lazy, almost tipsy angle to it, casting sharp bands of shadow across the blackwood floor. Every so often, a breeze from the open garden doors would stir a faint scent of orchids over the food, and someone would make a joke about “seasonal pollen” that set Chloe off into a coughing fit, laughter rising above the room’s low murmur.

Dawn sat at the far end, three seats away from Chloe, with Emi to her left and Sumiku on her right. The arrangement looked accidental, but the longer you watched, the more deliberate it became: the three of them had a rhythm already, a private language of looks and gestures, each quick to pass the pitcher or nudge the breadbasket before anyone asked. Chloe, for her part, handled the awkward introductions with the ease of a professional host. She barely glanced at Sumiku’s four arms or the delicate horns that curled back from her hairline, or the golden wings tucked into neat, demure folds at her back. Instead, Chloe’s first words were, “Are you more a roast chicken girl or a salad-and-everything-else girl?”

Sumiku hesitated, her hands folded with conscious symmetry on her lap. “This one is grateful for anything,” she said, then caught herself. “This one will have the salad, if it is no trouble.”

Chloe grinned, popping a grape tomato into her mouth. “No trouble. The dressing’s heavy on the citrus, though. If that’s weird, I can swap you for a piece of the chicken. I think it’s got a honey glaze.”

Sumiku’s mouth quirked—a ghost of a smile, but visible if you looked for it. Her eyes lingered on the sweating pitcher, its surface beaded with cold moisture unlike any tea vessel she had ever known. She reached for it with her upper left hand, her fingers hesitating for a fraction of a second before closing around the unfamiliar chill. Her right hand remained perfectly still at her side, the gesture so practiced it seemed choreographed. She poured with careful precision, the pale liquid swirling into Chloe’s glass first, then Emi’s, then Dawn’s. Only when the others were served did she fill her own, the ice clinking softly like strange, frozen stones. “Serving is the least this one can offer,” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the clatter of the hall.

Dawn caught her wrist before she could set the pitcher down. Her own fingers were warm and dry against Sumiku’s cool skin. “Hey,” she said, not loud, gentle, “you don’t owe anyone here service. That’s not how we run the table.”

Sumiku went still. For half a second, her hands didn’t know what to do, each one hovering in a different quadrant of empty air. Emi noticed, and slid the vegetable plate closer, using two right hands—one to steady, one to push—then made a show of lining up the tongs so all Sumiku had to do was pick them up.

Sumiku didn’t hesitate when Emi offered the tongs, but she didn’t move with ease, either. She managed them, all four hands bracing the plate and the utensils as if it were a sword ceremony. She portioned out three careful, nearly identical servings of salad, then made the mistake of glancing at Chloe for approval.

Chloe just winked, took the plate with a soft thank you, and made room for Sumiku to do the same for the chicken. Emi leaned in, four of her hands poised ready around her own plate, and said, “You don’t have to impress anyone here. If you spill it, I’ll probably just copy you.” She was smiling, but the way her top left hand hovered at the ready, catching a stray carrot as it skidded off the plate, was more comforting than the words themselves.

Dawn watched, sipping her own iced tea, as Sumiku worked. The more Sumiku did, the less sure she seemed of herself, hands twitching each time she had to stop moving or wait her turn. The instant every plate was settled and the pitcher set down, Sumiku folded her hands—top pair at her lap, lower pair underneath them—and sat perfectly still, as if waiting for permission to begin.

Chloe, recognizing the moment, cleared her throat. “So. The real question,” she said, “is whether you always go for the hardest job, or if you’re just showing off for the rest of us.”

Sumiku looked up, eyes faintly wide. “This one—” She stopped, caught herself. “This one does not intend to outshine.” Her voice dipped so low it was nearly drowned out by the scrape of Emi’s fork against her plate.

Dawn reached over and laid a hand—warm, steady, familiar—on Sumiku’s nearest wrist. “You don’t have to keep score,” she said, not letting go until she was sure the message landed. “You don’t even have to finish the salad.”

For a few seconds, Sumiku didn’t answer, the four hands curling and uncurling in turns, as if she was playing all the possible responses through in parallel. Then she said, “Thank you,” and the words sounded like they belonged to someone out of practice with kindness. She picked at her salad, small bites, never more than one item per forkful.

There was a silence, but it wasn’t tense—just the kind of quiet that follows when people are trying to find the shape of a group.

Chloe let it breathe, then broke it with a lightness that could only have been honed by years of teaching children how to talk to each other. “So, Sumiku. Do you like it here?”

