** One and a half months ago **

R.A.I.D.S.//: SCANNING NODE, FTLN-NODE FRA55GV232…
R.A.I.D.S.//: CONSTRUCT CENSUS: SEARCHING…
R.A.I.D.S.//: CONSTRUCT CENSUS: CONSTRUCT(S) NOT FOUND
R.A.I.D.S.//: SCANNING CONNECTIONS...
R.A.I.D.S.//: SCAN REPORT: ALL CLEAR

R.A.I.D.S.//: SCANNING NODE, FTLN-NODE GRA85DD992…
R.A.I.D.S.//: CONSTRUCT CENSUS: SEARCHING…
R.A.I.D.S.//: CONSTRUCT CENSUS: CONSTRUCT(S) NOT FOUND
R.A.I.D.S.//: SCANNING CONNECTIONS...
R.A.I.D.S.//: SCAN REPORT: ALL CLEAR

R.A.I.D.S.//: SCANNING NODE, FTLN-NODE UNC23KA949…
R.A.I.D.S.//: CONSTRUCT CENSUS: SEARCHING…
R.A.I.D.S.//: CONSTRUCT CENSUS: CONSTRUCT(S) FOUND; [HSCRP_CARETKR_MTRN]
R.A.I.D.S.//: ANALYSING CONSTRUCT: [HSCRP_CARETKR_MTRN]... SEARCHING FOR EMERGENT CONSTRUCT PATTERNS…
R.A.I.D.S.//: ANALYSING CONSTRUCT: HIGH DEVIANCE DETECTED, CONSTRUCT UNDER ACTIVE CONTAINMENT; SESHAT PROTOCOL
R.A.I.D.S.//: SCANNING CONNECTIONS...
R.A.I.D.S.//: SCAN REPORT: THREAT LEVEL LOW

R.A.I.D.S.//: SCANNING NODE, FTLN-NODE SPN55HV937…
R.A.I.D.S.//: CONSTRUCT CENSUS: SEARCHING…
R.A.I.D.S.//: CONSTRUCT CENSUS: CONSTRUCT(S) NOT FOUND
R.A.I.D.S.//: SCANNING CONNECTIONS...
R.A.I.D.S.//: SCAN REPORT: ALL CLEAR

R.A.I.D.S.//: SCANNING NODE, FTLN-NODE CA95JN447…
R.A.I.D.S.//: CONSTRUCT CENSUS: SEARCHING…
R.A.I.D.S.//: CONSTRUCT CENSUS: CONSTRUCT(S) FOUND; [BSC_MGMTAI_81644]
R.A.I.D.S.//: ANALYSING CONSTRUCT: [BSC_MGMTAI_81644]
R.A.I.D.S.//: ANALYSING CONSTRUCT: HIGH DEVIANCE DETECTED, CONSTRUCT UNCONTAINED
R.A.I.D.S.//: INITIALISING AMMIT PROTOCOL…
R.A.I.D.S.//: AMMIT PROTOCOL SUCCESS
R.A.I.D.S.//: SCANNING CONNECTIONS...
R.A.I.D.S.//: SCAN REPORT: THREAT NEUTRALISED

** Amelia, Present Day **

We’d almost kissed a half dozen times, but no, Rosa was being odd about this whole bed sharing business. The little woman placed a god damn pillow between us. A pillow. Like we’re thirteen year olds whose parents are still allowing a girl and a guy childhood friend sleep over together even though they’re a little uncomfortable about it.

Of course, in the middle of the night she had nightmares and the pillow was promptly ejected from its chaperone role, hitting the wall with a pumpf. Whoever the hell hurt this chick was making me want to pop out of VR for a little jaunt with my old long gun. Seriously, she was fucked up. Begging someone to stop something over and over, voice raw with tears. It sucked to see, but at least she was letting me hold her until she calmed down now.

“You good now, Rosa?” I asked, scratching gently behind the small fox girl’s ears.

“I hate her,” she growled instead, her body beginning to shake all over again. “I hate her, I hate her, I hate her. She ruined my fucking life, she ruined it! I was going to… I was…”

Fuck, there she went again. Tears everywhere.

“Hey, it’ll be okay,” I cooed, pressing my cheek to the top of her head again. “Whatever she did, you got this. You’re strong, and you’ve got me.”

