"That's fantastic! Now, I'll be working on putting on the head around the skeleton, and I'll send you a message when the furry parts are done and it's just the comfort features that are next. You'll probably have to wait until tomorrow before I'm done putting it together, though."

"Alright," she agrees. Waiting a while for custom mask makes sense; honestly, tomorrow is pretty fast.

"Thank you," she adds. "How much money will it cost? I mean, just for my budgeting."

The number Emily gets back is roughly one-eight her rent. "It's mostly paying me, just to be clear, and I really want everyone to be able to have cute and beautiful formalwear like this; I'm charging less than the usual."

Emily blushes. "... oh."

She's not sure how to feel about that; it's different when it's not a purely business transaction. She falls back on an old standby: "Thank you."

"You're welcome! I love being able to do this for people, and make the world a more fun place, so I'm grateful myself."

That is — at least in Emily's limited experience — not how jobs work. But ... it does sound nice, to be able to do things you're really interested in, even if they don't pay well, because everyone has their rent and food covered.

She could be a librarian.

The lack of librarian in her apartment's library had thrown her off (as had the standardized book sizes). But if it's just a matter of there not being anybody living there who is passionate enough about librarianing ...

She realizes she's been silent a moment to long, and gives a jerky nod, to cover it.

"Alright — well, in that case I will wait for your message and come pick it up," she agrees.

Emily gets a reply, the afternoon of the following day, from the woman making the fursuit head. "I'm as far along in terms of its final appearance as I can be, at this stage. Now I'll need you to show up, so I can get the ventilation and cooling systems tailored to your head."

She occupies her time between then and now with studying, so the fursuit artisan's reply is a welcome break.

"I'm on my way," she replies, and waits impatiently for the elevator.

A short time later, she pushes open the door of the shop, containing her excitement.

She's wearing the same fursuit head that she briefly showed off to Emily yesterday when greeting her. Then she shows off the head that she started work on yesterday; it has a lot of the fur applied already, but it's still missing most of the nose and mouth and a large patch near the back. "So, I tend to start on the active pack first; it takes up more space, you see. If you put on the head, I can get the current 3D print and electronics kits I've put together, and you can see how comfortable it ends up being?"

"Sure," Emily agrees, realizing immediately that she is not entirely sure how to put it on, now that there's fur on it. After a moment, she realizes it goes on in the same way as the furless frame she tried, and she slips it over her head.

She walks out, revealing a small transparent plastic mask with a big fan behind it, and a long, thin battery under that fan. "So, the way that it's supposed to work is that this fits inside the snout, and it blow a stream of cool air across your face and exhales the air down and through a filter." She clips it onto the plastic frame of the fursuit head, the mask fitting loosely around Emily's nose and mouth, without significant pressure on her face. "I'm testing it to be sure that it doesn't blow any air not through the filter." After pushing gently against the fan, it starts whirring and creating a stream of air over Emily's face.

She blinks, adjusting to the new sensation. Does the stream of air blow in her eyes? And how loud is the fan?

A few gusts blow into her eyes, once in a while. The fan is relatively quiet, making a slight background hum.

She blinks when the air touches her eyes.

"Sorry, I'm not sure — is the air supposed to stay in the part that goes over my nose here?" she asks, pointing. "Or is it supposed to circulate everywhere?"

"It's supposed to circulate everywhere, but it's more important that it goes over your mouth and nose."

"Is there a way to not have little puffs going into my eyes?" she asks. "Just ... sometimes when I shift like this, there's a little puff, and I don't like the sensation."

"I can try a redesign? Ideally, the airstreams should work so they never send any puffs over your eyes like that... but I think that expanding the mask so it also covers your eyes would be the best way to protect you from that while still cooling off the rest of your face. And then you could get better, more powerful cooling without worrying about the stream getting in your eyes. You know what, I'll get the battery-free ventilation option, and you can try out how well that fits your head while I try printing out the new mask design for the active ventilation, and we can go from there."

Emily has no real idea of what any of these options entail. And she was dubious on having a forced-air system anyway.

"... sure," she agrees. "I mean, I guess it's not a big problem, but I would like it if it didn't."

"I'm getting the passive system, now." She comes back with a small block of plastic; there's a pair of plastic tubes on top of it. "The way that these tend to work is that you have these tubes that let you breathe through your nose, that are meant to go along the snout of the mask so you're breathing air directly." It also clips to the plastic frame, and the tubes end up just barely in front of Emily's nose. It feels a bit awkward and strange, certainly less stuffy than not having anything in front of her face.

She wiggles her nose, and tries taking a few breaths.

It is more stuffy, but on the other hand seems less liable to dry out her eyes.

"This is alright," she agrees. "Will this work for being sick in, though, or does that require a fan?"

"It doesn't work for being sick in, no. Designs that are battery-free and wearable when ill do exist, but they tend to become so uncomfortable and unbreathable that you basically have to take them off before the battery wears out on the ones with batteries. Also, I'm glad that you liked the passive option; there's also a version where it's designed to basically plug into your nostrils, and those work very well, but a lot of people don't like how they feel. Do you think that it might be interesting to try one like that?"

She shudders at the idea of putting something inside her nostrils.

"No, I think that would be worse than occasionally getting a blast of air in the eye," she replies.

"Ahh, I see. So... we've got the passive system covered, and now it's just to wait to try out the new active part? Printing is fast, but there's a limit to how fast it can be done. So... it'll be another 30 minutes, I think? And then I'll come back with it, and then I'll be ready to just mail you the finished design, so you can get that nice surprise factor, if you like it like that."

"A wait is fine," Emily agrees, patting her book. "And so is mailing it to me."

If it's mailed to her, that means she doesn't need to leave the apartment without a mask on possibly ever again, unless she feels like it.

She smiles.

"Sounds great to me. Just wait for the print to be done, double-check that you like how it fits, and then I'm ready to mail you the whole thing once it's done."