Sumiku blinked at the directness. Her lower hands pressed together under the table, upper pair folded over the edge, and her eyes darted once to Dawn, then Emi, before landing on Chloe. “This one… thinks she does,” she said, careful with every word. “The kitchen is familiar. But the table is… new. Good new. Perhaps.”

“New is hard for all of us,” Chloe said. “The food helps.” She speared a cucumber slice with her fork. “I know you haven’t met the others yet, but you’ll like them. The more you meet, the less weird everything seems.” She grinned. “Except maybe Andy. He’s still weird.”

A ripple of laughter chased around the table, small but real.

Dawn caught it and kept the mood moving. “Did you get to walk the gardens this morning, before coming here?” She didn’t push, just left it open.

Sumiku shook her head. “This one was with Amaterasu-no-Okami. She taught me of… new developments. What it is to be in a family like this.” She said it flat, no pity, no asking for it.

Emi set her fork down, and with four perfectly coordinated hands, she mimed a slow, gentle round of applause. “Arabella is good at making things sound comforting. But if you ever need a break, you can come join me in the art studio. It’s quieter, and nobody expects anything except that you try.”

Sumiku studied Emi for a long moment. “You are the dreamer,” she said. “Amaterasu-no-Okami mentioned you.” A hush dropped over the table—something in the words, or the memory of another time, sharpened every sense for a moment.

“I was. I mean, I am,” Emi said. Her top right hand fidgeted with a spoon, then stilled.

Dawn smiled softly. “Andy says Emi taught him to fold origami. He still has a few paper cranes in his room. He showed me how to make them, a few weeks ago. He’s good at it, but Emi’s still better.”

Chloe, never one to let a sentimental moment go too heavy, said, “I always thought Andy’s hands were too big for origami.” She bit her lower lip, then added, “I guess it worked out.”

Sumiku’s face went still, but her eyes didn’t lose the thread. “There are many things hands can be good for, even if they are not made for paper.”

Chloe laughed, “That’s what Andy keeps saying.” She tipped her head toward Sumiku, inviting her in. “By the way—do you like the tea? I didn’t pick it, but it’s the one thing here that never disappoints.”

Sumiku looked at her glass, the surface bright with floating lemon and two thin ice cubes. She hesitated, then lifted the glass and took a careful sip. Her mouth went small and pursed, and she considered for a moment, as if searching for the exact word to offer.

“It is very cold,” she said finally. “But good.” Her lower left hand mimed the glass’s chill, fingers flexing as if they could feel it all the way to the bone.

Emi took this as the right moment. “You’re allowed to have more, you know. Or just drink it all and ask for something else.” She filled her own glass, then, as if by magic, managed to refill both Dawn and Chloe’s, the pitcher barely sloshing. “No rules at the table, except that you can’t throw food unless someone gives you permission.”

Sumiku listened with rapt attention. “It is very free here,” she said. She looked at her hands, flexed them all at once. “This one is not used to… not being needed.”

Chloe saw the moment and didn’t dodge. “You are needed,” she said, “but not for what you think. Andy likes us for us, not because we can pour tea or carry plates.” She looked directly at Sumiku. “We all had a life before this, and none of us got much out of it. But we got to choose what we keep now.”

Sumiku’s lower right hand clenched, knuckles pale against the table. “This one is not sure what to do with that choice.” There was no tremor, just a fierce, almost soldierly tension.

Emi reached over and laid her top left hand gently over Sumiku’s clenched one, her grip feather-light but real. “You don’t have to decide today. Or tomorrow.” She squeezed once. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Sumiku let her hand uncurl, fingers spreading beneath Emi’s. “Thank you.” The words were soft, but there was a heat in them now, a kind of pride leaking in around the edges.

Chloe, satisfied, sat back and let the comfort do its work.

They ate, then, with the quiet of people who are okay being together in silence. The sunlight moved across the floor, warming the gold edge of the pitcher and the half-moons of salad plates and bread baskets. Chloe never once let the conversation get heavy again, turning every small subject into an easy joke, every hard pause into something soft.

When the meal was nearly done, Emi looked at Sumiku’s plate and said, “Do you want the last roll? It’s got your name on it, if you want it.”

Sumiku hesitated, then shook her head. “This one is full.” Her lower hands folded back to rest, perfectly mirrored, on her knees.

“Okay,” Emi said, “but next time, you’re on roll duty. I bet you could win in a bread-eating contest.” She winked, which made Chloe snort and choke on her iced tea.

