Alice
"Woah, these are delicious!" Elizabeth exclaimed in astonishment, followed by a satisfied sigh, savoring the rich warm chocolate chip cookie cradled between her textured fingertips. It was nothing more than a subtle ritual for my fiancée to bake snacks for me before her uTuber streams. There was an undeniable joy in sharing these simple pleasures with Elizabeth. Unlike me, no one worshiped or pampered her out of natural and supernatural devotion. "Oh, sorry for being so surprised; my Mei Lin would have burnt down the house."
"I would never have guessed, now that I think about it; Mei had really gotten into Home-Ec when we were in highschool. A whole thing about surprising me with a new dish every week or so." Back then, Mei Lin was always scheming up new ways to make me smile. Or more importantly- How to feed my ego. All the little things she does for me?
Offerings.
Those were the memories I cherished the most; a large portion of our admittedly hazy histories had been anchored by our relationship. Mei Lin having written it into the very fabric of our reality. Our bond literally couldn't be anything less than perfect as a function of the universe... Mei Lin meant everything to me.
"Oh right, you two went to grade school together.. That's uh, still kind of bizarre to think about. We only just used to be somewhat good roommates. Honestly Alice, you fucked up reality pretty bad from what it used to be." She chuckled like it was funny.
"Honestly Elizabeth, it's not
that
bad." I countered playfully. "Besides.. You could live a good life here. I know we already offered before, but the thought of you renting a pocket dimension by yourself just seems.. I dunno? A little bit Isolating?"
Liz and I had practically set up camp in the university lab for a solid two days, working our butts off to piece together our original PhD project before the deadline. By scavenging parts from leftover prototypes, we somehow managed to cobble it all together in time to submit the device along with our thesis.
Although, despite working intimately in tandem on our magnum opus, it didn't feel any different from being alone. We hardly uttered a word to each other for hours at a time. There wasn't any need to; our minds were in total unity.
After that however, Elizabeth still needed a place to stay but she refused to live in this reality. She even turned down Arc's offer to replicate her version of my universe or seek an alternative that could possibly suit her.
..I would have made the same choice even if for different reasons. Personally, I've kept a very long list of reservations about Arc; even though something about him made it practically impossible to
not want
to do whatever he said. Even just thinking about Sir, I mean- Arc, felt like suddenly failing a charisma saving throw. Still, I couldn't deny that he has been extremely generous to my family, so far.
Since the whole mess with 'the incident' and ultimate destruction of the 'infinity cube', daily life had been surprisingly low-key. Sir fixed reality, knitted our existences back together as best he could and- yeah, offered me a job with some absolutely insane perks.
But my unease mostly started from our tour of PRIME HQ which was not bad, though I came out with so many more questions than answers. Then to celebrate we were given special access to 'Void Club' (some kind of esoteric sex club). And while both Mei and my mom thoroughly enjoyed themselves, I found myself grappling with waves of anxiety and smallness I'd never experienced before; I'm a Goddess, but there? It was hard to shake the feeling. The drinks were good at least.
"I have my reasons and I'm sure you know exactly what those are; I think it'll be better this way for now at least. Regardless, there's a lot of... New concepts I've been researching, but it's hard to focus without quiet privacy." My counterpart blushed, nervously biting her lip.
She made a good point. The house was not the best studying environment.. It was a miracle I got anything done.
"Oh yeah? Well, as long as you're comfortable where you're at right now Liz." I breathed out slightly dramatically, with a gentle smile, putting my elbows on the table and settling my head into my hands. Taking a moment to really look at the girl I used to be. "You know- and not to change the subject or anything, but you're adorable Lizzy."
I meant it too. In spite of the fact that I'd never seen her in anything other than dull colored hoodies and sweatpants. Elizabeth simply lacked any aesthetic charm outside her natural beauty. Something we both shared, she just.. Didn't seem to know what to do with herself.
