When I explained the situation with Paisley to my mum, she all but forced me to rush back into the game. Before I left, though, we discussed her joining the game too. She said she was too old to run around fighting people. When I pointed out that she wasn’t old anymore, she grumbled and told me to respect her elders. It was all in jest, but when we seriously considered what her role might be, inspiration struck. She could help me build the treehouse that Paisley had mentioned, then she could be the shopkeeper and manager of the whole thing!

So, after making sure that mum knew where to spawn and how to get to me, I logged back into the game to find Paisley. I didn’t find her, though. No, she found me.

“Keiko!” she cried, hitting me in the chest with a hug that was almost a tackle.

“Ow!” I squeaked, wriggling madly in her grasp. “Careful of the tits, Jesus! That hurts!”

Easing up on the death grip, she peered at me with red-rimmed eyes and asked in an uncharacteristically soft voice, “Sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I murmured, wrapping my arms protectively around her waist. We were the same height now. “It’s a long story… but I’m digital now. So is my mum.”

She was quiet for several seconds while she processed that, and the whole time she was just… staring at me. Funny thing was, I didn’t hate it. I was pretty uncomfortable with eye contact most of the time, especially for long periods of time. Her, though? Those brown eyes were so beautiful, like highly polished wood that shone with all sorts of wonderful colours depending on the angle. It made me wonder what her real ones were like.

“What happened?” she asked, switching her focus from one of my eyes to the other. “All I saw in the video was everyone in that hospital ward and there were explosions and gunfire in the distance.”

“A group of like, properly trained people attacked the hospital my body was at. The SAI had nowhere to evacuate us to except the FTLN, so they just digitised everyone,” I said. “Gave us a choice, obviously, but yeah. They were killing everyone.”

“That’s awful,” she said. “Is it selfish of me to… to just be happy that you and your mum are okay?”

“Nah,” I said, and leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “And I’m just happy you still want to be my friend.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to be your friend?” she asked shyly, her cheeks flushing.

I tilted my head, confused. “Because I lied to you about who I was?”

“I mean, again, you didn’t choose to interact with me,” she told me seriously. “You were doing everything you could to get me to leave you alone, but without being mean. Plus, you kept your word. When I guessed who you were, you told the truth.”

"If you say so," I said, still feeling bad about it, despite the assurance.

Paisley shifted slightly and the movement accentuated the way her slim waist felt under my hands. My heart hiccuped, stuttering for a second. Suddenly, I was aware of every little detail my senses were giving me about her. The warmth of her, the smell of her hair as the breeze ruffled it, and the tiny movements of her expression. All of it hit me at once.

I didn't know what to do. My heart was begging me to bring our bodies closer, to ask for more of her, but my brain was screeching, brake pads singing under the stress.

In the end, a compromise was reached, and I hugged her tighter, resting my chin on her shoulder. Our long, pointed ears overlapped and tangled together when she tilted her head to rest it against mine, and it felt so intense my knees almost buckled.

Partly to distract myself, I began to tell her everything that had happened in more detail. Beginning, of course, with how much it had sucked to be back in my old body.

We moved to sit underneath the spooky tree while I told the story, and Paisley started a little fire to cook some food on. It was simple fare, but that was fine. The company was the important part.

Neither of us seemed to be able to let go of the other, either. We tried, while we ate, but the moment we finished, her hand found mine and threaded our fingers together. They fit so well. My heart did a lot more hiccups.

“I can’t believe there’s people that evil in this world,” Paisley murmured once we were done talking about it. “At least I have you back, though. I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too,” I whispered, my throat thick with painful memories. “I was so lonely.”

“I’m so sorry, I wish… I wish I had come with you, I wish I had tried harder to find you,” she told me, turning to press her cheek to my shoulder. “It wasn’t fair.”

“It is what it is,” I shrugged, careful not to jostle her head too much. “I’m so much happier now, with this character and… everything.”

“You like being a girl?” She asked curiously.

“I…” the question was so simple, but so profound and so very, very confusing. It wasn’t confusing because of the answer, but rather because of the fact I didn’t know the reasons. “Yes. I do like being a girl. I like it a lot, and not just because of the amazing new ways I’ve found to have sex.”

