Clematis nods thoughtfully and sips her calvera, giving Sable time.

She blushes, but steels herself and asks, "What's the range of known and accepted kink look like here? Just in generalities?"

"Let me see..." Clematis folds her hands in her lap. 

"Speaking generally, there's a broader variety of accepted kinks on Forest, or things that are merely considered part of sexuality. Pleat is one of those things. It is generally accepted that what you pleat is not, in a real sense, a choice, but instead is an expression of something core to you. I've seen people pleat everything from the color blue to mythological creatures to siblings, parents, teachers, doctors, villians, heroes, predators, persines — yes, I do mean the fruit —, abusers... the words for kink from your world don't translate exactly but there's approximants for words like slut, whore, bitch, and so on, though in our language they are not perjorative. For slut or whore we say instead Voluptaten, one who causes pleasure, and for bitch and other words that exist to degrade we instead say Denigre, one who is lower or worthless. Similarly language such as sadist and masochist transfers — we say Dolorate, one who inflicts pain, and Dolorin, one who suffers pain. Most kinks on earth have an accepted equivalent in Balacia."

Clematis taps her fingers against the tabletop.

"In our world fantasies based on sexual violence are rarer, fantasies based on pregnancy and child raising are considered somewhat more extreme due to the degree of effort required to eliminate persines from the diet in preparation for pregnancy, and the rest are broadly more accepted."

Sable nods, taking a breath.

<Sounds like I'm covered, at least,> Hailey notes. <Actually, since you're this nervous...>

Hailey steps into front smoothly. Clematis might notice a change, comparing Hailey's voice and diction to Sable's — consonants a bit sharper, resonance a bit tighter.

"Is there a word that straddles both Dolorate and Dolorin? And what about kinks that cannot safely be implemented physically?"

"No, you'd simply be said to pleat both circumstantially. As for dangerous kinks, they're still accepted in the vast majority of cases. It may still be a crime to act on such kinks — if you execute someone because you have a kink for that, your kink is not a defense against the murder charge — but discussion, safe roleplay, and so on are all quite accepted."

Clematis tilts her head. "I apologize if this scares you, but in countries and states that allow euthanasia, which some of the federated states do, the option to treat the assisted death as a kink scene may be available to their close partners. Such scenes happen rarely, generally in cases of couples where one is diagnosed with metastatic cancer. There are about sixty of them each year across the entirety of Balacia."

Hailey blinks, takes a breath, swallows hard. "Hhhholy fuck."

She takes a slow breath, trying to get her flushed cheeks under control.

"Thank you. That... is definitely something I needed to know."

"You have a personal interest?" Clematis raises an eyebrow.

She nods. "I do."

A thought occurs.

<I thought we weren't going to mention plurality until later,> Sable argues.

<It's necessary context, at this point,> Hailey counters.

"I think there's an additional piece of context you need," she says. "Is there a psychological concept of plurality, or multiplicity, here on Forest?"

"It's known, though rare. Less so within the multi-pleat community, which I happen to belong to. I could put you in contact with some people later. There is some degree of stigma attached, though I think less than in your world due to the familiarity most people have with ruches."

She smiles slightly. "Good to know," she replies, then takes a breath. "There are five of us. I'm Hailey. You were talking to Sable earlier. And we'd definitely appreciate those contacts later."

"It's nice to meet you, Hailey. Is there anything we should pick up for the rest of you? Clothes, accessories...?"

"Nice to meet you too."

She hums thoughtfully. "There are some things, yeah. Our clothing aesthetics have a lot in common, but there are some differences. Some kind of easily swapped bracelets, or a single bracelet that changes colors, would be very useful for indicating who's fronting. Is multi-pleat what it sounds like?"

"Multi-pleat is for people who strongly pleat in ways considered 'incompatible' with each other by the mainstream culture. For example, someone who pleats two different species simultaneously, or two opposing kink roles, etc. It is for people who want to defend their strongly held passions from being called mere ruches because they happen to go by a title that seems incongruous with the others."

