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Dimokratia The Shrine of Adversity, once again, was where Futaba was called by Dimo.

> Futaba.
> I'd like to see what you've learned.
> Even if it's been a short time.
> It's important to shape when heated.

> Meet me at the Shrine, sweet girl, and we'll see what form you take.


Ducked into a side room, what is immediately apparent is a dry, sulfurous-volcanic heat. Extended on a bridge of dry, cracked earth and rock-dust intermixed with smooth, black pieces of volcanic glass is a circular caldera-arena, simple and rough-hewn. The periphery walls rise stony-high and irregular, and above, a broad-mouthed jagged circle out into a bright starfield, the rich blues and purple hues of early twilight. The bridge and platform's drop leads to a bubbling, magmatic moat of soup-hot rock that casts orange glow and distorted patterns into the high walls. Steam escapes from cracks in the ground.

At the far end is a silver throne, high backed and intricately woven together in a braided pattern depicting a tree on a solid background. The frame is wide and the arms raise just a little - all in a chromed silver.

Dimo sits, awaiting, on the silver throne, the same carbon-black and pale shell-white synthetic white haired woman as before, sprawled out and spread on the throne. Her trails do not appear visible, but she is sitting.
Futaba Nuki > Good afternoon, Lady Dimo.
> Has it truly been such a short time?
> I feel as though I have learned much since meeting you those few weeks ago.
> I would be more than happy to present you with my findings thus far.
> Sincerely,
> Princess Nuki

As always, Futaba's voice in person is nothing like the way she texts or writes. She arrives with an excited shout, calling out to Dimo with a loud "Hey, Miss Dimooo!" and broad wave of her entire arm in greeting. Expecting a great deal of heat like last time, she's opted to show up barefoot and wrapped up in multiple layers of towels (including a silver one inconspicuously seemingly tucked into her back above the tail) rather than actual clothes to help stave off the heat with strategic removal later. It's something that would certainly work well in a sauna, but in this volcano-like starry bridge arena...

Well, she can worry about running around on all that later. For now, Futaba just looks excited to see Dimo again, hurrying over to the throne as best she can considering the lava moat further below them. She admires the throne briefly, then grins eagerly as she greets Dimo up close with another wave.

"Hi! Didn't keep you waiting too long, did I?" She sounds and looks far more comfortable today than she did in the sauna, strangely enough. Maybe it's the strategic choice of towels instead of clothes, or maybe it's something else. Something more sword-related, even.
Dimokratia From the entrance, a bridge over lava to a circular arena surrounded otherwise by a moat and then a rising wall past that perilous drop - a caldera, above which is a starfield. Lit orange, from hot rock, and hot from steam and radiant heat.

Dimo upon her silver throne sits forward, leaning a high-shouldered hand hand on her knee. Dimo's silver-white hair sways and waves before her face while she dips to smile her dark, perfect lips with the princess' greeting.

Her voice rolls through the caldera like a heavy cloud, humming in the frequency of all the rocks about, and the silver of Futaba's ribbon, tucked about her waist and back. "Hello, Princess, sweet girl." The synthetic woman purrs, azure optic rings gazing at the presenting Futaba, and her relative level of comfort. The focus of her gaze is familiar and palpable - a tingle of sympathetic synaptic singing, the seizing of being Seen and Known and Appreciated poured like warm effervescent honey in a glaze up the hopeful sword-eating ninja.

"You look very comfortable. Come here, show me." Dimo commands, reaching her unleaning hand out to curl carbon-black digits beckoningly out to the object of her synaptic pouring-glaze gaze, inviting the Princess to just place her cheek against Dimo's hand and give in immediately.

"Or... You could show me?" The enthroned woman wonders, smoulderingly interested.
Futaba Nuki As always, Futaba can still feel that brief lump in her throat as Dimo returns her greeting with that intoxicating tone of voice. For a moment at least, she just wants to bask in that attention and just let her lesser concerns melt away, and she does as she finds herself stepping forward a little too quickly, definitely eagerly, and perhaps even a bit too hastily despite her attempt at trying to look calm and controlled.

She remembers that hand, and how comfortable it was to just put her head there, but she made Dimo a promise to actually show her what she's learned, and she stops herself with a stomp that's a little too firm on that ground. It forces Futaba's head back into the present, at least, as stomping on glass barefoot is pretty jarring to the senses.

