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Lily had gone to the tea shop thinking that the whole affair would have been fake, that there would have been no woman in a wheelchair and that everything could be written off as a bad dream. What she found was more questions, and a phone number to a faceless person that had taken to calling her 'sunshine'. There were now three people involved, which made it feel less like a case of the accidental roofies and more like a cult.

Worst of all, she still felt that damned need to climb, to make herself as small as possible, and it didn't seem like there was a stop to either of those impulses except to act on them. She ached for a drink with a vague longing that only someone who had never tried alcohol would have, imagining it to be some magical sedative that would melt all of her problems away. That's why so many people took to drinking, right?

As something of a consolation, she dragged herself out of the confines of her apartment and to Darlene's, where perhaps the smell of beer might grant her some small relief. But just shy of the door, Lily hesitated, staring down at her hands. What was she going to do, find Santa and tell him all about her problems? Anyone she talked to was going to think she was nuts.

So instead, she did the totally reasonable thing of walking around to the back to sulk, scratching at her head. Seeing the dumpster made her fingertips itch, and with a sigh of resignation she rolled up the sleeves of her sweatshirt and began to heft herself up, hands over boots.

Yep. This sure was what sane and normal people did on a weeknight.

Aaaaaaand of course someone was on their way out.

Peachy.

"Everything is A-okay," Lily stretched sheepishly, sitting on the lip of her stinky perch. "I mean, no, no it's not, but hey, life could be worse, right, so it might as well be coming up roses."

The girl had a penchant for monotone rambling, but there was an edge to her voice that was unusual, uncertain, and she picked at her hair with shaking hands. "I--I dunno, Nasir, there's some weird s**t going on. s**t has officially blasted off to Planet Weird, and it's not cool."

She rubbed at her forehead, as if to shoo away a burgeoning headache.

Lily did not want to talk about it, not with Nasir, who was sweet and darling and would absolutely find her insane for all of this. Not her big sibling Barrettes, who had talked her through the ins and outs of dorm kitchen cooking and how to survive in the harsh wastelands of community college. It felt shameful to admit how the last few weeks had gone, with her climbing every surface possible and trying to ruin her posture by hunching over at every chance.

But really, if not for Tea Mom, who was she going to talk to about it? The others? She trusted them like family, but they hadn't lived in a year of her life like Nasir had.

She didn't stop him when he sat next to her, and on a lark she brushed her fingers against his, wanting to make sure that he wasn't a part of all this. When she felt nothing, she wasn't sure to be relieved or disappointed.

"...Ever since finals started, I've had...this itch," Lily frowned, folding her arms into her lap. "To get on top of things, to climb trees, to break onto rooftops...just for, like, the ******** aesthetic of it, I dunno." Her toes curled in her boots and she sighed. "Thought maybe it was just stress or whatever, but it kept getting worse, and I had these nightmares about...I dunno, not being human or something."

Her eyes were quick to dart over at him, gauging his reaction to see if she should abort the conversation before it went full-blown-weird.

Nasir was on-board so far, bless his curly accessorized hair, and Lily just about choked on the mixed feelings of gratitude and relief. "It's, uh..." she wove her fingers through her hair, braiding one errant thread absent-mindedly as her brain struggled to find words.

"...It's weird, okay, and don't judge me for it, but I would, uhhh, wake up in the middle of the night, and I had a tail, like an honest-to-god fluffy tail, I look like some goddamn anime character," she rants, gesturing vaguely at her backside. "And then there's this, this...chick, in the apartment, tells me I gotta...align my chakras or something to get my butt back to normal, so I do, tail goes away, I continue sleeping, it's all a dream, right?"

"But it's not," Lily hissed, tilting her head. "Because Lady tells me all about these other furries who have the same problem, so I'm like, whatever, I'll check out the address from my dreams, and it turns out the shop owner is real and she had the same dream."

The girl let out a sigh, tugging at her hair. "And I don't know what that's supposed to mean, because I mean, I don't remember signing up to be in a furry cult. Like, no judgement, but that's not the sort of experimentation I planned on when I decided to go to college." She laughed, but it was the bitter sort, the kind that teetered on tears.

"It's some deep s**t, I don't even know how I stepped in it."

"The other have different...symptoms," she gestured vaguely at the air around her and leaning into his arms, his touch on her hair. "One's nocturnal and can smell everything, one's got aches and pains and stuff, has super-hearing, where I'm just neurotic about climbing things. For the record, it's the most bullshit super power I've ever heard of."

She slumped against him, looking down at her hands. Her human hands, coated in black fingernail polish and jangling bracelets, still hers. "But they all met the same woman, who gave us the same general message," she murmured lowly, grasping at her ankles. "And I think the consensus is that things will get worse before they're better? And we're supposed to stick together and power of friendship it out?"

"Which, I mean, my gut instinct is to trust these people, but I don't really know them," Lily admitted, looking back to Nasir. "How crazy is it to do teambuilding with people because you all hallucinated the same thing?"

She was starting to sound like the midnight radio. Great.

(lily isn't high enough)

(she's too low to the ground even here)

(she needs)

(to get)

(higher)

"You've never lied to me, so ..." Nasir scratched the back of his head. "... and there's been weird things going on in this town for years. It makes a kind of sense." He let out a breath. "Never mind the stories my aunts loved to tell about these kinds of things."

He tilted his head, eyes closing to think about any kind of animals that had a tail like that. "Can't be a wolf or something like that. Not if you're wanting to get up high." Nasir nodded absently about going to meet Eve.

Lily squirming away had him blinking a few times. She looked antsy, jittery. Were her eyes just a bit more dilated? He thought she might be.

"Uh ..." Brown eyes turned towards the roof and then back to her. "I can show you but we've got to get down from here. There's a ladder up over this way." He was pushing himself up and hopping off. A hand was held out for Lily. "Come on."

"It'll be fine," Nasir said with a small laugh, "because ... it's Borr. It'll be okay. He'll understand." Borr was chill with everything ever. Never mind that he would probably believe Lily.

He was waiting for her to get up higher, intent on following up and making sure she would be okay. Nasir blinked, eyes a little wider behind his glasses for a moment before he was shaking his head. "I'll let you know but ... it's okay? So hurry up so I can climb up too."

Which meant get your move on, Lily, Nasir is along for this portion of the ride.