The logo wasn't my idea, though I am flattered. I may be rather emblematic of our little group of oddballs, but it's kinda like wearing a picture of your own legs, you know? Your legs... in particular. Anyway, I'm Mary. I'm a mermaid, obviously, mechanical engineer, less obviously, and head of the lab.

Allen's a troll. Quite the kind heart. Also, only one troll in 300 has a brain commensurate with their skull size, and Allen is exceptional even among those. His interests are in biomechanics and biomaterials. Trolls lack the larynx for English, but we all learned to sign a bit, and Tina is a telepath, so it's not a big deal anymore.

Meeting Tina is going to be a shock, and there's no way to prepare you for that. You'll be ok though. More than ok. She's why we can make a second family together even when we're all so radically different. She's a telepath... It's hard to convey this properly in mere words, but what's hard is that you can't lie to yourself anymore, when there's even one other person who sees right through you. I don't mean to build it up so much...

Xander is our archeologist centaur. Head in the clouds like you'd expect. If it seems like he's lost the thread of conversation, just give him a minute.

Iggy's the fire imp, which is why half the lab is over 90 degrees. He's into botany. I know. He'd love to show you how we've made that possible. Anyway, he's a bit rude and a bit lewd, but most of his family are actual psychopaths, so we've cut him some slack, and he's come a long way. Inseparable from Pel, metaphorically speaking.

Pel's the pixie. She's too physically fragile to get within a few feet of Iggy, but they're the best of friends. She's quartermaster and operations logistics.

Speaking of logistics, Mr. Norton is our "butler", by his own request. He's a doppler. Long story, but he loves telling it. If you need anything, just ask him, though he usually already knows somehow.

And the kid, Dorian... well he isn't actually a kid. We don't know what he is, or where he comes from. We've been able to piece together that he's ridiculously old (a story for another time), but he doesn't remember much. Ancient in a child's body. His thing is mostly math, but he's a natural at enchantment. He helped with the gyroscope in my chair, much of our specialty lab equipment, and heads targeting for clues to Atlantis. Which brings me to you, Jade.

We're really glad to have you. You're the first human we've had in the core group, for whatever reason, and more importantly, the first "computer" person. Too much of our research involves magic, so it wasn't clear we could even turn a computer on until we stumbled upon a way to shield it. A thrilling story for another time.

...It all seems a bit unbelievable, doesn't it? Like we're each trying too hard to be strange? In truth, it went the other way. We were strange for our own reasons, and then the alienation drove us together.

Anyway, your skills are badly needed for our current big idea, and I know you could use some company yourself, so... shall we go meet the group?

[Jade was to be sacrificed to whatever by whomever, and this group followed a prophesy to the site and rescued her.]

[The major group project is hunting for Atlantis, the source of magic. Or something.]

She opened the door and wheeled through, and there everybody was, more or less sitting at tables in the cafeteria. Jade guessed this was the usual procedure, because they all seemed more or less to be expecting her. It was the most colorful group she had ever seen. Overwhelming, actually. There was...

...

"Thank you for the warm welcome, and again and forever for saving me from Quetzalcoatl. Was... there one more? Tina, I think?"

At that, everyone's demeanor changed instantly, and subtly, some looking at her and smiling... sadly? Or perhaps knowingly? And others no longer meeting her eyes. Even Iggy, who hadn't seemed capable of sympathy, was giving her a kindly sort of frown. Was Tina so bad?

Mary: "She said it would be easiest on you if you met her alone, without this pack of onlookers. She's just through there."

Jade said, "You're kind of freaking me out."

"There's no danger or anything; that's not the issue. She's the loveliest person, and you two will get along so well. You'll understand in a minute. Go on."

Jade walked through into the next room, and someone quietly shut the door behind her. She was in a conference room, with a fancy mahogany table in the middle, matching chairs, and a large picture window against the far wall overlooking the lake. For a fraction of a second she felt fear because the room only had the one door, but then she registered Tina, sitting in a chair facing away towards the window on the far side of the table. Jade could see light brown hair and some clothes like her own. She braced herself for the worst as she turned around in the chair and... Tina was just a woman. A normal, smallish, human woman; pretty even, with an unpretentious face and wearing a sympathetic smile.

Jade laughed out loud involuntarily out of sheer relief, and said, "Oh, you and your friends have been having me on. They had me convinced you were some kind of monster. But you're positively cute!"

"Ah. Well, about that..." said Tina, shrugging, grimacing, and not moving her lips. Jade thought to herself, "This is the big shock? She's a telepath." And said aloud, "Mary told me you were a telepath."

"Yup, I mostly don't try to look like like I'm speaking aloud because mouth movements are tricky and subtle and take a lot of attention. The body is a bit more mappable to my own experience."

Jade said, "Well I'm Jade, it's nice to meet you", while she gave that last statement some thought. Now that Tina mentioned it, there was something tickling at the back of Jade's mind. Tina's body motion wasn't quite right - like lower frame-rate animation...

"Spot on Jade. Your specialty affords some unusually adequate metaphors... This is not my actual appearance."

Nervous again, and suddenly realizing with a chill that Tina had responded to a stray thought that Jade hadn't spoken, and also that Tina already knew Jade had noticed, and already knew that she was nervous... No, this would not be easy...

