"Ready?" Felix asks, fiddling with their camera.

"Give me a minute to get comfortable," I answer, walking over to the old steel washtub. I honestly never quite expected the photoshoot to actually happen, but Maudlin came through and Felix was willing to reschedule whatever else they were planning on doing. I'd be lying if I wasn't also a little nervous, but...

I take a breath and turn around, then slowly lower myself into the tub. I can feel the near-boiling water through the bone, a nearly-unpleasant-but-also-welcome sensation, and my muscles slowly relax as the heat seeps into them. A pair of mint-scented candles lie lit next to an open box of chocolates, all on top of a three-legged stool within arm's reach of the tub. For all intents and purposes, it's just a night of relaxation.

In someone else's home.

With a camera.

I let out a long breath and start loosening the plates that make up my costume. Not gone, not falling off, just thinning the connections between them. I generally don't go skyclad under bone when I'm out in costume, for safety if for no other reason. When I'm not in costume, I try not to armor up. It makes it easier to keep Taylor and White Rose separate.

I sigh.

This is weird.

"Do you want music?" I blink and look at Felix, who quickly turns away to fiddle with a light stand. "I mean, it feels like this is your first time modeling and I'm trying to get you to relax. I know that whenever I run into situations that freak me out I plug in some earbuds, check out for a bit, and just like that" — they snap their fingers — "things are a little easier."

"Sure," I say, rolling my shoulders, draping my arms over the edge of the tub, and dropping my head back to look up at the ceiling. Soon enough, a song starts floating through the room. I still don't feel... whatever it is I'm supposed to be feeling. I think.

Ugh. I reach for a piece of chocolate and bite down on it. Coconut. I swallow it down. Double ugh.

New plan.

I close my eyes and start feeling with my shell. No shaping, not yet. I let my mind wander aimlessly, not really trying to think about anything or do anything. I'm just existing in place, fading back in a way I can't quite explain, re-imagining myself as a combination of organs and bone. I become aware of myself in a way that's deeper than a position in space, or an emotional balance, or any mixture of the two. I get a sense of connection and disconnection, of being in tune with something so much larger than myself but also comfortably removed from it all.

It's there that I remember I was here for a reason. To show off. To display myself.

So I do.

At first it's small things, petals peeling off me into the warm water. When those sink I blow into the bone, making it light as gossamer, forming lotus blossoms to float on the water, delicate structures that lie still on the surface. My legs work their way up and out, water gently dripping from them as more bone disconnects. Waste not want not. I let the material spider out into vines, lightly thorned, crawling up the side of the tub even as more bone falls away from me.

An indistinct noise starts up, stimulus meant for the relaxed, not-bone parts of myself. It doesn't sound worried though, so I push the concern to the back of my mind and ease back into my power.

More bone falls off me, floating in the water next to the lilies as the gentle blaze of heat folds deep into my flesh. I leave those plates intact, something telling me that a visual reminder of the beginning of this session might be useful. Then I yawn, more bone peeling back and up to let my jaw stretch as a pleasant sense of peace falls over me. I snag a chocolate and nibble on it. Bitter and dark. Perfect.

A quiet clicking flits around me, accompanied by more of the indistinct noise and noise-patterns. I think about quieting it, then decide not to. Chocolate is better. Mmm, raspberry.

Only a few pieces of bone are left. One over the left side of my chest, something partially on and partially off my right foot, a few pieces in my right hand that I idly play with, and far too many on my face. Irritating. I tell the section over my mouth to crawl off, sliding it up and over my head, undoing the braid and bun that holds back my hair and combing through it with a fineness that no brush has ever come close to. A thought occurs, and I have it bring the hair forward. All three feet of it.

It's dangerous for a cape to have long hair. Very dangerous. Beyond the potential handle it could give opponents during a fight, any number of Thinkers or Tinkers could use lost strands to track me down. If I were more practical, I'd have it cut down to size. If I kept more vulnerable company, perhaps I would as well.

Instead I pull my tresses into the water and start soaking them, slowly rinsing them through and melting into a puddle of contentment. I bring my hands back into the water to work the black strands, humming as more clicking, inoffensive noise, and noise-patterns exist around me.

"Uh, you okay White Rose?"

I come back from the light doze slowly, registering my senses one at a time. Felix has the lights turned down low, the orange glow gently illuminating their face telling me most of the day is gone. The pattern-noise (music, it must have been) is gone, along with the clicking (a camera, surely). I still taste chocolate, along with half a dozen other flavors too indistinct to identify. The mint in the air has been replaced by something else, still plant-like but different. Pine, maybe.

