[b]Pink:[/b]

John was going to put Pink down on a countertop while he got ice from a freezer, but decides against it since Pink asked so nicely. Instead he just picks one of the fridges with the freezer door at the top instead of the bottom so he doesn’t have to kneel down, and takes from it a saved bag of chilled fluid they send in grocery deliveries, and wraps it in a tea towel taken from an oven door.

“Well… right now there’s the lizards, and the turtles.” He thinks, smiles at the corner of the room and points to what looks to an iguana what a quokka looks to a wombat. “And a couple of tuatara now, isn’t she a beauty? I think that one’s Jacinta, hard to tell from here. They tell me she’s not a lizard, she’s as close as you get to a lizard without being one. So you got crocs, and turtles, and lizards, and then Jacinta here has her entire heritage all to herself. Little bit of a diva, isn’t she?” He chuckles to himself, and Jacinta the tuatara looks just so incredibly happy to be here.

Notably, for a man called John Snake-in-the-Eye, he just refused to acknowledge the existence of snakes. 

“What more could you do?” He asks. “Because I’m not bringing crocs here.”

This man is not so monomaniacal that he couldn’t understand another vision when presented to him. It’s just that if you ask him what this place could (should) be, then he has his own answer - filled with as many lovely reptiles as possible. And right now Pink’s just made him think… Could he fill it with [i]more[/i], maybe? Has his battles with his neighbours made him [i]complacent[/i] in his duties to the lizards?!

Much to consider.

“Red just shot Crystal!” Fiona calls out from far, far, down the long corridor. This house is way too big. “She’s fine! Red’s screwed, though!” 

“Reminds me of my mate Paul,” John says, and offers absolutely no further explanation. 

[b]Yellow:[/b]

Bill taps his nose. “Just one. Learn how to translate those fears. You’ll never be able to give a good [i]we’re not so different, you and I[/i] speech without it.” He turns back to listen to the biologist. 

Oof. She’s gotten a little eugenics-y. That happens sometimes with some of the STEM attendees, they misread the vibe of supervillainy a bit and a little bit technocratic in their solutions and whoops, biologists treating Brave New World as an instruction manual since the gene modding tech’s there to implement it now. 

A frail, pale man politely rises from his seat to approach the lectern and lays her out with a haymaker. There’s a wave through the crowd as everyone reacts, but the man already has both his hands over his head, palms to the ceiling in surrender as if to say he’s ready to eat the full consequences of doing it - “Sorry it had to be done but I’m done now” - and that’s when you first see the mercury-silver seams running along his joints. Android. It makes sense an android would have especially strong feelings about this. A very well constructed android. A fussing older woman is escorting him out of the building, scolding him for doing it.

Bill winces. “Yes, I suppose I should have expected that from Zhuge Liang.” 

A person sitting in the chair behind you in the audience leans forward and taps your shoulder to get your attention. They glows underneath their thin purple silks, they’ve had light plates installed just beneath the skin so that their body glows like cathedral stained glass, they are a walking church unto themselves - with one clear window to their beating heart. That one’s mostly under the shirt, don’t worry about it. “Hey.” They say. “You’re not really an android, are you?”

It’s a statement phrased as a question. 

[b]Red:[/b]

First as farce, then as tragedy. In hindsight, this will hit different.

For now, the sane reaction would be to be furious about it. In the first second she is, half-drank mug of hot chocolate thumping off the plush carpet just outside Crystal’s bedroom as she’d got caught coming out to see just who was visiting her this time. Her hands splayed out wide at her sides like she’s just had a drink thrown on her, just before the manages to get Red to help her stand up again. 

Then she touches two fingertips to the indent just over her heart, and touches it again. She pulls out her phone and inspects the impact with the selfie camera, a sudden intense look of concentration. “This. This is what I was missing.” She says entirely to herself as she takes a picture and sends it to someone. “The [i]proof[/i]. A shot aimed directly at my heart, irrefutable yet impenetrable, implacable. I look – I [i]feel[/i] – invincible.”

She takes three steps towards the throne and casually flicks it over with a twirl of her wrist, sends it flying with a spin to land on its cusions. Then turns back to Red. She's coming [i]back[/i].

Red? Red.

[i]Red![/i]

Too late.

She’s here.

One arm tight around Red’s hips and the other grabs that anime-protagonist hair and pulls it right back, a soft-furred cheek pressed to Red’s bared throat as Crystal growls into her ear. “[i]You[/i]." It's a long, low, crocodillian growl. "I have been looking for [i]you[/i], because contrary to the last minute’s evidence I hear you have had some remarkable personal growth lately. Without [i]me[/i]. Tell me [i]everything[/i]." Then a hot and shaking breath as she composes herself.

“The armour stays on, am I clear? Nod if you understand that. I shan’t give you the slack to manage one, but I will feel if you try.”