legacy of gold Stagecraft: Serenade

[Lord Sake]

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See also: the original Stagecraft

“Okay, and if you’ll just sign here, ma’am… Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind…”

I was really only picking up on bits and pieces of the ongoing conversation – my mom and this snow leopard merchant lady were busy finalizing some important contract, and I wasn’t needed for any negotiations. All I was there for was symbolism; just representing the family, but that didn’t really mean a whole lot considering the entire family hadn't come with us. It was just me, my five older sisters, and our mom – though, that was kind of a good thing in itself, since it meant that my eldest sister, Emerald, didn’t have her little hellspawn gremlins with her. No, she’d left them at home with our dad; all the better for me that they’d spend the day annoying their grandfather instead of picking on their youngest aunt just because they were bored.

Still, if they didn’t need to be here, did I really need to be here either? I wasn’t involved in the contract at all, and I didn’t have anything to do otherwise. Technically I had to be here because this was a family matter, which meant as many of the family’s adults needed to be around as possible, and theoretically I was supposed to help with the process by voicing my own opinions, but in reality mom was doing pretty much all the work, and only the two oldest among us girls – Emerald, of course, and Silver, who would have gotten herself involved even if she didn’t need to be – ever said anything otherwise.

The rest of us – Charity, Stella, Luna, and me – spent the hours sitting back and working through the nice minty tea that had been provided for all of us, and whatever else we could find to kill some time while staying in our seats and looking professional. For me, that meant enjoying the view; the merchant, who called herself Ashe, made for some interesting scenery, and no matter what else I tried to do it always ended with my gaze drifting back to her cute little blueish top and that long fluffy tail she had swishing around behind her.

Plus, watching her elegant movements helped keep my mind off of what all that tea was doing now that I had a fair bit of it inside me. It wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have been able to ignore otherwise, but having something else to focus on kept that hint of pressure out of my mind almost entirely. By now my legs were gently crossed and I would do a little bit of fidgeting every so often, but that was hardly unusual for me, and in this case could just as easily have been explained by being stuck in the same chair for hours on end. Sitting around for ages would get uncomfortable no matter what, after all.

Fortunately though, with just some signatures needed and a few last-minute details to be hammered out, we were nearly done, and the various discomforts would be able to be dealt with soon enough. Not strictly soon, knowing my luck, but certainly not hours more of waiting.

Indeed, just as I was finishing up my latest cup of tea, mom shook Ashe’s hand, then looked over at the rest of us and announced, “Okay, that’s all settled.” Clapping her hands together, she continued, “I’m going to have to head back home to get everything ready on our end. Why don’t you girls stay here, and help Ms. Sinclair with whatever she needs, and then… just take some time off, hm? I think everyone could use a good bit of rest.”

“Thanks, but I can handle things just fine here,” Ashe responded. “Although, I do think a celebration is in order. There’s a really nice tavern in town, they’ve got great food and live music and everything. You guys can come along and help yourselves to whatever you want, and after closing a deal like this…” She waved her copy of the contract around for emphasis. “I’d be more than happy to cover your expenses. Just a nice, stress-free night out, you know? No need to worry about anything, just enjoy yourselves. You’ve certainly earned it.”

My ears had perked up when she said “live music” – I listened intently to the rest of what she was saying, then turned my focus back to myself to consider the idea that those words spawned. Having someone to distribute the family’s goods way up north was a pretty big deal, considering how much new territory that opened up for us. I wasn’t involved much in the business side of things, but even so, a major success like that was going to be good for all of us, and… Well, I’d been hoping for a good chance to show some gratitude – a good time to show off what I’d been preparing – and a night out at a tavern with live music sounded like it would be the perfect opportunity for that.

“Oh, that sounds nice.” Emerald’s voice pulled me from my thoughts before I could work out any more than vague details for how exactly I would put my plan into action. “Been a good few years since I last had the chance to go for a girls’ night out. Even longer since all of us went out together.”

Silver responded with a little chuckle. “Yeah, wonder if that has anything to do with you going off and getting yourself knocked up, and these two…” She pointed over at me and Luna, who was conveniently right next to me and folded her arms with an exaggerated pout as the two of us got singled out. “… deciding that adventuring would make for a stable career? No wonder we haven’t been able to get all six of us just in one room together lately, being all scattered like that. Last time was just for business, so I’m sure we’d all appreciate a good proper reunion.”

“Right, so what are we doing just talking about it?” Luna spoke up with her tail flicking around impatiently behind her. “I dunno about you guys, but I haven’t eaten anything all day, so I figure the sooner we get some real food, the sooner we can get to reminiscing or whatever.”

“Of course, of course.” Emerald turned to Ashe with a little dismissive wave towards Luna. “Lead the way, then, Ms. Sinclair.”

---

Ashe led us across town, through snow-covered streets and an evening chill that none of us were dressed for, least of all myself – apparently, wearing lightweight midriff-revealing clothes outside at night in the middle of winter way up north was a bad idea. Of course, the walk across town wasn’t part of our plan, and if I had been expecting it I would have dressed more appropriately, but without that foresight I just had to make do with hugging myself and shivering as I followed along behind everyone else. Ultimately, it hadn't been too bad, but getting hit by the relative warmth of the tavern’s interior after Ashe kicked its doors in was still an immense relief.

Of course, the cold did also ensure that I was very aware that I was due for a different sort of relief – it wasn’t a long walk, but it was long enough for that tea to settle in and start making my waistband feel a little uncomfortably tight, the chill only complicating matters further. But, now that we were all inside and warming up again, it wouldn’t be long before I could take care of that.

Really the only thing stopping me from looking for the bathroom right away was that Ashe seemed especially excited to announce her latest triumph, eagerly – and loudly – explaining that she had just closed a major deal and would be paying for everyone’s drinks for the rest of the night, and then introducing my family with no less vigor. It would have been quite rude indeed to sneak away during such a speech just because I needed the toilet, so instead I just stood around awkwardly tugging at the hem of my skirt, my thighs pressed together and shifting back and forth while I waited for all the fanfare to die off.

As soon as it did, my sisters set off together to go find a table big enough for all of us, and I kept myself quiet and followed along. On the way we passed by a stage in the middle of the tavern, where there were indeed musicians performing for everyone. The sight brought back my idea from earlier, and I quickly tried to work out how to execute that plan while we all found and settled in around a single big table near to the stage.

I didn’t take my seat, though, instead standing behind one of the chairs and watching where everyone else was going to sit. I had picked a corner seat, right at the edge of the table, with nothing to my left, and Luna picking the one to my right. Charity took the one across from me, but before she could sit down I went around to her side and lightly tugged on her sleeve, mumbling, “Ch-Cherry?”

“Hm?” She turned to look at me, pushing her spectacles back up into position as she did. “What’s up?”

“Uh, c-can we, uh… Y’know, uh, c-could we, uh, talk? J-just, uh, just m-me and you?” It took at least twice as long as it should have to say what I meant to, but eventually I managed to get the point across.

“Yeah, sure,” she said without any hesitation at all. She started looking around, and I tried to follow her gaze as she searched the area – we both seemed to settle on a distinctly-marked door near the back of the tavern; it was still early in the night, so there wasn’t yet any line to block the view of the little dress-wearing figure on the sign. “Uh, here, come on, I really ought to go for a whizz before I get too into the booze anyways, so might as well kill two birds with one stone, right?”

I nodded quietly, and Charity started making her way to the bathroom with me right behind her. Some of our other sisters glanced up at us as we headed away from the table, some also seeming to look over towards our destination, but they were all focused on having a conversation together by the time they were behind us. It felt a little strange to be going to the bathroom before four of my older sisters instead of after all five of them, but we weren’t at home, so the normal rules didn’t apply.

When we reached the bathroom moments later, Charity pushed the door open and stepped aside to let me in first, and once I was inside she followed along and let the door shut behind us. Both of us obviously had the same idea, each taking up one of the three stalls before doing anything else.

Since I was just wearing a skirt and tights, I only had to tug them and my underwear down in one clean motion once I was in position a little bit above the toilet seat. Moments after I relaxed myself, the hissing and splashing of my own stream were joined by very similar, if somewhat muffled, sounds from nearby. I obviously wasn’t the only one who had liked that tea.

We finished at about the same time, but I was once again moments ahead of her in getting to the sink, since she was naturally delayed by the need to fasten her pants again. After we both finished washing up in silence, Charity glanced over at me and said, “Okay, so, what was it you wanted to talk about?” While she waited for a response, she focused on the mirror ahead of her and took her glasses off, each ear twitching as she took out her earrings to make sure the little chains connecting them to her glasses wouldn’t get in the way.

And as she started inspecting the lenses for dust and dirt, I started trying to explain why I needed to talk to her. What I wanted to tell her was something along the lines of, “I want to do something to show Ashe I appreciate what this deal means for us, and I know her favorite song, so I was wondering if you could talk to the band for me and see if they’ll let me on stage.” What actually came out of my mouth was a garbled mess of nonsense syllables and half-words that would have convinced anyone else that I didn’t belong anywhere near a stage, never mind on top of one and singing. I only got about halfway through something that sounded vaguely like the sentence I was trying to say before giving up with a frustrated sigh, then trying again with a shorter phrase.

“I-I, uh, I w-want to do, uh, d-do ssssome-something nice, for… Ffffor Ashe,” I managed to work out, an annoyed tone almost certainly audible in whatever parts of my voice were intelligible in the first place, but after another deep breath I was able to calm down enough to sound a little more pleasant. “A-and, uh, mmm-muh… maybe you could, uh… y’know…? Sssee if, if, if, uh… if the b-band would let me… on… on stage?”

“You wanna sing?” Charity held up her glasses in front of her to see a little more clearly while she wiped down one of the lenses. “Sure, I can at least ask them if you can do a song or two. Can’t promise anything, though, you know.”

“N-no, I know. I jus-… Just… Hm…”

Lowering her hands, Charity turned away from her work for a moment to look at me directly. “I got it, don’t worry.” Putting on a little smile, she continued, “And if they do say no, I’m sure you’ve got other ways to let Ashe know you’ve got a bit of a crush on her, hm?”

