Sunspot

My foot and stomach dragged me out of oblivion, blaring in chorus that my body needed maintenance. I rolled onto my front, face directly into the pillow, protesting against their insistence, but that just made my foot proclaim more loudly that it needed attention. I groped blindly for my phone in the dark, wincing. I couldn’t find it for a moment; the nightstand was further away than it had been in my old apartment.

ezzen: Foot hurts more. Maybe 6/10?

ezzen: Also gm

ebi-furai: on it

Ebi understood what was important in life: painkillers.

ebi-furai: gimme a couple minutes

ebi-furai: amethyst is asleep, just making sure shes stable enough for me to ditch

My phone’s clock read 7:28 when I heard knocking and the mechanical click of the door opening, followed by the tap-tap of Ebi’s feet on the hardwood.

“How’d you sleep?”

“Woke up…twice? Opal yelling at Sapphire and…an earthquake, I think?”

I’d also had a weird dream, but that was par for the course, and the details had already faded. Something about ice? Hina had also been there too; my subconscious had a lot to work through.

“Not an earthquake.”

“Then—argh. Bright.”

I squeezed my eyes shut in protest at the lights, groaning. I heard Ebi pace over to the bedside as I gingerly tried to hold my eyes open for long enough to adjust.

“Leg.”

She waited for me to pull down the blanket and extract my leg as I continued to rub my eyes. Pain at both ends of my body—think about something else.

“Not an earthquake?”

“Amethyst didn’t have a great night.”

The burned stump was looking about as good as you could ask at this stage of healing—which was to say, not very good at all. It was an angry melding of red, purple, and brown, some areas glistening with a thin layer of pus. Ebi leaned over it, humming a jaunty melody in chiptune.

“Don’t put the prosthetic back on until you bathe and clean it. I can give you a local analgesic patch and some…I think this is aspirin.”

“You think?”

“Pretty sure.”

I eyed the unlabeled bottle that had appeared in her hand while I had been looking at the burned flesh, reasonably sure she was screwing with me.

“Patch first, please. It’s magic?”

“{NULL}-{SEVER} on red, same thing that your bed was using.”

I vaguely resented that she told me outright instead of letting me piece it together. I couldn’t quite recall what I had seen in the spell circle Ai had used yesterday for comparison; probably less precise than that, but I’d take general numbness over pain.

“Go for it.”

Her hand not holding the pill bottle did the rotating-twisting thing a few times.

“How’s that work, anyway?”

“I have a little warehouse pharmacy thing tucked into fourspace. There’s a little arm in there that grabs the thing I need and passes it to one of my external hands.”

How eldritch. Her hand blurred and was now holding the patch, which could have been mistaken for a largeish band-aid, maybe five inches by two inches. I could see the glyphs printed on the surface; in miniature relative to the ones I had drawn during my flight from the PCTF, but in the real world, this was a fairly typical size, small as it could realistically go while remaining weavable with the naked eye and bare hand. Her hand did a fascinating contortion to peel the backing from the patch solo.

Ebi tapped my shin with her knuckle. I shook my head. She did it again, a little lower, and continued until I flinched, right above my ankle. She smoothed the patch against my skin at the indicated height—no change in sensation at all. Did the patch’s orientation matter? Surely, she hadn’t applied it upside down.

“How’s that?”

“It’s not on.”

“Yeah. These are the ones the Radiances use, so they’re self-woven. It’s just empty substrate right now.”

“You didn’t tell me this before because…?”

“You’re going to be doing this a lot. It’s just first-order; Amethyst does this first thing every morning.”

I exhaled a long sigh. It was true that it was about the simplest first-order 2-chain I could ask for, in theory, but I had never actually woven multiple glyphs on a chain like this. Completing the glyphs themselves was the easy part, just a matter of following the guide laid out by the substrates—I had referred to it in my Glyphcraft 101 blog series as “coloring within the lines.” In reality, though, the process was much more finicky. I had to link the glyphs with the correct tension for the desired color of ripple, which was something you supposedly just did ‘by feel’ or with a ripple display. Which I didn’t have.

I glared at her narrow grin, both too hungry and in too much pain to appreciate games. Was this how she treated Amethyst? 

“And you’re making me do it blind, first thing in the morning? No display? I haven’t…”

Of course I hadn’t done it before, but it was still awkward to admit that. It clashed with my self-image as an expert…which had grown remarkably more fragile in the past 48 hours, but it was too early in the morning to confront that.

“I believe in you!”

Furthermore, I really doubted she didn’t have a display somewhere in her toolbox, but she shrugged, a weird motion on her mechanical frame. It wasn’t entirely clear how her shoulders actuated to make it happen.

“Let the record show that I resent you for this. Bedside manner?”

“Used it all up on Amethyst, sorry. Hop to it.”

If I got it wrong and linked on something like blue or orange—well, it wouldn’t be apocalyptic or even dangerous, but I’d have to start over until I got it right. Ugh. The silver lining was that I already had an abundance of pain to work with, so I could postpone the moral quandary of harming my Flame. I gritted my teeth and adjusted my leg to bring it closer to me so I could better see the glyphs printed on the patch while I nudged the thing attached to my soul. Hey, Flame, look! It hurts like shit, isn’t that exciting?

