Chapter Text
Kitty: Hi! I said yes to roleplay texting and calling you. How much did Xi’an tell you?
Ava’Dara: I’m supposed to write you messages as if we’re girls at a camp? I gathered we like each other quite a lot, as we do now. Am I human in this game?
Kitty: Do you want to be?
Ava’Dara: I don’t know enough, not having done this, to know. What would you recommend?
Kitty: Can you be a version of yourself? Like how you’d be in you grew up on Earth?
Ava’Dara: This is a lot of imagining. I’ll be back.
[Later.]
Ava’Dara: I talked to Xi’an and we decided I should have come to Earth when I was human-age eleven and now you and I are late teens so I’ve had almost as many years on Earth as I have now. Does that comply with the roleplay?
Kitty: Yes, that’s great! And also, you know, you can just be yourself as you are now with a layer of imagination over you. So we’re pretending—not that we’re different from who we are but—to be ourselves in another way, maybe a way we haven’t been before.
Ava’Dara: I’m going to trust you that I’ll understand that after we do it.
Kitty: Okay great. I’m going to start the roleplay. If you want to ask questions out of character you can format them <like this> so I know it’s an aside. Here goes …
Kitty: I didn’t see you today when everyone was outside playing. Wasn’t the weather great? This is such a pretty camp. I’m glad we’re here. I’m glad you’re here with me. Where did you go when we were all outside?
Ava’Dara: To the showers. They were empty and I shower alone.
Kitty: Oh, yeah. I’ve never seen you in there. Not that I’ve been looking. I mean, okay, I did look for you, but I wouldn’t have looked at you if you didn’t want. Do you want me to?
Ava’Dara: I’m … shy about this. I don’t look like the other people here. Less so when I’m not wearing clothes.
Kitty: I’d like to know how you look. I’m self-conscious about how I look too. Like I started getting boobs later than all the other girls I lived with, and I didn’t want them to see that. They’re still kind of small, but they’re pretty sensitive now. Sometimes even having my shirt brush against my bra makes my nipples hard and then I worry that people notice.
Ava’Dara: I’ve looked at you sometimes and didn’t see that, but I think I’d like to.
Kitty: I could send you a photo. I mean with my shirt on and everything. Hang on.
Ava’Dara: Yes, this is a good photo. This is very enjoyable to look at. My nipples don’t get that hard but the skin-feathers on my breasts react to touch or sometimes even if I’m just thinking about … someone … like you.
Kitty: Oh! I like that. Can you tell me more about your skin-feathers?
Ava’Dara: Where humans have hair, the Shi’ar who are like me, we have feathers. On many parts of our body they’re so fine they’re barely visible, like the fine hair humans have. But I think—I haven’t tested yet—that they’re a bit more reactive than human hair.
Kitty: Humans have some times when our hair stands up. Like if I get really scared, I feel the hair on my forearms prickle.
Ava’Dara: There’s a feeling like a shimmer on the skin when the feathers on my breasts rise. They’re so fine and white that, if you can see them at all, they look like mist, but if I brush my hand over them, I call feel them as a tickle on my palm and a softness floating on my skin.
Kitty: What if I could touch them?
Ava’Dara: They’re lifting a little now at the idea.
Kitty: Would you touch them for me?
Ava’Dara: Are you going to do the same?
Kitty: Yes, I’m sliding one hand under my pajama top now. Oh, but it’s lights out and I have to put my phone away. I’ll keep touching, though, and you too and then we can tell each other about it.
Ava’Dara: I don’t know if I can tell you, but I’ll try. Sleep well.
Kitty: You too! Sweet dreams!