"R-right! Uh... Wait, isn't that the same thing?" Mild confusion crosses her face, too, perhaps even helping her refocus. One day, Futaba might figure out why she always feels so at ease and willing to obey Dimo's words. For now, though, she's too wrapped up in the moment, and she steps right up to the throne, arm raised and ready to...

Plant her palm against the back of the throne while staring straight into Dimo's eyes. Not away, not slightly off to the side, but right into those blue optics with her own lightly shining red eyes. "... Hey. You don't see it, right?" Her voice is far smoother than normal, perhaps even well-controlled (for Futaba's standards), and what Dimo can see quite from that close range is a distinct lack of hard effort and excessive sweating from Futaba's face. Strangely enough, it's actually instead radiating from Futaba herself, almost as though she's used her own increased heat from their last meeting to counteract the heat around her.
Dimokratia "It can be the same thing, sweet girl." Dimo rolls back to a slouched-forward sit while Futaba approaches. Her extended hand remains out, into the air before her, beckoning and beaconing out an urge to just fall in and forget everything else.

It would be very easy, and gently warm. And yet! And yet!

Delightfully, Futaba steps in and challenges the enthroned Dimo, eye to eye, heat to heat, past the inviting, lowered, easy to fall towards hand to address Dimo's face and fullness. Before Dimo's contained, palpable, moisture-banishing heat -- Futaba is warm in turn, heated from within! Power and pride and passion, pressing palpable pressure pouring purely from perfection to parallel.

She plants a hand over Dimo's shoulder and steps in, confident, Dimo's joy in the sweet girl before grows to a shining happiness, a humming joy. "I can. Oh, with you so close, I can feel it."

Arm past her cheek, Dimo lays warm cheek and smooth-silk strands of chrome white against the Tanuki princess' forearm and stares with brilliant fondness. "Give me a taste." Dimo demands, and closes up that low-set hand of hers around behind the stepped-in Futaba's back, to gather her yet closer and press in for an overwhelming kiss.

Sitting forward, falling forward, Dimo steps out of her chair entirely 'on' Futaba to draw her down, while her nose and lips intake, inhale, imbibe from the princess, drawing the breath out of her to taste the warmth of her entirely, all at once.

Just a taste of her everything, before she cycles it back, roasting-hot from within her.
Futaba Nuki "It's the same words, isn't it? Unles... Oh, the... Yeah! I get it." Sounding proud of herself again, Futaba clears her throat before putting her game face back on, trying to look all smooth and cool in front of Dimo even though she's already shown her flimsier, meltier side several times before.

That was then and this is now, though, and Futaba's ready for Dimo to flip the script on her again, so why not do a little script flipping herself this time around? Still smiling softly and trying not to let the heat welling up in her chest spill out onto her face, the tanuki brings one hand over to guide some of those strands out of the silvery woman's face. "You can? Heh... I mean, of course you can. You're the one that made me this way."

Clearly, she just means the sword eating thing. It's clear to Futaba, at least, since she's still both brimming with confidence and utter obliviousness to all those new feelings and thoughts Dimo's planted in her head in their past few encounters. That shows rather easily when she gets caught off guard by that kiss, eyes going wide and head lulling forward out of instinct. She doesn't pull away, but she in fact presses in deeper, confronting more of this new-ish feeling head on.

It's already getting tougher to keep her cool, but keep it she does! For now. Instead of pulling away, Futaba starts building her own heat up from within before letting it out steadily, as if she's trying to overwhelm Dimo's heat with her own without so much as catching her breath.
Dimokratia Dimo, a heat that tingles the insides of the ears and the backs of the eyeballs and the insides of the cheeks and the upper palatte. Dimo, a hum that settles into teeth and bone, rings in the spine, a friction in the marrow and the nerve that wants to be let out and changed.

Dimo, eyes three-quarters lidded, the barest hints of glowing rings, sultry over an incandescent glow leaking from her strong nose and dark, perfect lips. Futaba breathes out the hot flame of her new, pulsing heart, and Dimo takes and takes and takes, as much as she's given.

Breath cycling - and the endless heat - creates its own problem. The chair behind Dimo unweaves, and Futaba's periphery slithers silver as the whole throne twists and falls like quickly melting ice and rope that gravity is suddenly applied to. Pooling beneath Dimo, the great mass of silver that pools from her back -- her trails, the whole time -- shifts out to a flytrap-like bed behind Futaba, the inside soft and warm and waterbed-goopy, and the outside a cage of spines that begin to creak shut like their visual namesake.

