It was only after Danika appeared in her garden with the spider thread net hanging loose against her belly that she realized that it might have been dangerous to enter with the stone attached to her. Thankfully it looked like the stone had probably just fallen where she'd been hovering and the string had come with her unbroken.

She hadn't heard from MatchlessMinion or SaltySiamese lately so after planting one of the berries she assumed the pose and brought up her menu screens and tapped over to her party and friend list just in time to see Aishin's status switch to online. A minute later he appeared beside her. She turned and regarded him warily.

Aishin snatched her out of the air and asked quickly, "Are you ok?"

It was his own voice, and Danika heaved a sigh of relief, but then realized that the question might have been sent as text, and asked uncertainly, "It's really you?"

Aishin stuck his tongue out at her and his hands shifted so that she was sitting on his palms like usual. He said, "Ok, just a minute," and went still. Danika waited on his open palms with a worried expression. "It's really me, is this better?" he asked in the more expressive tones his headset conveyed. There were a lot of clanks and clatters and the hum of many conversations behind his words. "Are you ok? What did my dad do?"

Danika blinked at him and replied, "I'm fine? That was your dad? He just tried to get your avatar out of my garden in the middle of a combat."

Aishin said after a moment, "He said the little girl I've been playing with has been seriously hurt?"

Danika opened her mouth to reply and changed what she was going to say three times before objecting first, "I'm not a little girl."

Aishin made an exasperated noise and complained, "That's not the important part. And he's really old, so I'm sure to him you're still a little girl."

"I think he meant Kit," Danika explained. Looking at Aishin's face and hearing his familiar voice made it hard to take any of the wilder speculations she'd come up with seriously.

Aishin asked with confusion, "Kit Tay? But I haven't even met her yet? She was hurt while he was on?"

Danika waved her little clawed hands and said helplessly, "I think maybe she was hurt before she started playing? She really freaked out after the mountain guardian knocked her down, but she wasn't actually injured much." Danika didn't add that when Aishin's avatar had tried to help her up, she'd screamed, but she still thought it likely that some kind of trauma had led to Kit's anxiety problems.

Aishin flicked a ridiculously tearful emote at her and tears streamed down his cheeks for a moment before being replaced by a smile. "I'm just glad it wasn't you," he said quietly.

His soft tone didn't match either of the emotes, and Danika laughed until he kissed her on the nose.

She gazed at him in silent shock, and he said quickly, "I don't have time to be playing and I don't have mobile data here. If you're ok, I need to get back. I can probably play some tomorrow if things go well."

"I'm ok," Danika assured him. Although she wasn't entirely sure that the VR-medi pod was going to agree with her assessment given her current heart rate.

Aishin flashed a grin, stepped on her center stone and said, "exit," as he vanished and her wings activated, leaving her hovering alone in her garden again.

"It was just another emote," Danika told her heart sharply.

After a few minutes her heart rate had calmed down again, but her thoughts hadn't. She reminded herself again, "We're just friends, and even if it feels like you can touch him, he's just looking at an icon and tapping an emote."

Verbalizing the reminder made it feel kind of depressing, but Danika hadn't forgotten Aishin's declaration that he wasn't looking for a girlfriend. The jokes his friends made didn't count. She told herself firmly not to assume anything just because he was friendly.

Another question occurred to her suddenly. His father had given a family name of Kobayashi, and yet she was nearly certain now that Aishin was Aichi Shinichi. It didn't really make any difference, but she still couldn't be completely certain.

She sighed, and looked around her little garden. It was late enough that she ought to sleep, but she delayed and assumed the pose to call her menus. She wrote a short message to both MatchlessMinion and SaltySiamese that asked: "How has the goblin treasure theft been going?"

Then she huffed a breath and stepped into the cloud to put ZipZing to sleep and summon the Sandman.

The Sandman coalesced in a sparkling cloud of golden sand, conjured a hat and swept her a bow. "You wanted to see me?" he asked with a grin.

"Ah," Danika hedged, "there is something I'd like to see again."

The Sandman grinned at her and asked cheerfully, "What can I show you tonight my dear?"

Danika resisted a temptation and told the Sandman firmly, "I'd like to review the incident today where we met that enormous snow leopard."

"Is that all?" the Sandman asked with a sly expression that reminded her of MatchlessMinion.

Danika nodded and he whisked her away to the mountain top, where the snow was golden. She didn't waste time looking at the mountain guardian, and instead carefully examined the snow that had surrounded them and as far as she could see up the mountain for human footprints other than the ones Kit had made.

When Aishin's familiar figure appeared in the scene her eyes betrayed her though, and she found herself watching as his father had tried to assist Kit. She hadn't been facing them the entire time, but in the Sandman's dream she could see that Kit had been terrified before Aishin's figure had approached and she hadn't seemed to even see him until he touched her. In the dream she flinched away from his touch before ever looking up to see his face.

A worry that Danika hadn't quite admitted to eased. It didn't seem to have been anything about Aishin himself. She knew she ought to be concerned about whatever had hurt Kit anyway, but she still felt relieved. After a moment Aishin's figure vanished and she returned her attention to the snow.

When the enormous saber toothed snow leopard smacked ZipZing into the snowbank, Danika saw that her imprint hadn't been the first to break its smooth outline. A newer layer of snow had obscured the tracks that had cut through the bank before they had followed the bird up the mountain, and it hadn't been snowing while they'd been there.

The trail's presence was a good reason for the snow leopard to have been waiting there, if one assumed that something had prevented her from traveling farther down the mountain. Danika speculated about reasons that the mountain guardian couldn't wander beyond the snow line, but couldn't come up with anything brilliant.

--

She didn't remember when the Sandman's dream turned into a real dream, but she woke up in the morning with the remembrance of Aishin's warm kiss on her nose. The VR-medi pod blinked an indicator light, so Danika activated the display. The system was just indicating that it was ready to send its quarterly report on her health to her local clinic. Danika gave it permission and after a minute she sighed and began her morning.

When she checked her email before starting her shift, Danika was shocked to discover an invitation from the division of Starcraft Technologies that ran "Living Jade Empire". They were inviting her to schedule a VR interview within the next week, and Danika's hands trembled as she clicked the link.

There wasn't a time available that didn't conflict with her shift until three days later, but Danika decided that it would be better to wait for that one, and scheduled it. Then she scooted over to her VR-medi pod and checked that it had completed its upload and set it to download and install the software indicated in the interview instructions. When she finished she laid her hands upon its smooth surface and took a deep breath before moving back to her usual place in front of the large screen she used for work.