My tail puffed up behind me at her comment, and I took a step back. “I-I-I-I-I-I… I d-… I do… do n-not…! No!”

“I mean,” Charity said after a brief giggle. “I was just teasing you, but with a reaction like that… I don’t know, sounds like you kinda like her.” Then she turned back to her glasses again, giving them a quick inspection before deciding they were clean enough to put back on her face. And while she was putting her earrings back, she added, “Besides, I saw how you were looking at her during the meeting. You were either really bored or you think she’s got a really cute butt.”

My response was just to pout and turn away, flicking my tail a little bit for good measure. She wasn’t completely wrong, but my appreciation for the snow leopard’s figure wasn’t why I wanted to show my gratitude for the trade deal. Almost entirely not, anyways, mostly.

I stayed like that for a little while, at first just glancing over to see Charity fixing up her ponytail while she quietly giggled at my behavior, and then eventually turning my head to look at her properly. “Y-you’ll… You’ll t-t-talk to… to them,” I muttered, “Rrright?”

“Yeah, I’ll talk to the band for you,” she said in a neutral tone, clearly making a point to not pay any attention to such childish theatrics – something she had lots of experience with, considering she’d dealt with plenty of the same behavior from two other younger sisters before I came along.

“Thanks,” I said, again mumbling quietly before relaxing my posture with a deep breath.

Then she turned around and put a hand on my shoulder. “Well, then,” she said cheerfully, “If that’s all, let’s get back to the others and get ourselves some food, hm? I really gotta get something other than tea in me now that I’ve got it out of me, heh.”

With that, we left the bathroom together and made our way back to our table, taking our seats just in time for someone to come over and take our orders; and, naturally, with six people to feed, the process of organizing what everyone wanted took some time, but we were eventually able to sort everything out for Emerald to order for all of us.

And once that was taken care of and the six of us were left alone, I looked up, past Charity, over at the stage. It seemed a lot more visible now than it had been just a few minutes before, and even without knowing whether or not I’d actually be going up there, I could still feel my chest tighten at the prospect of singing in front of not only a bar full of strangers, but every one of my sisters too. There was no logical reason for me to be nervous about it, since I already had plenty of experience performing for large crowds, but somehow it never seemed to get any easier to mentally prepare myself. Not without help, anyways, and as always I’d be getting that help in the form of the local catnip tea – if what they had at the tavern was anything like what had been served at the meeting, it would be more than enough to settle my nerves and keep my mind clear.

The uncertainty was just as bad as the idea of actually going on stage, though. I had what, to me, was a great plan, a sincere and personal gesture of genuine appreciation, and I didn’t actually know yet if I’d have a chance to go through with it. Charity hadn't even asked yet, looking over her shoulder at the stage to keep track of the musicians while she waited for an opening between songs. I wouldn’t know until then, and for the moment both possible responses seemed equally daunting: either I’d have to go up there, or I wouldn’t get the chance and would instead need to quickly come up with something else to do before parting ways with Ashe. And while I waited for my tea to arrive, I didn’t have anything to drown out the fluttering within myself.

At least it didn’t take very long – maybe just a few minutes of waiting, and then all of the various drinks the six of us had ordered came out all at once. But those few minutes were still enough time for the other girls to follow the example me and Charity had set; they took their own turns in the bathroom, each one getting up when her part in the ongoing conversation had finished, then coming back shortly after to have another sister do the same. Some were gone longer than others, Luna most conspicuously of all – it seemed that lunch wasn't the only break she had skipped that day, and that suspicion was only confirmed by comparing the visible tension about her when she got up to how lightweight she seemed when she sat back down. Not exactly unusual behavior for her though, or any of the rest of us for that matter; I probably wouldn’t have even noticed if I hadn't been trying to take my mind off of going up on stage, and so paying a lot more attention than I otherwise would have.

Of course, once the drinks came I didn’t need to be paying that much attention to the others, since I could instead just get to work on my tea and let the hot catnip-water do its magic. It was still helpful, though, to listen in on their conversation and focus on the familiar voices instead of worrying about everything else. Even Charity had joined the discussion, presumably for want of anything better to do while waiting for a good chance to go talk to the band.

“Well, sure, theoretically, you could do lots of things with potions,” I heard her say to the others. “But realistically you’re gonna have to decide where you draw the line. Sure, you could make some crazy super-potion, but then you’ve got the problem of can you actually do anything with it before you lose it one way or another. And stronger effects mean all the effects are stronger, so…”

Emerald looked over at her with her head slightly tilted. “So… what, you can’t just work the side-effects out or anything? Counteract them a little?”

“Oh, believe me, I’ve tried,” Charity replied with a sigh. “There really is just not much you can do about it. Like, I’ve got to have put in a good ten years or so just working on my special potions, and, well… We all know what the deal with those is. They’re in this really weird spot where they’re, like, just effective enough to do their job, but still a potent enough diuretic to really screw you over if you’re not smart with them.”

Silver then chimed in, “Yeah, like, I don’t even know how many times those things have saved my ass, but every time I use one for an important meeting, I only barely don’t totally piss myself afterwards.” Taking a sip of her own drink, she added, “So that’s a tiny improvement from not taking the potion and definitely peeing my pants, probably during the meeting, but it’s still pretty rough.”

“Mhm.” Charity nodded and raised her cup to acknowledge Silver. “It’s a real delicate balance. Drink one too early, and by the time you actually need the little boost, the diuretics have already pushed you beyond what the potion can help with. Don’t drink one early enough, and you’re better off just not taking it at all and finding yourself somewhere to squat instead.”

Of everyone at the table, me and Charity probably understood that the best – she, of course, had the most experience with her special potions since she was the one who made them; and since I was the youngest, I was always at the back of the line for the toilet at home, so I was usually the one who would end up needing to use Charity’s elixirs to make sure I could actually wait for my turn. I had more than enough experience to understand all the nuances she was talking about, so I could have spoken up to add my insight as well… if only I could speak at all in the first place. Not that anyone other than Charity ever really listened to me regardless, but still.

Better to just keep quiet and save my voice for singing, anyways, assuming I actually would be going up. Or, at least, that was how I was going to justify sitting back and just working on my tea instead of socializing with my sisters. I was content to just listen, and they weren’t exactly eager to drag me into the conversation themselves either.

And as we waited for our food, the discussion gradually shifted from Charity’s potions to what everyone else had been doing since the last time we were all together; Emerald started discussing some of the uses she had found for the potion outside of the family home, then Luna joined in to share her own experiences with it throughout her adventures, and from there everyone transitioned to sharing stories about random things that had happened to them in the past year or so. Of course, I still didn’t participate directly – even if I could tell a proper story, there wasn’t very much interesting to say about wandering around singing and playing music in different places anyways – but I did at least join in with the others in reacting to the stories, usually by adding a quiet little chuckle to everyone else’s laughter whenever something funny happened and otherwise emoting silently as appropriate.

When our food finally did arrive, Stella had just finished telling us about some interesting things she’d encountered while wandering around town back home, allowing Luna to pick up and start on another one of her stories; but she could barely introduce the adventure to us before a plate ended up in front of her, and she immediately cut herself off to start eating instead. Everyone else followed her example shortly after, with some giggling over how eagerly she was tearing into her food.

Of course, once everyone’s focus shifted, there was relative quiet at the table for a time. I myself at least had a nice bowl of soup in front of me to explain why I wasn’t going to be saying anything… Not that I really needed any such justification when most of the people around me wouldn’t have noticed my silence anyways; but, still, it made me feel a little better knowing I now had a good reason for staying quiet, at least.

A few minutes into our meal, with only a handful of off-handed comments and observations being thrown around, I noticed that the music stopped, and after a moment I looked up to see Charity rise from her seat. The pause in the music was a bit longer than previous brief intermissions that had been used simply to prepare for the next song, so she must have thought this would be a good opportunity to go talk to the band – indeed, once she was up she made her way towards the stage, and a little glance in that direction showed some of the musicians starting to climb down to sort themselves out while they had a bit of spare time.

I immediately looked back down at my food and drank a little more zealously after seeing that. Knowing that I’d find out soon if they were going to entertain the request Charity would be making for me just made things worse, and tea was the closest thing I had to a coping mechanism on hand. Pushing all other thoughts aside, I tried my best to focus on just my drink and my soup, and not worry about anything else until I actually needed to.

And, somehow, it worked. I managed to lose track of time for what must have just been a couple of minutes, until Charity got back to her seat and gave me a little kick under the table to snap me out of my soup trance.

“Hey,” she said quietly, leaning forwards over her own plate, her elbows on the table and her head resting atop interlaced hands. “I talked to ‘em for you, and they said they’ll make some time for you right after the next break. So just keep an eye on the stage once this set of songs is done and they go on break again, you’re gonna want to be up there when they all get back. Then you’d just have to tell them what you wanna sing, and then, y’know, sing it.”

Instead of responding right away, I looked past her at the stage to see the musicians already getting together again to get back to work; for a moment I tried to work out if I could guess how long their next few songs would be, and how many of them they’d be playing before their next break. But I didn’t have much of a pattern to go off of, and in any case I spent a solid few seconds staring around Charity instead of saying something to her, so I just shook my head then said, “Th-thanks,” before taking a deep breath and awkwardly turning back to my soup.

That made her let out a little giggle, and while I tried to finish my meal she rose from her seat and turned to our other sisters, calling out to them, “Hey, hey, guys! Listen up real quick!” Emerald and Silver looked over at her with annoyance in their eyes, having been dragged out of some conversation by Charity’s enthusiasm; Stella curiously tipped her head to the side, and her ears perked up; and Luna was still bent over her plate, turning her head just a little bit to glare at the source of the interruption, with her tail swinging from side to side and a piece of bread sticking out of her mouth. “Seren’s gonna be going up to sing later tonight! A special little commemorative song, isn’t that nice?”

