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"Wuh... Caure? What are you doing here?" Dain asked, muzzily wiping the sleep from his eyes and half-wondering if the girl standing above him was simply part of some weird dream. He was reasonably convinced otherwise when she reached down and shook him by the shoulders.

"C'mon, sleepyhead! Time to get up!"

"Okay, okay... but seriously, how did you get in here?"

"Your mom let me in, of course! C'mon, get up, get up!"

Dain sat up in bed, still trying to wake himself up. "Okay, um... why are you here, then?"

"Oh, that's easy! I'm all done with my heat now, so of course the first thing I did was come over and see you. What, did you think I wouldn't? Especially after how we left it..."

Caure smirked for a moment, and Dain felt a chill shiver down his spine when he remembered what Caure was referring to.

"Speaking of which," she said mischievously, reaching down for the covers before Dain realized what she was doing. She flung them back dramatically, revealing, unsurprisingly, the bottom part of Dain's pajamas.

"Aww... I was hoping you slept more interestingly. Well, we can fix that, can't we?" Caure reached for the waistband of the pajama bottoms, but Dain was quick enough this time to grab them himself. Their hands played a miniature tug of war for a moment until Caure gave up.

"Caure, please, I just got up!" Dain replied, a tinge of annoyance ringing clearly in his voice as he hiked the pajamas back up on his waist.

"You know, you're no fun at all sometimes," Caure said, but relented long enough for Dain to get out of bed without any further molestation.

"Anyway, you should get dressed and ready, so we can get going," she continued as Dain rubbed away the last vestiges of sleep.

"Going? Going where?"

"Where do you think, Dain? The workshop! You can't possibly have forgotten, right?"

"Um..."

"Think about it! Tomorrow's when all that school stuff starts up, and who knows how long that'll take? Today's our last day at the workshop, so we need to make the most of it. Surely, you of all people should know that..."

In truth, amidst everything else that had been going on, Dain hadn't been paying that close of attention to when school would actually begin, although he hadn't thought it would be quite so soon. If Caure was right, though, it might be the last chance to really work on things for a while, and to see everyone he was used to all in the same place - while they might still be together during classes, Dain had no idea if that would actually be the case.

"Okay, I see your point. Just give me a sec to get going." Dain pulled out some clothing quickly, tossed it onto his bed, and started to take off his pajamas. He'd just kicked aside the pajama bottoms, and had the tops partway over his head, when he realized that he had just voluntarily given Caure the view she had been clamoring for only a few moments ago.

"Um, Caure, maybe you should, you know turn around while I'm..." Dain trailed off as he pulled the pajamas over his head, knowing his words were too late as he noticed Caure staring intently at him.

"Dain, we've already seen each other way more than naked, so being modest now doesn't make any sense." Dain noticed that her eyes didn't seem to be looking anywhere near his face as she spoke. "Ooh, nice shorts!" came next, nearly simultaneous with Dain's realization that he hadn't changed out of the underwear he'd tried on the previous night.

"Heh, they look good on you, better than those other... wait a sec..." Caure leaned in closer. "Dain, aren't those girls' underwear? And those clothes on the bed..."

Dain could feel his face flushing again - an effect that Caure often seemed to have on him, he realized. That, and a stammer in his speech that was at least less prevalent with everyone else.

"Um, well, Caure... you remember that I'm, y'know, kind of a girl too, right? I was in heat only a week ago..."

"Yes, but you're obviously not a girl right now. Although..." She scrutinized Dain again. "Now that I really look at you, for a boy, you're honestly pretty girly. You looked a lot manlier when you were over at my house a few days ago, although, then again, so did everyone else I was, um, mating with... That doesn't explain why you're wearing entirely girls' clothes now, though."

"Well... like you said, I'm, uh... I mean, when I switch over, there are some things that change and some that don't, I guess, and, uh, the hips and stuff kinda stay the same. Well, the same with each form, I mean, they're kinda changing overall, and this, um, just fits better now..."

"Oh, I think I see," Caure replied, bending down to place her face roughly level with Dain's crotch, and making him feel even more flustered and nervous. "Hmm, I guess that would make sense. It's still kinda... unusual, I guess, but I have to say there's a part of me that kinda likes the girlier you better. And speaking of that..." Caure got back up, and Dain gulped as he realized what she was about to ask.

"So, we're alone in here, and I'm not in heat any more, you're not... however you were before, so... can you show me? Please?"

"Um, well, Caure, I mean-"

"Aw, c'mon! You promised, right?" Dain couldn't honestly remember if he had or hadn't, but it probably didn't matter anyway.

"Er-"

Caure's mood quickly shifted again as Dain hesitated, and he could see a hint of anger flash in her eyes. "Seriously, Dain, why not? Why not?"

Dain gulped again, trying to decide what to do. Caure was between him and the door, and he knew that there was no lie or excuse that would get her to back down. Which meant that, really, there was only one thing he could do. So Dain shrugged, sighed, sat back down on the bed, and told Caure the truth.

"The reason I can't do it is because, well... I can't."

"You can't?" Caure looked incredulous. "What do you mean? I know you can shift, I saw it!"

"Yeah, I can shift, but it's not... I don't really control it, all right? Sometimes my body decides to be a boy, sometimes a girl, and it just happens. Sometimes it happens when I sleep and wake up, sometimes just when I'm walking around or doing some random thing. When I'm in heat, I can't be male, and when I'm, uh, with someone in heat, I can't be female, but otherwise my body just... it decides what form it wants to be in, and I can't control it. Sometimes I can try, and concentrate really hard, and maybe if I'm lucky or something I'll shift, but not usually. That's why I wear stuff that, well, works decently enough either way, 'cuz I might change at any time and it's not really under my control. All right?"

Dain realized that his outburst had a harder edge than he'd intended, but Caure hardly seemed more infuriated by it - in fact, she looked more guilty and embarrassed, an expression that Dain realized could be found on her only rarely.

"Oh," was all she said for a moment, her eyes quickly darting down to her own feet, her ears flattening back instinctively. "I'm sorry. I didn't know," she said flatly. For a moment, it looked like all of the enthusiasm from earlier had drained out of her. Her eyes darted back up quickly, though, and she looked back up at Dain expectantly. "You, um... you said you could try, though, right?"

"Yeah, I guess..."

"Please?" Caure looked so chastened, so unlike her usual self, that Dain couldn't find it in him to refuse.

"Okay, I'll try." Dain closed his eyes, leaning back on the bed, and tried to concentrate on the same thoughts and feelings that he had in the doctor's office. At the same time, though, even with his eyes closed, he couldn't get Caure's presence out of his head. The thought of her watching, of her curious gaze poring over his body, was a distraction that he was unable to shake. Unsurprisingly, after several minutes of concentrating, and even straining various parts of his body to see if anything else might work, he opened his eyes to find himself unsurprisingly unchanged.

"Sorry," he said, and oddly enough, Caure didn't seem disappointed.