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the fact that talking to it like a dog worked so well. My right hand ignited in white, sparks curling in impossible directions as I clenched my fist and willed the fire to twist into a bundle of twine. Still no properly prepared, silken skein, but…remarkably better than the first times I had woven. It wasn’t burning me anymore, just deeply uncomfortable. Was that just because I’d had some time to acclimate…or had something happened due to my contact with Hina’s Flame?

I didn’t want to think about it, and it didn’t matter right now. Right hand and right ankle—the angle was a little awkward, but I started pushing the thread through the {NULL} glyph. For such a simple concept, it was a fancy glyph; the overall shape was something like a W with the end prongs shorter than the middle, but forming that larger shape involved a few henna-esque spirals and some gradienting in the middle not dissimilar to {ASH}. The spirals were ornamented with smaller loops; in the case of the patch, they were pretty much the smallest physical size you could make a glyph component while still having it be reasonable to weave outside a laboratory. The upshot was that it was quite lenient on the tension gradient required to make it work; most of the detailing was in the shapes itself, and that was easy enough to just follow the substrate for. My execution definitely wasn’t the cleanest, since the thread itself was still awful quality, but it went acceptably well until I reached the part where I had to link it to the next glyph in the chain.

“Couldn’t you—I don’t know, at least give me some tips? Or get one of the Radiances?”

“Sapphire’s making breakfast, Opal is keeping an eye on Amethyst, and Ai is finishing up your stabilizer.” Her digital brow furrowed. “We forgot to mention that last night. Anyway, everyone’s busy, and I’m not qualified to talk you through this.”

“Opal filled me in on the stabilizer. What do you mean not qualified?”

I was actually a little surprised that Opal apparently hadn’t mentioned the contents of our conversation last night to Ebi, considering that they had presumably spent the night in the same room. I supposed I should be grateful that she was keeping some confidentiality regarding what had occurred between me and Hina—I was getting derailed.

“Just because I’m made of LM doesn’t mean I know the tricks.”

“You’re lying.”

It would be incredibly embarrassing if she wasn’t, but this was one of the few things I had any confidence in.

“I am. But it’s basic first-aid that you should learn how to do without tools. Even if you didn’t have your own pain to manage, these things are like half the reason Amethyst can function.”

“You said she applied them herself, though?”

“On good days.”

The appeal to empathy got the better of me. I pushed the thread across the gap between the glyphs, trying to tug it to the approximate range of tension that would get it to resonate with red ripple. It wasn’t so simple as rainbow order; red was on the higher end, between green and white. I tugged as hard as I dared, until the {NULL} I had woven felt like it would burst out of the substrate in a shower of hissing sparks, and backed off on the tension from there until it was at what I hoped was about 80% taut. There were ways of knotting and binding the thread at the end of a glyph to more naturally guide the right amount of tension for this step, but I had only ever interacted with those in the abstracted notation of GWalk diagrams, so I really was going entirely by feel. I was once again struck by the sense that my perspective until now had been too narrow.

Part of the trick of it was that, like with an actual strand of thread, applying tension made it longer, so even though I thought I was at the right amount of tension, I had overshot the beginning of the {SEVER} substrate. This meant I had to tug on various points further back in the first glyph to increase the tension from that end instead, which made the leading edge too short now, and I kept struggling with it back and forth, beginning to redden under Ebi’s observation. The damn thing was just so fiddly, and—I exhaled in frustration, and it came out as almost a growl.

“Can this wait until after breakfast?”

“If you think you can handle the pain, sure. Or you could shower now so you can put the prosthetic back on.”

“…I’ll take that aspirin.”

—

Last night, I had managed to stubbornly limp around my room without my crutches. Today, with the full brunt of the pain in my caramelized stump, that wasn’t an option. It was back to tripod Ezzen for now. We exited the elevator after its single-floor journey to find that Hina had indeed colonized the kitchen. Mixing bowls and measuring cups lay in—well, my read of her personality would have assumed disarray, but it seemed that she ran a tight ship in this aspect of her life, if nowhere else. Things were stacked fairly neatly, and she was actually in the middle of putting away some spare dishes as we approached. The smell in the air suggested something involving batter. She called out with her back to us.

“Irasshaimase! Paaaancakes! Hot and fresh! Come get some!”

Something in the cadence of her delivery suggested a history in food service—she must have had a life before this, strange as that prospect was. She turned to face us, and those blue eyes found mine. For a moment, I was buffeted by a memory of something that had never happened, cracks spiking radially outward—

“Plain or blueberry?”

“Huh?”

“Plain. Or. Blueberry?”

She enunciated each word with a grin. She had done the same thing last night—I was being teased. My eyes slid down from the impossible blue to her lips, then chest covered by an apron reading…“Eat The Cook.” Don’t get caught on the implications of that—stop looking at her boobs—keep going—I looked instead at the cooking supplies arrayed before her. That had been maybe the longest second of my life.

