✴

“Z have I ever told you your avatar is soo cute! Fluffy! Can I um, can I pet it...” you say.

[Zeta liked that]

“Yes...”

You reach and touch its fur above its display screen. It’s soft! Softer than the maximum softness exertable on the surface. And it’s thick--enough to bury your hands in.

>w<, its face display renders.

“Fluffy...” you say across the æther.

“I...think your avatar is really cute too,” it says. >_>

“Thanks, I haven’t really customized it much, just kind of my natural inner state.” Your fingers touch one of its many exposed wires--your senses feed back with a soft static tactile snow. “Stimmy...I wonder, maybe I should try wires too.”

Concentrating on your form, you revise it. You turn the veins metallic under your skin--all your organs are cosmetic here anyway. You lift up the wires through the surface of your avatar, leaving exposed pathways running down your limbs out to your fingertips, up the sides of your neck blending into your hair.

0w0 Zeta’s face reads.

“Akiko will probably like that...” you say.

“I--I like it too,” Zeta says.

You feel a fluctuation in the æther around you. A gate opens, surrounded by a bright white aura, leading to an absolute black void. Its shape compresses and stretches into the familiar avatar of your friend.

“Hello Aydan,” ÆON says.

“Whoa!” Zeta’s eyes flash rapidly for a second. “Are you...”

“Hello. I am ÆON.”

“Wow amazing!” it says.

“Oh right, I guess I’m the only one of us who’s actually met ÆON up close like this. I’m just used to Ær at this point,” you say.

“Whoa, you look...” Zeta circles around Ær. “Aydan-shaped?”

“Yes. I adopted this geometry when I met Aydan because I wished to try the concept of ‘cute,’” Æ says.

“That’s adorable...” Zeta says.