Chapter Text
It was roughly an hour after Faith’s adventure in Fox’s Arwing when the squabbling freighters finally sorted out their petty dispute, granting the Great Fox II her long-awaited clearance to enter Durrin’s atmosphere.
Faith witnessed the entire descent from the bridge; it was a mesmerising experience to see tiny details of a world become so enlarged so quickly, almost like the ship was getting consumed by an unfathomably large beast, which wasn’t totally untrue physically speaking. When a ship enters a world, gravity suddenly becomes a dire factor, and a lot of force needs to be poured into the stabilisers to ensure that the ship doesn’t get pulled in too quickly, consequently becoming a free-falling meteor that would either level miles-worth of land upon impact or burn up and break apart on entry. Thankfully, Fox had plenty of experience in atmospheric entry and was able to help ROB guide the ship down with minimal trouble, withstanding only a small amount of turbulence.
Before Faith knew it, the blue aura of the atmosphere had consumed the blackness of space. They had already breached through the vast sheets of clouds that covered the planet’s surface, which only looked like speckled ribbons from space, and the saturated green continents became so massive that finer details could be made out in full, such as vast farming lands, towns, intricate roadways, and at last the major port city of Ingvie that they were sailing for.
Tiny port rigger ships, a fleet of four, eventually met the Great Fox II once Ingvie became visible and guided her towards the resupply depot. They were equipped with special tractor fields that helped them better steer the Great Fox II to where she needed to be. It was a joint effort, and Fox and the crew of riggers coordinated intensely while Faith and Krystal watched the whole process play out.
Eventually, through a lot of effort and teamwork, the riggers brought and helped the Great Fox II situated in her designated pier: 38FH. The subsequent docking procedures were always meticulous efforts that required a ton of focus, especially when the ship’s docking clamps were still worn down, causing the automated spokes along both sides of the pier to not mesh as smoothly. Fox swore as soon as they got home, he would finally buy new clamps for the ship. It was a long time coming, especially with a very big payday on the horizon.
A little while later, after the Great Fox II got comfy in her spot, Krystal decided that it was finally time to head for the city so that they could make Faith’s appointment. Faith could not shake the grin off of her muzzle as she got ready in her room, swapping on some clothes courtesy of Fay Sinclair. While not feeling fashionably inspired, Faith thought what she chose was cute enough without being eye-catching: a simple black lightweight jacket, a pair of grey pants, and brown boots that closed halfway up her legs―which turned out to fit her perfectly. Faith figured that she must have been identical in height and size to Fay.
Soon enough, Faith emerged from the ship after leaving Kew and headed down the boarding ramp with her guardians. She felt a few pounds lighter since arriving in this world, and that could be attributed to Durrin’s slightly lower gravity. The ship’s artificial gravity generator had been configured to emulate Cornerian gravity. While not terribly different, it was a subtle change―mainly in balance.
The only way one could get to Ingvie from the piers was through the monorail system that linked the city and the spaceport. An elaborate network of rail lines weaved all around the port to make it easier for ships to load and unload their goods and ship them elsewhere. There was also a passenger line that directly took people to the city, which was clearly visible about seven miles away. The buildings and high-rises Faith could see were incredible as they glistened in the Brokkr sunlight, and seemed taller than most buildings that had ever been made on Corneria.
When the trio were making their way to the metro station, just outside the boundaries of the spaceport and not far from where the Great Fox II was docked, Faith could imagine herself becoming overwhelmed by the resounding ambience of the spaceport where giant machines were at work, and the air had a distinct diesel-like aroma to it that tickled Faith’s sensitive nose. Thankfully, the McClouds made sure she wasn’t far from them as they walked, which reassured her considerably. Faith wasn’t conditioned to feel safe when walking around outside, no matter what world she had been ferried to.
After an uneventful and relatively short walk to the metro station, Fox went ahead and purchased two tickets for the next train to Ingvie from the automated admission machine. They didn’t have fancy holographic displays as most Cornerian machines did, but their purpose of dispensing tickets was all that mattered―and dispensing them they did well. Fox turned around after receiving the tickets.
“All right, here you are,” he said, gingerly handing them off to his wife. “You ladies go have fun in the city. I’ll join up with you after I make sure all of our fuelling needs are being met here. Can’t make ROB do all the work.”
“Of course not,” Krystal agreed with a smile. “He’s due for a good power down anyway.”
