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Why aren't you crocheted?
Small Shay brings home a small Nova
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A child in a puffy shirt and boots walks into a bar.

As he goes, he mutters to himself. "I've made it aboard. Lots of brown tables and chairs, and there seems to be a malfunction in the lighting, possibly due to the state of the nearby star system? Approaching the large - oh! Hi!"

After a few minutes of talking to Bar, he accepts a brightly colored hot drink with a lid, and continues investigating the room. He determines that there's nobody else at the seats by the star window, or at any of the seats, then starts looking below the tables.

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There's another child, curled in a small ball under one of the booth tables, tucked away into the corner, and apparently trying to make himself smaller.

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"Oh! I found someone else!" he whispers to himself, walking over.

He sits on the floor near the table and waves. "Hi!"

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The boy peaks over his knees at him, somewhat warily. "Hi?" he says quietly, voice obviously not used very often.

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"Hi! Oh," he copies the person's sitting position and continues in a quieter voice, "hi! I'm Shay! What's the situation?"

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The boy blinks at him. "Nova?" he supplies after a second, not entirely sure of it. "I- my door was...to here? Instead of the room?" He hunches back in on himself a little. "They're gonna be so mad."

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"Hi Nova! Like a star? Cool!" He frowns. "Maybe the transporter got confused? Who is? Can I help?"

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"...transporter? Was. Just a door?" Nova blinks, and then looks around, a little wildly. "The...the elders. They. Don't like it when I. hide."

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"The kind you walk through and don't dissolve? I don't know how that would happen." Shay turns to follow Nova's gaze, then wobbles over looking behind himself and turns back to face Nova on his stomach. "Well that's not fair. So you're just stuck on this ship now?"

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Nova shrugs. "I guess? If this is a ship?" He looks around. "Is-" He blinks and seems to curl further in on himself. "Is this yours? I'm sorry. I didn't know?!"

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He bites his lip and looks around again. "It's- probably a ship? Not mine though! It was supposed to be the ship Friendship Circle, but it's way bigger than normal and darker and I'd never met you or Bar before and I haven't seen the crew. But there's space out the window?"

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Nova gives a small shrug. "Saw windows. Figured it was...not sure." He pauses, looking cautiously at Shay. "...Friendship Circle?"

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He nods, and takes a sip of his drink. "It's the ship my Yarn Pals live on, except when they're somewhere else. They were having a problem with their water or something so I was supposed to go rescue them."

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He looks down, and then looks at Shay out of the corner of his eyes. "Must be nice," he says quietly.

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Another nod, slightly more subdued. "Yeah. They're my friends and we do things."

"Oh! Oh oh oh! You could meet them if you want? Probably?"

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Nova ducks his head again, pressing his forehead into his knees. "Should go back," he says, shaking. "Dangerous for me to be around people."

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"Huh? Why?"

He watches the kid in concern. "Do you want a hug?"

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Nova manages to get even smaller. "Sometimes I burn things," he mumbles into his knees.

There's a pause after the second question, and then Nova's eyes reappear. "What's that?"

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"Like steam or fires?" (He sounds like he might think this is cool.)

"It's um. A hug is like the thing you're doing to you're legs, only it'd be my arms or whoever's and you? And then you feel happier?" He puts down his cup to demonstrate a tight, floppy-sleeved hug around his own torso.

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"Fire," he admits quietly - seeming a little confused that anyone would find that cool rather than terrifying.

"Oh," he looks back at his knees. "I've never had one." (He doesn't know how he's supposed to decide whether he wants one.)

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"You haven't? Oh no! I - when my friends are sad I hug them and you seem sad? I like hugs and my yarn pals like hugs but Gary doesn't because he doesn't like how it feels to hold people. And it's okay if you don't want a hug, but hugs are nice?"

Everything else might just be weird, but this is sad. He curls up to hug his own knees.

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Nova flinches when Shay curls up. "Sorrysorrysorry," he babbles (flames flicker over his skin, quickly suppressed). "I just don't...know? If I want one. Don't want to hurt you."

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He uncurls and leans in a little to see the flames. "Oh that's pretty! Uh- it's okay? It's just sad if you haven't gotten a hug and want one? I'd probably be fine?"

