Lenora sleeps like a log. Thorn will probably wake up before her.

She wakes before Lenora, and slips out of bed to see about breakfast. 

Her apartment contains a gas stove and an icebox and various food items. Bread, flour, crackers, biscuits and the like, sausage and ham and oatmeal, a glass milk bottle. No eggs, though, just an empty carton.

She sighs, and gets on her clothes. She writes a note on a torn-out journal page - "Gone to get eggs, Thorn" - and leaves it where she was in bed. Then she goes and gets eggs. And a package of sugar cookies, to share. And a few other items she noticed Lenora was low on, because she's here and she has seven shillings worth of grocery budget to spend. 

She returns to the apartment as soon as she finishes paying.

Lenora is doing a workout in her underwear (fairly substantial garments, with something a bit like a sports bra) with a little weight set from the corner when Thorn comes back.

"Welcome back! D'you like eggs then? Sorry I didn't foresee it and buy some."

Thorn is definitely giving some approving looks to her hot girlfriend? while she works out.

"Yeah, they're my traditional breakfast. I considered making sausages but the eggs seemed essential. What do you usually have for breakfast?" 

She finishes a set of lunges and takes a break to do some arm stretches. "I'm kind of sporadic about food! Usually either some kind of meat or eggs, and also something more starchy, I guess. I like jam and other sweet things and I won't have to worry about having too much anymore, I saw dietware in the catalog and I'll be able to afford it in a few weeks..."

"Dietware is so convenient. I have it installed on this body along with a few other mods - less sleep and food needed, night vision, better strength and lifting capacity, that kind of thing. There's limits on how far you can push and still look human enough to pass. Speaking of sweet things..." She fishes out the packet of sugar cookies. "I got a treat. And a few other things."

"Ooh! I should kiss you for that. Meanwhile I've got to work to stay tough. Ah well."

She pulls on a shirt, looks around for pants a bit and shrugs, and walks over to the kitchen. And kisses Thorn.

She kisses back! And she opens the tin of cookies and steals one. 

"So, what to do today? Beyond the meeting with your captain and more sex, I mean."

"Maximillian DeVries. He'll tell you to call him Captain DeVries. I could show you the cannon, and how it works? We could try to hunt down a decent chart. Though it's not the end of the world to start without a great one, it'd be a head start. I could try to find books to shore up the first-officer jobs I don't already know how to do."

She suddenly stops, stock still. "I forgot to drink the Mercury Reaches! I was so curious what it's like, too!"

"And I forgot to remind you! Damn. We'll have to remember for tomorrow. A good chart did cross my mind, but they seem to be somewhat closely guarded and that means expensive. I might have to break another gold coin for that, but having your expertise on hand would be invaluable. I haven't seen any relevant booksellers, but then I've only been here three days. The cannon could work, it'd be interesting. So it sounds like... Captain DeVries, bank to retrieve a gold coin, jewellery store to sell it, and then we go map hunting. Do you figure we could get a decent one for eighty sovereign?" 

"Not sure about the chart. If something happens where I needed grace and reflexes, I'm blaming myself," she jokes. "There's a library, but it's all official and kind of a joke. The good books tend to rely on connections. I'm enough of a cutter to at least get the time of day from some people about it. -Hey, you said you got a passion for singing. Are you taking lessons?"

"I am taking lessons, from the Manic Dilettante. They're a bit... irregular... but it's always interesting to see what he's up to when I come around."

"I've read newspaper stories about that guy. I think I'd like to hear you sing some time. We've got a couple hours before the meeting. A light breakfast for me, I need to finish my workout and then we'll have an hour to kill, then DeVries, bank, jewelry store, maybe lunch, map or book hunting or maybe the cannon, whatever seems right. Sounds like a plan."

She nabs a cookie herself, then starts helping cook.

"We can talk and I can maybe do some singing practice in that spare hour. I won't subject you to much of it, I'm still not very good."

They put the plan into motion. Lenora eats lightly, does a fairly thorough workout with bodyweight exercises sometimes supplanted by some relatively small weights, and stretching. She finds pants. She talks about boxing and general locomotive stuff with Thorn. She claps politely and says Thorn is already better than she is when she practices singing.

When there's a few minutes before they have to leave, she mentions, "Should probably talk about this. I was weirdly embarrassed about the, uh, flower, you know? I didn't want you to see me buying it at first because, expectations? Then I thought about having one and hiding it from you, but that felt a little scummy and just kind of wrong. I'm glad I didn't do that. And anyway, we should probably talk about our feelings a bit. That's relationship common sense."

"It was excellent and I'm glad it happened the way it did. Including you not hiding the Sinflower from me in the end. You have a right to privacy, obviously, but I wouldn't have liked feeling like you couldn't trust me with that kind of thing given that you decided you wanted to have sex."

"It felt like a bad move. I felt bad about it." She shrugs. "...I think the label 'girlfriend' probably makes sense, since we have similar hobbies and lifepaths and we're going to get an engine together, with maybe one thing I'm worried about. I don't know if I want to be... Exclusive? Like, there's nobody else I'm imagining wanting to kiss right now, but I can picture it happening."

"I would love to be girlfriends. And from what I recall I'm not exactly the exclusive type either... But I would like to be informed if you get involved with someone else. Because among other reasons I expect you have good taste. And you've settled on the engine? Thank you. Like I said before, I need your experience. Which is distinct from needing to experience you, which I definitely also did." She runs a hand through her hair and smiles.

"Yeah. It was great. And, likewise. One of the best parts of sex is making someone enjoy it so much, bliss out... It's - not even quite thinking I'll find someone else - just," she blushes and waves her hand vaguely. "I think I might miss, uh, dick, and other things I noticed are different with men."

Thorn laughs. "Like the lack of hair in the face? Yeah, I can see how you'd appreciate that." She blushes a little. "Though, ah. The dick thing might be surmountable by the OTC, one way or another."

Oh look more blushing!

"-Think about that later. The hair was fine. We laughed about it, and if one of us had farted or something we'd probably have laughed about that too. 'S not always perfect and passionate and pretty like those bawdy novels."

"Yeah. I think it added to it in a strange way. Made it a little more real."

She offers Lenora her hand. "Now shall we go meet the captain, or was there something else you'd like to talk about?"

"I'm already regretting asking this but by 'surmountable by the OTC' surely you don't just mean, like... A wooden one..."