“Oh. Um—blueberry, please.”

“You got it.” She raised her voice, as though calling out to nonexistent kitchen coworkers. “Blueberry shortstack combo!” She turned to Ebi. “And for the lady?”

“Morning, Hina. Amethyst would like blueberry as well, when she’s up and can keep food down. I’ll go get Opal.”

She made for the stairs. She was going to leave me with Hina again? Well…maybe that was fine? My own impulses seemed like more of a problem than her, at least right now. Case in point, as I watched the fascinating geometries of Ebi’s back shift as she climbed the stairs, it felt a bit like ogling—even though she didn’t really have a butt. The moment the robot was out of earshot, Hina purred, leaning onto the counter. I hadn’t noticed with my eyes locked on hers earlier, but she had most of her hair up in a lazy bun, though the hair framing her face was just as it had been yesterday, to my memory.

“Hey, cutie. Nice shirt.”

I twisted to look for whomever she was talking to, but it was just me—then looked down at the Sailor Moon shirt Opal had given me last night, blushing. I felt the need to clarify.

“It—doesn’t mean anything. You ruined the only other one I had.”

“Yep. Won’t do it to that one, though, it’s one of Alice’s favorites. Mine too. Smells like her.” She let that hang for a moment. “Did you sleep okay?”

As per usual, I deflected. It was easier when I was in pain.

“Um. Well enough, but my leg really hurts. I tried to weave one of those pain blocker patches, but…”

“Ebi’s being a bully, got it. Want me to show you?”

I reddened, even knowing that the blatant innuendo was completely intentional. The embarrassment was tempered with relief, though, because I had been worried that whatever strange fetish she had for pain would extend to refusing to help with the damage to my foot.

“I, um, don’t want to interrupt breakfast—”

“It’ll just take a sec.” She pointed at a beanbag chair, a medium grey cast warmly by the lights of the common space, soft and inviting compared to the perpetual mild discomfort of the crutches. In the windows beyond, the sun had only just begun to crest the skyscrapers. “Make yourself comfortable.”

I crutch-hobbled over to the indicated bag and gingerly attempted to lower myself into it, dropping myself the last few inches with a thud and wince. It was comfortable enough, but I had wound up being a little more trapped in the plush than I had intended, which triggered the faintest panic response as Hina approached. Black leggings hugged her swaying hips. She leaned down to me at the waist with effortless balance, almost a gymnast’s stretch.

“No fake foot?”

“Uh—Ebi said I should clean it first, and I didn’t want to do that before bre—oof.”

I was interrupted by her tossing herself bodily next to me on the beanbag. She rolled to bring her torso against mine, the two of us momentarily half-cocooned as our combined weight pushed the beanbag up around us.

“Good morning.”

Those blue eyes stared me down from an inch away. My heart was in my throat. 

“Um. Morning. Didn’t…didn’t Opal talk to you about…?”

“About us? Yeah, but this is medicinal.” Her hand slid under my shirt, roving upward to my chest. “Seriously, if you want me to help you weave, I need some up-close access.” Her other hand found the scarred fingers of my right, rubbing her thumb against my palm. She was having fun with this. “I mean, that’s totally an excuse, but it’s still true.”

She clawed at my chest, and my Flame responded, lancing down through my arm and into my scars, igniting them once more. My hand spasmed for a moment, and I sucked in a breath. Hina also made a noise, something that sounded suspiciously like a whining moan. I froze.

“Um.”

She nuzzled me.

“That was a good sound, don’t worry. Damn, you burn hot.”

She brought her hand around and laced her fingers through mine from the back—my flames were burning her skin. That’s what she had moaned at? This was why she was willing to help me? Pain for pain, like she had said?

“Your hand.”

“Mm. Yeah.” Her contented sigh was a disturbing juxtaposition to the way her skin was cracking and peeling as the odor of charring meat rose into the air. “Don’t worry about it. It’s really good. You ready?”

“I—yeah.”

“Good. O—hokay, bring your leg up. Knee to chest, so you can reach the glyphs.”

I complied, feeling a bit ridiculous, but happy to do as she asked. This was as hands-on as it got, and so much less predatory than what we had done last night. Perhaps equally off-putting, with her masochistic obsession with the Flame on full display, but I wasn’t in danger from her here. This was fully cooperative, mutual. Intimate.

She guided my hand toward the glyph, and even though I couldn’t quite see what was happening down there, I could feel her spinning the flame into thread. It was finer than what I could do myself; the same as what Ai had done yesterday, except the skein wrapped around both our hands, binding them together. She whispered in my ear, breathing harder now.

“Don’t look at it. Go by feel, you already know the shape, right?”

“Y—yeah.” I shut my eyes and tried to visualize the first glyph, the {NULL} with its modified W shape, and—

“What the hell, Hina.”

“Shhhh. Alice, you know I love you, but shut up, we’re right in the middle of this. Don’t break his focus.”

