Helping Emmaline

Miss GreenEyes fell **** after a few minutes of crying. I brushed back her unwashed hair and wiped away her tears. I'd be shocked if she was even twenty.

When I met those sorority girls on the way to Gwen last week, she was the classic queen bee. She had the perfect makeup, perfect outfit, and the perfect poise of a model. Back then she could have passed for an alumnus checking on her former sorority.

Now, as I carried her to Gwen's house, which was closest to our location and near the sorority, she just looked small and young.

We laid her down on Gwen's couch. While my bunny brought over water and granola bars, I got to work. I healed away the exhaustion, and cleaned the filth that built up over the last few days.

I transformed her ragged designer cardigan and formerly artfully ripped jeans into cozy sweats and oversized hoodie. She hadn't been wearing shoes.

Her breaths slowed as she relaxed into a proper sleep.

Gwen and I hovered helplessly for little longer before we left her to sleep, food and water next to her.

We settled in at Gwen's tiny table, bunny in my lap, wrapped in arms and tail. We just held each other for a bit before Gwen spoke up, "Who is she?"

I huffed a slightly hysterical laugh at the worst question your girlfriend could ask. Gwen giggled quietly when I explained.

I sighed, "She was just one of the girls I messed with to test the Ring, I asked her what she would change about herself and all she could think of was her eyes could be brighter." I frowned as I recounted the run-ins I had with her over the last week. She had been wearing the same clothes the entire time. Had she spent all week looking for me? Where did she sleep?

Gwen simply hugged me tighter as we waited, too worried to fool around. Talking quietly about nothing.

Two hours later we heard movement and watched from the door as the girl drank and ate like the starving person she was.

She saw me when she finished and the sticky pale green flames of shame dominated her Aura, though depression remained and a flickering ember of hope shone through.

"I'm sorry, shouldn't have been following you, I'll leave you alone now." She began to crumble in on herself.

"Nuh-uh, none of that." I dispelled my glamour and pulled her into a side hug, tail wrapped around the girl's waist. "Let's start with names. I'm Morgan and the bunny over there is Gwen." She waved her ears after dispelling her own glamour. "Who are you and how can we help?" I asked.

She started crying again. "My name is Emmaline Macdougall, but I can't be her anymore." We hugged her from either side as the story came out. "My father is a senator and my mother has a modelling agency. But all I am is a failure."

Growing up, Emmaline was raised almost entirely by her nanny Anne to be the perfect princess her parents could show off. She had private tutors for piano and violin, attended the best schools, even made to regionals in tennis and track in highschool.

She was her parent's perfect trophy, but not a daughter. Her grades were great but not exceptional. She placed well in competitions but never won. The pressure began to build until she failed her AP calculus class her junior year in highschool. Her parents threatened to disown her.

"Then-then," she sobbed,"Anne got leukemia. And instead of helping they fired her! She didn't have any other family, she died alone in the hospital." She cried as we held her, anger boiling within me.

Emmaline graduated highschool, but not with a high enough GPA to get into Harvard like her parents wanted. "They're not quite rich enough to buy my way in." She snarled with a dark glee.

"So they sent me here, told me to get into mom's old sorority and find a rich man to marry. Because they aren't going to support a stupid failure like me. I went through the motions all year, pretending I had some way to pay tuition or a house to go to for the summer." I remembered the scars I healed on the inside of her thighs and knew what she left unsaid.

"How do you want me to help?" I stroked her hair.

She sniffed and sat up straight. "You can change more than just my eyes can't you?" I nodded, worried. She knelt down and pressed her head to my thighs. "Take everything away, I can't be Emmaline anymore. Make me someone else, your ****, your pet. Just please don't throw me away." Her voice shook.

I watched as this girl bared her soul to me. I saw nothing but shining hope trying to burn out the tar. Gwen nodded to me with teary eyes.

I joined Emmaline on the floor and lifted her face to meet my eyes. "Are you sure, I might not be able to undo this." She simply nodded, pleading with her glowing emerald eyes.

I kissed her forehead and reached into her mind with the Ring.