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

First up: your beautiful flower has made a bunch of people very upset. You managed to run at least some interference, but it ended in you having to agree to a community meeting about it, which Orchid is vaguely aware of but. Well. It doesn't need all the details, it'll just get confused an' upset and double down and shit. So you'll handle it. You just gotta walk into the common area and -

- Oh that's a lot more than just the parents.

"Ooookaayyyy," you greet the larger crowd of people, which seems to be, yep, there's the parents, an' there's somea the divinity students and one of the profs, alright, an' a few of the jocks, okay, coupla old people, fuck. Andrea's here, but she claps you on the shoulder and stands next to you with her best Intimidating Meemaw Look, which is a pretty good one but there's some counter-granny fire from the other side here so at best you're breakin' even. "Someone gonna tell me why we've got hangers-on whose business this decidedly ain't?"

You punctuate this with your best raised eyebrow. It's a pretty good raised eyebrow, because all of a sudden there's a great looking-around-at, while these people attempt to figure out who their representative is. So you press on: "Look, I'm sorry Orchid kept the kids kinda long, but they were with Orchid. Safest place they coulda been. What's the fuss?"

Oh. That was the wrong thing to say, evidently. One of the parents - hold up, you know this, this is Mrs. Holbrook - steps forward. "The problem is that now our children are flouting the laws of the gods. Like pagans! My daughter asked why I'm a woman! Can you imagine?"

"Yeah," you answer without thinking. "I had to fill out paperwork about it? Why - oh you didn't know did you."

Mrs. Holbrook, bless her heart, coughs and looks away. "But you're not...that is, Ms. Jill, you're a proper lady, you did everything right. Orchid has them thinking they don't need to have the dream, don't need to be their new gender. That's unacceptable, and an insult to people like you who did the work."

Oh.

Hrm.

Hrmmmm that's.

Oh that's a series of emotions isn't it. That's. Okay. Alright. "Orchid's expressing its understanding of the world like anyone else," you say slowly. "That shouldn't be a big deal."

"Orchid...will have the dream eventually," Holbrook says with a sniff. "And enter the divine fold."

Andrea clicks her tongue. "Tread lightly, girl. We live in a new world."

"We live in the world of the gods -" Holbrook begins, and stops, because you clap your hands very, very loudly. Very loudly. People cover their ears.

And you tilt your head to the heavens, feeling the ache in your shins because your new limbs may be glass flesh but they still don't fit quite right, quite comfortably, and you call out: "Merciful Mara, do you have an opinion?"

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