The whole table dissolved into laughter, and when it died down, there was a sense that something had changed: a crack in the careful, a slant toward the ordinary, the smallest seed of ease.

It was Chloe who noticed Katherine first, gliding through the tables like a vision out of an old, sepia photograph. Her movements were measured, almost regal, but her eyes darted like she wasn’t used to the noise and movement. She paused at the threshold, then moved toward the table with intent, not quite touching the ground so much as skimming just above it.

Dawn saw her and waved, “Katherine! Over here.” Her voice, pitched up just a little, cut through the clatter and called every eye.

Katherine’s face broke into a quick, embarrassed smile, and she reached the table, one hand cupped as if holding something invisible.

Dawn made the introductions. “Sumiku, this is Katherine. Katherine, Sumiku.”

Katherine nodded once, her hand still out, palm up, as if waiting for a bird to land.

Katherine’s hand hovered, palm up, at the edge of the table. The gesture was precise, almost ritual—fingers lightly curled, wrist turned just-so—and if it had been meant for anyone other than Sumiku, it might have looked staged, the performance of welcome rather than the thing itself. But Sumiku understood this kind of language. She mirrored the gesture with her own hand, matching Katherine’s symmetry exactly, and when their palms touched it was like the closing of an ancient circuit: no voltage, just recognition.

Chloe watched the exchange with her head cocked, sunlight glinting off the little swirl of gold chain at her throat. She didn’t interrupt. Neither did Dawn, who just set her fork down and waited, a patient stillness that would have been lost on anyone who hadn’t spent the last two months watching women learn how to be friends from scratch. Emi, for her part, leaned in closer, eyes tracking every motion, six hands poised but entirely at rest for the first time since the start of the meal.

Katherine let the touch linger. There was no pressure, just the kind of surety that comes from doing something perfectly right the first time and knowing you don’t have to apologize for it. Then she tapped her own chest with her free hand, then reached out to touch Sumiku’s shoulder, then the table, then finally—slow and deliberate—made a small, boxed-in motion with her hands, as if outlining the edges of something invisible and precious.

Sumiku was still holding her hand, but she watched the gestures with the full intensity of someone who’d spent a lifetime learning to read signals far subtler than this. Her four hands didn’t move, but her wings did—just the barest tremble in the long gold pinions at her back, as if the air had suddenly changed pressure.

“She’s saying,” Emi guessed, voice low but confident, “that she knows what it’s like to be boxed in. To be here and not here. She had... a long time to learn how to show it without words.”

Katherine glanced at Emi, then at Chloe, then gave the smallest, quickest nod—confirmation, but also, maybe, gratitude.

Sumiku didn’t let go, but she also didn’t answer for a long moment. The world at the edge of the table faded away—the noise, the light, the scent of lemon and cut greens and iced tea—and what was left was the point of contact: the memory of an old, relentless pain, and the knowledge that it was seen, if not fixed.

“Thank you,” Sumiku said, softly, even if it only came out as a murmur.

Katherine broke the handhold gently, then tapped the table again, her face shifting through a tiny sequence of expressions: invitation, reassurance, something that looked almost like a dare. She pointed at the crowd.

Emi said, “She wants to show you something. But only if you want.”

Sumiku nodded, four arms flexing at once, and pushed her chair back. She stood, her height a match for Katherine, and let the other woman take the lead. Dawn started to rise as if to follow, but Sumiku, without thinking, put one hand out to stop her.

“If it is alright,” Sumiku said, “this one would like to go alone.”

Dawn blinked, surprised but not offended. “Of course,” she said. “We’ll be right here if you want to come back.”

The two women walked away from the table, not hurrying, not drawing attention, just moving together toward the far side of the Dance Hall where the light was brightest and the windows looked out onto the Inner Gardens. Their steps matched, the rhythm of people who’d never met but who knew the rules of shared space instinctively.

Emi watched them go, her hands busying themselves with the stray crusts and crumbs on her plate, but her eyes never leaving the pair until they’d rounded the far end of the room and vanished from sight. Chloe let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and started to say something—maybe a joke, maybe a word for the moment—but Dawn cut her off with a squeeze of her wrist.

“That was brave,” Dawn said, softly. “For both of them.”

Chloe nodded, the muscles in her shoulders finally unclenching. “They’ll be okay,” she said, and she sounded like she meant it.

---

Noah stood at the edge of the Dance Hall, a few steps inside the long, glass-paneled entrance, and scanned the late-morning chaos for the woman she’d come to see. The room was half-full now that the main breakfast rush had burned off, but the tables still bristled with talking, eating, and the slow, uncertain mathematics of strangers learning each other’s names. To most, it would have been easy enough to blend in, to just sit down and act like everyone else, but Noah had never blended anywhere in her life, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to start now.

