Chapter Text
“Nandayo?!? A... cumbermelon ?” Ruru asked, staring at Tails, her eyes momentarily darting back to the oddity on her plate a few times before he could answer. They presented a surreal picture, a foot tall Genie-looking Kaijin wearing a gauzy and revealing harem-outfit and a three foot eight inch two-tailed Fox debating genetically modified fruit.
Amy was all proud smiles, reaching over and squeezing his hand. Brilliant as they both were, it was always nice for either when the other surprised them with some new gem.
Tails gave this some serious thought before nodding, “Precisely. The name is arguably incomplete in that although it does combine the flavor profiles of watermelon and cucumber, it also blends in those of cantaloupe and honeydew melons, as well as the textures of these latter, the snap of the cucumber, and the cucumber rind's full edibility — but naming conventions do tend to center on simpler, catchier names.”
Ruru waited for his explanation to wind down.
“Baka desu. What was wrong with them before that?”
He blinked, trying to filter her meaning and thrust from her choice of words. There were always so many layers with everyone.
Almost everyone, he amended, thinking of Amy.
“Why couldn't we just eat them normally, without your weird thing here?” Ruru expanded, frowning slightly as she poked at a few pieces.
Relieved to have more information to work with, he told her of how Sonic was always seeking one balance or another for his soups and salads and dishes in general, and of how this had gotten him thinking about the relevant parameters. He'd analyzed all of the data available in general, though with just their own group as the target audience, and generated an appropriate genome that expressed as the multiple phenotypes before her.
This took him a few minutes to relate, but he'd been careful to stick to only the most salient parts of the story, trying hard not to actually tell her of all of the steps involved and the fascinating outliers and strange attractors that he'd encountered along the way. Double checking what he'd said, he beamed at himself for having managed a nice, simple answer.
Ruru surveyed the rest of the table. Country-cured Black Forest truffle-hamato with a cherry-citric undertone, molasses flavored onion-beans, a hybrid oolong-jasmine-orange-pekoe tea, mead berries whose juice came pre-fermented, curry-chicken that he'd been quick to point out needed no currying to serve...
She shook her head. He just didn't exactly “get it.”
Eyeballing the eggs suspiciously, she picked one up to inspect it. Slightly slippery and white, egg-shaped; this presented no problem. It was the complex scent and spots of color that worried her.
“What have you done to these eggs?” she asked, a note of concern spacing her words and drawing each one out.
“They come already containing bacon bits, short threads of cheese, and shreds of potato. The one that you're holding also has diced tomato, onion, and a few different bell peppers.”
“And this...?” she asked, waving a half-eaten slice of toast.
Tails cocked his head to the side, stymied by her insufficiently couched question.
“Why is it full of butter and jelly?” she continued.
“Margarine and jam, and it's for expedience. That is, it's to save time,” he replied.
“What's wrong with simply spreading things?”
“Incorporating the key ingredients ensures a more thorough experience and eliminates messes,” he said. The answer seemed obvious to him, but he was used to this. People generally asked things that didn't need explanations, sometimes to start a conversation that was entirely unrelated, and other times for no sensible reason whatsoever.
She hadn't yet touched the sushi-burrito-eggrolls, but he still held high hopes for them.
Predictably enough, for all of her complaining, Ruru nevertheless managed to make all of the food disappear — and ask for more, of course.
Back in their room, Amy hugged him close.
“I'm so glad that your presentation went well, Miles... and proud of you for it. They were all delicious, and I'm sure that all of Hyrule will appreciate that even more, once it gets out how zone-hardy they are, not to mention their nutrition and calorie profiles.”
Her eyes strayed to the bed in passing, but that remained an uncertainty.
He seemed receptive with a distinct pupillary dilation, his thermal distribution just about right, heartbeat and galvanic readings rising slightly, along with a few stray pheromones supporting this spectrographically. Weighted box and whisker tensors argued that hormone flooding would be optimal now, but the probability fans — while quiescent — weren't entirely smooth at this juncture. Yes: he was indeed reasonably inclined, but also ambivalent at the moment.
