Slumber party till the morning light

The great pillow fight of Harem Hotel: Island Holiday Season ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. No great triumph. No grand victory. There were no winners that day, just an endless wave of destruction that raged on and on, until eventually it came to a puttering end, and all that remained were the exhausted bodies left in its wake.

…Oh, but it was a lot of fun.

Dakota flopped back in a pile of pillows, gasping for breath. She raised her arm and wiped away her sweaty bangs, and let out a good, hearty laugh. Unlike so many of her other laughs, this one seemed devoid of poison or venom. It wasn’t the wicked laugh of a cruel and brutal host, but the pleasant laugh of a content young woman.

Everyone present almost couldn’t believe it was really her.

Dakota wasn’t the only one laughing, either. Nearly everybody was laughing, at least those who had the strength to do so. Ella was a little exhausted but still managed a light chuckle, Gina was cackling gleefully as always, and the twins were leaning against each other, sharing small giggles with Dani and Sylvia. Mary and Rose were both lying on the ground, staring up at the ceiling, with tired grins on their faces. Even Serenity had a small smile on her lips as she wiped the sweat from her naked body.

“That was a blast!” Gina declared. “Don’t you guys think?” She managed to sit up in spite of the stabbing pain in her gut, and flashed a toothy smile.

“Yeah! It really was,” Dawn agreed with a nod. “Only… you know… I lost my glasses.” The cat girl was on her hands and knees, fumbling around for her glasses. In the last seconds of the pillow fight, an errant shot had hit her in the head, and now she was rendered temporarily blind. “Nobody take a single step, okay? I don’t want to break them!”

Dawn’s hand fumbled across the sea of pillows and cushions strewn all over the lounge floor, and her fingers wrapped across something soft and springy that she squeezed down on without even noticing for a moment.

“Whoa there!” Vivian sprung upright, knocking the shorter woman’s hand away. Her arms snapped up to cover her breasts as she cast a sly smile towards the fumbling cat girl. “That’s not a pair of glasses you were touching there, kitty cat. Pair of something else maybe, but…”

“Oh! Oh, s-sorry,” Dawn stammered, turning red. She couldn’t make out Vivian’s face, so she couldn’t tell that Vivian was grinning from ear to ear.

“Don’t worry, she’s just messing with you,” Kim called from her position on the couch. Along with Dani, she was one of the people who’d handled the wild pillow fight the best, thanks to her recent improvement in athletic ability over the last few rounds.

“Dawn, I’ll help you look,” Rose called from the floor. “You know… soon. When I can…” She dug her hand into her side, trying to stabilize her breathing and her erratic heartbeat. She wasn’t in bad shape or anything, but that had taken way more out of her than she’d thought! “I’m still getting used to having these things…”

“Oh, what are you complaining about?” Marley griped. “Your boobs are as big as mine are normally!”

“Keep talking, and I’ll take my sweater back,” Rose playfully teased the curvier twin. She picked up a pillow with a trembling hand, and considered throwing it, only to let it drop to her side.

What would be the point? She was too exhausted to escalate things right now…

“I’ve never had a pillow fight like that before…” Sylvia said from the floor. She had never looked up at the ceiling of the lounge before, but now that she was, it seemed so… satisfying. “Actually… I don’t think I’ve ever had a pillow fight at all.”

“Neither have I…” Morgana echoed from the heap of black waste on the floor. A puddle of goth was all that remained of her at this point, having expended a lifetime of energy in a single game. If she never moved again, that would be too soon for her.

“I… I really had fun!” Ella said finally, standing up on shaky feet. Her amber eyes were glowing with excitement as she wiped her bangs off her forehead, her face beaming with awe. If anyone had the strength to crane their neck and take a look at her, they’d see a girl who was filled with joy. She was beaming from ear to ear!

Something as simple as a pillow fight… just throwing stuff around at her friends and acquaintances with no stakes, no drama… it was so much better than the last challenge, even if she’d tasted so much cushion that she would be coughing up feathers for a week.