Fox made sure to kiss his wife before parting ways, returning to the steps that led back down to the piers. He gave the girls one last departing wave before dipping down out of sight, and they too waved back at him. Moments later, the pair moved closer to the platform to see when the train was coming.
There were a couple dozen people spaced out on their platform, who were all creatures of various kinds, and they paid little mind to the blue vixen and her border collie friend. Even still, Faith’s anxieties were rising steadily as she eyed all the people while lowering her head out of habit. She had been contracting into a very docile stance without fully realising it, which was something Krystal was quick to point out.
“Are you all right?” she muttered to Faith. While already having an educated idea of what was going on, Krystal felt it was better to let Faith explain if she was willing.
“Yeah. I am, but…” Faith hesitated momentarily, shifting her gaze around at the people on their platform again, as well as the opposite one on the other side of the tracks. “It’s just… It’s been a while since I’ve been out in public. It didn’t go so well the last time…”
Krystal’s ears lowered sadly. She leaned in a little closer to conceal their conversation better. “Just stay close to me,” she instructed softly. “Should there be any trouble, I have a few ways of sniffing them out. You’re not without protection.”
Faith had been looking her friend in the eyes during this portion of the exchange and only glanced down at Krystal’s belt to see her discretely jostling something clipped to it. It was that metal object no bigger than a large water bottle. It had a golden sheen, a brown grip with odd patterns around it, and its leaf-shaped crown housed a lovely-looking purple gem inside it. Faith had been wondering what that strange object was after she saw Krystal take it with her off the ship, and it looked weirdly familiar.
“What is that, anyway?” she asked, eying Krystal’s golden accessory.
“A handy tool of mine,” Krystal answered, with a reassuring peek of her fang. “It discourages ruffian motivations.”
“Oh,” Faith mused, giving it a second look. “Okay. If you say so.”
“I do,” Krystal replied, drifting her hand over and closing her fingers around Faith’s left hand, making the girl tense slightly. “You’re safe with me.”
Faith returned to look at her vulpine friend in her teal eyes again. They were as mesmerising as they were inviting. Full of promise and uncompromising loyalty. No one had ever looked at Faith quite like the way Krystal did, and it was a ceaselessly enchanting thing to receive.
Silently, Faith returned Krystal’s gesture by squeezing her hand and stood a little closer to her. She truly did feel safer with her. Faith wondered briefly if she was going to have difficulty letting go of her hand when waltzing around Ingvie.
Faith would likely get that answer sooner than she would have expected because the monorail train soon shuttled in down the track from the right at a rapid pace. It was making a stop here at the spaceport before shooting off to Ingvie in the distance, and it was coming in so quickly that Faith and Krystal took a few steps back, moments before the speeding red and white dart-shaped train whooshed straight into the station at almost seventy miles an hour, coming to a hard and befuddling stop seconds after.
The doors opened up to reveal a rather densely packed interior space for passengers, and a lot more people were shown to be getting on than off. Faith’s throat felt dry as she beheld this disconcerting scene, and Krystal wasn’t impressed by it either. Nevertheless, she led Faith inside, where the two of them proceeded to try and squeeze their way inside the mass of jaded people, presumably hailing from countless corners of the cosmos.
Being that all the seats along the sides of the carriage were filled to the max with occupants, Faith and Krystal had no choice but to stand amongst the packed masses. While able to keep it together, Faith’s heart rate rose with mistrust. She grew to fear especially crowded spaces because of how often she had been shepherded through certain ones by her keepers, and those crowds rarely kept their hands to themselves, nor was there any real attempt to make them behave. Faith began clenching her teeth by the time the doors closed; she couldn’t help but feel like at any moment someone would grab her butt, feel up her legs, or even yank her tail hard for a laugh, which was now curling in between her legs fretfully.
“Ease your fear, love,” Krystal thought to her friend, establishing a telepathic connection as she stroked the fur on Faith’s arm comfortingly. “Hardly any of these commuters notice you. There are no preying eyes here.”
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Faith channelled back nervously. She and Krystal practised this method of speaking a few times before landing on this world, so she had a decent grasp on how to converse in this way. “I thought I’d be ready, but I don’t know if I am…”
Krystal then made silent eye contact with Faith as they both held suspended grips from the ceiling as the train began to take off at a ferocious speed down the track with minimal g-forces. Perhaps this train ran on Durrin-brand G-Diffuser technology or something very close to it. “That world is long past you now. We’re taking our first steps back into the mundane existence that is the urban realm.”
