Violet's grin stretches just a bit brighter and sharper, and her eyebrows quirk up a touch in delight. "That we will." She taps her phone at the terminal to pay for the book.

"See you tomorrow, Snow."

"See you tomorrow. Maybe then you'll actually tell me your name!" She winks.

"Violet Ink," she replies with a smirk and a wink of her own, lingering just long enough to catch Snow's expression before turning and continuing out the door with Foxy and X.

There's a moment of surprise, then the briefest flash of a smile before Snow turns away back to her books.

The next day, around the same time, the chimes tinkle again as Violet walks back into the store. 

Snow looks up from behind the cash register and smiles. "Violet! - do you have a diminutive, is that okay? I've been waiting for you all day. You owe me a coffee."

"Oh drat. The book won't be here until tomorrow or the next day, and I'm cursed to take this cute girl out to coffee. What a terrible fate,~" she says with a warm smile, striding up to the counter in a copper sundress and strappy heels. "And you can call me Violet, or Vi if we're close."

She smiles. "Indeed, what a terrible fate." She steps around from behind the counter, and gestures to the door out. "After you. I've got to lock up."

Violet nods and steps outside, enjoying the summer evening air.

Snow steps out and locks the door behind her. 

"So, meeting the creator of Heartscape randomly at my job over a coffee bet was absolutely not how I expected my weekend to go." She smiles slightly and tucks her keys back in her purse. "Just so we're clear, I did notice that necklace, but given that - I'm guessing she's your Kept? - was right there and didn't stop you - that this is fine. I'm not... really good at relationships, but, well. I'm trying to get out more." She tilts her head to the side, and huffs. "Anyway. What's a safe topic - probably books? What do you read, generally? Creative-angst genre? Interactive fiction?" 

She's walking already, heading in the direction of the il'ka at a decent pace. Trees pass along the side of the path, shading the tram tracks down the center of the street. They pass a green-haired man drawing shutters over a small electronics store, and a woman with a necklace in the shape of a winged tree sitting at the tram bench and reading on her phone. 

Violet matches her pace beside her. "Yes, we have a delightfully open relationship in my polycule. We're all quite full of compersion, and I'm not sure Foxbox — my Kept, you read that right — and I even quite get how jealousy works, honestly. And Black Cross is obviously fine with it or she wouldn't have offered to take tonight's shift at the il'ka. And Liv comes home from shows bragging about people she's picked up." She laughs, shakes her head. "So yes, we're all very much fine with this sort of thing happening."

"Relationships... In my experience it's easy to be bad at them — or think you're bad at them — if you're with people who are wrong for you. But you're already taking the right steps about that and getting out more, so you're going to be fine."

She hums for a moment. "As far as books, well, in terms of media I love everything from flat text to voice-styled to interactive and more. Genres are a more interesting question. I quite enjoy creative-angst, but I think my favorite is probably nobledark exploration and adventure: things like the Bright-Bough Trade Guild setting, or the Lost Magi saga."

"What about you?"

Snow smiles. "I'm glad to hear it. Bright-Bough is one of my favorites too, especially the Acquisitions series. I haven't read Lost Magi but I keep meaning to get around to it, people tell me it's great. I like thrillers and stories about con artists, especially if they're not taken too seriously - Raven's Dance, Thirteen Pens, the Heist series, that sort of thing. It's so fun to try and puzzle out the twist, especially if it's about turning genre conventions on its head. The thing that I love about Acquisitions is the dancing around trying to pretend to be a native to the local universe until uh-oh the jig is up and in comes Bright-Bough and all the intelligence that's been scraped together by the agent suddenly comes into play."

"Oh Acquisitions is just great. Absolutely one of my favorites from the setting. I haven't read Raven's Dance or the Heist series yet, but I loved Thirteen Pens. That sort of twisty puzzle is so great. It really sounds like you'd like Lost Magi, too, especially the magic system."

"My friend recommends it based on the fact I liked Raven's Dance. Apparently it does a similar recovery-from-amnesia plot? And yeah, I really loved the twist for Thirteen Pens, the four different aliases being revealed to all be Whisper was stunning and I can't believe I didn't pick up on it."

"Same! I think one of the only things I like more than the awe at a really great twist that surprised me is the satisfaction at barely piecing it together before the reveal. And yeah, it does. Raven's Dance does that too?"

"Yeah, it's about this powerful witch with a lot of minions who fights this sorcerer who fights with mind magic and is prone to erasing people's memories - we don't figure this out till later, the book opens with her standing over this guy's body with a knife in her hand and no idea how she got there - but she's left specific instructions for herself in case exactly this happened, and so she has to tap-dance around balancing her various feuding minions' interests without giving away the fact that she's lost her memory and is basically making this all up as she goes along. There's a lot of hilarious scenes where it's clear she's figuring it out as she goes but nobody else ever quite catches on, it's great."

"Oh that's delightful. I'll have to pick up a copy!" She pulls out her phone and jots a quick note, then tucks it back into her purse.

"What's your favorite interactive fiction?"

"Hmmm, hard to choose. I think Spellbound, maybe? The one where you have a bunch of cursed girls and you have to either help "cure" them or help them come to terms with their condition, and you have limited resources so you have to make some hard decisions about who most needs their curse removed."

Vi makes an exquisitely complicated expression, awe mixed with sadness mixed with a memory of arousal. "Goddesses, that was a beautifully poignant ride. Foxy and I had post-tragedy sex about every route."

Snow blushes a little. "I, ah, good for you. I don't know why I'm blushing, I would've done the same if I, you know... had someone." 

She sighs. "Sorry, I don't mean to put a damper on the mood."

Violet shakes her head, smiling with a warm confidence. "Not at all, hon. For one, I overshare sometimes, and for two, a delectable cutie like you? You'll find someone, for sure. I like you, and I've only met you twice. You're clever, you're pretty, you're fun to talk with, and you've got great taste in media."

She reaches out and takes Snow's hand in her own. "Your finding someone perfect for you is just a matter of meeting the right people. Your finding dates is just a matter of talking about a book you like and flashing those pretty eyes at anyone who loves thoughtful, well-read cuties even half as much as I do."

And Violet lifts Snow's hand toward her face, bends forward a bit, and brushes a gentle kiss to her knuckles.

"I'm not that special, I-"

And then she's cut off by the kiss to her hand. A huge blush spreads across her face, and she looks away. 

"You - you have a Kept, you flatterer - what am I supposed to do with you?" 

She hesitantly pulls her hand away, and rests it against her breast, and sighs. "I... Thank you for your kind words, I do appreciate them, but it's hard for me to take you seriously when we just met yesterday. You - this is kind of an indelicate question, but you're totally an Ecstatic, right? I'm just not like that, I'm Storyteller, I don't - get the joy of sex or whatever... Like, I'm not a virgin don't get me wrong but it's just fun, I don't think it's... sacred or something. But having you... You're actually someone, and I'm not, and having you kiss me with Entreaty is just - I don't know how to take that, okay? Especially when you seem already quite taken."

"Not that specia—"

Her mouth snaps shut, her eyes close, and she takes a breath.

(A bronze glow shines very faintly in her hair for a brief moment.)

"Everyone is that special, Snow. You don't have to be someone important to deserve that kind of attention." She shakes her head. "That's part of why I made Heartscape in the first place, but that can wait until after clarifying this."