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"That was a good run, guys." Rose followed Themis and Phoebe into their bedroom and smiled when Em tapped the environmental controls. "Goddess, I love this room. I wish mine let me breathe this freely."

"Yeah, well it helps after a bit of exercise for sure. We need more of this air than Earth-like when our muscles start to burn." Pho stretched his lower back and then fell backwards onto the sole large bed in the room. "Besides, it's harder to sleep with Earth atmo."

"I thought your bed had a tent like mine though."

"Oh, it does. We use it so we don't need to seal the whole room at night." Em joined his twin on the bed and spread his arms out over the pillows, hinting upwards to the furled tent on the ceiling. "Our parents want to be able to check on us or something. They say it's a safety thing, but..."

"Oh, yeah. Where are they today? Your dad, uh..." Rose paused as she realized it wasn't easy to single out one of the twins' dads without names. "Iolvin is usually hanging around all day, right?"

Themis shrugged his shoulders. "I think they were short a fur in engineering today."

"Oh, so we're all by ourselves..." Rose's eyes bulged as that sunk home, then she pointed to the bathroom for a quick escape. "You, um... You mind if I use your shower? This is the only one I--"

Phoebe sat up and waved his friend forward. "Have fun without the mask for once. We'll just be out here taking a nap."

"Oh... Yeah, okay. Still, no peeking." Rose nodded and entered the bathroom, shutting the door lightly behind her with a flustered huff of air into her mask. "Goddess, they're fucking hot."

Chrysanthemum fluttered into the plant's view with a concerned expression. "Is that a note on their health, or should I watch your mental patterns for psychosis?"

"I'm sorry I'm talking to myself instead of ~you~, Chryssy. Shit, not like you even care." Rose pulled off her breathing mask now that the air had changed to something more habitable. She placed it on a counter and reached over to turn on the water. "Why do I have to like them so much? Please give me a ~real~ answer here."

"There's a biological need to reproduce. Mental chemistry--"

"Damnit, Chryssy... You make a bad conversationalist sometimes. You know that?" Rose easily peeled away the layers of her exercise clothes and stepped into the shower. "At least I get to enjoy ~this~. Been months since I had a real shower."

Chryssy floated through the shower door and stood on a soap dispenser. "You've already cleansed your extremities this morning. Your chemistry doesn't tell that you lied about the enjoyment though. I'll log this for review later."

"...And Carbon misses Evelyn? Just wow, Chryssy." Rose basked in the warm water for a moment, her smooth skin and lack of sweat glands effectively making her shower just a point of pleasure. "They're so sweet... taking me here so I could be myself..."

"Blood pressure rising, Rose..."

"I'm... aware of that. Shit." Rose reached down between her legs and lightly toyed with her petals. "The whole last week they've just been... looking at me ~differently~. And it doesn't help it gets my juices flowing, let alone when they're half naked and running around with those thick tails swishing... and those arms... and those ~bulging~ shorts..."

The bathroom door shut itself fully due to the change in humidity and scared Rose stiff, enticing Chrysanthemum to hover in her host's direct view. "Please calm down, Rose. It was only a noise. There's nothing to worry about."

"Damnit, Chryssy. There is something to worry about and it's keeping me from calming down." Rose pulled her hand from her nethers and let a vine turn off the water. "Why the fuck do our kind have this sexual frustration bullshit? A damn week of pure torture, I tell you."

"Your kind cannot waste bodily fluids like these mammals do with masturbation and especially orgasm. If--"

"Oh I get it, Chryssy. I just don't ~like~ it." Rose sighed and stepped out of the shower, quickly wrapping herself in a towel afterward. "There's got to be a way to get myself off without... help..."

"You may falsely orgasm, but the urge will not subside without differing genetic information."

"Nothing you haven't said every damn hour already, girl. Memorized it." The alien grabbed her mask and exited the bathroom, giggling as she found the twins passed out next to each other. "Okay, it's not too bad if I've got their cuteness distracting me like this."

"I don't believe you see them as 'cute' in that sense, Rose."

The Terran Yangurra huffed at that comment, using the sleeping boys as an excuse not to speak her disagreement. She walked over to the side of the bed and smirked over Phoebe, at least until something else caught her attention. "Chryssy... Goddess, is that what--?"

"It's a penis. You were bound to see one sooner or later with your physical excitement."

Just barely poking out the lip of the otter's pants, his semi-erect penis showed off its humanoid glans to all who dared look. "Goddess... It's not what I thought. Ooh..."

Chryssy sighed as her host slowly pulled a hand beneath her towel. "You are aware of etiquette and sexual protocol, yes?"