Dimo, releasing her arm at Futaba's back, pulls in and up and back herself - standing at her full height. With the same holding arm, she pushes Futaba on the chest backward into the soft, springtrapped prison. While she does, with a relishing gasp, her opposite hand tenderly wipes every bit of glow back into her mouth, delighted. "You've found a heat inside yourself. It's... Wonderful. Divine. Show me more. And when you show me your limit, I'll take you past it, sweet girl."

She speaks, as her trail-shaped trap binds down and smushes the Tanuki. A grab of a different sort.
Futaba Nuki It's clear that Futaba is slowly (very slowly) getting used to Dimo's heat. Internalizing it, even, and taking it into herself enough that she's finally able to start putting her own heat back rather than just absorbing everything she can from the silvery being, is clearly having an effect on the tanuki's general state of being. Her confidence grows. Her swagger grows. Her towels are coming off, but she doesn't care all that much considering their last contest in the sauna. Her ability to stay upright in the forward-leaning position she's in...

... Is actually far too easy to throw off balance from. Futaba was expecting (or perhaps hoping) that this would be a head on contest of wills, of internal fire, of heat and bodies pushing back and forth! Following Dimo to a standing position, she's still panting slightly as she looks up at her, realizing the difference between their sizes again for a moment before falling right back into something far less smooth and flat than the bridge that was behind her moments ago.

"Eh? Uh. So that's what all those..." She saw those silvery trails, but Futaba hadn't expected them to be able to create that waterbed-like prison. Instead of struggling to escape it or finding a way to slip out, though, Futaba lays right in there with that flushed, confident grin forming on her face again. It's not an unpleasant surprise, after all, and it's something new to contend with that she can learn from, adapt to, and eventually figure out a way to overcome!

"I'll show you everything, then. Let's see how... How much we can both handle this, huh?" The silver 'towel' around Futaba opens up and extends outwards from around her back towards Dimo, sliding past that perfect form to link together behind her. There's a deliberately slow, but firm pull as Futaba's imitated extensions try to pull Dimo in towards her to join her in that trap, or even pull the whole goopy mass forwards. Either way, it's clear that Futaba's trying to keep this going at close range rather than just laying in there by herself.
Dimokratia Dropping back into the wobbling-soft waterbed of Dimo's liquid silver trails is certainly a clever way to avoid how they twist and wrap in a nest of thorny vines to keep her in! Futaba just doesn't try to get out!

It must certainly feel smart to do, because the trails are just extensions of Dimo's whole self - and she's been asking Futaba to fall into her hands this whole fight. It must feel so right, the Futaba that buzzes like Dimo in the back of her mind reminds her. It tingles in her copy of the silver ribbons, a knowing. She could be more! She just has to change more.

Change to be more like Dimo.

Dimo stands over the trap, the source of the chrome mire pouring like a skirt from the base of her spine. It drips, warm and motile, like a gel, and sussurates with motion, as if a thousand minute chain links flowed over each other. It pours around Futaba's ears, and wobbles behind her neck, couches her skull tenderly. The Tanuki's 'divine' limbs reach out, grabbing Dimo and pulling her down and into the trap, which parts around her - she can't hurt herself this way - to stagger over the backfallen Tanuki to grin, a light flush of her own as she's drawn down.

Warm, thrum-humming with mirth, Dimo struggles - a bit showingly - against the bindings, and then falls to a heavy straddle, atop Futaba. Sitting with knees out and ankles flat, the falling-pouring of her trails down her back drop a binding blanket behind her at Futaba's legs.

"You've brought me to my knees, sweet girl." Dimo dips down, smiling, white-silver hair trailing down the intervening distance and stopping just short of tickling Futaba's head. "What's your plan now? Let me lay my hands on you again? Tell me."
Futaba Nuki She's starting to get used to it... Sort of. Not really. As accustomed to Dimo's heat as Futaba might have become, there's still so much more to the divine entity that she hasn't seen yet, and even more that her mind can't even fathom. She's getting better at imitating that divinity and adjusting her own, at least, but it's still not quite enough.

She needs more. She needs to become more like Dimo. Instead of trying to ignore the machinations of the trap, Futaba settles into it fully, letting it wash over her and cradle her, enjoying that sensation and forcing it all to stay in her mind even as she feels that familiar sensation of Dimo atop herself again.

"I did. New personal best, right?" Futaba can't help but be a little prideful as she grins upwards, shifting around a bit to get her arms around Dimo's waist and looking right back up at her. Even in that prone position with her hands linking together to pull Dimo in further, she's still brimming with confidence and energy, if not necessarily energy as she's starting to find her mind wavering from the constant struggle against just giving in and letting herself just get swept up again.

