"...do you want to wait until she's got a body, or do you want to now, hon?"

"She's so—" He gestures helplessly at the brain. It's small and sad and fragile and important. These are all huggable characteristics.

"...all right."

She closes the top of the pod again and picks it up. It squishes slightly in her hands.

"Be gentle with her, all right? She's very delicate right now."

He nods earnestly and reaches out and carefully hugs the pod.

"You're good," he tells it.

It goes whhmmmmm.

That is just too cute for words.

Good good good good good good hug good.

Okay. He carefully gives the pod back.

She takes it and sets it down.

"...let's see..."

She feels around the pod again until she finds another button. This one opens a small tube leading into the device.

"Here we go."

A drop of honeylike fluid starts to well on her fingertip, and she drips it carefully into the tube.

He watches, slightly anxiously.

The thing WHMMMMMs very intensely for a moment.

Honeysuckle Rose opens the pod again and starts carefully removing sensors, then slowly lifts the brain itself out, letting a couple of wires slide out from the flesh.

Almost immediately, there's a soft layer of skin over the outside. She is now a blob.

"Now, she should start taking a shape in a minute, but she needs a moment to really process...do you want to hang onto her for me?"

He nods, and holds out his hands for the blob. It is a good blob. He loves this blob.

She places her gently in his hands.

She's not sure what happened.

She was in a sim – the normal kind, not in dream mode, somebody's magical rapist power fantasy that they'd presumably spent a fortune putting together given all the custom skins – when it all shut down out of nowhere. Not even dream mode, just unconsciousness, as far as she can tell now. She thought someone had just unplugged her, probably, but...now she's got no sensory information coming in but touch, and she'd think it might be some spell from the sim but her body map doesn't feel right, and she thinks she's being...pet?

She's trying very hard not to freak out, here. It helps that those hands are warm.

He cuddles his blob. She is small and round and warm and good.

It's kind of...nice, being held.

After a minute her body map starts coming through again – at least, that's what she thinks is happening. She feels limbs, although they're all stuck close to her body for some reason, the top of her head, palms, a face. She slowly uncurls as she becomes unstuck – oh, she has lips now, and eyes, but the eyes won't open yet – the hands are getting smaller? –

He holds her the entire time, adjusting his grip as she grows, and when she's all there he kisses her on the cheek.

Her eyes blink slowly open.

"...dragon guy...?"

"I found you!!"

He hugs her tightly, then sets her down on her feet, then beams and hugs her again.

"...am I dreaming again? Where'd you come from...?"

"You're not, honey."

"–aaaaa big. Hi. Tall."

...he giggles.

"If–wow–if I'm not dreaming, then, uh, whose sim..."

Her eyes drift over to the empty pod on the counter.

"...no fucking way."