"Don't worry about it. I could see that you were really trying, and I guess... I guess that's enough for now. This isn't the end of it, though. If you're a shifter, you should totally be able to control it, and even if you can't figure it out, I'll keep thinking until I find a way for you to do it anyway."

She looked at Dain again, her expression mostly back to normal. "So, what are you waiting for? Get dressed, and let's get going already!"

Dain stood up and pulled on the clothing he'd laid out, not entirely surprised that Caure was able to switch gears so quickly. Hopefully, though, by the time the... ninety-two days were up, Caure might have forgotten about the other promises she had made. Of course, Dain also realized that the printouts with all the details of his heat were still lying on top of his desk, in plain view... although if Caure had taken any notice of them, she hadn't mentioned it.

As soon as Dain was dressed, Caure grabbed him by the hand and practically pulled him out of his room and down the stairs. It was a jarring way to get moving, but it least it prevented Caure from making any more comments about his clothing. Eloa was there to meet them by the kitchen doorway, and although Caure tried to drag Dain around her, Eloa skillfully blocked her progress and herded the both of them towards the dining table. "I know you two want to finish up your sculptures and things, but no one's going anywhere without a good meal in them."

Caure started to protest, but Eloa would have none of it. Dain wondered how far Caure was going to take it, but luckily she soon desisted and dug into her bowl of flakes and ground meat, albeit with something less than the enthusiasm that Dain was used to seeing. Nonetheless, Caure still managed to finish before he did, and before he could set the spoon down after shoveling the last bite into his mouth, Caure was already tugging his other arm towards the door.

They were quickly on their way, Dain managing to match Caure's eager pace, although no matter how much he wiggled his wrist around, Caure kept a firm hold on it. After a while, he somehow managed to yank his arm free, but all that accomplished was to garner a dirty look from her - a look that quickly turned into a slightly twisted smile, accompanied by a hand grasping for him again. This time, though, Caure managed to grab his hand proper. Before he could even attempt to shake her loose, she managed to interlock her fingers with his own, pressing the warm pads on her palm close in against his. Dain started to struggle against this new intrusion, but her current grip actually felt kind of... nice. He stopped resisting and lowered his arm back down to his side, and for the rest of their journey, they walked along hand in hand. Of course, Dain also walked the rest of the way with a newly flushed face... and the realization that the tightness of his new pants made his other involuntary reaction considerably more obvious. With his free hand, Dain worked to surreptitiously untuck his shirt, and luckily it was long enough to cover up just about anything that might be visible in front.

Almost before Dain could realize it, they were at the workshop. There were about a dozen other kids still inside, most of them frantically trying to put the finishing touches on their projects so that they could fire them in the kiln and have them ready by that evening. As the two of them entered, though, first one pair of eyes darted over to look at them, and soon another, and another. While Dain's front was mostly hidden, their intertwined hands were not, and Caure showed no indication that she was going to let go anytime soon.

"Um, Caure, a lot of people are kinda staring at us. Is it... it's not my clothes, right?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Caure replied. "Everyone knows you went through heat by now, so you wearing girls' clothing is about as surprising as not at all."

"So it's... about our hands, then?"

"Well..." Caure drew out the word, and Dain looked over to see a slightly guilty smirk on Caure's face. "You probably don't know about it because no one really told you anything about heat, but... holding hands like this with someone usually indicates that they were the person you most favored during your heat."

"U-Usually?"

"Yeah, especially since my heat just ended. Although, if you want to be completely unambiguous about it..." Caure moved in closer to his side, and a moment later Dain felt her tail brush against his, almost as though she were trying to get them to curl around each other. The motion was surprising and unexpectedly intimate, and if Dain wasn't blushing heavily before, he was now.

"I know it's kinda... selfish of me, but I just want everyone to know how special it was with you."

Of course, Dain realized a moment later, that the reason people were staring wasn't because of Caure's action... but what it meant. "Um, Caure, what you said earlier... everyone thinks I'm a girl, right? But what you're doing..."

Caure went silent as she realized what he meant, and it was her turn to blush beneath her fur. "Oh... riiight..." She pulled away from him, her hand and tail quickly releasing, and Dain looked up to realize that most of the other kids had by now looked away. However, a few, mostly boys, still looked on in confusion, and before Dain and Caure could go their separate ways, Teiya came running up and jumped between them. He looked somewhat concerned - and very, very confused.

"Dain, you... you're a girl, right? I mean, you have to be, we, we were, you know, but... You and Caure, I-" he trailed off, and Dain realized that he was looking down, at the shirt that did something to cover up his crotch... but apparently not enough. "You... are a girl? But before you were like a boy, and I mean, you have to be... one or the other, right?"

Caure poked her head between the two of them, apparently bent on resolving the issue - although at this point, there was really only one way to do so.

"Well, I-" Dain began, but Caure cut him off.

"Nope. Dain's better - he's both!"

"Huh?" Teiya looked even more confused. "But I was with her - him - I mean, and I know there wasn't any, like, male stuff down there..."

"Oh, Dain's not both at once! He's a guy when he needs to be, and a girl when... ah, she need to be, and... actually, Dain, how about you explain it?"

Dain sighed. There was nothing to be done about it now, he supposed. It wasn't much of a secret, anyway, and after his various experiences with heat it was bound to come out sooner or later, probably sooner. Still, how could he really explain something he hardly even understood himself?

"Well, uh... yeah. Basically, sometimes my body just... shifts between one and the other. When I, uh, when I'm in heat, I mean, I'm always a girl, because I have to be, and when I'm with a girl, then I guess I'm a guy and stuff, and, um..." Apparently, Dain realized, he wasn't really any better at explaining it properly. How were you supposed to explain something that just... happened?

Dain trailed off uncomfortably as Teiya just sort of stared at him. Obviously, the confusion was only intensifying.

"You're... I... how?" Teiya glanced down at his own crotch, as though he was afraid his own sheath might suddenly vanish beneath his pants. "It's not, uh, contagious, is it?"

"Huh? No, it's not like it can spread or something, it's just... it's just me, just how I am. It doesn't change anyone else." At least, as far as he knew. "How it works, well... I don't know. It just kinda happens."

"So you can like... choose which one to be? You just wake up in the morning and decide that you want to be a girl or something?"

"No, it's not... it just... happens. Sometimes I'm just one or the other, and I just... I mean, I'm the same person, all it means outside of heat is that I have to use the bathroom differently sometimes."

Teiya was beginning to look slightly less befuddled. "Oh, okay, I think I get it now. It's just how you are, and you've gotta deal with it, just like anyone else has to deal with their own stuff. Only I guess you have to deal with more of it." He paused, though, looking slightly concerned again as he asked the next question. "Growing up, though, I mean, were you... one or the other?"

"Um, well, I guess I... I thought I was a boy, but I guess the, uh, girl parts were there too, inside or something, they just didn't show up right away. I, uh... I don't know anymore, really. The doctors and the government seem to think that I'm technically a girl, and..." Dain paused, quickly shaking his head before looking back at Teiya. "If you think you're confused, believe me when I say that I'm way, way more confused."

