Mira is flicker-dashing across the sand fast enough to leave a wake, when she sees the cookfire and slows down to catch her breath. And waits for her regeneration to take care of her sore muscles.

Are those people? Those look like people.

This is not a situation where avoiding people is the correct instinct, she scolds herself.

Mira approaches at a nice, nonthreatening stroll. She is a five-foot-nothing beauty with short black hair and a tight, supple body packed with as much in the way of sexy buxom curves as will fit on her frame without spoiling her agile build. She appears in a reddish enchanted cloak with the hood down, and under it she's dressed in the local 'bikini mage' style. She is carrying a backpack stuffed full and bulging at the seams.

The twiggy girl spots her first, and waves a cheery greeting; the others are at first too busy to follow suit, but after a few seconds when the big man is done with his laughing fit, he follows the girl's line of sight and turns and stands up and waves as well.

"Hey, stranger!" he calls out, in a deep friendly voice that carries very well across the distance. "We've room for one more, if you're feeling friendly!"

The woman serving the meal twists around to squint across the sands until she spots the stranger. "I'll warn you ahead of time," she calls, in a voice much fainter than her friend's but still audible as Mira approaches, "dinner's going to taste like dirt!"

The big man laughs and shakes his head and sits back down, with one more beckoning wave to Mira.

Well, that seems promising as greetings go.

Mira briefly weighs up sharing her picnic basket vs. saving it for herself vs. the probability that civilization is near and she has a backpack full of money with which to buy new food.

Well, she'll share if they ask.

"I've got my own," she softly responds. "But thanks."

She takes off her cloak and drapes it over a rock that seems intended as a place to sit, then sits on it, setting her backpack down between her legs. She isn't sure what to say, but she tries to make friendly eye-contact with each of them as she opens up her picnic basket and sets it on top of her pack, in case any of them have something to say.

This lands her next to the woman who warned her about the meal.

"What's your name?" she asks, passing the last couple of bowls around the fire and kicking the lanky man's boot to wake him up so he'll take his. "I'm Ekeshi."

"Eh? What?" says the lanky man, stirring groggily. "Right. Dinner. Yes." He takes off his hat, revealing a face as long and narrow as the rest of him, and accepts his bowl.

"I'm Mira," she introduces herself with a casual smile.

Mira hesitates for a moment over her basket, remembers she's magically clean now, and rips a piece of meat off with her fingers. It's cold, but fresh and delicious.

"Hey, um. Is this Vynait, yet? I'm sure I was headed in the right direction but I'm not sure how far I've gotten."

"Thereabouts, thereabouts," says Ekeshi.

"If you want the capital you've a ways to go," the twiggy girl says with an animated gesture expressing just how much of a ways that might be. "Hi! I'm Tafi!"

"We're in the outskirts," rumbles the big man. "I'm Aza."

"Outskirts of the outskirts, more like," Tafi objects. "Sure, if you just want to do a little dance and say 'I'm in Vynait!'," (she does a little dance on her rock-seat, demonstratively) "you could argue it, but if you want to see an actual settlement it's at least a couple days by camel. Not that anyone here has a camel, but if we did, it'd be a couple days."

Mira starts to do some quick math in her head, loses the numbers halfway through, and just rounds. She's maybe twenty times faster than a camel? So for her a couple of hours, then. She could make it by nightfall. Maybe. Unless the camels here are faster than she's imagining. That's entirely possible.

Mira does a little dance, wryly deadpan. "Yay, I'm in Vynait."

More picnic food. Nom.

Sitting among these people, these friendly strangers, in nothing but a cosplay bikini (which is actually at lewd living shapeshifting slime)...

She feels more comfortable, more open, more willing to draw attention to herself, than she ever has in her life. It's a glorious feeling, that her body actually reflects who she is and how she wants to be seen. That what is being seen when other people look at her is her and not the prison her mind happens to live in. If she's not careful she's going to catch herself preening when they look at her.

"So what's around here?" Mira asks, upbeat. "Any places you recommend?"

