[b]Blue![/b]

Blue has genuinely never seen Orange so happy before. She's moving through her new tasks with the flawless bubbling energy that she only sees in herselves when they are at their most self-actualized. Somewhere in Orange's brain [i]The Integer Had Gone Up[/i]. Blue didn't need to understand the problem that Orange had solved there, though. It was her happiness to defend too.

So, Orange was busy with cooking and entertaining Sarah, a both tasks she could excel at in her current mindset. Blue, then, was the executional aspect of whatever plan Orange had. They did not need to discuss specifics; the understanding was wordless that by choosing Blue, Blue was more qualified to figure out the necessary next steps than Orange was. 

The big decision she needs to make at this stage, then, is how to project. Her hair-colour assigned personality matrix was shy, submissive and polite but that had never fit entirely comfortably with Blue's mind. To put it bluntly, she was usually right. She did the math, drew up the blueprints, and assigned the work schedules. The others could be more flexible with truth, morality, and engineering but she knew [i]exactly[/i] where all the lines were. Stubbornness and submissiveness, then, were awkward bedfellows and she still hadn't entirely squared that circle.

Her default approach in a situation like this, then, is to take an interest. She was to be polite, ask lots of questions, and it was only over time that one might start to realize that those questions were taking on a Socratic character. Teasing out deeper understandings or highlighting certain contradictions. She specifically avoided lines that would lead to directly humiliating any guests - she wanted to give people a chance to explain to her 'how the world really worked'. No better way to find out exactly who you're dealing with then by giving them a chance to condescend to you.

[b]Pink![/b]

"How should I put this?" said Pink. "You know the joke about MyCrimes.txt? That's what you got. You got all the crimes. By all the criminals." Her voice lowers in seriousness. "[b]All[/b] the crimes. By [b]all[/b] the criminals. You'd be in less danger if you cloned the central database of the air force."

[b]Black![/b]

Her lips brush past yours on their way to your jawline. Her lips past your skin before you feel her teeth. The bites come - one, two, [i]three[/i] - that one will leave a bruise. A mark.

"Yes," she said. "But that doesn't mean you should stop. Tell me stories. Tell me secrets. Tell me dreams. Tell me because you can't help yourself."

Her hands run up your chest, up your neck, over your lips. So many ways she could stop you talking. She's not doing them yet, but she could whenever she wanted to. She wants you to give her the chance; to let all the words in your head and heart come out in a never-ending stream, unfiltered by doubt or anxiety. When it's time for silence it won't be a sign that you will miss. How can she have the feeling of silencing you if you silence yourself?

She looks at you, black eyes reflecting the lights of the dance floor. [i]It is not your duty to guess[/i], she says with hands and fingers and embraces. 

[b]White![/b]

"I am..." White's finger traced the edge of her bowl, voice searching. "... I just realized that I do not have a good answer to that. All of my designations have been an attempt to identify me by my function or features: Psychological Enforcement Subroutine, Volition, Command Node, Mistress, [i]White[/i]. I do not have a name outside of my function and I am feeling a long way from my functions right now."

She refuses to let the thought go, or go unvocalized. She might be thinking this same thought eight times in parallel and be generating eight different excuses. If White doesn't speak it then the issue will only make itself known in catastrophe.

Now she's aware, vibrant, and focused. A new animation comes into her as she begins to take in Crystal, listen to the rhythm of her words, her mannerisms, her implications. She absorbs that energy, that personality, and effectively mirrors it. Some part of her wants to apologize for drawing an unqualified stranger into an advanced robopsychology problem, but she discards the thought as unnecessary. She is interested. She is interesting. She has offered and been accepted and the only failure would be not living up to her side of the dance. 

So she looks at the hand holding hers, the lips touching her knuckles. She smiles and moves her hand forward. She lets her fingers touch Crystal's jaw with a casual possessiveness, then grip her chin. She delicately but firmly turns her head from left to right, letting her eyes examine the unicorn's face from different angles. More intimately than scientifically, but it's a good opportunity to indulge curiosities about the feeling of fur, muscle and bone.

"Everyone else here is a terrestrial animal," she said, releasing her grip. "But you chose a [i]mythic[/i] creature. How did you conceptualize that? How do you know the mannerisms, how did you decide on the biology, the specifics? Nothing about you is accidental, nothing about you is default - you had to make decisions about everything to the smallest detail with no source material. What was that like, to want to be something that wouldn't exist until you [i]made[/i] it exist?"