Teiya nodded, halfway suppressing a laugh at Dain's statement. "Yeah, no kidding... but it's still pretty weird, though. I can't even imagine... I mean, yeah, how do you figure that out? Do you just, normally, feel more like a guy, or a girl, or..."

Dain didn't have a good answer for that, either. He'd thought he was a boy, but then he'd definitely been a girl, which hadn't really felt any different - until it had, in a wild but ultimately incredible way. As to what he felt like normally, though, after everything Dain had gone through... did it even make sense to differentiate any more? "Um... most of the time, whichever way things are, uh, configured, I still just feel like me."

Teiya looked a little surprised at the answer. "You really don't feel different? I mean, it's like, I'm a guy, that's who I am, so it would be weird to be something else, to suddenly be a girl or something. But if you're both, then maybe it'd be strange to be only one or the other all the time. I... wow. The more I think about it, the stranger it is, but still, being able to do that, it's also kinda cool." He paused, looking a little chagrined. "Sorry about getting all weird about it, it's just that when we were together, you were so very, very... er, actually, do you mind if I just think of you as a girl? I know it's not as simple as that, but it just... helps me make more sense of things."

"Um... I guess? I'm not sure it really matters..." In fact, at the moment, the main thing that mattered to Dain was finding away to extricate himself from a conversation he didn't really want to be having.

"Okay, I'll, uh... yeah. I guess it doesn't really..." Teiya trailed off, but just as Dain was almost ready to turn away, he spoke up again. "Oh, and, uh, in terms of heat, if you might, you know, when you're choosing people for the next one... I'd really really like it and be honored and stuff if you'd consider me again..." Teiya's ears tucked back in pleading deference, but his tensely swishing tail betrayed his hope and anticipation. After their somewhat uncomfortable and confusing conversation, Dain wasn't sure quite how he wanted to answer, although just the thought of it caused him to quickly flash on how they had been together that first time - and even that momentary recollection was enough to send a shiver of anticipation shimmering down his spine. Before he could respond, though, Caure, who had been remarkably silent as she raptly watched their conversation, popped her head back in between them while wrapping her arms possessively around Dain's neck.

"Oh, that's so cute!" Teiya cringed slightly at that. "Hey, Dain, if you do say yes, you should totally let me be there too - I bet the two of you look awesomely cute together, although the way you stammer on between the two of you, I can only imagine how long it would take for you to do something interesting..." Dain saw Caure's head shift out of the corner of his eye as she turned to look squarely at Teiya. "Just so you know, though - while you should totally be together when Dain's a girl in heat, once he's a boy again, he's all mine."

"Um, Caure..." Dain began, but couldn't figure out where to go from there. The situation was getting worse by the moment, and Caure's antics weren't helping. She couldn't be... jealous, could she? Would that even make sense? Caure was a girl, and Teiya was a boy, so it wasn't like there could even be direct competition between them in terms of heat. Something else, then? Whatever else it could be, Dain didn't even want to speculate - thinking about Caure's spoken and unspoken desires would just make it worse. As it was, Dain could almost feel his cheeks burning, and Teiya had managed to unconsciously flip his tail around his side and was nervously fidgeting with the tip.

"Um, I wouldn't, I..." Teiya stammered, his head tilted down and his eyes gazing at Dain's feet, apparently unable to meet Caure's gaze. For Caure, apparently, this wasn't good enough, as she unhooked an arm from around Dain to take hold of the base of Teiya's muzzle and brought it back up, forcing him to look at the both of them. Dain could feel Caure moving around more to his side, and she brought her face close enough to his that he could feel their fur brushing together.

"Teiya, look at it this way- no, look at me, not over there. Just focus for a second. You get me?"

Teiya nodded, somehow keeping his eyes on the both of them, even as his tail tip flicked back and forth nervously in his hands.

"I didn't mean for you to take what I said as a threat or something, okay? I know that the two of you had a... special time together, and Dain and I had one too. But really, look at it this way: we find a way to get along all together, you play your cards right, and maybe we both invite you. Maybe, in fact, if you're really lucky, we'll both invite you at once." Caure tightened her grip around Dain's neck, not enough to hurt, but enough to pull their faces in cheek to cheek. "Just imagine how fun it would be with the both of us, together..."

Teiya gulped visibly, and managed to blush sufficiently brilliantly that a hint of it somehow actually bled through, almost seeming to tint the base of his fur. He managed to stutter a few nonsense syllables, then gulped again and hastily tugged his squirming tail downward - probably to block the obvious male reaction. Dain didn't say anything at all, although his nerves were hovering somewhere between anger and extreme embarrassment.

"Uhh, um... Ihavetodosomesculptingseeyalater!" Teiya's head ducked as he turned and ran off, his ears canted back against his head in confusion. Dain couldn't blame him - under normal circumstances, if he had been faced with a similar proposition while mentally unprepared, Dain imagined he might have passed out on the spot. In fact, if he were just a normal boy, the way Caure was hanging off of him would already be inspiring a rather direct response. Instead, there was just a gentle twitch between Dain's legs, and she realized that her body had switched over to female again somewhere in the midst of the awkward conversation. Sure enough, a quick tug on her shirt revealed the front of her pants stretched flat against her abdomen, without even the slightest hint of a bulge.

Caure had apparently followed Dain's quick check. "Oh, you're a girl again? Hmm, I wonder if seeing Teiya had anything to do with it..."

"Um, I don't think so... Like I said, it just happens when it happens, and I've been around Teiya plenty since then and not changed. Er, beyond that, though, maybe you could... let go of me? Whatever you wanted to tell Teiya, he's gone now, and people are gonna stare if you keep it up..."

"You think so? I don't see why they should. After all, girls give each other hugs all the time and no one thinks anything of it. In fact, given how most of the people in this room have already been through heat, something like this, no matter who it's between, probably isn't even all that interesting any more."

"But..." Dain trailed off as he looked around, and realized that Caure was right - despite the fact that she was practically wrapped around Dain from the waist up, no one else was really paying attention. The girls, in fact, didn't seem to be taking any notice at all, and aside from a couple of boys whose expression seemed to indicate they'd rather see Dain and Caure hugging them instead of each other, no one seemed particularly shocked either way. Aside from Teiya, who now knew the confusing truth, no one else seemed to have overheard them - and given what they knew about Dain's heat, and Caure's penchant for occasionally weirdness, they seemed to have concluded that Dain had been a girl all along, and that Caure was just being Caure.

"Huh, you're right..." In fact, Dain recalled, there had been an uptick in people being closer than they usually were when she'd returned to the workshop after her heat. Although, that being said, given the generally female audience, more attention had been garnered on the rarer occasions when it had been a guy and a girl participating in the closeness. "...So, do you think they all just see me as a girl, then?"

Caure giggled, which was unusual enough coming from her. "Oh, I'm sure they do for now, but I bet they'll figure it out in not too long anyway."

"Really? You mean, because of... how I attended your heat?"