She coughs. "And certainly, some bracelets would be easily purchasable. There's a clothing store on the bottom floor of one of the other apartment buildings, we could go shop there? I believe you only have the clothes on your back at the moment, so it might be a good idea to get you a change for tomorrow." 

"Sounds like a reasonable plan." She nods, then washes down the hormones with a sip of calvera, before digging into the sandwich. It's pretty great. Sweeter than she's used to, but tasty.

"Oh, I've been forgetting my food as well." 

Clematis gets to work on her persine slice and cheese wrap.

"This is pretty good." Hailey takes another bite, swallows, and then asks, "For Sable's sake, is there a title for predators, in an 'eating people' sense?"

Sable is blushing in mindspace, but that's not news.

"Voracia." Clematis smiles. "Would she like me to use it for her?" 

Hailey smirks. "Yes, she's embarrassed that I'm asking about it, but she absolutely would."

She dips her sandwich in the chutney and has another bite. It's pretty great.

"Voracia Sable Barlow. That sounds like progress to me."

Clematis finishes up with her wrap and cleans her fingers on her napkin.

"It does, doesn't it?" She takes her last bite, then hums after a moment. "I'll be Dolorate, Maya wants Voluptaten, and Neo and Ruby will take a bit of thinking."

"Alright!" Clematis puts her paper plate and wrap wrapper into the garbage by the table and gets up. "Let's go see what we can find at the clothing store for you all." 

Hailey does the same with hers, and gets up as well. "Let's."

She follows Clematis' lead.

Clematis leads Hailey through the courtyard and down a small paved path to a second apartment building in the grassy area. This one is lower, perhaps only five stories, and longer. 

The ground floor of this building has a small grocery on one side, with a whole aisle dedicated to persines and their preparations. There's a prominent display of squash and greens, a dairy aisle (though it's notable that the cow cheese is labeled as "cow cheese", it seems to be the assumption that most cheese is goat) and several aisles of dried goods with unfamiliar brand names. 

Across from that is the clothes shop. There are simple, unpatterned t-shirts and jeans on offer, but they're in a section marked as earth couture. The rest of the clothes are sorted by pleat. This store does not have a Voracian wear section, but it does have both Voluptaten and Dolorate sections. 

The Voluptaten section is dominated by easily-shed clothing, generally in flowing fabrics. It seems to encompass a fashion range from "toga" to "sarong", though many of the options have shaping features to silhouette the body more closely. Patterns depicting natural beauty are common, mostly leaves or flowers. There is also another style present which seems to be single-shade shirts and skirts in primary or secondary colors, with intricate combinations of fasteners, such as snaps or zippers, against backing material so as not to touch the skin with cold metal. The underwear section includes a large selection of eye-pleasing lingerie, though mostly in simple, bold colors — side-tie panties seem to be in fashion.

The Dolorate section is dominated by red, black, and metallic silver, and has a lot of chunky, brutalist-looking bracelets and pendants, often with spikes. The clothes tend to be simple and built with a look to intimidate; leather coats with slashes, t-shirts with the arms cut off, heavy combat boots. It looks pretty gothy to Hailey's eye. There also appears to be a second style which is based on practical function: t-shirts with patterns depicting knives or claw-marks, in black and red the color of dried blood, and matching black slacks with lots of cargo pockets. There are a few skirts as well, which have patterns of spider lilies and veins on them. The underwear selection here seems to be more brieflike. 

"Goodness. We're going to have so many clothes to buy. We'll have to spread it out over a while, maybe only get two outfits for each of us to start. Don't even know what to get for Ruby, neither of her core kinks make seem like the kind of thing that would have a clothing aesthetic. Is there a pleat title for little sisters? There's no Voracian aisle, but maybe the cryptid aisle will work. Can you think of anything that fits sort of trickster vibes, for Neopolitan? I'm absolutely loving the Dolorate aesthetic, though, and Maya adores Voluptaten."

She shakes her head and picks out a few things from the Dolorate section: a couple knife t-shirts, black cargo slacks, a spider lily skirt, combat boots, a spiky pendant, and some underwear, before heading toward Voluptaten.