"Plan... Yeah, I've got one idea. I'm going to..." Inhaling briefly, Futaba actually needs to focus for a moment as she starts reshaping that back ribbon and her tail, deliberately avoiding doing anything with the rest of her body. Sure, it probably would be easier if she just put her entire body into it instead of just using those two parts, but it's just as much of a challenge as it is an attempt to push herself to the brink once more.

"... I'm going to see how long we can keep this up. On your mark, Miss Dimo!"

The tail and the imitated back ribbon merge, looping arund Dimo's back and wriggling erratically at first, then turning warmer and goopier as it starts becoming not unlike the very trap that had caught Futaba moments ago. She's clearly trying to fight fire with fire in this sense, pouring it around Dimo and herself while letting all of it mingle together with Dimo's trap to turn their strange oozing spine mass into an even bigger one.
Dimokratia The mire-pool trap of Dimo's silver trails, and Dimo, are not seperate. They are not tool and user, but a single, contiguous, whole being. The surface of her awareness defined the reach of her synaptic buzz - normally, her eyes, and her voice.

Futaba had become deeply acquainted with another sense that poured the hot honey of Dimo's synaptic presence into her, through her: the synthetic woman's touch and tactile sense. Futaba, eager to learn and understand the silver trail trap, forces her mind to pull on the sound, to drink down the shape of it, to hold it there in her mind. Of course, the sound easily settles inside of her, the warm hum drawing intimate and close to Futaba's forebrain awareness. Inside her skull, the melting-hot buzz of divine complexity, and her own voice rapturously whispering about divinity, becoming divine, more complex, within herself. Something so close to mind, shining, glowing, hers.

Futaba attempts to pour her copied ribbon into Dimo's original version of the flowing silver essence, and for that she is rewarded by the trap dissolving around her. There is no need for traps, no use for artifice.

Closer than skin contact, Futaba becomes simultaneously aware of the entirety of her ribbons, and the fluid tension contact of Dimo's trails and her ribbon. The same material, only separated by momentum and a focused memory of who, and what, of shape, and form.

'On your mark, Miss Dimo!' Futaba calls.

Dimo pivots down, leaning her head closer, drawn deep about the Tanuki, a woman and a synthetic ocean Futaba has only her head above, and a dimming idea of what was hers and what was not beneath the waves. A soap-bubble's understanding of shape.

"Get set." Dimo breathes, and her hum envelopes. There's a needle-pressure gently against Futaba's body, centering at the base of her back, where the goopy ribbon sources itself.

"Go." Dimo urges, and all at once the sloshing, sloppy soup of silver randomizes itself in a violent pulse of change, until the surface area can't be attributed to Futaba, and there is only Dimo, always was only her - pouring back into Futaba. And there - the choice:

Does she struggle free, tear herself out? Peel until the ribbon snaps at the base of her spine?

Or does she stay, and let the silver she poured out back into herself?
Futaba Nuki These sensations are far beyond what Futaba could have ever imagined were possible. Up until now, she's largely experienced life through the more common senses: Touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing with the occasional ghost mixed in for variety's sake. Feeling her essence being... Overwritten? No, enhanced, rejuvenated, energized, becoming more divine than ever before certainly isn't something she's ever experienced back home, and having that heat pouring into her head past even the fire she was holding within herself the whole time is starting to get her to shut down again, but...

She feels okay with all this. It's one of yet another effort to impress Dimo with how far she's come, and she can sleep easy tonight knowing she's come this far compared to their last few sessions. All she needs to do is indulge in the warmth, cradle Dimo's head against her neck, and let all of that divinity pour into her, through her, become a part of her.

And so she does. She accepts that silver fully, wincing only briefly at that pressure, but otherwise absorbing all of it and accepting Dimo's divinity as a new part of herself. It's not without some difficulty on Dimo's part, though, as there's still some small part of Futaba that tries to force her own divinity back onto the Silver, as if trying to enforce her own will once more before she finally succumbs fully to the exhaustion washing through her.

It's not a particularly strong effort by any means, but it's still Futaba's way of showing that she's not ready to give up until she actually just passes out.
Dimokratia The metaphor collapses into a tangible, searing reality. She had twisted her tail within the ribbons and poured it out, and so, it is from her lower back where her tail roots up her spine and down that the melted silver liquid pours.

Dimo, atop Futaba and straddling the princess, larger, heavier, all-piercing of hum, louder, warmer, superior - All over her. Smothering, overpowering, diluting out Futaba's resistance and replacing it, overwriting it.

