Morgan frowned slightly and stepped towards the other girl. "Why do you bring your doll to school, anyway?" she asked. "Can I see?" She peered over Becca's shoulder at the little figure in her hands. Something about the doll seemed...kind of odd.
Becca whirled around again and backed away. "Ah, uh, n-no," she said. "She's, um, I gotta take care of her!" She held Trident close, trying not to squeeze her too tightly. She didn't know if Trident was really right to want to keep all of this secret, but something about the older girl's insistence just rubbed her the wrong way. Why did big kids have to be so pushy? ...she hadn't been like that when she was older, had she?
"Aw, c'mon," Morgan said, closing the distance and not quite realizing how she tended to loom over the younger girl. "I won't hurt her, I promise. Here, lemme see." She reached in and swiftly removed the doll from Becca's grasp - she couldn't really object, or she'd be holding it tighter, right? Funny that she should be holding a toy so gently...
"H-hey!" Becca said, reaching for the doll. "Give her back!" Morgan turned her back, leaving Becca to try unsuccessfully to reach around, and examined the doll. It obviously wasn't made of cloth, it was far too detailed for that, but it didn't feel like any kind of plastic she'd ever encountered - so soft, but not spongy like rubber...and so warm! She almost thought she felt...a pulse?
Morgan gasped and nearly dropped it, or her, or whatever it was. She whirled around to face Becca, who snatched Trident back rather less gently than she meant to. Morgan stared down at the tiny girl in Becca's hands, then at Becca. "That's not a doll!" she said, only barely managing to keep her voice down. That was a person! Not even like a living doll like she'd heard some kids talk about, but an actual tiny flesh-and-blood girl! What in the world was this kid doing with her?
The two girls stood there for a minute, neither one sure how to respond to the other. Morgan's gaze shifted back and forth between Becca and the little doll-sized girl. It was funny, she didn't have any wings or anything, but the so-small but still perfectly-formed human figure kind of reminded her...of...of Princess vertex...
Morgan glanced back at Becca, noticing for the first time how her blue hair was tied, with the ponytail in back and the two long front locks...one and two make three...and there, on her chest, some kind of...was it a tattoo? But it seemed almost a little luminescent...a three-lobed figure that seemed somehow familiar to her...three, three, like...like...
She gasped as it clicked in her mind. She stared down at the younger girl. Becca felt momentarily uncomfortable with the way Morgan was looking at her; it was very intense, like looking into the face of a wildfire, she thought. "You're one too!" Morgan whispered.
Then the uncomfortableness was gone; the intensity of the older girl's expression remained, but her smile was completely ordinary. "This is so cool!" Morgan said, grinning madly. "It's not just me! Both of us get to use magic, an' we'll make everything so much cooler, once we take care of this enemy..." She grabbed Becca by the shoulders and looked her right in the eye. "C'mon!" she said. "We got a bit before class starts, you gotta tell me everything!"
Effie woke up feeling like she'd been hit by a truck. It wasn't anything specific like a human body had - no specific muscle aching or nerve raw, just a general feeling of exhaustion, like she'd slept through a being caught in the middle of a buffalo stampede or something. Even the lights in her little virtual living space seemed uncomfortably bright. What in the world had happened to make her feel like this? What did I do last night?
She got up and smoothed out her dress; she'd pretty much stopped undressing before bed, since she didn't have pajamas and it tended to keep reappearing on her during the night - and anyway, it wasn't uncomfortable to sleep in, and didn't suffer anything more than cosmetic wrinkling that she only had to make the most basic effort to straighten out. Let's see, she had been out and about on the Internet, and there had been this kind of light-fountain thing...some kind of representation of data that had...
Effie flushed as she began to recall what had happened, vaguely. It had...well, somehow, it had gotten her drunk, essentially. Quite drunk, if what she remembered was accurate, which she wasn't sure it was; she had simply plunged right in without thinking, and been heavily exposed, and...and...what then? The specific sequence of events was incredibly hazy...she remembered being in a very good mood, vaguely remembered what could be described as cavorting, something about Dennis...oh God. She cringed; had she gone and made an ass of herself in front of Dennis? Did he think her drunken revelry was intentional? What all had it even entailed, anyway? Did she...did she...her imagination ran wild reeling off all the possibilities of what she might have done. What must he think of her? Or...what if he had...no, he wasn't that kind of person...was he? Maybe if she had suggested...?
The ME fairy sat there for some time, afraid to go out, until she finally felt more ridiculous for sitting there than she would have being embarassed in front of her friend. Summoning up her courage, she left her private area and moved to the general space they occupied on Mikey's host.
Dennis was there, working on something in his editor. He looked up as she approached. "'Morning," he said, smiling gently. "Sleep well?"
Effie nodded half-heartedly. "Uh, I guess," she said. "Um, last night...was I...?"
The DOS fairy chuckled a little stiffly and nodded. "Yeah, you were kinda drunk," he said.
She blushed. "I...I wasn't trying to...I didn't know it would...really, I wasn't..."
"Hey, I believe you," he said, getting up and putting a hand on her shoulder. "I didn't know that screen-saver thing would be anything like that, either, not until I tried it myself. That's some pretty powerful stuff; you must've gotten a pretty heavy dose, not knowing what was happening."
Effie nodded, grateful at least that he believed her. "I was, uh, really sloshed, then, wasn't I?" she asked. "I didn't...I didn't do anything stupid, did I? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be any trouble..."
He nodded. "It's okay," he said. "You fell asleep pretty quick anyway. It wasn't much, you were just kinda in a really good mood is all." And in your underwear and clinging to me, and kissing me... he thought to himself; it had been...he knew what his better judgement said about it, he knew her judgement was impaired at the time, he'd kept from letting himself get carried away by his feelings, but...but...that image, the memories of the sensations...remained stubbornly lodged in his brain. He chewed on his lower lip; he didn't really know how age worked here, but in some ways it felt like they really were the teenagers they appeared to be...with all the awkwardness that entailed...
Effie noticed him biting his lip, and she could see him begin to get a little red in the ears. Was he...hiding something? ...no, she trusted him not to try to deceive her, didn't she? But maybe he was holding back on telling her for her own sake...maybe she ought to know for sure...but did she want to?
