CW: Some description of dead/decaying animal

As an aesthete yourself, you can appreciate aesthetic Headspaces. This one is one of the more marvellous that you've managed to visit: an oasis desert city with towering buildings of gold and marble, with green vines winding up them. Thoughts flit in between, sometimes as birds with magnificent plumage, sometimes as waves of sand rushing through the streets.

You take a moment to enjoy the sensation of the sun on your face, the softness of the sand under your feet, and the glitter of the structures under the light of noon. But that is not why you are here. You walk at pace through the streets, keeping a careful eye out.

Client #43, struggling with anxiety and the recent grief of losing a support animal. This will be your 3rd session, but the first where you have projected into their Headspace. It's generally something you have found most effective supplementing therapy and guidance given outside of it. And besides, they react better to your efforts once you have built a rapport and trust between the two of you. That's an observation you have taken note of with particular interest: changes made to someone's Headspace seem to 'stick' more, and elicit more positive responses, if enacted by someone trusted by the receptive. It makes some sense. It will make your work easier as well.

Today though, you have started small. Just help the person process the loss of their pet by gently going over the memories again. That's all.

Turning left, you locate the Memory Bank and head inside. To your surprise, it's a menagerie of birds, the same ones you have seen flying around, each squawking and calling out and sending flashes of different memories through you. Memories of love, thrills, happiness, they bounce around your head for but a moment. You block them out, and find the ones you need.

It's a simple matter to gently tug the birds from their perch, and gently stroke their plumage. Loss, painfully familiar loss, bounces through the bird and into you. Deeply unpleasant for you as it is, you grit your teeth, reach out with your Feel and bring the memories through, before slowly putting the bird down and exiting quickly, taking a moment to rest.

And then you see him.

Padding slowly towards you from the distance, the familiar figure of Beignet, partially decayed and teeth exposed. They stalk towards you, and come to a stop in front of you, staring at you with those two black eyes.

Something is different…

You, slowly, reach out a hand. Beignet, in turn, extends their neck and sniffs it, once, carefully. You eye each other. Fear rises in your stomach, slowly, but Beignet does not move further. Nor is the dread that usually accompanies them present. You take a breath. Then another.

And then, slowly, you turn to leave. Beignet follows, but the former malice is gone. They just pad silently at your feet. As you leave, you feel their eyes on you.

You'll see them again. But you no longer dread the thought.

The applause is light and airy, many of the hands still holding champagne or some manner of drink in one hand. It's late in the evening in the Chevalier house, in the forest some distance from Museford. You just concluded your speech on your partner Mort's new green initiative and habitat preservation effort, and this was the dinner reserved for the most generous donors.

But now the night is ending, and people begin to file out. You dutifully perform the role that is expected of you: as people pile into the waiting cars outside, you shake their hands and give them your well-practiced smile. It takes a bit of time to politely and carefully extract the more chatty (and slightly intoxicated) attendees from amongst the party, but soon enough you are alone in the house again. Well, alone but for Mort.

They've dutifully been at the party and done their part too, but had taken a moment to step back as it wound to a close. After some searching, you find them standing on the balcony overlooking the woodlands. Your woodlands. Both of your woodlands.

Silently you come to the balcony to join them. You stand in silence in the cool night air for a time, before Mort speaks.

“Do you see, over there? That's where we had our first walk together, during the '22 conference.”

“Doctor Mortina, that may have been some time ago but my memory is not quite yet so faded that that is something that I am likely to forget.”

You give them a smile. Mort returns it, their face only partially illuminated by the light coming from inside the house. For a moment, you allow yourself to imagine the shrouded part of their face as their Headspace avatar, the grinning skeleton covered in decay. A morbid image to be sure. But the spark of life behind both the eyes and the eye sockets means their beauty is undiminished.

“I was just reflecting on exactly how far things have come since. The Conference, the election, the mayoralty. Did you know Storm still sends me postcards with birds on them?”

This elicits a small laugh from you as they continue.

“But more importantly, all of this. All we've achieved together. And all that you have achieved. It's quite stunning.”

With a smile, you rest a hand on their shoulder.

“Doctor Mortina Death, my love, I endeavour to be stunning in all I do. I would be disappointed in myself if it was not.”

“Your inherent propensity for perfection aside, you should be proud. Sometimes I get the sense you are less so than you let on.”

You pause a moment.

“I suppose that may be true, sometimes. But far less so recently. Far less so with you.”

Gently, Mort pulls you into their embrace, and the two of you stare across the world you have built for yourselves together.