I also feel the now-cold water pruning my skin, the lankness of my hair, and the breeze across my upper chest as I realize just how much skin I have exposed.

"Well this is awkward," I say, marshaling my composure as I re-form my armor and stand up. Water spills out of the tub and the bone flowers start rocking at the change in water levels. "So, I didn't plan for things to go this far and-"

"You want to have veto power over whatever I decide to keep," Felix says, nodding along and apparently unconcerned with me accidentally flashing them. "Yeah, I kinda picked up on you not being entirely there when I asked you if this was supposed to be some sort of elaborate strip-tease and you replied by forming a spike in my direction, then using it to grab more chocolate." I stare at them as they press some buttons on their camera, then hold it in front of me. "Anyway, I work with nude models all the time. It's not weird."

"Do you have any sense of self-preservation?" I ask, glancing at the photo. It's in grey scale, with lots of white-on-white. They press a button and it switches to full color and I see just how flushed the heat of the water made me. Oh my.

"Yeah, but I've got a pretty good head for stuff like this. Also, this wasn't even close to my most dangerous experience with a cape," they say, flicking through the camera roll to some of the earlier shots, the ones where the armor is slowly coming off. The variety of angles is a little confusing, but I can already see a story in them. "I mean, there was this one girl with a crazy precog power and massive self-esteem issues that threatened to have someone named 'Mr. Jeeves' beat me into a coma after I gave her a hug, but after I agreed to shut up her head shot actually came out really nice, and the portrait wasn't too bad either." I shake my head and lean back.

"So, is that it?" I ask hesitantly. It really didn't feel like I did much, and even if I'm still a little off from letting down my guard that much it's hard to stay keyed up when the only other person in the room is 100% unconcerned. "Can I go now?" Felix looks up with a questioning look on their face.

"I mean, yeah, but don't you want a copy of the pictures and stuff?" they ask, jerking a thumb towards a computer tower and monitor. "Like, I'll go through this stuff over the course of the next few days and pick out the best shots, edit the video" — they point to a series of cameras set up on tripods around the tub — "and just generally curate the heck out of this, but this stuff is still pretty cool, and it's as much your creation as mine." I open my mouth to say no, pause, then nod with more confidence than I feel.

"Do you have hard storage?" I ask, more than a little nervous and irritated that I am. I can go to Endbringer fights on the regular, battle any and every parahuman in Boston without batting an eye, but some risque photography unsettles me?

I sigh. Keeping a consistent set of standards is hard.

"Yup, I'll have it ready in a few minutes," they say, dropping into a swivel chair and clicking through some programs I don't recognize. "You can change back into whatever now," they add. "I can handle the rest from here."

Without further comment I gratefully head to the guest bathroom where I left my clothes to once more become Taylor.

"So how'd it go?" Amy asks from the couch as soon as I get back to the apartment Vicky and I share. Strictly speaking, the hour is late enough that Amy should be at the Dallon residence. Realistically, with Vicky attending college and Mark doing a lot better there isn't really a reason for Amy to hang around Carol for an extended period of time if neither of them have to. As a result, Amy basically lives here, to the relief of everyone involved

"It went fine," I say, dropping my motorcycle keys to join the ones for the car in the cup by the door. "Kinda zoned out part way through it but Felix says it turned out alright anyway." Multiple vehicles is an extravagance that I choose to indulge in, officially so Vicky has some less-obvious ways of getting around town. Unofficially, Vicky wouldn't be caught dead driving anywhere she could fly, so the result is that I get to choose between vehicles.

"Details," Amy whines, tossing her book to the side and turning around to look at me as I walk into the kitchen. "You can't just say 'oh, I was a model for a day' and leave it at that!" I toss the flash drive across the room, drawing a surprised squawk as it hits her in the face and falls into her lap. I smirk.

"That's the sum total of the day," I say, pulling out pasta and fixings for a sauce. "If you want to work your way through a few thousand photos you're more than welcome to." Felix told me that maybe twenty to fifty percent of them would be good enough to bother printing out, and that the recording would need some special attention before it would turn into something that they would want to show, but six hours is a lot of material. I don't anticipate being disappointed.

Now, to spice or not to spice, that is the question.

Amy grumbles something unintelligible from the living room and I hear the padding of her feet as she walks to the office room where all the computers are kept. I banish thoughts of her as I go through the motions of putting together dinner, humming in contentment as I cook. Boil noodles, dice the pork, saute onions, garlic, and some peppers (not hot ones this time), and finish the whole thing with pepper, basil, salt, and a can of tomato sauce.