"Shush. Let me help this real quick so we can all go back to--" Rose froze stiff when Pho opened his eyes. "...normal..."

"Nn... Rose? Done with your shower?" The otter rubbed his eyes, giving Rose a quick excuse to covertly remove her hand from her nethers. "You're not getting dressed?"

"I... I, uh..." The plant girl forced herself to avert her gaze from Pho's crotch and miraculously regained the power of speech. "I didn't want to wear the same clothes. That gym equipment isn't exactly sanitary."

"Oh. So you were just going to use a towel the whole way back?" Pho chuckled and sat upright, the shift shoving even more of his erection into view. "I can lend you something, you know. I know how you feel about being nude and--"

"Goddess, I just can't... Phebes, your... junk is..." Rose aimed her eyes upward whilst her fingers pointed downward. "S-Sorry. It was, um..."

"Ah, crap!" Phoebe pulled up on his waistband and hid his manhood in a tent of cloth. "I'm ~ so sorry, Rose."

"Well... why's it getting bigger?" Rose looked back for a moment now that it was 'safe' and only flustered herself further by watching it grow. "Can't you make it shrink back down or something?"

"Uh... No, I can't. I don't have any real control over it." The otter spied a gap in his embarrassed friend's towel and started blushing, some additional blood heading to his groin in response. "I... Shit, seeing you like this is making me..."

"Oh dear goddess..." Themis sat up next to his brother with a similar situation, though in his case still exposed. "Sorry! You're just so--"

"Guys... You really do... see me like that?" Tears began to well in the corners of Rose's eyes as an inkling of her own feelings returned to her. "It's fine, boys. If it's because you like me, it's absolutely fine."

Both of the twins perked up in surprise and replied, "Really?"

"I... really like you too. And to be honest, ah... I've been thinking about you the same way." Rose squeezed her thighs together and winced as her needs made themselves well known again. "Maybe too much, actually. But what I'm thinking is probably all one-sided at my level--"

Themis nudged his brother, who then in turn asked, "D-Do you... want to try having... sex?"

"What!?" Rose took a step back, her towel deciding not to make the motion along with her. "Y-You m-mean... like, a-all of us?"

Phoebe muttered out, "Well... we've both been thinking about trying it lately, and every time we do, we..."

"You're so close to us, and when we see you around we just..." Themis pointed to his rock hard cock. "We tried to get this way thinking of others, but it doesn't always work. But with you, we get this perfect little problem ever time."

"Little?" Rose realized she was staring at proof otherwise and forced herself to look the boys in the eyes. "So... you're attracted to me? But I'm not really pretty... or mammalian..."

"And we don't care."

"You're our Rose."

The plant's face flushed lime green. "B-But... I mean, two? My first with two?"

"It's your first time too?" Pho smiled as he unapologetically soaked in a good look at Rose's petite body. "It's ours as well. We can try it out together."

"But you're brothers. Twins. Don't you--?"

"We do everything together already, so why not?" Em smiled with his brother, but unlike his elder he grabbed his camera to make the scene last forever. "We both want to try it, and we both want you... and we also didn't want to try it alone. Now smile for me, Rose."

Rose flinched as the camera shutter clicked. "Don't you dare show those to anyone. I'm serious."

"And so am I." Em clicked a few more pics with a growing grin. "Why don't you smile for once?"

"Because you're filming me nude!" Rose threw the towel back around her waist and sighed. "And because... well, there's a reason you never see Yangurraa smile. That's a Terran convention, anyway."

"Right, not quite the same with three lips and a hundred sharp teeth. I do like it when you do smile though." Themis nodded and put the camera down. "Sorry. I was just trying to save some good memories."

"We can still make more." Phoebe shimmied over in the bed to make room for Rose. "We can still... give that a shot."

"But... I don't know how to." Rose crawled onto the bed between the twins and made sure her hands never touched their crotches. "I told you; it's my first time."

Phoebe turned to his side, his tented erection resting on Rose's thigh. "Well we know a ~little~ bit."

"You stick a penis inside a girl's vagina." Themis emulated his brother, but his raw cock had a bit more impact on the girl in question. "I don't mean to be rude, but you do have something like a vagina... Right?"

"I..."

Chrysanthemum fluttered near Rose's crotch. "Your zen is similar in functionality to a mammal's vagina."

Rose unfolded the towel from her body and grazed the petals between her legs. "This is close enough. I'm not sure one of ~those things~ can fit, though."

Pho joined the party by pulling his pants down and kicking them to the floor. "We've seen it happen to smaller. We don't even have knots, so this should be easier."

