Sigma Prospero (Patreon)

Woo! Another splat page by Rabidbadger to illustrate one of the various houses/factions within the university, The Rendering Pit! On today's menu we're looking at Sigma Prospero, who value the blend of style and substance in their lives as well as their body modifications. Read on, to find out more <3

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Yasmina twisted her fingertips about in the air, watching the luminous, azure shape of a strapping young bull (hornless – she hadn’t asked why) dance for her. The alpaca wasn’t exactly controlling it per se, more coaxing the image along – it was controlling itself beyond that. The young man had rather glorious hair, a strawberry blond – not that it showed when the form was composed of blue light.

Cordova stared on at the sight of Sigma Prospero’s chairwoman, and her holographic dancer. She’d always been envious – making implants and mods carry an aesthetic while still being functional wasn’t easy. Most people were strictly concerned with the latter part, if they could afford them at all. Yasmina though, she pulled things together beautifully – her perfect nails held the guidance tools for the holo-dancer, a latticework of circuitry. The royal purple crystalline horns she sported were probably acting as data storage or a signal relay for whatever program was handling the dancer’s core framework, and then there was that eye – three circles joined by lines rather than anything recognizable as a pupil and iris. That looked custom.

Of course, not all of the alpaca’s impressive accoutrements were implants – she had some manner of segmented, collapsible curved bar hovering behind her shoulders, dangling from it a brilliant gold cloak of some kind. That, too, had to have pragmatic purposes on top of looking amazing. Sigma had two rules, she’d learned both (and liked to think she understood them too) before deciding to become pledge. Not that she was yet – that’s why she was staring at Yasmina (that and it was very easy to stare at Yasmina) – the pudgy little skunk was trying to work up the courage to go ask.

She checked her reflection in the surface of her second-hand (and thus scuffed) student’s tablet, but it did little to reassure her. Cordova’s hair was a boring auburn, and always a little frizzy thanks to the humidity from her dorms being near to Professor Tenebrae’s greenhouses. She’d found the best lipstick she could, the most vibrant red available, and asked a friend to manage some makeup, then paid for one of the Lambda fabricators to alter her robes into something dress-like. That had gone… okay. Some of the stitching was still too visible though (looked incredibly sturdy, but visible) and there was the whole problem of them still being her old, worn robes at the end of the day. But this was about as good as it was going to get.

She couldn’t help feeling a bit like a mouse when approaching. Head down, no eye contact, Yasmina didn’t even seem to notice. The alpaca was busy chatting with a hovering vid-screen of a black feline girl with fantastic tight braided fur, with the dancing image of that hunk (who looked weirdly familiar) still at work in front of her.

“H-hello, ma’am – miss –“

Cordova found herself staring at a single finger raised while the glimmering young woman before her smiled down at something on the screen with a great deal of satisfaction.

“Perfect! Keep him going and make sure you get it all recorded Dee.”

The screen shut down the following instant, while the holographic image twisted and shot a flirtatious glance the skunk’s way that left her a bit more disarmed than she already was. That thing clearly had some sophisticated programming. She took a breath, collected what nerves she had, and channeled them into speaking again.

“Hello, Yasmina Auri. I, th-that is, I f-formally-“

Cordova found herself with a finger on her lips, and the stare the young skunk was then laboring under was unnerving. A particular problem since nerve was all she had left. The alpaca’s eyes were mismatched, and seemed to be doing entirely different things. The natural looking one was a perfect, sky blue match for the dress Yasmina was wearing. The other eye was mostly eggshell, apart from the three circles harboring shimmering purple inside which were currently engaged in a ballet of resizing irises. Chrome only knows what that thing saw.

“You’re doing it wrong.”

It felt a little like someone had dumped cold water down her spine. Somewhere in her mind, Cordova queued up ‘quietly leave in shame’ but it was currently stuck behind a good long stretch of stunned silence.

