"What's a totem?" Becka asked. She knew there was a dictionary definition locked away in her adult knowledge somewhere, but this doll-thing seemed to be using it in a more specific sense anyway. She stared at the mirror and her powder-blue hair - she hadn't even begun to get used to her new body, and it had gotten changed again!
"It's...well, it's your transformation trigger, basically," Trident said, smoothing out her dress from the leap she'd taken onto Becka's shoulder. "Some kind of small object you can carry around with you that you can use to change to your magical-girl form when you need to."
Becka stared at her, not quite understanding. "What's a 'magical girl'?"
Trident stifled a laugh. "Come on! You know, the whole magic superheroine thing...?" She was met only by confused silence. "What? No? Lord, what kind of little girl are you?"
Becka's lip begin to quiver and her eyes narrowed. "I'm not s'posed to be a girl!" she said. "I'm s'posed to be a boy!"
Trident gasped. "Oh, I...I'm sorry..." She put an arm around the back of Becka's neck. "I didn't know...all I knew was that you were my assigned partner...wow, and I thought I had it bad..."
Becka regarded her curiously. "You're not really s'posed to be a doll?"
Trident huffed. "Stop saying that! I'm not a doll at all! I'm flesh and blood, thank you! But no, I wasn't like this to begin with. When I was exposed to the sun, I awoke this small, and I knew I had to find my partner to get her trained in time..."
"For what?"
"I don't know," the tiny not-doll admitted. "I don't know what's coming that you'll be needed for, but it's important. So I had to find you and awaken your powers - I'm just glad I even got that far. But we do need to get you trained, and for that, we will need to pick out a totem."
"Oh yeah," Becka said. "Um, what can it be?"
"I'm not sure," Trident said. "Something small that you can carry or wear anywhere you go. As we look over some options I'll be able to tell how suitable they are."
"Um, okay," Becka said. She still wasn't sure she liked any of this, but she'd already been changed - she might as well figure out how to use whatever it was she'd been given. Besides, if she really did get to have magic, well...one of the biggest things that bothered her about being a little girl was how powerless she felt; maybe this would help that feeling to go away.
She began to root through some bins of stuff that still hadn't been cleared out of the guest room, looking for small items. Trident peered down into the bin to see if anything looked particularily worthy. After some time, she clamped a hand on Becka's neck. "There!" she said. "That's perfect!"
Becka pulled the object from the bin. It was a necklace; a very simple one, barely more than a silver-plated chain. She frowned. "I don't wanna necklace!" she said.
"No, trust me, this is perfect," Trident replied. "It's practically begging to be your totem! Here, put it around your neck."
Becka hesitated, but another stern look from Trident convinced her to comply. She lowered it over her head and dropped it to her collarbone. It was quite large on her, but Trident reached down to touch the chain and closed her eyes, focusing on the necklace.
It immediately shrank to fit her, and a setting formed in the middle. In the setting was a crystal with a symbol embossed in it, the same one that had tattooed itself just below her collarbone before disappearing: a geometric figure with three elliptical lobes radiating out in the center of a circle. Becka wondered what that was for, but if Trident didn't even know what they were up against, she probably didn't know about this, either.
"Perfect!" her new mentor said. "Now, we'll need a place to practice. Is there anywhere around here that's out of the way, so we can experiment without being discovered?"
Becka thought for a moment, then nodded - there was a vacant lot not too far from the Madison house. "You gotta hide, though" she said. "Jon's mom might see you."
Trident thought for a moment, then dropped down Becka's chest into the pocket in the front of her jumper. She straightened up enough to where she could pass for an actual doll if nobody looked too close. With this taken care of, they set off.