"Oh... Okay. That makes me feel better, then." Rose groaned as her need started flaring into her mental processes. "So do I just lay back while you guys take turns? Maybe Emmi can go first since he's younger; he can have a first in his life for once."

"While I won't disagree with your logic there," Themis smiled as he rolled Rose to her side to sandwich between the twins, "we were hoping we could... both try at once?"

"I'm not ~that~ generous, you two." Rose hesitated for a moment, then brought Themis' manhood to her flower. "We'll try with one first, and if that works out... maybe we'll try your way."

Out of pure concern for his twin, Themis hooked his head up to shoot a questioning glance at his brother. "Is that--?"

"Do your thing, Emmi."

Rose nodded as the otter settled down. "I've been ready for a whole damned week. Just... take it slow, please."

"S-Sure." Em rubbed his tip forward and back a few times until he found the point of least resistance, then slowly eased himself inside his friend with a grunt. "Goddess... It's so tight..."

Pho rubbed Rose's back as she hissed from the odd sensations. "Woah, you alright there?"

"Goddess, am I ~ever~." Rose wrapped her exposed leg around Themis' and rocked her hips into a more comfortable position. "You're so hot in me. Wow, and I thought you mammals were warm on the ~outside~."

"So... should I move or something? It felt better when I was going in."

"I think that's the point. Pull out so you can do it again." After a moment of getting used to being penetrated as well as noticing several glances from Themis to his brother, Rose reached a hand backwards to tug on Phoebe's ass. "But why don't you try joining us, Phebes? I'll let you know if it hurts, no doubts there."

"Really? Shit... Thanks, Rosie." Phoebe pressed his tip against the juncture of Rose and his twin's long cock, eventually getting the pressure just high enough to press himself inside. "Oh crap... Goddess, you ~are~ tight."

"Well there's two of you in there, after all." Rose hissed and groaned as both boys worked their long, humanoid cocks as deep as they could manage. "F-Fuck... I'm so... full... Ah!" The plant girl jerked as Themis prodded a little too deeply, crushing her womb. "Wait. Don't go any further. It burns."

"Oh, shit. Sorry, Rosie." Themis remembered that depth, then pulled himself mostly free in a smooth motion. "Damn,that feels great. Ready to give moving a try?"

"Hon, I'm about to explode just thinking about it."

Pho gasped as his brother's head grazed down the far length of his shaft. "Yeah, well let's... give it a shot, I guess."

Themis slowly shoved himself back inside the warm, wet, and surprisingly sharp-ridged crevasses of Rose's orchid. He jerked along with his brother as every notch and ledge pressed against his tip. Phoebe gave it a try next, coming back with similar results Then the two gasped and jerked in unison, only to fall limp in premature delight.

"Goddess... Mm... Hmm? What's wrong?" Rose fluttered her eyes at the sudden lack of motion, shaking her head at the two lifeless boys. "Don't tell me you two are done. Silly otters."

"I believe this is the case." Chryssy sat on Em's shoulder and emulated white oozing from her loins to illustrate her point. "I'm detecting male genetic material, if you care to finish the job yourself."

"Oh, yeah. I guess that works, huh?" Rose giggled as the boys flopped onto their backs in exhaustion. "Don't mind if I do."

Rose greedily crammed her two main fingers deep into her rippling folds, immediately failing to restrain a moan. She ducked those fingers in and out rapidly, but after feeling so full she found the sensation lacking. With a smirk she pulled one of her tendrils down, followed by a second to capture the authenticity of her previous penetration.

"Can I do this, Chryssy?"

The phantom nodded with a smirk. "It won't hurt anything."

Rose fed both of her vines inside herself, then gasped when they unfurled their buds deep inside her. "Chryssy!"

"Just trying to help my poor host." The veile took control so Rose could relax and enjoy the moment. "Do you like it? I can make it better."

"Than this? Fuck, now I remember why I like you."

Rose writhed in place as her own appendages assaulted her warm core. They fanned open and subtly spun in just the right ways to bring her to her limits without actually attaining them. Then the fleshy flowers bloomed fully, locking themselves in place yet allowing their pistils to extend forward. Three wiry tubules tickled the entrance to her womb, and right as they pressed inside Rose bucked in pure, blissful orgasm.

"Oh! Oh goddess!" The plant girl stiffened to a board as her body battled her mind. Then but a few seconds and a hefty spray of her essence on the sheets later Rose sank loosely into the mattress, now reduced to a shivering, shaking mess. "Th-That w-was... am-maz-zing-g-g..."