“You’re already…? Wow!” she giggled, clutching my hand tighter. “How did that happen?”

I laughed and tried not to blush too hard. “I sort of fell into a friendship with another lesbian. Then we got an apartment together and got drunk… things sort of progressed from there. It’s nothing serious, though. Just friends with benefits. I think she might not be able to fall in love with people. Is there a name for that?”

“Aromantic,” Paisley nodded. “That sounds nice. I assume she’s cool?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty great,” I sighed. “I wish we could fall for each other, but it just isn’t working.”

“That's unfortunate," Paisley said. "You have a new friend now, though. That's good to hear."

"I have a few, actually," I grinned, nudging her with my shoulder. "I met a tiny fairy twink tank the other day. He's pretty hilarious. Elena and I were thinking about making a little gay group for the upcoming content."

"O-oh, really?" She asked, her expression going in all sorts of different directions.

I glanced heavenward for a moment, trying to find some patience in the canopy of my tree. "Ask, Paisley."

She bit her lip and looked away. "Ask what?"

"You are so bad at this," I chuckled, palming my face with my free hand. "Ask if you can be a part of it."

"I'm in Silver Ridge, though," she whispered morosely.

"Then leave it." It really was as simple as that. She obviously wasn't happy there.

She shrank in on herself. “I can’t just—“

“Paisley,” I interrupted her, shifting to look at her properly. “You’re obviously unhappy there. You have people trying to drag you into arguments, a guild master who is cheating on his boyfriend and who you now know lied about and hurt one of your best friends. Why are you still there, honestly?”

“I’m… I’m scared,” she mumbled.

“Scared of what?”

“Of… everything,” she said. “I’ve been in that guild since launch. We used to have fun, too. I mean, there were times when things were a little…”

She really did look scared, but she needed to do this for herself. “Paisley, if I rocked up to the guild, even without the drama, would they accept me?”

“Without the drama? Why wouldn’t they?” She frowned, finally meeting my gaze again.

“Because I like being a girl, and because I am a girl now. I have no physical body, this one you see is the one I have as my default,” I explained, watching her run through the implications in her thoughts as I spoke. “I don’t know exactly what label I’d place on myself, or if I’d even want one, but would they care? You know what they’d say about me.”

Poor Paisley. She knew I was right, but her conflict-averse brain was struggling like a hundred year old CPU trying to run the latest games.

“I should leave, I know you’re right,” she sighed sadly. “But… can you promise me something?”

“Anything,” I replied without hesitation.

Those big brown eyes of hers that continuously captivated me were serious as she bored a hole into my soul with her stare. “Start a guild of your own. It can be small, I don’t care. I just want a place to call home.”

“I feel like you can have a place to call home without actually formalising it with a guild,” I said nervously. I was not at all leadership material.

“Keiko.” Her tone was unwavering.

I bit my tongue and groaned. Fuck. “Fine, I’ll start a guild. Only if you’ll help me run it, though. I have no idea what I’m doing on that front.”

“We’ll have to raise the money to buy a commission anyway,” she said happily, and let go of my hand to give me a side hug. Like a bunny hearing a bag of treats being opened, she perked up suddenly.  “This is going to be fun! Do you think the game will let us designate the treehouse as our base? We should start feeding the tree to make it bigger! Oh, and we should probably figure out how we’re going to build the tree house so it doesn’t break as the tree grows. Also we need a way to control it. I think we’ll need more spikes, and better enchantments. God, I wish there was a book on this stuff. The game has so much crazy functionality buried under the hood but none of it is documented.”

“Oh my god,” I laughed, rolling my eyes. “Chill. One thing at a time. On that last note, though, the previous tenant of my apartment left a really big library full of arcane books if you want to search it.”

“Really?” she asked, almost jumping into my lap. She thought better of it at the last second and instead flopped sideways into me. “Can we go there now? Then I can go and get all my stuff from the Silver Ridge castle in the morning and I can scratch my name off the roster.”

“Why not,” I giggled, my mood being completely and utterly infected by hers. “You’ll have to let me up first, though.”