We emerged from the mountain slope forest onto the mountaintop clearing-area-meadow… place in average time. The path was familiar, our friendship strong, and the day was that perfect windblown-clouds-and-sun mix that really makes hiking up a small mountain worth it.

Well... our friendship definitely used to be strong. I was starting to suspect something was up. Lly (the natural over-shortening of his name) was getting quieter by the day. That had been why I suggested going up the mountain today, especially since the weather was so lovely for it.

We’d had a good time of talking, anyways. Knowing someone that long, even on quiet days you could laugh together over practically nothing if I’m being quite honest. Though it was kinda sad that we hadn’t laughed over anything in particular. Hmm, now I’d gone quiet myself.

Not a day went by when I didn’t mourn the absence of someone I could get even closer with. But even though I wanted it, desperately, it didn’t seem to be a thing I could act on.

I trudged on up the slope, following the superpositioned path and dry streambed, my head down and my feet planting carefully onto the occasionally wobbly rocks and mud-adjacent soil.

“Uh, Eve?” Lly nudged me, calling me by the natural over-shortening of my own name. The fact that it just happened to land as a possible girl’s name had always made me feel slightly weird, though never weird in the way that made me want to object. Besides, the inherent double-take of it was great.

Shaking my thoughts loose, I looked up at him, and then followed his pointing finger, to where there was a very large swarm of insects flying in a ridiculous pattern around a golden teapot, or something like that. “That is a very large swarm, what are they even doing?” I asked, the words finding the time to slip out my mouth while I was startled and befuddled by the very large swarm of insects.

We looked at each other for a silent beat, and then made our way towards the unusual sight.

It... it was exactly what it looked like. Though I could now tell they were bees. There also seemed to be one in the middle doing a particularly important motion to the fascinatingly intricate display, though it was more fascinating that this particular bee seemed to be coloured blue and was connected to the teapot lamp thing by a faint stream of smoke. As if it were a bee-genie. A beenie?

I think Lly said something, but I was too distracted by the sight before me for it to register.

The bees seemed to be coming to something of a crescendo, moving more pointedly, more in sync, more symmetrically, and then finally, there was a thunderous crack. And then there was a woman there in the middle of them, with the blue bee hovering inches in front of her face. Her hair was really short and spikey (...kinda like bee fuzz?), and she had two cute little clumps of longer black hair (...right where antenna should be?!). But she was also definitely just a human, and she was laughing, a cute little contained fast laugh that brought a smile to my face just hearing it.

“IT WORKED!” she squealed, and she stretched out her arms. All of the bees (except the, uh, beenie) landed onto her arms, or onto the bees on her arms (you know, how bees do) and then she ran off, laughing the entire time. A small swarm of bees followed her in the air from being jostled off and trying to re-land onto the happily buzzing swarm.

The two of us, and the beenie, watched this all happen, simply standing (or, flying-hovering, in the beenie’s I need to stop calling it that case) and, for me at least, pondering what was going on in a dumbfounded confuddle.

“What,” Lly said. Apparently I was not the only one to be so confused.

“A job well done, if I do say so myself,” the beenie said.

I didn’t know the beenie could talk what I wasn’t prepared for this nobody mentioned there would ever even be beenies and now I find out they can talk what what how

“SO,” the beenie turned to us two, “the bees only wanted one wish, but I’m contractually obligated, so I’ve got two wishes available. One each sound fine?”

“Um I didn’t know beenies could talk so just a moment I need to handle this information first I’ll just be over here sitting down do either of you have a chair no it’s okay I’ll just use this mostly ill-suited rock ouch,” I said, sitting down with a plonk onto a particularly lumpy stone that left me at a fifteen degree tilt sideways.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

“A beenie,” the beenie mumbled. “Fascinating, thank you. That is a peculiarly nice title for me. A beenie.”

Near-silence fell once more, though given what mountain meadows are like, it was still filled with a lot of insect and bird activity. Even a few bees. I couldn’t decide whether that was surprising or not.

Lly spoke up, voice quiet amidst the meadow’s buzz-twittering. “I think we could work with one wish each.”

“A beenie, though.” The beenie was starting to list sideways like a rocket starting to fall off its tail, as if untethered from the very fabric of gravity. Gravity comes in fabrics, right?