“Hey, wait a second…” Mary sat up and looked around, her brow furrowing with concern. “Where’s Holly? Is she still…”

The redhead turned her eyes towards the last place she’d seen her best friend. A tomb of pillows formed a tower pile in memoriam of the spry little heart-eyed woman.

It jiggled. Slightly. Whoever was buried under all that was desperately trying to get out.

“I think she’s escaping,” Dani said dryly. “Marley, go sit on her.”

“You go sit on her,” Marley griped. “Didn’t you hear Rose? Big-boobed girls like us can’t even move right now. You’re the one with super strength.”

“Hear-hear!” Carly called out in agreement. She winced at the stab in her side. She was in better shape than her sister, but she had also done a lot more running around.

“Can’t, I’m as light as a feather,” Dani joked.

Marley grunted something foul in response and rolled her eyes, while Gina collapsed back on the floor in a fit of laughter.

“Well, somebody better do something about her,” Kim warned. “Unless you want her to…”

“…Pwaaah!” Holly’s sweat-drenched head popped out from between two pillows, brown hair frizzed up and cheeks red from near-suffocation. She gasped for breath for a few seconds, before trying to free the rest of herself from confinement.

“…Bust out,” Kim finished, smirking.

“You guys threw so many pillows at me you buried me alive!” Holly wailed. “If you didn’t want me to take your clothes off, you coulda just SAID something!”

“I thought you’d like being buried in a mountain of pillows,” Gina teased.

Kim nodded. “I distinctly remember you had a big old smile on your face when everyone started throwing stuff at you.”

“While I normally don’t condone such one-sided acts of targeting,” Mary chastised the others, crossing her arms over her chest, “you did put something of a target on yourself, Holly.”

Holly stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry. “Phbbltltt, oh, please,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes. “It’s supposed to be a pillow fight. If somebody ends the darn thing with all their clothes still on, can you even really call it one?”

That logic didn’t track for anybody, really.

“Serenity’s already naked,” Vivian helpfully pointed out. The siren nodded in silent agreement.

“Yeah, see? She’s getting into the spirit already!” Holly argued. “And besides, Sylvia was rooting for it too!”

“Yeah, but she didn’t pull anybody’s pants down!” Morgana wailed. “And you were going after me next!”

“Okay, but I was fine with that,” Gina pointed out, adjusting the waistband of her pajama bottoms. They were still a little off center.

“Dawn, what do you think?” Kim turned to the person most likely to be a fair arbiter of the situation. “…Oh, right. Yeah…”

The cat girl was still fumbling around on the floor, and growing increasingly frustrated about it.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” she grumbled. “Me and a bunch of girls who don’t wear glasses… of course this would end up happening…”

“I’ll-I’ll help you look,” Morgana said, picking up her hat to see if they’d somehow found their way under there. No such luck.

“I could use my cane and bring them to you…” Dakota offered. “Wait… no… that would take some effort… sorry, Dawn… too tired…”

She yawned and stretched her arms above her head.

Dawn rolled her eyes. Of course Dakota would be petty. So, maybe Dawn had gotten her in the back once or twice, and snuck over to the kitchen to get a glass of cold water to throw on her, rendering her momentarily helpless thanks to her still-active transformation. That was just strategy, it wasn’t playing dirty! The rules of a pillow fight said nothing about no water allowed! There was no need for the host to still be holding a grudge over that! Couldn’t she see that it was the best move she could have made?!

…Speaking of seeing, Dawn suddenly could. In an instant, everything blurry in front of her sharpened into crystal focus, and she needed a moment of severe blinking to fully process what had just happened to her.

There, crouched in front of her, was Serenity’s pale face, staring expressionlessly at the cat girl. The siren withdrew her fingers, and Dawn realized she felt the familiar pinch of her glasses resting on her nose.

Her eyes widened with glee. “My glasses!” She crowed, springing to her feet. “You found them! Thank you so much!”

Serenity nodded, giving Dawn an aimless shrug. “No big deal,” she murmured. “Wasn’t hard.”

Dawn didn’t care, she was just glad to have them back! She could see again, which meant she could see Serenity’s naked body, and the siren was looking a little… well… not little, nothing about her was little, but…

The cat girl gulped, feeling heat swell in her chest. The fur on her tail stood on end and she felt her heart begin to pound.

