I Wish

Chapter 29

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m a psycho. One nice dinner, with excellent food and a conversation that was mildly not toxic, and I was already batting away at reasonable fears. Over what she did, and how I felt about the whole magically enforced situation. About how extreme her emotions and personality is and how appalling my tantrums are in response were, and let's be real. Looking back on it they had absolutely been tantrums. I couldn’t tell if she’d been as bad as I remembered, or if I had just overreacted, and as I sat there speculating about how I might have skewed things I froze. I stopped dead and acknowledged that if this was my line of thought then I was probably really quite f****d, right. One date? I was a morally compromised moron. There were lots of reasons I was a moron actually, and the list started with this. After all the hoarding me up here and keeping me Princess Peach locked in a castle and with a way hotter girl-Bowser. Seriously, if I tried to leave yesterday there probably would have been fireballs. 

“So you’re sure we’re going out?” I’d asked her, in note of that, when she ran a comb through her hair. I turned around so she wouldn’t see my wistful expression. I was jealous of a comb now, this was where I was at. It occurred to me that this was another opportunity to remember Isaac, and I pointedly pushed the thought away again. I still wasn’t willing to deal with this.

“Of course. I can’t sell you on this place if you don’t come and see it,” she argued brightly, and started to braid her hair. I let myself get distracted by the smooth motion of her fingers, and didn’t pay much attention to what she followed that up with. “Last night went well. You didn’t get upset, leave or freak out at random,” she said, and I was going to snap at her. Really I was but I was too busy trying to keep, what on Ivy was a short dress, from swallowing me whole. It was loose enough that I worried about it slipping right off me, and it turned out that the mid-thigh on her was just below the knees on me.

“I’m going to need something else to wear if we’re going to go anywhere,” I grumbled, and Ivy chuckled at me like she thought I was cute.

“Oh no, you’re definitely wearing my clothes. Otherwise one of the ignorant masses might decide to start thinking that they have a chance with you,” she sniffed, and waved a hand. The dress fit almost perfectly, and I stared at her with one eyebrow raised until she fixed it. Gradually the hem on the bottom of the dress extended so I wasn’t in danger of accidentally flashing what I ate for breakfast, and I looked at my bare feet.

“No shoes,” she said shaking her head, “Here and Autumn are the only places you’ll be able to get away with it though.” Interesting, it almost sounded like she was intending to show me the similarities  between the two. Potential for more than one location? I was down for that.

“Okay, fine let’s go,” I grumbled impatiently, because we were going to go out and there might even be people to talk to. I wasn’t sure if Ivy would let me talk to them, but it was exciting to think about. Was that Stockholm syndrome? It sounded like Stockholm syndrome. 

“You’re wearing my clothes, do we have to?” she said, taking her tone to grumble and eyeing me with flushed cheeks. Okay, so that was a thing we should probably talk about.

“When are we going to have s*x?” I asked her before flinching, because I had been intending to find a better way to start this talk. As soon as the words left my mouth I wanted to stuff them back in. I still hadn’t had a chance to research exactly what that entails, and was not ready for a practical demonstration. Fooling around had been fun, but I wanted to be somewhat not clueless before I went there. I think it was… I wanted it to be good for her, when we did, and if I don’t know what I’m doing… Well, I didn’t hold out high hopes for that.

“Don’t look so scared,” she chided kindly with a soft chuckle, “I would love to. Any time. Anywhere. You just say the word and I am at your service, but you have to say the word first, okay? It’s up to you.” I think I got goosebumps, and that really said a lot about things didn’t it? That the way she asked for explicit consent was sexy, and the part where I would have to ask for something if I wanted it was daunting. Oxymoron perhaps, either that or once again I was a moron.

“That shouldn’t make me feel better,” I said, and I was getting tired of feeling the need to protest. To justify that I was at least aware that things were wrong, or out of the ordinary. I never imagined that if I got my own fairytale that I would fight so hard against it.

“Will ponies make you feel better?” Ivy enquired with a dazzling smile. I stopped again.

“For real ponies?” I replied stunned, because every little girl had dreamed of ponies. Every little girl and Jeremy, who I realised I would never be able to talk about it with. That was uncomfortable, because he would have loved it, and now I was going to go do it without him. 

