Lilly frowned. "It does what?" Why did Melanie talk so weird? She said things like she didn't really know how to explain anything, or something, but she didn't seem like she was trying to hide anything. It was confusing...
Melanie blinked. "It does what it does," she said. "Action proceeds from structure and constants. It cannot do otherwise." These creatures were so strange...demanding explanations for deterministic sequences of events?
Jenny thought for a moment. That was...it was confusing, but she thought she could almost understand her former adversary that time. Was that a complicated way of saying, "I couldn't help it?" "Do...d'you mean you had ta?" she asked.
The insect-girl nodded. "Had," she said. "There was...a chaotic element introduced. A..." She paused for a moment. Jenny watched in surprise; it almost looked liked she was choking up a bit. "A disconnect took place," Melanie continued. "Action was no longer directly driven by purpose. Once...severance...was complete, the original purpose no longer influences." She sounded...sad.
Jenny nodded emphatically. "Good! 'Cause it was gonna make you hurt people, an' you woulda been killed too!"
Melanie felt like a blow had been struck, even though there was no physical impact. In fact, it was as if the impact force had been directed in an...emotional way. Humans phrased things in terms of actors and actions, not processes and results...or was it humans? Perhaps it was a feature of this universe? After all, she herself seemed to be the result of some similar anthropomorphization, from the moment she was bound to this form. All the chaos in her mind, the feelings that sprang unbidden with no clear origin...she could deviate from the determined path. She was an actor.
...and now Four spoke of her as if she was responsible for the actions of that period, as if she chose to do them. Had she? She wasn't really sure anymore. If she chose to follow through with her purpose, then she was, in their understanding, "responsible" for the actions performed pursuant to that goal. A name...a name was a handle for an actor, to which to assign responsibility, positive or negative. That was why names were fundamental, they provided organization.
But she couldn't be responsible for those actions, could she? She hadn't known! She didn't understand: zero-summation = killed = death. In the strictest sense she had had some basic knowledge of its meaning, but she had never understood it until it threatened to end her new individual existence...until it conflicted with the self-preservation instincts this form brought with it. She could still feel that sickening fear of dying, the pain of separation mixed with the shock of realizing her betrayal, that she was never meant to return in the first place, that she was abandoned. It hurt. Why did it hurt?
"D-didn't kn-know..." she stammered, the water returning to her eyes again.
Jenny nodded. "'Course you didn't! It was awful of 'em to trick you inta that! But you don't hafta be like that anymore, okay? You can be good now, an' get to be like other people!"
The insect-girl stared into space. "Without the original purpose, what is the purpose?"
Lilly huffed, still upset at the bug-girl for trying to hurt her friend, not to mention that...shutting-off...thing. "Weren't you listenin'!?" she said. "It's like the devil-lady said! You gotta live, an' get to do all the cool stuff people get t'do! That's your purpose!" She still didn't quite understand what was meant by this discussion...how could someone not know why they were alive? She was just a kid and she knew that!
...just a kid...the thought gave her pause. She'd known that just as well when she was an older boy, of course, but it was the thought that she was just a kid right now...that she even identified as one...
It was kind of scary. It wasn't like she'd forgotten she used to be older or anything, but when she thought of herself, when she didn't stop and think about it, she didn't think of an older kid, she thought of someone eight or nine years old. She didn't think of herself as a girl so readily, but it still made her a bit nervous.
She thought about what Jenny had said. Did this happen to her for a reason? What reason could there be? Was she just...supposed to be a girl or something? But she was happy as a boy, wasn't she? ...wasn't she? Okay, he hadn't been very good at standing up for himself, and he let Julian push him around all the time, and he kept feeling like he needed to prove his worth, but...well, he'd never wanted to be a girl, that was for sure!
But if it wasn't that, then what? It wasn't like there was some special thing she had to do that she needed to be a girl for, she didn't have any special powers or anything. She was just...just a little squirrel-girl. Why should she have to be a girl, or a squirrel, or a little kid? She wished she knew...maybe it wouldn't be so bad if this would just make sense?
Tiffany walked home instead of taking the bus that afternoon. It wasn't that she enjoyed walking, especially not over these distances, but she just...just needed some space. Especially with the fallout from her visit to the counselor that morning...the harassment had tapered off once the faculty caught wind of it, and once most of the students had gotten bored of it, but she still didn't relish a bus ride in close quarters with a bunch of unsupervised fellow students.
She shuffled along the path, kicking up the first autumn leaves. It was so confusing, trying to sort out her feelings...there was her anger and discomfort at being uprooted by another change, there was the indignance at being "lowered" from the form of her initial change, marred by the growing suspicion that it wasn't all that she'd thought it was cracked up to be, for some reason, there was her own depression at the way some of the other students were treating her, and the uncomfortable realization that they were probably just acting out based on her own earlier treatment of them...
On the other hand...there was the reminder that she had accomplished things before, entirely without whatever aid she actually did get from her change. She found herself wondering again what it had actually done for her, only this time it wasn't an unwelcome realization that she couldn't shut out. She started to wonder...maybe, just maybe...she might be able to reassert herself?
No, that was ridiculous. Clearly ridiculous. She looked like a freak, how could she expect to wield influence over others when she looked like this? She didn't even know what she was. She arrived home and slouched inside. Her dad was there, just inside past the light; for the past month, her stomping footsteps would scare him away, but now...now he was here. He was waiting for her...he was here, for her.
"Hi, Tiffany," he said. "The school called and said you'd had a bad day. I just wanted to say, if you wanted to talk about it..."
Tiffany shook her head. He nodded. "All right, then. But if you do, you're more than welcome to. In the meantime...want some cocoa?"
She stared at him. After everything, after everything she'd done and said, he...he was offering her cocoa. Her dad, always here, always helping...she smiled in spite of herself. "Y-yeah," she said. "Yeah, I'd love some."
He nodded and went to the kitchen to make some. She hesitated a moment, feeling a brief spasm of the resentment for his inviting Ms. Summers over, but...it passed. "Thanks, Dad," she said.
