Cyd had done a few of these long-haul flights before, and they were a pain in the ass. This was doubly true in her case, as the law required anyone with an Enchantment that caused uncontrollable shape change which needed a special seat to accommodate their larger form, to be forced to buy such a seat. This was even true in her case, where the flight was not due to fly overnight. She had no reason to expect she would transform, they'd be taking off shortly after noon and landing around the same time. But, because there was always the possibility of flight delays, or of circumstances causing the plane to be diverted, she nevertheless needed the "monster flight," as she called it.
The seats were conveniently larger, and it was illegal in Emmarine for airlines to charge more to passengers who required them. But, there were very few seats available on normal flights, and those tended to sell out quickly. The rare flights that catered exclusively to those with a larger body plan often had weird hours. Worse than that, though, Cyd always felt decidedly strange among the giants surrounding her.
It wasn't unheard of for the unEnchanted or those with enchantments that didn't lead to them being abnormally large to spend a bit more to get a larger seat, as a kind of middle ground between business class and economy. These people were often seen as assholes who were stealing the seats from people who legitimately used it, though Cyd tended to place the blame on the airlines who allowed this to happen in the first place, all for the sake of making a buck. Nevertheless, Cyd felt like a small child sitting in her father's chair in the seat, while also feeling self-conscious about being perceived as someone who was taking the spot of someone more deserving.
Her spirits were buoyed as she left the departure gate, however, and saw Jev and Sam waiting for her, both ready to envelop her in a welcoming hug. They both commented on her freshly-dyed hair, no longer black with brown roots, but instead a vibrant blue-green. They told her of their adventures of the past few days, of Jev's quitting and subsequent firing from BigBuy, of the success of the first day of the open house, which had already led to someone ready to assume the lease. Once they were in the car and could be a bit more discreet, they told her also of the misadventures with Larellyn, and the next morning when she tried to sneak out of the apartment due to her work alarm going off, but also needed to sneak into the bedroom because she'd left her underwear there.
Finally, when the three got to Jev's apartment, she was finally able to unload and relax a bit. Jev and Sam had already begun loading his things into cardboard boxes, and rolls of tape, utility knives, and stacks of cardboard were strewn all over the place. It wasn't a ton of stuff that needed packing, thankfully, but getting it organised and especially getting the fragile stuff packed securely enough that it wouldn't break was the challenge.
There was also the matter of disposing of duplicates. The farmhouse came with Mik's things, so there wasn't much need to ship things like cheap dishes, which were heavy and had no real sentimental value. As a result, everything getting packed became a question of whether it was worth shipping or replacing. Cyd sat on the corner of the couch to take in the scope of the task ahead. The next thing she knew, Jev was kissing her forehead as she woke up.
"Why don't you take a nap before we put you to work?"
She looked around, disoriented. She was still on the couch, but at some point, she'd lain down. She stood up defiantly.
"No, I came here to help, and I'm gonna help."
Jev put his fists on his hips and looked at her with a paternal scowl.
"Take care of yourself a bit. We've been making some decent progress already, and I want you to be able to enjoy some of your time here without being completely exhausted, too."
She was going to argue, but even she had to admit to herself that she was likely to pass out again the next time she took a break and that a nap was probably not such a bad idea. He led her to the bedroom, where the blankets were half-heartedly pulled up in a facsimile of having made the bed. She could smell Sam's perfume in the room, but overwhelmingly, it smelled like Jev. A cool breeze blew in from the window.
She wasn't wearing a bra, and her T-shirt was one she'd chosen for comfort on the plane and not for style, so she slipped out of her pants and slid into the bed. The bed shifted slightly as Jev joined her, wrapping his arm around her body. She felt his lips on the back of her neck, and she burrowed herself back into his chest.
"I missed you."
She chuckled slightly.
"It hasn't even been three days."
She could feel the bed rock as he shrugged.
"Three days is enough to miss someone."