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"...you think it's pretty too?" Nova asks, half-cautious, half-eager. "No-one...Everyone thinks it's...a curse?"

He looks down again, and then looks focused for a second, and the flames nearly completely vanish. (A couple linger around his ear.) "I- can we. Try? I. Want to know? How it feels?"

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Emphatic nod. "It's all glowy and bright! My mom's sorta on fire but in a different shape."

He scoots a little closer and reaches out for a gentle hug.

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That seems to reassure him some.

Nova is a little stiff, and doesn't seem entirely clear on what he's supposed to do, but he does his best to move into the hug, and respond. It'll take a moment before he'll relax a little.

"I. S'nice?" he doesn't sound entirely sure, but it seems more like he's confused by it being nice than anything else.

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"Yay!" He continues to hug at about the same pressure, and doesn't seem likely to let go unprompted.

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Nova starts to relax into the hug, his own return hug becoming a little more natural. "Your mum...glows?" (There's a slight hint of jealousy there, that Shay has a mum, regardless of glowing status.)

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"Yeah, when her face is in a window it glows yellow and there's little orange flames in a circle around it. Like a sun. But they're not hot, just warm." It would definitely be cooler if they were hot.

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"She sounds nice," Nova says. "Sounds pretty." (And there's that tone that is probably a little bit envy. But he knows he didn't deserve someone that nice in his life and Shay did.)

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Shay nods into his shoulder. "Yeah. She doesn't like me to do a lot of stuff in case I get hurt, but she's really nice. You sure you don't wanna meet her?"

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"...she might not like me. I might hurt you." It definitely isn't a no, it is definitely more someone trying to convince themselves that the thing they really want to do is a bad idea. (Even if Nova is actually worried Shay's mom might not like him.)

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He unhugs a little, to bounce without shaking his hugging partner. "She likes everyone! And I think it'd be fine, I haven't got hurt so far!"

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The 'so far' worries Nova a little. (He doesn't want to hurt Shay, but sometimes he can't help it if he flickers.)

But.

"I think I would like to?" he says quietly.

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He grins. "Great! Everyone'll be so excited to meet you!" He starts to rise, then stops. "Do you need to talk to Bar or anything else for the mission to be complete or do you wanna go now?"

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Nova blinks a little confused and then shakes his head. "I don't. Think I need to?" The words don't make a massive amount of sense, but he'll go along with them and hope they do eventually.

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Shay scoots back to avoid bonking his head on the table, and to give Nova a bit more room, then jumps to his feet.

"And if the door doesn't go back right then we'll need to figure out how to get it to, but I think that's probably not the point?"

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Nova slides out from under the table, but keeps himself very small and withdrawn into himself. "Probably not?" he agrees hesitantly, moving to follow Shay.

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"Yeah. The stars outside are pretty, and the room is weird, but the only people here are you and Bar and she can't move and there's no obvious clues about the door?"

He pulls open the door, and sure enough, it opens onto a tiny room, tiled with triangles and diamonds and illuminated by blue light. He waves for Nova to go through.

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Nova hesitates, before he sidles through, trying to look around without actually lifting his head. The room is pretty, but very, very different to anything he'd seen back... home.

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Shay follows him in. As the door closes, the room is flooded with blue light. There's a gentle tingling feeling all through their bodies, and as the light dims, a different pair of doors is visible. They slide open, showing a different room, whose walls and floors are tiled with pale yellow hexagons, made up of smaller diamonds.

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As they exit, three doors along the same side of the room come into view. Each has a triangle with a picture of a face. Two seem to be asleep, but the one above the door they left from has a smile. "Welcome back Shay! Oh, you've duplicated? I'm sorry, I'm not sure how that happened." Her face switches to a concerned frown.

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Nova flinches, and moves a little closer to Shay. (He's still looking around a little curiously, but less so now someone has noticed him.)

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He shakes his head. "This is my new friend, Nova! From my mission!"

The triangle's face returns to a smile. "Oh good. I wouldn't at all know how to fix that, unless going back through did it." She goes to sleep like the other doors.

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Nova blinks and then gives a small smile. "Never had a friend before?" he says quietly when the triangle has gone back to sleep. "Are they. Always like that?" he points up at the triangles.

