"Well," Rose says to this unusual introductory statement, "I suppose the day's still young."

Not that she even knows what time of day it is, or why her new acquaintance is advocating for goopless gratitude. But Rose isn't the sort to let a pinch of ignorance sully a good quip.

Rose observes as the pretty blonde takes off her distinctly wedding-y robes. The sight of normal clothes beneath those robes does make Rose consider: is she being overly-dramatic by insisting upon hardcore, unprotected robe-donning? Her first assumption was that this was a necessary precondition of accomplishing the task set forth for her by Aurora, but nobody else seems to be taking the wizard shenanigans quite as seriously as Rose is.

...but the funk of her "new" robes escapes the box containing it and reminds Rose that she absolutely does not intend for these robes to touch the gorgeous outfit she arrived in. (And designed. She had a good teacher.) There's nothing for it but to...

procrastinate.

"I'd almost be flattered if someone did see fit to try something," Rose notes, looking at the back of her hand and its pronounced knuckles. "And maybe a little disturbed. 'Skeletal' isn't my preferred aesthetic, but my abrupt transportation to a new reality hasn't given me much opportunity to bulk back up." She looks from her hand to the other woman, and waggles her long, bony fingers by way of greeting. "I'm Rose. Thanks for the offer of help."

"A refreshing reminder," remarks Rose, "that no matter how one might feel about her body, she can rest assured that she remains someone's fetish. I wish any lurking perverts well of the glimpse they'll get, I suppose."

Rose tries not to give those perverts too much to work with, actually, as she slowly sheds her outermost layer of cloth, protected by Rosie's curtain-robe. "I've actually been kept fairly well-nourished, all things considered," she says. "My muscles have just atrophied from lack of use due to 'circumstances.' Fortunately I seem to be freed of those circumstances while I linger outside my proper reality." A pause. "But I probably should eat at some point, yes. I'm kind of out of the habit."

She makes little grunts of effort as she struggles with her full-body stocking. "It's nice to meet you, Rosie. Have you been here--by which I mean Etraya--for long?"

"Good idea," Rose says. She certainly misses feeling strong, especially as she gets a better look at her neglected body. There's a few moments of quiet as she just takes that in, before she bends over with a grunt of effort and retrieves her ratty robe. Fortunately it won't take much time or effort to don.

"What's your impression of the place? I'm led to understand I received an abbreviated introduction, and it would be nice to know more if I'm considering continued existence." This is perhaps a weird way to look at/think about her circumstances, but just as Rosie's time among semi-mortals has changed her standards for what's surprising, Rose has steeped too long in weird to give it a second thought now.

"Such accommodating standards," Rose remarks as she shrugs on her robe and cinches it. Oh, there are slippers too, of course. She puts those on as well.

"Well nobody can accuse you of not having paid that niceness forward. You've been very helpful while I undergo the hazing process."

She steps out from behind the makeshift curtain, in her full crazy-cat-lady glory. "Well, what do you think? I think it's rather stunning. Overpowering, even, though I suspect I'll get used to the smell in a few minutes."

Rose snorts at Rosie's heroically-diplomatic response. "So I should take this robe as a compliment," she says wryly. "An admission that the wizards here find my true majesty threatening, so they sought to nerf me."

She looks down at herself, tries... something. Instead what happens is... nothing.

"As it appears that these robes have removed my power of flight, you might be onto something, Rosie. Maybe I should have put down a different name--" She pauses, looking at... nothing in particular, as if reading an invisible page in the air. "...motherfucker. We were just supposed to put down our given names? I put down my initials. I should have had the Ratty Robes of Flying. I nerfed myself."

Rose closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Maybe if she concentrates just right, she can explode her own head and not have to deal with feeling so fucking stupid. But of course, that would require a different robe.

Thank God Rosie laughs, even if she tries to stifle it. If Rose's self-inflicted suffering isn't at least funny then what's the fucking point? Just to gratify the universe's sadomasochistic tendencies? A silent audience for Rose's unforced error must necessarily be unimpressed, or worse, pitying. Excessive pity would have doubled Rose's humiliation, and she might have flipped a bitch over it.

But something Rosie says catches Rose's ear, distracting her from her mortification. "The what? Are you... no, you're not screwing with me." Rose folds her arms and monolgues: "As it happens, I'm the Seer of Light, which means that your assigned robe does add insult to injury, though that's obviously not your doing. It's not your fault that the nicer, prettier floral-named blonde gets the gorgeous light-themed wedding dress/robe combo, while the gargoyle who turned her back on 'true love' gets the 'crazy cat-lady' getup. That's just what happens when multiversal archetypes filter through our real-life experiences, particularly if the universe in question is a little misogynistic, which I suspect most are. Frankly I'm amazed that--"

She pauses and blinks for a moment. She looks up, then away, then at Rosie--or more accurately, Rosie's "robe." She squints at it for a few moments before saying, "Try that. 'Amazing.' "

It's just as well that Rosie doesn't try to argue about their relative attractiveness, in part because Rose thinks she could put together a pretty airtight case for her perspective, in part because Rose's counter-argument might end up objectifying and demeaning them both, and in part because Rose is already kind of chagrined that she let herself get so self-deprecating over basically nothing.

Rose lets out a sigh and a "Thanks." She does mean it, and she does believe Rosie, but it's not easy to do a verbal U-turn while going 60MPH into Self-Loathing City. Anything else she said would probably head into that redoubtable sister-city Self-Recrimination, so Rose tries instead to focus on the change in topic. "Yeah, try--"

The dramatic, blinding flash elicits an equally dramatic "Oh, fuck!" from Rose as the light assaults her eyes. She squeezes her eyes shut and scrunches up her face in an expression that might objectively be described as gargoyle-like, but fortunately the only one likely to see that is Rosie. Soon Rose is rubbing her eyes and... laughing.

"This is so stupid," she says, trying to wipe flashbang-induced tears from her eyes.

Rose's vision is a little blurry, but Rosie's tone clarifies that those are supposed to be jazz-hands. "Thanks," Rose says, her tone somewhere between sardonic and genuine. Maybe even she doesn't know what tone she's trying to use.

"It's actually been a while since I've laughed like that," she adds, catching her breath. "Literal years, in fact. My body is not thanking me for it." She's reasonably sure she didn't bruise a rib or anything, but not 100% sure.

"I appreciate the help, Rosie, as well as the stupidity. Maybe I'll take you up on the food once I've made some progress on this 'mission' of ours."