Her last gasp of resistance ripples out, and disappears into Dimo. Then, there's just the feeling of floating, and knowing, and an oily inner moisturization that spreads and seeps like water on cracked desert ground until it suffuses the Tanuki's whole.

AFTER A WHILE,

The trap of silver is gone. Dimo sits on a bench in the waiting area within the Shrine, Futaba's head propped up on her lap. Dimo gently re-arranges the Tanuki's bangs to all curve the same way - before the moment of waking, where it all will be dashed.

The nature of things. "Are you well, sweet girl? You tried something exhausting, but you should feel better now."

And she does - the flame of her heart had been a burning, boiling-blooded engine in her before, but the silver in her is a quenching, clearing, smoothing inner liquid, a new kind of blood and marrow fill both. It tingles, effervescent, when she thinks of changing, a seamless part of her whole. It tingles, and reminds her of the better ways of being.
Futaba Nuki That floating feeling is certainly new. It's not unpleasant, though, to just feel safe in that... Wherever she is, since it's somehow familiar. Futaba's not quite in the right state of mind or body to really escape it, anyway, but she does still feel pretty good about herself after that showing of her convictions and willpower to one of the few people she truly respects rather than merely idolizes the image of.

Well, not that Dimo would know that. Maybe. She's not really sure what Dimo is capable of in that sense, but it's fine. She trusts Dimo. She can just rest here until it's time to wake up again and...

She's awake. Futaba blinks her eyes open groggily as she feels her head on something that's definitely not her pillow, her back on something that's definitely not her bed, and her hair neater than it normally feels.

At least, until she sits up. "Uh? Who-" She gets up too fast, and she puts her head right back down. "Miss Dimo...? Uh. How long was I out? That was..." Reaching up to her face, Futaba presses two fingers to her temples as she fights off some of that initial wooziness, but she soon notices something different.

Namely, that she doesn't have to think as much about making her hand bigger to encompass her head, or that she doesn't have to consider expanding her tail out to help cushion her back against the floor. They're already like that, leaving her to settle her head right back into Dimo's lap to get herself more comfortable.

"I... Think so. Uh. How'd I do? I feel a bit more... Lighter?" She's still in a bit of a daze, but it's not uncomfortable. If anything, it's more comfortable than Futaba's felt in a while, and that only seems to confuse her even more. "What happened at the end there...?"
Dimokratia Dimo laughs as Futaba comes up only to go right back down. "Go slowly, sweet girl, slowly and with consideration. You are new, now, again, and should contemplate the whole of the new you." Her hand lifts as the princess's head rises, and returns to the smaller girl's bangs when her head rests down again.

"You were out as long as it took. Several changes had to occur. And it should all now feel... contiguous? Blood is so inefficent, and a dragon's heart can as easily pump it through you as boil it away to nothing. So, it has been... improved, in you. You have been improved, and your own divinity increased. Divine, blessed child, you were already close. I am simply teaching you a quick way!"

Dimo laughs, smiling simply, happy and warm and sisterly. "We are not truly so different, merely different-started, different-learned. Did you not speak of your own divinity? A special child."

How did she do? "You did well, though, I think, for a warrior, I would not fall down into the opponent's trap and let them pour themselves over me." She laughs lightly, brushing a finger down to tap Futaba's nose. "But as a young learner, excellent. You must learn to become safely before you become truly dangerous." A pause. "As for lighter... Because you have become capable of more. Grander, more complex." A humming laugh. "And because what you have within you is far more useful than blood."
Futaba Nuki "New me, new... Me. Right. Rrright." Futaba breathes in and out slowly as she settles right back in, content to lay there for a while longer while enjoying everything: Lounging around with her head in a comfortable spot, talking with Dimo, having her hair messed with, listening to that soothing tone, and remembering the simpler times before they suddenly got more complicated.

She only lets her mind dwell on that last part for a moment, and then she's back on the present! "Changes, eh? I do feel more... Wobbly. Like... On the inside?" Sitting up more carefully this time, Futaba laughs with Dimo freely, nodding after several moments. "Yeah, I was born something else, alright. All that divinity stuff, that nobility stuff, but this? This feels..."

She closes her hand, and then she snickers as she lets her fingers ooze out rather than form a proper fist. "... New. Different. Good. More natural, like I could... I dunno. It's loose, but I like this kind of loose." Reforming her hand after that, Futaba turns to rest her head on her knees as she peers at Dimo intently during her analysis. She giggles bashfully at said assessment and nose tapping, wiggling it briefly before nodding.