Easy.

Once the food is done I text Vicky, asking when she'll be back. A few minutes later she replies. Tomorrow night. She's with Dean, then. I sigh and set the table for two. It's great that she has a boyfriend. Really. I just wish she was a little better at telling people when she was going to be out. Now I have three people's worth of food and two people to eat it.

Eh, Amy's a pig. I add a few more scoops to her plate. There. Problem solved.

"Food!" I shout, sitting down at the small four-person table and beginning to eat. Poor manners, but the Dallon sisters don't stand on ceremony. I hear some muffled cursing and a slammed door, then hurried footsteps as Amy walks into the room, a slight blush on her face. I point to her plate. "Don't worry, it's not spicy."

For a bit, there's nothing but quiet and the sound of people eating.

"You didn't tell me you were naked," Amy mutters. I look up. Is the unflappable Isidis flustered? The woman who regularly ends up elbow-deep in corpses and near-corpses is rendered speechless by a little bit of skin?

"Is it that big of a deal?" I ask around a mouthful of food, pushing down a smile. "I mean, you're naked around me all the time-"

"I need to be naked around you all the time," she interrupts, pointing at me with her free hand. "My power literally functions better if I am. You don't need to be naked at all, and seeing you slowly, uh..." she trails off, kind of staring in my direction but also clearly trying to not look at me.

"Amy?" I prompt as innocently as I can. Finally. Some vengeance. Amy sort of jumps in place, then scowls.

"It's weird," she finishes, shoving pasta into her mouth. "My schtuck," she adds with her mouth full and looking at me meaningfully.

I don't laugh. Laughing means I lose points. Instead I take another bite of food, table manners nearly perfect.

"Is there anything you liked in the video?" I ask, looking at her expectantly. Amy nearly chokes and I make a mental note to buy Felix something nice and expensive. "Anything you want to try?"

"The flowers," Amy blurts out, trying to stay fixated on her food. "You made floating bone. How?" I think back to the idea of blowing into the bone. How did I do that?

"Give me a second," I say, pushing my empty bowl to the side and holding out my hand, staring intently at the palm. I form a lotus blossom, easy as breathing, then try to blow into it again. It expands rapidly, so I shunt the excess material into additional blooms. Where there was one, there are now four, all thin and near-weightless and practically glowing in the light. I sever my connections to them as quietly as I can and lay them out in the middle of the table, marveling.

It's been years since I made my first rose, and I still haven't figured out all my power can do.

"Pretty," Amy says, reaching over to pick one up. The petal snaps and we both wince as it falls to pieces against the tabletop. "And fragile," I shrug.

"So I can't mass-produce bath toys. Oh well," I say, mind already whirling with possibilities. I can already imagine new ways to play with light, new ways to create the illusion of imbalance. I'm going to have to tell Maudlin. He'll probably have a million different ideas by the end of the week.

"But you could make them for me?" Amy asks, looking at them with undisguised want. I raise an eyebrow.

"After you just broke one?" I reply skeptically. Amy is many things. Careful is not one of them. She waves her hand at me dismissively.

"I'll be careful," she assures me. "Also, that bath looked like a lot of fun. Do we have candles and candy?" she asks, pushing away her plate, clean of all but the tiniest scraps of food. I'm not sure how much of that is her simply eating a lot and how much is a metabolism tuned to keep up the million and three different things she has going on with her body, but it certainly makes leftovers a thing of the past. I crane my neck and look into the glass-faced cabinet where the sweets stay. Yup, a box of chocolates. Nice ones, too, which means they're probably leftovers from one of Vicky and Dean's spats.

Eh, she won't miss them.

"No candles, but yes to the chocolate," I say, picking up my plate and taking it to the sink. "Anyway, I'll finish up here if you want to start on the bath. Do you want tea?"

"No thanks," Amy says, dropping her plates next to mine. "Also, I was thinking I could try to get it as close to the bath in the video as possible. Flowers and all." I nod, studiously avoiding so much as a glance in her direction.

"Run the bath and I'll come by with the flowers and chocolate," I say. Amy growls and stomps off, each footstep like a miniature thunderclap. Soon enough I hear the water start running in the large bathroom, the one with a massive bathtub and shower stall. The one by the master bedroom.

I smile and take my time washing the dishes. Then I grab the chocolates, a bottle of wine, and head to the bathroom, shaking my hair free.

Too easy.