"No, silly! Unless there's a conflict, people usually don't know who else invited someone to their heat. No, it's the fact that when you log into the system, you know, the one for doing heat, your name comes up as someone to coordinate with... and also someone they can invite."

"Oh..." Since she'd been locked out of the system, Dain hadn't even considered a situation like that, but realized it made sense. Still, once people really began to find out, how was she going to deal with it? The one conversation she'd had so far had been awkward enough - she didn't want to go through something similar with everyone she knew.

"Well, it was until a couple of days ago, anyway. I searched for you after my heat was up, just for fun, but every time I search it does something weird. It doesn't find you, but it doesn't say that you're not found - the screen just does this weird little glitchy thing and goes back to the main menu. It doesn't happen with anyone else I tried, just you."

"Hmm, maybe it has something to do with why it won't let me log in at all..."

"Oh, you can't even get in? Weird. I've never seen that happen, but maybe it's because you're such a special case they have to program it differently just for you or something."

"I guess..." Dain reached up and gently tugged on Caure's arms, but she wasn't budging. "You know, when people call it a face-to-face conversation, I don't think they mean it quite like this..."

The way their faces were pressed together, he could almost feel her twitch in annoyance at his quip. "Dain, you couldn't shift when I wanted you to this morning, and controlled or not, you shifted right in front of me and I didn't get to see anything at all. The least you can do is give me a hug - and like I said before, since we're both girls right now, there shouldn't be an issue at all."

Dain sighed quietly, knowing that the quickest way to be free of Caure's stubborn embrace would be to return it. She twisted her body around in Caure's arms so that they were more properly face to face, hugging her around the shoulders. Caure, in return, squeezed closer, which only made Dain keenly aware of Caure's breasts pressing up against her own nonexistent ones.

Interestingly enough, despite their closeness, she realized that in her female form, she felt similarly about Caure as Dain had felt about the other boys upon returning to his male form. While the embrace was close and warm, it didn't come with any overt arousal - instead, it really was just a nice, close hug between two friends. Caure, to Dain's surprise, seemed to be making a similar adjustment within the embrace, doing nothing more overt than just cuddling up against her. For a few minutes, they just enjoyed each other's presence, and somehow it was just right. It was Caure, actually, who released her embrace first, planting a gentle peck on the tip of Dain's muzzle before pulling back.

"See? That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"It was nice, yeah..."

"Great! We'll have to do more of that some other time, but now... now, it's time to make things!" Stepping back, Caure hastily brushed down the fur on her forearms, then reached over to a nearby table to grab a pair of thick leather kiln gloves. "Since school's starting up, if you've got anything you want to finish, you'd better do it today. I just have a few finishing touches on some projects, and I wanna get them firing before lunchtime. And yes, that includes a little surprise for you, too!"

Caure walked off, hum-growling happily, while Dain stood there for a few moments and tried to compose herself before getting back to her own work. Somehow, in the past few minutes, she'd managed to run through a dozen different emotions spanning two different genders, and the craziest part of all was just how unsettlingly normal that sort of thing was becoming. Dain couldn't help but wonder if her whole existence was simply going to be one long exercise in confusion... unless, somehow, she could find a way to sort everything out, both for her and for everyone else. How, though? If Teiya was any indication, simply trying to explain her condition to others was going to be an uphill battle - it just wasn't what anyone would normally expect, and even Dain had a hard time trying to think of himself, or herself, as going beyond just being one or the other. After all, boys and girls had been clearly delineated growing up, and each had their own explicit or implicit roles and behaviors. With boys, you could be more blunt and direct; with girls, though, there were always subtleties to take into account. With those kinds of behaviors ingrained into how you interacted with others, trying to interact with someone who could be either at any time... Dain could see how it could be confusing. Knowing what the problem was was different from solving it, though. Getting across to people that it didn't make a difference how they acted was probably the best way, but with Teiya at least, Dain wasn't quite sure if that message had actually sunk in. In an odd way, Dain realized, she was actually kind of thankful for Caure's presence - despite her sometimes unusual behavior, she was the one person who seemed to think that Dain's condition was intriguing rather than just confusing, and treated her in the same uniquely Caure way whatever gender she was.

Dain looked around, taking in the increasingly frantic activity as the other kids rushed around in the workshop, trying to complete their projects by the end of the day. Dain knew that her own project, a series of busts depicting the city's most important leaders throughout history, was now unexpectedly behind schedule - she had already been running a little behind, favoring meticulousness over speed, even before the unexpected trial heat had derailed things even further. Trying to finish and fire them all in a single day would be an exercise in futility, but maybe she could finish one... at least, she thought, she had the most memorable founders and the most recent officials, and the ones in the era spanning the cataclysm were generally less recognizable anyway, in large part because the image sources for them were much more limited. Having gaps, though, would mean that she couldn't present them as a complete set to city leaders, as the adults who ran the workshop had encouraged her to do. Maybe, though, she could finish the rest in between classes once she got used to the pace of the "proper" schooling - without knowing how they worked yet, though, she couldn't say for sure. Still, better to leave them incomplete for now than try to do a rush job and submit a piece that she wouldn't be proud to have on display. Of course, whether they would be displayed was another matter, as she was certainly too young to have an official designation as a career sculptor (and for that matter hadn't even asked anyone about it yet), but even the theoretical possibility of having them on display in one of the city's grandest buildings had admittedly been a driving force in going from a single, experimental bust to the almost-complete series.

Dain retrieved one of the unfinished busts and regarded it with a critical eye. Even in its current form, it looked, to her, like a decent representation, albeit one without some of the finer details worked in. The muzzle, for instance, looked quite good, the shape nearly spot-on compared to the only slightly-corrupted image of the portrait she had modeled it after. The man's protruding canines, however, were not yet set into place, and the fur along the neckline was still a vague outline without any individual tufts filled in. To the untrained eye, the piece might look complete enough, but Dain wanted to capture everything she could within the sculpture. If the pipe dream of having them possibly displayed in the city hall were to actually come true, they needed to compete with the other classical art on offer there, which meant meticulous attention to even the slightest nuance. It had been suggested to her that, being a student work, it hardly had to measure up the the product of a master craftsman, but Dain couldn't bring herself to submit anything that wasn't, to her, as perfect as possible. The other, completed, busts seemed overall to measure up to her own ambitious standards, and while Dain's estimation of her own work might have been just a bit biased, she thought that they could rival the craftsmanship of at least some of the town's public artworks.

Dain spent the rest of the day with a spray bottle and some fine-detail tools, softening up the clay on the current bust just enough to etch in the fur patterns around the neck. By the time the light from outside began to fade, the neck fur was immaculately detailed, and Dain knew that the bust would be complete with just a few additional details and touch-ups. Two more still sat unfinished on the shelf, though, and the other kids were already cleaning up their workspaces and wrapping up their kiln firings for the day.

Dain packed up as well, and had just finished sliding the in-progress bust back into its place on one of the shelves, still unfired, when Caure walked up.

