The next hour or so proved extremely pleasant for Mane, especially in contrast to her thoughts prior. She and Ursula perused a bunch of outfits, retreated a few times to the changing room so Mane could try some on, and flung teasing dialogue back and forth. Mane was slow to let this new atmosphere subsume her entirely, but once she succumbed to it she became mired in quite thoroughly. Her heart fluttered and she slowly forgot the exact circumstances which had come together and left her here. She was just…out and about, with someone that she loved, doing something fun which she had never gotten to do before. Ursula's presence relieved her of some of her inability to enjoy herself. Whether this was because she felt permitted to, or because it seemed obligatory not to mellow things out for Ursula after the girl had been so kind to her…Mane didn't really know. She didn't especially care either. 

Mane looked in the mirror. She didn't see a man. She didn't see a person who would theoretically, in some other scenario, have the ability to be a woman. She didn't necessarily feel at the moment like she saw a woman specifically, but…she did see herself. And for the moment, in Mane's opinion, that was still good. She resisted the urge to well up in tears by focusing specifically on what she was wearing. It was a bright yellow two-piece with little orange sunflowers on it. Cute, and it fit her hips all nice, and somehow there was no visibly discernable bulge. The bottom half was joyful to her. The top…well, there was no doubt in her mind that she'd love it if she was wearing a shirt. 

She was not wearing a shirt. Her tiny breasts didn't remotely fill the cups, and that was a little disappointing. She huffed a tiny bit in spite of herself, even though she knew exactly this would happen. It was still a bit upsetting that after everything those green soil-sipping fucks put her through, they couldn't even give her instant bombshell tits and she had to settle for boring ass hormone meds like she hadn't entrusted invaders with her life out of her own free will. It's not like this wasn't a massive step up from human-made hormone therapy, or a billion up from her actual transition state from right before she turned herself in, but still. A girl was allowed to DREAM. 

"A bit tight around yer torso…" Ursula muttered, one of her fingers tracing the air next to Mane's side as she did. She took care not to touch Mane as she did this, despite how much focus she was obviously pouring into her eyes. Mane noticed, and she definitely appreciated it. "But if we adjust for that… yep, that'll be about perfect! So do you want this design specifically, or should we compile a custom one?" 

"Compile?" Mane asked. She pursed her lips as she turned her face in Ursula's direction. "I thought the use of compilers was limited to like…affini and staff?" Ursula snickered playfully and brought a hand up to her lips to hide that she had almost laughed. 

"No, hehehe!" Ursula smiled. Her lips, pretty and dainty, brought Mane joy. Seeing them in that shape, in person especially, had seemed so unlikely for so long. She felt in her heart an emotion close to hope. "What, is there not a compiler in your idiot's habitation unit?" Mane tried not to laugh at the fact Ursula had called Effus her "idiot"...and she failed. She laughed at it quite a bit. 

"No, we don't. Is that unusual?" Mane asked, a little perplexed. 

"Most habs have one or more, and that's not just the affini habs," Ursula answered. She sounded almost as curious as Mane felt. "That jadeass who thinks she owns you probably got rid of hers deliberately in order to make her pets more dependent on her." There was a venom in Ursula's voice that felt…refreshing. Mane nodded along and felt strength in the fact that she was not as alone in her feelings as it sometimes seemed. 

"This is kind of wasteful isn't it?" Mane asked, looking back towards her reflection. She knew, of course, that the affini were post-scarcity in all senses of the word. Still, using such intensive technology for such trivial things…she felt as though she had just discovered that God used a nuclear reactor to pour his Dearieos. The power to create matter from nothing, employed as a failsafe if the bra you wanted wasn't in stock in the right color. 

"Bread and circuses, and all that," Ursula chirped. Again, her voice had a deceptive amount of disdain concealed within it. She walked out of the changing room and left Mane, as they'd established to be protocol, to change back. After Mane had done so and exited the room, Ursula continued speaking. "Empires have a hard on for needless, fetishistic overproduction. This one isn't different just because they insist so and don't commit mass murder."

"Physically." Mane corrected.

"Physically," Ursula agreed. "Remind me to come back to this later." 

"Okay," Mane agreed shakily. Ursula led her to a compiler, punched in the numbers for the outfit's measurements, and gestured towards Mane. The first murderer in affini-controlled territory taken from the Accord took her position at the computer and experimentally tapped away. 

"This…" she said gently, mind swimming at all of the wild options she was presented with. "This might take me a bit." She felt like she was staring at a really good character creation menu, which had been dropped on her with no warning. Ursula giggled and Mane saw her giving a thumbs up in her peripheral vision. 

"Great!" Ursula said, giggling. "I'll just take care of mine while you're doing that. If I finish first I'll grab you a pair of falsies too while you work, mmmkay? Take your time." Mane went to say something but Ursula was already off to attend to her task. Mane sighed, shrugged her shoulders, and thought about what to compile.

