You stand back in the early-afternoon dreamlight and admire your work. Four walls, a roof, a few windows. Approximately the size of a shed, walls smooth and featureless. At least from the outside, but this took you all day – this building is far more than it seems. You step inside and look around the functional but bland space. Far larger than the room had any right to be from the outside, you have a fully functional <del>cocktail<\del> twisttail bar, with drinks bar, seating, booths, and a small stage at one end.

But it’s missing something. A lot of somethings, actually. You roll up your sleeves. It’s time to decorate.

—

You emerge hours later, dusting glitter and paint residue from your hands. You turn to face the door and grab the frame with both hands. You slowly, carefully, apply a force and then – pop! - the door comes free. You tuck it under one arm, and set off back to Spindle.

—

“So what’ll it be?”

The customer umms and ahhs, perusing the list in front of them. “Err…a Sparkling Joy?”

“Coming right up,” you say with a smile. They had spent several minutes poring over the menu. You don’t mind too much, but think perhaps they could use some Decisiveness. Just a dash.

A fox flutters over and lands on the bar next to you. “Table eleven has ordered another round. They didn’t tell me what they wanted, though. They just asked for you to ‘surprise’ them.”

You glance over at the fox while continuing to add dashes of various pre-prepared ingredients to the twisttail shaker. “Oh ho! A surprise, hmm?” You look over at table eleven to see a small group of finely-dressed Muses chatting and laughing. One of them catches your eye and waves. You give him a winning smile. “Four Surprises coming right up – but no two exactly the same.”

Yes. You could get used to this.

“Will you give us thumbs now? Did we do a good job?”

“I don’t know…you spilled an awful lot of those twisttails.”

“But if we had thumbs, would we not spill them less? And did your guests not think that we were ever so cute?” Siio sits up straight, tucking their paws daintily together and giving Twist their best impression of puppy-dog eyes. “Is what once was, always right? Because we were not born with thumbs, does that mean we should not ever have them?”

Twist sighs. “Fine. But! If you abuse this new power I will not hesitate to take it back.”

Siio leaps up and bounds in a small circle before splaying their paws out in front of them. “Give. Me. Thumbs!”

Twist concentrates and Sculpts the change they want to see onto the Impression. It’s harder to do with living things, so intricate are they, but Twist is nothing if not a master Sculptor. “There. It is done.”

Siio flaps up into the air and brings their paws up in front of their face for a better inspection. Where once there were only four primary digits, the fifth vestigial claw has migrated forwards and elongated, turning itself to be opposable to the rest. With a little trial and error, Siio manages to curl their four first digits back onto their paw-pad, and extend their newly-grown thumb straight upwards in a vulpine thumbs-up.

“Is this what thumbs were made for?”

A crowd of winged foxes eagerly line up behind Siio, awaiting their new digits.

So you tried to get Jo listening to the Muses around you. And it worked, for the most part. They came to Twistiller, they talked about their issues, and you opened up Jo’s mind to them to help them get what they wanted, right?

Well, not quite. There a couple of… unanticipated issues.

They didn’t always talk about Fading, for one thing. You soon realised that it’s hard to predict what a Muse is going to open up about – or even when they’re going to do it. So you ended up just linking them through to Jo as soon as you could. This… well. You’re pretty sure it got on their nerves, actually: hearing about other people’s problems day in and day out. People they don’t even know.

But even when they did talk about Fading, what could Jo do? Think about them harder? That didn’t really work, but boy oh boy did it make for some creepy Impressions from time to time. Exactly the kind of harmless prank you’re up for – but not really in the spirit of helping people. You’ve changed now. You care about people.

In a way, though, the solution was obvious – and easier for both you and Jo. Yeah, you still needed to go through the rigmarole of therapizing everyone who came into your bar, but rather than tuning Jo in, you just sorta… wrote down what it was that they were worried about. Got to know them. Understood what made them tick.

The old you would’ve loved this – so many things to hold over so many people. But the new you… the new you just used it to point people at the right Vignettes. At the places they needed to go to best connect with Jo. With their ideas and thoughts – and with whatever they’re most into.

It’s funny, really. You don’t exactly get much in return, but… you like it. You really do. Not so much knowing everyone’s secrets, but know that you really, truly are helping people to save themselves.

You take off the jester’s hat for the last time. You’re not quite sure why you put it on once again, but you suppose it got you thinking about all this stuff. Ah well – it’s old hat now. Time to move on. New Dream, New You.

As the last customer of the day leaves, tired but now smiling, Twist leans back against the shelf of liquors, closing his eyes for a moment to rest.

He feels something soft and fluffy brush past his arm. He opens his eyes to a server fox in an apron curling up on the counter. It yawns, and looks at him sleepily.

Time to call it a day. Might as well get some rest before tomorrow comes.

He makes a final drink for himself and the fox, while thinking through his customer's worries and troubles - he can help them, he can solve them. It feels good knowing this.

“Hey, Jo, old mate -”

Twist calls upon the one beyond the Fourth Wall, as he has been doing in the past forty or so years. And yet…

It didn't go through.

Slightly confused, Twist takes a sip of the warm drink, and tries again, before he realises what it must mean.

Well. He shrugs, and downs the Warm Co-