"I, uh, well. I don't. I don't really. I? Um."

Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits has a couple of different problems at the moment. The first is that she is not wearing, nor in fact does she even own, sexy underwear. It's not that the idea of it embarrasses her (although it does), but it simply falls short of her idea of romance. Or to hear Cy tell it, it's another example in a very long list of ways that she's a terrible foxgirl. Not to belabor the point or anything, but why should she have to seduce anyone? She's not a one night stand kind of girl, so intimate moments ought to be for intimate partners. And shouldn't anyone who qualifies already love her for who she is, find her attractive for what she is, no matter what she's wearing at the time (or isn't)? If you can't love her in little hearts, you don't deserve her in lace.

In any case that is the least of her concerns. A much bigger problem is that she doesn't know who it is that's mad at her or what (specifically) she's done to upset them. The first person who jumps to mind is also the scariest, and she has spent most of this terrible trip through Mall Hell casting awkward and terrified looks over her shoulder expecting to see Yue standing there with her hands on her hips and a big angry frown on her face. 

"Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits! Did yoooooooooouuuuuuuuu doom the world?"

Is what she would say if she were here. It would be awful. She would shiver and quake and cry instead of explaining herself and when she finally got brave enough to go in for Apology Hugs (which always fix everything) the world would explode and be cursed forever at the same time. And [i]then[/i] she'd go to Cutie Jail! In any case Yue is many things, but she is not a dragon. Which now that she is thinking about it she realizes is the actual type of person getting mad at her.

And even if she was, there are no Yues to be seen. Nor Qius or Opaliseseseses for that matter. Which is kind of another problem Kat is having. Her list of allies is, uh, not as big as she was hoping? When you're going down to what you've been lead to believe is the Final Boss it really sucks to feel like you've got twenty open quest lists still unfinished. What if she needed that XP? It's not that she doesn't think the world of Berserker (like... wow, just [i]look[/i] at her go! those poor demons have no idea what they're getting into), or trust her completely, but a lot of really, [i]really[/i] weird and scary stuff is happening these days. And more help is better than less help, as the saying goes, and in any case she planned on having allies or friends or at least penpals and right now all she's got is a Catsassin who just really feels like he's leading her into a trap?

Which is the next problem. Obviously. This is a trap. That's why she's got the twitchy ears. At the bottom of this there's gonna be a dragon and the dragon will be mad at her for, like, being too cute or something and then she'll get eaten like, [i]HROMP![/i] like that and the Catsassin will laugh at her and she'll be embarrassed and dead at the same time. Or to be less stupid about this (since none of that is going to happen) she'll get grabbed by a techno-monster and lectured at about pickle-down economics or whatever it's called until it turns her Pure Evil so she can be an shrine maiden to whatever ancient horror is sealed down here. No that seems about right. Or is it more that... ok no, she shouldn't go around putting ideas in anyone's head. 

The last problem, the biggest problem accept no substitutes, is that Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits is homesick like nobody's business. It sucks down here! This whole time she never entirely understood what it was that upset Yue so much about the state of the Demon Swordswoman's shrine. The water was disgusting, of course, but water is almost always dangerous when it isn't being turned into tea. The floating dress possessed by a ghost would've been scary even if it didn't keep randomly filling with spyware. It was all unfortunate and sad, of course, but Yue had reacted like she'd lost a friend or a relative when she hadn't even finished meeting the person she was upset for.

She gets it now. Everything is cramped. Everything crowded. Nothing gets to just [i]be[/i]. The whole concept of beauty, or even ugliness is pointless down here because it's... inefficient? You can fit more advertising space on that if you don't care about these things. You can sell more to people if your store has a store in it, and both stores insist on funneling you through them in a weird spiral that makes you need to pass everything to get back out, and then you get lost and wind up back at the beginning which is somehow a chance to sell you a map. But the map won't turn on even after you've bought it unless you've also subscribed to MApp, even though MApp hasn't been in service for 300 million years, probably, and the url for the confirmation link smells the same as Actia's magic for some reason and, and, and...

"Argh!" she arghs. 

"Ugh." she ughs.

"Sigh." she... says. That's not what sighs sound like, don't act like you were fooled.

She wants to go home. She wants to snuggle in a blanket and get a pat on her cutie head and be told it's ok to go to sleep early tonight. She wants to say sorry to Hyra for breaking the Cool Wolf Phone she got her, and she wants to eat cake and she wants to look at that one little tree you can see from out of the window because she suddenly realizes with clarity she did not believe was possible that it is simple and boring and normal and that [i]makes it beautiful[/i]. Her eyes are almost filled with tears just thinking about it.

But of course she trudges on. Ducking and weaving through opportunities to own all of the world's most hashtaggable goods and own the libs while she's at it. Losing herself in quiet moments of unspeakable violence when Berserker gets another opportunity to crack skulls, and for once not even feeling bad about it. Wiping her foxy eyes dry and floofing her tails importantly and heading as straight into whatever trap this is as she can manage, because defeating all of this is how she gets to leave. Like every foxgirl before her.

At least she understands how to respond to Adam now. If [i]this[/i] is the good he's been judging her world against, she knows just how to win an argument with him.

By laughing in his face.