“Way too red, you could dye your fur to go with it but I wouldn’t. Good natural sheen and it lays well – hair could use some product. The uhm – dress… you know what?”

The finger (with its delicate lattice of inlaid circuits in the nail) moved from the skunk’s lips, to her hand, with the owner of said finger rising in the same motion. It seemed to scatter her mental queue to the solar winds on its way.

“Come on.”

When the glimmering alpaca tugged on her arm, Cordova couldn’t really help but follow.

***

She really hadn’t a clue what to expect, Cordova hadn’t even managed to re-gather her senses sufficiently to speak yet. When Yasmina tugged her through a set of ugly, metal bulkheads into something that resembled a salon all her efforts to regain her intended formality and eloquence decayed rapidly into an awed ‘wow’.

“I know, right?”

It was strange, the skunk thought – the room was definitely luxurious. Pod seats with what might be actual leather upholstery, hot tubs with little floor cleaner bots repurposed to bring drinks and facial masks, two people discussing something with a pair of red-breasted robins who were measuring them with tapes, and then the far wall which was an enormous mirror lined with the decidedly old fashioned swivel-chairs. This whole thing was, in large part, completely low-tech.

“A-are those… stylists?”

That hand in hers gave Cordova a gentle tug, while the room’s other inhabitants turned about and provided a menagerie of reactions. Some of them mostly addressed her chaperone, others pointedly smiled at her (she wasn’t picking up much, if any, condescension from them in the process), a few waved amid their own relaxation and tasks. The conversations, the skunk noted, were a curiously typical and yet appropriate species of talk for the place. She picked up traces of discussion on spatial displacement, and someone in the hot tub was discussing pheromone blocking nasal spray, but half of the time they were focused just as much on showing off how well they’d managed to miniaturize their projects and find sleek, elegant casings to fit them into. No small number of which resembled smaller variants of the student tablet model – if a bit more fancy.

“Yup! We don’t really like having bots do too much for us here. There’s a bit of pride in being able to tackle these things yourself as far as appearance goes, but that takes time to learn so don’t fret too much okay?”

Yasmina guided Cordova into one of the swivel seats, deftly relieving her of her robe/dress/mistake in the process. Something that left the suddenly nude skunk distinctly surprised, and maybe a little uncomfortable. The issue was eased considerably when the alpaca took up the seat next to her, similarly sky clad.

“Today you just sit back and take advantage of our collective expertise.”

Cordova found herself blinking slowly at the mirror, at her slightly overweight, entirely unappealing form (or at least, she felt it was – particularly next to the sculpted perfection beside her) while two forms slid in behind them. Yasmina was loomed over by an amazonian reptilian boy sporting two large frills on his head, and whose scales were playing in the ambient light in the way that oil on water did. She on the other hand had a pure white bear taking up position behind her, a woman of stature, with strong hands and apparently no inhibitions about spinning her around and starting to prod at Cordova’s fur.

“H-hey, th-that tickles, and – and I thought-“

The skunk turned toward Yasmina, who was just sitting back and enjoying the same overall treatment from the iridescent fingertips of her attendant.

“I thought you said-“

The alpaca chuckled brightly, kind of bubbly sounding in fact.

“I said you were doing it wrong – but you’re in school! You’re supposed to learn to do it right here. Relax, enjoy yourself, have a drink.”

Cordova found herself with a drink without actually knowing precisely how that happened. It took her a couple seconds to backtrack along seeing, behind the chairs, a large and burly body standing there holding a tray with a dull, vacant smile on its face. It was a brown-furred bull, with no horns, and a magnificent head of hair. There was an elegantly curved metallic circlet around his forehead, but otherwise the only thing he was wearing was a set of skin tight black latex shorts – which very clearly lacked any kind of bulge in front.

The skunk took a drink – it was sweet, cloyingly fruity – she already felt a bit on the warm and smooth side just after the first sip. If nothing else, she stopped putting up quite so much of a fight while her ursine masseuse worked at her thighs.

