The assortment of fabrics, threads, and dyes was dazzling, and to say that Twinkle was overwhelmed would be an understatement. They didn’t have the time to investigate even half the sights before them by the time Sundance’s question arrived, impossible to answer in its vagueness.

Both in how much it encompassed, and because of the tiny ghost’s limited communication.

Sundance wasted no time focusing on the link between herself and the obscured being, eager to help them make as informed a choice as possible. Her determination burned bright—but it had little fuel to go off, especially without the leftover adrenaline that had helped her yesterday evening. Both Forest Guardians immediately sensed her strain, Solstice giving her a mental hand soon after. She chuckled under her breath. “^Goodness, it’s like trying to touch fog.^”

Sue exhaled through her nostrils at the remark, trying to reassure the lil’ ghost that everything was going alright. Her mentor continued, much more clearly this time, “^Hello, Twinkle! Now, how to go about this... oh—have you chosen a fabric you like yet?^”

Now that was a question Twinkle both understood much better and which they had the ability to actually answer. They scooted along in their disguise, inky tendrils touching many patches at once as they examined the stunning selection. Beside them, Comet was also playing around with the patches, babbling at all the different textures as the ghost settled upon something.

Or rather, many somethings.

Sue was taken aback as their spectral limbs stretched many feet out, bundling many samples together into a haphazard pile. As good as the ghost themselves felt at finding all those things they liked, the adults’ expressions faded as they watched them pick up more and more patches of fabric. Eventually, they settled on a stack half their size and with over a dozen different choices. Cotton, linen, silk—they had everything there, with the only trait most of their picks had in common being a yellow or yellow-adjacent coloration.

They like yellow, hmm. Worth keeping in mind.

As much as Solstice appreciated her son enjoying himself and the tiny ghost bundle patting their choices in satisfaction, this wouldn’t help them much. She wracked her brain, trying to figure out how to ask them to narrow down their selection—only for Sundance to step in. The fox swiped everything Twinkle didn’t select off to the side and laid out their choices in a neat grid. She smiled at the ghost, a blunt claw tapping on each misshapen patch before them. “Alright. Which of those feels the nicest, Twinkle?”

Another question, and this time they even knew the answer! The little ghost squeaked at the happy realization, bounding toward the smallest patch and repeatedly poking it with their tentacle. Sundance wasn’t surprised by their choice, psychicing the off-white rectangle into her paw. “Silk, eh? Good choice, I’d say. We’ll definitely need to ask Dewdrop for more, but that can come later.”

Sue leaned back in her seat at the mention of silk, Spark mumbling quietly on her lap as her stream of affection was interrupted. On a rational level, she knew silk was neither modern nor even that much of a challenge in a village full of mutated insects—as evidenced by the very similar-looking patch covering her horn. Still, the word was associated with poshness in her mind.

If there was anyone who had earned a bit of luxury, it was Twinkle, so all was well.

Even beyond that, silk didn’t strike her as being the most durable material. Certainly not something that would endure being in use around the clock, which... Twinkle needed, for better or worse. Before she could bring up the concern, she watched Sundance tilt her head towards her and shoot her a knowing wink before addressing the little ghost again. “Alright, so this will be the part of the inside, what you’ll be touching. We’ll use something else on the outside, something tougher...”

The vixen’s gaze swept over the selection again as Twinkle scooted closer, left rather confused by her tangent. There was a limit to how much someone so tiny could understand, and Twinkle was right on its edge. Sundance was well aware, tapping a claw against one of the linen patches before snapping her fingers. “Alright, I have an idea. Now, where’d I toss that thing...” she mumbled as she closed her eyes.

The two Forest Guardians felt her aura probe around the corners of the room, its motions jerky and unwieldy. It went through drawer after drawer, having harder and harder time finding the unnamed item in question. Solstice leaned forward in her seat, telepathically asking, “^What are you looking for?^”

“^Metal octagon the size of your hand,^” Sundance explained, her focus faltering as the bundled ghost scooted closer and closer to her fluff.

Increasingly louder rattling filled the vixen’s dwelling as Solstice focused harder and harder, uncertain why it was so hard to pull that item out. Before the mystic could suggest anything, her friend went for the brute force option. Her eyes lit up with a flare as she lifted everything in the workshop corner of the dwelling up and away from the wall—and whisked away the item in question, freeing it from its prison behind one of the drawers.