"Can I see how you really look? And I'm sorry I'm so nervous, your friends were really freaking me out..."

"I know. And yes..." She was looking sad now, and a little nervous herself. She paused for a long while, and then said, "Brace yourself."

And then without any kind of transition, Tina was gone, and filling two thirds of the room behind where she had been standing was a creature more disturbing than any nightmare Jade had ever had, spilling over the table and crowding against the walls and blocking light from the window. It was like a giant, tumorous spider with skin the texture of a peeled grape, and an abdomen the size of a painter's van. Jade struggled internally between visceral horror and her own self-image that she could handle this, this was Tina, there is a person in there just like... -- oh come on you were fine with the flipping Troll..., and then Tina moved and Jade lost it. The legs didn't move from joints like a spider, but deformed and bent the wrong direction and made a noise like sucking wet mud, and the thing was too close. Jade doubled over and threw up.

This brought her closer to the monster and in the same instant she realized again that the thing could read her every thought and emotion, and then close on the heels of that thought came the realization again that it wasn't an it, but a she, and "the thing" sometimes had a sad smile and didn't want to show her... and that was just too much for Jade to hold together in her mind. She needed to get away from Tina. She threw herself backwards and slipped, sobbing and covered in sick and now single-mindedy bolting for the door. She wrenched it open and tore through it. She hardly noticed that everyone was still there, some rising from their seats, as she sprinted past them and out of the room, out of the building, just out. She only stopped when she was past the treeline, out of sight where she could be alone, and collapsed on the grass, still sobbing.

In the sunlight, she no longer felt afraid. Instead she felt disgusted, and not with Tina. Jade now knew what Mary had meant. You can't lie to yourself anymore, when there's even one person who sees right through you. You can't lie to yourself anymore that.. you're a good person. That you're hip, and woke, and accepting. As soon as she had realized that Tina knew Jade's mind completely, and that Jade was holding back uncontrollable revulsion from the center of her being... Jade was repulsed by Tina, and the instant it became clear there was no point in hiding it, there was only revulsion left. Jade was undone by the dissolution of her own self-image.

And oh, how she had blown it! She had ruined her chance of being one of them; of having a home. She had proven she was just the same as the crowds of morons who had forced them into a forest in the middle of nowhere... She could pretend to be a fellow outcast, but now she knew and they knew that she was a pitchfork-wielding bigot at rock bottom. She couldn't stay. She wiped her tears.

"Sweet child."

Jade leapt up, and fell down again. Tina was there, looking again like a petite woman with a sad smile. She was sitting against a tree farther back into the forest, much farther away from Jade than she had been in the conference room. She looked too far away to be heard if she spoke aloud, but she didn't need to speak aloud and Jade could "hear" her just fine. Tina spoke again.

"I knew you even before we first spoke, without your own illusions."

"How did you get here so quickly? How did you even find me?" Jade said, ignoring her. She was suddenly unconcerned about being rude to a new acquaintance. After all, she couldn't even pretend to be a good person anymore, so why not be straight.

"I'm not here. And I was never in the conference room. I wouldn't fit in the conference room."

Jade absorbed this. "Then are you not... what I saw?"

"That was me. What I really look like. Just... scaled down. Physically, I'm in a cavern underneath the lab. I weigh 25 tons, and I'm 18 meters across. You can come visit me sometime, once you're over your giant tumorous spider phobia."

Jade stared. The projection of Tina got up and walked closer. Jade didn't flinch. This felt like a good sign. Tina's motion was perfect this time, and when she spoke, her lips moved in perfect synchrony. She was making an effort.

"Sweet child, we're the same. I'm a pitchfork-wielding bigot too. But not at rock-bottom. Not quite. And neither are you. You didn't hear me a moment ago, but hear me now: I knew you even before we first spoke, without your own illusions, and I don't hate you. Neither will they."

"But why not! I hate myself for it. For doing to you what I've hated... done to me. The looks from other people; their revulsion. For seeing you and... throwing up... Oh no, no, no... I'm so sorry..." Jade was choking back sobs again, and covered her face with her hands.

Tina said, "Your reaction was not the worst of the group. Ask them sometime. Since they've now seen you humbled, I rather think you've earned the right. Remember that they've all met me. The looks you saw on their faces... They remember. They'll never forget."

"So is everyone like this? So rotten?"

"Everyone."

"What's the difference then, between the people who spit on me, and me?"

"Perhaps it's that you don't want to be that way? It hurts you to be that way. We get better. Not quickly, and not accidentally, but... if we want to, we do, with help. One special thing I bring to our group, if I may say so myself, is that being around me prevents you from believing you're already there, which is true humility."

And now, from as low as she'd ever been, Jade felt hope again. In a small voice, she said, "I can stay?"

"Sweet child, I loved you as soon as my mind touched yours, as you crossed the threshold of our grounds, unconscious from the battle. You'll always have a home with us now, and I am not the only one who feels that way."

Jade threw herself into Tina's arms and sobbed into her hair, barely registering how impossible that was.

After a while, she pulled away, and looked at Tina's warm face.

Tina said, "All right, let's go get you cleaned up, and reintroduced to the group, now that you've been through the initiation rite, so to speak. We'll get Mary to find you some fresh clothes. I can hug you, but I can't dress you."

Then they walked back together.