We'd never used paint in Eorzea. Dye, yes, for clothing and armor, but never paint. Ul'dah was all sandstone, Limsa was all coral, Gridania was all trees, Ishgard was all prissy cut stone and so on. So we didn't have a recipe for something convenient to paint the shed with. So some pretzel money went toward the bus and pie money covered paint.

We went with barn red, simple and classic. I probably should have painted the panels before putting them up, but painting standing up worked too. More zen for more thinking. We'd been doing camping Saturday nights since Sunday is kind of a dead time at the diner, but I thought maybe we could stick around and find out what the fallout was from The Hat Thing.

Ordinarily a head piece wouldn't fall off so easily. Had it been properly equipped, the guy could have hit her with a two by four and it still would have stayed on. But the manor beret is battle caster gear, and we've been wearing Monk gear since coming here. The caster gear is a bit too flashy to pass as casual wear, and a Monk can't equip the beret. We couldn't even glamour it to a Monk head piece, assuming we actually had glamour crystals.

So, rather than head equipment, Tsu'na simply used the beret as a hat, perched on her head and covering her ears. Where it stayed for the most part until that asshole punched her. (She hasn't told me who the asshole in question was. I might've indicated a predisposition toward a gentlemanly/husbandly sense of obligation to inflict physical harm on him. She said she can handle it, which we both know is true.)

Deciding to not wear it after it had come off surprised me a bit. She'd said she was tired of hiding herself, especially since I'd been quietly spreading the convention/fangirl story. I suppose as long as the cat's out of the bag(gy hat) I can understand it. The question is how understanding everyone else will be.

Which I assumed was why Sam came out with a cider and sat on the bench. I kept painting for a while.

"You source your own lumber. You source your own paint too?"

"Hardware store down 51."

"I coulda chipped in. It's my shed."

"You weren't using it. We're the ones who want to. Besides, rent, remember?"

Sam nodded absently. He looked around. "Your wife here?"

"She's at the library."

"Didn't know it was open on Sunday."

"We asked nice, made an arrangement, offered to vacuum and stuff."

"'Course you did."

I finished the board I was working on. We need to seal the cracks and weatherproof it and all, though we also need to think about ventilation. But that can come when we work on the roof.

I closed the paint, put the brush in a bucket to soak, and sat down next to Sam. I opened the cider and took a pull. We gazed out at the yard. "This about the ears?"

"Maybe."

"Thought I told people about them."

"Ain't the same as seein' em."

"Okay, well...now you've seen em. Whaddaya think?"

"...They look real."

"Cosmetic surgery. For what she paid for them, they better look real."

"What about her real ears? Under her hair?"

"No, those are her real ears now."

"But...I mean...you say 'cat ears', I think o' those hair things kids wear. Pointy on top."

"Nobody's gonna pay to get those put permanently on their head. At least I hope not."

"What happens if I pull em?"

"One of us breaks your arm."

"No, seriously."

"No, seriously. She had that kind of crap happen at conventions, back before she had any martial arts training, and after enough of it she had kind of a breakdown. You think either of us are gonna put up with it now?"

"I ain't gonna pull em, okay? Just wonderin' if...someone pulls em hard enough, will they come off?"

"If I pull your ears hard enough, will they come off? If I pull your dick hard enough, will it come off?"

"Jesus, chill out, willya?"

"Well, I don't really like where these questions are going, that's all. You're married, right?"

"Yeah...?"

"Are your wife's boobs real? What happens if I pull em?"

"I'd...try to break your arm."

Sam met my gaze a moment before turning away with a grimace. "...Yeah, okay. Sorry."

I'd been rehearsing this in my head in some form or another ever since we arrived. Give it a beat, then sigh. "No...look...I'm sorry. It's just...I wasn't there when it happened, we met in the field. But to hear her tell it...

"You've got this teenager, first year college, family's got enough money to be stupid, and she's really into fantasy fiction and games and stuff. So she plays a game with a catgirl and gets so into it she wants to be one. Parents indulge her, find someone who'll do anything for enough money, and she gets altered. Hurts all to hell, but she's happy. She's having fun. She's living the dream. She's just a kid.

"So she decides to show off. She goes to a convention where they've got other people dressing up as stuff for fun. She doesn't know. Lot of people don't know. Just google 'convention groping' and you'll get lots of hits. But she doesn't know. She's just having fun, she's going to a convention and saying, 'Hey, look at me!'

"And they look. And they approach. And they crowd. And they touch. They want to touch her ears. They want to pull her tail..."

"Tail?"

"Thought I mentioned the tail."

"Thought you were kiddin'."

"It's why she wears the coat all the time. Anyway, you've got these perfect strangers, most of them weird fat guys but not always, wanting to touch her. She got out of the crowds, but even just wandering around she'd get touched, feel people's hands on her, and it wasn't fun. She had her dream and people were making it a nightmare."

I rubbed my face with my hands. Got paint on my cheeks, but it just added to the effect. "She was so freaked out by it. Told me she just went home and hid in her room for days, didn't go to classes, didn't want to talk to anyone. Her parents were kinda useless about it...'You wanted us to spend all that money on this, and this is what you get.' Pricks.

"So she kinda started lashing out, taking fighting classes. Turns out she was good at it. Good enough that after enough training she got recruited by a government contractor. Got into the field and that's where she met me. And we got along okay because I didn't try to touch her. I mean, anyone who did got their ass kicked, but it wasn't that. I just wanted to respect her space."

I looked at Sam. "And I need other people to respect her space too. We sorta know you people. It was bad enough when strangers were trying to grab her. She doesn't need it happening here with people she knows." I tried to bore into Sam with a glare. "I do not want her going through that again. If she doesn't kick the shit out of anyone who tries touching her without her permission, rest assured that I will."

Sam nodded slowly, meeting my eyes. "Okay. Yeah. I get it. I...guess I can't imagine what that was like. I'll tell folks to back off, okay?"

I let the tension bleed out of me. I sat back, drained my cider and let my head rest on the back of the bench. "I'd appreciate that. Thanks."

"If her folks had all that money, why'n't they just get her ears fixed back?"

"They didn't want to spend more on her screwup. She didn't ask, and after she got good at fighting she got stubborn. 'This is me and I'm not the problem here.' That sort of thing."

"'Kay. But if she's so rich, how come y'all are workin' for beer?"

"They didn't want anything to do with her after she went off fighting. She wasn't their precious little angel any more. Did I mention they're pricks?"

"You mighta mentioned that."

"So it's just her and me. We're doing what we can."

Sam nodded. His eyes wandered as he absorbed all I'd said. "You should be okay here. These're good folks. Just don't freak em out."

"Don't freak my wife out and we'll all get along fine."

"Sure." He stood up, stretched and looked at the shed. "Y'all need any...more paint or anything, let me know."

"Thanks."

I waited until he'd headed into The Pit before quietly asking, "What did you think of the story, my love?"

"I thought you told it well."

Tsu'na faded into view next to me on the bench, a vision in her stark black Ninja gear before she shifted to Earth normal.

"Believable?"

"I felt sorry for me."

I smiled. "Still. You might want to wear the beret for a while yet."

"You want me to put a lid on things?"

"That was bad, my love."

"I am not a precious little angel, remember?"