"Well," says Ekeshi, gesturing at the water beyond the campfire, "we've found what might be the nastiest-tasting oasis in the whole southern Sands, which could qualify as a tourist attraction if you think about it."

"That's why our dinner tastes like dirt," Aza adds helpfully. "We always make something with the water we find at an oasis first thing, it's our little tradition."

"And this one's got some sort of mineral situation going on," says the stocky woman with the dented cup, "and it is just not nice."

"Maybe we can market it as healthful," the lanky man says with slightly ironic optimism. "You know, like those hot springs the mountain folk are always going on about. Ah, I'm Ralin. It's lovely to meet you, miss."

"And a lovely miss, too," the woman next to him says under her breath, but she flashes a very genuine smile across the campfire. "Orss."

Mira blushes at being called lovely. Wow. That hit harder than she would've thought. She's not used to hearing that and not immediately disbelieving it, but it's true, now, so.

"Hi," Mira says again.

Uh. That was distracting, what had everyone else said? Marketing scam. Mineral solution. Dinner made with oasis water. They found it. Right.

Chew chew.

"Oh!" Mira suddenly blurts. "I have a..." She sets her basket aside and throws the flap of her backpack open, exposing its contents. The maps and stuff are on top, and under that is her money, and under that is... a cup! A shiny golden cup that glows with magic to anyone who can sense that kind of thing. "I have one of these! Wanna see if it works on the mineral thing?"

A circle of impressed eyebrow-lifts greets her golden cup. Tafi's go highest.*

"Sure, let's see," says Ekeshi. "One of those water-cleaner cups, you mean? Go on and try it, I'm curious now."

*(At least by relative elevation. By absolute elevation the winner is of course Aza.)

Mira will pass the Chalice to whoever is closest to the water, feeling only a slight twinge at letting it out of her hands, well after she's already handed it over.

It's not like it's an electronic device containing her only lifeline to the outside world and loads of access to her digital identity or anything.

That would be Tafi, who bounces up with the cup in hand and heads down to the water to dip it.

"Pure as the driven snow!" she pronounces after taking a sip. "Why do they say that, anyway? What drives the snow? Tiny snow camels?"

Orss snorts. "Wind, I think," she says.

Tafi returns to the campfire and hands Mira back her cup, now mostly full of water. She's about to sit down when Orss leans across the fire, dented tin cup in hand. "Here, so our new friend can make the comparison."

"Oh, good thinking!" Tafi bounces back to the oasis and dips the tin cup, rather more shallowly, then returns to Mira and hands her that one too.

Mira makes a face, but takes the tin cup like a good sport, and then takes the tiniest possible sip.

Euagh. That's worse than tap water.

She spits it out with a soft, "Bleh."

Tafi nods wisely. "Good thing you brought your own dinner."

"Ours is edible," says Ralin.

"Ralin, I have seen you pick up a lizard off a rock—"

"That was one time," he protests, laughing.

"You bit it in half like a snack cake!" She mimes the incident very dramatically. "It was memorable!"

"Cronch," says Aza, giggling.

Ralin folds his long arms and glowers, but he can't quite keep the smile off his face; it keeps sneaking in around the edges.

Mira giggles at this, ducking behind her next bite of food a little.

Huh. She's... not thirsty. It's been hours, and she feels... fine. Her throat feels, um, smooth and well-lubricated, and her head feels light as a feather. That's... neat. She sets the Chalice back out so anyone who is thirsty can use it.

"So, um. You mentioned the capitol city? I've never been there."

"It's great!" says Tafi enthusiastically. "It's huge and it's so pretty and there's always something to do and you never have to cook if you don't want to because so many places sell good food!"

"Too busy," Orss opines. "And the noise, by the gods, I don't know how you people stand it. I'll take a nice quiet oasis any day, thanks, even if the water tastes like if rocks could piss."

Mira nods at this and continues eating. She feels the urge to squirm, a slowly coiling tension in her body, far more noticeable now that she isn't sprinting through the dunes. It doesn't show on her face, but her eyes are starting to wander over her dining companions, drawn inexorably to rake their figures, if she lets herself look at all.

