"Okay. I'll trade you messenger IDs so I can text you from reality, OK?"

She sends the virtual ID through CORA's message system, and then brings up the ingame menu.

"... See you," she says. And she hits logout. 

There's a long moment of transition as the virtual reality fades away — 

And then she's back in the pod, wrist unpricked, her body sweat-stained and achey from the long time spent down. It's been over twenty-four hours, after all; the pod's automatic repositioning equipment means that she's not in any danger of developing bedsores, but she can still feel that she's been in bed for most of two days. 

She pops the hatch of the pod from the virtual console, and gets up. 

Fuck, she's been missing her hormones...

She rubs her face. Her body feels heavy. Gangly. It aches in her soul. 

She doesn't have to be like this. 

... but she should really eat food. Get something to eat in the house. Go out. See a real tree. Do something other than mess around online...

She creakily gets up and dresses herself in her purple dress again.

Her phone's still in the pocket.

She texts Sable.

Fuck, being back in the meat suit sucks. I can see why you stay down most of the time.

After Hyacinth vanishes, they pop the tent back into inventory, make a note of the location, and shift to Hailey.

She walks off into the woods in search of something to stab, then tilts her head when they get the text.

H: Yeah. We absolutely refuse to go back out there unless there's a damned good reason.

... she looks down at her hand. It feels too big. Her whole body feels too big, and — noticing her body — 

She's flat, and she wants to cry. 

...

Earth is a really really shit game

She jumps up and pulls herself up into a tree, sits on a branch, and leans back against the trunk, sighing softly.

H: Absolute garbage. 1/10, would not recommend. Who do we have to beat up for a refund? Only upsides are that the minigames inside it are sometimes great, and we met you.

Character creation's glitched and a reroll costs $FuckYou in ingame currency, half the players are assholes and some of the GMs are too, you die if you don't eat food, and you spawn in a completely random party with completely shit partner matching and your teammates flame you if you feed. 6/10, I guess it's technically proficient and the physics engine is gorgeous but it's not an enjoyable experience at all without aftermarket mods.

I will at least give it that it doesn't do barbie-doll anatomy like SOME games do. Looking at you Realms of Dragons.

H: Hear hear. Could be a great game if the entire social engine was rewritten, and if mid-game character reroll was available. Agreed about the anatomy, though. Thank goodness for no barbie doll anatomy.

Hyacinth finds herself considering her options. 

She could go back to university physically next week... 

No, screw that. She wants to learn creative writing, yes, but existing in this body after she's felt the alternative is like being trapped in a tiny metal cage. 

Her parents thought they could control her, and they were wrong. 

She doesn't have any urgent tasks to do. UBI is free. The VR setup is good for several years yet, and by the time it needs replacing she'll be able to have saved something. 

The nutrient feed for the pod's good for at least another month. 

Is she really going to do this? 

It feels like giving up. She wanted to have a body that felt right in reality. The shaping clinics exist...

The shaping clinics aren't about to give her fox ears and her own magic system any time soon. 

She can see it in her mind's eye, the blossom of the node builder in meditation...

She sits on the edge of her pod and she breathes slowly, phone in her hand. 

She knows she's not thinking rationally. But there is no god damn reason why she should be here. Dustin can take a hike, they were never that close before she came out anyway. 

She's been hurting all her god damn life and relief is just a pinprick away. 

UBI's probably not going away. 

In the end it's not actually a hard decision at all. 

She turns off the pod alarm for seven days from now, and sets it for thirty. 

I'm going down. I think forever, or as close as I can get. 

It's not even a question. In CORA I can be me. And have a real life. With real people who really care about me. And real magic. 

Hot tears stain her cheeks.

Reality is a shit game. 

I'd rather have you.

She takes off her dress again. Two days' nutrient stock isn't worth going out for, or even having delivered. She can do it from ingame if she needs to.

She settles the neural crown on her head again, and wakes up from her bad dream. 