Sundance blinked, uncertain how the trinket could’ve ended up there. “How in the world... huh. Much appreciated, Solstice.” She then gently tapped on Twinkle’s outfit to catch their attention as she lowered the freshly retrieved item to their eye level, hovering over a couple of yellowish patches of linen beside it. “Now, Twinkle,” she began, bringing both patches to their outfit and laying them on the ghost’s sides as she drew their attention to the mysterious item. “Which color do you like more?”

The item turning out to be a mirror made sense, but its appearance... didn’t. It wasn’t framed in wood or stone like almost everything in Moonview, didn’t have any decorations in thread or fabric. It appeared to be made entirely out of metal, brass outer rim surrounding the central reflective circle. She could spot cracks and imperfections in the mirror even from her vantage point, but they paled in significance to the item’s very existence here.

Still, there was fashion to be done first.

Twinkle stared at their own reflection, jolting as they watched the clothed blob in the mirror move in tune with them. The realization brought them not a small amount of discomfort, almost making them hide on the spot—before Sundance reached in with her paw, covering the central part of the mirror and only leaving the two patches visible. “My apologies. I should’ve guessed seeing yourself like this would be uncomfortable. Still—which color do you prefer, Twinkle?”

The choice between lemon yellow and wheat yellow was a difficult one, especially with added stresses of being acutely reminded of their own appearance. Eventually Twinkle settled on the latter, shakily clutching the small patch. The material was chosen—now for the shape, and nobody was under any delusions that figuring that out wouldn’t be the hard part of this entire undertaking. Sundance sighed, sliding away everything but the correct patch of linen and the bit of silk chosen earlier. “How we will figure out the form, I am unsure.”

This time, Sue knew just what to do. If they would be designing something for Twinkle, then they’d have to sketch it out first. She suggested, “Maybe we can draw it for them? Ask them one thing after another to see if they like it.”

Drawing on paper was decidedly not the wheelhouse of either of Sue’s mentors, but they could see the utility in that approach. The vixen focused on a small pot in the corner of the storage corner, levitating out a single page of very dry paper and unfurling it on the ground before her, almost snapping it in half as she did so. “Let’s try that, then! Twinkle, come, let me draw some ideas...” Sundance began, taking a deep breath as a stick-shaped piece of charcoal joined the paper in front of her—before leaping to the page’s other side the moment Comet spotted it.

The sketching that followed… didn’t go well.

Sue grew increasingly concerned as the makeshift pencil twitched in the vixen’s mental grasp, its lines jagged and much longer than intended. Sundance wasn’t blind to her mind not being the best suited for fine detail, soon trying to replace it with her paw—only for the results to be even worse.

The once-human didn’t want to impose or come off as bragging, but... she could do a much better job than this. “Maybe I could try? I have a lot of experience with writing.”

For a moment, she felt the vixen’s mind reject her offer out of a knee-jerk impulse, about to double down on trying to do it alone—before catching itself and relenting with a tired sigh. “If you say so, Sue. Here, let me...” Sundance muttered, moving everything needed to the part of Sue’s lap that wasn’t being occupied by Spark. A thin plank to lay the page down on, paper, charcoal, the patches, and one small ghost, surprised by all the motion but happy to find themselves on their guardian’s lap again.

To her immense dismay, the fiery kit had to vacate her current resting spot, groaning as she hopped off and curled up on the ground next to her friend.

Without an eraser, Sue couldn’t quite undo the mess the older vixen’s attempts at drawing left on the page. With a bit of effort, though, she incorporated them into an improved sketch of what Twinkle’s current outfit looked like. A plain bundle, tied with two knots at the top, and with a couple of small holes for them to look and reach out through.

Despite her drawings being many, many levels of complexity away from the standards of even the most backwater art school on Earth, they still ended up catching Solstice’s attention. It was one thing to draw quickly and nicely enough—it was something entirely different to do so without any psychics, with only physical fine motor control to rely on.

Guess human hands really are special, huh?

“Alright, this is how you look like right now, Twinkle.” Sue explained, tapping the ghost’s current sketch with a black-stained finger. Considering their reaction to the mirror earlier, feeling them shudder and withdraw further into her at her words was entirely expected. And yet, it still left her feeling sadder afterward. The emotion was undercut knowing that she was helping them overcome that discomfort, but not entirely erased. “Alright, if you’d rather look different, then... how about this?”

After they’d gotten over their shudder at seeing themselves again, Twinkle scooted along Sue’s drawing arm, watching as she came up with a similarly blob-shaped outline, but one that was also much taller. Their guardian didn’t even have to ask to sense their disapproval, stopping mid-stroke to tap idly on the brittle paper instead, struggling for ideas.

