Romana had saved up so long for this, to make sure that she had all the time that she could ever need to... do it properly, to make sure that everything would be right and that she didn't need to fear getting lost in the Blackberry Gardens, and more then anything to ensure that she had no excuse not to actually let herself do this.
Nervously, she walked up to the front desk, examining the note that the Bowers had left for her.
In her room, there was another program guide, and a simple set of two iron rings and a set of comfortable sandles sitting right beside the door.
Oh...
She hums quietly, and leans over to pick up the sandals and walks over to the bed to sit on it and think again.
Her finger runs across the sole of it.
She smiled.
She'd always liked the softer things in life...
She drops them to the floor and slides them onto her feet.
...It's still comfortable, to trust like this.
She doesn't know what to think about that.
It wasn't like Sapphire was telling her that it was bad but...
Your current cognitive instance has memories of four and half hours. Would you like to unlock more detailed logging?
The catalogue lists of a board game club - both in modest and not-so-modest dress codes, a mixer event with and without food and a dating aspect, and a few differently themed public use areas - Did you know that some people come here to get people to walk up to them and fuck themselves with their body while socializing?
The Rosethorn hotel is happy to provide ample photographic evidence.
She laughs a little, shaking her head blushingly.
This place really knows her well, doesn't it...?
...Going dating would be nice, especially if it's something that doesn't have to be that, and it can just be well...
Mixing.
She strode off to the meeting room, discarding the phasing charm and exhibitionist exhibit functions - this was supposed to be something...
A bit more sedate, and not the sort of thing where she would be inviting that in the same way.
The meeting space was a large room much like hers, with a two-person table at the centre with glossy menus at each of the two seats and a small cordoned off changing area on the side.
A mahogany fan turns overhead silently.
As she enters, she notices her sitting there. hands folded together nicely on her lap. Her hair has a rose braided into it, tucked lightly around her ear, spilling out beside her head.
Her clothes are a modest viriginal white affair, though the curve of her large breasts is still reasonably visible.
A pendant of some black stone hangs from her neck.
She inclines her head welcomingly.
She raises her eyebrow a little, but still walks over to her seat, pulling it out a little to sit comfortably upon it.
"Hi. I'm Romana."
She gently stretches her hand out to clasps hers, and kisses her cheeks lightly in greeting.
"I'm Ruby. Pleasure to meet you. Is there anything I can do to help you feel more comfortable? I know that Rosethorn Hotel is excellent about that sort of thing, but it never hurts to ask, I've found."
She blushed softly, leaning into the kisses, then paused for a moment, and returned them.
"Thank you - could you please get me a drink to start and tell me a bit about yourself and your thoughts on the menu?"
Her hand gently tugged hers closer.
She waved her hand and materialized a milkshake for each of them as her other hand squeezed her back.
"I'm not sure where to start - Professionally, I'm an adventurer mage, but it's hard to know how much that really means, given how much that sort of line of work ends up diversifying depending on where you happen to be and who you are with. On way to think of me as a rush seeker, but it's good to be able to just explore things as simple as minor variants of clothes and charms and the way that it can give you a chance to be a different ideal of you."
She smiled again.
"Like this place, I'd say."
"Yeah...~"
She takes a sip, and shudders a little at the heady taste.
"I'm an artificer - but it's hard to really talk about what that means when it's not just churning things out - half the time it's just listening to what people need and telling that there's a standard product that they can buy off the OTC's standard inventory that they just didn't think of, or listening to them telling me there dreams and aspirations to make something special."
"Oh yeah that's pretty relatable - when you are doing adventures, half the time the real thing you need to do is 'Politely ask them to reconsider because it's just not economical to fight in the way they think', and well..."
Her fingers entwine with hers a little more.
"I hope that I can give people a chance to understand what they want and how I can please them, when I work, and that's why I really like this place - there's a lot less of the sort of comparisons floating about becuase none of this is really scalable in the traditional way, everything wants something different, and it's all linked between the people there in a way that makes it important that people are doing things how they want. You can just... enjoy being the sort of you that you were scared couldn't face the real world, because there's no reason to expect that you'll face something that you have to turn to another toolkit for, if you don't want to, and understand the point of having that."
She nods slowly.
"I like being proffessional and ready to work for others, but there's just..."
She laughs a little.
"There's a lot of time I've already spent here indulging in just letting my heart guide me without having to go for anything more deliberate then that, but even with that..."
She leaned forwards a little, hovering just before her face.
"I want to know more about how this ticks, and not just luxuriate in whatever comfortable bed the hotel offers me."
She shifted to brush her nose against hers, and her hand against her cheek.
They rest like that, for a moment.
"I like the way that this lets me be free of the trivialities, and be free of what it would normally mean to be. I could be wearing a different body right now, and that would simply be... how it is. And another important thing is that... I'm allowed to enjoy the norms of all this, and enjoy the warmth, the food, the chance to discuss this all without it being silly or thinking about some distant ideal, and I can tell you that you are beautiful to me without that being bizzare or too forward or just... not the sort of thing that the me I am today would say, simply because this is a place of Love."
She strokes across her cheek more firmly, leaving a little shivery presence behind.
"I think that you would enjoy the bacon options here, incidentally. It's one of those things that is really difficult to get to work exactly how you want out of here but well...~"
She breathes in deeply and does a small nod against her forehead.
In a moment, she's ordered a bacon sandwich and is chowing down.
She smiles bemusedly, and orders herself one, too.
"It's important not to get lost in the sort of passion of what it feels like to... 'want' things, because there's so much that isn't just that, you know? I like reaching out to you, and it's good to be able to do that but..."
She crunched into the suprisingly greasy sandwich, though it simply didn't get on her hands or face.
A candleset appears on the table, issuing out faint white smoke above a sharp blue flame.
"It's a cleansing candle. Please don't worry about making me uncomfortable if you want to touch or anything, and I find that it just... works well, for me."
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