That's so cool!

But. Also, she understands the bit about not wanting to hurt people. It's going to be hard, if they have to do that. And they probably will have to, won't they?

Well, Christa won't, she'll be wearing Aire and just serving as an undistracted telepath, probably.

But still. Even if it isn't by her own hands, she's going to have to hurt people, isn't she?

"Hurting people feels really hard and scary," Tanthe says softly. "But I do think there are times when it's the right thing to do, and that this is one of them. I'm just... not sure how to get to the point where I can do it."

She was certainly ready to try, back when she first confronted Aire, but she's still overwhelmingly relieved that she didn't have to.

"Yeah. It's. Well, it's never good if people hurt. Even if they're bad people. But sometimes it has to happen anyway."

Her books taught her that much. And maybe they were wrong about a lot, maybe they were wrong about people like Aire, but they weren't wrong about people like the Red Queen.

"So, we'll have to learn, right?"

Maybe they can try punching each other or something. It's bound to be easier to hurt people trying to hurt you than to hurt your friends, so if they can do one they should be able to do the other, right?

(But. Um. Maybe not now.)

"Yeah. Somehow, at some point. I... guess I'm hoping I can still put it off a while longer. Maybe until we have a good idea about how to learn safely."

They could try pinching each other very hard! That's definitely safe! And not something she'd be too afraid to do right now, even!

Christa is very excited to have come up with an idea! She hopes it's a good idea!

But, um, if it's not Tanthe should feel free to say so! She probably would anyway, but it's important not to push! 

Oh no, is she pushing? If so she's sorry for pushing! It's sort of harder to not do when it's all in her thoughts. Wait, this is all in her thoughts, she didn't say any of it out loud yet to mark it for proper consideration. Salvation!

...Tanthe giggles softly.

"I don't mind you having ideas!" she says. "I think... whatever ideas we have, I want to think about them carefully and discuss them before trying them? Not because I specifically think there's something bad about trying to pinch each other, but because... 'learning how to hurt people without flinching too much' seems to me like a pretty delicate thing, and I want to be careful around it, and understand what I'm doing and why I expect it to work, and pay attention to whether it works the way I expected or not, so that I don't accidentally... teach myself the wrong things? Does that make sense?"

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense! I wasn't even thinking about that. I think probably it'd be okay anyway? But really, better to know than to go off "probably" with something so important."

"Yes, exactly. But I think it might be a good idea! I just want to be sure we think about it first."

Aire is moderately confused about what exactly Tanthe is getting at, until she thinks to compare it to her own four importantly valuable things. She doesn’t just care, she cares about caring.

Aire feels a little ridiculous for not immediately understanding. And then disconcerted. That was a pretty obvious thought. Why hadn’t she thought it already? She feels like there’s a reason.

She must have lost it when she lost her memories. And perhaps her lack of empathy is impairing her.

That sounds correct to Christa. Hmm. How do they think about it, how would they be able to tell whether it was doing the right thing? The obvious way might be trying to find someone like who's already gone through this, but that sounds perhaps hard.

Tanthe is interested in Aire's train of thought, but trying to mostly keep her attention on Christa so there aren't any obvious gaps in the conversation. She's a decent multitasker, though. 'Care about caring' seems to her like a good way to put it, but she thinks it's not the only thing making her hesitant here; she also just has a general reluctance to mess around with the way she thinks without understanding what she's doing, because the way she thinks is important to her in general, and deliberately trying to change something as integral to herself as her reluctance to hurt people sounds like the sort of thing that could have weird unanticipated side effects if approached thoughtlessly.

"Hmm... no, actually, I think asking other people for advice sounds like a great idea. Hopefully someone will know someone who had a similar problem and can advise us from experience, but even if not, I like the thought of getting multiple perspectives. Does either of you know someone we could ask?"

In the back of her mind, a feeling that probably having a well-considered reluctance to harm people and growing capable of doing so in a thoughtful manner is pretty rare. Back in Arcadia she didn't really read a lot of people who thought about things like that. 

Hmm. Christa has spent most of her time here in something of a haze. Has Aire met anyone that seemed like they had experience with something like this?

Not really.

But as far as alternate perspectives go, Lilian, the girl she mentioned as maybe a good fit for the team they're putting together, seemed to be in a similar position, and attempting to solve her version of the problem by trying to grow the ability to temporarily suppress her reluctance, or something like that. Aire isn't sure how far along to managing it she was, and she also gets the sense that Tanthe might want something different than that. They could head off and grab her if Tanthe wants? Perhaps she's done more thinking about the issue than Aire realized, when they interacted. And at the very least she'd be another perspective.

But, all that said, Lilian was kind of out of it when Aire left her under the bar's care, and in the middle of a very mutation-altered alcohol high. She burns through the stuff absurdly quickly, but there'd be a waiting period.

(And privately, to Tanthe, yes, Aire did deliberately put her in a position where, if not for information Lilian didn't have, she might end up trapped in a haze of pleasure forever. The plan was always to grab her in the morning though, and just privately luxuriate in her theoretical capacity to seduce Lilian into actual terrible outcomes.)

Tanthe privately expresses a sort of fond wry sense of 'yes, that sounds like exactly the sort of thing you'd do'. She's glad that Lilian is safe, though.

"Sure, we could try talking to Lilian if she's available."

They should probably head to the bar then, and Aire can chat with the bar through a Christa-relay and ask it to ease Lilian down from her fun. She should burn through the alcohol and be amenable to meeting Aire and her friends after not too long.

Tanthe thinks this is a fine plan! She also isn't sure where the bar is from here. Perhaps Christa and Aire should lead the way.

Aire does, walking beside Tanthe this time, instead of seductively in front of her. As she makes the choice to do so, the memory of leading Tanthe away bubbles up through her. The attraction she was feeling at the time, the sense of anticipation. 

She banishes the thought, and just walks.

It'll only be ten or so minutes. They're not far.

Christa does not know the way herself, on account of spending much of her time highly distracted. So instead Aire is controlling their shared body. Being carried along like this is fun!

(Christa is so cute.)

And they arrive at the bar.

It's the work of perhaps a minute to finish her conversation with the bar, but who knows how long it will take Lilian to be interruptible. 

Christa grabs control of their body for a moment to ask the bar for a beer. She wants to try it while she's not so distracted.

Tanthe will have one too, why not.

Aire guides them to a different booth than the one where she talked to Tanthe, the first time. She doesn't want too many of her memories coming up and distracting her. This one's on the opposite side of the room.

They're lucky in that the upper area isn't currently in use by any Lovers who are using the tentacle-bar for the tentacle half of the description, which wasn't a guarantee. But, well, if worst came to worst, they could have just waited outside.

And Christa takes a sip of her beer.

"It's pretty good! Well, compared to what I've tried before, anyway. And you said what your family's inn had back in Peachport was a lot better? Wow."