I used my phoo ect to the i and do a search for events.

  I’ve been around long enough, I know how readers react to these kinds of things. I’ve been party to more versations about plot holes and tinuity errors than you will ever be. I’ll throw you a little bone.

  My phone is a thing I create that looks like a phone and acts like a phone, and is to all is and purposes a phone. And I ect it to a pirate mobile at that I have set up just for this purpose.

  It’s a little bit like hag my way into a job without actually being on payroll. Something I’m not going to expin to anyone.

  My ability to do this was one of the reasons I thought I was so good at pretending to be human. It is part of how I’ve survived for so long.

  We all make choices, and this was one of mine.

  “That looks expeo maintain,” Felicity said, watg me use it.

  “Costs me nothing,” I said.

  “Not money, Silly,” she muttered.

  “Yeah, OK.”

  She poi the s and said, “Oh, that’s perfect. It’s still early enough in the day there should be plenty of left, lots of emotions for you.”

  I nodded, “And the bas of the ter for some privacy. Hirious ce it’s this vention.” I looked up at her, “How did yhis phone for what it was?”

  “Are you kidding? It reeks of you,” she said.

  “Is it more obvious than I am myself?” I asked.

  She gave me that high eyebrow, tight mouthed look and little nod that meant, “I didn’t want to tell you, but…”

  Dammit.

  But also?

  That was handy to know.

  Theriandia.

  The vention would have been her, if someone hadn’t already grabbed that name for an annual virtual vention held for the first time st August.

  But we were in Portnd, having caught the MAX back there to get to the on ventioer, where it was being held. And in Portnd, there are a few handy niames for the city that you make portmanteaus out of.

  Portmanteaus.

  Anyway, Theriandia is a portmanteau of “therian” and the name of a edy show that everyone knows about.

  A therian is a human being, or someone born from human beings, whly feels like they are some other kind of animal. There are other terms for this kind of experieoo, such as otherkin, otherkind, and alterhuman. Though eae is a little different and includes other experiences as well. Alterhuman, for instance, is supposed to be so broad a term that it includes a lot of neurodivergent experiences such as plurality, mediumship, spiritual es to greater beings, transhumanity, dissociation, and a variety of other things that might make one feel more than or different from the typical human.

  Theriandia was for all of these people, but they decided to focus on therians specifically for the name.

  Felicity’s host, Amber, could truthfully cim to be alterhuman if she wao. If she knew she was carrying around five epialivores and a teratovor protector.

  I could easily pretend to be one, more or less. No one would ask. Self identification is prized in the unity, usually.

  It’s not like anyone could provide proof besides saying something like, “Yeah. I’m a, uh, dragon!”

  The fun thing about this vention was that, like anime, sce fi, and is, there was a strong cospying po. And a lot of people would be in fairly fanciful es.

  And they’d been feeling proud of them, and embarrassed, and hopeful, and anxious, and overheated, and all number of other delicious emotions. Even just rexed and happy, tent.

  I could se all emanating from the building as we walked up to the front doors with my phone handy, dispying our tickets, which I’d hacked into getting for us.

  Listen. puters are just plex patterns of energy. I’ve been fug around with plex patterns of energy for a long, long time. And the hing about puters is that they’re not people, and so it feels less uhical to fuck with them.

  But with the way that Greg even clocked me, and my phone apparently gives off some sort of monster energy, I’d started to feel like maybe my form of puter hag was leaving a kind of trail that I didn’t really want to leave. Not in the long run, at least.

  But, if it did, it would be just as handy here as my phone.

  We were also prepared to show our IDs at the door, and we were in and directed to a table to pick up our badges.

  So, the pn was that we’d make a full circuit of the , pretending to be a couple of lesbians on a date, and looking for something to buy for each other, with me looking at my phurly.

  Then we’d look for a private pce, supposedly to make out or do something even more intimate.

  But what we were hoping was that I’d look like an affectivore who was taking advantage of a human mark. Because Felicity looks damn human to me, and probably to a lot of other mohat aren’t specialized in hunting epialivores. And since we weren’t in Gresham, maybe her face wouldn’t be as well known.

  And if that didn’t work to draw something after us, we’d still have some time to improvise, like staging a bad breakup or something.

  But, with her right o me, maybe she could make eye tact with our attacker more clearly.

  That was the hope.

  In the meahe es really were delightful.

  Humans are so creative, I love them.

  Despite her millennia of studying humanity, and her own geerest in Synthia as a potential partner, Felicity found it difficult to py her part. Often a little bit of predatory nature went a long way with humans in appearing to be sexually attracted to someone. But she was so weak and hungry she couldn’t focus, herself to do more than absently follow Synthia as she dragged her through the vention by the hand.

  And every time Synthia gnced back at her, it was all she could do to avoid making eye tad start feeding right there. And that was despite how that would look like in the middle of a crowd of people, and the kind of disaster that could lead to. Her natural reflexes for caution were overwhelmed the sed they ehose doors, and she had to use what scious agency she had left to restrain herself.

  And it seemed like Synthia was oblivious to this.