Emerald raised a brow at her, and Silver sat back and folded her arms, looking over at me and seemingly studying my reactions. Stella turned to shoot me a little smile for a moment before looking back at Charity, and Luna reached over to pat me on the back… then went straight back to her meal, though now with quite a bit less zeal than before.

“What, just like that?” Emerald asked, gesturing towards me with one hand. “We just got here, wouldn’t she need time to rehearse?”

I looked over at her and shrugged gently. “I-I kn… I kn-ow what… wuh-what I’ll, I’ll… What I’ll… b-be sssinging,” I tried to tell her. “I hhha-have it muh-meh-me-mo-riz’d all… all-rrready.”

“Yeah, she’s done loads of practicing,” Charity said, voicing what I couldn’t. “We’ve been working on this deal for ages, she’s had plenty of time to figure everything out.”

She sat back down and smiled at me, and I nodded back. She was right; it had taken weeks to arrange a fair-but-favorable contract with Ms. Sinclair, and extending our reach to this far-northern market was huge for us. I couldn’t let something like that go unrecognized, and since I was rather useless in negotiations anyways, I used all that time to figure out how best to show my appreciation. And it actually took a lot of work, too - I had to learn what Ashe’s favorite song was in the first place, find a copy of it to practice from, find somewhere quiet to practice where I’d actually be able to hear myself, sing it over and over again until I got it right, and then memorize every note of it, then sing it over and over again in different conditions to make sure I’d be able to accurately recite it from memory anywhere and anytime.

All that wasn’t easy. It cost me a lot of time, a lot of tea, and maybe even a few pairs of panties – but I did it, and the only thing left to do was to actually give Ashe the performance I’d worked so hard to prepare… Just as soon as I could get this tea to work its magic, of course.

“I mean, if she’s sure,” Emerald said, holding her hands up for a moment. “Not like I can do anything about it. She’s not my kid.” After a sip of her drink, she added, “But then, I guess I did kinda have to be the second mom of the house for you guys, so…?”

I noticed Silver roll her eyes at the comment before speaking up, "Please, if anyone’s the mini-mom around here, it’s me, and you know it. As soon as there were no more diapers for you to change, you buried yourself in your weaving until it was time to get yourself knocked up. Do you remember which one of us it was that had to answer all the questions about the, uh, the girl… things… Y’know, that shit? That was me. All me. That’s the real mom job there.” Nudging the bridge of her glasses with a finger, she added, “But at least there’s justice in the world and you get to have the wonderful experience of doing all that with not just a girl but two boys too.”

“Guys, you can both be mini-mom,” Charity interjected, looking over at the two eldest with an elbow on the table to support her head in that hand. “Can we just not argue for like five minutes so that we can appreciate that our baby sister is gonna be doing something special? And, like, support her? Because, y’know, she’s our sister and we love her?”

Emerald and Silver looked at her and sighed; Emerald shrugged and worked a little more on her drink, and Silver put a hand up to the side of her head. While Emerald remained silent, Silver replied, “I mean, yeah, but that doesn’t mean we’re gonna coddle her like you do. And anyways, she’s like, right there, if she wanted so much attention she can just speak up herself.” Then she looked at me and continued, “But you know better than any of us how unnecessary words can be, right? Like, we’re all here, we’re gonna be watching you up there, and I’m sure we all know how much passion you put into your work. You don’t need us to tell you that, do you?”

I tipped my head a little bit to the side and very slightly lifted my shoulders, then took another sip of my tea before meeting Silver’s gaze. “I-I m-… I me-mean, i-it… it’d be… n-nice, I… I, I, uh… I g-guess? I jus… just… I-I just llllike us all… all, uh…” I set my cup down to hold up both hands with fingers interlaced for together. “Hm? Y’know? I-it-it’s… n-nnn-nice.”

“You do kinda have a point there,” Charity said as I went back to holding my tea in front of my face with both hands. “I guess it is just special in itself that we’re all here together like this, but that’s… That’s what I was getting at anyways. We ought to appreciate what time we’ve got here instead of wasting it arguing about stuff that, honestly? Doesn’t even matter. This is a very special occasion and, really, I just think it’s so cool that we’re all gonna get to see you up there. We definitely don’t get the chance to do that together very often.”

Surprisingly, the next voice was Luna’s – her plate had been thoroughly cleared and her drink utterly drained, and now she was sitting back to socialize now that she had sated herself. “Maybe not, but it’s not really all of us, is it? I mean, sure, we’re not missing any sisters, but mom and dad aren’t here, and neither are your…” Awkwardly gesturing towards Emerald, she continued, “… demented little creatures,” which got an exaggerated quizzical-yet-amused look in return. “So it’s not everyone, but… eh, close enough, right? I mean, I don’t even know where I’m gonna be next week, so good luck doing any better than this.”

“I-I p-p-pr… pre-ffffer it li-like this a-a-an-anyw… an-y-way,” I replied, before another gulp of tea. “J-just… us.”

Stella nodded from across the table. “Yeah, it’s nice to get away from work and everything else and just have ourselves a girls’ night,” she said, still working on her own food in the meantime – the only one of us to still have any notable amount left on her plate, which wasn’t surprising considering she’d had just as much in front of her as Luna, but was always more the type to appreciate her food instead of trying to devour it all within a few minutes of getting it; and without Luna’s athleticism, that appreciation led her to be a little more rounded out than most of the rest of us. This trip north gave her plenty of chances to joke about her resistance to the cold, but I had still seen her shivering on the way to the bar; even though her diet certainly did give her some insulation, she still seemed to be hit just as hard by the climate up here as all the rest of us.

All the more reason to be drinking tea, really. Being dressed so lightly with so much skin exposed, and lacking my sister’s natural protection to the cold, even the warmth within the tavern wasn’t enough on its own to fully banish the lingering chill from conditions outdoors. A nice hot drink easily made up for it while I sat back and let the other girls keep talking, the discussion quickly shifting away from me and my upcoming performance, and instead towards topics like Emerald’s kids. Nothing that interested me enough to get me to break my silence while I kept drinking.

But, of course, as the discussion went on and more and more tea went into me… naturally more and more tea started wanting to come back out. Not exactly an unfamiliar problem in situations like this, and not even the first time it had happened to me that day. This time, though, I had a performance coming up; and while I definitely had plenty of practice with ignoring certain problems so I could keep singing, it would be better to just go to the bathroom instead. If nothing else, if I was going to do this for Ashe, I wanted everything to be perfect, and squirming on stage wouldn’t be perfect. It was, all things considered, a common feature of my performances somehow, but it wouldn’t be perfect.

[Lord Sake]

When I emptied my cup again, I looked to my sisters – if any of them had to go too, I’d have to wait for them. That was the rule at home, and it was so ingrained in me that it’d feel wrong to break it here, even if we didn’t need to follow it. Everyone else probably felt the same, which would make a very simple explanation for why nobody was getting up after a few rounds of refills. They were all waiting for Emerald, and she still seemed too engrossed in conversation to notice anything else, if there even was anything else for her to notice in the first place; it seemed that she’d had the least to drink out of all of us, and so she likely wouldn’t be inclined to get up for a bathroom break she didn’t particularly need.

As for the others, though, drink had been flowing freely since our arrival, and most of the other girls were apparently quite keen on taking full advantage of that. And now, while I had a hand idly pawing at the hem of my skirt as my thighs came together, it wasn’t hard to pick up on similar signs from the others, subtle though they may have been – everyone had their own little tells, and it was only natural that I’d pick up on them after spending some twenty-odd years of constant close contact with these girls.

Silver, for example, was always the among the most subtle of us in terms of displaying her needs. She was far from shy about discussing past experiences, but in the moment she always did her best to hide the fact that her drinks were ready to come back out. And yet she could never fully suppress all the little hints – a little more stiffness in her posture, little twitches of her tail or ears, even quick and barely-noticeable facial tics. Looking over at her, I could see all of that in her now. She wasn’t desperate by any means, but there was no doubt that her drinks were starting to catch up with her.

Charity was just a little more expressive – gently swaying in her seat, and a quick glance under the table confirmed she had one leg resting atop the other with one foot rhythmically tapping against nothing at all to a beat that the band wasn’t playing. But I didn’t need to look at any of that to understand that any girl would be in a tough spot with two empty bottles on the table in front of her. She seemed to be enjoying herself for now though, even if that was obviously because of what exactly had been in those bottles; maybe that swaying wasn’t actually a symptom of her needing the bathroom, but it was definitely a sign that she’d been drinking a bit too much. And if that wasn’t enough, her reddened face and even-bubblier-than-usual personality really gave it away. There was quite a bit more giggling coming from her than could usually be expected, and overall it didn’t seem like she could consciously recognize just yet where all that booze had gone and where it still needed to go from there. Her body certainly seemed to know it, though, which would explain the crossed legs.

Stella seemed to be fully aware of what was going on, though. By now she had slid a little towards the edge of her seat, leaning just a bit forward with her thighs rubbing together and her hands down at her sides. With her, at least, it was always hard to tell for sure if she was exaggerating or not, and I hadn't had any reason to keep track of how many times her cup filled back up since we go there, but something about the way she kept glancing over at Emerald and swishing her tail around told me that she had emptied that cup more than enough times for her own comfort. But she still didn’t seem all that bothered by it just yet, and if I didn’t know better I might have even just assumed that she was really interested in the ongoing conversation.

Luna, on the other hand, looked rather bored at first glance; on closer inspection, it seemed more like impatience than anything else. She, too, was leaning forward, resting an elbow on the table and propping her head up with that hand, while the fingers of the other repeatedly drummed against the wooden surface. And just like Silver, she wasn’t doing very much else to indicate where in particular she’d rather be, so it was the little things that gave her away. Her tail, her ears, and even her breathing – even I wasn’t really sure how I had managed to pick up on it, but there was a certain pattern to the rise and fall of her shoulders and chest, ever so slightly different than usual, and this pointed towards some kind of rather mild stress. It just made sense to me that that stress would be because her bladder had been especially full when we arrived, and rather than allowing it the rest it needed, she had filled it right back up with alcohol.