“That… he looked like the thing you were-“

Yasmina (who was halfway through her own beverage) outright giggled at that.

“Oh he totally is – his brains are dancing in about six places around the station while his body serves drinks.”

Cordova blinked slowly (and sucked down more of that intoxicating cocktail).

“Wait, but – why is he-“

That half-asked question drew Yasmina’s giggle into a rather pointed grin.

“Well we had to send a message. I mean, he was a jerk – the worst kind of jerk – he tried to take advantage of the privilege we have here, and his family’s name and money, to have his way with Alice. We couldn’t just let a member of Sigma Prospero do that – we’re not that kind of people – so I made him a dancer and waiter until he’s learned his lesson.”

For a moment, the skunk’s brain was gradually trying to wrestle its way through ‘made him’ and all that implied. Then Alice leaned down and stage-whispered at her.

“And I have his dick in my refrigerator. Intact. Like, it still works, and he still feels it, and we’ll give it back eventually, but he lost dick privileges along with Sigma privileges.”

Yasmina engaged in a slow and pointed nod there.

“So don’t worry, we take care of our own here.”

Cordova’s drink rapidly vanished down to the point of empty, straw-sucking noises. The fact that the bull (well, not really) replaced it with a new drink rapidly, and without instruction didn’t help a whole lot after that. She almost spilled some of it when a meaty pat from Alice’s paws landed on her shoulder.

“Chrome girl, you need to relax some. Don’t worry, there’s a guy we’ve got on loan from Corona Absentia who can help with that.”

Yasmina let out an excited little bounce.

“Ooh! Yeah he’s good – a little playful sometimes but he seems to know what good taste is around here, so it’s safe. You’ve gotta be careful about the Corona outside of here, though.”

Cordova’s train of thought finished a process it had been in the middle of for a good long while – it managed to reboot, but had lost a fair bit of progress. Which led to her finally asking what she’d wanted to some time ago.

“You said I was doing it wrong, and – but – I never got to talk to you really, and you just kind of – I don’t really know what’s going on ma’am.”

That actually got a mild wince out of the alpaca.

“Easy with the ma’am stuff. Yasmina is fine, chairwoman if you really have to do the formal… thing. Anyway – you passed the first real test by coming up and talking to me kid. That takes balls – so to speak. I know the looks thing is prominent around here and all, but check out what this place is! Spa, lounge, salon – looks are something you can learn, and something you can fix. The rest of it? We’ll get to that after these two finish the massage and makeover. There’ll be plenty of time to talk while we take your measurements and then wait in the hot tub.”

Cordova looked around again – the bubbling waters, the free drinks, the beautiful company, the smiles and the acceptance? All a little hard to believe she’d done anything right in regards to them.

“Wow, you look like you’re really not having an easy time with the head-wrapping. Maybe we should get the Corona guy out – he’s the brain masseuse.”

The alpaca slid out of her seat, both her own attendant and Alice making way, so she could lean over and smile with her strange eyes down at the skunk girl, who was desperately suppressing her spraying impulse.

“We are not about money and looking good – we like those things, but we’re about confidence girl. You can do a lot if you believe in yourself, and you look good. You don’t have to be the smartest person on the sphere, you just have to own yourself and look fabulous doing it and people will follow you. So we find the right kind of people, confidence and decency are the big things, and we teach the rest. So.”

Cordova felt Yasmina’s lips brush her forehead, and somehow that seemed to set everything to clearing like a drop of oil in a tub of bubbles. Yes, what they’d done to the bull scared her, but that kind of behavior was nothing she’d ever do so why was she so worried? This had the potential to be the best thing that ever happened to her, she just had to seize it. Looking up, she met Yasmina’s mismatched eyes for the first time, and this time the kiss caught her on the lips instead. It was brief, almost chaste really, and soon enough Yasmina was swinging back toward her own seat, but she had four words to add on the way.

“Welcome to Sigma Prospero.”