  Of course, she wasn’t. She was taking the lead naturally and putting o for the both of them, and looked like the gleeful nerd betweewo of them, showing her girlfriend the life she really wao live.

  Which, of course, came naturally to Synthia, since she mimicked the people she was around. Feeding on their emotions and then refleg them.

  It worked out, and also helped expin that Synthia was the oo periodically pull out her phoo look at it, cheg the schedule.

  Aween those brief moments, they passed through crowds of people who, evehey weren’t, all felt taller than her.

  Most of the -goers looked haggard and ready to go home, but lingering to see o thing or talk to o person. And most of them didn’t have es, really. But a fair number of them had decorated cardboard masks that either hung off their backpacks, or were strapped to the tops of their heads. Eae a different creature.

  Some masks were simple, a si piece of cardboard with another folded piece for a snout, shaped to have ears and hair tufts of a particur animal, decorated with markers. Others were far more eborate. Aually, Synthia pointed out that there’d been a workshop earlier that weekend, and excimed it was a shame they’d missed it.

  At one point, she stopped to ask the owner of one of the more incredible masks how it was made, and if there were online resources for it.

  Of course, there were.

  Synthia grinned and said, “So cool. I want to make the best mask I for my girlfriend here. She’s a bit of a cougar. Isn’t that right, Felicity?”

  Felicity felt fused, though. She’d never identified as any kind of a cat, and if Synthia was talking about their age differe was seriously the other way around.

  After a moment she remembered the ad smiled and nodded shyly.

  “Oh, there’s some great big cat designs at the site I linked you to,” the therian excimed. “Something like my mask takes a lot of work. But it is all cardboard and glue. So much cheaper than a typical fursuit.”

  “I know. I love it!” Synthia said. “Thank you!”

  “Not at all.”

  And theurned away and Synthia led her to vendors’ row, where about a quarter of the booths were already closed and pag up.

  On the way there, she did see a couple of full fursuits, one of which lush xenomorph. It had clever puppetry for the sed set of arms, the tail, and the jaws. And Felicity was too out of it to figure out if the one person just had buttons in their gloves, or if there was someone in the wings with a remote trol, or if it was something else.

  And with that, she really started to worry that she wouldn’t be able to feed herself when it came time to defend Synthia from whatever predator they’d lured.

  Really, she should be keeping her eye out now for likely didates that might already be stalking them.

  Part of the problem was that her host body desperately needed sleep. That really didn’t help in any way.

  And then, just as she was about to tell Synthia that she o give up and give in to ing her easiest prey, she saw it.

  They were at an open booth full of pamphlets and key s, with a small se of tiny crocheted animals of various sorts, when Felicity had to look away to rest her eyes.

  Standing by a benear the windows, giving Synthia the side eye, erson with electric blue shaggy dog boots, bck cargo pants, and white waffle patterned long johns under a denim vest full of patches and buttons. Their hair was slid floppy, with a left-hand side cut, and their eyebrows were perfect. And they were surrounded by the waves of a sickly yellow aura the likes of which she knew Synthia couldn’t see. Their eyes practically glowed with the emanant light.

  That was it. That was the mohat would try to eat Synthia.

  And si wasn’t looking at her, it clearly hadn’t clocked her yet. She looked human to it. Maybe it thought that Synthia eople eater and that Felicity would be her snack.

  She did her best not to stare, and to look at other spectacurly dressed people for just as long.

  Theuro look at what Synthia was holding and talking about. It was a monster fucker symbol on a clip.

  She managed a grin and agreed to pay for it, then squeezed Synthia’s hand twice. And then she couldn’t help yawning.

  “Oh, you look done,” Synthia said. “Do you wanna find somepce quiet, Honey?”

  “Yeah,” Felicity said. “I think that might be a good idea. And maybe we get some food on the way.”

  Synthia narrowed her eyes and smirked, saying, “Oh, I’m not all the food you need?”

  Amber’s stomach growled, and she stumbled with the anticipation of abs Synthia’s energy and feeling it c through her being.

  Synthia caught her and said, “Ooh. Let’s go.” She turo the vendors and asked, “How long are you gonna be here? I want to buy that, but we maybe need a few moments.”

  The couple behind the table exged grins, and one of them waved their hand in her dire, “You know what? Take it. On us. If we’re still here the ime you e by, maybe get something else! But don’t sweat it. We did good.”

  “Really? Thank you!”

  “Really! And please, take care.”

  “You guys are too sweet! Thank you so much. I gotta go. Make sure Felicity here is doing alright.”

  “Water’s probably a good idea, and maybe a dog.”

  “Yeah.”

  Amber probably could do with a dog, now that Felicity thought about it.

  And when they left to go looking for a door to a back hallway, Felicity gnced and saw the shaggy legged predator following them.

  It utting on the airs of being a 20-something gender fucked student who probably smoked. Aside from the non-physical tells of an overfident emanant, it blended right in. There were haher people within eyesight with the same sense of style.

  She felt a burst of energy, getting herself ready for the fight to e.

  It cleared her mind maybe just enough.

  theInmara