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"Never? That's a sad amount without one. Oh hey, but that means I get to be the first! Yeah, the doors like to be asleep unless you're going through them. And they get worried if they mess something up but they can usually fix it by just sending you back the other way, and then you just have to walk back to where you wanted to go."

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His smile widens a little.

"Oh...so that's what you were thinking with the door back...?" he gestures behind them, trying to indicate 'the bar'.

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"Yeah. She never sent me there before and it was supposed to be a different ship, so I thought maybe she got confused and sent me the wrong place? It was a weird thing to happen, but it was good!"

He starts walking, toward a pair of sliding doors without a face.

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Nova follows after him, both eager and a little wary.

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Shay smiles reassuringly, and leads him into a larger room, with a giant window looking onto stars in space. They go up a short set of stairs, to a booth closer to the window. There booth contains a chair, a happy planet mobile, several levers and buttons, and a wheel.

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Nova looks around in amazement, and shock. He's never seen anything like this before.

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Shay grins. "This is where I go to find out what missions there are I can go on! And look at stars! But sometimes it's the same ones over and over. Are you ready to meet my mom or do you wanna wait and look around more first?"

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The stars are really pretty. He wants to look around more first. But. "Meet your mom?" he says quietly. (There's no point putting it off.)

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He cups his hands to his mouth and calls out, "Computer! Mom, I made a new friend!"

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 A giant image of a sun appears across the window, with a human face inside. Her mouth moves as she speaks.

"Sweetie puff! Welcome back! I-" she stops and looks puzzled. "Hello there. You're not made of yarn. Who are you?"

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He has a moment where he thinks she's very pretty before she speaks.

He flinches, and curls in on himself. "I- Nova, ma'am?"

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"It's nice to meet you. Welcome aboard the Bossa Nostra! Where did you come from?"

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"I-" he starts and then stops. "The- I was in the church. And then I... was. Going through a door and it wasn't there? And it was... a bar? M'sorry. Don't know where that was?"

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"It's all right. Do you want us to see if one of the transporters can send you back? If not -" she pauses and the sun-image goes blank for a few seconds, before her face reappears, "we are equipped for more passengers and colonists!"

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He shakes his head, panicked at the idea of going back. (They're gonna be so mad.) "Won't take up space, ma'am," he promises fervently.

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"Okie-dokie then! And we do have space! Would you like to join the crew of the ship, like Shay?"

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He nods, not quite eagerly (being useful was good). "Yes, ma'am," he agrees.

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She beams. "Welcome to the crew!" She looks about to say something else, but stops herself, and instead says "I'm putting together a bed for you, but it's not ready yet. Are you in a planetary timezone where the next meal is Dinner?"

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"Think so?" he confirms. Then hurries on: "But I- I ate this morning. M'fine."

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She frowns a little. "It's very important for growing children to eat enough! Especially in space, your bones might not grow enough! The next mission should be dinner."

The sun flickers blank for a few seconds, and then she returns, smiling, to ask "Are you allergic to anything?"

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He blinks a little, confused by that, but then shakes his head. "Eat what I'm given," he tells her, a little urgently (don't be a bother).

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"... I'll leave out the likeliest allergens for now then, and have the medibot check later. But tell me immediately if your mouth or throat feels weird, okay?"

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He nods fervently. "Yes ma'am, I will."

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She smiles, then disappears from the window, and the door at the far end of the room slides open.

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Shay leads Nova through the door, and then through a hallway and another door, marked with a picture of a spoon and a fork, into an oval room. A counter stacked with colorful shakers wraps around the wall below a window, which looks out onto some stars and what might be an asteroid.

There are two round tables, each with a hole and attached seat on one side. Shay flops into the seat in the chair of the less shiny of the two, and waves him toward the other.

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He slides into it, trying to be inconspicuous out of habit. He continues to try and take his surroundings in as inconspicuously as possible.

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The black screen mounted on the wall has white letters on it. A tiny disk near the door lights up with the sun-woman, who beams at them.