“How are you feeling, anyway? Stressed? Maybe a nap, or a massage...? Hot chocolate and sandwiches, and some snuggling with a movie?” she asked as she drew back, still holding his hands now. His bright orange fur might present a striking contrast to her midnight blue skin1, but they fit well together.
Her hopes were very much set on something rather more involved — more personal — but she would be perfectly happy with some warm-fuzzy time, and wasn't inclined to push him in any direction. Especially not in this regard.
He considered the options presented, their open schedule and the time of day, and allowing for a third category of other possibilities, and of course potential unknowns...
“Would all of these be OK?” he began, warming to the plan, “We can get something to eat while we make the sandwiches, and maybe the others will join us on the sofas, especially if we make extra snacks, and then bed for a while?”
Both? she thought, threading some subroutines for family time and electing to run a low-level romantic algorithm with a background sexual tension module set to a mildly seductive ambiance theme, 'both' is good...
Between Zelda and Peach, Sonic and the three Fridays2, Ruru (if there were food to be had, then there was no doubt of her attendance), and Mister Fluffykins and the cats (Fluffykins was in a class of his own, having been granted full sophance and physical uplifting3), they were sure to have some company, and likely conversation, debates over what to watch, presumably a marathon... it would be nice. A warm-fuzzy bonding experience of shared time. It sounded to her like a satisfactory compromise.
Doubly nice to have Miles sitting in my lap beneath a blanket, or just rest my head in his lap while he plays with my ears...
That afternoon and on into the evening, they all gathered 'round to enjoy a command performance of The Nutcracker Suite as reinterpreted by the Royal Dandelion and Mushroom Troupe. The troupe actually had some Fairies and several races of Flowers and a few Newts, but had originally been founded as a small band and the name had stuck. Their version was an unusual interpretation involving opera, ballet, and normal stage play, and incorporating Valkyrjur and a ring that possessed several shielding and parrying magics, with a surprising plot twist involving the protagonists' ascension to a higher level of existence, though this had been subtly foreshadowed early in the hero's journey. They finished the evening with a few episodes of Spell Trek: Sojourner 4 in a particularly captivating story arc wherein the first episode's world of Amaranth's5 (a spattered thing, long since frozen in the moment of its explosive dissolution) laws of magic were being swung like a pendulum to suit the whims of a mustachioed villain and his idiotic sidekick from one of the far-flung worlds of the show's improbable constellation of unusual bodies sailing along their haphazard orbits through the show's air-filled island universe. After that play, this made for much lighter material. It also drew the cats back, as usual.
The Spell Trek episodes were well written, but with the same predictable love-romance-sex tropes littered throughout, and of course a subplot of one of the characters “smitten” with love for one of the aliens, and spending half of an episode trying to get laid. It looked as if the director were aware of this too, given the burning garbage dumpster to be seen floating down a flooded street toward the end of that.
Zelda and Peach were completely taken with both, in their different ways. Zelda a little moody but hopeful with the play, and lost in the shiny high-magic of the show; Peach swooning at the play's valiant hero, and rooting for the show's alien love interest. Through it all, Amy was fairly sure that one or the other of them got up to something beneath their blanket every so often, based on the occasional sudden twitch or hushed gasp. Sonic and the Fridays seemed to just be enjoying the evening's programs as they came, with a fair number of trips for more snacks for everyone. She expected that the four of them would likely have their own fun in private later, and could almost bet that she'd be woken by Peach's happy noises at some point in the night.
All of this hit home uncomfortably for her.
On the one hand, she got it. With Tails so close that she'd be able to smell him even had she only Human olfactory senses, his body warm and soft and right there with her... On the other hand, she got it. Sometimes it was nice to simply follow a story — or any real-world social interaction, for that matter, she observed — without having to add sex to the mix, and people were people rather than just available access to sexual relief. That piece of dichotomous irony was perhaps a bit too on-point.
Still a little upset with herself as they adjourned for the night, she found their bath greatly relieving. Adjusting the tub to a reclined position, they both found it soothing enough to nod off at moments; to lean back and soak, just holding Tails and talking about nothing in particular. She did end up giving him a massage before bed, but was happy to slowly drift away afterward as he read her to sleep.
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