Back in reality, she takes a slow breath and plants her staff on the ground. 

She messages Hailey, one last time.

I'm back.

A minute or so later, Hyacinth hears rustling sounds in the trees overhead, and then Hailey drops down from the canopy next to her.

"Welcome back."

"Hey," she says with a smile. "Guess I'm emigrating."

Then she takes a hiccupy breath and sits down on the ground before she falls down. 

"... Sorry," she manages. "Just..." 

How to say it. 

"You'd better not back out on that house now."

She laughs and shakes her head. sitting down across from her. "You beautiful fucking dork. Not a chance. You've got us as long as you want us."

"I..." Hyacinth looks away. 

"I care about what's real. I care that when the body in realspace dies this unaging one will cease to exist too. I care that I'm canadian, and that I'm not Patriot Church, and... all these divisions that only exist because it's taken for granted that the other reality is what counts."

She offers her hand to Hailey. "I need someone to... reassure me that this world is real too. That it's not wrong to believe in it. To decide to live your life in it."

"I think..."

She looks down at her body. 

"Some part of me is convinced, now, that it's this world that's real and the other one that's fake."

"No argument from us about that," Hailey replies, shaking her head. "We've seriously considered medical storage before, and we're not entirely sure why we're staying out of it at this point."

I'd want to see you in real life rises to her tongue and dies. 

What could she possibly learn by seeing these beautiful women's random-ass janky body with the wrong sex. 

She wouldn't want them to see her real life Earth body either. This one is real. This is her chosen self. 

"... Probably because it'd be a bureaucratic headache, yeah? And I know I wouldn't trust some random nurse to keep things running indefinitely. Better to do it yourself, even if it hurts."

She settles back on her hands on the grass and stares up at the cloudy sky. 

"Think of it like... a lich guarding their phylactery. You don't entrust that to some random person. You want someone you trust. Someone who cares, someone who's loyal."

She nods. "That's a good way to put it. I like that."

Then she looks down at her hands for a moment, then up at Hyacinth, and reaches out her left hand, palm up.

Hyacinth takes it, and squeezes. 

"... I want to celebrate. A new start. A new life. I'm tired of being a good boy. I want to do something inadvisable."

She giggles. "I would suggest getting drunk, that's traditional, but I don't actually want to annoy our tavern-keeper friend. Got any better ideas?"

"If I knew where a Pag-sympathizer bar was close by, I'd say we go start a bar fight — walk in with our horns showing and holding your hand and see how long it takes for some bigoted scum to throw down about it, then beat their asses into the ground," she replies with a laugh.

Hyacinth giggles. "I mean, it'd hardly be sporting for me to just fry 'em, now, would it? And more importantly I might burn down a perfectly innocent bar. Still, with the right loadout of enhancement spells it could still be fun."

She smiles at Hailey. "I guess for now we just... carry on. First day of the rest of your life. We have so much time. And so much to learn. It's still only my second day in Paragnosia or whatever this place is called again. I've got a lifetime of memories of another world stuck in my head and it'll take a while to properly learn my place here. Chaos does weird things to a girl."

"That it does, Sin. That it does."

Hailey looks down at their joined hands and exhales slowly. "Huh. Guess bailing on stupidworld to stay here with us bumped you up a few ranks of touch-safety real quick."

She shakes her head and squeezes Sin's hand.

"I promise I'll be gentle." Hyacinth smirks and squeezes back.

Then she levers herself to her feet with her staff and rolls her shoulders. "It shouldn't be too far to those rocks now," she says. "Let's go together?"

Hailey hops up as well and nods. "Yeah, let's go. Wanna see you sit in a bonfire for power."

Hyacinth puts her staff to use once more as a walking-stick, and it's not long before the patch of rocks comes up on their path. 

"Here we are," she says. "Let me just slot my new fire resistance, I bet it'll be necessary with a fire of this size."

She pages through the menus, locks Fire Resistance III as a single passive, and slots it over Fire Resistance II.