This is an alternate branch of the storyline continuing from [14A]

The Tall and Short Problems of a Cute Gamer Girl

[15A]
For the Primary Branch [15]

Merging with the crowds without suspicion was easy enough. Olivia was rather confused about this new development, which didn’t seem to be any sort of class they had to attend but rather seemed a free-for-all throwing themselves into the multitudes. The warm spot on Giselle‘s head which she named Athena didn’t seem averse to this.

While Giselle had two hours of actual catgirl to burn off, Olivia returned to her color-appropriate pair. With the amount of crowd dodging and weaving between people navigating campus required, she had to hold onto the band to keep them from flopping off her head. That was a random convenience that Giselle appreciated. The awareness that her every emotion was translated into where the ears moved was still a trade-off, but it didn’t seem like anyone looked close enough to notice.

Another way she was glad to be ignored was the lack of attention from any of the security guys walking around. They took a side door to exit onto the grass. Olivia paused and marveled at the crowds of young people twisting, turning, and flowing with exuberance, delight, apathy, and disappointment. Even though Giselle was thoroughly done with all this social involvement, she enjoyed seeing how Olivia took it all in.

She noted quietly, “This is not even close to how many people some places have.”

Olivia drew in a breath. Giselle had to wonder who was feeding on this emotion, if either of them were. When they came to a lull, Olivia gradually explained, “Five are the most of us that have been permitted in one place. Earlier when I saw so many, I thought it an illusion or a rarity. To be so many, for such plenty of warmth and life and not know the ones that hunt us, is such a blessing. May you never forsake it.”

Giselle did her best not to cringe at that mention, knowing full well that this kind of gathering of people was eminently rare in the last few years. So many schools were held in isolation, that distance increased. Out of need and for the good of all, but the roughly two years it was at its worst still felt many times longer and crueler. For her, as Jeremy, a guy who made a bunch of random entertainment with his wife for the Internet playing video games and communicating at a distance while they barely left the house, all that was no imposition.

Missing their friends and how long they went between talking to Dale and Finley and all the rest was excruciating but a sacrifice they felt they had to make, especially for Lily and Gerald. Why on earth did it feel like humans were so disappointing? So many beautiful things, possibilities, and notions. Then, the other shoe drops and it feels like she has to give an extended explanation like “No, no humans are not terrible to one another except… and humans love being amongst one another except… and being a human has so many positive qualities except except except except…”

Rachel. For all the storms and all the disappointments and all the pain and all the terrible things and all the loss, especially of their beloved cat Tycho in the middle of all that loneliness, there was Rachel. How could she ever forget her? She would fight the very firmament of the universe itself to make sure Rachel never suffered. She would endure any pain to guarantee Rachel had a smile. Any punishment in service of keeping the one she loved safe, could easily be withstood with a smile.

But how far she had slipped from her thoughts. Dennis earned more time in this day than her wife. Where were the frantic, love-struck imaginings for Rachel? Where were the heart flutters for her wife of more than a decade? Those were things she could truly torture herself about. Her cat ears drooped.

How on earth was she going to explain that she made a date with a boy in her class who looked kind of like she did at the same age as Jeremy? That was what she stewed on as they picked up a lunch from the cafeteria. Just one, for Giselle. Although, Olivia found herself unusually curious.

Yes, it was true that this shell didn’t allow her to eat normally. Not yet. But she wanted to test it by laying one of the hot tater tots against her mouth. A few moments of that, and she quickly resolved, “This is wretched.” Giselle easily confirmed moments later, when she tried a few of them herself, “Yep, really gross.“

Somehow, she still managed to drench enough of them in some sort of honey mustard and ranch concoction that they stayed down with a bottle of Coke. The hush puppies and fried fish had a heavy crunch like they’d been sitting in oil for a long time. If not for the fact she was so young, Giselle would’ve feared for her heart. Still, she could feel like minutes and hours were debited from her existence with every bite. She was able to finish about half of it and pined for whatever Rachel might be making when they got home.

As lunch wound on, they were occasionally stopped by classmates who recognized the oddity in the ears atop Giselle‘s head. She was mum on explanations but let them assume there was some kind of motor put in. The warm hands groping part of her scalp was thoroughly, emotionally unnerving, and alarming. She hoped that Athena enjoyed the snack better than she endured her lunch.

Math class was cut short for the pep rally at the end of the day and the reason for all these crazy ear additions. Despite their plan of blaming magic for the weird ears, Britney was simply delighted that they were still wearing them and didn’t notice the oddities while greeting and settling down. The big surprise of the class was, firstly, that no one was hunting them down for skipping their punishment, secondly, that no sign of the vice principal turning into a random junior high girl had caused ripples throughout the campus and, finally, when Olivia showed a natural aptitude for the subject matter, after they laid out the cursory explanation of distant relative who wanted to learn, the teacher casually invited her to teach the truncated lesson.