As for myself, it probably wouldn’t have been too hard to guess that there was most of a pot of tea inside me, and anyone who were to figure that out would have no problem at all working out what that meant and what would happen next. But even though I wasn’t exactly keeping it a secret with my posture and my hand fiddling with my skirt, I wasn’t about to make a scene of it either. There was, after all, no reason to make it a big deal if I’d just have to keep waiting anyways. That was just the way of things; if I had to go pee, I had to wait. I had learned pretty quickly that frantic theatrics wouldn’t get me to the bathroom any quicker at home; there were going to be five girls – five full bladders – in line ahead of me no matter what, so I just never saw the need to call attention to myself. I’d get to go when it was my turn, whenever that might be, and no amount of showing off how desperate I was would change any of that. And of course I wasn’t even desperate yet anyways – just a little nagging feeling that it would be nice if there were a toilet in my near future.

But that would depend entirely on Emerald. We had all done our fair share of drinking, and now we were waiting for her to set things in motion so we could all get rid of those drinks without much trouble. None of us needed to, we all knew that, but none of us seemed to be willing to go against what we all had learned at home. For myself, at least, it just felt wrong. I could, physically, just get up and walk to the bathroom, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I did look over in that direction a few times, noticing a bit of a line starting to form, and very seriously considered taking my place at the back, but with all five sisters there with me I just couldn’t get past my instincts telling me not to use the bathroom out of turn.

Nor could anyone else, it seemed, and Emerald… Well, she seemed to be fully aware of her limitations, since she had apparently been drinking less than the rest of us and so wasn’t really showing any of the signs I expected to see from her. She wasn’t shuffling around, her hands weren’t below the table, and her tail was just lazily swaying around back there. That at least seemed to make sense to me, all things considered; her body wouldn’t have been the same as it was before she had her kids, and she would surely be well aware that she couldn’t handle quite as much drinking anymore. Either that, or she was just trying to prove her point from earlier about being mini-mom, taking care to stay relatively empty and sober so she could tell us all about how she was the one keeping us from getting out of hand.

Whatever her reasoning, she was the only one of us that didn’t seem to be affected by the drinking just yet, so after a quick glance towards the stage to make sure I still had time to get myself ready, I looked to Silver instead. She was keeping herself involved in the ongoing conversation at first, but once it reached a natural lull after a few minutes, she picked up her cup, took a quick look at its contents, then downed whatever was left in it. When it hit the table again, she looked around the room, adjusting her glasses as her gaze settled on the tavern’s back wall; looking over there myself, I could see that the line for the bathroom had become quite well-established, and then I turned back to Silver to see her nudging Emerald and quietly speaking to her.

Emerald took a quick look at the far wall herself, then nodded and pushed herself up to her feet. “Alright,” she said as she looked over each one of us. “Who needs the bathroom?”

I raised one hand a little, but it seemed the others weren’t all that concerned about what was happening with their drinks. Stella gave a noncommittal answer of “Yeah, I could go,” but Luna just shrugged and Charity even shook her head and looked into her own cup, apparently finding something still within it and taking a sip. Silver responded to all this by putting a hand up to her face and sighing with a little shake of her head.

Emerald, too, seemed disappointed by the reactions to her question, so she put her hands on her hips and spoke more sternly, “I’m serious, guys. You don’t think I’ve seen how much you’re all drinking? Especially you, Charity, don’t try and tell me you don’t have to go when you’ve got your legs crossed like that and those empty bottles literally right there in front of you. It’s not hard to guess where all that ended up.” With a shake of her head, she continued, “There’s already a line for the bathroom, and it’s only gonna get longer if you keep putting it off. But, you know what, if you guys wanna wait, that’s not my damn problem.” She threw her hands up and sighed. “So I’ll just take Silver and Serenity and… Stella, you coming or not?” After a nod from Stella, she went on, “Alright well I can’t make you two come along, but if you don’t wanna go, don’t expect any sympathy from me when you pee your pants because neither of you think you need to go until you’ve already soaked your underwear.”

Luna rolled her eyes, then stood up and said with a little groan, “Is this how you treat your kids?”

“No,” Emerald said, staring Luna down. “No it’s not. Because my kids already outgrew their whole phase of obviously potty dancing while insisting, ‘But mom I don’t have to go’. My kids don’t need to be reminded that they shouldn’t be waiting until the very last second.”

“I mean, to be fair,” Silver commented, “Back when you lived at home with us you pretty much always did wait until the last minute. You even made me and Charity wet ourselves one time because you locked yourself in the bathroom to clean up one of your accidents. And that other time we had to go in the yard… and then there was that time I had to use a pile of old laundry… Oh, and of course I can’t forget that time mom got mad at me ‘cause I went in the kitchen sink while she was right there trying to do something else. All because you would always wait too long and lock yourself in to clean up after yourself.”

Holding up a finger and putting a hand on her hip, Emerald responded, “Okay, first of all, that was all like twenty years ago-“

“Closer to fifteen actually,” Silver interjected.

“Shut up. It rounds to twenty. Point is that was a long time ago, and things were different, and… More importantly, you were the one who suggested we should go to the bathroom, so how about you just… stop trying argue and we just all go get in line.”

Silver shrugged as she stood up, then as she stretched herself out she pointed over towards Luna. “She started it,” she said with a hint of a chuckle afterwards. Luna herself even cracked a bit of a smile.

Emerald groaned and covered her whole face with her hand. I heard her muttering, “Even literal children aren’t this bad,” as she took Charity by the wrist and pulled her up out of her seat; Stella and I got up on our own in the meantime, watching Charity pull herself away from Emerald once she was on her feet. She made a comment about how she wasn’t too drunk to stand on her own, which everyone else found to be funny considering how she had stumbled when she stepped back, and her ongoing swaying; and while it was pretty funny, it was also just a little upsetting that even her slurred drunken speech was still clearer than what I could manage to cobble together at the best of times. Sure, I was used to that just being the way of things by now, so it wasn’t that bad, but it still wasn’t a very good feeling either.

Still, I followed quietly along as Emerald led everyone to the line for the girls’ room, and as we took our places I of course ended up at the very back; we seemed to naturally gravitate towards an arrangement where we were sorted by age, oldest at the front and younger to the back. That didn’t seem like much of a problem at first – that was how it always worked if we had to line up at home, after all – but standing up and navigating around tables to get to the line had made all my tea shift around, and its mass was quite a bit more noticeable now than when I had been sitting more or less still. It still wasn’t bad yet, but the pressure felt about as strong as it had been when we first arrived at the tavern; so, just like then, I stood there rubbing my thighs together and gently tugging at the hem of my skirt, for whatever good that was supposed to accomplish.

At least I could distract myself by looking out at the stage – I could see it clearly enough from my spot in line, and the music could still be heard over the sounds of everyone talking and eating and drinking and whatever else people were doing. I kind of had to be watching them anyways, considering I had no idea how long it would be until their next break, and I would need to be ready to go up on stage whenever that happened. With any luck, that would be after I got out of the bathroom… but a quick glance around Luna to the rest of the line ahead of us made me wonder just how much luck I actually had. It didn’t look too long from a distance, but now that I was standing almost at the back of the line, a couple of people having shown up behind me, I wasn’t even sure if I could see the door from where I was standing; maybe from the right angle, but that first look at everyone waiting ahead of me was enough for me to tell myself to try not to worry about it too much. The line was probably just shorter than it looked from my vantage point; not being all that big myself, I naturally didn’t have the best line-of-sight in such situations, after all.

Better to just focus on the stage though and not worry about that at all to begin with. Paying too much attention to how the line was moving always just made it slower, no matter what the line was for; and for this particular sort of queue, that wasn’t quite ideal, so the music was a much better way to keep my mind occupied. That did bring its own set of problems, though – focusing on the stage and the band just made me think about how I’d be going up there myself soon, and the thought brought back some of the nervous tingling that I had been suppressing with tea. And that got me to start fidgeting a little more, as if that tea had decided it wanted to be little more expressive now. I once again had to insist to myself that there was nothing to be nervous about – I’d performed in places like this countless times before, in front of all sorts of people, so I knew deep down that this would work out fine.

But… would it really? What if I got something wrong? This wasn’t just some normal tavern performance, this was going to be a special song for a rather special person, and I couldn’t allow myself to mess up. Normally, forgetting a few lyrics or going just a little off-key wouldn’t be too bad, but this had to be perfect. I had to get it right, or all that effort I had put into preparing so far would go to waste.

Then again, did I really have to worry about that? After all, even though I had done plenty to get ready for this moment, there wasn’t really any such thing as being too prepared. If I were to run myself through the song one last time before going up to sing it for real, I could catch whatever mistakes I would make and keep them in mind so I wouldn’t repeat them on stage in front of everyone.

So that’s what I did, quietly, standing there mumbling the lyrics to myself so that I would have something to do other than just wait. It was a bit of a rough start, of course, since the decision to do a last-minute rehearsal had been a spontaneous attempt to calm my nerves; so it was no surprise that being a little unsettled at first made me stumble over the first few lines. But thankfully it didn’t take too long for things to clear up, and pretty soon I was singing to myself and swaying on my feet to keep time. There wasn’t anything else to worry about for as long as I stayed focused on breathing and getting the words right. If I could get through the song on my own, I could go on stage with a bit of confidence knowing that I wouldn’t mess anything up.

Having assured myself that nothing around me mattered for the moment, I did my best to clear my mind of everything except the song, and after a few minutes I did manage to reach the end without very much trouble. When I finished, I took a deep breath and looked around – the band was still on stage, and there were still plenty of people ahead of me in line… and plenty behind me now too. Getting through a single rehearsal of the song had made me feel a little better, and I didn’t want to lose that good feeling by having to go back to focusing on the things around me… so I started singing to myself again, as quietly as last time but now with just a little more enthusiasm. Where I had tripped over the first verse or so before, this time everything was clear from the start. As clear as could be while practically whispering, anyways, but even though I could barely hear myself it still did a lot to boost my confidence a little more. I could start the song without messing up, so I could definitely finish it just fine too.