"So, are you ready to see it?" she asked. Dain knew, of course, that she was referring to the town she had been building up, piece by piece, building by building, since a young age. Caure didn't usually show it off, keeping the bulk of it in one of the storerooms while working on the various components, but the last time Dain had seen it, it had progressed quite significantly.

"Yeah, of course - it's gotta be something pretty impressive by now."

"Oh, it is! The last pieces can out of the kiln a little while ago, and now that everything's in place, well... you'll just have to see it for yourself, won't you? In fact... I've decided that you're gonna be the first to see it in all its glory. So c'mon, don't just stand there! Let's go!"

Caure grabbed Dain's arm and pulled her along, back towards the storeroom. When they arrived, Caure flung the door open with a flourish, ushering Dain inside.

The town was immediately visible, taking over the entire surface of a fairly large worktable against the back wall. Caure had arranged several of the worklamps around it, illuminating the scene to the point where the buildings shone, almost as they would in actual sunlight.

It was an impressive work, to be sure. While the layout of the town was condensed and rearranged from that of the actual city they lived in, Caure had managed to capture all of the most important parts, the buildings laid out on a dropcloth which had been painted with the intervening roads and sidewalks. The outlying residential neighborhoods had been merged into one, but with several houses Dain could immediately recognize, including hers and Caure's. The neighborhood then merged seamlessly into the city center, featuring the main square complete with a smattering of open-air vendor booths. The civic buildings surrounding it were modeled in surprising detail, and each one was carefully painted with matte glaze to resemble each building as closely as possible. The cruder, less-detailed buildings from her original plan were gone, and in their place was the remainder of the civic center and the commercial district, including a sculpted hill beyond which Caure had topped with a couple of the squat, grey robotic megafactories that resided there.

What surprised Dain the most, though, was the people. Usually, when Dain had glanced over at Caure's work, she had been painstakingly slaving over one building or another, and only once had he seen her try to model a misshapen figure before smooshing it back down in disgust. At some point, though, she seemed to have figured it out, and worked on it while Dain hadn't been watching. While her figures looked more stylized than realistic, with trunklike legs and arms fused in place against the bodies, the faces and painted-on clothes were detailed enough that he could actually discern which individuals some of them were based on. There was Lotoe, and Teiya, Eloa and Shaie, and most everyone else Caure seemed to know, artfully placed among the buildings. Shaie was admiring something in one of the vendor stalls in the square, Eloa was standing on the sidewalk in front of Dain's house, and Teiya's figure, for some reason, was sitting upside-down on its oddly flat head atop one of the megafactory smokestacks. In fact, the only figures missing, Dain realized, were her and Caure.

She looked over to see Caure looking back expectantly, her arms tucked away behind her back. "So? What do you think?"

"It's... well, you know, it's..."

"Yes?"

"It's really, really good... It's so good I can't even think of words good enough to describe it..." And that, really, was no lie - while Dain thought highly of her own classical work, Caure's creation was equally as accomplished and impressive in its own way.

"Yay! I knew you'd like it!" Caure almost looked like she was going to try to tackle her in a hug, but a moment into it remembered what was behind her back. "However..." she said, her smile suddenly and unusually subdued, "you still have to see the best part."

She took one of her hands and moved it over in front of the main civic building. Setting it down, she opened it to reveal the figure of Caure that Dain had created several years ago. It wobbled slightly on its base, resting gently against the side of the building, as Caure brought her other hand forward. This one, however, she extended towards Dain.

"This one, though, you'll have to place yourself." She reached over, clasped Dain's arm with her free hand, and gently set the contents of the other onto his palm.

The figure, of course, was one modeled after Dain, with a detail that far surpassed the others. Dain turned it over in her hands, admiring the detail, when she suddenly realized what set the figure apart.

While the other figures looked like a regular person, with a front and a back, this one instead had two fronts, two faces, balanced in perfect symmetry around the figure's main axis. The Dain on the side that Caure had initially presented was a boy, with carefully painted clothing in traditionally male colors - in fact, Dain realized, it was a near exact replica of the formal clothes he had worn to Caure's trial heat. The face was detailed, with the slightest added touch of a masculine jaw, and a set of proud, prominent ear tufts. Caure had even, Dain noted, created a fairly prominent sheath visible against the painted folds of the pants. The other side, though, was painted in pastels, somewhat more similar to what Dain was wearing now, with a slightly softer face and a gentler curve to the stylized lines. It was a remarkable thing, something Dain couldn't even have imagined creating, but there it was: her two forms, fused together into one complete person, with two smiling faces beaming outward at the world.

Dain turned the figure over and over in her hands, admiring its beauty as the implications of what it meant sank in: as much as Dain had sensed it before, the figure she held in her hands was incontrovertible proof of Caure's acceptance of Dain's situation, not as a boy, or a girl, but in a way that the two of them cam together to form who Dain really was. After a moment, though, the vision of the figure began to become blurry and obscured, as an upwelling of emotion brought on a reaction that even she hadn't been expecting.

"Dain, are you... are you crying?" Somehow, Caure had already noticed the tears, before they were even spilled.

"It's... It's..." Dain tried to get out what she wanted to say. "Caure, it's... perfect."

Dain couldn't see Caure's response through the curtain of tears, but she felt the hand that soon came to rest on her shoulder.

"Dain, wow, I... I thought it was kinda clever, and I thought you might think it was a cool way to do it, but I didn't think you'd react so..."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cry, it's just, you just... you're the only person so far who seems to really understand, well... me."

"Dain, I don't know if I understand you. I don't know if you understand you. What I do know is, when I said that I... loved you, it wasn't just because of how we were with heat and stuff, and even then I don't think it was just the male you I was talking about. I love you because you're you, all of you, and I couldn't create a figure of you without including what makes you so unique."

Through her waning tears, Dain could see Caure's outline shift in front of her as she continued. "Although... speaking of that particular conversation, there is one question you've never quite answered yet..."

"Huh? I don't know what-"

"Oh? Well..." Caure, coming into focus, looked slightly disappointed; Dain wasn't quite sure she knew why, although for some reason, she felt that she should. "Don't worry about it - there will be plenty of time to talk about that later. For now, though..." She gestured to the figure in Dain's hand, and then to the town. "Don't you think it's time to put your character where it belongs?

Dain looked once more at the character that sat in her hands. She knew where Caure would expect the figure to go. Given what Caure had just done for her, though, Dain hardly felt as though there were another fair choice. The implied meaning was certainly there: how Dain placed her own figure in relation to Caure's ws certain to send a message, one way or another.

Dain's mind flashed back momentarily to the moment they'd entered the workshop, their hands entwined, and what Caure had said it meant. Dain still wasn't sure what anyone besides Teiya had really made of it, but even if there hadn't been any real significance to anyone else, Dain realized that there was one person for whom it did.

Dain looked over the town, at her handcrafted figure of Caure standing there in front of the civic center, her tiny glazed face smiling outward without a care in the world. With a shaking hand, Dain slowly moved her own character over towards the town square, hovering in the air around a group of market stalls, contemplating the scene as intently as if it were the board of a grand strategy game. After a moment, though, her hand moved over, operating almost on instinct, and set the character down.