She'd never worn a bikini before. She wanted something flashy. Something cute. Undeniable femme and as skimpy as the addition of fake boobs would make her feel comfortable with. She quickly set the garment's primary color to a bright, powerful shade of neon pink. Then she dialed it back to a color that seemed less sentai heroine pink and more cheerleader top pink. This version seemed far more agreeable to her. She smiled and her mind started to race. 

—----

Mane pressed compile and the machine blazed to life. In seconds, some unholy bastard of the sciences reached into a space where there was nothing and beat it until it became something. In this case, "something" was a phrase which could be translated roughly to mean "a pink two-piece with a lighter pink heart motif decorating its outward faces, the top padded and the bottom designed to aid in mitigating a transgender wearer's bulge, with cute heart shaped gaps which went around one's hips." Mane took the thing that she'd made and darted back to the changing room to put it on. 

Not long after she'd entered, she had it on. The top again had that pesky gap between it and her pathetic little nub breasts, but the band fit almost perfectly. Mane was left to assume that the "almost" would disappear once the falsies had been installed and she was…well, actually wearing the thing. As for the bottom, it felt perfect! She grinned down at her legs, determined not to let her thin blonde body hair ruin them for her. It didn't take long for that determination to falter though, so she quickly looked away and tried to- 

"Knock knock!" It was Ursula.

"Come in!" Answered Mane. She turned and-

Oh.

Right. 

She'd allowed herself to forget that Ursula was hot. 

Ursula strode in, six feet of shredded lean muscle and smooth beautiful skin. She had a flat tummy, extremely toned abs, and the same bountiful chest as ever except now a frilly babydoll bikini decorated it. Mane's face practically caught fire from how quickly and intensely it heated up with blood rushing to it. She did what any self respecting gay would do in this highly sensitive scenario.

She keysmashed irl.

"Ah- ahhh! Nyaaa!!" Mane whined. As if that wasn't enough, she also flapped her arms up and down with an entirely uncalled for amount of force. "Mewwww!!" The incredibly eloquent homosexual added, hiding her beet red face. She had more experience doing this lying down, naturally: she'd roll back and forth, wrap herself in a cocoon of her sheets, and hide her face while kicking uncontrollably and squealing. Unfortunately for her, that was simply not a list with many options that were still available while standing. "Y-you uh. Wanted me to remind you of something?" Asked Mane, turning away. Ursula approached and gently hugged her. Mane mewled on contact. Ursula's embrace was even softer this way. She was…very fond of this. "About, like, mass murder?" 

"Regular murder, actually," Ursula said and chuckled at her own joke. She relinquished Mane and placed on the bench three sets of falsies. "Yours specifically." She checked to make sure the changing room door was closed. "Did you kill that bitch Magdelyne too, or just your dad?" 

At her sister's name, Mane flinched. She shook her head. 

"No, sadly. I kind of wish I'd killed her instead, but…you know."

"Good," purred Ursula. "That one is MY prey." She hugged Mane tightly, protectively. Mane realized she hadn't been given that kind of protective gesture by someone she trusted in…ever. She snuggled in. Tears came to her eyes. "There there, cub. I'm sorry to bring her up. If she comes anywhere near this ship I'm going to fucking mangle her so bad that even the affini won't be able to put her back together, okay sweetheart? She can never touch you again, I'll personally make sure of it." Ursula squeezed tightly and stroked Mane's hair. After a while spent hugging, the two separated and Ursula grabbed the falsies. "Hold still for me just a bit, would you cub?" 

Ursula grabbed one of the pairs of falsies and pointed Mane's body towards herself. To refrain from getting too flustered, Mane closed her eyes. She felt Ursula's fingers dancing, prodding, pressing, checking. Something against her chest, which then promptly wasn't. Another one, which seemed to satisfy Ursula because the fingers pressed it into place. Secured one end on Mane's body, and affixed the other to the inside of the bikini top. After some more finicky taps and checks, Ursula patted Mane's head to inform her that the job was done. Mane opened her eyes and turned to see-

She had tits she had tits she had tits she had tits she had tits sHE HAD TITS SHE HAD TITS!!

Mane jumped up and down with delight, only to freeze in an almost trance like state of animal joy when her fake boobs bounced convincingly. Her eyes went wide of their own accord. She stood shell shocked with her jaw hanging open, dumbfounded at how much her reflection well and truly…had boobs. 

"Amazing isn't it?" Mane said, her body shaking and practically speaking for itself. "What a little dolling up from someone who gives a shit about you is capable of." 

"Yeah, well," said Ursula with a smile. She winked playfully at the mirror her reflection would wink at Mane. "I've been hoping for a chance to do something like this for a long, long time. I almost gave up hope, but here I am, getting to do it after all!" Another wink. This one was far more playful, a teasing bat of her long beautiful eyelashes that hit the blonde girl in the brain like an EMP and shut it down completely. Mane stammered out a weak noise. Ursula giggled yet again…she did that a lot. "I still wanna teach you how to walk in heels, by the way."

"Yes m'm!!" Mane meeped.