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Velvet’s light brown, woodlike chest heaved as she retracted from the network like it burned her. It wasn’t Orren’s fault; she could feel him turn traffic away from that room. It was her fault. She was so head over heels for Darmon. She visited him in his dreams, after all. Confessed her feelings.

She barely knew him. Of course he would rather be with his flush. They might have even been together up on the surface.

She unapologetically watched Maven prepare the food. She knew this was not healthy for her. But at this point, she didn’t care that people might notice.

Her haunches sank to the floor, her back pressed against the wall as it showed Maven's preparation of the plate. She became absorbed by the process, almost able to feel his body as her own, her mental movements assisting his.

She lent her grace to him, though keeping the melancholy feelings for herself. She poured her feelings into the ritual, and she knew Maven felt her presence. Though, Maven was close enough that he may have suspected her crush on Darmon from the very start.

Their preparation became a dance, her passion bringing Maven to new heights. He reached gracefully, sliced with precision, and arranged with an eye for beauty.

They produced a spectacular plate. She needed to stop watching as it was walked over to the room. That plate of food could have been for her and Darmon. It could have been theirs.

She shook her head, tears unexpectedly wetting her fuzzy cheeks as they leapt from her eyes at the sudden motion.

Her thighs flexed as she heaved herself back up the wall and onto her hooves. Exiting the break room, she refused to make eye contact with the other nurses. They no doubt saw her participating in the preparation. It’s a fine time for her to clock out, isn’t it?

She steps beyond the threshold of Orren, and sighs as the chatter leaves her. She could imagine the entire staff holding their tongues, waiting for her to pass beyond that door. She shan’t turn back, lest she catch them in the act of talking about her.

Public lamps dimmed politely as she passed, mistaking grief for fatigue. She appreciated the gesture, her eyes focused on the ground in front of her. She has walked this path for years. Her hoof kicked a stray pebble; she watched it skitter and then disappear into a crack in the rock face. The gentle scuffle beneath her hooves was loud, compared to the stark silence it was to be outside. Orren was always a buzz of activity.

The cool air filled her lungs, the light spore-wind harmlessly exiting upon exhalation. Her temperature dropped; her mood swinging back to stable. Her hand instinctively reached for an antler and her thumb rubbed against the velvet. The fidget grounded her further.

She would be ok. She wasn’t quite sure how she was going to sleep tonight. Her mind might wander and send her right back to Darmon’s dreams.

The path home was shorter than she wanted. She stopped before it, seeing her beta through an open window. Sorry, Aea, we will come home to sleep later.

The network here wasn’t strong enough to carry her message indoors, but Aea would figure it out later. Velvet backtracked a few meters, then took a right. The path became quickly cramped by waist high growth. The wispy stalks occasionally brushed up against her fronded hips. Each touch brought her to a much smaller network of the surrounding stalks.

Each stalk knew only what brushed it, and each neighbor knew a little less. A hoofstep became a tremor, then a rumor, then nothing. Their network could pass a touch for kilometers if it had to, but no single voice inside it understood the whole distance. She wasn’t invited to the network, but it must be much easier to only hear echoes of information.

It was blissfully quiet. She plucked a pod from her antler, breaking it open and spreading the fine yellow dust in the wind. The growth that it landed on cheered in pleasant, simple voices, and then fell silent again.

Her hand swept through the growth, their familiarity with her much more receptive after her gift. The sensation of them passing across vulnerable parts of her arm… what would Darmon call it?

Ticklish. Lots of little greetings. She smiled, the simple vegetation bending towards the stimuli and giving her tiny hugs. Soon, they lost interest. She squatted down to sit among them. She began to sway in the gentle wind, just as they.

She lay back and her body grew still, her bark chest swelled slowly with deep breaths. Her eyes closed, time beginning to lose its impact.

On the inner side of her eyelids, she could swear she sees a little yellow dot, swirling around playfully. Her heart speeds up, but the connection out here prevents her from chasing the ghost of a mote all the way to Darmon. Relax.

The darkness returns, gentle patterns of gray light shrinking inwards in hypnotizing concentric, organically shaped rings of static. She watches waves and waves of them disappear before drifting off to sleep.