"They're not like that."

"They're not like that?"

"No," she dropped flatly. "They have an organization. A structure. A collective goal. A damned logo. Fucking uniforms... Though at times I suspect it's merely a fan club." She took another pull from her highball glass, "Or a support group."

"Yeah, well, maybe you could use something like that."

A dark and smokey basement, beneath some dive bar. The space is ill-lit. Perhaps that's foreboding. Or perhaps the shadows give comfort to those who would seek refuge.

She sits there behind the table, synthetic polymer skin glistening even in the dim ambience. The hints of her purple, gauzy clothes not nearly as notable as her piercing eyes. Hookah pipe in her hand, pink smoke rising from the tip, as well as her nostrils.

It's no high-tech lair. It's not a flashy, heavily populated headquarters. It's not even a mildly crowded convention hall. It's the disused basement of some dive bar and club, and the only reason she's here is because she's familiar with the owner upstairs, and knows how to twist her arm.

It's just her. And it looks perhaps a little pathetic.

There's no party here, no celebration. No flashy logos, no uniforms. No high powered or supercharged monologues.

But it's a space to be, if you find yourself at home amid the sparse light and the lingering smoke. Particularly if you don't find yourself at home outside, where they'd call you monster no matter what you did. Even if the other dens of ill-repute don't want you. Even if you're the wrong kind of misfit.

So if you're there to swap stories, revel in the shadows, or just find comfort in the company of other monsters, well... There's a seat open at the table.

Me: Teff's hair should be soft. Silken. Almost impossibly so - frictionless and slick, but also delicate to the touch.

Me: . . . Also, she can use a single strand of it like garrote wire.