(Rewritten) Ch. 23 – Bending the Rules

"Trust ain't easy ta build. Ya gotta be predictable, an' stable. Break ya patterns all offa sudden, an' her trust goes poof, 'cause she don' know where she at, with ye.

But it also ain' a singular thing. She can trust ya in many ways at once. The better she know ye, the more of ya behavioral patterns she familiar with, the more different ways she have ta trust ye. Is why relationships sometimes so complex. Many ways t'build, break, an' regain trust.

You an' she gonna change. No avoidin' that. When ye, or she, do, so does the tapestry of trust between ye. Jus', ya know, talk 'im out. Don' let change go unremarked. Makes ya both feel like ye know each other real well.

If ya can do tha', ya can have a special kinda relationship."

– Things That Parents Should Tell Their Adult Children Sometime Before They Leave Home

***

Leah slowly came to, lying on something very soft and very warm. Memories returned, and with them, both fear and relief.

Good Morning, Leah! chimed Ypsi's bright voice through her mind, and Leah found it in herself to smile.

She could feel the slow breathing of the woman she rested atop, and hear her heartbeat. Tinea, she'd said when she introduced herself as a samurai.

Anxiety gnawed at Leah. Her mind was torn between the fear that Tinea was but an agent of whoever kidnapped her, trying to trick her and not a samurai at all, and the realization that that idea didn't make terribly much sense. Not when just forcing her to lie there defenselessly on that bed would have worked eventually, for much less effort.

But…she couldn't quite let go of the fear. Even if she was endlessly grateful for all the warmth and care she was being given by this woman, who was both unknown and yet…whose smell had been the more familiar part of her dreams.

Making up her mind, she tried to shift upwards, awkwardly using her stumps and chin to drag herself along.

Tinea seemed to realize what she was doing, and removed those silky trusses binding Leah. Then, as Leah redoubled her efforts, Tinea began to slowly stroke down her spine and otherwise just let her be.

That's how Leah realized how much she needed to be making decisions, to have agency, to just do what she felt she wanted to do. Tears pricked at the understanding that, once again, this stranger had made that possible.

Fear sent shivers through her; the anxiety that it was all an act almost had her curl up and sob in that ugly, voiceless bawl—but Leah breathed in, out, and held on.

Instead of letting herself collapse, she explored Tinea with her lips, nose, and chin, trying to get a picture in the absence of eyes, or even fingers, to see it with. She seemed to be a smaller woman than Leah herself. She had a slender neck, and dainty collar bones.

Leah crawled upwards trying to picture Tinea by comparing her memories of her own body with what she could feel with her lips. She was sure Tinea had a somewhat smaller mouth, for example.

After eliciting a surprised giggle (And wow, hella interesting voice! High, but with a girly version of a rasp. Perfect for…melodic metal, maybe? Fuck, been missing music so much.) by catching Tinea's lips with her teeth (Was that a pout? Leah wanted to see, damnit!), she carefully knocked her own teeth against Tinea's. Those seemed natural, no hint of anything, really.

The feathery brushes she'd become familiar with kept running up and down her back, following or preceding Tinea's hand. Sometimes they slipped elsewhere, like the side of her boobs (Hey!) when she'd climbed high enough for them to be on top of the woman's, but mostly they stuck to following the petting hand.

She was really curious about what they might be. She thought they could be a hint of the woman's status as a samurai, and was determined to figure it out. Features no normal human would have, well, they'd be proof, wouldn't they?

Leah thought Tinea had large eyes, but it was a bit difficult to tell, and she definitely couldn't determine the shape of them. The nose was much easier. It was straight with a slight upturn at the tip.

She was getting the impression that Tinea might be cute as a button, unfairly so.

Pushing further upwards, Leah hit the hairline. Tinea seemed to have straight hair, and it was too long for Leah to tell how long exactly.

And then, just beyond it, her forehead touched something that wouldn't be there on a normal human.

Leah's heart beat faster. Intensifying her struggle, to the smushed protests of Tinea as she smothered her with her tits (As far as Leah was concerned, she was just returning the favor, really.), Leah followed the protrusions from behind Tinea's hairline with her lips, as far up as she could.

When she couldn't make herself arch backwards any further, she nibbled at what seemed to be some kind of stalk with her teeth, and felt a shiver go through them, to Tinea's smushed laughter.

Tinea held Leah beneath her shoulders and helped her keep moving, until she started to hit some kind of fine hairs that instantly twitched away, only for the feathery brushes to intensify across her face, especially on her lips. That's when Leah was sure that these were antennae, and that they must be the source of all those feathery touches.

