Notes from Emmy:
I figured I’d post another story that I’ve been working on. Few things before I cut you lose.
First off, this is a school life/drama/romance story involving anthropomorphized characters, (animals given human characteristics and personalities.) This is also a story featuring an F/F pairing so if none of this is your thing, I kindly invite you to search the sights expansive archive of stories for something more suitable to your palate. Any comments that flame this story based off of moral objections against LGBTQ+ will be deleted and I’d also ask the readers to let me know if any come up that I miss.

Now, about this story?
So I started writing this one a while back but then life and Covid happened and I put it on the shelf until a time that I felt compelled to craft words again. That time has finally come so I’m bringing it out and sharing it with you here.

I would like to remind everyone that, though this story has lots of fluff and cuteness in it, there’s also some dark. Maerel lives in a seriously fucked up home and her parents are not nice. I’ll be sure to indocate which chapters feature triggering content, but I still want to make it clear that they do exist, just so no one is caught unawares.

Next, I’d like to point out that Cyberplex is my main focus right now, so I’ll probably only be posting these chapters once a week, more than likely on Sundays, however if anything changes, I’ll be sure to leave a note informing you of the change in schedule.

All this being said, I really hope you enjoy this story as these girls, Maerel in particular mean a lot to me.

Thanks for reading.
Emmy

Maerel stepped into the girl's locker room nervously. It was that time again. Tuesday, first period after lunch, time for P.E, or her own personal hell as she called it.

It wasn't because she didn't like the physical  nature of the class, not at all. She wasn't in the worst shape and she particularly loved to swim, but this room, with all the other girls in her class, all the girls that were more developed than her, prettier than her, had better social lives than her, this room was the bane of her existance.

Trudging to the far corner of the locker room, back where the lockers provided her a little bit of cover from judging eyes, Maerel sat on the changing bench and pulled her backpack off and made a show of looking for something. Of course, she knew where the key to her locker was, same pocket as usual. No, what she was doing was biding time until most of the girls were out of the room. The down side of this strategy was she would be left with little time to change into her swimsuit, but getting yelled at by the drill sergeant of a teacher named Mr. Fletcher was a fair price to pay against keeping from being picked on again.

Glancing over her shoulder, Maerel saw that the room was starting to clear out. "Good," she thought to herself as she stood and took one final look around. Her white-furred paws shaking, she snatched her locker key out of her bag and quickly did away with the padlock. Nervously but quickly, Maerel tugged her pink sleeveless top over her head and tossed it into the locker followed by her bra.            "Hey, snowy.”

Blood freezing in her veins, Maerel fought down the squeal that threatened to spill from her lips. Oh god, she just knew her luck wasn't good enough to have just one day when the other girls in her class would leave her alone. Stupid, she was so stupid, she should have just…

"Hey," the voice said again. "You dropped your bra on the floor, and we all know how often the janitors mop in here."

Maerel turned her head just a fraction of an inch and glanced out of the corner of her eye only to see... Her. "Great, not only are you a chicken, but now you're going to get all lovesick all over yourself."

"Um, is there any reason your just standing there Snowy?"

"I um... I..."" Maerel cleared her throat and tried to sound as nonchalant as she could, no easy feat when you have a million and one fears, and fear of public places where people typically stripped around each other being right up towards the top of that list.

"Sorry, I was distracted."

"Oh, well, get undistracted then, that is unless you want the Sargent to yell at you?"

Feeling the other girl's gaze upon her back, Maerel tried to not think of anything, most especially the fact that there was nothing between those eyes and the snowy white fur of her bare skin. Reaching into her locker, Maerel pulled out her bathing suit, a one piece bland affair, pink because that was her favorite color, and nothing remarkable save for some purple swirls that went around her mid-section and up her back. Now, how to get her shorts and underwear off while pretending to be invisible?

"Hey."

Of course she jumped, and of course she turned around, and of course the floor was wet from the last class that had gone swimming, and of course she slipped and fell flat on her backside, her tail pinched between her and the unforgiving surface of the concrete ground. 

"Oh my god, are you alright?"

Maerel quickly folded her arms over the pitiful swells of flesh and fur that were her breasts and leaned forward to give herself some more cover, but that only pinched her tail some more, which made her flinch back upright. "Yeah, I'm fine, I just..."

"Crap," she thought to herself, "here come the tears. Nice going Maerel... And this is the girl you kinda sort of have a crush on? Not that you, little mis emotional, little mis shy and quiet and stupid and everything else had a chance, but nice going all the same..."

As she tried to fight back the betraying tears in vein, the object of her fantacies chuckled, then snickered then broke out into laughter. And then...