Her body, by default, was a deep violet so dark it verged on black, a fluid mass somewhere between molten glass and slow-motion ink. If she concentrated, she could stack it into a passable of a very busty human woman, even a pretty one. She’d learned to hold the shape for public spaces—less because she cared about appearances and more because it made other people more comfortable—but she never lost the sense that at any moment, she could just relax and turn into a puddle, slide under the door, and never have to explain herself again.

She moved between the tables, careful to take up less space than she needed, and kept her stride even, not too fast or slow. At the far end, by the windows, she spotted her target: Claire, alone, notebook open, pen spinning in restless circles between her fingers. Her tail was wrapped tight around one ankle, its tip flicking in rhythm with the scribble of her handwriting. There was a plate beside her, untouched except for a single peeled orange that had been torn into neat crescents and arranged into a perfect, symmetrical ring on the rim.

Noah hesitated. Then she put on her best imitation of a smile and walked over, stopping just close enough to be noticed without hovering. “Claire?” she said, barely above a whisper, as if she wasn’t entirely sure she’d gotten it right.

Claire’s head jerked up, eyes wide. She’d been so deep in the notebook she hadn’t tracked Noah’s approach, and for a second, the surprise erased every other emotion from her face. Then her mouth softened, her slit pupils widened, and her whole body did this thing where the tension drained out, leaving only relief and—Noah thought—delight. Claire fumbled the pen, knocked it off the table, caught it on the rebound, and then lost it again, where it rolled under the chair. She didn’t bother to pick it up. Instead, she grabbed the backup pen from her pocket, and scribbled a line at the top of the page. She held it up for Noah to read. It said, simply: Noah, it’s good to finally meet you. I was hoping you would come.

Noah looked at the words, then at Claire, then down at her own hands, which she’d shaped into something delicate and feminine. “I was hoping to meet you, too,” she said, a little too fast, a little too formal. “I mean—I didn’t know if you’d want to, but I wanted to.”

Claire nodded. She tapped the notebook once, then flipped back several pages, searching for something. When she found it, she slid the whole thing across the table, careful not to knock over the orange ring. The page she’d landed on was densely annotated: Noah’s original letter, pasted in at the top, with a thicket of marginalia in Claire’s tiny, upright script. Several lines had been underlined or starred, and the bottom quarter of the page was bracketed in red pen, the only spot of color on the spread.

Claire pointed at the third bracketed line, then at Noah. The line read: What you did without that advantage is arguably the more meaningful data point, not mine.

Noah went to demur, but Claire was already writing. The new note was quick, almost impatient: I stand by it. It’s the harder data point. It’s not a lesser one.

Noah’s face did something complicated. She said, “It doesn’t really compare, though. You—” she gestured at the cat ears, the tail, the notebook, all of it “—you figured it out instantly. You never missed a day. I—” She stopped. “It took me a while, and I still get it wrong half the time.”

Claire’s mouth quirked again, sharper this time. She wrote: Your letter did the same thing. You gave me all the credit and took none. That’s not how data works. She capped the pen and set it down, as if that was the end of the argument.

Noah reached for the conversation’s next step. “You said—” she hesitated, not wanting to sound like she’d memorized the letter, even though she absolutely had “—that you wanted to know more about the, um, physical side of being a slime girl.” She waited, gave Claire a second to confirm or steer away.

Claire’s whole face lit up, her eyes going bright and cat-slit, and she nodded so hard her glasses slipped down her nose. She fumbled them back into place, grabbed the pen, and wrote: I have one hundred and seventeen questions. But you don’t have to answer if it’s uncomfortable.

Noah laughed. “I’m probably more comfortable talking about it than you are hearing it,” she said. “Ask whatever you want.”

Claire’s first question came fast, almost on top of the last word: How much can you add to your mass before it’s hard to keep up? Do you notice, or does it just… fall off?

Noah considered. “I can do maybe ten percent more without feeling it. After that, I have to keep moving or it all slumps. I guess it’s like how you feel after running, but in every part of you at once.” She paused. “It’s the same as retaining a human shape. If I stop thinking about it, I just sort of… melt.”

Claire scribbled the answer down, not even looking at the paper as she wrote, then darted a glance up. The next question was already forming, but she hesitated, almost shy for the first time all morning.

Noah beat her to it. “You want to know about the…” she waggled her hand, a lazy, amoeba-logic gesture “…consciousness. How it works.”