Not that she was interested in fashion or beauty to begin with. Otherwise, I would've loved to teach her how to do her makeup, take her down to my favorite boutique at the mall for a shopping spree- oh my god, dark academia would fit her so well! But, of course she turned me down. Every single time I offered..
"No. I'm not, and would you please stop looking at my chest?" Elizabeth huffed in a desperate attempt to feign displeasure. Pink hues flushing across her cheeks only served to prove my point further.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to. I guess I'm not used to seeing myself.. so, flat." It just never occurred to me; the only other times we'd spent together I had been so distracted. Things were different with her sitting right in front of me; a version of myself entirely devoid of my most important features. Elizabeth wasn't just an inferior woman but like, a total bug bite beta, the bottom of the barrel and it made me feel weirdly vulnerable.
In my defense, I was doing my best to compress my tits down to a
modest
bust; about the size of your typical prize winning watermelons. Something that should be reasonable for someone who didn't grow up within the DD Hierarchy... At least that's what I assumed, given that I have no idea what would've been considered normal in her unaltered past.
It probably didn't help that the upper hem of my off-shoulder rose-pink designer Lobotúre sweater; only came up high enough to cover my nipples. Nor that the neckline was practically non-existent, curving down in a wide U-shape; The whole point was to show off about 85% of your cleavage to anyone directly in front of you. Both a total power move, and a display of confidence to other women.. Was that not acceptable before the cube changed the world? She never seemed interested in talking about her society, only ever mentioning how weird mine was.
Ugh! Why did we have to be so complicated? I figured out how to alter my tops to scale with my tits last week, so at least it still fit properly. At least I was making an effort, but she didn't even notice.
"It's fine. I'm just not used to being surrounded by so much
sex stuff.
" Elizabeth finally responded in a hushed, far away whisper after silently thinking for an unusually long time. "Or I guess, I never noticed." She added, even quieter.
Another momentary pause before she blinked herself back to the present, taking a deep breath and gently regaining composure. It was cute to see her put effort into her own confidence.
Then Elizabeth's voice sharpened, dropping register, coming across much more clearly, and confidently. She straightened her posture and her eyes narrowed, giving me a serious existential crisis. "Ok, Alice. Back to what I came here for; Arc had been wanting to know if you were ready to officially join PRIME. You've had more than enough time to think about it."
I-
The mood, now that surprised me. I never in a million years would have considered Elizabeth could be a person who would give off anything close to 'hot milf next door' vibes but holy fuck she was actually pulling it off. Four years made a hell of a difference. That, or maybe I'm just that easy. "So, about the job.. I've just been busy doing other things, you know? Graduation is in two months, Mei Lin and I are getting married in the fall, and I've-"
"Alice, I want to make it clear to you how important this position is. You remember what V'aquisa said, this isn't really something we can ignore. We're smarter than
everyone
Alice. Our potential for the PRIME Initiative is the whole reason Arc gave us the cube." Elizabeth's smile sent chills down my spine.. More and more it began to dawn on me that I didn't really know anything about the shy mousy brunette. We knew our similarities but... Our differences were complete blind spots, gaps between our mirrored thoughts which seemed to be getting more out of sync.
"That doesn't mean we should just do whatever they tell us. I've been taken advantage of before, and I'm not letting that happen again." I huffed.
"Exactly, that's my point. They came to
us
, Alice. We have been granted full unrestricted access to PRIME facilities and resources; they
need
us, not the other way around." She nodded to herself proudly, softening up from her fleeting intensity.
"I'm not entirely convinced, but you do make a good argument." It made sense, especially with my own godhood. As long as we worked together, we'd be practically unstoppable.. Theoretically.
Though she was forgetting about Ryan. If anything, he was more important than either of us, the boy was just a bit immature and deserved more attention than he ever seemed to get from anyone. Ryan was the only person in existence who personally knew Elizabeth, and yet she still didn't seem to care.
"Even V'aquisa seemed impressed."
Blegh.