For the first time in her own life, Chrysanthemum was unable to keep her posture as well. "We should... make use of these boys more often..."

"Yeah, and train them to hold out a little longer." Rose looked to each side and frowned at the flaccid cocks around her. "What? You guys wish I had... breasts or something, don't you? I-Is that it?"

"Rose, I don't think they can hear you..."

"Ah, fuck. You... came inside me, too."

Chryssy walked over an invisible plain and flicked her host between the eyes. "Rose, listen. Something's wrong here."

"Huh?" Rose looked up at the gargantuan otters' faces and noticed they were in distress. Then even stranger still, they were chattering and shaking so fast their faces were a blur. "Oh goddess... Where's a terminal?"

"Do you know what's going on?"

"No, they--" Rose found a data pad and pounced upon it to frantically dial another room as the twins faded into invisibility. "They need a doctor. I think they're having seizures."

---

"Gah!"

"Woah!"

Both Phoebe and Themis shot awake and nearly clean out of their respective patient beds, giving Elliot the scare of his life. "Gods, you two freaked me the fuck out. Calm down..."

"What? We... We ~are~ calm."

Ellie checked Phoebe's electro-cardiograph machine and shook his head in disagreement. "That's not what my very advanced medical tools are telling me. Though... I'm not seeing it either." The light-furred otter placed two fingers on the boy's neck and verified his findings. "Huh. It fits with the data model, but it still doesn't make sense."

Themis confusedly yipped in pain as he tried to stand up, nearly pulling out an intravenous fluid line hooked into his wrist. "Ah!... Wait, what's wrong with us? Please tell me we're not turning out like Carbon."

"No. And please keep your voice down, Em. She's right next door." Ellie wrote down his manual pulse reading and walked over to a chair to check on Rose as she slept in nothing but a towel and her mask. "I have to ask... Did the two of you have sex with Rose? She's got semen seeping out of her. She won't admit anything, but it might help me figure this out."

"We... Uh..."

"I'm sworn to confidentiality, guys. I won't tell anyone without your consent--not even your parents."

Phoebe sighed and came out with the truth. "Yeah. We had sex for the first time."

"The first? Damn, I'd have guessed way more than that with your heritage. I guess a three-way isn't bad though." Ellie smiled as he pulled up a stool and sat between the twins. "So here's what I've got: Your cousins warped you here, so make damn sure you thank them for that later. You were clear as the day you were born and moving... ~quite~ fast. The odd thing though is it seems you just slept. There's no symptoms of stroke or seizure, but I noticed your muscles were repairing themselves. Your blood counts went up too."

"Isn't that normal?" Themis finally found a comfortable position and sat upright in bed. "I mean, we just remember... finishing with sex..."

"Yeah, and now we're just... rested, I guess. Feels like the morning after a good workout."

"And Rose said you three were exercising prior, not even counting the sex. Awesome exercise there too, for reference." Ellie huffed out a breath and continued thinking out loud. "I noticed your glucose levels rapidly dropping so I popped you on some IV fluids. You still look a little dehydrated, too."

Em nodded and licked his dry muzzle. "Yeah, I could drink a gallon of water."

"Which would destroy your kidneys, so don't ever try that." Ellie briefly left the room ad returned with two bottles of water. "Here. Don't force it down."

"Thanks."

Phoebe took his bottle as well and took a few large swigs. "So what happened, then?"

"My readings show the same as any of my normal patients while they sleep. There's a catch though:" Elliot sat down again and threw up his paws in defeat. "I can't confirm anything because it happened too fast. You've gone through a whole night of sleep and then some in just half an hour."

The twins looked to each other for a moment, then instinctively shot their tendrils towards each other for a Link. «Jeeves!»

«Yes, young masters?»

«What the hell happened to us in the last half hour?»

The phantasmal otter in their shared heads took a moment to really crunch the events before answering. «As an outside observer, I saw you each sleeping rather vigorously for that time. My collective data now that we're all Linked conflicts however, saying we just slept for thirteen hours.»

«And how can you see two different things?»

«Well, it's hard to explain. I did warn you about keeping yourselves grounded, however.» The boys glanced at each other before staring blankly at the veile. «Ah, you don't understand that either? Apologies, young masters. It's hard for me to gauge which elements of understanding belong to whom when I'm disconnected from myself.»

Em pressed the point. «Tell us what the fuck you mean, Jeeves.»

«No need for that language, young master.» Jeeves appeared as a miniature in view, sitting down on Ellie's lap. «How should I word this...? Aha. The components that make up your bodies, as well as their atoms, are not firmly bonded as with other matter. When we are together like this in the Link, I can stabilize your sub-atomic matter bonds. When you are alone, I require a part of your subconscious to aid the part of me that remains.»

