A Glimpse of the Beginning

It's a good thing that your mom is out of town taking meetings with some streaming service or another right now, because you really didn't want to have to come up with a lie about why you're bringing two friends she's never met home in the middle of the night. Or a more long term one about why they need to stay with you for the time being. The Parks are checking in on you, but you don't have as much of an issue portraying Donna and Rhys as visiting friends to them. It's not a lie, after all. But that's exactly the sort of little falsehood by omission that you'd be absolutely fine with when it comes to anyone besides your mother. Because if you've learned anything from a childhood spent obsessively watching movies where things invariably go wrong, it's that trying to deceive your loved ones with a web of lies always goes wrong.

That being said, you're still working out the kinks on the best way to tell her about your whole Magical Milk Lady Club. Kinks like 'If I tell her, will that break some sort of dumb magic rule I'm unaware of?' and 'Will the violation of said theoretical and stupid sorcerous catfuckery result in Mom being stuffed into a coffin somewhere?' You don't want to lie, but you also don't want your Mom to get stuffed into a coffin. It's a quite the tightrope to navigate.

Handling Jessie, on the other hand, is not such a complicated task. First off, the Range Rover you see haphazardly parked halfway on the curb and halfway on your lawn when Jenny pulls into your driveway is clear evidence that she's brought one of the football boys home for a weekend fuck session. They must still be going at it, judging by the fact that he clearly hasn't been kicked out yet, so you can just sidestep that whole issue for right now. And even if you couldn't, 'Fuck You, Jessie' is pretty effective as a go-to excuse/greeting/farewell/witty rejoinder.

"You live here?" Rhys asks in wonder as he wanders around your foyer, gawking up the stairs as if a unicorn might wander down at any moment. Actually wait, he'd probably think that was pretty normal.

Still, you have to cock an eyebrow at the elf boy. "Uh, you grew up in a palace. You're a prince."

Donna lets out a big 'pfft!', dropping her practically empty satchel of belongings onto a coat rack. "This is way better than our place. I bet you've got, like, Nintendo and everything!"

Rhys whips around, eyes wide. "Do you?!"

You balk a bit at the prince's sudden intensity. "Um, maybe? Somewhere? A Nintendo? That's...pretty old, dude."

The boy doesn't seem to be listening as he rifles through his much fuller pack, eventually pulling out a grey plastic brick which he presents with a look of inordinate pride. "I have a Nintendo! I won this in the Grand Melee last year!" He all but shoves what is in actuality an original Gameboy into your face, beaming in triumph. "Isn't it cool?"

"Oh, uh, sure! Does it work?"

Rhys blinks at you. "What do you mean?"

"Uh, I mean, does it turn on and stuff?" The elf just keeps blinking at you. Oh boy. "Okay, you know that you use that to play games, right?"

"Oh! Yeah, totally; I've got a bunch of those!" He flips the GameBoy around, indicating the bright red cartridge firmly stuck in its slot. "You pop one of these in, and then you can imagine all sorts of cool human world adventures based on it. Right?"

You carefully reach out to poke your finger into the empty compartment at the handheld's base. "You've got to put batteries in here, dude."

Rhys tilts his head to one side. "To...do what?"

"Look, just...ugh, follow me, okay?" You lead the twins into the kitchen, Donna 'ooo'ing over the modern furnishings as you start to rummage around in a drawer. Do you even have any batteries? Mom's old; she probably still thinks you guys need them for some reason. Eventually you hit paydirt, and a moment later you've slotted four AAs into the back of Rhys's device. "Okay. Now flip that switch on top."

The prince hesitantly puts his finger on the ON/OFF switch, looking up at you with uncertain eyes. You nod encouragingly, he steadies himself with a deep breath, and then he quickly slides it over. Rhys nearly drops the thing when it flares to life, bobbling the GameBoy midair before catching it with both hands. He stares in astonishment as his game's intro plays and beeps chipper music at him, mouth agape and eyes wide with awe. It's a long time before he manages to say anything at all. "....Which room will I be staying in?"

"Oh, uh, up the stairs and to your left, I guess. That's right next to,"--You trail off as Rhys bolts away, already working his way through the game's opening scene--"...Mine. Huh." You glance back at Donna. "Is he going to be okay?"

The queen waves her hand dismissively. "Sure sure, he's just excited; I bet he gets bored after tonight."

Um, you're not so sure about that. "Well anyway, do you want to head to your room? It should be--"

"No."