Or, at least, I could have, given enough time. My mumbling was going great for a little while, but with the song being several minutes long, and having already completed it once while waiting in line, it turned out that I didn’t have enough time to complete an encore of it – while I was singing, my ears twitched and I picked up on a change in the background noise. I had mostly been filtering it out, but the noise that I had been ignoring included music, and now something just felt wrong; there was less noise, but the fact that something was missing made it all the more prominent, enough to distract me from my song. And it was good that it did, because when I shut myself up and looked over at the stage, I saw the musicians packing up their instruments and heading off for their break. Had I kept singing, I wouldn’t have noticed, and without knowing how long they’d be away, I could very well have missed my chance to go up with them.

Of course, though, that did also raise a few problems, namely the fact that I was still waiting in line for the bathroom. I was closer to the front than I had been when I lined up behind my sisters, but clearly I still had quite a bit of waiting left to do. A quick glance at everyone ahead of me showed that even Emerald still wasn’t quite at the front yet.

So then the question became: should I keep waiting? Without any more distractions, my bladder took the chance to speak up and answer that yes, I should – I had maybe only been waiting in line for a few minutes, but it seemed all that tea was working its way down pretty fast, so now I was lightly shifting from one foot to the other to make sure it wouldn’t get far enough down to reach the exit. Certainly nothing close to an emergency yet, but it was all starting to feel pretty heavy…

But did that even matter? Emergency or not, I couldn’t miss my chance to go up on stage, and without any way of knowing how long the band would be resting for or how much longer I’d need to wait to get to the bathroom, it was definitely possible that continuing to wait would cost me the opportunity to perform. And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like that would be the case, and the more I felt like I shouldn’t stick around to find out for sure. The safest choice would be to assume that waiting would take too long, and not take the risk at all. Would that mean taking another risk? Sure, technically, but it was just one song, and I had plenty of experience with going on stage to sing several songs with a lot more tea inside me than there was now – and it would usually still be in me by the time I was done. It’d be easy enough to get through that one song, then get back in line for the toilets with plenty of time to wait almost-comfortably for my turn. The wait would be longer then, of course, but at least I wouldn’t be missing out on anything important in all that time.

Knowing all that didn’t make it any less annoying to need to give up my spot in line, though. I had to take a deep breath and grumble quietly to myself about it as I stepped aside and made my way over to the stage – I still had to go pee, after all, and just being sure I could hold it in wasn’t enough to magically take that need away or convince me that I wouldn’t rather deal with that before going up.

No, of course I’d prefer to go on stage without any drinks weighing me down. I’d be the center of attention up there, there’s no way I would want to be up there pee-dancing in full view of so many strangers… and pretty much my entire family… and Ms. Sinclair. There’s no way I would want all those people watching me, knowing that I needed the toilet. No, absolutely not. Had it been possible, of course I would have liked to use the toilet first, rather than going up on stage where so many people would be able to see very clearly if I were to have an accident… That wasn’t going to happen anyways, but if it did, having it be so public was clearly not the best situation to be in. I’d rather be the center of attention because of my voice, not my bladder, or any other part of me for that matter.

Whatever I would have preferred, though, none of that really mattered. What mattered was that I was leaning back against the stage with my legs crossed, hips gently swaying, and hands pawing at my skirt as if getting it wrinkled would make me not need to go anymore. That was where I needed to be, waiting for the band so I could perform with them. Whatever last-minute preparations I still had to do, they’d need to be done right there – I could use the time to straighten out my clothes, or make sure my braid was nice and secure, or try to run through at least a few verses of the song while I waited… or I could reach under my skirt, pull my tights and panties down, drop into a squat, then just relax and go to the bathroom right there on the floor; I could take a nice relieving potty break before going up to sing as long as it happened in the middle of the tavern in front of everyone… But, no, of course I couldn’t do that. Why was I even thinking about that? I should have been focused on singing, not peeing. And… what even were my other ideas before I got sidetracked anyways?

Right, of course, I could practice some more. My clothes were fine and my hair was fine, so all I could do to prepare was to just whisper-sing to myself some more… and maybe get some water or another cup of tea or something to deal with how dry my throat was after the practice I had already done. In fact, that was probably the most important thing I could do – if I didn’t deal with that, my singing would suffer for it, and even though it was just one song, it was still critical that my voice be in peak condition for it.

So I took a quick look around to see if the band was coming back from their break yet; then when I saw no signs of that, I looked to the table my sisters and I had been sitting at, all the seats still empty. More importantly, my tea was still there, so I quickly went over to get it, working through the space between occupied seats and probably brushing more than a few people with my tail along the way. The first thing I did when I reached the table was to check the teapot to make sure there was actually still anything in it, and after a quick inspection I estimated that there was probably enough in there for another couple of cups; more than enough for what I needed at the moment. So I took it and the cup and brought them both back to the stage, mumbling out a few things that hopefully sounded like apologies as my tail again hit what felt like people on the way back.

Once I was back at the stage, I leaned back against it and sat down with my legs folded, setting the tea things aside for a moment while I tried to get comfortable. I settled on a position where I was more or less sitting on one foot, then got started on pouring myself a cup of tea… and it was probably a good thing I already had some pressure being applied between my legs, because watching and listening to that stream as the cup filled was not particularly fun with how many times I’d already emptied that very same cup. I had to wiggle around a bit to make sure nothing unfortunate would happen, but at least it was easy enough to keep things dry, and probably would remain so until I was done performing. There really wasn’t that much tea left, so adding it to what I already had wasn’t that big of a concern.

That didn’t mean that the pressure was going to go away any time soon, but at least it couldn’t get too much worse by adding in maybe a couple more cups of tea when most of what had been in the pot was already running through my system anyways. And that wasn’t great, but it wasn’t really that bad either – even if I finished all the rest of my tea, I still wouldn’t have to worry about being especially full while up on stage, so I could just sit back and drink and do my best to make sure I was ready. Or, as ready as I could be without the chance for a quick visit to the girls’ room, anyways. Not being especially full on-stage didn’t change anything about the fact that I’d absolutely be going up there with an uncomfortably full bladder. It just wouldn’t be intolerable.

In fact, even as I sat back against the stage drinking my no-longer-hot tea, I was already uncomfortably full. I couldn’t really sit still for more than a couple of seconds at a time, and no matter what position I shifted to I could never ease the tension in my lower half – and I definitely couldn’t do anything about how tight my waistband was, unless I wanted to move my clothes down far enough that they’d probably just fall the rest of the way on their own. Certainly couldn’t have that happening on stage… in front of everyone. No, this wasn’t going to be that kind of performance, it would just be a single quick song and nothing else.

[Lindzthe angel]

I am loving this story so far 

[Lord Sake]

(Oh, right, I forgot to post the remaining parts, whoops)
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Since I was only going to be doing a single quick song before leaving the stage, my tights and my skirt just had to stay up where they belonged, snugly squeezing my tea-filled tummy. Not the ideal situation, but it was what I’d have to deal with… though, maybe I could do a little something about it while I was sitting around waiting, as long as everything ended up back in place when I finally had to stand up.

So, when I emptied the cup for the first time since sitting down, I set it aside and then worked myself into a position where I was sitting back with my legs folded in front of me. Both of my hands went down to my waist, and I took a deep breath as I looked down to watch myself tug my skirt and tights down just enough to see some of the pink beneath them. That felt like it might have helped just a tiny bit, but it was pretty clear that my clothes weren’t particularly to blame for making things all tight and tense down there. No, that was undoubtedly more the tea’s fault than anything else, and looking down at myself it wasn’t hard to figure out why. With my shirt only going down just a little beyond my chest, I had plenty of skin on display between there and my hips, and my little jacket was left open as always, draping over my sides but leaving my middle clear – and all of that meant not only that I could easily see that my belly was a bit rounder than usual, but also that it was framed in such a way that it would have been hard not to notice the bump. If for some reason I hadn't already known, that sight would have confirmed for sure that I really needed to go pee; and it would make that plain to anyone who happened to look over at me, too, which pretty soon would no doubt be most of the people in the tavern.

While that in itself wasn’t really anything new, considering how often I had performed in such a state, it still made me feel a little weird. Anyone being able to look over at me and tell right away that I’d like to take a quick bathroom break, no matter how hard I tried to act normal… Surely there would be talking about whether I could hold it, whether I’d wet myself on stage… Any little twitch that might have been ignored normally, suddenly would be seen as another hint of how well I was handling my tea… All eyes on me, and how many of them looking for signs of an emergency just because I was dressed in just the right way to show off the one sign of a full bladder that I couldn’t cover up?

All that probably should have felt bad to think about, but it just… didn’t. It didn’t feel good, either, probably, just… weird. Tingly. A funny feeling that struck me as familiar – a feeling not too different from the one I got from watching Ms. Sinclair move around during the meeting earlier. But… why? Why didn’t this feel wrong? Why did this feel… interesting, even? Interesting enough that even as I considered it, one of my hands drifted up to gently glide over my belly. The bump there felt firm, as expected; I didn’t dare push too hard, but a tiny poke showed there was still some give; what I was carrying around in there was heavy for sure, so densely-packed that the pot in which I was storing my own tea had grown to accommodate it all, enough to make its presence known even to outside observers – but it wasn’t quite enough that it couldn’t still find room to stretch; firm, but not solid.