“But…that’s where it all started…”
“And it won’t happen again,” Krystal promised. Although she was confident in herself, Krystal could see Faith was still struggling to reach such certainty, so Krystal offered something more personal. Silent in both thought and voice, Krystal gestured subtly at her person as she stood next to Faith, offering further condolence.
Faith was a bit conflicted by Krystal’s open gesture, but if no one truly gave Faith a second thought, then there wasn’t any reason why she should have been afraid of what she did next. Faith scooted in a bit closer to the blue vixen and rested herself against her, nuzzling her snout against her neck like it so often did whenever Faith had the opportunity to be affectionate around her.
Krystal contently closed her arm around her worried friend, holding her gently but firmly as they wobbled with the train’s motions. Faith just closed her eyes and entrusted Krystal entirely with their surroundings. She began to feel calm again.
“Thanks…” she thought, cherishing Krystal’s homey scent.
“You’re always welcome,” Krystal simply encouraged, gently stroking Faith’s cheek as her tail slowly curled around her legs assuringly. The two of them remained in this posture for the whole duration of the train ride, maintaining a serene silence amongst the high-pitch whirring of the train speeding down the line.
The city of Ingvie was a jungle, and that was no exaggeration.
Amidst the staggeringly tall skyscrapers and other buildings weaved a harmonious network of giant trees that were interconnected with one another. Their thick branches and dense palmy leaves seemed to blanket the streets of the city, blocking out much of the Brokkr sun, but they strangely didn’t look invasive or showed any other sign of being a nuisance or a hazard to the city. If anything, the natural canopy looked almost planned that way.
While Faith navigated the bustling sidewalks alongside Krystal, they passed the plotted areas where the sturdy trunks that made up some of these trees had sprouted from. There were large spaces between them and neighbouring buildings, so there was a suggestion of expectation that they would grow that big. Faith assumed that there were quite a few identical plots around the city, which provided what must have been an alternative means of navigating Ingvie without traipsing in the streets. Faith spotted hints of this during the numerous times when she looked up and wouldn’t take her gaze off of them―becoming rather dependent on Krystal’s direction given how little she was paying attention to the pedestrian traffic.
Faith could spot a series of lights behind the leaves of the trees, resembling the traffic signals at ground level, as well as the occasional figures she could spot up there, and a good many of them were crawling on their hands and feet rather than walking. Faith was enraptured by this city’s design, and especially by the species that made up most of Durrin’s global population, which were a diverse range of primates called lemurs. People with long tails, short snouts and enormous eyes.
It was fascinating to see such people in their element like this. Dogs of all traits were an adaptable kind that found themselves virtually anywhere they went, but Faith wasn’t aware of any canines that were as good of climbers as lemurs. If a big city like Ingvie felt like a walk through a jungle, and not just in the urban sense, Faith could only imagine what the natural world of Durrin had to offer.
“It’s all quite entrancing, isn’t it?” Krystal channelled through Faith’s mind, which was not startling enough to frighten Faith, but it was enough to take her eyes off of the sights and directly acknowledge the one who telepathically spoke to her.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Faith thought back in wonder. “It would be one thing if they did this kind of thing back home, but look at how huge they are! And the skyscrapers! I wonder if the slightly lower gravity is what allows everything to be at this scale.”
"You are very observant,” Krystal commended. “That would also explain why the native lemurs here are rather tall.”
Krystal was right; most of the lemurs Faith passed were commonly between six to seven feet tall, or even a few inches taller than that give or take, and their profiles were typically slenderer. Little details do go a long way it seemed. Faith was fascinated by how a world that developed was drastically dependent on the level of gravity it had. The buildings and trees here were as massive as they were because gravity gave them that tiny bit of leniency to do so. While not particularly literate in physics or astrophysics, Faith hailed a great respect for them when seeing their results.
Before long, Faith and Krystal arrived at the salon which was situated by a massive intersection with four crosswalks: IL Rinnovamento Della Fiortura. It had a slew of good reviews and was rated rather well amongst its competitors in Ingvie, and it sure looked posh enough in person with its white walls and curvy stylised ironwork frames along the circular windows, which resembled blooming flowers. Faith was still on edge for various reasons, but her friend continued to supply the confidence she needed to step inside and follow her lead.