"Haven't you got packing to do?"
His warm hand traced down her side to rest on her hip.
"Sam's ok to take care of it for a bit. Why, did you want me to leave?"
She rolled over to look into his face, reaching up to kiss him before flopping down on the pillow and grinning.
"No. But no funny business. 'm tired."
He smiled, kissed her on the forehead and pulled her tight to his chest, then laid his head down on the pillow beside her while she fell asleep.
Several minutes afterwards, Jev snuck out of the bedroom, gingerly closing the door to minimize noise from their packing. Sam was sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bookshelf surrounded by all the books that had been removed from the shelves and were now stacked in piles around her.
"She asleep?"
He nodded. She chuckled good-naturedly and adopted a playful, mocking tone.
"Oh, yeah, Sam. I'll be ready to start working as soon as I'm off the plane. I'll just sleep on the plane, it's OK, I'm tough..."
Jev laughed at the impression.
"Turns out she isn't invincible. Who knew?"
Now it was Sam's turn to laugh. She gestured at the books surrounding her.
"Anyway, I think you need to go over these to see if there's anything you want to get rid of. Some of them look like they might be textbooks? I've already packed the yearbooks and some of the things that seemed like you'd obviously want to keep, but the rest, I'm not sure."
He gave her a hand up and took her place. The pile she had indicated were indeed textbooks from his university days, but there were also novels, some old comics, a handful of art books... Some cuts were easy to make. The textbooks got relegated to the "donation" pile first, even though he was relatively sure the courses he'd taken were using newer versions, it was always a good thrift shop find since they were only a few years out of date and the newer editions were typically just reprinted with the chapters in a different order. The comics were likewise cut, it wasn't a real "collection", he'd simply subscribed to a couple of titles while he was in university. They held no real sentimental or collector value and he wasn't likely to re-read them, so they got dumped. The art books were a keep. They'd been a regular birthday gift from his grandfather, showing concept art from some of his favourite movie and TV franchises. Most were likely out of print now, and replacing them would have been impossible.
Much more difficult were the novels. Did he keep the "DragonWar" novels that he'd loved as a teen, but which he hadn't read in almost a decade? Most of his newer books, he'd simply purchased digitally and read on an e-reader, but that had been a gift from his parents only a few years back and a number of the books on his shelves he'd bought before that. Was he going to read them again? Some had been genuinely good books and he didn't really want to re-purchase them. Plus, there was always the appeal of having a physical thing. As the joke went: "Books are like boobs; There's plenty to be found on the internet, but nothing beat actually having them in your hands." After a trying half-hour, Jev had finally made his final cuts. When all was said and done and a half boxes' worth of books were going to make the trip. The DragonWar novels were safe, but only about a third of the other novels were coming with them.
Another thing that he hadn't anticipated as being an issue was the logistics of what to do once his stuff was gone. The moving company was due to come in three days, but they were here until the end of the week, meaning they would be without some important fixtures, like a bed and a dinner table. And of the things they weren't taking, like the dishes, they would need to get those moved out at some point before leaving too. There was a knock at the door. Since Sam wasn't currently sitting in the lotus position shovelling books into boxes, she went to answer it.
"Hey! Uh... You're not Jev."
"He's in the living room. Want to come in?"
Jev recognized the voice. Marek was one of his few friends from work. He'd been a majeball player in university who'd been scouted by a few professional leagues, but he'd gotten into a car accident when a drunk driver t-boned his car. He'd lost one of his legs below the knee and couldn't recover well enough to salvage a pro career. He was nevertheless one of the most positive, upbeat people that Jev knew, and they got together regularly to catch games together when their work schedule allowed. His face popped around the corner into the living room, a carefully tended mane of dark brown hair and a well-trimmed beard hiding a lot of his face. Marek was one of the few guys that he knew who could pull off the long hair look without either looking homeless or like a cheesy movie villain.
