NOVEL NEXT 57 – Supporting cast
I blinked awake, feeling much calmer and more relaxed than I had in what felt like ages.
After the little portal experiment yesterday, Mom and I had ended up chatting, playing board games, cooking lunch together, and then watching movies in the evening.
It was… nice.
Casey had also messaged me about their progress on the magic and editing experiments. She had learned that that world’s magic was much harder for her than she had anticipated despite her literally being the one to design it. But with the help of her knowledge, Wi had managed to conjure a few sparks already.
Meanwhile, it seemed like editing aspects of the novel’s world that we had already interacted with in some way seemed to be impossible. Moreover, she couldn’t even do the same thing she had done with the chess pieces. Almost like the ‘realness’ had permeated through the insides of everything we had touched as well now. It was quite strange.
That aside, since Mom was in the know now, we decided to gather at our place today and have a bit of a meeting to decide on what we knew and what we wanted to do. About Wiland, about RLO’s devs, and about the portals in general. Mom had insisted on properly planning things out rather than jumping head first into everything, and honestly, I couldn’t disagree with her, after what had happened the last time I had acted on a whim.
I stretched and finally got up from my bed before changing from my pajamas.
In what had become a habit, my eyes wandered over to the closed portal in my room as I walked to the door, various thoughts and theories blazing in my mind. I still wasn’t sure whether it being stretched taller meant anything. It didn’t look any different besides being bigger, but then again, I had no idea what a damaged or broken portal to a fictional world was supposed to look like.
Shaking these thoughts aside, I made it to the kitchen where Mom was making some pancakes. I stopped when I looked at her face. She seemed tired again, just like when she had collapsed from stress.
“Good morning, Mom… Is something wrong?” I asked, trepidation creeping into my voice.
“Oh, Renee. Good morning,” she greeted back. “Nothing much. Just feeling a little tired. I guess we watched one too many movies last night.” She chuckled.
I nodded, but the bad feeling didn’t leave me. Had the potion not helped, after all? Did I need to get something better? Would it get worse?
… Or maybe she just needed proper rest, like the doctor had told her.
“Alright… If you say so.”
Part of me still worried, but I decided to leave it be. No point in getting overly stressed again.
With that, we ate breakfast in relative peace, talking about relatively mundane topics.
How was I doing at school? Pretty average, nothing special. Had I found someone I liked yet? No, not really. Did I want to stay as a girl forever?
“Umm…” That last one caught me a bit off guard.
I honestly hadn’t really thought about it in a long time. Staying as a girl forever sounded great, but… I couldn’t really, could I? The only way for me to stay as a girl was to use the True Form skill, and that gave me very distinct hair color as well as ears and tail. And there was no way I could go to school like that.
“I… don’t know. I think I would, but… Well, it feels like I shouldn’t…?”
From what I’d read on the internet about… transgender people, there were ways to change things even if I never used the True Form skills. Hormone therapy, various surgeries, and so on. But was that what I wanted?
“That’s alright, Renee. There’s no rush,” Mom said with a smile.
After finishing our breakfast and washing the dishes, we moved to the living room, dragging a couple of chairs there from the kitchen. It didn’t take long for the doorbell to ring, and when we opened the door, a grinning Frank made his way inside.
“Heya, Renee! Hello, Mrs. Chrona!”
“Hey, Frank.”
“Hello there,” Mom greeted.
Frank’s eyes shifted between me in my not-true form and Mom.
“Sooo…”
“I wanted to thank you for protecting Renee when you two went inside the game world,” Mom told him with a grateful smile.
“Huh? Oh, right! No problem, Ma’am! I didn’t do a very good job anyway.” He shrugged.
“Even still, thank you.”
He gave a winning grin back.
“Well, since you’re in the loop now, that means there’s no problem if I transform too, right?”
“Go ahead.” I nodded.
He immediately used the skill and grew a couple centimeters as his head sprouted bull horns. Mom blinked in surprise before shaking her head.
“It’s still a surprise even after seeing Renee do it…”
Frank just laughed, his voice a smidge deeper in his true form.
While Frank made himself comfortable in the living room, I fetched some juice and snacks from the kitchen. Sure, this was meant to be a serious meeting, but no reason not to include some refreshments.
The doorbell rang again and a few minutes later, the three blondes entered our home.
“Hello, Casey,” Mom greeted. “And you must be Wi and Elyssa?” She eyed the two formerly fictional characters.
“Hello, Ma’am…” Wi greeted somewhat cautiously.
“Greetings. It’s nice to finally meet the little goddess’ mother.”
I couldn’t help but groan and drag a palm down my face.
Mom, on the other hand, chuckled. “It’s nice to meet you too. I wanted to thank you for helping Renee and teaching her the true form. I think it did her a lot of good.”
“Of course. I’m glad to help.”
The two shook hands and everyone then gathered in the living room. Frank grinned and waved as he munched on some chips. Upon spotting him, Casey and Wi both transformed. I blinked in surprise as Wi grew feathery wings and cute little fluffy ears on the side of her head while her eyes got just a little larger.
An… owl…? Huh…
Me and my Mom’s surprise aside, everyone got seated on the couch or on one of the chairs we’d brought from the kitchen. And as I was about to speak up, Frank beat me to it.
“Alright, everyone!” He clapped his hands. “Let the first secret shadowy conspiracy meeting of the Fellowship of the Hopping Celestial Fox begin!”
My palm hit my face and a groan escaped me.