You raise your eyebrows at the suddenly demanding queen. "No?"

"You heard me!" Donna plants her fists firmly on her hips. "I am sleeping over and that means this is a slumber party and that means we're sharing a room tonight. That is final."

Woof, you're too tired to argue. You lead the giddy elf girl up to your room, opening the door for her with a welcoming bow. She steps in with a thrilled little giggle, 'ooo'ing and 'ahhh'ing over your tasteful decorations. Her eyes light up at the side of your huge, exquisitely welcoming looking bed, breaking into a dash a moment later to hurl herself onto it headlong. She groans in delight as she rolls around on your duvet, stretching her arms and legs out as wide as she can. "Fuck, this is amazing! I've slept on an actual cloud, and this is so much better. And way less getting hit by birds."

You nod along with Donna's babbling, moving to plop down onto the bed yourself. "Okay, so, what did you want to do first? Because my vote is for sleeping."

The queen sticks her tongue out at you, rolling over onto her belly to waggle her feet in the air. "That's not fun! We have to do something fun!"

"Okay, well, what did you have in mind?"

She considers that for a moment. "Um.....have any new Babysitter's Club books come out in the last twenty years?"

Seriously? "Uh, probably. There's a new Babysitter's Club series on Netflix we could watch a couple episodes of?"

The elf girl shoots up. "What's Netflix?!"

Before you can answer, Rhys shouts from the next room. "Donna! Do I want the Fire Starter or the Water Starter?!"

Donna gasps at her brother's predicament. "Ohh! Which one is coolest?!"

"It's too late I already picked the Fire one I have no idea what I'm doing!!"

This is gonna be a long ass night

Well, you seem to have fallen asleep at some point last night, though the evidence of that is anecdotal at best. Between Donna discovering what a Netflix binge was and as a direct result discovering what the Internet was, the excitable queen kept you up for hours on end. Add to that Rhys's furious tirade right around dawn that Brock was bullshit and he was resetting to get the Water Starter, and you really have no idea when you finally managed to pass out.

You'd have been fully content to just sleep through the whole day, but the insistent scent of pancakes wafting up from the kitchen seduces you into crawling out of bed. The stern voice inside you makes a lot of noise about food plans, but both you and it know full well that you're entitled to a damn cheat day now and then. You just made contact with another world, forged a steadfast alliance with the rulers of that mystic land, and then spent hours letting the Queen of the Goddamn Elves raid your old clothes and put on impromptu fashion shows. You deserve to eat some fucking carbs.

Donna merrily greets you good morning around a mouth stuffed with pancake, Rhys offering you a wave from where he prepares more of them at the stove top. He piles a stack high, then to your intense displeasure sets them down in front of goddamn Jessie, your awful cousin doing her level best to shove her heavy breasts as close to his face as she can manage. She cuts off her cooing thanks for the embarrassed looking boy when she notices your arrival. "Ashley. Who're your friends?"

You grumble as you sink into a chair, Rhys setting about preparing you a plate. "Donna and Rhys."

"Hmmm, Rhys, huh~?" Jessie pulls her tanktop down a bit further under the table, a move she certainly imagines is subtle, causing more marshmellowy cleavage to squeeze out of the lowcut top. "Is he your boyfriend?"

Donna barks a laugh at that, her brother turning a bright red as you glare at your cousin. "I'm dating Isabelle, Jessie. You know that."

Jessie makes a face at that. "No idea why."

You're about to forgo breakfast and simply launch yourself over the table at your cousin when Donna waves her hand at Jessie. "Rhys is a good boy, Jessie! You'd get nothing from him but sappy poems and hand holding. It'd be like, forever before he even kissed you!"

Rhys sniffs defiantly from his spot at the stove. "Well I'm sorry that I have a little something called self respect, Donna."

The queen rolls her eyes, giving Jessie a bemused look. "Boys, right? Such prudes."

Jessie doesn't seem to follow. "Uh...they are?"

Actually, you sort of don't follow either. Before you can ask for clarification, however, Donna gasps. "Oh wait, that's right! Boys are total sluts here, aren't they?!"

Jessie blinks at that, then leans over in her chair to whisper conspiratorially to you. "Where did you say they were from?"

"Um.........Canada."

That answer seems to satisfy Jessie, the girl stuffing her tits more or less away before rising from the table with a haughty sniff. "Anyways, I've gotta go. I've got practice. I'm a cheerleader, you know." She glances expectantly at Donna, her overripe chest swelling with pride when the girl gives her the 'Oooo!' she was hoping for. She gathers up her hair in a tie, making sure to twist her shoulders so her fat rack wobbles and sways at the still beet-red Rhys. "Bye Rhys~!"