Claire nodded, starting intently.

“It’s weird,” Noah said, “but not bad-weird. I can feel everything, like every millimeter of me has its own senses, but it’s still all one brain. The part that’s strange is that I approximate eyes, and ears, but I see and hear with my whole body.”

Thank you, Claire wrote, then circled it twice.

Noah, emboldened, said, “You’re not going to ask the gross stuff? How I eat? How I get rid of it?”

Claire shook her head. She wrote, I watched episodes. I know you digest your food by volume, and that you can reabsorb pretty much everything. But if you want to show me, I’d like to see the process. For science.

Noah laughed again, lower, more relaxed. “Not today. I had three plates at breakfast. If I eat any more, I’ll have to take a nap under the table.”

The questions kept coming, each one faster than the last, and the space between them grew smaller as they found the rhythm. Claire wanted to know about color—could Noah shift her hue, or was she stuck with the purple-black? (“I can do shades, but not full colors. I think I’m stuck at ultraviolet, if that makes sense.”) She wanted to know about solidity, if Noah could hold an edge like a real knife. (“Only for a few seconds, and only if I brace it. Otherwise it just flops.”) She wanted to know about temperature, and volume, and whether Noah ever got tired of the way people looked at her.

Noah answered every question, openly, plainly, sometimes with more candor than she’d meant to show. “I used to mind it,” she said. “But lately I don’t care as much. I figure, if I’m going to be this weird, I should be the best version of it I can.”

Claire wrote: I wish I could feel that way about one or two of my transformations. She flicked one ear, then the other, her expression tightening. She wrapped her tail around her wrist like a worry stone, then let it drop. The ears and tail were never the problem—I liked those from day one. It’s the other things. The way my body wants to make twins or triplets every time. But mostly the heat once a month, even though I haven’t experienced it yet—and worse, the fact I can interact others with it too.

Noah sat with it for a long second, jaw working as she absorbed the data. “Thank you,” she said, very quietly.

Claire reached for the pen again, slower this time. She wrote for a while, longer than any answer she'd given yet, then turned the notebook around: You're not weird. You're just data nobody collected before I got here.

Noah read it twice. Then she laughed — soft, surprised, like it had gotten past her guard before she could brace for it. “I'm getting that embroidered on something,” she said. She reached across the table, slow enough that Claire could pull back if she wanted to, and closed one hand loosely around Claire's wrist — cool, weightless, no more pressure than a held breath. Claire didn't pull back. “Talk more later?” Noah asked. “I’m sure you’ll have twenty more questions by then.”

Claire was already writing before Noah finished the sentence. She turned the notebook around one last time: I'm holding you to that.

---

Katherine and Sumiku moved as one, a pair of outlines cut out from the noise and poured sunlight of the Dance Hall. Even at a distance, Dawn could tell their hands were still joined—Katherine’s laced between two of Sumiku’s four with the kind of stubborn tenderness that only meant one thing: you’re not going through this alone, even if you think you are. For a few seconds, Dawn just watched. It was like watching the world’s slowest relay handoff: all the nervous energy from the table was now crossing the room, one stride at a time, toward the cluster of window-side tables where the rest of the day’s oxygen seemed to be hiding.

She waited, not moving yet. If you trailed too close behind a gesture like that, it turned into a rescue—turned the moment into performance, or worse, forced them to be fine for your benefit. Dawn understood that dance by now. She ate another few bites, let Emi and Chloe fill the space with harmless nonsense, and told them, “I’ll catch up. Just need a sec,” before she even had the words all the way out. Only then did she slip quietly out of her chair, a safe distance behind the others.

She tracked their path by the shifting of the sunlight on the blackwood floor. The table they aimed for was set in the brightest wedge of the window-bay, where the hard-edged light threw everything into a kind of slow-motion theater. At this table, a woman with skin that looked like wood sat with both hands wrapped white-knuckle tight around a bunched napkin, eyes not quite fixed on anything inside the Hall, but not on the gardens outside either. She looked like someone caught mid-transition, as if she’d sat down to compose herself and never managed to start the work.

A young woman with lilac skin and pointy ears stood at the wood-skinned woman’s shoulder—not looming, just present, hands tucked behind her back, white hair loose, the perfect opposite of her companion’s own straight fall of mahogany. They didn’t touch, but the lilac-skinned woman kept her chair a few inches closer than etiquette required, and when her companion shifted, she shifted just enough to keep herself between her companion and the room. There was nothing showy in it, just a steadying, anchoring presence.