Pho took point on this one. «So when you keep telling us to make ourselves have a color instead of being clear, that's...?»

«Correct, master Phoebe. Much like thinking about breathing allows you to control the rate and volume, thinking about changing the color of your molecules allows your subconscious to start forming bonds to make it so.» Jeeves hopped off Ellie and grew to life size. «If you don't have firm bonds set, your matter loses grounding with the universal time-gravity-space lattice; you sacrifice one or the other extreme to remain in existence. In other verbiage, you just recently lost synchronization with time to maintain your position in space.»

Both twins nodded as they barely started understanding the concept. «So we moved through time faster than everything around us to not go poof? Then what triggered this?»

«Your... sexual escapade was too strenuous and you both lost the noble battle against exhaustion.» Jeeves gave each of his hosts a calming graze on the chin. «Cheer up, young masters. Now that you know not to overexert yourselves this may all be avoided. I would especially recommend taking ~turns~ with miss Rose, at least so one may watch the other's stability.»

«We can help each other?»

«If either of you cannot maintain his time-gravity-space relationship, establish a Link. I will aid you as much as I can, naturally, but the other brother may also force these matter bonds.»

The twins nodded as they began pulling their tendrils apart. «Thanks, Jeeves.»

"...u're going to try talking to each other about it?" Ellie quirked his head as the twins stared back blankly, the fair-furred otter having significantly sped up to normal perception all the way up from barely getting one word out in minutes. "Why do I feel like the stupid one all of a sudden?"

Pho held up a paw and yawned. "Oh, sorry. This Link thing is still weird to us."

Em yawned at nearly the same time. "Yeah, but it's helpful. I think we found out what's up with us."

"Oh, really? That Jarvis of yours figured it out?"

"Jeeves, aunt Ellie. Jarvis sounds like something from one of miss Olivia's video games or something." Themis smirked and got to the point. "And yeah, he helped us out. We got out of sync with time or something."

"And we can control it by making sure we don't go clear anymore."

"Wait, you were..." Ellie immediately picked up a chart and tapped away. "You were phased out of normal time? That actually... sort of explains it, if only partially. I'll need to run some tests."

"Well now that all that's solved, can you get us out of--"

Rose broke Phoebe's question whilst nearly breaking his ribs with a massive, alien-strength hug. "You're alright! Goddess, thank you!"

"Yeah, we're--"

Rose dittoed her miniature bear hug for Themis as well. "I was so scared! I thought I was going to lose you two!"

"We missed you too, Rose. Now can you watch your hand?" Em nudged his snout towards the IV sticking out his wrist. "I'm up to my neck in aunt Ellie's goodies."

"Uh... speaking of goodies..." Pho pointed to Rose's towel that went discarded and ignored on the floor. "You might want to cover up, hon."

"Oh!" Rose quickly snagged her towel and threw it between herself and Ellie, not much caring anymore if the twins saw her naked. "Sorry, doc."

"I'm used to it. I see a lot of that stuff in here." Ellie nudged his head to the side to try circumventing the towel in a playful manner. "I'm not so sure about your physiology though, Rose. I'm sure Ashe and I would love to give you a paws-on ~examination~ though."

"That's... not funny." Rose wrapped the cloth around her waist, but only noticed after the fact that the twins both had large tents in their beds. "Guys! What are you doing?!"

Phoebe pressed his down with his paws. "We can't control it!"

Themis on the other paw was lifting up his sheets to feel around at the clean, smooth fur where he should have been a matted mess. "Wow. That's some great shampoo, aunt Ellie."

"And conditioner. I thought I'd clean you up while I was at it. I figured your parents would have a fit and probably blame ~me~ if they came running in and found their sons were covered in jizz." Ellie smiled as he walked past Rose to retrieve two pressed suits from a drawer. "I also went to the liberty of using my doctor's credentials to get into your room and grab some clothes. Is this really all you own aside from underwear?"

"They look handsome in those. Shush." Rose snatched the suits and passed them out to the twins herself. "Can you please get them unhooked from all this stuff so they can get dressed?"

"'Thank you, Ellie.' 'How kind of you to think ahead, auntie.' 'Oh, it's so great of you not to alert our parents that we're having secret unprotected sex, doc.'" Ellie shook his head after his mockery and went to work pulling IV lines free and unclasping ECG feeds. "I don't mind if you three want to have sex, by the way. You all seem old enough to make your own decisions. I do have one request though, especially in light of our being stranded in space with limited resources."