And as confusing as my motivations for such probing were, at least my hand’s exploration had given me some useful information. I had performed in this state before, I knew that, and I knew I’d be fine, especially for just one song – but I likely wouldn’t have very much time left once I was off the stage again. With a quick, rough sigh I dragged my clothes back into place and, despite common sense dictating otherwise, refilled my cup. As I took a sip from it I tried to look towards the bathrooms, but from my position on the floor I couldn’t see anything but tables and legs. Some people had apparently worn rather nice shoes to the tavern that night, but I couldn’t get any information on the bathroom line without standing up, and I didn’t particularly want to stand up until I was ready to go on stage. Instead, I just sat on my foot, wiggled around a little, and reasoned that the line was longer than it had been when last I saw it – waiting for my turn after finishing my song didn’t seem like a very realistic option anymore, all things considered. The pressure between my legs was constant, I couldn’t keep myself still, and even though I really shouldn’t have been I continued to put more liquids into my body; all in all, I would be fine, but I had to come up with somewhere I’d be able to do my business without having to wait in line first. The obvious answer was to just use the men’s room instead, but it didn’t seem likely that my chances in that line would be very much better… assuming I could even muster up the confidence to try at all, considering it would be obvious that I was waiting at the wrong door – after all, there weren’t exactly all that many men with hips like mine, or such long braided hair, or a fashion sense favoring a bare midriff and a skirt and tights… Would anyone care? Maybe not, but that still wasn’t the type of attention I wanted to draw to myself.

Perhaps, then, I considered as I drank a little more, I could find some unlocked supply closet somewhere in the tavern, and just sneak away to fill up a bucket. That definitely wouldn’t be a good thing to do, and there would be a pretty high risk of getting caught, but that was more or less what those buckets were for, kind of. If I could get away with it, it was a potential option, but I’d need something a little more certain… I took in another gulp of tea, and my thoughts turned to the only other choice that seemed reasonable: just getting myself outside. I’d have to be careful not to go anywhere too visible, and with snow on the ground just about everywhere I’d leave some clear evidence behind, but…

Well, I could come up with the details later; for one, relieving myself wasn’t the best thing to be thinking about with a full bladder and still a good while before I’d be able to empty it, but also I literally just didn’t have the time anymore to think about random things anyways. While I was contemplating, I heard footsteps approaching, and when I looked up I saw that the band had returned, so I downed what was left in my cup and scrambled to my feet, shoving the teapot and cup aside somewhere on my way up. I did my best to smooth out my clothes, and instead of a verbal greeting I acknowledged the musicians’ arrival with a little smile and a nod in their direction.

“So,” one of them said, “I guess you’re that freckled glasses-girl’s sister? The singer?”

I nodded quickly, keeping my hands folded in front of my skirt as I tried to say, “Y-y-ye-yeah, mhm, ye-yep.”

As expected, taking that long to say what was supposed to just be one word attracted some weird looks, and the same musician continued, “Uh, okay, sure. Well, then,” she said, “Just tell us what we’re playing and you can have your few minutes up there if you really want to.”

I did my best to recite the title of the song to them, but of course I stumbled over it enough that I couldn’t get the whole thing out until the third try, which probably only worked at all because of the frustrated heavy breath I let out just before that attempt.

And of course the musicians thought that was weird. “Uh… okay, alright, yeah. We can… Yeah, we can do that, sure. Though, uh…” The one speaking put a hand to her chin and paused for a bit to think, humming to fill what would have been silence. “You, um… You sure you can do that? It’s a pretty fast-paced song, and it… doesn’t really sound like, uh…?” She trailed off while looking at me, surely because of the way I was glaring at her with my tail lashing about – though I probably would have looked more intimidating if I weren’t also shifting my weight from one foot to the other and rubbing my thighs together. And also if I were more like Luna’s size… or even if I just had her muscles.

Even with how small and non-threatening I was, though, I seemed to get the point across, and the musician just went on to say, “Right, whatever, I’m not gonna try to stop you, if you want to go up there we’ll give you the music and you’ll do whatever you want. Just tell us when to start.” Then she and the others climbed up onto the stage and started to get together near the back; I waited for all of them to get up, and when I dragged myself up alongside them – much to my bladder’s annoyance, of course – I found I had essentially the entire forward half of the platform to myself.

So, naturally, I made my way to more or less center-stage and took a moment to look around and breathe. I also tried to get myself to stand still, but there was no way that was going to be happening. People were starting to pay attention to me, and I was standing there silently, fidgeting, hands hovering just in front of my skirt as I resisted the urge to give myself a little squeeze. I could even see the lines for the bathrooms, and a quick glance over there showed that most of my sisters had at least made it inside. Only Luna seemed to be standing outside now, the others likely still waiting on the other side of the door. If things didn’t move quickly enough over there, they’d almost certainly miss my performance, but… that probably wasn’t the worst thing in the world, since I couldn’t exactly hide the fact that my drinks were just about ready to be poured out; that was visible enough to everyone as it was, and even if they somehow managed to ignore it, if my family were actively watching then I could be sure that there would be five people in the audience who could clearly see that their little sister needed a litterbox. Probably for the best that they not see that… even though it was hardly an uncommon sight for them anyways.

But regardless of who could see what, I had come up on stage with a purpose, so I forced all of those other thoughts out of my mind, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I raised a hand to signal to the band that they should start playing, and when the music started I began to sway back and forth in time with it, waiting for my cue…

And just a little before the note that was supposed to mark where the singing was to begin, I drew in a deep breath and opened my eyes; and at the exact moment the music shifted to take on a background role, I let my real voice be heard – no more stammering, no more fumbling over syllables, no more repeating the same phrase four times to say it once; this was how I was meant to sound, this was who I really was. Every word came out clear and whole, flowing eloquently into the next as my song rang out through the tavern, and I let myself be taken in by the music. I let it pull at my own heartstrings, leaving my feelings to be guided by those of the music and echoing them in my voice. All my energy, all my heart and soul, went into my song – for the next few minutes, it would be my whole world, and I would be one with the melody. My normal voice could never compare – my normal voice, my broken, disjointed, stumbling mess of a voice would never have this power, this energy, because it would never synchronize so perfectly with the beauty of song the way my real voice could.

It was a wonderful, beautiful feeling, and for at least a little while I could almost completely forget where I was while I did the one thing I could be sure I was meant for. And I would have zoned out fully if not for one particularly-prominent reminder of what I was doing and why – Ashe. Even if I weren’t paying any attention at all, her presence still would have been fully obvious, since she climbed up onto the stage right in front of me. Of course I kept singing, but I couldn’t help but watch her with wide eyes as she made her way towards me, swinging her hips along the way.

I was kind of doing the same thing, too, I realized, wiggling and shifting from one foot to the other and back again – only I was doing it because I had to go pee really bad; Ashe just seemed to be putting on a show, and quite a compelling one at that. Unsure of what else to do and unable to greet her properly, I just held up a hand for a little wave, and she responded with one of her own, her eyes narrowed and the corners of her mouth curled up into a little grin that sparked some interesting feelings somewhere within me.

Though I tried not to stare too much, I couldn’t bring myself to look away from her for more than a few seconds at a time. Her movements were just so captivating, so graceful and elegant and… alluring. She looked over her shoulder for a moment, then back at me, running her hands through her hair and then holding them over her head. She even winked at me before turning herself around while still shifting around in time with my singing.

Then it became really hard not to stare – Ashe got down on her knees, then leaned forward to press her chest against the stage, her legs stretched out behind her and her butt raised very prominently. Her tail was held high, and my gaze followed along as she kept swinging her hips in this new position. Those lovely pants of hers fit perfectly, and while I tried to stay focused on my song I couldn’t help but picture what she’d look like without them…

And then I noticed something. It was subtle, but with how intently I was watching her, I could easily see her shivering while her tail somehow got even puffier. Her motions even seemed to be a little more exaggerated after that too, for whatever reason, but I could tell she was still keeping time with me. At least she was until she decided to change her pose, anyways – she brought her hips down and lifted her front half up instead, arching her back in a way that must have drawn a lot of attention to her chest. She seemed to shudder again, and she flicked her ears afterwards, her tail twitching a bit as well. I was just glad I wasn’t the one moving like that in my condition.

I kept watching as she reached out for the nearest pole, wiggling her way up and wrapping herself around it with her tail curled around her and its tip in her mouth for a moment; a moment later she released her tail and let it flow behind her as she circled the pole, facing me after a full lap and looking right at me as she ran a hand along the length of her tail. Of course I kept staring at her, still singing and still doing my little dance, my hands staying behind my back since I couldn’t think of anything better for them to do that didn’t involve using at least one of them to help with my bladder-related problems.

Something heated up inside of me, and I could feel my heart beating a little faster, when Ashe then put on an odd grin and made her way across the stage, heading towards me with exaggerated winding steps until she was just barely out of my reach. I did my best to keep singing as she leaned forwards, but when she ran the back of her hand against my cheek I couldn’t help but sing a few notes a little sharp. My gaze drifted down to the skin she was showing between where her shirt ended and her pants started; just about as much skin as I was showing, it seemed. But I forced myself to look away before I could start thinking too much about what else I was hoping she would show off – and even then I couldn’t help but glance back at her every so often, even as I tried to keep singing despite my shaking body and pounding heart. If I just stayed focused on my singing, I figured, I could distract myself from how bad I wanted to reach out and touch some part of Ashe – this situation was clearly all sorts of inappropriate and doing something like that would only make it worse.

Of course, her actions being inappropriate didn’t seem to be any kind of deterrent for Ms. Sinclair, and I was too focused on my song and all the weird feelings I was having to stop her myself – though for some reason the thought of doing anything to make her stop never really entered my mind in the first place beyond a vague consideration that it was what I was supposed to do. We were very much in public, among loads of other problems – I was supposed to make it clear that what she was doing was wrong. But, as she put a hand on one of my shoulders and moved around to get behind me, covering the other afterwards, it didn’t feel wrong. It should have felt wrong when she leaned in and nibbled at my ear, but beyond startling me enough to make me jump, squeak, and puff out my tail, it didn’t feel wrong at all.

It did feel like I was about to pee my pants, though, so I had to put more effort into squirming to make sure I didn’t, while still also staying focused on my song so I could get through the whole thing. Judging by the sounds the audience seemed to be making in response to what Ashe was doing, my song wasn’t the main attraction anymore, but I had still committed to singing it and I needed to see it through.