The figurine of Dain settled upright on its base, just a couple of centimeters away from Caure's, the smiling faces regarding each other with equanimity.

"Huh," Caure said off to the side, and Dain quickly turned back to her. Whatever hidden significance Dain's action had possibly held, the result apparently wasn't quite what Caure had expected. If anything, her expression was almost bemused.

"Caure?"

"Oh, it's nothing, it's just... interesting how you positioned it, that's all."

Dain looked back over at the figure. She could have sworn that's where Caure would have wanted it to be, except... it only took a second quick look before Dain realized what had happened. She had been paying so much attention to the position that she hadn't considered the figure's orientation. As a result, the male half was facing outward towards no one in particular, and it was the female side of the figurine that was facing Caure's own.

"Oh, um... sorry, I didn't really think about that, actually..." Dain moved a hand over to rotate the figure around, but Caure waved her away.

"I didn't say it was a problem, just... interesting. Because of how you are, maybe you just... maybe you see stuff like that differently. That's one of the things I like about you, after all, but it is just a little frustrating sometimes..."

Dain wondered how she was supposed to respond to that, but luckily didn't have to.

"Anyway," Caure continued, "that's my project! I'm definitely glad that you like it - given the kind of skill you have with this, if you're impressed with it, then it's gonna totally blow away anyone else. How about your project, though? I definitely want to see how it turned out..."

"Um, well... actually, I kinda got a little sidetracked with everything that's happened, and it's not quite... well, ready all the way..."

"Oh, really?" Caure looked slightly troubled by that. "That's not because of my invitation, is it?"

"N-no, nothing like that! That was in the evening anyway, and I was at the workshop before. It was more the... heat and all the other stuff that happened with it, and I wasn't far enough along anyway. Honestly, I didn't really think about what starting up with school would mean for the project. I'll still get it done somehow, though." At least, Dain hoped that would be the case.

"Well, can you show me what you have, at least?"

"Yeah... okay." Dain led the two of them out of the storeroom, and over to the set of shelves in the main room where Dain's finished pieces were temporarily stored. She gestured over to them, and Caure walked along the line of busts carefully, seeming to scrutinize each one. Finally, after traversing the entire row, she turned back to face Dain.

"Dain, they're... well, they're really good. I mean, I know they're clay, and not metal or something, but you could stick them in a museum and no one would even know they weren't supposed to be there. But I guess you already know that..."

"Yeah, I guess..." While Caure's words were sincere, and mostly flattering, her blank expression and flat tone made Dain think she was holding something back.

"Um, is there... anything else you want to say about it?"

"Well, I mean... they're perfect. They're like classical art. I guess they just don't... speak to me, is what I'm saying. These are really nice portraits, but I guess I just like mine better because it has more life to it, and it's something I can relate to. That's all. Like it said, they're really good for what they are."

Her words weren't harsh, exactly, but the way she said it made Dain uncomfortable. She was almost certain that Caure's sudden change in mood had something to do with what had transpired in front of her exhibit, and the behavior also seemed to confirm just how much the figurine placement had been intended as some sort of test, one which Dain was more than aware she had failed. Dain didn't want to upset the situation further, though, so she mutely accepted the response, and didn't bother to stop Caure when she wandered off a short while later.

Some of the other kids, though, had noticed Dain showing off her sculptures, and had gathered around to view them in Caure's stead. Most of them offered praise without hesitation, and many of them brought out their own projects in return, creating an impromptu sculpture show on the final eve of their studio work before the start of classes the next day. While their skills certainly varied, everyone had at least a piece or two that they were proud of enough to display, from indigenous animals, to sculpted busts of friends and family, to works of strangely curved abstraction. Dain politely admired all of them in turn, especially the few works that rivaled her level of meticulous, skillful detail. Caure, though, was nowhere to be seen, although after about a half-hour of absence, she returned in usual cheerful form and led small groups in to see her impressive scale model. She largely ignored Dain, though, and by the time Dain was packing up and stowing her works in progress, Caure had already left.

The sun was barely visible above the horizon as Dain left the workshop, the clouds illuminating into a beautiful sunset just above, with vibrant reds and oranges interspersed with the occasional neon-green band that quickly oscillated in and out of visibility. The blankness in the sky was just barely visible in the shape of a circle barely a shade darker than the surrounding sky - it would take nightfall proper for it to reveal its unsettling true form.

Dain didn't dwell on it, though, as she had plenty of other things to think about during the walk home. Most pressing among them was trying to figure out just how much she'd stepped in it with Caure. Her full range of emotions had certainly been on display, and Dain certainly hadn't really known how to react properly to most of it. At the same time, though, she'd also shown Dain an understanding side of her that she only tangentially expressed before... and one that, upon further consideration, Dain realized she kind of liked. Caure was unpredictable, to be sure, and Dain tolerated more than truly liked the obsessive curiosity she'd displayed about Dain's condition. Now, though, it seemed to be going past that, and truly approaching understanding and... love? Dain still wasn't sure, although the message seemed to be becoming clear enough.

Dain wondered whether she really had reciprocal feelings; at the moment, it was still the case that she felt far more confusion than any other emotion. Certainly, Caure going from expressions of true love, to (un)comfortably close contact, to frosty aloofness in a matter of hours certainly wasn't helping matters.

Dain wasn't sure if it was due to the train of thought or just complete randomness, but as she walked up to her house, a handful of steps became slightly awkward as her body reconfigured itself back to the more familiar male configuration. He stepped hurriedly inside, adjusting his clothes to more comfortably conform to the new arrangement, and looked up to see Eloa coming down the stairs. She didn't comment about the adjustment, though, and simply gestured for him to follow her into the kitchen.

"So... how was it?" she asked, as Dain sat down at the table.

"How was what?"

"Hmm? Oh, I mean, how was your final day at the workshop? Were you able to get done what you wanted?"

"Not quite..." Dain looked over at his mother, wondering if he should tell her the rest. It wasn't the sort of thing she would have cared about before, or that Dain would have even bothered mentioning. Still, after what she had said before...

"It's, well... it's about Caure. She was kinda all over the place and acting really confusing today. One minute she wouldn't stop hugging me, and then she ran off, and then she was really nice and I thought she was understanding me, but then I didn't do something all the way right and she got angry with me, even though she didn't say it, and took off before I could figure out what really went wrong... I just... I just don't understand it. After the... heat and everything, it seemed like she wanted to be close, but now, I don't know what's going on at all, or if she's mad at me, or if she's okay..."

Dain looked up at Eloa when he finished, but she didn't seem all that concerned. Dain wondered for a moment if he'd made a mistake in telling her, but then he noticed a gentle smile on her face, and felt her hand rest against his shoulder.

"Dain... I know this might sound strange at first, but... yes, Caure is okay, and how she's behaving around you isn't that uncommon. A girl's first heat is a time when emotions can run very high and very deep. The encounters, as I'm sure you know, can be very intense, especially the first ones. Especially with someone they've known from before, an intimate experience can lead to the feeling of another connection, one that may continue on for them afterwards.