Pho rolled his wrist in circles once he was freed of his drip line. "Yeah? We're grateful, so any way we can show it..."

Ellie went over to a drawer in the corner of the room and pulled out a box, entrusting it to Rose rather than the boys. "Wrap up. It's best for you and the ship as a whole if you don't go having space babies. You'll thank me later."

"C-Condoms?" Rose nearly dropped the box as she fidgeted with reading the text around it. "~Large~ condoms? Oh goddess..."

"You haven't seen their father. His ~breaks~ these things."

"What's a condom?"

Elliot nearly laughed at the twins' naivety but gracefully held it back. "By Rose's reaction I assume she'll help you figure it out, but just to be sure... you should have a talk about sex with your parents, boys. In fact, you should specifically ask them to show you how to use one of these--and why, so you don't misuse them. Heed what you will, but you can't say I didn't warn you." He paused to pull two condoms out and placed them in the jacket pockets of their suits for easy access. "I have to look out for my nephews, right? Please trust me on this."

Both of the boys looked at each other, then to Ellie with genuine smiles. "Don't tell them about us and Rose just yet. We'll talk with them, and when things look right we'll come clean about having sex."

"Such good boys. Good good."

"Ah! No!"

All four inhabitants of the patient room looked out to the medical bay common area and the feminine yell that echoed throughout. "It seems my other patient isn't doing too well. If you'll excuse me..."

Ellie left the room hastily and rounded the corner to a different patient room that housed an air tent and furthermore Carbon. "...br... brea...the..."

Sydney sat next to the special bed, for once in her life frozen dead in fear. "N-No... Not like th-this-s..."

Elliot shot over to the various machines keeping the hybrid alive and combed through the numbers. "Shit. Her pulse is rapid and her oxygen and aldehyde contents are too low."

"S-Save her... Please..."

"Trying, sweetheart. I'm trying." The doc grabbed a bottle and jammed a needle into it, then transferred the needle to an IV injector. "This should bring down that pulse, but we'll... What? It's not working this time?" Ellie closed her eyes and tried to think about Carbon's mixed physiology. "Formaldehyde didn't work before, but maybe with a solution inhibitor...?"

"That'll kill her." Rose stepped into the room with the twins not far behind wearing just their pants. "Do you have any organic coagulants that work with antibiotics?"

"Thicken the blood without killing those foreign bodies... What the hell can do that though...?"

Themis stepped forward and inspected the sealed air bag around the hybrid for some form of access port. "Why don't we ask?"

"Yeah, Rose can probably Link with Carbon. She's got a lot of experience with that."

"But she'll suffocate." Ellie pointed to the bomb of methane that was hooked up to the bag around Carbon's bed. "She's already on the edge of asphyxia. We can't open the air curtain."

"But... I have ~my~ mask." Rose pulled off her alien-tech gas mask and placed it in Ellie's paws. "I can go a few minutes like this, but it isn't safe to Link. Please, guys... try it for me."

"Yeah. She's... She's dying. We don't have any other choice." Ellie opened the plastic cage around Carbon and slid the mask into place. "Boys, find out what's causing this. It looks like sepsis, but there's no clear infecting agents. See what's going on, please." He took a step back and averted his eyes from Cid's. "And... she's immune to painkillers. If she can't make it... try to make her passing easier for her."

"No!"

Phoebe forced himself to ignore Sydney as he reached into the cage with his brother. "Y-Yeah... We'll do our best."

«Young masters? What may I--?» Jeeves quirked his head to the side at the sensation of another being in their Link. Who is this? You never let me Link with others, young masters.»

Em nudged his snout to Carbon's limp body. «This is Carbon and she's in real trouble. We need to figure our what's wrong with her.»

Pho brought up the relevant details as well. «Aunt Ellie says she's got sepsis--whatever that means--but it's different somehow.»

«Ah, that explains the weak signal I assume. Wait...» Jeeves sat down on the edge of the bed, wrought with defeat and sorrow. «Carbon's... her veile is dead? No Yangurra survives childhood without a veile, but she's over a hundred years old. That makes little sense.»

«Jeeves, that's not the point! We need to know how to fix her!»

«Apologies, masters, but that is exactly the issue at paw. If I were to self-terminate, you would suffer the same fate.» Jeeves disappeared for a moment, then reappeared atop Carbon's small bosom. «Your cells would not regenerate. Your blood would not clean itself. Your memory would deteriorate. Worst of all, the remnants of myself that make up your blood would trigger painful immune responses as the remainder of your body fought to remove me. But I'm a key part of your blood, so that can never happen without... killing you.» Jeeves laid down on Carbon's chest, rising and falling with her rapid, labored breaths. «It's a miracle she held out this long. I'm sorry, young masters... but she will die. She already has an infection in her due an open sore. It's spread too far and triggered too much of her immune system.»