I just had to keep singing, even as I felt Ashe’s hands made their way down my sides, stopping on my hips. My heart started beating even faster somehow, and it was getting a little harder to breathe as I felt her get her thumbs into my waistband. I had to summon up all of my resolve to keep myself from whining when she pulled down, getting my skirt and tights out of the way enough to surely show off at least some of the pink beneath them; I wasn’t really sure what I was feeling, but there was definitely some sort of burning sensation going on somewhere, and I felt even weirder when just a moment later she put my clothes back where they belonged. It was almost… disappointing, in some strange way – she’d barely exposed my panties at all, and it was horribly unfair of her to cover me up again without pulling my clothes down the rest of the way. That would definitely have been wildly inappropriate, but… Still. If she was going to do something like that, she should have committed to it.

Maybe it was for the best that she didn’t, though, since then everyone would have been able to see every little detail about what I had on under my tights; and with me being on the verge of going to the bathroom all over the stage, they’d be able to very clearly see any markings that didn’t belong on my underwear. Ashe’s decision just meant that I’d be spared all that embarrassment… At least she made up for it by getting very close to me and hugging me from behind, her hands coming around to the front; but just as soon as I felt my tail wagging against her body, I also felt her push into my belly pretty hard. I wasn’t sure what exactly was happening, but I did know that was a lot of pressure exactly where I didn’t need it at all, so I doubled up on my potty-dancing efforts while a few words of the song came out quite a bit squeakier than I would have liked… and some of something else came out that I would have preferred to keep inside. Quite a bit, actually, since Ashe kept up the pressure on my bladder for a few seconds at least, which was plenty of time for an uncomfortably-familiar heat to spread through my underwear, and even spill out to start running down my thighs.

Even when the pressure finally eased, I couldn’t get it to fully stop right away – probably because for whatever ungodly reason I was still trying to focus more on singing, so I could still feel a little dribble work its way out every now and then while Ashe apparently started giggling for whatever reason, a hand of hers coming back to my shoulder. And though I was trying not to pay too much attention to her, I couldn’t help but notice that a few seconds after her laughter started, she stopped again, digging into my shoulder a little bit – and over the sound of my own voice I could hear a faint little hiss, and I knew from how much I was straining to keep myself from making any more of a mess that the sound wasn’t coming from me. Had Ashe really just…?

I didn’t have much time to consider that, though – she went back to giggling soon enough, stepping over to my side and laying a hand on my butt; then ran that hand along the bottom of my tail until it was nearly at the tip. There she gently took hold of my tail, and I felt a little shock and another burst of heat as she seemed to nibble my tail and rub its fur against her cheek.

Then she let go, and I kept up my song as her hand came back down to rest near my waistband; I felt her push my jacket up out of the way, and then she must have reached through the tail-slot in the back of my clothes, because the next thing I noticed was a feeling that made me shiver and squeak again – she had rested her fingers on the spot where the fur of my tail stopped and the skin of my back started. But that wasn’t enough for her, apparently, and she then did something that felt electrifying.

I instinctively arched by back in response to a powerful shock sent up from the base of my tail, my whole body tensing up and my voice shifting up an octave while taking on a bit of a whiny tone. She had started scratching at that spot, and that made a lot of things happen and a lot of confusing feelings fly around in my mind, and some more-straightforward feelings focused between my legs; mainly the recurring bursts of heat I was feeling, Ashe’s scratching sending shockwaves through my body, which my bladder apparently took as orders to start pulsing furiously, pumping out one quick jet of pee after another, over and over again while I stood there stunned, trembling and still technically singing.

And apparently that wasn’t enough; with wide eyes I saw a very provocatively-dressed fox lady climb up onto the stage in front of me, and I noticed in particular that her outfit didn’t leave her choice of underwear up to my imagination… nor did it do anything to conceal a yellowish discoloration on the blue-and-white underwear she had on. Come to think of it, I had seen her standing in line for the toilet, and though it was very possible I simply had too much else going on to notice, I couldn’t recall seeing her actually get into the bathroom…

More importantly, though, she had a hunger in her eyes as she approached; a predatory glint as she crawled forwards – Ashe, thankfully, stopped rubbing my tail, and instead put a hand on my chest and another on my shoulder, pressing herself against my back and wrapping her tail around the two of us. Of course that didn’t help ease any of the tension I was feeling or make me stop shaking, but it did at least mean I was able to wrestle back enough control to stop going to the bathroom all over myself; and despite how wet everything felt, I was still struggling to keep the rest in, still desperate to finish what Ashe had made me start. At least I wasn’t the only one…

[Lord Sake]

The fox – Hana, if my mind wasn’t yet so cloudy that I had forgotten what Ashe had said about her during negotiations – looked up at us after coming just a little closer, lifting her wiggling butt and hiking up her wagging tail; the wiggling grew stronger, and I noticed her tense up before suddenly launching herself forwards, leaping across the stage and landing with a little roll that got her so close that when she stood up she was right in my face. The shock of having her appear so suddenly and so close made me jump, interrupting my song for just a moment with a little squeak and a little trickle; I wound up standing knock-kneed as I forced myself to keep singing and she tapped my nose with a single finger.

My voice was shaking just as much as I was, though, and while I was still trying, there was too much else going on for me to really sing properly. I knew my voice wasn’t carrying like it should have been, and I was definitely not in tune anymore, but it was almost impossible to make sure all of that was right anyways with so many other feelings getting in the way. Everything felt tense and hot; I was sweating, my heart felt like it could burst at any moment – just like my bladder – and there was a strong feeling between my legs that couldn’t be explained by the strain of holding in whatever hadn't already leaked out. This was all wrong, but… but it felt so right. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

Hana put a hand on my cheek, and with the other took hold of one of my arms and started gently tugging. Ashe fought back, holding me tight and even squeezing one of my breasts, which made me let out a little whimper – but fortunately no liquids this time. Even so, I felt like I had to go with Hana, and Ashe relented as I was lead away from her, stepping unsteadily to the side as Hana led me away. Part of me wanted to ask her to take me somewhere where we could go pee – we obviously both needed it quite badly, but despite everything I just couldn’t bring myself to even stop singing.

Plus, she had started humming along to the tune, so I couldn’t just stop and ruin that. And although I had every reason to want to get away as quickly as possible, I didn’t really want her to stop either. She was standing off to my side, leaning forwards in such a way that if I were to glance over at her I’d get a decent view of… things… and she was running a hand through my hair and breathing onto my cheek… She was petting me, and it was nice. Or, at least, as nice as it could be, given the circumstances, anyways; I had already peed my pants a lot and still very much needed to do that a lot more, I was extremely in public, my sisters were probably watching somewhere, I was struggling to stay focused on what I was supposed to be doing, I was being handled like some kind of toy, and it was just in general a very embarrassing situation; not good, but somehow it felt great even though I knew it shouldn’t have.

And through it all I just kept singing – my voice was faltering and I was very much out of tune and probably not even remotely synchronized with the ever-present music, but I still needed the distraction, if nothing else. And it just got harder and harder to keep myself distracted, with Hana petting me and moving her hands to all sorts of places; over my chest and down my sides to my hips and even around to just beneath my tail. I could constantly feel the heat of her breath on my face, and she had one hand lifting up the back of my skirt while the other squeezed my rear and my thighs, even occasionally brushing up between my legs. She never said anything, instead just continually humming to the same tune I was still trying to keep to. And she kept herself close, pressing her body against mine and wiggling in a way that must have done wonders for showing off her figure – though I of course had way too much on my mind to pay any attention to things like that. My mind was just a haze of pressure and heat and confusion and yearning and dread and excitement and far, far too many conflicting emotions to keep track of…

At least until something hit me in the face, which apparently gave me enough clarity to come back to reality, squeaking and stumbling back before reaching up to remove whatever I had been hit with. I felt myself dribble quite a bit, quietly whining as I wound up holding… clothes. Clothes which, when I looked up at Ashe, turned out to be her shirt. She was facing me, looking right at me, so it wasn’t hard to see… everything. I was vaguely aware of my mouth being open, but no words could come out anymore, and with no idea of what else I could do, I just stood there staring at her – and the sight of her made me start thinking, processing the situation I was in.

I was up on stage in a tavern far away from home; my bladder was ready to explode any moment now, throbbing and pulsing, bearing down on my muscles with a burning weight and pressing out agonizingly against my already-tight waistband; there were two thoroughly beautiful women with thoroughly full bladders of their own sharing the stage with me; one of those women was half-naked, and I was holding her shirt… I could swear I had awoken from a dream of nearly that exact scenario once… fortunately I wasn’t yet as soaked as I had been that morning, and there weren’t as many different types of fluids involved as there had been then either. Not yet, anyways.

I was once again pulled from my thoughts by getting hit by something, Hana having driven her hand to make contact with my cheek – only, this time it was more like a strong tap than an actual impact, and… her hand definitely didn’t touch my face. She stepped away from me, and my hands immediately went between my legs to make sure that little pat didn’t shock me into having a complete accident, the fact that I was still holding Ashe’s shirt having completely slipped my mind.

Hana moved with a very exaggerated wiggle as she spoke to Ashe, her words just barely audible over the pounding of my own heart and the rush of blood through my body. “And I’m the one who turns this place into a strip club, am I, little kettle?” She seemed to put a hand on her chest, and then went on, “At least when I do it, I do it right! Just watch and learn, dear… and do try not to spill any of your tea this time.”

I didn’t notice much of Ashe’s response except for how her tail puffed up – I was too focused on the promise Hana had just made to lose some of her own clothes. Yeah, this was definitely something I had seen in a dream once… And now it was playing out for real, right in front of me! Despite everything, I couldn’t leave until I saw how this would actually play out. I didn’t need to stay anymore; Ashe and Hana were focused on each other, and my song was essentially done. I could leave. I could go pee. I had more than enough tea to spill somewhere, as Hana had just put it, but even with my kettle whistling as loud as ever and slowly pouring out its own contents as a series of little dribbles, I just couldn’t will myself to take a single step or even look away. Surely it wouldn’t take long for the two to end their show; I just had to hold it in a little longer, I told myself, and then I could find a place to spill everything without worrying about missing anything interesting.

