She returns the kiss softly and sighs happily.

She stays for a long while.

... but eventually her stomach growls. 

"Oh, come on," she gripes. "It's not like they had to put in fricking hunger mechanics —"

She sighs and sits up in bed.

Sable kisses Hya's cheek and sits up as well. "Guess we need to go grocery shopping, then."

"... I am so tempted to just buy a cooking materials pack so we can stay in."

Hyacinth sighs. "... Can I stay here while you go shop? I... want to..."

She looks away. "I don't want to go out right now."

She leans in and kisses Hyacinth's forehead. "No worries, love. I'll handle it. Rest easy for me, and I'll be back soon."

"Alright. See you."

Hyacinth smiles and snuggles deeper into the blankets.

Sable strolls out her front door, spreads her wings, and leaps into the sky, swiftly flapping into town. First stop is the general store. She buys cookware, plates, bowls, glasses, utensils, spices, flour, baker's yeast, jam, cheese, and some vegetables.

Next, she ducks over to the baker for a loaf of bread. After that she flies over to the dairy, picks up some milk, butter, and a few other varieties of cheese.

Then she's off to the butcher for cuts of beef, mutton, venison, and pork, along with bacon, assorted sausages, and the like.

Finally she stops back by the inn, checks them out of their stay, and buys two bowls of stew.

All told, about an hour later she's walking back into the house. She heads to the bedroom and checks on Hyacinth.

Hibiscus pokes her head out of the study as Sable walks past. She has a leather-bound book in one hand.

"Hey!" She grins. "Hope you brought something tasty, we're starving. I've been in the study — turns out there's an external book loader interface for PDFs and so on. Costs in-game currency, but I was able to fill a shelf or two from my personal library."

"Ooh. Clever girls. We have a decent library of ebooks to load too. And yeah, I've got a full load of groceries to put away, and also I've abused inventory bullshit to keep two bowls of Jorem's stew hot so we don't have to wait for me to cook when we're already hungry."

"I knew there was a reason I started dating you. Pass the stew?" She grins.

Sable grins playfully, then darts forward and scoops Hibiscus up into a princess carry. 

"Yeeep!"

Yep, that's Hyacinth she's just snuggled alright. 

Sable laughs. "Adorable switchy cuties. I figured we could eat at the kitchen table, avoid getting crumbs in our pretty new study."

And she puts word to deed and starts carrying Sin off to the kitchen.

Hyacinth giggles and snuggles in, balancing herself in Sable's arms with her tail.

Well if she's going to be this cute, she's going to get kisses peppered across her face while they walk.

Her dastardly scheme to be excessively cute has paid off!

Sable giggles and squeezes her tighter, then sets her down gently in a chair at the kitchen table. Two bowls of stew appear, and Sable sits down next to her.

"Tada!"

"Awww, thanks."

Hyacinth digs in.

"So..." After a few spoonfuls she runs a hand through her hair. "What do you think we should do now...?"

Sable hums thoughtfully as she eats. "Probably take a day or so to rest and get used to this place being home now, and then pick up that bandit quest on the way to Cordova. Maybe try for more divination at some point, see if we can get enough details from a vision to know where to go to investigate Pagutum. Heading toward bigger cities will get us more quest options, along with more chances of eventually finding other party members we mesh with."

"Yeah..."

Hyacinth trails off, her gaze off in the middle distance.

She gives Hyacinth a thoughtful look. "You're pretty overwhelmed."

"It has been so much so fast. And there's so many hanging questions. Getting to know all of your other selves, Neo and Ruby and Maya. Getting used to having Hibiscus in my life. Getting used to life in VR. Maybe losing my killginity. And there's the question of that kitsune kit..."

She shakes her head. "It's just so much all at once. I feel like I need to take like a month off and process it all."