It's the... openess... of being seen in a body that suits who she is on the inside, she theorizes. That's why her slick, squishy pussy is softly throbbing and feeling oh so insistently empty. That's why her breasts are tingling with skin-hunger and her nipples are jutting into the slime-flesh inside her bikini top, feeling hot and needy. Because, for the first time in her life, her body is in line with what she desires to offer others, and with the desires in others that she wants to fulfill. As an explanation it feels incomplete, but she isn't sure why; it would suffice to explain why she's so horny.

Having an explanation doesn't make being seen as she is for the first time any less of a turn on, though.

"Is there any more you can tell me about it?"

Mira's voice is a little rough, but she succeeds in maintaining a casual tone. However, this is also the moment when her pupils finish morphing into heart shapes, which she has no way of noticing herself.

Orss nudges Ralin's ribs with a quiet smile, and Ralin double-takes slightly and then—is he blushing? He may be blushing.

He clears his throat. "Ah, my favourite part of the big city is the library, personally. Books from all over the world. Well, not all over, but certainly a lot of places."

What is with that weird look that is alarming---is that a blush? Why oh no did she do something.

Also, wow, a major Library in a world without internet. That's a thing. "I haven't been to a library in such a long time. That sounds amazing."

Nibble nom.

"What, um, about you guys? Where're you headed?"

"Farther out, most likely," says Orss.

"We're explorers, of a sort," Aza explains. "Mapping out the best oases."

"And the worst ones!" chirps Tafi.

"Ekeshi knows an old trick for making oasis jars," says Ralin, still a little shy. "And they taste different depending where you make them, so..."

"I'll make one here just in case it sells as a novelty," says Ekeshi. "But it likely won't. We can keep it in the back of the carriage to laugh over."

Mira giggles obligingly at that.

Why does it feel like they know, Mira isn't good at reading people-

Oh. That's not true anymore, is it. Her head is full of new knowledge and skills, including... And yeah. She can't tell how they know, but, somehow, they've noticed. They know. That she's turned on and full of horny feelings.

(Mira is still new to this experience, and it doesn't quite occur to her that she, herself, can do anything about this.)

The five friends finish eating their dinners. Aza eats what's left at the bottom of the pot, then looks down into it and sighs.

"I do not want to wash this in the bad water, we'll be tasting it for weeks," he says. "...Mira? Could I borrow your cup, to rinse out our dishes with?"

"Sure!"

She picks up the Chalice and hands it off.

Mira is done eating too, with plenty of left over food in her picnic basket, but she hesitates to put it away because having food in front of her is a Default Social Activity and she'll feel awkward just sitting there without a Default Place to put her attention.

No, if she lets herself do that she's going to eat the entire rest of the food in her basket and make herself sick, and she is way too horny to want to have to deal with that. She closes up the basket and puts it in her backpack.

Aza gathers up dirty dishes, and Tafi helps out by bringing the cup to pour water into them with, and Orss grins and nudges Ralin, who coughs.

"U-um," says Ralin, definitely blushing now. "So. Well. Er. ...sorry, I am trying my very hardest but I am terrible at talking to pretty girls."

Orss pats him comfortingly on the arm. Leaning toward Mira, she says in a theatrical facsimile of a conspiratorial whisper, "He's trying to say he's interested. In sex. With you."

Ralin hides his face in his hands and splutter-giggles.

"...really?" It comes out shyly hopeful, even though she knows she's beautiful, desirable and fuckable, now.

It's not like no one's ever asked to have sex with her, before. Both her former body, and her online presentation of her true self, have gotten interest. But separately. (Or at least, in her brain there's always a hard separation even where she was aware there didn't strictly need to be; it's just something her brain does.) Ralin doesn't have a clue about the latter, but being desired for a body that actually fits her somehow feels more like the latter than the former, which is objectively idiotic but subjectively delightful and in any case that separating line is gone.

Just, say yes. This doesn't need to be complicated. Just. Say. Yes.

"That's nice."

Goddamnit.