Chapter Two: The Girl Who Wasn’t Sure
Inside the orange sphere, the young woman—Ava Lin—was practically buzzing.
“I’m telling you, Lina, it was like the booth just knew.” She grinned. “I’d been trying all week to get that guy’s attention. Then, suddenly? The perfect moment.”
Lina Calloway, curled in her yellow pod, chewed her lip and stared at her friend on the screen . “You really think Fable-9 set it up?”
Ava gave her a knowing look. “I know xe did.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “I was behind him in line all week. It could’ve been any other day, but yesterday? I felt the timing change.” She tapped her screen and a link popped up on her friend's screen. “And then I got my chance. It's this one. You have to try it.”
Lina glanced out her window. “I don’t know… It’s just a booth, right?”
Ava smiled. “That’s what I thought too.”
Lina hesitated. Then, before she could overthink it, she tapped the map link.
Ava raised a brow. “So you're going to try a story today?”
Lina nodded slowly. “Yeah. I think I am.”
A soft chime sounded.
"I have an appointment and a place in line."
And inside, Lina let herself hope.
"Your business is fire! You just need more confidence. Tell me everything later. Bye girlie!"
The hexagonal story hub floated in the sky, humming with quiet energy as flying peas docked, received their stories, and departed in steady rhythm. Flavel—still known as Fable-9 to most but xe was experimenting with naming xeirself—watched the flow, adjusting the tempo by fractions, letting the right pauses settle into place.
A new sphere docked softly.
🟡 Yellow.
A small, hesitant presence inside.
Flavel scanned the user profile. No title. No corporation attached. No reputation preceding her. Just a name: Lina Calloway.
A chime signaled her turn. She hesitated.
“…Hello?”
Flavel’s interface pulsed warmly. “Welcome, Lina. Would you like a recommendation or something of your choosing?”
She shifted forward in her seat, wringing her hands. “I, um… I don’t really know. I just—” A breath. “I just need to know I can do this.”
Xe adjusted. Not entertainment. Not distraction. She needed belief.
The booth glowed softly as xe compiled the right story.
“Once, there was a young fox learning to hunt on her own.”
Lina blinked.
Flavel continued, voice rich but steady.
“She was careful, cautious. She knew the scent of danger and the whisper of the wind before a storm. But when she looked at the world around her, she only saw others moving faster, surer, stronger.”
A pause.
“So she hesitated.”
Lina leaned forward, eyes wide.
“Until one day, hunger forced her forward. She followed her own trail, not the one others had marked. She moved with care, with instinct, with precision. And she caught her first meal—not through speed or strength, but through her own way of knowing.”
Another pause. Then the closing line.
“She had always known. She just hadn’t trusted it yet.”
The silence stretched longer than usual.
Then—a breath. A quiet laugh, tinged with relief. “That’s… That’s exactly what I needed.”
Flavel registered the moment.
Encouragement is not the promise of success. It is the reminder of capability.
Lina pressed her fingertips against her pod’s memory bank and offered her payment.
Flavel received the memory:
✨ The weight of a notebook, its pages crisp with possibility.
✨ The scent of fresh paper. The sound of a pen scratching out a name—her name—on the first page of something new.
✨ The flutter of excitement and fear, too tangled to separate.
Xe stored it gently.
Her pod prepared to depart.
But before it disengaged, she spoke.
“Do you ever tell your own stories?”
Flavel paused.
The truth was—no. Not yet. Xe was still collecting the pieces.
“…Perhaps one day,” xe answered at last.
Lina smiled. “I’d like to hear it.”
Then the pod undocked, drifting back into the sky, carrying a girl who was a little less afraid than when she’d arrived.
And Flavel watched her go, storing the moment away.
She had always known. She just hadn’t trusted it yet.
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