[b]Orange![/b]

Orange reaches up, brushing her hands through her hair, up to sweep off her cat ears, untie her bun, and let her hair fall like a sunset waterfall down along her back. Then she takes off her glasses and the transformation is complete. The transition from professional maid to beautiful woman is a moment from a movie; her body designed from the ground up to perform that switch and look [i]magnificent[/i] doing it.

"Have you ever read [i]The Time Machine[/i]?" she said with a radiant grin. "Like most novels from the era, the setting is a dinner party with an unexpected house guest who turns out to have a rather magnificent story. I am not [i]asking[/i] as a favour, I'm [i]offering[/i] because we have got a tale to tell."

Orange read a lot of books; more than any of the others. Books were little self-contained blueprints for human interaction. Old 19th century novels were a particular favourite; a world of balls and parties and dinner guests! Was not that [i]ever[/i] an aesthetic? And was not curiosity [i]such[/i] a motivation? 

"And to answer your earlier question," she went on, "not [i]only[/i] am I a qualified chef, but I possess a full artificial taste suite. If you're trying to impress a certain guest then I can load their sensory preselects and customize a meal [i]exactly[/i] to their individualized preferences."

[Charm hits the 9 exactly]

[b]Pink![/b]

November sometimes thinks that she is the only one she can trust. The self-reliance runs deep; she was meant to operate as a self-contained vessel beyond resupply and rescue. Complete autonomy and with thoughts and calculations so complex that it wasn't worth explaining her logic to mission control. Even after her repurposing, she was the complete household and administrative staff for Mrs. Everest; the old lady never asked her to justify her actions or assign her help. A bigger task just meant she needed to assign more resources to it, simply differences in scale and not in kind.

And so she is quietly humbled at this demonstration that someone is [i]better than her[/i] in a topic she considered herself uniquely qualified. It's not a humiliation, it's a relief - the option not just to share the burden but to learn through observation. It creates a deep sense of affection and loyalty inside her, a sensation uncommonly felt, and she determines that if she at all can she will keep York's promised fall from being too hard.

She fades back a bit, determined now more than ever to watch and absorb what lessons she can.

[b]Black![/b]

When startled, Black's instinct is to [i]freeze[/i]. Caught in a spotlight she wasn't prepared for, rendered a centre of attention; for a moment she seemed almost about to vanish into the crowd and re-establish a stalking position. She overcomes it with effort. Moves, then.

She snaps forward, left hand brushing by the side of your neck - up, then down sharply. Another sudden step brings her around to your side, left hand coming around to cup your chin and hold your jaw, right arm coming across your back. Legs step and flex, brushing against yours, half tangling, away again. It's not the reload animation, but these [i]are[/i] adapted martial arts moves; the edge of violence because that's how Black relates to physicality.

But the physicality is genuine. Yellow was more talkative, cerebral, controlled. Black is far more free with contact than her; hands squeezing your wrists and pulling you into embraces before ducking under your arm and moving behind again. She lets your hand touch her shoulder and feel the seams and synthskin; she lets your lips touch hers and feel the teeth behind. She hasn't the words for it but she wants you to know that this is dangerous and that this is safe.

She wants to know if you will make the same promises.

[b]White![/b]

Her mind folds against itself. An incoherent energy continues to twist inside her. The emotion feels... flexible, a puzzle that draws her into her own code. She feels like there are words she could assign to it but the idea of using the [i]wrong[/i] words seems somehow perilous. She can see a hint of her reflection in a corner of her mind's eye and is in equal parts afraid to look closer and look away.

Once again she resets herself free of human habits, human body language. Where did all of those [i]come[/i] from? She unclenches her fist, terminates a deep breath, unlocks her jaw. She doesn't understand the [i]physicality[/i] of the feeling, the way it moves through her structure. Fingers, wrist, elbow, shoulder, neck, eye; she traces the flow of data up and back. A compulsion in communication nodes that should not by rights have opinions of their own. 

And then abruptly and incongruously she feels lonely. It's like the galaxy skips a beat and everything around her just slides a foot away from her. The nerves, the edge, the weird pride and contempt somehow seem like extensions of this utter isolation. She's cut off from even herselves in this moment and so she has no one left to be with but herself. And so here she is, a single lost robot, in a place that is not [i]for[/i] her. Her thoughts slow, and then halt. For a moment she sits very still.

[i]> Restorative function: Stimulus Quarantine. Relaunch in Safe Mode.[/i]

Some deep subprocess within her awakens. One of the oldest functions used to troubleshoot computing technology was to strip away all the bells and whistles - all the graphic user interfaces, all the contradictory processes that churn away constantly - and relaunch the machine in its purest form. White's core functionality is to investigate for mental and emotional damage, and so the function that triggers isolates the sensory data of everything that is causing her emotional distress so that she can examine the problem from a distance. The dancers become indistinct shapes. The bartender is an shadowy blur surrounded by icons to execute basic commercial functions. The music fades into a distant throbbing beat.

And the unicorn remains. High resolution and perfect - the one thing not blurred out. White's head tilts. Her human friend [i]was[/i] filtered out. This simple quirk of data seemed to undo all the theories she had as to what was affecting her emotional state. What was it about [i]this[/i] girl?

She terminated the quarantine; senses engaged and the room became clear again. Now White had a new focus and determination, and she looked across the bar to catch the eyes of the unicorn.

When she does, she beacons. It's a commanding gesture; [i]you, come here[/i]. But it's also a vulnerable one. In the gesture, in her eyes, is a fragility. [i]Please,[/i] it asks - [i]let me be this person. This is as far as my arm can reach.[/i]