"Or, put more simply," she continued, "Heat can, sometimes, cause girls to have something of an obsession with the boys whose encounters created that sort of connection. It's not uncommon at all for that to happen, and since you were her very first, it's even more likely. After my first time, I chased around a boy named Kaotai for a few months before I came to my senses. He was a handsome boy, but his talents left much to be desired." For a moment she looked away, seemingly lost in thought, before glancing back at Dain. "Like I said, it's a common enough thing. I mean... you just went through it, after all. Can you really say you haven't focused just a bit more on certain boys since your heat?"

Dain started to shake his head, but stopped when he thought about the awkwardness with Teiya, and the incident where the mere sight of Eiako had caused more than vivid memories to play, unbidden and intense, across his mind. He hadn't acted on those thoughts in the way Caure had, but at the same time, it was hard to deny their intensity.

"I... I'm not sure. I mean, I switched back to being a guy really quickly afterwards, so I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel when I saw them, and then the stuff with Caure just kinda displaced it all, and so I don't really know. I mean, I know Teiya's confused, and I'm confused about Teiya, but..." Dain trailed off, wondering how right his mom was. Now, after thinking about the Eiako thing, just mentioning Teiya's name out loud was bringing similar thoughts up to the front of his mind, and Dain hurriedly tried to think about anything else to avoid another awkward result.

"Dain, like I said, it's completely normal. When emotions run high, it can take a little while for them to come back down to normal... but trust me, they do come back down. Besides, you're going to be starting your formal schooling tomorrow, and that should provide enough other things to think about that those sorts of obsessions should quickly run their course."

"I guess... it's really intense, though, the way Caure talks sometimes. Like we're somehow meant to be together, like a, like a..."

"Like a real couple," Eloa finished. Her last word had a weird inflection on it, though, and when Dain looked closely at her, he could almost detect a hint of... sadness? "You probably don't know, but there was a time when that word... meant something, something powerful. Maybe they'll teach you about it, but it's one of those words that mattered in a real way before the cataclysm. Now, it's just mothers, and fathers, and children..."

Dain wanted to ask more about what she meant, but the look of pain on her face as she trailed off quickly dissuaded him. Eloa seeming to deal with it, though, by reaching over to uncover the casserole and spooning a generous helping onto Dain's plate. "Like I said, it'll all get sorted out eventually. For now, eat up, and remember to get a good night's rest - tomorrow's going to be a big day, and I want to make sure you're ready." She gestured over at a bag that was sitting in the corner of the kitchen. "I stopped off and picked up all the supplies you should need for now, and a couple of nice new outfits to make sure you look your best. You know where the school is, right?"

"Yeah, I looked it up a while ago, so it should still be on my tablet."

"Okay, then! You should be all set. And if not... I'll see to it that you will be." Given Eloa's renewed and vigorous involvement in parenting, Dain didn't doubt that in the least.

With that, Eloa seemed to have said everything she needed to, and was content to serve herself and let Dain eat in silence. Dain, for his part, was more than happy enough to have a respite from considering the events of the day, and did what he could to put the resulting thoughts aside as he dug in with gusto. There was a certain creeping dread, though, that he couldn't quite ignore. Was every day going to be like this from now on? Everything before had gone, if not smoothly, at least predictably... but ever since Dain's first heat, literally every passing day had brought an additional tumult of confusion, and there seemed to have been more emotional intensity encapsulated within the past two weeks than in Dain's entire experience up to that point. Tomorrow, he knew, would hardly be any different: a completely new environment, at least some new classmates, proper teachers, and only the vaguest idea of what to actually expect.

For that matter, Dain realized as he finished eating, he didn't even know what gender his new classmates would expect him to be, or how he was supposed to present himself. As a girl? As a boy? Legally, at least, he was considered only one of those things, and when it came to overall looks he knew he was trending in a similar direction, but... would it be better, or worse, to go along with it? He certainly wasn't trying to attract anyone's attention by being one way or the other, at least not intentionally - between Teiya and Caure, he had already had far more attention than he was used to today, and it would certainly be a welcome break to be able to just fade into the background in a good-sized group of students and take a break from trying to figure out what everyone else expected him to be. If that was what he was after, going as a boy would probably be the easiest to pull off mentally, although physically it was another matter entirely. While Caure had probably told some of the girls about their encounter, the boys Dain had been with had probably told far more... and whatever form Dain was actually in, unless he dug out some of his old, ill-fitting clothing, even a lack of breasts and the biggest ear-tufts in the world wouldn't do much to disguise a form that was becoming stubbornly and resolutely feminine..

Maybe Caure was right, though, in her somewhat indirect way. Maybe it wasn't so much about being a boy or a girl, but just about being Dain, and doing his best whatever form he was in. After all, tomorrow was about a lot more than just the other students - it was also the very first step in determining exactly what he was going to do once he fully became an adult. For the past few years, he'd just assumed that he'd go on to become a sculptor, but after everything else that had happened, he had no idea how things were going to end up. Even that most certain thing, now, felt like yet another source of confusion.

Dain pulled himself momentarily away from his mental turmoil to feel the stream of warm water playing along his neck and shoulders. Lost in thought, he'd already gone partway through the motions of getting ready for bed. As he leaned back into the spray, enjoying the feeling of calm that it brought, he came to the conclusion that, without any new information, the confusion running nonstop through his head was completely useless. For tonight, at least, it didn't really matter what gender he was, or what he would be, or what anyone else thought. Whether or not it was possible, he decided to pledge to himself, then and there, that at least for a little while, any further confusion about it all was forbidden. For now, Dain was Dain, and everything else could wait until tomorrow.

After days of having his mind flail about in near-constant confusion, it was an incredibly liberating feeling to commit to creating a state of mind where every aggravation of his situation could be set aside. Instead, Dain pulled on some pajamas, brought up his tablet, propped it up on his desk, and watched a few pre-cataclysm cartoons, complete with lines of cars speeding along streets packed with people. It was good fun, and midway through the last episode, Dain found himself laughing, relaxed, and just plain happy: the one set of emotions that had been missing from the previous weeks of yawning emotional highs and lows.

As the episode finished up, though, Dain noticed an icon blinking on the bottom of the screen. The government program, apparently, wanted his attention. Curious, Dain moved to click on it, but even before he could rest his finger on the icon the program expanded to take over the entire screen. For a moment, it came up to where it had been before, suspended with the error message. As he watched, though, the message blinked off, and the screen faded completely to black, before another message box popped up in its stead.

***CONNECTION TO REMOTE UNIT INITIALIZED VIA CENTRAL PROCESSING***

The new message also faded away quickly, and the screen remained black for a few seconds more before something new popped up on the display.