Relief hit Leah like a train and honked its way through her mind, so definitively that she collapsed and worked on breathing normally. She let herself be maneuvered back into a more comfortable position on Tinea's chest, who made some questioning noises and breathed into her hair, in that calming, encompassing, warm way.

Leah kissed Tinea's collar bone to reassure her, then started thinking about how to proceed.

She was sure now that Tinea was a samurai. The non-human features combined with the caring and protective streak she'd displayed absolutely qualified her. If this was still an act, then there'd be straight up no hope for Leah. But she didn't think it was.

What confused her most was the timing of Tinea's arrival. She'd popped in minutes after Ypsi had launched that flare, yet her words earlier, before Leah slept, seemed to imply that she had no way to escape either? So…had she been a prisoner, too? And she'd managed to free herself during the commotion somehow? But…she wasn't hurt like Leah, they didn't take her limbs or voice. Why?

Leah needed to figure out a way to actually communicate properly. She needed her voice and tongue back.

Leah waggled her head, and Ypsilon responded to her customary signal to start asking what she wanted.

***

I was flushing hard. No wonder really, with the way this girl had, uh, explored me.

I hadn't stopped her, nor did I interfere or help very much because I'd suspected that she needed to just…do stuff. The way she froze up for a moment after I dissolved the bindings, and then redoubled her efforts with even more energy, confirmed that thought.

I'd just continued stroking her back, partially to give my antenna something specific to focus on, partially to reassure the woman.

She'd slowly climbed up along my body, getting a literal feel of everything from my collar bones up, comparing her own versions of everything where possible. She'd used lips and teeth to scan my ears from the lobes to the tips and back down, which was rather ticklish. Then she'd done the same with my mouth, surprising me into an embarrassed giggle when she caught my lip with her teeth, and followed up with more exploration of my nose.

She'd been quite careful with her chin, trying hard not to poke it into my eyes, even when she traveled further up to, uh, eat my hair, apparently. Hadn't horses gone extinct already?

Things only got more awkward for me when her breasts had ended up in my face, but she seemed to find it funny somehow, so I'd just let things play out.

Then she'd discovered the antennae, and…displayed real desperation to explore them in detail, enough so that I'd decided that it would be appropriate to interfere with more active support. I'd lifted her up, and let her search along the stem of the antenna. She'd nibbled at them, caused a shiver to run up my antenna that wasn't the appropriate sort. I'd discovered what my embarrassed laughter sounded like, as well as what it sounded like when obstructed by female sound baffle stuffing.

At least she'd stopped using her teeth.

When she found the fronds growing out of the stem, she'd finally relaxed fully. I still wasn't sure why they mattered, but they clearly did.

I gently relocated her back to her previous position, and worked on calming the burn in my cheeks. Professionalism, Tinea, professionalism!

After a few more moments, the woman waggled her head. Thinking she was trying to communicate something to me, I hummed at her until she lightly nipped my collar bone and kissed it again.

Taking the hint, I shut up and let her do her thing.

A series of nods, shakes, and waggles followed.

Eventually, Tynea cleared things up:

Tinea, I was contacted by her AI, Ypsilon. The woman's name Is Leah. Ypsilon offers further identifying information on Leah. How would you like to proceed?

"Oh, hello, Leah!" A happy wiggle from the woman, Leah.

"And also Ypsilon, of course."

"Hello! I'm Ypsilon. My friends call me Ypsi! I'm very polite!!" A very cute, and very very polite little girl's voice greeted me through my aug.

"Greetings, Ypsi!" I laughed, "how are you two doing?"

"I'm in good condition! Thanks for asking! Leah…needs help. Making sure that you are a Vanguard really stabilized her, though! She wasn't sure before if you were just a really good actor or actually here to help."

Oh. Yeah, I can see why that mattered to her. I squeezed Leah, and she responded by snuggling into me, making me smile.

"Tynea, Ypsi, can I ask why you two didn't just step in and clear things up immediately?"

We are very careful about divulging information about Vanguards to each other. Without the express permission of ours, we do not share details—too many things go wrong when we do. There isn't really an established 'handshake' procedure.

"Also," added Ypsi, "we figured that you two would help each other anyway! And, I think, Leah needed to see for herself."

I…wasn't convinced of that. I just couldn't find it in myself to agree. I also didn't know what to do about it, except to keep an eye out for similar situations. And maybe set up that handshake protocol thing Tynea had mentioned.

But then again, well, Tynea always had a reasonable explanation for every rule so far, didn't she? Maybe I should ask her about this again, later.

I decided to focus on the present, for now.

***