I nodded, “Yeah, I’m sure I could make a wish useful. ...If I haven’t utterly destroyed the beenie by mistake,” I added, as the smoke trail between the beenie and the golden teapot (it actually does look more like a teapot than a lamp) began to fracture into a space-filling fractal curve.

The beenie shook itself out of its confusion. “Right right right, two wishes coming right up, bonk bonk,” it said, bopping in the way that bees do against our two foreheads, “there you go, I might’ve actually hit multiple wishes there for both of you, whatever, I need to rethink a few life choices. Beenie,” it muttered, drifting to be upside down. “Beenie,” it repeated once more, and then vanished back into the teapot.

I hadn’t finished figuring out which wish I wanted to go with yet whoops.

I turned to Lly and froze.

Standing where my friend had been was a really cute young woman. I jumped a little bit from surprise, and fell off my tiny little chair-rock.

“Eve?” the girl asked me, peering at me with wide blue eyes, the same sort of blue that Lly had. As well as the same coloured hair, a deep brown that still ends up looking amber in the right angle, such as right now. “Is that you?” Her voice was fair, and quiet, but expressed the same curiosity that Lly’s always had as well. I glanced down her body, making it a really quick glance because you should always be mindful of how long you look, and she was definitely really cute, clad in a t-shirt and pants, her shirt even bearing the same logo as Lly’s shirt had.

“Um sorry you appear to be very similar to Lly and--” My overtaxed brain short circuited as I heard my own voice. It hadn’t needed changing, that was a waste of a wish why would the beenie do such a thing to me I have to get it back out here and rectify this

I looked down, and even less made sense, suddenly. I was also a young woman! Why would I have wished for this!? Nothing made sense here? “And I appear to be very dissimilar to Eve in important ways,” I managed to say. “Huh. I don’t think I was wishing for this, but I can’t say that I mind it very much, because my voice sounds pretty nice.”

“You are pretty nice. And nicely pretty,” Lly said, stepping closer and kneeling down in front of me. “Are you sure you didn’t wish for this, because I... I might’ve.”

“Shooot,” I groaned, and the sound was great. “Did we just wish for each other to be our girlfriends, that might’ve been what the beenie thought my wish was because I hadn’t decided yet what to actually wish for and I had a few things bouncing around in there.”

“I can think of a worse result, if nothing else,” Lly giggled.

“Ai-Dee-Kay about what people really look for, but you’ve always been the one I’m most interested in, even though I wasn’t really totally interested in you, either so again Ai-Dee-Kay what to really expect, but if you wished for it I’d happily be your girlfriend. Gosh, I’m a girl that really feels like it should feel bad or something but it just... doesn’t and I do not know how to deal with this situation and I think I’m still kinda off kilter from the beenie.” I blinked, and took Lly’s hands. “Huh, I’m still thinking of you as Lly. I might’ve wished this onto you, but I don’t have any ideas, so do you want to go by a different name now?”

She smiled at me, squeezing my hands softly in a rhythm which didn’t keep a regular time, but which was satisfying to relax into. “I like the name Lily,” she said, with a particularly sure squeeze. “Are you good with Eve?”

“Eve has always felt weird,” I said, hesitating. “But it feels the least weird ever, right now. Have I always enjoyed it? I think I have always enjoyed it. Wow. Good thing you wished for me to be your girlfriend, Lily. I think I will do okay as a girl, and with a friend like you I have had wonderful times, and with a girlfriend like you I cannot imagine anything better Tee-Bee-Aitch.”

Lily took me into a hug. The motion felt like the perfect culmination of her recent quietness, and maybe of my own quietness because I guessed I had been getting somewhat quieter in the recent months, but I shoved those thoughts aside because her hug was wonderful. I wanted to return the hug. I placed my arms around her in return, and hugged her. She felt really good to hug. “You feel really good to hug, Lily,” I mumbled, and I thought I felt a tear start at my left eye. I squeezed her, and nestled my face into her shoulder. “You feel really good to hug.”

“Well, unfortunately for you, there is going to have to be an end to this hug,” Lily giggled into my own shoulder. Apparently I was taller than her now. I wasn’t sure if I particularly cared one way or another, but it just made her cuter still and I wasn’t prepared for that or more specifically my heart wasn’t because it went bompt.