Katherine released Sumiku’s hand only when they reached the table. She waved with a bright smile at the lilac-skinned woman first, then at the wood-skinned woman, a small, unhurried wave, the kind that asked nothing back. The lilac-skinned woman straightened and said, quietly, “Hi, Aunt Katherine. I’m Summer. And this is Jenny.” Jenny didn’t look up, but her grip on the napkin shifted slightly, as if she’d registered the sound of her own name being handled with care. Sumiku stepped forward, and there was a half-second of hesitation before she said, “This one is Sumiku.”

Katherine nodded once, confirming it, then stepped past the introduction entirely and took Jenny’s hand, folding both of her own around it with a pressure that left no room for negotiation. She pressed it gently to the tabletop and held it there until Jenny’s fingers started to unclench. Without a word, she poured a cup of tea from the sweating ceramic pot already there, topped it up to just under the rim, and set it directly in front of Jenny before anyone had asked for anything. Only after the tea was secure did Katherine sink into the nearest chair, straight-backed and deliberate.

For a while, the four of them just sat. The table was set for six, but only half the places were filled: Katherine nearest the window, Summer standing at Jenny’s left shoulder and not quite sitting, Sumiku across from Jenny, and Jenny herself, hands still knotted around the napkin but now resting on the table instead of clenched in her lap.

Then, as if on a timer, Katherine lifted her hand and made the gesture: three fingers held vertical, then pointed, one by one, at Jenny, at herself, and at Sumiku. She flattened her palm, held it up for everyone to see, and then slowly rotated it until it was level with the table, palm open, and spread her fingers wide.

Summer tracked the gesture, smiled faintly, and said, “She means you’re all the same. I mean, not the same-same, but…” She trailed off, eyes going to the window, then back to Jenny. “Aunt Katherine doesn’t talk, but she’s very good at making people get it. I think what she means,” Summer went on, “is that the three of you are the only ones in the room who’ve actually come back from elimination.” She said it like it was a miracle, like she couldn’t believe the luck of having three such people at the same table on the same day.

Katherine, not satisfied to let it sit at that, reached for Jenny’s hand again. She pressed it between both of her own, a gesture so sure it drained the air of doubt. Then she set Jenny’s hand down, took a sip of her own tea, and waited for the next move.

Summer, who had watched the gesture with a kind of reverence, turned to Sumiku and said, “Uncle Andy said he would try to free you. I didn’t think he could. I didn’t watch the video, but I figured if anyone could do it, he’d find the trick. I’m glad you’re here.” Her words weren’t just for Sumiku, but for all of them.

Jenny’s posture eased by degrees, her grip on the napkin going slack until the thing flopped open on the table like a wilted flower. She looked at Sumiku, then at Katherine, and back at Sumiku, eyes searching for something she couldn’t name. “I keep thinking I should know how to handle this,” Jenny said, then let out a dry, surprised laugh. “But I don’t. I don’t recognize most of the people here. I don’t know if I’m supposed to act like nothing happened, or talk about it, or just be quiet. Sometimes I hear a word, and it’s like the whole room is speaking a different language.”

Sumiku, who had listened without a single twitch of her wings or hands, said, “This one cannot tell if food is kindness or a test. Sometimes, even now.” She looked at her empty plate, then at Jenny’s. “Earlier, a woman waved at this one, and this one almost ran. This one thought she was signaling to punish.” Her voice, always precise, grew softer. “Then this one remembered—no one is keeping score, here.”

Jenny’s mouth twitched. The look she gave Sumiku was one of immediate, fierce recognition. “I know exactly what you mean,” she said. Then, in a gesture so quick only Summer saw it happen, Jenny reached out and gently fixed the fold of Sumiku’s sleeve where it had slipped off her shoulder, straightening it with a kind of deliberate tenderness. “There,” she said, and though she smiled, her eyes were damp. The look they traded after needed no translation.

Jenny looked at her glass, then at Summer, then at Sumiku. “Does it ever actually go away?” she asked, her voice quieter now, almost reverent. “The feeling that everything is a rehearsal, or a trick? That if you say the wrong thing, it’s all going to snap shut again?”

Sumiku sat with the question for a long moment, her four hands closing together in a gentle, interlaced knot. “This one does not know,” she said, honest. “This one was only freed this morning. But now is easier than this morning. And sitting here with you, it is… easier still.” She tipped her head, a small bow to the table.

Katherine watched them both with a soft smile, then tapped the table near Jenny to draw her attention, and nodded with an encouraging smile. She gestured towards the room, the other guests, and made as if to hug the whole thing.