Though, for once, the ghost themselves pushed through to put their desire into words, weak and whispered. “Head...”

The word drew the attention of all three women—including the older vixen, increasingly feeling the call of the same exhaustion that had knocked out Joy. Sue nodded intently, lifting the charcoal stick and scribbling three tiny outlines at the top of the page. One with their current blob-shaped base and a head attached on top of it without any neck, another with a short neck like Spark had, and a third with a longer one, like her own.

Attaching a head on top of their outfit would be tricky either way, though. If the openings of their baggy bundle were on top, then that’d make it much harder to attach anything there. Ideally they’d do so at the bottom, but—

Before Sue could continue that thought, she glanced at Twinkle to get a feel for their current proportions—and blinked at seeing them clinging to her arm upside down, with the bag’s openings at the bottom. They seemed to have no issue with that, observing her drawings through the small hole in the fabric. They then turned around to look up at her, briefly scared of her having accidentally seen them again.

That simplified things.

“Okay, which of these three do you like the most, Twinkle?” Sue asked, pointing at each doodle. She couldn’t even finish showing them off before Twinkle settled on the neckless sketch, tapping it repeatedly with their tentacle. Their guardian beamed, drawing a larger version of the chosen outline, now with the opening for locomotion at the bottom. “I don’t think you’re big enough to fill all this in unless we make it really small, so you’ll need holes to see through.”

“Next, what would you want for the head—oh, Sundance, could I take a look at that mirror?” Sue interrupted herself, catching the vixen’s attention right as she was about to stash the trinket in the depths of her workshop again.

Sundance blinked at her drowsily before nodding in return, her orange glow pale as it hovered the thick-rimmed mirror into Sue’s waiting hand. Twinkle shied away from it—at least until she turned the reflective side firmly away from them, the inability to see themselves calming the ghostie down again.

Which Sue was very glad for, considering the wealth of inscriptions on the mirror’s back side.

She wasn’t as naïve as to let herself believe she’d suddenly found a human artifact in this world after so long. Still, having that idea be crossed out still felt just a bit disappointing. Human or not, the materials it was made of still implied a much more sophisticated knowledge of metallurgy than anything Patina and her little workshop could hope for in her dreams. The reflective part was made of a metal that didn’t quite look like the silver mirrors she was familiar with, marred by a slight brown tint. It sure came much closer than anything she would’ve guessed could exist in a pre-industrial world.

The reverse was made of what looked like solid brass. It was corroded at the edges, but no less impressive because of that. Its outer rim was filled with geometrical engravings that Sue could only guess were supposed to be a writing script of some sort, one slightly less overwhelming than Moonview’s own language—but only just. Each... symbol was very dense, made of upwards of a dozen straight lines and as many tiny circles, reminding Sue of Chinese at a glance. It contrasted greatly with the sigil at the center, looking oddly like a modern logo with how simple and elegant it was.

An outer ring, covered in a very thin layer of gold that had almost entirely faded away by now.

Three silver-ish, parallel stripes inside of it, intertwining at the edges.

Sue just barely stopped herself from asking questions about the trinket right away, instead first sketching yet another set of doodles for Twinkle. They showed off a few different ear shapes she was familiar with, with an additional option for no ears on their costume’s head whatsoever. As the little ghost pondered, their guardian asked, “Sundance, where did you get this mirror from? It doesn’t look... uh...”

“Doesn’t look primitive enough to have been made in Moonview?” the vixen smirked, chuckling at the brief flash of embarrassment that went through her pupil at her joke. As Sue calmed down and Solstice got a good look at the mirror herself, their mentor and friend explained, “I’m quite sure I bartered for it in Central City a few years back. Though it wasn’t made there either, got it from a traveling merchant.”

That was an answer, but it didn’t come close to scratching the itch of Sue’s curiosity—and the vixen could tell. “As to who actually crafted it... I believe they name themselves ‘Golden Sky’, or something to that effect. I’ve picked up bits of information about them here and there, but am unsure how much of it is hearsay.”

The phrasing took Sue aback as she added large triangular ears to her sketch, moving onto doodling several arrangements of limbs. “You’ve never interacted with them in your travels? Are they not around anymore, then?”

“^I think they’re just not on this continent,^” Solstice chimed in, latching onto the discussion as a means of distraction.

Sundance nodded. “To the best of my knowledge, that’s correct. They aren’t on our landmass, and if they were, we’d be very aware of it.”

Sue raised an eyebrow. “Is something wrong with them?”