“Well horses because they're fully grown, but they fly and have really pretty sunrise colours,” she said, shrugging and smiling at me, “Want to go for a ride?” I couldn’t say a hundred percent yes to that question, but I wasn’t going to turn down doing something my brother would kill for a chance at. Flying horse? Do you have any idea how many times we’ve had to watch Disney’s Hercules, purely for the pegasus? Enough times that by this point, even knowing how it ended, I still was rooting for Hades. There was still one more matter of consideration. 

“A flying ride?” I say suspiciously. She nods impishly. “You made a comment about having wings, you can actually fly right?” I said flatly. Ivy’s eyes widened and she placed a hand over her heart, and somehow her smile managed to get bigger.

“And that matters to you?” she almost sang, as if she already knew the answer. “Little one, are you counting on me to keep you safe?” she said as if she’d just hit the jackpot. I had really been hoping that she wasn’t going to pick up on that, but then I should have had a little more subtlety if that was what I was going for. I did my best to keep my face neutral in the face of her smugness, and delivered my next line as deadpan as I could.

“Yes but you aren’t going to let me fall to my death, you still haven’t got a leg over,” I said cheekily before darting out the door. Ivy ran out chasing after me, giggling and yelling playful threats as she did. Magic flying ponies, huh? I wonder if they’ll be a Pinkie Pie. A pillow collided with my face, and startled a laugh out of me. I threw it back in her direction, and she started giggling herself.

“I would not only save you so we can have s*x at some point… I’d save you so we could have all the s*x, at all points,” she said throwing back some shade of her own. I wasn’t sure what caused the pillow fight, but we were soon racing around the room with pillows in hand, and doing the best to clobber each other. 

“Please, you’d save me because you think I’m adorable,” I snorted, out of breath and starting to sweat lightly. My blood tingled with just a bit of competitiveness. 

“I’d save you because I love you, and I’m willing to do that without having to justify it,” Ivy argued playfully, “And because I think you’re adorable.” That conformation softened the blow of the L word, but I still froze and Ivy took that as her cue to start hammering me with the pillow until I fought back.

“Cheater,” I said laughing, and returning to my senses. I tossed my pillow down and went straight to tickle mode. She shrieks, and wiggles away, because apparently tickling is a useful ploy against Ivy. I just thought it would be nice if she wasn’t clever enough to realise that I picked tickling as my weapon of choice because it was really quite effective against me. No such luck. She wrapped an arm around my waist, and went for it. I’m squealing with laughter, and trying to bat her away. My eyes start to water, and my face hurts from smiling. Somewhere in the tussle, I break away from her. The sound of our breaths is heavy in the air. It takes less than two seconds for me to decide to make a break for it, out the door and through the one I had previously feared was locked. If it was before, it wasn’t now. I slipped on the steps, and caught myself on the walls more times than was reasonable without falling down. I was fortunate enough to make it to the ground floor, and searched around futilely for an exit. I came skidding to a stop as I passed Nia and opened my mouth to ask for directions.

“That way,” she said before I could, the same mischievous look on her face. I didn’t think I’d be able to calm myself down enough to form a proper conversation, so it was probably good that I didn’t have to. It was also probably very rude to speed off without another word, but I didn’t have the time to waste. Ivy wouldn’t be far behind me, and she knew the place far better. Eventually I found a pair of massive wooden doors, open and the sunlight streaming through them, and thought I was home free. Dashing through them, and out into the sunlight with no plans of where to stop, or even stopping at all. Ivy would find me eventually, and I could really get behind that sentiment now. 

“Gotcha,” the woman in question teased, nabbing me as I went to run past her. Not even noticing that Ivy was there to begin with until she had acted. I gave a soft oomph as my feet left the floor, and she spun us around and around in crazy circles. I let out pearls of merriment. Everything blurred around us, and I was so full of joy it was like my skin was going to buzz right off because I was made of soft drink bubbles. I clung to her while Ivy pressed kisses to every inch of the top of my head that she could reach.

“Put me down,” I giggled, and Ivy brought us to a stop and popped me on my feet. This was awesome. I felt like I was on top of the world and everything, absolutely everything, was going to be utterly legendary right now. I always wanted to feel this happy… I guess now I just had to actually commit to the things directly causing that. I had a sneaking suspicion that this was going to go along the same lines of emotional-Jackass, but the end result? I wanted it. I wanted every day to be this happy, before breakfast hits the table, and for no real reason. so I was going to do what I needed to, to make sure it was going to happen.