For a moment, Dain almost thought that the tablet had gone back to the main screen, albeit with a different configuration of windows. When he looked more closely at it, though, he realized that what he was seeing wasn't even a tablet display. It looked like an actual, full computer interface; while he'd only seen one a few times, the multitude of windows and the cursor flitting between them were a clear indication. Obviously, it wasn't even his tablet, or even under his command - somewhere else, someone was working on one of the more powerful machines, and for some unexplained reason Dain's tablet was suddenly a window into its operation.

Reaching down, Dain tried to zoom in so that he could make out the text being displayed in the various windows. That, at least, worked, although most of the tablet's other controls and taskbars remained hidden and nonresponsive. A moment after the tablet zoomed in, though, the display shifted over to a different window; as it moved around further, Dain realized that the display was following the movements of the cursor as it shifted between the various applications.

The cursor flashed as its click brought a new window into the center of the display. Dain began to scan across it, but stopped, surprised, when he realized that his own name was splashed across the window's heading. Glancing down, he saw an array of various incomprehensible charts and statistics, and watched as the arrow scrolled down past them and over to a short narrative. Looking through it, Dain realized that it was a concise, clinical summation of what had transpired during his last doctor's visit. Someone was, apparently, poring through his medical records... but for what? Maybe, he wondered, someone was confused as to what he actually was, and was going through things to make sure he hadn't been improperly classified.

The cursor flicked over to a different area of the screen, though, with several tiled windows with other names on them. He recognized some of them at a glance: his own name was present, along with Teiya, Caure, and a few others; there was also the name of his mother, at least the one she gave people, and the names of several other people who he recognized as the parents some of the other kids had occasionally mentioned. There was one name, though, just above his mom's, that he couldn't remember ever coming across before. It was also the only name that was highlighted in red, and practically screamed out from all the others:

JOAO

Dain stared at it for a second, feeling a strange sense of... not quite recognition; at once the name seemed both oddly familiar and completely alien. The sensation quickly faded, though, as the cursor darted away to another corner of the screen. It ping-ponged around a bit, flashing past a few other reports and a folder with thumbnail images of some of his sculptures, before darting down to a document file open all by itself on an otherwise blank section of screen.

This one looked to be some sort of report, with an official-looking heading followed by several sequences of numbers that Dain couldn't make tufts or tails of. Below it, the cursor brought a flashing line into being, which ticked jerkily ahead to reveal a string of words flowing after it.

[Investigation Report... 092358 DAIN Status: Shifter Class: Minor (assumed)

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.

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Initial background assessment completed. Subject DAIN appears to have been automatically flagged for the following reasons: KNOWN ASSOCIATIONS. After having considered these associations, one clear red-tag was found and dismissed as non-current. Further evaluation of associates is pending, but does not appear to be an issue at this time. Note that due to prior history, notification should be withheld from subject DAIN's guardian, but it should be noted that the subject's qualities are promising, and it is my determination that the subject should be an excellent, perhaps outstanding, candidate for|]

The line suddenly stopped, and a moment later the cursor practically flew across the screen. The window it landed on was entitled "Remote Connection," and it contained a series of buttons, along with a green box that read "Connection to Subject Established." The cursor seemed to stab at the disconnect button, flitting around in apparent panic as it flashed several clicks to either side of it. Finally, it flashed directly over the center of the button, and a moment later the screen faded over to black, returning to the standard home screen a moment later.

For the next several seconds, Dain sat motionless in front of the now-normal screen, wondering how he was even supposed to react to what he'd just seen. The first emotion that reached him, though, wasn't trepidation or curiosity or panic; rather, what he felt the most was annoyance. He had enough on his plate - switching genders, heat, relationships suddenly changing, his own personal world practically flipped upside down - to deal with some government program he probably hadn't even been meant to see. Candidate? Candidate for what? Was it even worth caring about? Worse than that, though, was that it had punctured his determined attempt to simply have an evening of peace and normality; now, in a matter of moments, his brain had a whole new area of confusion and trepidation opened to it.

Why, Dain wondered, was all this nonsense happening to him? It wasn't like he was that different from everyone else. Apart from some stuff that was going to happen every few months, if that, he was just a normal kid who was good at molding stuff out of clay. And yet, because of that one difference, it seemed like all eyes were suddenly on him. All that interest, though, just made things crazier, leaving him tossed about like a leaf in a windstorm. In fact, the shifting itself was, depending on the day, either inconsequential, kinda fun, or really, really fun. It was the attention that seemed to be the real issue.

Just a short while ago, he really had just been a normal kid, his greatest goal to maybe have a few sculptures displayed somewhere. Wondering as he had, every so often, what it would be like to be different, to be noticed, to be desired... and yet, now that he was, inexplicably, all of those things, there was a large part of him that yearned to be just a normal, inconsequential kid again, living an uncomplicated and uneventful life.

Dain leaned back in his chair, meditating on that thought. In fact... why couldn't he, if he really chose to? Certainly, there were areas of difference that he couldn't control - each and every subsequent heat, for example - but that was only a handful of days every now and then, and hardly unpleasant ones at that. Along with it, he supposed, there were also a handful of related things he probably couldn't avoid: doing the partner selections, maybe a few additional check-ups here and there. The rest of the time, though, he could just be a normal student, a normal classmate, and hopefully, in every other sphere, become a normal, happy adult. He could just become a sculptor, or work wherever else he was needed, and when it came to real heat, and kids... well, he could sort that out later. The same with whatever machinations some person in government seemed to have for him - there was no reason to confront it, or even think about it, until it actually showed up on his doorstep.

Of course, trying to be a normal kid would most likely lead everyone to the conclusion that he was a normal... girl. Again, though, Dain wasn't really sure that it mattered. However he, or she, looked, it wasn't going to change who he was, or how he acted. If people wanted to assume that he was a girl, or legally say that he was, that was their problem. If Dain was going to make any attempt to regain a normal life, there wasn't really anything to do but to push forward, be himself, and do what he felt was right. Even if what felt right still meant primarily acting and thinking of himself as a... as a boy, he guessed, although that meant less about filling a particular form, and more about just acting in the way he'd been comfortable with since childhood, whether or not that reflected what one would expect from a typical boy.

Dain tossed the tablet back in its drawer and flopped down on to his bed, growling softly into one of the pillows as he tried to get his tranquility back. All he wanted to do now was to get his brain to shut up about everything, boy, girl, or otherwise. Tomorrow would be... well, it would be different, and hopefully better than today, and however it shook out probably wouldn't be changed by considering it further. The faint twinge of anxiety churning in his gut seemed to have a rather different opinion, though, and Dain grumbled, grabbed the pillow and pressed it down on top of his ears, trying to blot out every hint of noise both inside and out. Luckily, the events of the day had been energetic enough that his mind preferred sleep over even more useless analysis. Within moments, Dain was soon drifting off into the unsettled and dreamlike place between wakefulness and sleep. In that state, the last image that went through his mind before completely falling asleep was of himself looking up at the hole in the sky, and watching as it flashed over to glow with a muted, ethereal light...

...and then, just before unconsciousness overtook him, the light dissolved into a vague facsimile of a face; a face which looked at him with a set of intense, unwavering eyes that, somehow, Dain was certain he knew all too well.