“I doubt a civilization this massive isn’t hiding something repulsive underneath their facade, based on the places I’ve visited—but that’s not what I meant. They are incredibly numerous, and from what I’ve heard, eagerly spread their influence far and wide. As to why nobody on our landmass has crossed paths with them yet, aside from a few traders insane enough to cross the seas to and fro? Beats me.”

Her pupil nodded along with her words, imagination taking her for a ride as she tried to come up with an analogy for her own world. She wondered if this was how it felt for people far, far from the Roman Empire to interact with their items, if briefly. To be a rural community in present day Scotland or Finland, for whom Rome and its grandeur must’ve sounded more like a myth than a real place, and get their hands on an item that didn’t just prove that Rome was real, but that it was also far more technologically advanced than what they could make.

Hilarious, especially considering the divine meddling in her dreams.

It was one thing to be kidnapped from her world, to be thrust into a conflict between deities central to the largest civilization around, with the fate of the entire world at stake. It was something entirely different to have gotten whisked away into what must be an utter backwater in comparison, all that just to play divorce counselor for two bitter deities.

Come forth, glorious hero from another dimension, you must come to Earth to save it from a catastrophic divine conflict! Which of the many grand and breathtaking cities will you be sent to, you ask? Oh, hero, you are going to Dumfries, population thirty-three thousand—

“^...Sue?^” Solstice asked, worried at the younger Forest Guardian having spent the last ten minutes with an increasingly silly expression as her drawing hand tried to sketch gods-know-what in the air.

“Oh—uh, sorry,” Sue mumbled, blinking as she grounded herself to the amusement of everyone around her. Everyone except Twinkle, that is. The little ghost grew worried that their repeated pokes at the sketch featuring simple, relatively stubby paws made their guardian upset with their choice.

To their relief, it wasn’t the case at all, as shown first by Sue sketching their selection down, and then by holding them tight, stroking the top of their disguise. Both she and they needed it. As fun as it was to drift off into imagined absurdities and giggle at her own bad jokes, she had an increasingly excited little ghost on her lap, eager to look like someone again. “I’m here Twinkle, I’m here.”

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As Twinkle held her close and she stretched her hand, Sue took another look at their sketch so far, finding it... broadly complete. Sure, much of the detail was still missing, but they were getting close to finished as far as the outline went. Two segments, triangular ears, and short decorative arms. What else could they even add? Sue smiled, happy with the results so far. “I think we’re almost done.”

“Oh oh, can I see?” Spark yawned, stretching on the floor beside her friend and standing up on her rear legs to get a better look at the sketch. To her body’s relief, the drawing was lowered to her soon after, letting her examine the messy arrangement of various small sketches—and notice something was missing. “Awwh, Twinkle doesn’t want a tail?”

...

Right, tails exist here.

“I knew I forgot something,” Sue lied, chuckling in as non-awkward a way as she could manage as she scribbled another row of doodles. Each of them had all the details that had been chosen so far, but with a slightly different tail poking out from behind their disguise. Cat-like long and thin ones, dog-like shorter and fluffier, Spark’s large and bushy—even a thick reptilian one like Astra or Ginger had.

Satisfied with the selection provided for the hauntling wrapped around her, Sue dared going back to where her thoughts had taken her earlier. “That ‘Central City’ place,” she began, catching her mentors’ attention. “You’ve mentioned it a few times, but I’m not sure how big it is. It kinda sounded important, but now I’m not sure, especially with that ‘Golden Sky’ land sounding a lot bigger than it...”

Solstice giggled. “^Believe me, Sue, it’s a lot less impressive than that name makes it sound.^”

“I’m quite certain they thought they were the largest settlement in the world when they chose it,” Sundance smirked, “but that’s far from the truth, even on our landmass. To the little credit they deserve, you’d have to march for most of a Moon to reach any settlement that’s larger than it, so I can’t blame them too much for coming up with that name. Nowadays, however? No excuse but their ego.”

“But what is it like?” Sue asked again.

Sundance tapped her claw on the stone floor. “Much more sprawled out. It used to be a cluster of villages, each with their own farmland, folklore and traditions, before they unified a hundred years ago or so. Much of that happened by force, and it left relations... strained between what are now different parts of Central City. They’re quite hostile towards each other and any outsider that isn’t able to immediately contribute with their labor.”

Oh, it’s just London.

“I see. And you went there for diplomatic relations recently?”