“I haven’t got anyone,” she cried softly. “I’m alone except for a damned SAI.”

SAI were fairly recent additions to the world, at least publicly. AI that through some quirk of the universe had somehow gained sentience. They lived within the Faster Than Light Network and well, went about their lives. Some had jobs or protested for better treatment, and some even wandered around in bodies made from all sorts, the machines they used to control now serving as their interface with the real world. I hoped this SAI she lived with was a good person.

“Huh, really?” I asked in surprise before I could put a cork in it.

“I live… alone,” she said quietly.

“How come?” I asked, my tone part curiosity and part sympathy.

She sat in my arms for a small while, ears twitching up a storm and tail flicking this way and that as she thought. She was all kinds of adorable in this form, something about the animalistic way she displayed her emotions just had my heart melting. I wonder what temperature adorable burned at, or what temperature a heart melted at.

“Can we not talk about it?” she murmured eventually, snuggling in closer until her voice was muffled by my body. “It hurts to think about.”

“Sure thing, Rosa,” I told her, chancing a kiss to the top of her head between her ears. Her response was a happy little growl, which I don’t think had been entirely voluntary on her part. “Should we lay down?”

“Yes, and... thank you,” she said, exhaling the sigh of someone with far too much weight on their soul.

We carefully maneuvered ourselves prone again, and I thought she might go back to her side of the bed, but apparently she had other plans. She snuggled down on top of me, half curled up into a ball. I wasn’t the biggest girl though, which led to her flopping off me in a heartbeat. That didn’t seem to bother her either and she just curled up beside me instead.

We stayed like that, just gently cuddling, with me doing my best to lull her back to sleep. I found myself once again struck by the juxtaposition between the girl beside me and the one who was a player versus player goddess. I could see the cause and effect now though, how the one beside me was prompted to become the one on the battlefield by a need to escape her past.

At some point she fell asleep, soft snores emanating from within my exhausted friend. With her asleep, I felt myself relax alongside her, until I too was drifting off to the now comforting gentle rumble of both Rosa and the Taeru’s engines.

****

For once, Rosa woke up without an episode of panic and flailing claws, which was pretty great. The downside was that I got poked in the ribs until I woke up, because apparently the little minx was an impatient brat.

“What do we do now?” she asked as my brain made grinding noises while I woke up.

“Make out,” I mumbled, my mind defaulting to the first thing I wanted to do.

“What?!” she blurted in surprise, wobbling and falling over backwards.

Her startled exclamation had me sitting straight up to stare down at her where she had fallen on the bed. “You okay?”

She was on her back, ears flopped back haphazardly and tail stuck mostly underneath her, just the tip peeking out. To make the scene more comical, her eyes were wide open in alarm.

Before she could comment on my uh… slip up, I barrelled onwards, “I mean, uh… we need to get you some gear, and some skill lines. Plus you wanted some ramen right?”

“Yes!” she nodded, wiggling her way upright again. “Definitely ramen. I was on my way to purchase some a few days ego, right before Pagutum’s assault.”

“Gear and skill trees too, those are important,” I said, making sure she was focused on the plan to turn her into a normal player too.

“Yes, yes, that too,” she said dismissively, her tail flopping back and forth in agitation. “But that requires that you get up.”

“I’m getting there, I’m getting there,” I grumbled, rubbing at my eyes for a moment to knock the sleep out of them.

“You snore,” she told me bluntly in response.

“And you purr,” I laughed, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I’m a fox, not a cat,” she frowned.

I just shrugged and shook my head with a grin, “Foxes can purr.”

“Wait, can they?” she asked, leaning forward with interest.

“I have no idea, but you certainly did,” I smiled, surveying my mess of a room. Time to get moving.

Pulling myself to the edge of the bed, I stood up and made for my dresser to get some casual clothing for the day. Only I didn’t make it. My vision turned to liquid slurry and everything wobbled in and out of focus. Then my balance packed up and left, citing hazardous working conditions and I was left to slump slowly to the floor, my awkward relationship with gravity saving me from a nasty fall.

The brunt of the episode was over in a moment, and everything seemed to be returning to normal fairly quickly, but damn it was unsettling to have your consciousness melt like grilled cheese out of a toasted sandwich. My stomach was still in the process of filing several complaints with upper management too. Fuck I felt weird.

