#splinterthesewerrat

And just how did you discover this?

Request for Fantasia/ shardsoftangshen and protectorraphael/ splinterthesewerrat.

It had been a few days since crossing to the new world, since the boundless joy of reconnecting with her long-lost husband, but mingled with the elation and the thrill of being able to hold him again had been an odd shyness... a reluctance to let him get truly close. 

Part of it was just the newness of it all, but if she was truly honest with herself, part of it was the thought of how much she had changed since they had last been.... together. He had called her beautiful, once. And though she knew it was foolish, for did she not find his new form equally as handsome as his old? ...part of her was afraid to let him see her own new form in its entirety. Afraid he might find her....wanting.

But time had passed, and one of the frequent demands of her feline form was that her fur wanted brushing, regularly, or it had a tendency to mat. She had borrowed a brush from April and retreated to Splinter's empty room for privacy, but as she knelt on the futon, her clothing laid neatly out beside her, she felt a strange sense of melancholy.

And then, without warning, she heard the door slide open behind her, and the light footsteps freeze in the doorway. She bowed her head, staring down at the brush that she clutched in her lap. Even if it was not apparent who would be entering this room without knocking, the energies swirling around her would have told her exactly who it was. 

And despite the fact that her fur covered her more completely and modestly than most clothing she had owned as a human -- back then, the traditional clothes were only for special occasions, and jeans and tank tops more her garments of choice when she was not in a gi -- she felt more exposed and vulnerable in that moment than she had on the first night they had ever spent together.