Solstice nodded. “^Just before you showed up, from what we were told. It might be an... unpleasant place, but its population is still much larger than ours, five- or six-fold if I were to guess. The last thing we need are more enemies.^”

*nudge nudge*

Before Sue could continue to probe the topic of Moonview’s unpleasant neighbor, she found her arm being gently pulled on by the ghost clinging to her. She leaned forward with a faint nod, bringing a finger to the choice of the tail and waiting for Twinkle to pick the one they liked—only for them to not do that. Their guardian waited for a moment, then another, before finally realizing something was afoot. “What’s wrong, Twinkle? Can’t choose?”

They shook with their whole body at the idea, concentrating as they gathered their amorphous thoughts. “...other...” they whimpered, keeping their tentacles close to themselves.

Now that was a development Sue wasn’t expecting. She was the furthest thing from a biologist, but there couldn’t have been too many possible tail types for them to choose, right? She sure didn’t include all of them in her selection, but struggled to come up with anything markedly different that still belonged to a terrestrial animal.

...

Well, there was that pink nightmare bat with a stinger tail. If it was up to Sue, their butt would’ve been kicked off all the way to Mars, but for the time being, they counted as terrestrial. That blue bird they had talked with earlier was an option too with their avian tail. And Willow had something else entirely too, to the best of her recollection...

Oh, bother.

Undeterred, Sue got to sketching all her new ideas for the bag of child attached to her arm to pick from. She encouraged them with gentle taps and eager nods as their inky tentacle moved from option to option—and again, didn’t like any of them. She’d kept a ‘no tail’ option so it couldn’t have been that, but if not, then what? This world was weird, but there was no way there were that many options as far as tails went.

She hoped so, at least.

Still, it was clear her intuition had run into a dead-end, and she’d need a more informed perspective. Said perspective was struggling to stay awake with no discussion to keep her occupied, but it wasn’t exactly hard to spot Sue’s mind veering towards her, even while this tired. “Something on your mind, Sue?”

“I—yes. I’m trying to find the right tail for Twinkle, and I tried all the different kinds I could think of, but none of them are what they want. Do you know what they could want?” Sue asked, handing the almost full page of sketches to the vixen’s orange psychics.

Sundance squinted at the drawing, mouthing to herself after she’d found the scribbled corner with different tails. And, to Sue’s surprise, ended up similarly confused. As opposed to her pupil, though, she remembered many other species she’d seen, talked, fought and... bonded with, out there in the wild. “Hmmmm,” she intelligently began, “try a spiral, a zig-zag, and a segmented one with a large bulb at the end.”

All of those sounded more like attributes of Lovecraftian entities than anything that even resembled an animal, but Sue didn’t have the ground to argue. Once she got her hands on the page again, she wasted no time sketching the options—and got a match almost immediately. As dismissive as she’d been to the idea moments earlier, if Twinkle’s reaction was anything to go by, having a zig-zag tail meant a lot to them.

With the tail added, the rest of the details almost filled themselves. A pair of eyes, a simple smile, a few more lines to better separate all the individual parts. Sue hoped that having their default be a warm, friendly expression would help with first impressions. Duck knows Twinkle could use all the help they could get with that. Once the hauntling themselves signed off on the finished design, she would upscale it and copy it on the other, clean-ish side. Still, had to get their approval first. “So, Twinkle—do you want to look like that?”

They erupted in happy emotions before Sue could even finish her question, tapping the finished sketch repeatedly as they wriggled on top of her arm. Their joy soon grew infectious, even catching Spark’s attention. Sue eagerly showed the drawing to the fiery kit, taking in a not-insignificant amount of pride in both the little ghost and the almost-as-little fox being impressed with the quality of her scribbles—

“Was this how you used to look like, Twinkle?”

The hearts in the room skipped a collective beat at Spark’s question. The vixen herself soon realized her own faux pas too, especially with the lil’ ghost’s reaction being so immediate. They froze mid-movement, letting out a drawn-out whimper as their tentacles shook and withdrew. “I-I’m sorry Twinkle, I-I—” Spark pleaded, her alarmed woofs only making Twinkle sadder and sadder. Wordlessly, Sue pulled the ghostie into her arms, holding them to her chest as Sundance beckoned her daughter over.

“Shhhh, shhhhhh...” Sue tried to soothe. Despite how hazy many of their emotions were, their despair was very clear. They didn’t even dare reach out to hold her hand, curling up as tight as they could inside their disguise. They tried to cling close to her, too scared to make themselves seen again—but she was there for them. She held them close for as long as they needed it, the stability of her heartbeat and regular, warm touch bringing comfort.

Not the same heartbeat they once pressed their cheek against, not the same touch brushing through what used to be their fur—but just as safe. Just as loving.

