Here are two new cadets at Bifröst Station on their way boarding the starship Pioneer.

On the right we have Nyota Nichols-Van Ness. She is an exobiology student from the USA, and is a hybrid between a jaguar and an Eduani, with a taur mutation. However, since the Eduani are an alien species who have their heads placed lower on a neck between their legs, this leaves her has an awkward looking headless rider-taur. She learned some modularity magic from her Eduani father Sasha (which is unusual, since Eduani are normally a single-gender race), but she is not skilled enough to reshape parts of her body. She dreams of putting her head on top of her upper body like a true taur, but for now, she mainly uses her modularity to remove her upper body, and go all feral. She has prehensile thumbs on her forepaws (like a chakat), so she still has "hands" in her feral form.

On the left we have her friend, Emma Dacosta. She is an halfcut otter, the only one in her family thanks to her parents having a "very pleasant time" at Bermuda, but she was born and raised in Canada. Missing two limbs hasn't been too much of a bother for her, as she's quick on her feet, though she has more a problem with being short in general. She's is an anthropology student, studying languages and cultures both Terran and alien. She's excited to join her friend on their internship on the Pioneer, hoping she can speak with many aliens about their cultures, and she hopes to get closer to Legalis, the planet of origin where scientists say the halfcut form comes from.

The two met at the Academy as dorm mates and quickly became good friends. Emma was the first who didn't see Nyota as a freak, even though she teases her with her strange physique. She likes to sit on her friends upper body, acting like she's her head, and Nyota finds it good fun as well having "not such an empty collar".

We also see both of them wearing the Terran fleet uniforms, tailored to their specific shape. I wanted to redesign the uniforms to be worn on the Pioneer to look more like a proper navy. The original uniforms are still cannon, but the reason for the uniform change will be explained in-universe. Stay tuned!

Drawn in InkScape