Two metallic arms descend slowly from the ceiling. Each has three fingers, is covered in a layer of patterned yarn, and carries a small geometric object, painted with a smiley face. Shay opens his mouth and eats the one the arm in front of him gently tosses. The arm in front of Nova stops descending and holds the smiley-thing at about face-height.

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Nova cautiously reaches out to take the object.

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It feels smooth and soft. The arm retreats into the ceiling once he takes it.

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He nibbles cautiously at it.

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It has a foamy texture like an extremely dense marshmallow, and a flavor somewhere between potatoes, greens, and anchovies. The nibble he takes is noticeably filling.

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He eats as much of it as he can, but cannot, in fact, finish the entire thing. He looks around worried, scared of the possible consequences.

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A small, hexagonal robot standing on a whirring, floating cylinder comes into the room. It waves and holds up a tube attached to the bottom of the device for Nova. He can feel air being gently pulled into the tube.

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He holds the end of the food out to it, not...entirely sure this is what was being asked for but not sure what else would be.

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The tube sucks the remainder of the dinner pill into the machine, and then the hexagon and machine float back out of the room.

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He watches, a little startled, and then looks over to Shay to see if that's something that's normal.

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"That was a hexipal. That one vacuums up leftover food and garbage and things, to recycle."

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"Oh." Nova frowns thoughtfully. "Useful!"

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"Yeah! Hexipals like doing useful things!"

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"Now that you've eaten, you need to brush your teeth, and then you can play for an hour until bed-time!"

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Something in those instructions is confusing Nova - probably all of it to be honest - but he nods obediently, and looks to Shay for directions on what they're actually doing.

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"You rub your teeth with chemicals to clean them, so germs can't eat food stuck to them and grow in your mouth," Shay explains, leading him down a hall to a room, one wall of which is just a window looking out onto stars. There's a wide blue cylinder of fabric against the wall, and some hexipal robots are assembling another.

Two metal arms, each covered in knitted yellow yarn, descend from the ceiling, carrying toothbrushes. Shay opens his mouth to let the arm brush his teeth, but the arm in front of Nova stops, so he could either take the brush himself or let the arm do it.

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After a moment of hesitation, he opens his mouth as well.

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The brush gently applies lemony-flavored foam all over his teeth and gums, then wipes it away.

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-It's strange, but not in a bad way. (It's...almost pleasant in fact?)

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The arms retract back into the ceiling.

Shay bounces. "It's too late to do missions, but we could play with stuffed animals or yarn?"

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"-You don't have chores?"

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"I go on missions to help people, but the computers and robots take care of maintaining the ship! And it's bad to do missions too close to bedtime because it's harder to sleep if you're excited."

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"-Oh. I. That's- different. I- whatever you think best?"

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"I guess... maybe there's not enough time for learning knitting, so animals?"

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"O-okay!" Nova agrees.

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Shay leads him down the hall, to a large pair of sliding doors painted with blue and green leafy trees. Through the doors is a circular room covered in colorful beanbags. There's a shelf of fuzzy and colorful knitted animals built into the wall.

"They're like yarn pals," Shay explains, wrapping a stripy snake around his shoulders, "but with only a little bit of ability to move, and without being people."

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Nova looks at the shelf, curious. "And you just...play? With them?"

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"Yeah! You can make up stories for them to be doing, or just cuddle with them, or something else I guess?"

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"Oh. I've- never. Had a chance? Before?"

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He frowns. "Oh. That's sad, I think. But now you can!"

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Nova's quiet for a moment, and then: "You'll show me how?"

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"Sure! Maybe it's easier if you start with just cuddling them, since you're new to this? That's what I'm doing with Mr. Huggy right now."

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"Do they all have names?" Nova asks, hand hovering before he picks up a bear and hugs it.

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"Yeah, but some of them change names sometimes. That's Arcty, right now. Her fur-yarn is soft and thick and fluffy because animal bears used to live in cold places!"

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"She is very soft," Nova agrees, petting Arcty as he hugs her.

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"When I tell stories about her, she usually goes on a ship to try to find new places that are cold, like a whole planet of ice or ice cream or liquid helium, because her home planet is getting too warm to live on. I think real bears also have fingernails and teeth that are sharp and not soft, but then we couldn't play with them, so she's soft all over instead."

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"That's really cool!"