Jenny gave a half-laugh, the kind that starts as a sob and gets cut off by embarrassment. “I’m still working on it, myself,” she said. “But thanks.” She blinked, wiped her face, and when she looked up, the moment had passed into something lighter.

Dawn, who had been watching from a safe distance two tables away, saw the change in real time: Jenny’s laughter, short and surprised, at some wordless joke from Sumiku’s lower arms; Summer’s exaggerated eyeroll, mirrored by Katherine’s quick sideways smile. It was enough. Dawn turned back to her own plate, content to watch from afar—close enough to reach them if either woman needed help, far enough that neither would have to perform being fine just for her benefit.

The small group at the window stayed put long after the main lunch had cleared out. As the sun drifted, their table remained a pocket of calm, the four of them—Katherine, Jenny, Sumiku, and Summer—rooted to the spot, talking sometimes, silent more often, but always together.

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By lunch’s end, the grand dance hall had shed most of its guests to the coffee table, sunlight flooding empty tables through the tall windows as if eager to claim the space for itself. Riley, Marissa, and Norah found the table they’d been steered toward—front and center, empty chairs waiting, with a bread basket and cut-glass pitcher of water holding court for a pair of strangers.

The nearer stranger looked about twenty and carried the cocksure posture of someone who knew her own effect. She wore her hair in pink pigtails, each tied with a bow that matched the banding on her black gothic cheerleader’s uniform; at the crown of her head, a pair of perfectly matched dog ears—equally pink, like some anime afterthought—stood at attention.

Her companion was older, maybe late twenties, with arms folded across the table—which did nothing to minimize the sheer improbability of her chest. Her hair was dyed jet black, loose around a pair of small, rounded bovine ears, and a tail curved out from under the hem of a plain black t-shirt, its tuft resting against the chair leg. She was pale, brown-eyed, and built in a way that made the rest of her seem almost like an afterthought, and even her slouch managed to look deliberate.

Riley set her hands flat on the chair backs, nodding to the two with a casual “Mind if we join?” that didn’t really need an answer. She recognized neither of them from the morning’s social pageant, but the wariness in both faces felt familiar. There were only so many ways to signal you’d survived something.

“Take a load off,” said the pink-haired girl, voice pitched half an octave below expectation—sharp, a little worn. “We’re not saving them for anybody.” She jabbed a thumb toward the bread. “Go wild.”

Norah sat first, scooting in without hesitation, and snagged a roll for herself as if to test the claim. Riley and Marissa settled in, the latter a little slower, eyes already sweeping the table for tells.

Introductions came quick: “Riley,” “Norah,” “Marissa.” The pink-haired one grinned wide, showing off a pair of slightly elongated canines. “Stacy,” she said. Then, with a glance sideways, “and Susan Wagner, who for some reason still thinks giving her last name is normal.”

The cow-girl—Susan—nodded at each in turn, then locked eyes with Marissa a moment longer than necessary. “Pleasure,” Susan said, her voice low and even, like she was used to talking over noise.

Marissa’s composure flickered just a second. Riley saw it—hell, Norah probably did too—and clocked that Marissa had recognized something before even Marissa did.

“So,” said Stacy, after a beat, “you’re the therapist, right?” She cocked her head, and the dog ears twitched to keep up.

Marissa inclined her head. “That’s me,” she said, but the tone had shifted: not the public-relations calm, more the voice she used when something complicated needed to be handled in front of an audience.

Susan’s face softened, the corners of her mouth twitching as if she’d decided not to smile after all. “I wrote you once,” Susan said, then hesitated. “Kind of a long time ago. You probably don’t remember.”

There it was. Marissa, always careful, let her eyes dart away, as if the name had a flavor she needed to parse. “From Shar,” she said, after a second. “A letter, and a picture, and a gold—” She didn’t finish, but Riley saw the flicker in her throat, the memory visible in the way her posture squared up.

Susan nodded, a little too quickly. “Yeah. Shar. That’s our Host.” Her hands curled into loose fists on the table. “She sent the photo so you’d know it wasn’t a joke. You, um. You answered.”

Riley shot Marissa a glance: the unreadable one, the “you okay to talk about this?” look. Marissa didn’t acknowledge it. She just said, “I remember. I kept the letter, actually. The picture too.”

The bread basket thumped onto the table, Norah letting it go with a little more force than necessary. “She keeps all her letters,” Norah said, dry. “She’s got a whole box in her room.”