“I—no, get off of him and come make pancakes.”

“Yeah, yeah, just a sec.” Hina lowered her voice to whisper to me, a giggle reverberating in her chest. “Ignore her, finish the weave, you can do it.”

I tried. Into the start of the W, then the zigzag, then the ridged spirals that looped over themselves until the middle of the W—I could hear footsteps on the stairs, accompanied in rhythm by a third sound as Opal’s tail thumped with displeasure behind her. How did the next set of spirals go, clockwise or counterclockwise? Hina saw me hesitate.

“Clockwise. More tension as you come around.”

Right, so that the link wouldn’t be too long. She hummed in approval as I finished the first glyph.

“Do you know the trick for linking on red?”

I blushed. “Um—no.”

“You just loop at the end of—oh, for fuck’s sake, Alice, let him work.” I felt her sit up halfway, tugging my hand away from the patch for a moment. “Sorry, cutie. Keep going! Loop it back through the last two spirals—yeah, good. Listen, Alice, if you want pancakes one minute sooner, the batter’s right there, be my guest.”

One minute? Her expectations of me were high. Also, it was very hard to focus while the label “cutie” bounced around in my head, but I gave it a spirited go. My eyes were still closed, but I felt how the trick contorted the end of the W and applied enough tension that the thread wound up being in the right spot, so I didn’t have to guess as I tugged the string across the gap between glyphs. Then it was just a matter of weaving the {SEVER}, which, true to its theme, was a bisected diamond, filled in with more mildly intricate internal designs—but still nothing particularly difficult, and there was a certain fractal regularity to the shapes, so it was easy enough to remember. Jumping across the bisection to the other side of the diamond was done with a single line, not unlike the inter-glyph link I had just woven from {NULL} to {SEVER}. Then finishing the glyph was just a matter of mirroring the first half—though done in reverse—and tying off the end.

“Good job. Apply it.”

That was Opal, who had evidently resigned herself to watching. I took the trailing end of the thread and…

“Planar, right? So, er…through?”

“Yep, like you’re cutting it off!”

Hina didn’t have to sound quite so excited about that. But I took the thread and pulled it taut to the other side of my leg, then dragged it through the limb like cheese wire—I choked, gritting my teeth, squeezing my eyes further shut. The searing pain was too reminiscent of when I had first cauterized this site, even down to the flat plane of separation—and then the pain vanished, as did all other sensation below the point of the patch. The magic had worked. I took a deep breath and relaxed into the plush, savoring the absence of the pain that had been a constant background presence since the moment I had woken up. Hina flopped back down next to me, and I opened my eyes to see that hers were shut as she lay against me. She purred.

“Good job. That hurt, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Yay!” She pulled her hand off of mine as the magic thread dissolved in a hiss, holding it next to mine and splaying out the fingers. She reopened those blue eyes and smiled at me. “We’re twinning!”

Logic dictated she should be in far more pain than me, with the way her hand was already blistering, but I’d never have guessed from her peppy tone or beatific grin. The only indicator was how a wince flickered across her face as she brought her hand up—and flipped off Opal, who was standing over us. The dragon did not look pleased; her brow was furrowed atop those almost-incandescent orange gems with their slitted pupils, and her mouth was pursed in a not-quite-frown.

“Pancakes. Not—this. Christ, Hina.”

Her lack of concern for the actual state of Hina’s hand was remarkable. The nauseatingly familiar stench of burned meat in the air spoke for itself, and yet neither Radiance seemed concerned at the sight that would have had me running for the cold water and looking up directions to the hospital. The girl snuggling next to me chirped back at her teammate, equally heedless of the injury.

“Yep, mhm, on it.”

There was a whoosh of air as the space next to me was suddenly vacated; Sapphire had pulled herself to her feet and across the room in one motion, with no leverage. As I reeled from the momentary disorientation, I swore I felt the ghost of her lips on my cheek. Opal’s frown deepened, and she sighed—then seemed to decide to put it behind her, offering me a hand, clean and well-manicured, a far cry from the old damage inflicted on mine or the fresh burns on Hina’s. I stared dumbly at the outstretched limb for a moment.

“Uh—”

“Food first. Yelling after.”

A girl had to have priorities, I supposed. I took her hand, and she pulled me to my feet—well, just the one—and helped me back onto the crutches. It was only a few steps over to the low table Hina had originally indicated before I sat again on one of the pillows, also with Opal’s assistance. She sat to my left and pulled her laptop out of—pocketspace? I still wasn’t entirely used to the way that they could just summon objects at will.

“How’s Amethyst?”

“Stable. She probably won’t come down for breakfast, but she’ll be able to eat.”

“Good.”

Good? Of course it was good, so it was a rather lame comment. I resisted the urge to cringe and fumbled for my phone instead.

“Your post caused some headache this morning.”

My brow furrowed. “The PCTF already knows I’m here, don’t they?”