And then I realised what she’d said and I drew my head back, eyes wide. “Wait what, is something wrong, are you not a lesbian, or is that even the right term because we--”

Lily interrupted me with a kiss onto the nose, and my heart went bompt, and also went straight into my face. “No,” she grinned, her own face also very red. “I definitely think you are very pretty in all the right ways for me. We just so happen to be on top of a mountain right now.”

“Oh right,” I mumbled, entranced by her eyes. “I think we could manage?” I asked, tilting my head and squinting at her.

“No, we could not manage to get all of the way down the mountain without breaking our hug, Eve. That would be silly to even try.” She shook her head, and then kissed me on the nose again.

Bompt.

“However, we can also do other things, like holding hands? Maybe, if we are feeling daring, a little bit of kissing? I’m sure we can make it up to ourselves for having broken this admittedly wonderful hug.”

She went for another kiss onto my nose, but this time my heart went bompt beforehand, and I intercepted her with my own kiss. Though admittedly I was very clumsy and I ended up missing my intended kiss on her nose and instead kissing her gently on the lips.

BOMPT. BOMPT.

“Wow, I think we really did get turned into girlfriends.” I broke away from the kiss, though I was a little sad that it was necessary to.

“Maybe. The beenie did say it had fulfilled multiple wishes on both our parts. Did...” Lily’s voice dropped even quieter, though given how close we were sitting together, just a small earthquake away from lying on top of each other, I had no trouble hearing it. “Did you wish to be a girl?” she asked.

“Was that why you were starting to be so quiet?” I asked in return.

She nodded, a very small nod. It was cute.

I drew her into a close hug again. “Well, Lily, maybe I did wish to be a girl even if I hadn’t realised I was doing so; I honestly don’t know what wish the beenie thought I was wishing. Maybe it didn’t actually ask, even, that would be a way to do it. Huh. Maybe being a girl was the deepest wish I had. I was kinda wishing I could find someone to love deeply and honestly.” I swallowed. “I really can’t get over that we seem to be falling in love so quickly. Sure, we’ve known each other so well for so long, but this feels really weird, but I’m okay with it, except that just makes it weirder, you know?”

“Aww, Eve...” Lily rubbed her hands up and down my back; it felt heavenly, her catching her fingers in the ends of my hair before letting it all go again each time. “That’s why we’ll be taking things slow and only as we both feel comfortable with. Or at least, we’ll stop when we start not being okay, right? I guess we weren’t particularly careful about kissing. But I was tentative with my hugging. We just make sure to do that sort of thing, right, okay?” She affectionately bonked lightly into my head with her own. “We’ll figure out what we want together.”

I hummed in the happiness of the moment, a little bit more noise in the ambient droning. “Together does sound nice,” I nodded.

“Now come on, we need to get on either to the top of this mountain to enjoy this view, or back down to figure out what all else we have to figure out. We can do it together, but we do need to do it, Eve.”

“Okay, Lily.” I released her from the tight hug, but kept her close for a moment. “I’m happy you get to be Lily,” I smiled at her, “but you should know that you’ve been acting Lily-ish for a while and I love seeing it truly in the open now.”

Her blush lit up my whole world -- wait no that was just a cloud moving away from in front of the sun. She still blushed really red though. “I’m... glad you avoided realising what you were missing before you managed to get it?” she replied, questioning the whole sentence even as she said it.

“Maybe,” I shrugged, and finally got up from the ground next to the rock. I noticed the beenie’s teapot still lay there, untouched by us. “I guess we leave that for the next person to find. A teapot doesn’t really count as a memory, though I think we left more than a footprint there, didn’t we,” I looked down to see an honestly fairly small patch of bruised grass. “Eh. It’s fine it’ll be fine we should just keep moving nobody cares that much for this small mountain I don’t even think it’s a real park like that.”

Lily took my hand, entwining our fingers. “It’s fine, Eve. I’m sure the beenie will manage to move the teapot somehow, if it needs to be moved. Now come on.” She tugged my hand, and we started going up the mountain once more, towards the actual peak, where the cliffy side joined the meadow to give an amazing view of the valley.

But today I got to see it as a girlfriend! With a girlfriend!

My heart did an extra little bompt at the thought of it, and I squeezed her hand in joy.

“Thanks, beenie!” I yelled back at the teapot just before we got out of sight of it.