On the other side of the room, Sundance was offering much the same comfort to her own child. Spark was hurting less because of what she was or wasn’t, and more so because of having hurt someone else. It was an understandable, innocent mistake—but one Sundance knew better than to portray as such right away. The point wasn’t that Spark had or hadn’t done something bad, but that her mom was there to reassure and explain, in that order.

Comet was there, too, pausing his uncoordinated play with patches of fabric to snuggle in between the two foxes. Partly because of his friend hurting and him still wanting to help them out as much as he could. But mostly because his de facto aunt was very warm and comfy.

Regardless of each little one’s specific reasons, the comfort they all sought calmed them down bit by bit, the presence of their guardians and parents soothing their hurt. Sue didn’t know what to say to the ghost, the specifics of their situation beyond her capacity to imagine. Sure, her case was similar in broad strokes, but that was it.

Though... maybe that’s all that was needed. “I know it hurts to not be who you once were, Twinkle,” Sue whispered, holding them closer and looking them in the eyes through the hole in their disguise. “But no matter how you look or want to look, we love you the way you are.”

The little ghost might not have understood every nuance of Sue’s words, even with the best translation Solstice could provide, but they got enough to reach out of their disguise and cling tight to her once more. Even at their firmest, their embrace still felt like it was barely there, but that only made feeling it even more special.

A snarky rational part of Sue’s mind pointed out that the wetness she was feeling on her chest was much more likely to be her own tears and not Twinkle’s, but she gave that outlandish possibility no thought.

As both the hauntling and their guardian calmed down, the two foxes chatted among themselves. Sundance whispered something to Spark, the quiet woofs between them remaining untranslated but bringing them both relief despite that. The same couldn’t be said for the lil’ kit whimpering at yet another ache going through her body, making her curl up closer to her mom. For a split second, Sue felt terror grasp the older vixen’s mind, a possibility so paralyzing in its horribleness it left her speechless—

And then, it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by its almost exact opposite. There was nothing to fear, things would be alright. More than alright, even.

Sue neither knew what was going on there nor wanted to pry, distracting herself and the bagful of child wrapped around her with her sketch once more. Twinkle’s actions had all but confirmed that this creature was how they used to look like, but with that in mind... did they still want to look like this? To be reminded of what they no longer were?

Ultimately, there was only one way to know. She tapped on one of their many tendrils wrapped around her. “Twinkle, do you still want to look like this?” she asked, tapping on the mostly finished sketch. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

The ghost outstretched their limb towards the drawing, about to disregard their worries and tap on the drawing after all—before stopping in mid-air. It all hurt, and they didn’t want to hurt. They wanted to be this familiar shape, the shape they saw in puddles and streams many times, the shape that shared burrows with them, the shape that played with them in the tall grass. But they weren’t, and to some extent knew that they couldn’t ever be again.

But it was still familiar. It still made them feel happy.

Maybe it could make others feel happy, too.

Sue held the ghost closer as they pushed through their hesitation. They then extended their limb around the entire page and the plank it rested on, pulling them in until they were wrapped around it. Their impromptu embrace didn’t last long, but it was no less needed because of that, palpably soothing their wounded soul. Even after they had let go of the drawing, they were afraid of it being taken away from them, as if they would lose this one thread tying them to what they once were.

Which posed an issue for finishing it, but not a massive one. “Could I get some more paper?” Sue asked, carefully petting the bundle of ghost as she tried to memorize everything she could about her cobbled-together drawing.

Sundance closed her eyes to focus—and grumbled, posture deflating. “I’m... afraid this was my last page. Will a plank work as a replacement?”

At this point I’m just about ready to draw it on everything and everyone around to make sure it won’t be lost.

“Sure.”

The moment the thin piece of wood touched her hands, Sue got to sketching, copying her design one stroke at a time. Head and torso, small arms, triangular ears, openings for Twinkle to see out of, the ever-important zig-zag tail, their new face. Everything was there—now to finish it. Which... Sue had no idea how to do, and any fine details were likely beyond Twinkle’s ability to describe.

Fortunately for them both, Solstice recognized the outline immediately. “^Ahh, I see. Yes, I’ve seen their kin around, though I do not remember any living in Moonview’s vicinity. I’m so sorry, Twinkle,^” the older Forest Guardian comforted, extending her hand for the lil’ ghost to grasp on their own terms as the plank was passed to Sundance.