“Just because you’re not an active kidnapping risk doesn’t mean you can go around leaking information. We were going to do teasers and official announcements and stuff, and you’ve gotten out ahead on that.” She put up a hand placatingly. “I’m not yelling at you, I should have said something last night. Just a…miscommunication, left-hand-right-hand disconnect. Your post is still good PR, just ahead of schedule.”

The smell of cooking pancakes reached our noses simultaneously, and she looked over at the kitchen. Hina hadn’t asked for Opal’s preference like she had for me—but then, she probably already knew. The scent was soon joined by something meaty, probably sausages, which helped banish the smell of callously burned flesh. Or maybe not callous, rather…well, the whole affair had been intentional in a distressingly masochistic sense, for sure, but she had also been…staking a claim? That was what it had sort of felt like: pushing back against Opal’s moratorium on unwanted intimacy. It hadn’t been unwanted, I realized. It had been…fun? I was proud of the weaving, if nothing else, and having Hina so willing to snuggle up against me was…

Complicated, is what it was. I shook off the train of thought. What had Opal been saying about PR? I reread the post I had made and the sleepy replies from later in the night. In the burgeoning light of day, I could see how I had overshared a bit; nothing overly sensitive, but if they had been planning to make it more of a reveal…

“Um. Sorry.”

“It’s fine, we’ll work it out. Did you sleep well, at least?”

I didn’t want to mention that her yelling at Hina had woken me up, but there had been the other thing. “The…shaking woke me up. Not an earthquake, Ebi said?”

“Amane.”

“Oh.”

Amethyst had shaken the entire building…as a side effect? I wasn’t about to ask, and Opal didn’t volunteer any more information.

“Drinks. What do you want? Coffee, tea, juice?”

“What kind of tea?”

She got up. “Let me check. Yuuka’s the only one who drinks it in the morning, so…”

While she ambled over to the kitchen, tail waving behind her, I checked in with my friends. It was a decidedly different crowd in the chatroom from my usual mornings, owing to the time difference.

ezzen: Morning

DendriteSpinner: oh damn it would be morning for you, huh

DendriteSpinner: hows lighthouse

ezzen: Pancakes and paperwork, apparently.

Opal called over from the kitchen.

“Jasmine, Earl Grey, chamomile.”

“Earl Grey, splash of milk…please.”

Nice save, Ez. I did some quick time zone calculations in my head.

ezzen: Star’s asleep, probably?

moth30: hi ez

moth30: and yeah probs

moth30: whats cookin

ezzen: I might be doing some tourism today. Seek to harass her with photos.

DendriteSpinner: lol

Hina brought over the first batch of pancakes, a three-stack of blueberry for me with a pair of sausages on the side. The pancakes were decidedly American diner-style, buttermilk, rather than the fluffy Japanese ones I had seen floating around the internet. I was quite alright with that; I was sure I’d more than exceed my quota for Weird Japanese Stuff today anyways. A pad of butter sat atop the stack, melting into savory gold. My stomach growled.

“Omataseshimashita! Blueberry shortstack combo. Your drink will be out shortly.”

She delivered the plate with a food-service smile and a wink. I thanked her in a mutter. She reached toward me—paused as Opal tutted faintly at her from the kitchen—retracted the hand in a rare display of sheepishness, but didn’t lose the grin. The blisters were already fading, the most explicit sign yet of how her body had been altered. That was an order of magnitude faster than even the eightfold acceleration I had been under when I had first arrived at Todai, and it was innate for her.

“Want anything else, cutie? We have fruit.”

I wasn’t getting any more used to the label. “I—this is good, for now?”

“Mhm.” She went back toward the kitchen, barking something at Opal in Japanese, who replied in an equally aggravated tone as she put the kettle on. Were they fighting over me? No, that was far too self-centered. I wasn’t worth that.

The pancakes were fluffy without being dry, infused with the sweetness of the blueberries. The sausages, pan-fried, had a satisfying snap and burst of fatty juiciness to balance against the sweetness. Hina was a good cook, it seemed—though not as good as Dad. His pancake recipe included a splash of maple syrup in the batter, and he had always served them with jam or preserves instead for a wider range of flavor. The nostalgia stung a bit, like it always did. These were good too, though.

I refocused on the chatroom as I doused the topmost pancake with syrup and spread it around with a sausage speared upon a fork. 

OverloadTSS: yo ezzen

OverloadTSS: saw the post

OverloadTSS: what the fuck, dude

ezzen: Right?

In light of the headache I had already caused for Opal, I wasn’t sure if I should say anything more. Besides, my hands were mainly occupied with the task of eating.

moth30: yooooooooo

moth30: ezzen-lighthouse collab papers incoming

ezzen: Well a lot of it is classified but

ezzen: There’ll be something, I think.

OverloadTSS: that rocks

moth30: hey overload

OverloadTSS: heya

ezzen: Apparently I shouldn’t have said anything until they made the announcement?

ezzen: But cat’s out of the bag now so

ezzen: Feel free to include it in this week’s roundup Overload.