Stepping inside, only slightly startled by a chirpy automated entry bell, Faith was then greeted by a very open and immaculate interior space. Beyond the front desk, which bore the salon’s logo, was a massive room lined with large rectangular dressing mirrors and cosy-looking leather seats fixed right in front of each one, where employees in white shirts and black dress pants could be seen working on their clients―most of which were species with large amounts of fur. In addition to that, Faith was also able to spot the entryway to another room in the back end of the salon, and she clenched her teeth at the sight of it. She was going to spend the beginning portion of her treatment back there. She knew what was back there and why she would be doing it, but that didn’t make it any less nerve-wracking.
The receptionist working the terminal at the front desk was a sifaka lemur, and she looked upon her latest patrons with a wide friendly grin. “Oh! Benvenuti!” she hailed in a language Faith wasn’t familiar with. Combined with a pair of enormous yellow eyes that could stare straight into Faith’s soul, she couldn’t help but feel a bit intimidated. Luckily, Krystal had a gift for learning languages quickly, and Durrian just happened to be one of the ones she learned in her spare time―long before she and Fox took the bounty on Rankous.
“Hello,” Krystal smiled back in the receptionist’s native tongue, which surprised and delighted her.
“What can I help you ladies with today?” she asked. After looking at her brass tag pinned by her collar, Krystal noted that her name was Shoshi.
“We’re here for our one o’clock appointment,” Krystal answered. Shoshi turned her head towards the terminal and used her left arm to operate it, which Faith thought had a bizarre-looking keyboard. There was also no separate mouse from what Faith could see; taking its role appeared to be some kind of sphere in the middle of the keyboard that Shoshi frequently spun around between typing.
“All right, let’s see here,” Shoshi spoke up again in that language. “Are you Mrs Krystal McCloud?”
“I am,” she confirmed, smiling. “I’m here with Faith Bennett. I’m treating her today.”
“Ah, the full-body treatment plan. Perfect,” Shoshi nodded. “You’re about twenty minutes early. Trying to beat the early afternoon recess?”
“Not initially,” Krystal admitted. ‘We’re from off-world; we’ve had some hiccups at the orbital crossing. We didn’t want to risk being late by other obstacles so we rushed here as quickly as we could from the spaceport.”
“You too, I see?” Shoshi rolled her huge eyes sympathetically. “I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard about how poorly managed our orbital borders are from clients who fly around Brokkr frequently.”
“I’ve read that the parliamentary assembly installed it primarily for asteroid defence,” Krystal mentioned. “I’m presuming it’s more trouble than it’s worth?”
“They have to spend all of our taxes on something big and bloated to justify it,” Shoshi added. “It’s been up for decades and not one planet-threatening space rock has crossed us. I’m sure there’s a better way to spend our money, but I don’t know zip about politics.”
Krystal chuckled. “Well, Corneria isn’t much better in their own tax-paid investments, I can tell you that.”
“Oh, you’re from Lylat!” Shoshi beamed. “I’ve always wanted to visit that system. All of its worlds are beautiful. Venom I hear isn’t a very pleasant neighbour, nor is it much of a sight. I’ve heard that you folks could probably do a whole lot better without it.”
“Perhaps,” Krystal shrugged, “but things have been steadily improving with its new premier. I’m hopeful Venom will finally make a turnaround.”
“I pray that it does for your sake as well,” Shoshi said, motioning her arm at the cushioned benches by the waiting area, where several patrons were occupying themselves as they waited for their slots. “You and your friend have a seat right over there, Mrs McCloud. We’ll call Ms Bennett by name when we’re ready for her.”
“Thank you very much, Shoshi.”
Faith waited with great anticipation for her name to be called.
She was both excited and scared at the same time, essentially indistinct from one another. In the meantime, rather than lick her nose or bounce her knee incessantly, Faith tried quelling her nerves by perusing through some magazines provided on the table in front of her, keeping her mind off of her anxiety by looking at all the foreign ads. They were some pretty strange ones; advertising products she had no idea what they were meant to be, and the often abstract illustrations did little to convey their messaging.
Faith found them worthy distractions nevertheless. Half the enjoyment was figuring out what they were about without getting Krystal’s help to translate. Faith’s illiteracy of this Durrian language caused her to leaf through the magazines relatively quickly. It wasn’t until Faith grabbed a magazine featuring female swimsuit models did Faith slowed her pace down considerably.
Given her rousing and awkward affection for Krystal, Faith had been pondering about her innate attractions. She hadn’t truly been giving it much thought these last few days; that was done purposefully to devote her entire mental stamina to relish the fact that she was free from Rankous. However, now that she was beginning to readjust to the world of ambitions and autonomy, Faith felt like she couldn’t leave this revealed aspect of herself unaddressed forever.