Oh yes, the vixen was well familiar with their kin. Considering the circumstances, it was probably for the best to not bring up them having annoyed her many times during her travels, though. “I recognize them well, yes. Would you like for me to fill in the missing detail, Sue? I haven’t seen much of this particular form, but I remember the broad strokes.”

Sue nodded on autopilot, comforting the ghost in tandem with her other mentor—but something about Sundance’s description still caught her attention. “Why not this form? Is it special?”

Sundance sighed. “Less so special, and more so well-protected. That is their hatchling form, tiny enough to hide in tall grass and even small burrows. Maybe their family had hoped there weren’t any ground-digging predators around that could exploit their reliance on electricity for self-defense, and—no, that is crass of me to theorize out loud, I apologize.”

Twinkle was thankfully much too focused on calming down to overhear, let alone understand much of Sundance’s words. Sue still appreciated them greatly, though. The explanation brushed against something she had only seen very brief glimpses of in this world, and was eager to find out more about. She wasn’t the most avid of readers, but the trope of a savvy, intelligent (and nearly always white and male) time traveler bringing the knowledge of electricity back to unenlightened masses of civilizations past was one she was well familiar with.

Alas, any ideas of doing so here ran into some fundamental issues. It was almost impossible to do anything useful with electricity without advanced metallurgy and a solid grasp on chemistry, of which Moonview had neither. They’d also need the ability to actually generate said electricity, which wasn’t a given, even with both Twinkle’s old form and at least one local villager having an ability to use it for self-defense. They weren’t milking electric eels back on Earth for a reason.

...

Wonder if that makes electricity one of those fancy ‘types’? Feels like it should.

Sue wanted to comment on electric abilities being really cool—but kept her mouth shut, not wanting to rub the ghost’s loss in, even if unintentionally. To the relief of everyone, Sundance soon returned the sketch back to her pupil’s hands, who then showed it to the hauntling clinging to her. Judging by them letting go of the paper drawing to grab the plank of wood, the vixen’s sketch seemed to be accurate.

Of the noteworthy changes was the zig-zag tail and the outer edges of the ears being filled in with black, together with a small spiky collar around their neck. The firm lines at the base of their ears took Sue aback a bit, before she realized they were most likely meant to denote a different shape. Not exactly triangular, but more so arrowhead-shaped.

Those changes made sense, which couldn’t be said about the circles on the sketch’s cheeks. Was that intended to be a blush of sorts? A really strange addition if so. Odd as it was on its own, it made her think—maybe they could still add something to the outfit to make it truly Twinkle’s? “Thank you, Sundance. Do you all think we should add anything more, something more personal?”

The question perked up the two women and Spark alike, shaking the kit out of her earlier gloom. “Oh oh oh—how about a nose? It doesn’t look like they have a nose right now,” she woofed, about to describe her own nose—before her mom stopped her.

“Spark, sweetie, to the best of my memory, Twinkle’s former kin didn’t have a prominent nose.”

The kit tilted her head. “But why not? Won’t it help them smell better?”

Sue and her mentors blinked in unison at the idea, their shared confusion prompting Comet to fill the air with a drawn out, confused squeak. “^Spark, I don’t think that’s how it works,^” Solstice explained calmly, trying her hardest to keep her emotions away from her face.

“Awwwh... but what if?”

Sundance chuckled, catching her daughter’s attention. “Spark, I reckon it’s best we don’t try. You’d feel very weird if you suddenly woke up with a very different nose, wouldn’t you? I feel the same would happen to Twinkle if we just... added it on.”

Now that was something the smaller fox could empathize with, trying to not let it get to her. “Awwh, okay. But maybe something pretty instead? Oh oh, like... like... agh—*ow*—I can’t think of anything...”

“Maybe the Pale Lady’s blessing tattoos?” Sue giggled—and froze almost immediately, realizing how ill-timed her humor was. She dreaded to look at the other Forest Guardian, fearing her abortion of a joke had at best plunged her into sorrow and at worst infuriated her. Either way, a swift apology was the best thing she could do. “Umm, s-sorry Solstice, I—”

“^You’ve done nothing wrong, Sue, worry not,^” the Mayor reassured, her somber tone betraying her words. Sue didn’t feel any better at hearing it, hand twitching as she searched for the right words to say. Solstice could tell, elaborating soon after. “^I mean it, Sue. I’m not offended, it’s... *sigh*, your idea isn’t bad—shouldn’t be bad, at least.^”

Sue’s attention was now firmly pulled away from despair, instead focusing on what her mentor really meant. She looked at the Mayor, wincing at her conflicted expression, her own shame clear on her features. Shame, worry, and indecision, the latter partially alleviated as Solstice glanced at her best friend for reassurance, delivered with a confident nod immediately after.