Serenity glanced at the flustered woman, and smirked.

“Careful,” she warned with a teasing lilt in her sharp voice, and she took a couple steps back to get Dawn out of the range of her transformation.

“Yay, we found Dawn’s glasses!” Dani cheered. “That means I can finally get off this dumb couch!” Without any cushions, the couch was incredibly uncomfortable. Dani hopped to her feet, hardly even winded, and walked over to the kitchen. “And just in time, too, because I’m starving!”

Mary groaned. “Do we have to?” She complained. “It’s so… greasy!”

“Yeah, it’s pizza,” Gina said, rolling her eyes. “That’s the point.”

She got up and went over to get some herself. That pillow fight had really gotten her to work up an appetite!

“I, um, can I have some too?” Ella asked, circling the counter hopefully. “The pizza, I mean?”

Gina looked at her for a second, not sure she understood what the other girl was saying. The few moments before she figured it out felt like a lifetime to the starving latina, and Ella’s fingers traveled to her rubber-band out of reflex.

“…Dude, it’s a party,” Gina said, cracking a smile. “You don’t have to ask. The food’s for everybody, come on! Help yourself!”

A wave of relief washed over Ella and she nearly fell over. Nodding appreciatively she approached the island, while Gina leaned over it to grab a paper plate on the other end. Actually walking around and grabbing the plate from the right side was too much work for the lazy girl.

It also provided quite a tantalizing sight for anybody who had a fondness for the curvy rear ends of sexy punk girls. And while Ella certainly wasn’t one of those people, that fact didn’t really matter as far as Gina’s Sweetcheeks transformation was concerned.

“Smack!”

Before Ella even knew what had happened she felt her palm sting, and looked down in shock at Gina’s wobbling booty.

For a second, her heart stopped beating.

Ella’s head snapped up and she made eye contact with Gina, who looked back at her in open-mouthed shock.

“I… eeeeeee…” Ella’s mouth stopped working, and she couldn’t apologize. The only sound to escape her lips was a thin, high-pitched whine.

Gina smirked when the initial surprise wore off. “I mean, I said help yourself, but I didn’t expect you to get so bold so soon!” She teased, wiggling her eyebrows.

Ella just stared at her, not sure she understood what was happening.

“Don’t try to figure that one out,” Dani said, scooping a few slices of pizza onto her plate. “Her brain doesn’t work like a normal person’s.”

“Aww, don’t be like that!” Gina crooned, batting her eyelashes at the tomboy. “I’m not some Holly, even I’ve got some standards.”

“Hey!” Holly snapped from her pillow prison. She’d managed to free one of her arms, and was digging herself out.

“She’s got a point, Holly,” Rose laughed. She received a pillow in the face for her troubles, from Mary.

“Don’t tease my friend!” Mary huffed. “Or… or… I’ll tell Nick!”

“Ooh, you’re gonna tell your husband on me, that I teased Holly, I’m soooo scared,” Rose mocked the redhead, hopping to her feet with a sneer. “I bet if he hears that, he wouldn’t be bothered at all.”

“Rose is right on this one, Mary,” Holly said, nodding eagerly. “I actually really liked that, so…”

Mary groaned. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear right now! “Holly…”

“It’s just some light teasing between friends,” Vivian said, sauntering over to the two of them. She brought a bottle of water to her lips and took a refreshing swig. “Not anything you need to get so worked-up over. Right, Serenity?”

She smiled over at the siren, who rolled her eyes. Clearly, Vivian’s attempts at making nice with the glowing girl weren’t working very well.

“Well, okay…” Mary relented. Maybe she was being a stick in the mud after all. “I guess it’s fine… Holly, do you want some pizza? Or…”

“Nah, I can get it myself.” Holly pried away one of the pillows near her hip, which caused the rest of the pile to collapse like a house of cards, freeing her. “But are you sure you can eat it? We’re not in college anymore.”