OverloadTSS: oof i was almost done editing it

OverloadTSS: next week, probably

OverloadTSS: might do a whole special on your flamefall depending on how the gulf clusterfuck turns out

OverloadTSS: will DM in a bit

ezzen: Sounds good

Opal returned with a steaming mug in each hand. She passed one to me as she sat back down her pillow, extending her tail out behind her and laying it flat on the carpet. It slid slowly back and forth on the carpet behind her—I bet that felt great. Lit by the kitchen’s warm lights behind me and the growing daylight coming through the window, her scales glittered with the motion. It really was a huge limb, almost an extension of her torso. My eyes naturally followed it up her body.

She was dressed as skimpy as yesterday but not as form-hugging, just loose short shorts and a tank top, the latter half-pushed up around her waist to accommodate the extra limb coming out of her back. Her white hair was a little unruly, reflective like her tail—mine was worse, surely, longer and wavier than hers. And I hadn’t showered in…three days. Ugh. My stubble was also getting just long enough to start itching. Had they given me a razor? Probably not. I was a mess compared to the two; even in this candid, domestic setting, the Radiances really were laughably, intimidatingly pretty. Opal didn’t transfix me in the same way as Hina, but she still drew the eye. What was it like to be so effortlessly attractive?

I realized I had spent too long looking at her when she caught my eye over the edge of her laptop screen.

“What?”

“Sorry.”

I averted my gaze back to the plate in front of me, reddening as I sipped my tea. I had to stop ogling these girls, unusual anatomy or not.

We sat in silence for another couple of minutes until Hina brought over Opal’s plate. This one was towering with pancakes—eight? They looked plain, but I got a distinct whiff of cinnamon as the mountain made tablefall.

“Omataseshimashita! Dragon special.”

Hina also delivered a small plate of sausages and a bowl of fruit, kiwi and mango. All told, it was an intimidating amount of food, far too much for one person, but Opal dug in immediately, tail thumping happily behind her. I watched with fascination and no small amount of horror as three of the pancakes and four sausages disappeared down her gullet in the first minute; only then did she stop, wipe her mouth, and sip her coffee.

“Thanks.”

That was for Hina, who had remained to observe the gobbling. She nodded, satisfied.

“Love you too!”

She bounced back toward the kitchen and got to work on another serving—probably her own. Opal rolled her eyes at that, though the hint of a smile might have crossed her lips for a moment. I experienced the most absurd twinge of jealousy at Hina’s affections being directed toward her teammate and self-admitted best friend. I chided myself; that was entirely unwarranted, given our prior cuddle-tutoring and the memory of her lips brushing my cheek mere minutes ago, to say nothing of last night’s exchange of words and spit. Part of me was still reeling at how fast things were moving between us.

My stomach had simpler priorities. I had worked through two of my pancakes and all my sausages and was eyeing Opal’s fruit a little covetously as I sliced another chunk off my final pancake. Should I flag down Hina? No, she was in the middle of making more pancakes; she might already be waiting on me literally hand and foot, but I still hated feeling like a bother. I should just ask Opal for one of hers; she hadn’t touched them yet, still progressing down her stack of sugar and sin at an alarming pace. I pointed at the halved kiwi with my fork.

“Are…you going to get to that?”

Opal’s mouth was full, but she waved assent. She followed it up with verbal confirmation after a hefty swallow.

“Go for it. You like kiwis?”

“They’re okay.”

“So, not your favorite.”

The conversation hung for a beat before I realized it had been a question.

“Raspberries.”

“Why?”

“Um—they’re juicy.” There was more to it than that—a trip to Oregon with my dad—but I was supposed to ask her something now instead of talking about myself. “Yours?”

She speared the remaining fruit in the bowl, hoisting the cubed slice aloft as a visual aid.

“Mango. Good for smoothies. Apples are nice too, though more as an ingredient than raw, you know?”

I nodded. “I like apple crumble.”

Another thing I hadn’t eaten since that day. Opal was oblivious to the dark thought.

“My dad’s side of the family is from Aomori, up north, which is a major apple region. When we go visit, they always make a bunch of apple stuff. Apple pie, apple katsu, cider, a bunch of types of…juice…” She trailed off as my shoulders tightened. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry, but I kept chewing mechanically.

“Er, Ezzen?”

In hindsight, Hina had noticed as well. I didn’t wind up having to explain my reaction to either of them—even though I probably ought to—because at that moment the elevator opened. I twisted to see Ai trudging toward us, wearing the same clothes as yesterday and looking dead on her feet. Hina chirped something at her. She didn’t respond and just zombied her way over toward us. Instead of stopping at the table, though, she went just past us to the sofa behind Opal and flopped face-first.

“Uh?”

“She’s fine.” Opal turned to look at her teammate and said something to her in Japanese, which only made the Emerald Radiance stir slightly with a grunt. Opal turned back to me. “Your stabilizer is done.”

But at what cost? Hina brought another plate of pancakes and a glass of…protein shake, maybe, to a vacant side of the table, to Opal’s left and opposite from me. Then she put her hands on her hips and strode over to Ai, whose breathing had already steadied out. She was fast asleep and in the process of becoming one with the cushions. Hina sighed.