Olivia took to this eagerly. She was very factual in explaining the equations and breaking them down systematically. She regurgitated the parts that were important to each equation and then applied them to the next with machine-level analysis. Even the weird tricks that stumped Giselle beyond her own apathy to understand the subject did not cause her any trouble. The teacher commended her and encouraged her to go around and help where classmates needed it. The only problem was it all ended too quickly, and they had to walk their way to the gym for the most ridiculous thing.

Olivia quietly glared at the sports celebration and cheerleaders rushing across the floor. At a certain point, when a very hokey tiger mascot came out in shades and a backwards hat, Olivia turned to Giselle and mouthed the word, “Permission?” Despite some level of temptation, Giselle shook her head and encouraged her to just wait it out.

Mercifully, they were eventually released at the end of the day. Britney squeezed Giselle so tight that it took her a few minutes to find her breath again. She revealed that she’d actually heard about what happened in the earlier class, with Dennis. She lamented that they couldn’t go to the movie together and maybe even bring along Olivia. However, she promised solemnly that she would not place any curses upon the proceedings.

And, furthermore, she mentioned that she placed an extra good luck charm on the ears and was glad to see that they had stayed in place without any troubles. At this point, Olivia and Giselle both played up this magical thinking by acting as though the ears were actually real now. Between this emphasis, Britney gave a quick little frown as she finally seemed to notice the ears moving on their own. Giselle worried that maybe they were selling it a little too hard, but Britney shook her head in amusement and giggled.

Her dad was finally picking her up and they had big plans for a wonderful weekend, so the movie thing wouldn’t have worked out anyway. She assured Giselle that she would be watching the evening stream for whatever game they would be playing, although she put in her own thoughts that the recent, super cute cat game would be very appropriate. Giselle knew the one. As Jeremy, she received plenty of PM requests for it. She was glad that it still existed in this version of reality.

Not too long after that, Britney‘s dad showed up in a fancy BMW and Rachel soon followed in their crossover. The first thing that Giselle checked was that her wife still remembered that she was her wife.

Rachel quipped with a smile, “Yep, we’ve been married since before you were born. How was your day?”

Giselle lingered with a far-off look and then asked her, “Do you really wanna know? You know, I feel like the reason so many teenagers don’t really say how their school day went is that it would take far too many uncomfortable words to even begin to explain.”

Rachel raised one eyebrow, but responded, “I can take it.”

Giselle took a deep breath, collected her thoughts, and relayed, “The mascot ears I’m wearing on my head are real cat ears for about half an hour more as emotion food because I’m sort of pregnant but not really with the spirit sister of Olivia who has taken root inside my head kind of like Zeus with Athena, which is what we named her. We got sent to the office because one teacher was a jerk towards Olivia for no reason and then the vice principal is a sleazy perverted slimeball who creeps on junior high girls, but Olivia caused a little chaos by making him into one temporarily… it was temporary, right?”

Olivia gave her a quick glance. “You didn’t say how long. I figured we would see her again, and I could deal with that then. Unless, that is a problem?”

Giselle shook her head. “No problem. Well, Rachel, there you go. You asked.”

Rachel quietly absorbed all of that and was about to say something before Giselle suddenly added, “Oh and a boy in my class asked me out to a movie on Saturday.” It genuinely had momentarily slipped her mind, which was very on point for Jeremy, but she felt like she had gotten a little better as Giselle.

Rachel‘s eyes immediately widened and then curled into suspicious points. She had plenty of questions. She began, “Do you like this boy…?”

Giselle immediately regretted this. She cleared her throat. ”He asked politely, and it seemed like whatever role I was given, it would be weird to disrupt things. Just play along like I have with school until we can fix things.”

Rachel placed her hand near her chest and played up, “So you say, but then I find out you’re a pregnant catgirl running from the law. That doesn’t sound like the daughter I raised!” Olivia looked briefly concerned but seem to relax when Giselle and Rachel shared a laugh.

After that little moment, Rachel raised her posture and inquired, “So, do I need to ask Olivia to turn me into a romantic 11-year-old boy to keep your attention now?”

Giselle squirmed and made it clear that all of this was just because she got blindsided by his kind offer and it sounded like a version of her may have been really nice to him. Olivia mentioned that she could do that, if permission was given. Rachel assured her it was fine, she was just joking again.

But she did want to hear more details about this spirit and resolved, “Eleven, no matter how old you really are, is too young to go to the movies unescorted. And you really should dress up nice for your little date with a pretty pink dress and all the fashionable details. I hope you’re going to that new video game movie because I wanna go too. And we should bring Olivia along as well. First movie for her.”

Even though she was not really an 11-year-old girl, Giselle could definitively say that she felt a certain kinship with them at that moment. 

[Since this is meant to be interactive, feel free to suggest ideas and prompts for future/alternate branch storylines. Some branches are already written but this will allow me to best pick new/alternate ones. I'm currently just rolling dice.]

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