“Pizza is fine,” Mary said, in that exasperated tone she had which signaled she was going to begrudgingly do something, like go to a party in just her underwear. She placed her hands on her hips. “But tomorrow, we’re all going to make something healthy in cooking class!”

“Nice!” Dani grinned, taking a bite of the pizza. She relished the delicious cheese as it melted on her tongue. Thanks to the magic of the faeries, even though the pizza had been sitting out here since before the pillow fight even started, it was as fresh as if it had just come out of the oven. “I love cooking up healthy stuff!”

“Yeah, I think I’ll give that one a pass,” Gina said, rolling her eyes. She may have been making some real improvements in becoming a responsible adult recently, but eating healthy?

Come on. Nobody was that perfect.

Carly laughed. She finally had enough energy to go get some food herself. “I think you said the magic word, Mary. Dani looks fully recovered now!”

“I’m just looking forward to tomorrow, that’s all!” Dani replied, her cheeks flushing. She sat down on one of the cushions that had managed to land flat on the floor. “Can’t a girl get excited about cooking something healthy?”

“I think you’d get excited about anything you cook,” Carly teased, wiggling her eyebrows.

Dani blushed. She wasn’t wrong.

“So I can’t have pizza unless I eat something healthy?” Morgana looked like someone had just drowned her puppy. Pizza was, like, in her top three favorite foods! She gazed longingly at the steaming disks of dough and cheese.

Mary sighed and rolled her eyes. “It’s fine,” she said, patting the goth girl on the back. “If you don’t want to cook healthy food, you don’t have to. It’s not like it’s going to kill you if you have some pizza, right, Dawn?”

Dawn frowned and scrunched up her face, giving Morgana a scrutinizing look. “Well…”

Morgana’s mouth fell open. “What!?”

“Dawn!”

“Kidding, kidding, it was a joke!” Dawn said, rolling her eyes. She held up her hands in surrender. “Sorry, okay? I’m not used to that stuff.”

“Well, it wasn’t funny!” Mary huffed.

“Hey, I thought it was a riot!” Kim laughed. “Keep it up, Dawn!”

“So… can I…?” Morgana still wasn’t sure what any of this meant for the future of her relationship with pizza.

“Yeah, yeah, go,” Mary said, giving in and letting Morgana loose.

“After the workout we just had, I think treating ourselves is deserved,” Rose said, patting her belly. She took a piece of pizza and held it delicately with a napkin, trying to look as classy as possible. She was a lady, after all. And just because she gluttonously devoured the pizza, smearing grease and cheese and tomato sauce on her lips in the process, that didn’t change a thing.

“Well, glad to hear I’m not constrained to cooking lessons tomorrow,” Vivian said, stretching her back and going to go get some pizza herself. “It’s my date with Nick, after all.”

Mention of Nick caused the whole tone in the room to shift. More than one girl looked over at Vivian, trying to discern what she was getting at- why mention Nick here and now?

“…Oh, I don’t have anything planned,” the heiress clarified. “Just a thought that crossed my mind, since I’m not sure what to do with him yet. But a pillow fight jumped to the top of the list,” she said with a chuckle.

Kim sulked. If only she’d thought of that!

“Is anyone going to fix these pillows?” Marley asked, looking around at the scene of destruction that littered the floor. “I mean… we tore up every couch and armchair in this place!”

“The faeries will get to it soon enough,” Dakota assured her with a smirk.

“Yeah, they sure will,” Sylvia nodded in agreement. She watched the other girls eating pizza, drinking soda, and chatting amongst themselves. Even Serenity seemed to be having a good time.

This was Sylvia’s first slumber party, and it had already exceeded every expectation she ever could have had.

“Well, you look like you’re having fun.”

Sylvia jumped in surprise, and turned to Dakota. “Oh! Uh… I suppose so,” she said, nodding. A curious look stretched across her face as she studied her creator closely.

“Mm. I see.” Dakota nodded thoughtfully, and looked past Sylvia at the other girls as well.

“…Did you have fun?” Sylvia found herself asking.

The question seemed to surprise Dakota for a second.

“…I suppose so,” she echoed Sylvia with a nod. To Sylvia’s eyes, it almost looked like she was smiling. Almost.