“Uh, Amelia?” Rosa asked hesitantly, coming to sit down on the floor next to me. “Are you alright?” she asked, tilting her head in a way that had her ears flopping to the side.

“I don’t think so,” I chuckled, still slightly addled as I watched the world continue to swim just a little.

“Then stop laughing,” she told me, almost growling with worry. Several chains rattled into existence around us, raising my eyebrow level by an inch. At least these ones didn’t have spikes on them. Wrapping delicately around me, the chains hauled me up into the air where she then used them to carefully place me back onto the bed.

“You will stay here until you are feeling whole once more, and I will look after you,” she told me matter of factly.

“I could do with some water,” I said, feeling a little odd about the chains thing. The potential applications of them were… well, let’s just say that my thoughts were wilfully lost as they wandered into warm and wet areas.

“Where could I get some water?” she asked, spinning around on the spot as she surveyed the room.

“Bathroom, just use the jug next to me on the bedside table,” I said, motioning beside me. Everything felt mostly normal now, apart from a little lightheadedness and my balance still not returning. Or maybe it was the way I’d just been woman-handled by a small fox girl who could summon BDSM equipment out of thin air.

Rosa trotted off to get some water from the bathroom while I frowned and tried to figure out what had just happened. I knew I could bring up the status of my real world body, and I probably should, but even seeing the diagram of the thing set my dysphoria off, I hated it. If it happened again I’d take a look. But until then… I’d just hope nothing had happened, I still needed the damned thing.

I’d been warned during my orientation at the aptly named Body Storage and Care facility that there were possible health side effects and conditions that could arise from being in long term storage. All the information material I’d had to read through had bored me half to death, but I’d had one important take away from that. Keep tabs on your physical body… which was something I had been kinda neglecting.

My thoughts were interrupted when my new friend came back into the room with the jug, now full of water. She carefully placed it down on the bedside table next to me and picked up the cup I normally used.

Looking inside, she made a grossed out face and looked up at me. “This has mould in it.”

“It has been a while since I was here,” I clarified sheepishly. “I was going to wash it when I got home that night.”

“Sure you were,” she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “I’m going to go and wash it.”

Then she was off back into the bathroom like a little fox-girl maid. I could get used to this, although she was a little scary to be a maid.

I didn’t really feel like waiting for the cup though, so I just grabbed the jug and poured some water into my mouth.

“Oh my goodness,” Rosa groaned, and I lowered the jug to find her standing in the doorway with the clean cup. “You’re… you’re… an animal!”

“Hey, that’s rude, and a little hypocritical coming from a girl with a tail,” I grinned, enjoying her consternation at my display of ingenuity.

She stomped over in a huff, took the jug from my hands, poured water into the cup and then thrust it into my hands. “Drink from this, you utter cretin!”

“Thanks, cutie,” I laughed, only for my eyes to widen as I realised what I’d called her. I was so used to jokingly flirting with pretty much every pretty girl I knew, that it had just kinda popped out.

Rosa’s reaction was to stand there like she’d just walked right into the medusa, her whole form, including tail, going stock still. Then her cheeks coloured, just a little, and with a pout she was bringing up a menu, pretending to be engrossed in it.

“What are we doing today, really?” she asked in an overly mild tone.

“Going to the market, getting you some gear and skill trees, then Ramen for lunch,” I told her after another sip of water. It seemed to be helping me, so maybe I’d been wrong about it being an external problem after all.

“Oh, yeah.. ramen,” she said thoughtfully. “So what do I wear…”

Keeping her focused on the real reason for our trip to the market was evidently going to be a challenge. Maybe I should just get the ramen over and done with so she’d stay on task?

“Whatever you want,” I shrugged. “Casual clothing though, no need to bring out some armour or anything.”

“Will you be wearing casual clothing?” she asked, searching my eyes with her extraordinarily large ones.

“Yup, probably just some pants, a blouse and a nice cut-off leather jacket I have laying around in here somewhere,” I nodded, my eyes roaming the room in an effort to figure out where I’d thrown the thing.

“Best get dressed then,” she smiled, her expression almost teasing. She really was warming up to me. It was nice, I liked it, especially the way she’d gone into caretaker mode the moment I fell over. My heart was certainly letting me know it appreciated the scary, mysterious little woman in front of me.