Hana started strutting forward, and the tip of her tail brushed against my nose, making me step back with a little sniffle. Fortunately, I didn’t end up sneezing, otherwise I would definitely have flooded the stage. Instead, I just watched Hana as she… stepped in the puddle I had made earlier. She fell back with a shrill yelp, her tail multiplying in size as she hit the stage butt-first, scrambling to put a hand out behind her to catch herself. Ashe started laughing, but I let out a little whine – my ears twitched as I picked up on a hissing sound coming from Hana’s direction, and it was immediately obvious what the sound meant. I couldn’t really see anything happening with her facing away from me, but I didn’t need to see it to know that she was doing something that I desperately needed to join in on.

And for as much as my body wanted me to, I was still fighting back enough to keep myself from losing control. It wasn’t enough to stop me from feeling bits of warm liquid trickling through my fingers, but I could at least mostly keep my composure. Ashe, on the other hand, apparently couldn’t, breaking out into maniacal cackling at Hana’s misfortune. She had a hand over her chest and one between her legs, and after a bit of laughing she paused, tensing up and squeezing herself tighter, before quickly getting back to laughing. Apparently she found the jet spraying past her fingers to be amusing enough to spend some time acting as if it had been a joke.

My eyes were locked on her as she eventually figured out that her bladder wasn’t playing games with her, and, still laughing, she tore down her pants and dropped into a squat. I was paying particular attention to the frilly blue panties she had on, particularly the darkest part of them and the pale stream coming from that area. She stuck her butt out and held her tail up, and that was all I could take. I tried to stay and watch more, I really did want to know how this all would end, but watching Ashe’s pee streaming out through her underwear with such force and vigor only made me bite my lip and tear up as the pressure on my own exhausted pouch reached unimaginable heights. I could feel the flood slamming down, furious and ready to break through at any second. With each wave through my bladder, another hot spurt filled my panties and filtered through to all the layers I was pressing against myself there. I couldn’t stay a moment longer, and so with my tail between my legs I stumbled away as quick as I could.

My climb down from the stage was more like falling down from it, and the force of my feet hitting the floor sent another shockwave through my body, and of course another strong jet was forced out. From there, I had no idea where I was going, I just needed to get somewhere I could take my clothes off and finally spill every last drop of my tea.

And it had to be somewhere close. Sprinting meant that every step was heavy and sent a powerful surge of pressure through me, forcing out another spurt every time a foot hit the ground – and I couldn’t afford to take lighter steps either, because then I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere in time anyways. I needed something I could use as a toilet, and I needed it right away. It had to be something nearby, anything that I could pee on or into and could reach quickly. That was the only thing on my mind: where could I pee?

The answer came as I rushed past the bar, and saw someone coming into the tavern. The answer would have to be to turn some snow yellow, so I sped up and barreled past whoever had been trying to get in, taking advantage of their holding the door open, and blindly ran around the side of the tavern until I was behind it, in an alley shielded from public view. There, at last, I dropped Ashe’s shirt, tore down my skirt, tights, and panties all at once, then fell back against the nearest wall in a half-squat with my legs spread.

It took no effort at all to convince the spurting and dribbling to become a full torrent, and after the few seconds my body and mind needed to sync up and figure out that I could finally relax, I tipped my head back and let out a long groan, dropping down even further as my legs became weak and unsteady. The ground was cold, of course, but a bit of snow against my bare butt was the least of my concerns at the moment – no, it was much more important that I close my eyes and start taking deep breaths, my mouth open and my body feeling as limp as it could get. My heart was still pounding, and I could easily hear the hiss of my stream and the thunderous crashing coming from whatever surface it was hitting.

And with my mind slowly clearing up, my thoughts drifted back to Ashe and Hana – what they were doing, what they had done… I had never experienced anything like that before… A trembling hand drifted down to between my legs, roaming around at first and then actively engaging with things there, starting off gentle and intensifying as my mind wandered. What would it have been like if they had undressed me up on that stage? What did they look like under their clothes? What if they had done something to keep me from running away and peeing somewhere else? What if I wet myself on stage? Or… what if I exposed myself on stage to pee…? What would everyone think?

My breathing got heavier and faster as I worked through these thoughts, coinciding with the work my fingers were doing, particularly when my hand ended up in front of my spray of tea so I could explore a little deeper. Yes, what if…? That was the question I kept running through, the question fuelling the fire raging within me as I sat out there in the cold doing lots of things I shouldn’t have been doing there.

The question that let me leave reality behind for a little while, running through scenarios that could have been – should have been? – but always coming back around to what had been, what actually happened. Whatever was happening in the moment didn’t matter; what was important was everything that had just been done minutes before. Everything that had happened, and all the ways it could have been different…

Those thoughts, those scenarios, and all sorts of variations on them, took up all of my mind until I finally retrieved that hand and set it aside with squeaky mewling as the real world started to fade back into focus. I was trembling, breathing heavily, and still peeing even after all that – though now that wasn’t the only puddle anymore – but the stream was much weaker now than when I had started. It kept going for a little while longer, gradually dying off until it reached a rather anticlimactic conclusion. Then again, could anything really be considered anticlimactic if…?

Once I was done peeing, I stayed where I was until I could get my breathing under control again and let my heart settle down a bit. And once I was calm enough, I took a deep breath and pushed myself up to my feet, swaying a bit but quickly remembering how to stand. I surveyed my surroundings as I pulled my clothes back up into position – an absolutely terrible idea considering how quickly they had cooled down and how awful that made them feel to wear, but also really my only option since I couldn’t exactly leave myself half-naked – and tried to assess the damage. I had indeed turned some snow yellow, but it seemed mostly I had melted a good bit of whatever used to be in the alley, only recoloring whatever survived. And it wasn’t even that yellow anyways, no doubt because I had run more than enough tea through me to be fully-hydrated for the next week at least. I’d definitely need to get out of my clothes as soon as possible, and… I picked up Ashe’s shirt once I saw it lying there, completely soaked and definitely unfit for wearing. But I couldn’t just leave it on the ground…

With another deep breath, I made my way back around to the front of the tavern and went back inside, hoping nobody would pay too much attention to me. Fortunately, not very many people were still around, so I was able to head directly back to the stage without issue; Ashe and Hana were still there, cleaning up what had apparently been a massive flood, and Ashe of course was still uncovered from the waist up. My sisters were around somewhere, too, but I was trying very hard not to look over in that general direction for now.

“H-he-ey,” I said, cautiously approaching the two performers and holding up Ashe’s shirt. “I, uh… y-you… Mmm… Uh, I… ha-aa-ave yer... yuh... y’shirt.” I didn’t make eye contact with her, and avoided saying anything about what had happened.

She set her cleaning equipment aside and hopped down from the stage, coming up to me and standing just within arm’s reach. “Nah, looks to me like it’s your shirt now,” she said with a little chuckle, the comment making my face feel a little hotter and forcing me to look off to the side. “But I do need something to wear…” After taking a moment to think, she said, “Hey, tell you what, we can trade.”

Only now did I actually look directly at her. “T-t-tr-trade?”

“Yeah. I mean, that’s fair, isn’t it? You’ve… pretty thoroughly made that shirt your own, I guess, so I should get one of yours. How’s that sound?” She folded her arms in front of her chest, and Hana started giggling behind her.

I looked down at myself then up at Ashe. “I-I-I-I d-… don-… Thi-i-is’s... the... the, uh… th’only shhhh… sh-irt I’ve… I-I-I’ve… I… ha-ave, right n-n-now.”

“I know.”

“B-buh… b-b-but…?”

Ashe shrugged. “Just a proposal. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Uh…” I took a moment to look around, specifically avoiding the direction of the table me and my sisters had picked out earlier, and then back at Ashe. My heart was beating harder and faster again, and something about what Ashe was saying made me feel oddly warm and fuzzy inside. So I nodded.

Putting on a little grin, Ashe said, “Great. I can help you with that if you want.” While she spoke, she reached out to grab the edge of my jacket, but didn’t really do much with it.

My breathing stopped for a moment and my mouth wound up opening, but no sound came out. Was she really going to…? Only one way to find out. I nodded again, and without saying anything she took her shirt from my hands, set it down on the stage, then moved to work my jacket off of me, turning me around to make it easier. I went along with what she was doing, and I turned back to face her once it was off and resting over her shoulder. Then she started lifting my shirt from the bottom; I bit my lip and whimpered, but still held up my arms and let her drag my shirt all the way off.

Once that was done and my hands awkwardly went over to my chest, Ashe remarked, “You look nice.” Then she pulled my shirt over her head, dragged it down into place, and started tugging at it to make sure it fit right. “A little small, but it’ll work,” she said with a smile. Then she took my jacket in her hands and held it open in front of her. “Now let’s just get you back into this so you can actually go outside.”

Another nod from me, and I turned around and held out my arms to let her put the jacket back onto me. As soon as it was on, I pulled it closed with both hands and held it like that as I turned around to face Ashe again. “Uh… Th-th-tha-a-a-nks…?”

She just chuckled and turned to go back to work, handing me her wet shirt along the way. “No problem. You’re more than welcome around here any time,” she said with a little wave of her tail.

Only then did I finally look over at the table with all my sisters at it, all of them having had their turns in the bathroom and all of them present to see… however much they saw. With my new shirt in one hand and my jacket being held closed by the other, I awkwardly shuffled over to them and made a point of standing by Charity in particular, giving her a little nudge with my elbow when I noticed everyone was staring.

“Uh, yeah, r-right, right,” she said, shaking her head and pulling her glasses off to wipe the lenses. She was swaying in her seat a bit, clearly still a little intoxicated, but she had enough sense left to be able to say, “So, I think we can all agree, right, that Seren gave a beautiful but uneventful performance, yeah?”

[Lindzthe angel]

That was a fantasmic story I really enjoyed reading it