Phoebe slowly nodded and swallowed hard. «Then... we should let her go peacefully.»

«I agree. That's wise and kind of you, master Phoebe.» Jeeves flipped over and placed both his paws on Carbon's chest. «I can dull her nerves and stop her heart. If you don't have any objections, I'll do that right--»

«No! I love aunt Carbon!» Themis reached out to stop Jeeves and ended up grabbing Carbon's black charm instead of the incorporeal being. «You haven't looked hard enough! There's--!»

«Wait, what's that? Who's that?» Phoebe reached out and touched the pendant his brother was holding. «Why do I feel someone different?»

«Young masters, what did you do? I feel... a veile?»

«I just grabbed this thing.» Themis pulled the pendant into view and tried to make sense of it with his slightly-extended vision. «It seriously hurts my eyes, whatever it is.»

«Yeah, but it's not a veile. It's a stone or something.»

«No, I feel a veile... the one that matches the pattern inside Carbon.» Jeeves looked at the unnaturally warm, black stone and then to Carbon's tendrils. «Young masters, you need to get this stone into one of miss Carbon's queoo. Hurry, please.»

Phoebe took the pendant from Carbon's neck and slow motion matched up with his brother's grabbing of a vine. «Alright, what now?»

«One moment. I may go away for a bit, and it may sting when I'm gone and your pain receptors awaken.»

Themis grimaced at the phantom as he faded away. «What? Ah... Ouch! It burns!»

«Just take it, bro. Ah, fuck... it does burn though.»

«Apologies. I believe that should have done the trick.»

«Carbon's still not doing well though.» Pho ever so slowly leaned in for a better look at the plant-otter mix, finding her pained expression no better through the mask. «How do we know if it's working? Will she--?»

A soft, silent voice whispered into the twins' heads. «H-Hello...?»

«Holy crap. It did work.» Em watched as the ultraviolet glow around the crystal faded away, then joined his brother in watching Carbon's face. «Eve? Is that you?»

«Eve? You mean... Wait, 'Evelyn'? Y-Yeah, that name is familiar, isn't it?»

«You're not... her? Well... whoever you are, we need your help. Your host is seriously sick. She's--»

«Dying... I've seen glimpses of her here and there, but Fibre... doesn't recognize me anymore. She can't hear me.»

Jeeves disappeared as he focused on his work. «You weren't whole, madam. I personally can attest to such a state and its... inconveniences.»

«That isn't important now.» Pho clasped Carbon's paw and said a small prayer. «Please don't let her die. There's got to be something you can do now that you're whole again.»

«I'm too weak like this. Maybe...» A flicker of a face appeared before the boys, but only for a fraction of a millisecond. «It's this connection, our... Link. Please, leave us alone and I'll do my best. Trust me.»

Themis sighed and let go of Carbon. «That's all we really can do.»

«...Good luck.»

The unknown veile sent out a wave of pleasant sensations. «Thank you.»

Phoebe released his own grip on Carbon and let out a long, shuddering breath. "Please... Please don't die..."

Em reached for his brother's paw and clamped down tightly. "Yeah, don't leave us, Carbon."

The ECG machine suddenly set a perfect rhythm, the hybrid's heart leveling out. The blood pressure and oxygen readings improved by a small margin as well. "Whoa. Boys... what did you do? It's like I'm witnessing a miracle."

Phoebe looked down at the air tent and fumbled with the access zipper while Themis reclaimed Rose's mask for her. "There was some kind of infection and it went out of control."

Themis had an idea of where to start looking, easily finding Carbon's unhealed bullet wound from when Sydney accidentally shot her hiding beneath a gauze patch. "This. Whatever happened to her here, it got infected and triggered all of this sooner."

"She would have still died, just this made it happen faster." Phoebe finished zipping up the air unit and switched it back into action. "Without a veile she was doomed."

Sydney looked terrified as she stared at Carbon. "This... wasn't just because of Eve? _ I did this_?"

Rose affixed her mask and then gave Sydney a hearty hug. "No, they're saying she can't live without Eve. And even if they fixed the damage, it'll only come back without her."

Elliot checked the hybrid's vitals, noting a very slow upturn in her progress. "At least they bought her some more time. Sadly Eve's gone, though."

"No, that's not entirely true." Phoebe slumped into a nearby seat, mentally exhausted from all he'd just been through in the last hour. "At least, I hope it's not true."

