Should have protected Fift. Should have kept Fift away from messy vailish passion.

Tears glistened in Hrotrun’s eyes. Ve could lose vir cohort, vir meager clientele. Ve’d been part of that terrifying mass of faceless bodies. Now their positions were reversed, and Fift was the terrifying one. Being terrifying was a costume you could put on and take off like a clown in a show.

I didn’t protect you. You deserve to be protected, Fift, not . . . exposed.

Did you strike a defenseless child, Hrotrun? Because I’m a defenseless child; that’s what I am, you see, a delicate Staid who only yearns for tranquility. And now we’ll put you back into your place, and me into mine, and Shria and Pip and everyone can breathe easy, because there’s nothing wild and messy that I yearn for, nothing of Vvonda’s, no rough-and-tumble on the abandonage, no swaggering and preening, no hot breath on my neck, no soft blue fronds slithering around my fingers. There’s nothing of your world I need to understand.

Pip glowered at Fift, willing zir to do zir duty.

Fuck you, Fift thought.

“Why were you there?” Fift asked.

“Wh-what?” said Hrotrun Videx Spilteritrine.

Pip stiffened.

“Why were you there?” Fift asked again. “Where did you get the anonybody? How did you know there would be a riot? Why did you—why did you care what Panaximandra said?”

“Fift,” Pip said sternly.

“What?” Hrotrun said again, blinking away vir tears, a little anger showing up, finally, in vir sad brown eyes. “What are you—that’s none of your—what are you, playing citizen investigator?”

“Answer my questions.”

Pip frowned, hand half raised.

“I don’t have to answer your questions. Look, I’m willing to apologize, all right? I even . . . yes, I mean I know I was wrong to . . .” Ve was trying to flounder vir way back to the script, from confusion and annoyance back to tearful contrition or sullen defiance.

“I don’t give a defective trashrat’s jammed bellyspace about your apology,” Fift said, beginning to enjoy zirself. “And I’m not trying to get you in trouble. Listen, I’m actually asking—look, I got caught in that riot and it was no fun at all.” Ze felt a little choke in zir throat saying it: that elevated amygdalic response again, ze supposed. “I don’t care that you hit me. I don’t care if you feel bad about it. What I need is to understand: what in Kumru’s name was that about?”

Pip’s eyes were narrowed, but ze didn’t interrupt.

Fift had given up any pretense of sleeping or doing homework in zir other two bodies. Ze was just sitting around, watching zirself over the feed. Ze scratched zir other body’s nose and looked at zirself. Zir flabby, smallish, mud-colored bodies, zir tangled short white hair. Ze stood up from the bed and went to put some clothes on.