The prince coughs again, sheepishly putting a plate down in front of you. "Um, bye."

Jesse smirks at that, giving the boy a wink as she turns to sashay away with far more wiggle to her wide hips than could ever be called necessary. She didn't bother saying goodbye to you, and you're fuckin' grateful to her for the courtesy. Donna, meanwhile, playfully prods her brother in the side as he joins you at the table. "She wants to do you, Rhys! You'd be, like, the first elf ever to date a human!"

Rhys grumbles at that, affixing his sister with a healthy dose of stinkeye. "You know, I'd sort of hoped that coming to the human world would put a pause on you trying to marry me off. For, like, a minute."

Donna scoffs at that. "Hey, I've been super duper progressive about this, Rhys. In the olden times you know princes just got married off for some political thing as soon as their balls dropped, right?" The prince reluctantly nods, and Donna's expression softens. "But you know I don't care about that stuff! I just, you know, what you to be happy! To find someone! And hey, our host went to all this trouble making her cousin into a hottie; someone's gotta take advantage of that!"

You hadn't intended to join the conversation, but something in that brings your fork to a halt. "Wait. 'Making my cousin into'...you mean, you know that Jessie was..."

The queen arches an eyebrow at you. "A guy? Uh, yeah. You did a real number on that dude. Not that I should be surprised!" She throws her arms out, indicating your sumptuous home. "I mean, look at what you've done here! This is, like, Grade A Magic Shit! This is Ultra Mega Space Wizard Shit! Seriously, Ash, great work!"

She flashes you a big thumbs up as you try to work through how to approach this. "You...you're saying that you can see that all of this,"--You wave your fork around--"Is from magic?" Donna nods, chewing on another mouthful of pancake. "How? I thought the magic totally changed reality and history and stuff?"

Rhys shurgs, looking rather nonchalant about it. "Oh, it did. It's not like all of this is an illusion or something, and we're seeing through it. Everything you've got here is absolutely as real as anything has ever been real. But magic doesn't work that great on us, remember?"

Donna swallows, cutting in to add to her brother's point. "Also we were in our realm whenever you cast those spells? So we weren't subject to the part of the spell that altered this world's reality. Basically we're just getting the lingering after effects. So your whole situation still feels totally right to us, but if we concentrate we can suss out how things were before."

The prince jumps to the wrong conclusion when this revelation causes you to fall into a defensive silence. "Oh, don't worry though! We obviously won't tell anyone without your say-so."

"Yeah! Besides, look at this place!" Donna whistles appreciatively, helping herself to another glance around. "You've got great taste."

You shake your head quickly, your neck heating up and angry at yourself when your eyes start to water a little. "No, it's not the house, it's...um, that's all you can see? You don't see what else has changed?" The two shrug at you, so you push a bit more. "You don't see how I've changed?"

Donna furrows her brow. "You mean your tits? Because those not being in the world until magic stepped in is a mark against reality, not magic."

You can't help laughing at that, though your eyes are full on brimming at this point. "Not that, I mean...that I wasn't a girl? Before all of this?"

The twins blink at you for a long moment, then share a look of complete confusion. You desperately need one of them to say something. Eventually, Donna takes a crack at it. "Um...weren't you always a girl, though?"

"No, Donna." Your voice is flat as you deadpan at the deeply confused queen. "I had a dick and everything."

Donna pulls a face at that, looking if anything more confused than before. "What does that matter?"

That was not the response you expected, and now it's your turn to be confused. "Huh?"

Rhys puts his elbows on the table, leaning forward to give you a curious look. "Weren't you a girl back then, too? I mean, who cares what your parts were, right? When we look back like that, we're not exactly seeing with our eyes. It's more like looking at the imprint of someone's aura."

Donna nods in agreement, giving you a somewhat bewildered look. "Yeah, exactly. Don't get me wrong, you seemed like a super sad girl then, but...I don't know! We can pierce through the dang veil, and when I do it, all I see is a girl. Is that wrong?"

Your eyes are actively streaming now, but your nervous look has been replaced by a beaming smile. No. No, they aren't wrong. And you don't care how long they stay, or what stories you have to make up, or how many episodes of Babysitter's Club they want to watch or late-night Pokemon tantrums they throw. They can stay here as long as they fucking want.