Themis joined his twin closing his eyes as he rested his head on Pho's shoulder. "Yeah. We think we found her, or a part of her."

"You found..." Cid nearly threw Rose off her as she stood to confirm that news. "Where? No, who? Who did you find?"

Phoebe started talking, but both brothers recited the exact same words as they started falling asleep in each other's arms. "Inside that crystal Carbon's carrying... We think we found Eve."

---

"Wake up, sleepyhead. Don't keep me waiting any longer."

Carbon shot her eyes open at the familiar voice, gasping as she found Sydney looming over her encased patient bed. "Cid? Shit, I thought you were... Oh, never mind."

"Gods, you damned otter." The meerkat placed her paws on the sides of the air tent encasing Carbon. "You scared me, Carbon. You... You fucking scared me there."

Carbon lifted her paw and matched it against one of Sydney's. "I'm... sorry. I love you, meerkitten."

"I love you so fucking much, even if you just about left me and Fleur alone with a kid on the way." Cid heaved a huge sigh of relief and slouched into her chair beside the bed. "You need to thank Zoe's boys. You'd be dead this time yesterday if not for them."

"They helped me?" Carbon sat up as high as she could manage with the plastic cage in the way, then gave nearly every muscle in her body a good stretch. "I feel... amazing. Fuck, whatever they did deserves a Nobel prize. Their first cars are whatever they want, on the house."

"Actually, you might want to go a step higher than that." Sydney rolled her head to the stare at Carbon as she reclined back. "They did more than repair whatever was wrong. They gave you the greatest gift you'll ever get in your whole, long life."

"What? I'm alive. That's pretty much the best gift you can get."

"Yeah, unless now there's ~two~ people back from the brink." Sydney's exhausted visage briefly displayed a hint of jealousy as she admitted the next part. "It has something to do with that rock around your neck, but... Carbon, they think they brought back Eve."

"No... No way..." Carbon fidgeted all over looking for her pendant, eventually finding it lodged inside one of her tendril buds. "I felt her die. It... hurt worse than death."

"Hey, I don't know what happened. I barely understand what was even wrong with you." Cid silenced herself after barely eking out that hard lie, forcing her eyes away from the bullet wound she'd inflicted. "I'll do whatever I can to make it right. To uh... make you feel better, I mean."

"...Yeah..." Carbon stared at the black crystal, entranced by the way every single bit of her visual gamut came back blank where it rested. "This looks different. It changed. Hell... I can pick up something through my queii now."

"Yeah, she's probably in there now, silently doing her thing. Oh, right." Sydney sat upright and turned her chair to face Carbon. "The twins said you need to keep that in contact with you, the same way we connect and all, or you'll go back to dying. Please don't forget that."

"So that feeling I'm getting... Yeah, it sort of feels like a Link." Carbon placed the stone back inside her tendril's flower and rolled the whole vine into a spiral for safekeeping. "We'll figure it all out. We'll restore you back to your old self, Evelyn. I promise that."

"As long as you don't die on her, I'm sure it'll be fine." Sydney spun her chair around to look out a small window and the stars beyond rather than the mess left of her two lovers. "Oh... Yeah, that's right. We should be close now."

"How long was I in here?" Carbon fumbled with the seals, eventually freeing herself from her plastic prison. "I remember you dragging me here against my will, though now I'm looking pretty stupid for that I guess."

"That was six days ago. And yes, you're a dumb otter when you don't have Eve to heal you."

"Oh, so we've made all twenty-two dives? What's the sitrep?"

Sydney helped Carbon out of her air tent, but refused to let her out of bed. "I think we have one more. And actually..." She walked over to the window and smiled at the sight of a large planet akin to Neptune just ahead and to starboard. "Yeah, we're in that new solar system now. Big ass planet right outside."

"That'd be the LG448 system, actually. The Solar system is only the one we're from." Carbon giggled as her love's face soured from the scientific correction. "But that's probably wrong too. The locals have likely named this star as well, and that's what you call the rest of the system. You know why?"

"Because the star's like the king of the castle? I dunno."

"No..." Carbon threw her arms around Sydney and locked lips for a tender kiss. "It's because the warmest, brightest light is in its heart."

Sydney smirked and returned the kiss with a bit more passion. "You're a silly romantic, otter."

"And you're the light of ~my~ heart." Carbon laid back and pulled her love down with a tendril so they locked lips a bit more passionately. "So why don't you warm me up, kitten?"

Sydney's only response was to climb onto the bed and straddle her mate as they celebrated their new lease on a shared life.