Shimmer, Glimmer, & Gleam - A Quest of Loss & Gain

As it turns out, nascent wings are also what Jack, Sasha, and Marie have. They seem worried, at first, until you tell them it doesn't hurt, at which point Sasha is relieved, Marie is jealous, and Jack is still fighting to maintain eye contact with a baffling amount of difficulty. You almost wanna bounce up and down just to see what it does to the poor bastard but Jill manages to stop you with silent but clearly desperate gesture and - oh she's having the same problem huh.

Damnit, you wanted to see what that was about, the romance novels seemed to imply it's some manner of power move in the mating ritual.

The first order of business is that you have to revisit your fashion sense. No one here can quite sew or tailor, and as a result you're going to need to lose a bit of that formless mysteriousness you've used as a shield against the world. Clothing options here are somewhat limited, but there's mutterings of attempting another raid soon, especially with both Bayview and Vivi's Yarn Barn, a craft store that carries much more than yarn, in striking distance. Maybe no one here is a tailor yet, but Sasha in particular is "very" good with her hands (every time she says that she waggles her eyebrows at you with a stupid grin on her face and the romance novels you've read so far have nothing to say about this so you assume it's a Friend Joke(tm) of some kind), so someone could be. But for now, maybe trying someone else's look?

Pick 1
[ ] Sasha keeps saying her look is "very gender". You could be very gender. Right?
[ ] Interrogating Jill produces the words 'farmgirl chic' from her, with a rueful grin.
[ ] Standing behind a clothing rack gets Jack to say his look is pretty classically male "in a party guy kinda way". And wouldn't you know it, there's some of those flower prints here.
[ ] Write-in? (Describe here; keep in mind that this is basically a farm supply store that got big for its britches, the fashion available follows accordingly)

After another day of rest and helping maintain your new home, your good health seems to be back. Gods above, blood loss sucks. But with you feeling better, everyone gathers for dinner to discuss next steps. There is extremely broad agreement that a raid into Bayview may be worth the risk, especially now that y'all have membership cards, and if you find more people in the position the siblings were in you're in a good state to take them in. Even if you weren't, the cold fact of the matter is you have 10 days left of firewood for the Eternal Soup, and if that goes down for the count y'all are gonna start having some novel fucking problems. Marie volunteers to go on the raid, is immediately shut down, and fucks off to sulk, leaving only the adults (...you are an adult, right?...) to hash things out. Someone with a gun and the training to use it should go, and that means you or Sasha. It might be best to leave the other one at home, but Jack says he isn't the worst shot with a hunting rifle and to be honest the best move if someone invades in force will be to run anyway, so maybe that's not a big deal.

When Jill reminds everyone that you can hear the statues and might be the only person who can give peace a chance, you are voluntold for this trip. Which. Okay? Would have been nice to actually volunteer but you can't fight the logic, especially when...

...Maybe you can stop people from getting hurt this time...

But you'll need a partner. Jill wanted to go last time, and was upset that you went instead. You remember her saying that her legs used to be prosthetics; maybe she's eager to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she's capable, either to others or maybe to herself? Another gun could help, and Sasha's got a good head on her shoulders. Then again, you barely know Jack at all...

Pick 1 partner
[ ] Jill
[ ] Sasha
[ ] Jack

The other thing is the route. With two backpacks and a plan, y'all can take your time and grab some extra. You're definitely hitting the craft store, getting some ethanol, and going to Bayview. However, there may be room for another objective, and you settle on...

Pick 1
[ ] Fast food; that very frozen meat will keep for a bit, and fuel the soup, freeing up Bayview for other goods
[ ] A weed dispensary. The marijuana isn't the important part, though it is a relatively safe painkiller; its safes could have hard currency useful for a peaceful resolution to Bayview
[ ] A gun store. Not helpful for the rest of the raid, very helpful for holding the home you've claimed. Ammunition will only get more scarce, not less.
[ ] Write-in?

When you end up asking Sasha to help you pick out a new fit based on hers you see an expression on her that you haven't seen before, a shy little blush-and-scoff, a shake of her head, followed by some immediate help. Your new home doesn't have all the "proper bits", evidently, but Sasha's confident she can mock something up for you that'll do, and maybe Bayview could have more.

"Why me?" Sasha asks, while you're trying to check the tag on your pants for their size without taking them off. Eventually she just grabs your waistline and checks it herself, which puts the blush firmly back on your own cheeks while you pointedly look away. "Psh, calm down. We're not at the level of friendship where I just walk by and smack your ass."

"...That's a friendship level?"

"Answer the question," Sasha repeats, poking you firmly in the back of the head.