“What do you think? Let her sleep?”

“She missed dinner. She’ll wake up hangry.”

“She was snacking all night.”

“On senbei, not actual food.”

I surreptitiously looked up the word—rice crackers, residents of that lowest rung of nutrition, kin to popcorn and other such crunchy, insubstantial snacks.

“What do you think, cutie?”

I shifted in my chair. “Why’s it my call?”

“Like you haven’t done this before.”

Somehow, Hina had me dead to rights—Ai’s state was so familiar as to be functionally identical to the nights I had spent working through a bag of crisps, until either I cracked the problem or exhaustion won. Was I that easy to read? Wait—hadn’t Hina been helping and therefore also stayed up during the night? How was she so peppy? Maybe she was just a morning person.

“Um. Fair. Let her sleep and keep the food warm so it’s easy when she wakes up?”

That was a luxury I had never had myself, living alone. Waking up groggy at some random time of day after a marathon like that was always a matter of groping for the nearest, most easily accessible snack food, rather than a nice, real meal. I was jealous—then realized this VIP treatment would also apply to me, were I to stay up and work with Ai. For some reason, that made me blush.

“Mhm! That’s what I’d do, too. But since it’s your call, we can say later that you let her oversleep. Not my fault!”

I was too meek to object to that directly—but I didn’t have to anyway.

“Knock it off, Hina.” Opal made a dismissive motion with her fork in the direction of her teammate. “Don’t worry about her. It’s a Sunday; Ai can sleep in. I’m only taking you to Tochou for paperwork today because the Ministry is essentially screaming at me to do so, otherwise I’d just put it off until tomorrow.”

Hina came back over to us, sitting immediately to my right. There was only enough space for her to get one leg under the table as she splayed out a little bit. “Proper nouns, Alice. Also, no, I’m not touching him, see?”

“I can see. Good job. Uh—proper nouns, yes, right. Tochou is the big government building downtown, the one for the whole city rather than the individual wards. The Ministry is who we answer to, technically.”

I was, tragically, not the type to take notes on this sort of thing. In hindsight, I probably should have, but I had faith in Opal’s general put-togetherness.

“What are we actually doing there?”

“Honestly, mostly just getting the ball rolling on immigration and Register paperwork—that’s the National Flamebearer Register. We’ll have to do some bureaucracy back-and-forth for…well, our people said probably the next week, before we can officially make you a Todai employee. It won’t be hard on your end, just signing stuff. If we have time, I’d also like to take you up to the skydeck up there.”

“Hey! I wanted to do that!”

“…You hate going to Tochou.”

“Well, it would have been Skytree, probably. But I had a whole list of must-see stuff I wanted to take him to, and today’s perfect! Next weekend will be the fucking Hikanome thing, so we won’t get the chance to give him the tourist experience before—”

“Hina.”

“—whatever Peacie pencil-pusher shows up to plead his case with the Ministry or the Bureau because then we’ll get into a whole custody battle and—”

“Hina.” This time, Opal’s eyes flashed. “I’m not letting you drag him around Tokyo—before his foot is better.”

“I heard that pause. And his foot is better!” Hina pointed triumphantly at Ai’s sleeping form. “We did the stabilizer! Please, Alice. We’ll even be productive, get him a Suica and show him how to use it and he really needs some clothes and it’ll be fun and…”

She trailed off, making puppy eyes at Opal, whose expression had adopted a certain well-worn weariness as she pinched the bridge of her nose. I raised my hand tentatively.

“Um. Custody battle? The PCTF doesn’t go after flamebearers who are associated with another group.”

The Spire would give them hell for it—and I was indeed becoming rather attached to Todai, in more ways than one. Hina poked my shoulder.

“Naive. You’re a catch, cutie, they’re not going to let you go that easily. It should be today, Alice, and I’m free. You have your thing at one, Ai’s going to be asleep until sundown, Yuuka’s not even in the country, and Amane’s sick.”

Opal looked between us and flicked something at Hina from across the table, who recoiled with a yip.

“He doesn’t need the ‘tourist experience.’ He’ll see plenty of Tokyo as we run errands anyway.”

“Not the fun parts! And he does need clothes, unless you’re going to keep lending him your old shirts and skirts until you can fit him into your schedule.”

I was getting just a little tired of being talked about like I wasn’t there, but all I really mustered was a mutter. “I’m not wearing a skirt. You said no dress-up.”

“Necessity, not dress-up. It’ll be skirts by tomorrow if we don’t buy you some clothes. I don’t think any of us own pants that fit you.”

Alice’s expression at last deepened into a proper frown, just a smidge stormy. “What do you mean she said?”

Hina blinked at me with those big, blue eyes. Of all the times for her to be in prompt-mode—

“Last night, we, uh…made plans for today.”

I flushed with embarrassment, both from the mortifying ordeal of having my intentions known in a general sense and from nerves about the confrontation that was surely about to erupt. Opal’s tail did a little slithering motion behind her, and she radiated heat for a moment, slitted eyes aglow—then dimmed, settling down.

