"Same to you, honestly." 

Hibiscus kisses Sable's cheek and walks on, making up a hummed tune as she goes. 

And Sable smiles and steps along beside her, enjoying the hike and the company. Eventually, the sun rises high in the sky, and all the hiking works up an appetite. Somewhere in the sparsely forested hills, Sable stops in a clearing.

"What do you think about a lunch break?"

Hibiscus has gradually slid back into Hyacinth over the last few hours. 

"That makes sense." 

She feels a bit subdued, honestly. It's been a long few hours of walking with not much to occupy her, and she's starting to get bored. Sure, there's landscape to see and Sable's company isn't bad, but she's kind of run out of conversational avenues.

Sable stretches and kisses the top of Hyacinth's head, right between her fuzzy ears, before placing down their house. That's a nice-feeling phrase: their house. Makes her feel warm and fuzzy.

<Romantic dork,> Hailey teases fondly.

Sable just smiles and holds the door for her girlfriend.

Hyacinth heads in, and flops into the pillow pit in the — she guesses it's a living room? Lounge? Dungeon? Whatever it is. She's tired. 

"... Come hug me?" she asks. 

"Gladly."

Sable dequips her boots as she walks inside, flopping down gently beside Sin. She draws her into her arms and holds her tenderly, running her hands softly through her hair. She presses a soft kiss to her forehead.

"I love you."

Hyacinth closes her eyes and leans against Sable. 

"Thank you." 

It makes her feel warm to be cared for like this. To be loved. To be kept. 

She blinks away tears and takes a slow breath.

She holds her tenderly, fingers combing tenderly through lavender tresses, soft wing draped across her, tail around her waist. 

"Always," she murmurs.

"... I'm kind of... still getting used to all of this. It's strange to realize that I can just... go on. As long as I like. UBI means I won't starve, and I don't have to ever see my family again. And now I have you, and this world..."

She leans her head against Sable. 

"It's a lot to take in. There are so many things that could be done or should be done and I don't have to do any of them. I don't even have to go on dating you... I mean — I obviously do want to, please don't confuse my intent — but the point is that I can screw up my life as much as I want to, or make it as good as I can, and it's all up to me. And..." 

She looks down at her lap. "I guess I expected it to feel different. It should be earth-shattering, being free. But I feel like in a way I'm..." 

She sighs. "My own jailer, in a sense. I don't know what it is to not be taken care of. I step away from my family and now I'm leaning on you. I can — commit to a new life, I guess — but I can't make my heart less anxious about the real range of Stuff out there."

She half-smiles. "I mean, I've taught myself stuff before. Sexuality, importantly. But it's been... having someone else to structure my life for me, this whole time. It's scary to be free. I don't know what it's like to not be in a comfortable cage. And I'm scared of ending up... exchanging one cage for another, you know?"

She settles in even closer. "Sorry. I'm — I had too long to think on our walk maybe. I'm anxious by nature. I want to be yours, the question is... what that even means, I guess. In a world where we can live together and be a — proper couple. Thruple? Quintuple? However many selves we've got?" She giggles. "Plus anyone else we end up dating..."

Sable giggles and boops Sin's nose. "Yeah. It's a lot, I remember struggling with something like that, when we first moved out and started living on our own. I... made some mistakes in that process." She strokes Hyacinth's cheek softly.

"My biggest goal with our relationship is to avoid... imposing a direction on you. There's a lot to explore, and I don't want to overcorrect and fail to share my own ideas or goals at all, but... I know a thing or two about getting worshipfully swept up in implementing someone else's vision."

She strokes Sin's hair softly.

"I guess what I mean is that I want 'being mine' to mean being safe to be you."

Hyacinth smiles softly. "Yeah." She takes a slow breath and lets it out again. "There's, I mean... life, I guess. All the things you do daily. Questing, cooking, sex. All that is real and good. But there's a part of me that... wants to keep improving, you know? Questing helps with that a little, but I worry with games that if they ever shut down I'll lose all my progress. CORA's maybe a bit better about that because it uses real skills..."

She leans in. "Time with you is good in itself, but some part of me wants a capital P Purpose and that's not really... the kind of thing that you necessarily get, or should necessarily even want. I mean, I'm more or less existentialist, I believe that you get to make up your own, I just... from stuff my family's taught me I want that to be something like excelling at an art or a craft... And I don't know how much of that is me and how much of that is cage, you know?" 

She lays her head against Sable. "It's revolutionary to consider that maybe my purpose could just be to have fun, or to love you, or to — be good at questing, or cooking, or something else my family would think was trivial. Not even to get through university or anything."

She smiles and nods. "It's hard to figure out where the line is. But I think starting with taking some time to consider supposedly frivolous purposes and how they feel when you deliberately set aside the cage and the pressure is a decent start. I'm here to just heal, love, and live my life. If an 'important' purpose turns up along the way, I'll happily get involved, but barring that, I'm glad to just enjoy figuring out what makes us happy."

"Yeah." Hibiscus smiles softly. "Long term goals are hard. But you matter. We'll figure something out together. We don't... need to have it all sorted out instantly. Life is long."

She nods. "Exactly. Y'all matter too, and we'll figure it out. There's time."

She squeezes her girlfriends tightly.

"Yeah." 

Hyacinth turns and hugs Sable. 

"Lunch?"

Sable laughs and scoops Sin into her arms as she stands. "Lunch!"

She buries her face in Sin's neck and nips teasingly as she carries her off to the kitchen.

Hyacinth giggles and grins, and once they're in the kitchen she plops herself down on a counter and wriggles her shoulders. 

"Careful, or I'll start expecting you to princess carry me everywhere." 

Sable grins and giggles right back at her. "There are worse fates."

She peers in the cabinets. "What do you feel like for lunch? I'm honestly considering just grilling some meat and making sandwiches, for simplicity's sake, unless you have an idea that tempts you more than that."

"Probably better than I'd usually eat for lunch, honestly." 

Sable nods, then grabs a cut of venison big enough for two hearty sandwiches and tosses it onto a cutting board. "Slice some bread and pick out some toppings while I work on this, love?"

She starts lightly seasoning the meat, then tosses it onto the grill.

Toppings, toppings. Normally she'd just put on a spice mix from her cupboard for something like this. She's a little lost so she cuts the bread first. 

"What would you usually put on a sandwich like this for toppings?"

She keeps a careful eye on the venison while she replies, "Cheese, maybe some kind of spread, some vegetables. I usually have lettuce and maybe tomato on mine, but obviously we're not putting any lettuce on yours. Can't remember if I found pickles, but I might put those on. Basically just whatever seems tasty. Feel free to just look through stuff and ask me if I think it sounds good on a sammich."

"Ooh! I had literally never thought of putting pickles on a sandwich before. That is a great idea if we have any. In my family we'd always have, like, a pickle on the side if we had any pickles at all."

She goes through the stores, and finds a lack of pickles. "We definitely should pick up pickles in town, I really like them when my family gets them but we barely get them ever." 

"That makes two of us," she says with a smile. "We'll definitely pick some up, then. Don't think we have any spreads, either. There should at least be mustard, when we get to the city."

"If we could make some kind of salsa that would be wonderful. I love wraps, they're just better than sandwiches."