You frown in thought and chew it over. Without really consciously meaning to you dig out a cigarette and light up; Sasha coughs and holds her hand out, and you blink for a second before realizing, oh; you get her a smoke of her own, and she puffs away while she hunts through the racks. "I guess...I don't actually know what I look like," you admit. "I don't. Have a reflection. I'm pretty sure I should, and everyone else does, but I don't, so at first it was nice to make sure no one could really look at me. But."

Brown eyebrows raise at you.

You shrug, a little helplessly. "...I feel like a jerk saying this but this is the only world I've ever known, so I think a lot about. Um. How I wanna live in it. You seem to really like how you look, so, I wanna try it. Before things get all stable and I have to be around a lot of people who'll think it's weird that I keep changing things."

Sasha laughs lightly, smoke trickling out of her mouth as the cigarette bounces in her lips. "You are too precious, Orchid. It's cute."

You end up with work pants (which have many, MANY pockets) under a long skirt (which also has pockets). The top situation is almost unworkable until Sasha finally gives in, helps you wriggle into a sports jersey, and then cuts huge ragged holes into the back with the heavy-duty scissors from a roadside emergency kit. You flex your vestigial wings experimentally, and flash her a grin. "Should I cut my hair?" you ask.

"Lass - fuck, sorry." Sasha takes the cigarette out of her mouth and shrugs, helplessly. "Orchid, listen. If you cut an inch off that gorgeous hair I'm gonna make it weird."

You laugh, dumbfounded. "Weird how?"

"I'm thinking," Sasha mock-ponders, "that I'll freeze it in glass and make it the heirloom of my family..."

"Sasha!" you giggle.

"I'll tell my children, this hair was when my buddy Orchid went from the hottest person in my life to merely the third-hottest..."

"SASHA!"

* * * *

Wait was that a joke or was she flirting -

* * * *

Jill is very happy to go along on the raid with you; when you propose that she comes she makes a little squeaking noise, and even now she's not even complaining that you're smoking as you pick your way through the last of the cars on the freeway exit. Sorrow and Sons is a burnt-out shell now, which you expected; thankfully the damage was relatively contained, and the propane tanks outside of the store had a brick wall between them and the inferno within. The two of you stop short, however, when you see that the road is slathered in fresh blood, all of it near cars with open doors. You check everywhere for snipers before motioning for Jill to hang back while you approach, drawing your pistol...

The first car you check did indeed have a statue in the driver's seat, but it hasn't been shattered. Rather, the glass remains as a sort of thin, brittle shell; you can see a small scrap of wet skin hanging from the open front of it, almost as if a butterfly had emerged from a razor-sharp cocoon and cut itself on the way out. The blood trail goes to part of the road and then just stops, and you realize, as you keep looking, that all the blood trails do the same thing. Someone or something opened up all these cars, 'hatched' the statues within somehow, and congregated them in the middle of the road, where they...must have stood in a circle, right here. A circle, around someone else, dripping blood, and then they just vanished. There's no footprints other than yours in the congealing blood, there's not enough blood for more than one person to be dead (and that's if the one dead guy offered up all the blood), there's no trails leading away from the circle. They gathered here, and then they were simply not here.

Not here.

"We clear?" Jill calls, and you wince; she notices you wincing and has the grace to be chagrined about it. You wave her forward, and the two of you slip into a dispensary rejoicing in the blatant name Recently Legalized Cannabis; the glass doors have shattered, and the scene inside is far less mysterious and far more straightfowardly tragic than the highway outside. Someone was trying to rob this place (there is a very destroyed shotgun on the floor, riddled with glass that has gone through the stock and barrel) when...the pre-Impact fragments hit? When Impact hit? Either way, they, the employees, and however many people waiting in line shattered and now all that is left of them is the shadow of their blood on the walls and a quite-soaked duffel bag containing $967.44.

The drugs this store specializes in are encased in a glass-fronted cabinet which, for some reason, did not shatter, and still appear - to Jill's judgement at least - relatively fresh. You go to pick up a key from the counter only to find that the key isn't actually there. You can see it. When you get close you can smell it. It gleams in the early morning light. But when you go to touch it, the object isn't an object, merely a reflection. You have Jill try to pick it up too, same results.

Hrm.

Pick 1
[ ] Lose access to this weed for now; it's not urgent, you can come back and grab the stable forms like the gummies.
[ ] This glass is probably bulletproof, but you have a big gun, and your ravaged mind is telling you that you can burn a cylinder and be inside this thing. It'll be loud.
[ ] Cash in one Gift.

You are eleven days old.