can a cat girl and a bird lady really kiss kiss fall in love

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"The Ouroboros folk seem to think we should be an item."

"Do they, now?" Nia didn't look up from where she was superfluously plucking bits of feather off the flowers of her scimitar. "They're revolutionaries, anyway." She by now was leaning quite heavily into the accent, in private quarters (who was listening? Melia? no pressure, no pressure at all...), letting all consonants and vowels flush together in a righetous coup.

"But doesn't it make sense?" Melia leant gracefully upon one hand, elbow also in gracious aid. "If any two were to interlink, it would be us. One might even describe the entire intersection as just such a thing - sharing of data and communicating via only the most essential of media?"

Very coy. Gender neutral (progressive! but what else have you got to progress on, for a thousand years), and very, very coy.

Nia continued to be busy. "So, say it makes sense." One idle hand waved. Melia very pointedly did not grasp at nor for it. "We've already been over and done with it. What, do they think we should kiss, or something nasty like that?"

"Vile, isn't it."

"Absolutely putrid."

"In fact, you're sick about it."

"You're bloody well right, I am sick about it."

"So then." A laugh in her voice.

"So there!" A shout; a blind challenge.

"So..." The beckon of predator-prey.

Nia looked up. Melia's hands were folded; dormant, docile wings. Not - no, never, never! - muffled, mischievous paws.

The shape of her lips, however, was the cutest devilish point. Objectively so, of course.

"So..."

"I'm waiting."

For...oh, right, that. Yes. That.

"Erm..." Nia's free hand dusted the back of her hair, as if looking for loose change among the silver bowl.

"Poppi show how. With emoticons!"

Melia, slightly discomfited now that there was a spectator to hand (and such an eager one, at that), hedged, "No, dear, I think you mean emotions."

Nia's eyebrow arched, back to sunbeam. Dear?

A sigh. "Very well. If you do believe it will help."

Properly chuffed at this permission, Poppi widened her stance and readied the photonics systems buried within her pupils for display of text. While Nia was generally unfazed by the appearance of an orange-tinted console tinnily spanning itself out across the width of her chest, Melia jumped back two or three paces, then seemed to adjust herself from wingtip to toetip. Nia ruffled herself, to counterpoint.

"Her Majestys ready?"

The first line appeared. :3

"What's that, a jump instruction? Value separator?"

The second line soon followed. <:

"Oh, well it can't be. These characters are in the opposite order."

Nia squinted. "Pop...is that supposed to be us?"

Poppi's chest compartment puffed out somehow prouder. "Only most titan-of-the-art depiction! Very popular Morythan lingo for cats and birds."

Now the two symbols (sigils?) appeared next to each other: :3 <:

"They're getting closer," Melia observed glibly.

"I suppose they'd need to, wouldn't they?"

Melia turned a quarter step to her partner queen. "I wasn't only making light when I said you were sick about it, but are you truly that nervous?"

"Well I'm not shaking, if that's what you think!"

And she wasn't, but her ears were peeling themselves in a distinctly downward-and-back direction, her knees turning inward and her sternum canting down.

"It very simple," Poppi assured. "Watch! Final step."

In an instant, with no further preamble than that, Poppi's console refreshed itself, and there (along with the prior display, which had itself stood alone without the individual animals), it was - they were, rather:

:3 <:
:3<:

"Oh. I see."

"I thought you already did," Nia pointed out, but the taunt was weak.

"Would you like to sit down?"

"It's my Cloudkeep," came another point, stronger now, "and I haven't any chairs."

"How about," the room started to spin, "I put my one hand here," now swifter circles, "and my other here," a tremendously heavy lightness, "and we just...follow the instructions?"

Oh. Perfect clarity.

"Conclusion, Pop?"

But Poppi was too busy turning a cartwheel to shout, "Success!"