"Stop laughing at me," She snapped. "You're always laughing at me, every one of you.. It's always, hey Snowy, watch out for snow plows, hey Snowy, get some tits, hey Snowy, you're still so short this, so weird that, so, so, so... Just, leave me alone! You hear? Just, leave! Me! Alone!"

Her eyes now burning and her sight blurred by the tears that kept coming, she turned away and wiped at her face furiously with the back of one paw, no longer caring if anyone saw her topless or bottomless or whatever. She was so done with this, so done with all these people laughing at her, judging her, picking on her and making her feel like less than a person. She was so done with all of it.       And yeah, so a sob escaped her, and yeah, she wished she was anywhere, anywhere but here in this hell.

Suddenly, she felt a paw on her shoulder. Expecting a blow to come, she instinctively flinched, but no blow came.

"I'm sorry," the voice that she assumed belonged to the paw on her shoulder said gently. "Here, let's get you cleaned up. We can't let them see you like this."

Blinking back more tears, well at least trying to at any rate, Maerel looked up to see her standing over her, a paw on her shoulder, the other holding a towel.

"Huh?" Maerel sniffed.

"Look, I was laughing at the way you fell, not at you. But never mind all that, let's get you cleaned up. Are you alright? You landed pretty hard there."

What the hell was going on now? Did she hit her head when she fell? Someone was being nice to her?"

Maerel wiped more tears away and took the towel from the offering paw and tried to clean up her face. No good. God she was pathetic.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot here. I'm Pearla," The other girl said as she sat on the bench, exactly where Maerel had been sitting just a few moments before.

"I know, I mean. I'm sorry," Maerel sniffed. "I meant, my name is Maerel."

"You mean it's not Snowy?" The other girl asked.

"Using the towel to shield her body, Maerel turned away. "Of course she was just messing with you. She, nore anyone else in this school actually gives a damn about you."

"No wait!" Pearla said quickly as she tugged on Maerel's shoulder. "I honestly thought your name was Snowy. I didn't mean to upset you again."

"Great, now she thinks you're just some blubbering emo."

"I mean, I just thought that was your name because I can't remember if I've ever heard anyone call you anything else." Perla continued.

All of a sudden the class bell rang, and from outside the locker room a whistle was blown, signaling the start of the class period.

"Shit," Perla swore. "Well, so much for class."

Maerel didn't know why, but that got her to smile,, even chuckle a little, all be it a watery chuckle, and for some reason, Pearla started laughing along with her. Finally, the two girls stopped laughing, their voices echoing off the walls back at them as they calmed down.

"So, how's your tail? That seriously was a hell of a fall there."

  "It’s fine," Maerel lied. In truth it hurt quite a bit, but Pearla probably already had her pegged as a big baby already, and Maerel wasn't about to give her any more ammo to use against her at a later date.

"I don't believe you," Pearla said as she tilted her head to one side. "Or rather," She went on quickly as she noticed Maerel gearing up for a comeback, "How about we use this as a chance to ditch class?"

"Are you serious?" Maerel exclaimed. "But we could get in trouble... I mean, detention trouble."

"Yeah, so?" Perla said as she stood up. "We'll probably get in trouble anyways for being late. At least this way we can say you had to go see the nurse after your fall and I was making sure you got there safely."

Maerel chewed her lip in thought. What did she have to lose? Detention? It wouldn't be the first time she had one of those, probably wouldn't be the last either. Besides, after her emotional outburst, she really didn't feel like getting yelled at by the Sarge, or being staired at by her so-called classmates.

"Yeah, okay." Maerel said through a sigh. "Why not?"

"Okay then," Pearla said, "I'll go get my clothes back on. Do you need help up?"

Maerel started to say no, but a spike of pain from her tail made her nod meekly.

As their paws came into contact with each other as Pearla reached out to her, Maerel wondered very briefly if this was what it was like to have a friend. A moment later, Maerel was alone on her side of the locker room as Pearla returned to her side to change back into her school attire. Certain that Pearla couldn't see her now, Maerel glanced back towards where the other girl was changing though she couldn't see her and smiled to herself. Yeah, she would get in trouble, yeah her mother would probably scream her head off at her and her father would call her worthless, like he always did, but for once, just for once, Maerel was going to try to make a friend, even if it was with the one person she knew she shouldn't get involved with, if the rumors about Pearla was to be believed. But the other girl had been nice to her when everyone else had just used her as their punching bag, and yeah, maybe she felt like she owed her a chance. After all, the rumor mill had said quite a few things about Maerel in the past three years of high school that hadn't been true, so maybe it was the same for Pearla. She wouldn't know if she chickened out.