Ha! Heh! Ember's tail wags eagerly as she slips effortlessly out of a door, leaving a dozen dozen Summerkind milling confused in the pheromonal research annex. When they try to come after her, they'll accidentally destabilize the vats and flood this entire section of the Sphere with a hundred thousand contradictory commands! Now, on to her next scene of mischief, of chaos, of innocent mayhem! All she has to do is scamper helpfully down this corridor, take a sharp left to avoid the security checkpoint down the hall, and--

It should be impossible for materials to fail her. Clothing is about form and function, each perfected since before she was born. The world is full of useful and wonderful things just waiting for her to figure out how to use them.

And yet the heel of her shoe twists underneath her and the perfect dance of chaos comes to a sudden, yipping, undignified halt.

She stares up at the brown, slowly dripping ceiling, and too slowly realizes that the grating is dripping the peanut butter from the Heartwarming Wedding Cake Disaster. Ah. Well. In the last moment before being buried underneath a wave of Summerkind, she folds her hands and considers how all mortal endeavor is ultimately its own sort of farce--

[[b]3.[/b]]