"Yeah, I was... You got me. I was trying to show off during all that. I mean, in a real fight, I'd be all zipping and zopping all over the place, but that was..." Trailing off, Futaba gestures vaguely, then furrows her brow as she tries to figure it out.

As far as she's come, she still hasn't realized that she kind of wanted that to happen, anyway. Instead, she just struggles with it for a little longer before keying in on what else Dimo is telling her. "'Become safely before'... Huh. Like... Fighting defensively before I fight aggressively? That doesn't sound super impressive and flashy, though. But maybe with this stuff...?"

She holds her arm up as it becomes less arm-like and more appendage-y, swirling around in the air a few times while Futaba continues getting her bearings on how to control it properly. "I can probably figure it out, right? I mean, with you showing me this stuff, I've got nothing to worry about!"
Dimokratia Of course she wanted it.
Retrospectively, it makes perfect sense. Doesn't it?
She felt incomplete, and now, this feeling, this was better, wasn't it?
A better fit, but on the inside.

"It's fine to admit it." Dimo councils, slowly, hair-fixing hand moving around Futaba's skull to drag her fingers strokingly against the back of the Tanuki's head to scratch, and rest her thrumming-warm palm supportively under Futaba's head. This kind of touch, heat, pressure, it's not as sweltering and melting any more, not as stifling to be in her own head and dripping-hot.

It's just warm, like a nice bath, sloshing between her ears with a humming floss. There's not as much in her to align. She already understands, now, that synthetic adaptation is a superior form of being, and that she can increase her divinity by carefully crafting herself a superior divine vessel. A voice that hums within her, her voice, tells her this, holds the memories that know it. They are Futaba's memories, in her as the warm 'metal' is in her.

As her, seamless and one.

"We will both figure it out, together." Dimo assures, gentle. She smiles, the shell-white of her face parting-'stretching' and moving on panel lines. "What shapes you'll take. As for becoming safely - we are experimenting here, in a space that you cannot be harmed or maimed in, and we are experimenting among each other -- there's no chance of negativity between us, is there?" Dimo sweetly inquires, implying the answer. "Safer than in battle against a monster that would harm you."
Futaba Nuki It all makes sense, of course. Even if it didn't, Futaba's not going to dwell too much on the matter if it feels right now and might only feel weird later if she goes to deep in on it. Trusting her gut is the right thing to do, and her gut is telling her that everything's right. Everything's better.

It's all thanks to Dimo.

"Huhu... Yeah? I guess it is a lot safer to do that here than if I'm in a real fight dealing with someone that actually wants to put a knife in my head, yeah." She replies with a droning 'uuuuuuh' noise at the attention to the back of her head, letting her head droop towards that comforting hand after all of two seconds.

Everything just feels so much righter now.

"We sure will. I bet I could do all kinds of funkier shapes now, too. Although..." She looks up at the leaf that's perpetually decorating the top of her head, then shrugs and settles right back in against Dimo with a contented hum. "I can leave that one there, at least. Even if it looks a little funny, I still want people to know it's me when I'm out there fighting!"

That finally gets Futaba's brain churning in another direction, and she looks up and over at Dimo again. "Say... What kinda projects do you have going on outside of that stuff with the rock disease, anyway? Maybe I can give you a hand for doing all this for me!"
Dimokratia Dimo laughs. "I am not a churning beast of moving parts and weapons, sweet girl. I am Dimo, of the silver. Am I not beautiful? I have chosen to be so, sculpted it so, specialized, grew, expanded to encompass beauty, for I wished to expand what beauty was, and to me, this shape, and elegance, is a specialization I chose for myself."

A broad, low-humming laugh follows, Dimo sitting back on the resting bench and continuing to methodically massage the back of Futaba's head. "You should keep it. It's yours. A true sign of yourself. Isn't it? That you're closer to what you choose to be."

Futaba asks Dimo about her projects, and Dimo agreeingly 'mmm'-s. Like a reinforcement, she gives Futaba's head a pleasantly-tingling squeeze, before sliding out from beneath Futaba's head, and leaving her laid-down on the bench. "Soon, sweet child. Soon you can help me, and perhaps even help others."

Dimo, swaying two hypnotic jellyfish-trails of silver in her wake, exits the Shrine, leaving Futaba back on the bench to watch the tall synthetic woman leave, and with it, her familiar warmth. Then, the world was only as warm as Futaba could make it herself.