Faith cautiously took her time looking through the models featured on these pages, holding the flimsy booklet closer to her face than the other ones. Luckily, both of its covers featured ads for alcohol, so it wasn’t like anybody had an honest preview of what Faith was looking at. Perhaps this was a deliberate choice of the editor who printed this issue, and Faith had to respect and thank such a cheeky sense of humour in this instance.
Faith studiously regarded all of the women in this magazine, who were species of many kinds like bears, cats, reptilians, avians, and a good number of lemurs, which wasn’t surprising. Faith thought they all looked beautiful. Curvy slim bodies with taut behinds and round firm breasts, wearing one-pieces that hugged them tightly, and a good number of bikinis that showed off their definitions and short fur. The relaxed and suggestive poses, the sultry glances, and a couple even blew kisses at the camera.
While Faith couldn’t deny all of these women were very nice to look at, she honestly began feeling perplexed. Faith had been slowly concluding that she might have been attracted to women through her interactions with Krystal, and was bracing herself for potential arousal when investigating these articles. When this didn’t really happen, she felt more confused than anything.
She wouldn’t say she felt disappointed, but she felt a bit let down in a weird way. While a bit unnerved by her female attractions, Faith could honestly see herself warming up to it given time. Her recent experience with men had been indescribably awful. If she would allow any pair of hands to touch her again, they might as well belong to someone who could understand.
Being mindful of how intensely she was studying these images, Faith made semi-frequent glances at Krystal sitting right next to her, who had been busy messaging Fox over the progress on the ship’s refuel and resupply. Faith couldn’t help but worry if Krystal was somehow picking up on her thoughts of attractions. Even though Krystal reassured her often that it didn’t quite work like that, Faith still saw it as a grave threat to any attempt she may have had about being covert about indulgences.
Even still, Faith was compelled to trust Krystal, so she reluctantly resigned herself to the notion that her privacy wouldn’t be breached like that. Even if Krystal didn’t intend to pick up on something if she did, it wasn’t her intention. Faith couldn’t blame her for that, so she wouldn’t.
And being that Krystal was on her mind, Faith’s started to wander a bit when it got reminded of the vixen’s existence. Faith could easily see Krystal appearing on one of these pages, being mostly bare-furred and showing off those dazzling eyes of hers. She would easily knock all these women out of the competition, and Faith knew for a fact that all Krystal needed to do was just sit there and be casual.
Faith thought back to that picture of her in Fox’s Arwing; the girl in that photo and the smile she cast was what dreams were made out of. Faith wouldn’t have minded spending her life with that woman if the universe permitted it. Faith would be good to her, and such affections would be returned. But good grief, if that vixen were to regard Faith in the provocative ways a lot of these models were doing on these pages? It was a very dangerous fantasy about as much as it was a tempting one. Faith began making a grand effort to restrain her libidinous imagination as it wandered; it was starting to get a bit too warm in that room for her to stand.
This was the main reason why Faith was questioning what she found attractive. Even if it was strange and nothing like she had assumed she would like now that she was mature, it made the hearth in her chest cavity burn with renewal. Faith really liked the feeling of liking someone in that fluttery way, even if it were a woman.
She admittedly found herself in the market for someone like Krystal. Someone who was kind, pretty, intimate, and knew how to love and made Faith feel like she mattered. Someone who made life worth living for.
It wasn’t long before Faith was finally summoned to see her stylist, which thankfully put her mind on something else in the nick of time before it could begin to wonder how good Krystal would look in a micro sling.
Faith’s stylist was a red macaw named Mackenzie, and she was very sweet. She was the one who led Faith to the backroom containing the vertical immersion tanks to begin her premium full-body treatment, which required her to remove her clothes before entry. Faith, unfortunately, had too much experience stripping down to her undergarments in front of people and was fretful she would have to do that, but she was relieved to see that there was a privacy screen deployed around the tank for her to step inside without being witnessed by anyone.
Faith didn’t realise it, but when Krystal made the appointment for Faith, she cited that Faith was extra skittish, instructing the staff to handle her kindly and be patient and uplifting if she were hesitant. It was the best Krystal could do on the site to give forewarning to the staff that this client needed to be well-treated not just aesthetically, but supportively. The staff at Rinnovamento Della Fiortura were proud of their work and encountered plenty of shy clients. It was nothing they couldn’t handle.