“You don’t have to go out with her for her to pick up some clothes for you, if that’s your main concern. I could even just send somebody to do it, and she doesn’t have to be part of the process at all.”

“Alice…”

“You’re buying him pants so you can get in them later. Am I wrong?”

“That’s—I’m trying to be helpful. Do you want me to meet with the merch team instead so you can go shopping with him?”

“God, no.” She sighed. “You know what—fine. Hina. You are not to touch him. Don’t give me more headaches today with your feral—”

“Yeah, I know, Ebi already threatened me with you if I hurt him. He’s in good hands, Alice, I promise. You can hand him off to me after you’re done at Tochou, it’s no biggie. Here, just for your benefit—” She turned to me, an uncharacteristically serious look on her face. “Ezzen, I promise I will respect your physical and emotional well-being for the duration of our outing. No unwanted physical contact, no barging into your changing room, no dragging you into a love hotel for a quickie.”

I blinked. What? Opal took a long sip of her coffee. Hina leaned in toward her; her tail would have been wagging if she had one. Opal’s more literal tail had gone still.

“Good start, but as long as we’re doing things for my peace of mind: Ezzen. I still do not think this is a good idea, vis-a-vis your foot. I understand she didn’t exactly, er, give you the opportunity to approach the topic with a level head last night. Are you sure?”

Hina pouted. “Yeah, have this conversation right in front of me, why don’t you.”

Who was she to talk? They had had half of this conversation as though I wasn’t here, not that I had quite the fortitude—or callousness—to return the favor. I was barely managing to stop myself from being sucked into Hina’s eyes as it was.

“I’m…”

“Aw, cutie, don’tcha—”

“You, shut up. Let him think.”

“Aw. Fine!”

This was my opportunity to back out, with Opal’s full knowledge of the situation and without the reason-fogging cocktail of fear and desire of last night…Okay, no, I had to come clean, if only to myself. I still wanted Hina. I wanted her to call me “cutie” more and feel her against me and I couldn’t stop thinking about the last thing, the part about love hotels. If I asked, would she—

I peeled my thoughts away from that sticky, sweaty possibility with the help of the one additional stipulation we had decided last night, right before things had turned steamy. Well, that sort of undercut what I was about to say, but I still stood by it. I had to.

“…We agreed it wasn’t a date. I’ll—hold you to that.”

Opal seemed…‘skeptical’ was a word, but so was ‘out of fucks to give’. Well, that was five words, but the point is that the fight left her.

“You know what? Good enough. At least we don’t have to worry about her mantling up like Yuuka.”

“Yep! I hate the attention, so out there I’m, uh…Hinata Suzuha, normal human. Who’s Radiance Sapphire? I’ve only seen the first four seasons of Precure! What even is ripple propagation?”

“Don’t start with that again.”

And that was that. Opal apparently did trust Hina to her word. Was she right to trust mine? I didn’t know. She made the plan official with some click-clack on her keyboard.

“Alright, it’s in the calendar. Wait, did I not share that with you yesterday? Hold on.”

She sent me a link, and lo, there it was, slotted between Alice+Ezzen Paperwork (10AM-12PM) and Group Call w/ Yuuka (7PM-8PM):

Hina+Ezzen Shopping (NOT A DATE!) (12PM-5PM).

I appreciated the clarification, though Hina’s apparent disregard—disdain, perhaps—for calendars made me doubt that it would meaningfully limit her behavior. Some tension left my body as the conversation de-escalated and we returned to eating. Well, actually, just Opal. I still had half a pancake to go, but my appetite had been murdered by dark thoughts earlier and then buried by the argument, and Hina had—not eaten anything this whole time? She didn’t even have a plate. I frowned, offering her my scraps hesitantly.

“Did you eat before we came down?”

“Oh, I don’t—wow, I guess it hasn't come up yet, huh. I don’t eat much. Or sleep much. Perks of my body. And you can have that too, cutie, if you just—whoa—”

Suddenly, she was leaning on me, already making another attraction-based assault on my moral compass, presenting another temptation to become more and reject the limitations of my flesh, to become more like her though indulging mutual pain to feed my Flame—

Something clanged against the metal railing of the stairs, and I flinched, twisting just in time to see Opal’s fork ricochet into the floor, penetrating the hardwood prongs-first. It was a little mutilated by the journey. I needed a moment to unravel exactly what had occurred. My thoughts had spiraled to the wrong conclusion shockingly quickly. Wishful thinking? In reality, Hina hadn’t been tempting me with her body—well, maybe she had, but the lean had just been her dodging the wrathful projectile. I turned back to Opal—who had vanished from her seat. A draconic growl came from right behind us as a well-manicured hand peeled Hina off of me. I shivered.

“Ezzen, this is an object lesson. Hina is scary as shit, yeah?”

“Y—yeah?”

“She’s not the only one. I’ve got your back. If she breaks her word, or makes you uncomfortable in any way, you tell me. I’m serious; text me and I’ll come pick you up and throw her in the bay.”