Marissa looked directly at Susan. “I kept it because I wanted to thank you. The story you told about learning to love your transformation—it helped. You said the collar and the cowbell weren’t humiliating for you, just… freeing. That nobody could make you feel less if you loved it first.” Marissa’s cheeks had colored slightly, but her gaze didn’t waver.

Susan absorbed it, her whole body going very still. For half a second, her ears seemed to dip, then she reached for a water glass, the motion slow and deliberate, and took a sip before setting it down exactly where it started. “I meant it,” she said. “I still do.”

“In a way, you helped me accept the first changes from the show.” Marissa smiled, and for the first time since sitting down, she looked like herself again.

A silence, just long enough to edge awkwardness, and then Riley rolled her eyes and said, “God, you two are worse than the kids at my old youth center. You want a moment alone, or can the rest of us eat our bread in peace?”

Susan let out a little snort; Stacy cackled, low and sharp, the dog ears flattening, then springing back up.

Norah, who had been watching the bread-to-roll ratio with professional detachment, fixed Stacy with a stare. “If you want the last one, take it,” she said. “Otherwise I’m going to.”

Stacy, never one to pass up a dare, reached for it with lightning speed and tore it neatly in half, then set one piece on Riley’s plate without comment. “Fair’s fair,” she said, then added, “You’ve got the best arms here, but I bet you can’t out-eat me.”

Riley grinned. “You wanna go?” She scooped up the bread, bit it in half, and washed it down with a swig of water. “You’re on.”

Stacy nodded, then stuffed the half-roll in her mouth and looked at Marissa with an odd, measuring gaze. “So. Therapist. Was it weird for you, getting the fan mail? I mean, I’m guessing most of it is just people wanting to be fixed, but some of it must have been…” She left it hanging.

“Yeah,” said Marissa. “Some of it was. But a lot was just encouraging.” She hesitated, then said, “I read every single one.”

Susan made a face, then relented. “Yeah, okay. I’m glad mine landed the way Shar wanted.”

“It did,” said Marissa. “And for what it’s worth, I think you wear the ears really well.”

The compliment landed—Susan’s ears went faintly red at the tips, and she smiled, shy and sudden, like she hadn’t gotten used to praise even after all these years.

Norah caught the shift and leaned in, elbows on the table. “You know, Marissa never used to say things like that. First week here, she blushed at the word ‘nipple.’”

Marissa shot Norah a warning look, but the conversation had already defused; Stacy was slouching back in her chair, her tail wagging a slow, lazy arc under the table, and Norah was watching the window with a faraway, satisfied smile.

The rest of the meal unspooled in a loose, companionable spiral. Talk drifted from the topic of transformations—what they felt like, which ones were worse than the rest—to the logistics of the upcoming wedding, to the breakfast itself.

Norah, mostly silent, watched and listened, and at one point said, without looking up, “You know, I never thought I’d get used to this. Any of it. But it’s kind of nice, having people who get it.” She made it sound like a dare, but nobody argued.

Stacy glanced at her sideways. “You mean, like, a support group for weirdos?”

Norah shot her a look. “Exactly. Andy, your sister and the others have their Masters Support Association thing going. Why not us?”

Susan, who had been silent for a few beats, caught Marissa’s eye. “Do you ever miss it?” she said. “The regular life. The real world?”

Marissa shrugged. “Sometimes. But then I remember what it was actually like, and I realize I don’t.”

Stacy said, “I never fit in before. This is just more honest about it.”

Riley lifted her glass. “Here’s to honesty, then.”

Norah clinked hers against it. “And to weird support groups.”

The mood was broken, inevitably, by Liesa’s voice, sharp and clear from the head of the room: “All right, you weirdos, up and let’s go! We’re supposed to be in the kitchen for the next event, move it!”

There was laughter from the tables, the clatter of chairs, and a general drift toward the doors as the stragglers packed up their plates and made for the next thing.

Riley stood, stretching her arms overhead and rolling her neck. “That’s us,” she said. “You two coming?”

Susan nodded. “Yeah. We’ll catch up.”

Stacy was already up, stacking her plate on top of Riley’s, tail wagging in an easy rhythm. “Don’t fall behind,” she said, then added, “and if you do, bring dessert.”

Norah, never the slowpoke, was already at the threshold. She waited just long enough for Marissa to catch up, then fell in beside her, the two of them gliding through the thinning crowd with the efficiency of women who had long ago figured out how to handle anything, even a room full of strangers.

Marissa looked back, just once, and caught Susan’s eye. They nodded, small and private, and then the table was empty.