"It is, as a matter of fact, the kind of story that could happen to someone who asked very nicely and was very patient and helped with the design work."

Cut, cut, chop, cut, toss, cut.

Tiny wiggle. "Design work?"

"Mhm! Design work. I had to completely design how I wanted to rearrange my body."

A wing wraps around her and snugs her close while Sable keeps butchering the jillyfleur.

"How much story do you want, Anselma?"

"Maybe not the whole thing if it takes a really long time?"

"It's not a terribly long story, just somewhat personal. What do you know about transgender people?"

"No...thing? What's that?"

"Sometimes people are born with a soul that doesn't quite match what society calls them based on their body. A child might look like a little boy, and be called a little boy by society, but really be a little girl, in her heart and her soul and her mind."

"Oh. Did that happen to you? I'm sorry."

"Yep. My mom was decent about it, though, before she died."

Sable snuggles into Anise and Maya both.

"That's good. Nobody ever said I wasn't a girl, but--they said other things. There are things people shouldn't say." 

"There are things people shouldn't say. There are also people who are very lucky that they're not close enough to have some sense knocked into them."

Protective squeeze.

She shakes her head and continues. "Eventually I learned about a a special trick that doesn't work under law-light, called red science. With careful use, one can use it to alter a body in all sorts of ways. So I trained up very carefully and gave myself the body I was supposed to have. The wings are original, but I modified just about everything else."

"Oh, cool!" she enthuses. "So you designed those tentacles yourself? They're beautiful."

"Thank you! Yes, I did. My wings are original, my hair is an accident, but everything else about me is quite deliberate. I modeled the pattern on my tentacles after the feathers on my wings, actually."

"That makes sense. I might do something else, then...maybe something amber? I'm mostly, you know, human colors, so autumn colors would probably work for me..."

Sable nods and smiles. "That makes sense. I think amber could look quite nice on you. The tricky part about tentacles is that you have to figure out where you're going to store them when you're not using them, make room for them, and make a path for them to emerge wherever you want them to pop out."

"I don't store my arms when I'm not using them..."

"Fair point! That's a matter of personal preference, I suppose. I've gotten attached to being able to surprise people with them, perhaps. They see my wings and hair and figure that I'm just a colorful bird-girl. They make assumptions that I can take advantage of. That, and perhaps I'm just a fan of making things that transform."

"Oh. I see. I don't...I don't like having to be small."

Another protective squeeze. "I'm the opposite, in a way. I spent a lot of time and effort trying to make sure I wouldn't be forced to become big and strapping and hairy. But I get it. I made my able to tuck away because I like having the option. Whether or not we design yours with an option to retract, on my ship you'll always have the right to stretch as tall and as far as you want."

"...Yeah." 

Small nuzzle. 

"Plus if you're the bird girl and I'm the girl with the glowy tentacles nobody's going to expect you to have glowy tentacles."

Giggly forehead kiss. "Oh that's excellent. Clever cutie."

Snuggle some more.

"There's a bonus to not making them retractable, too: we don't have to make room inside you to store them."

"--What would you take out???"

"I mean, there are some unnecessary things, like the appendix, and some things can be optimized enough to take up less space. Plus, the design I settled on for the internal structure of the tentacles can collapse down to a fraction of it's extended volume."