The tank treatment was interesting. Faith’s body, baring her head which was exposed to the air, was submerged in water pumped full of compounds that not only extensively washed and sterilised one’s bare coat, but also rejuvenated it by apparently rapidly healing split strands and restoring a youthful glow. This was all cutting-edge technology as touted on their cyber web page, based on years of extensive research and testing. Faith couldn’t be sure how much of it wasn’t just marketing hype, but it sure smelled nice, and the bath felt very lovely―not unlike a hot jacuzzi.
After spending a generous amount of time in this pleasing apparatus, the water in the tank soon drained away completely before two panels opened up inside to reveal powerful jets of hot air that dried Faith off, rotating around on a seamless disk that rimmed around the tank that Faith hadn’t noticed was there until now. Faith soon stepped out incredibly fluffy but refreshed, and was then ushered by Mackenzie to one of the seats in the main room after getting her clothes back on.
This was where the conventional treatment came into play, and Faith was somewhat unprepared for the amount that she received. Mackenzie brought in a helper, another stylist, a black and white ruffed lemur named April. She tended to Faith’s fur around her head and the mane around her neck while Mackenzie tended to her nails.
Given her lustrous coat which looked to be well cared for, Faith assumed that April was the veteran expert on treating long fur coats, and that was made evident by how quickly yet diligently she brushed and tapered Faith’s fur, mane, and tail, almost like she was sculpting her into something better, which Faith was beginning to feel like as the minutes passed by. Mackenzie played things very slowly and thoughtfully on her end as she manicured Faith’s dull nails, filing them into a clawlike state, and coating them in a delicate layer of polish that not only made them shine but also reinforced them with a protective, nurturing seal. Mackenzie repeated the same process on Faith’s toes as well and even gave her rough calloused paws a generous amount of moisturising cream. Faith could not help but marvel at how professional she was at this practice despite having large feathery hands.
Soon enough, the two girls applied their respective finishing touches, like April fulling out Faith’s mane and even getting complimentary mascara applied to her eyelashes―courtesy of the meticulous Mackenzie. They gave Faith a moment to look at herself in the dressing mirror after releasing her from the chair, and Faith could hardly believe her eyes (which now were adorned with thicker lashes). A complete juxtaposition to the ruffled and broken collie girl with dingy makeup she commonly saw in the cracked mirrors of the Jeroboam.
Faith’s fur was now the richest it had ever looked; the contrast between her white and light brown fur was clear as day, whereas before it looked more saturated and faded together. Her coat glistened with health, projecting a sheen all around her body that seemed to make her glitter underneath the light fixtures, and her mane was now thick and plentiful. Even her tail, which Faith always thought looked a little raggedy―even before her dognapping―now curled and bounced like a husky’s.
Faith was speechless, covering her mouth with her hand. She never looked this good before, and she never believed she would ever have the chance to given the state of her recent life. Faith could feel herself wanting to cry, but she tried her hardest to suppress it.
However, her strength to do so evaporated quickly when Mackenzie came back after running off to fetch something. As tradition with first-time clients to their salon, they were to be given a tiny bundle of magenta periwinkles clipped to their head, symbolising a blossoming rebirth as promised by their establishment’s name. That could not have been a more accurate sentiment right now.
Faith had her bundle of magenta flowers clipped behind her right eyebrow. This served as the cherry on top of this revitalising sundae, and Faith could now hardly contain herself. Whatever visible remnant of her captivity Faith might have had on her face, well-hidden or otherwise, was now completely gone. She looked like an entirely new person, yet all the same. It was like getting a glimpse at the person she would have been at this very moment in her life if she hadn’t gotten dognapped.
It might not have healed the scars, but gaining this appearance did far more wonders than most could understand. This was the defining moment when Faith realised that she was coming back one way or another. It was already too much for her to withstand.
Much to the surprise and confusion of her gracious stylists, they began to fear if they had done something wrong when they saw Faith starting to break down in front of the mirror, only for her to whirl around and hug them both at once in her arms. Faith couldn’t speak Durrian, but she hoped that this communicated a universal message of eternal gratitude that could not be expressed in words.
Krystal, who could see and sense the whole thing from the waiting area, shed a few tears of her own at the sight of this. Those poor ladies could not fathom just how important this was to young Faith, nor would Krystal tell them. However, Mackenzie and April were soon able to understand that their client was shedding tears of pure joy rather than disappointment, and they comforted the girl a little awkwardly, but genuinely, as this display grew into a bit of a scene that made a lot of heads turn inside the salon.