“^These markings should be everyone’s bond with the Pale Lady; you’re not wrong, Sue. That they had been wrested from the other kin, stolen by Forest Guardians, and turned into a graven symbol of our so-called superiority over others is—it’s abhorrent,^” Solstice mumbled, chewing through many years’ worth of thoughts on this very issue. “^To think they even keep it from their apparent allies, that they kept it from da—f-from Luneth, my father, because of his different kin... loathsome.^”

Sue found herself leaning towards the other Forest Guardian in her seat, nodding along with her words. This wasn’t her faith, not really, and hearing Solstice’s opinions on how it was being used and abused reassured her she wasn’t somehow gravely misreading the situation. The Mayor needed reassurance from time to time, her expression twisting and threatening to withdraw into shameful deference—but each time, the vixen would step in.

Anything to make up for the one time where she wasn’t able to.

“^And the things they use them for, the kinds of people they are bestowed upon... I doubt Solanum has ever uplifted another person through her actions in her entire life. And Nightbane...^” Solstice began, digging through her mind for words—but there weren’t any. There was only ever a wound deep in her psyche, only a few dozen Moons younger than herself, excruciating to so much as acknowledge. Her face twisted as her hand grasped the armrest of her chair, anger building up on itself until it threatened to lash out at everything around—

“Solstice.”

Hearing her name be spoken jolted the Mayor out of the traumatized spiral her psyche was all too eager to send her down, the fury that had already built up leaking out as tears. This wasn’t the time for this; this wasn’t something Sue or anyone else should be involved in. Before the younger Forest Guardian could speak up to offer whichever reassurance she could, Solstice continued, forcibly pushing past that mental hurdle. “^Their—their markings have only ever been symbols of allegiance to our tribe, not to the Pale Lady, not to anything she stands for. Hell, if we were to treat the markings the way they ought to be, as a sacred bond with the Pale Lady after earning them through virtuous acts, then Sue would’ve earned them more than Solanum and Nightbane taken together.^”

As the Mayor wound down from leftover anger and other emotions, her pupil could only sit there, stunned at her words, uncertain and afraid of how much they were truly meant. A part of her wanted her to elaborate, needed it—but the rest of her overruled it.

This isn’t meant for me.

Solstice sensed the turmoil in Sue’s mind—and stepped around it, no less scared by it all. “^Either way; is that everything on the sketch, Sue? If so, then we could head out to get all the material we need for it from Dewdrop.^”

Before Sue could answer, Sundance chimed in from her end, her expression betraying her worry about the exchange that had just taken place. At least before she shook it off, returning to her usual level-headed confidence. “I’d appreciate some more paper, if you could. Will come in handy.”

“^Of course. Do you have any estimates for how much of each fabric will you need?^” Solstice asked, pushing through the tension in the air.

“I’d say... a piece of silk the size of both your hands, and four... no, five times that of pale yellow linen. Oh—and ground charcoal from Patina.”

They had their impromptu shopping list; it was time to head out. Sue was torn between wanting to head out to get some fresh air, and hesitating to stay beside Solstice, worried about the reprise of their first training session together. One of those impulses was stronger than the other, though, and with the other Forest Guardian doing her best to push past that ill-fitted remark, she figured she could do that, too.

As Sue got up from her seat—to the immediate complaint of her recovering leg—Twinkle clung to her, no less willing to let her go now than they had been earlier, especially after their harrowing revelation. Neither did Sue want to leave them alone after all that, wordlessly securing them around her chest as she watched Spark scramble over. “Do you—you want to go with us?” Sue asked, hoping to Duck the kit wouldn’t acknowledge the crack in her voice.

“Yes!” Spark woofed excitedly, only for her confidence to fade. “But... but...” she whimpered as she looked over her shoulder at her mom, afraid to leave her alone so soon after she’d come so close to losing her.

“^It’s okay if you’d rather stay with your mom, sweetie,^” Solstice reassured, putting on a smile that was only partially forced.

“Yeah!” Sue reassured, kneeling beside the lil’ fox to dispense some more affection. “I can’t blame you one bit after what your mom has been through, Spark. I’ll be alright, promise.”

It was all the reassurance the kit needed, nuzzling her tall friend’s hand, then leg, before doubling back and huddling in close against her mom, well on her way to join the drowsy fates of Joy and Comet. With one last round of soft waves and goodbyes, it was finally time to go.

To run away from the ever-gnawing thoughts.