Art by: Kippurable
Blythe and story: By me! :D

Fave the original Here on FA!

Wrote a little story snippet to go with this wonderful commission! It's set a while before the current Flames comic:

"There you are." Rederick thinks to himself as he cautiously peers through the cracked-open doorway.

He quietly creeps into the cramped utility room adjoining the kitchen of his wife and his apartment on the grand Baltais Caurums Research Space Station. There his wife sits at a chunky radiation-hardened computer, bathed in the light of its three monitors. Blythe had been sneaking off to this room so often this week, Rederick wondered why he hadn't thought to check here first. His silent footfalls place him next to her and he notices she's fallen asleep at the keyboard. On the screen, "Print Complete". On the floor next to her, just beneath the sizable printing device hung on the way, the shiny latex-like results of her work. A survival suit with a prototype of her custom-made decorative pattern.

"Oh my dear, you've been so excited for your first batch of new hires." Rederick's thoughts continue, as he reaches for a small blanket nearby. "But I wish you wouldn't skip your sleep cycles." He quietly ignores that he's guilty of the same exuberance for work, in his concern for his partner.

He knows it'd be no use waking her up now. She'd just want to pick up where she left off: continuing to refine her design for the tightly-fitting survival suits; essentially team uniforms. Uniforms soon to be worn by the first team of researchers to be hand-picked by her since entering her position as head of the Practical Science Division. Instead, he quietly drapes the blanket over her bare shoulders, and picks up the bits of trash she's left at her desk.

Already he can tell the pattern will turn out quite lovely. It will be provided as the default on the suits to be printed for her new hires, just as Rederick's own basic pattern had been for his first group. Employees can reprogram these recyclable suits to any pattern they wish, so long as they keep them colored-code to their division colors while in the workspace. However, the means to do so takes the form of specialized assembly programming language native to the printing device and a remarkably crude input of physical switches, buttons and knobs. Considered a hobbyist project, even bypassing the mean of input to focus purely on programming leaves it something of a hassle to develop for. Fun for some and a decent pass-time, but not nearly so many of Rederick's team have taken up it up as have taken to other pass-times such as pool lounging, working out at the station gym, or even practicing a bit of Kailum. Perhaps, Rederick mused, Blythe's design would become a standard for most employees here then. If nothing else, he makes a mental note to ask her for the code she wrote to compile vector graphics into assembly instructions adequate to display them in the pattern. He wouldn't mind spicing up his own suit's design with something more intricate than what he managed to write himself.

Smiling softly, Rederick bends down to peck his wife's fuzzy cheek. Then, just as quietly as he came in, he exits not noticing her fluffy blue tail out the back side of the chair has started to swing back and forth.