When Mo said she trusted me it made something in my head click. I had been thinking about it theoretically, coming up with crazy plans like always… But… It was her entire life that I was essentially trying to catch on a fishing hook… ‘I should be taking this more seriously… So why am I so relaxed right now? I need to take this as seriously as I can.’ “We should switch clothes and beds tonight.”
She stared at me silently.
“Uh… We are the same height… This should work, right? You used to always keep your face and hair covered anyway. I think I could pass as you.” I quickly focused deeply inside my own body and flowed manna through my voice box. “And… And… And.” I said multiple times. “And since I’m tiny too I can even sound like you, our voices are pretty close right?”
“Hm… I don’t sound like that, you have to be more lifeless, especially when talking to my father…”
“How about this…”
“That’s better.” She continued staring at me.
“What? What is it?”
“I don’t think my armor will fit on you… Your shoulders are too broad, and your hips are too wide. And your chest is too big too, sense… You haven’t been taking drugs to stop you from growing up…” She slowly looked to the side.
“I feel incredibly conflicted about this… Let’s just try it on, I don’t really need much ability to expand my lungs anymore, so even if it squishes me it’s fine. When was the last time you saw your father anyway?”
She slowly gathered her old combat gear that she hadn’t worn since the guild war. “I think it’s been about 2 months now. I got to school really early. There were a few jobs to do here…”
‘Scarry…’ I cleared my throat, trying not to think about it. “Perfect, that’s plenty of time to grow a little bit. I’ll say that I got wrapped up in the trouble Yamaria was causing and had to go a few days without eating the pellets.”
“You're going to say starving made you grow more… No, and don’t ever let him think you ate anything else either. Say that it was the training at the academy. It pushes you so hard that you sweat off the effects of the drug and start to grow, you increase the dosage, but the added food makes you bulkier. He should buy that…” She continued staring at me.
“Your eyes are starting to make me nervous…” I muttered.
“Your’s glow… And look… Like butterflies.”
“They what?” ‘Oh… Yeah, you think I wouldn’t have forgotten about that… Then again, I’ve played around with illusion magic with Zu a few times. He hides his horns… So, maybe I can just envision what her eyes look like?’ I slowly rubbed my hands down my face and focussed manna into them. “How about now?”
“They… look like moms…” Strong chills covered her body for a moment before she mentally shook it off. “Good enough, now strip already. This armor is made from water panther leather like Isy’s, only it’s reinforced with gryla hide, so it’s not as flexible, but it’s basically everything proof.”
‘So cool!’ I paused. “Oh wait… That means…” I thought back to the one time I had actually seen Isy in her armor without anything else over the top of it. It hugged her skin so tight she almost looked naked… And even after a few days she still struggled with being visibly uncomfortable for a while after putting it on.
“Don’t be a wuss…”
“I am not!”
Somehow, it was even tighter than I thought it would be, and she did in fact have to help me get it on because of that, which was as embarrassing as one could imagine. Although after stretch fitting it to my skin, it became easier… Or at least easy enough that I could take it off enough to use that bathroom, so that fear was erased. So long as I never completely removed it, it would be fine.
All that being said we still only managed to get it past my hips, and realistically the biggest difference between us was certainly in the upper body. Her rib cage was compact, and her waist was so small I wondered if she even had a stomach, not to say mine was huge… But just like my shoulders, it was more broad than hers for sure. Even that wasn’t what I was really worried about though. Isy’s armor was designed with “padding,” At least that’s what she said… But Mo’s certainly didn’t have any.
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“Are you ready? You stopped breathing…”
“I stopped breathing a while ago…” I muttered, lowering my arms from covering myself to grabbing the suit as I heard a knock on the door that made my heart stop too. Even Mo froze in place like she had been caught in a spotlight just before stealing something.
“Girls? Are you there?”
‘Why is he here now? No, why is this taking so long!’ I opened my mouth to respond but soon realized I still wasn’t breathing and had no air to make a sound. With a quick inhale I screamed. “DON’T COME IN!”
He paused, hesitating to ask. “Is, everything alright?”
I felt my face suddenly turn bright red as I became completely incapable of projecting my voice. “I-uh-It’s-Me-fine-j-just…”
Mo rolled her eyes. “We’re fine! She just has a hard time talking when she’s naked!”
My knees buckled to the ground as I grabbed a blanket from off the bed next to me to hide myself. “I! Uh, I’m not! It’s just!” I closed my eyes, burying my face in the blanket and deciding to just wait for it to be over. It wouldn’t have been so bad if not for the other two incidents that had already happened… Honestly, I was afraid he would just walk in through the door… But… Realistically he had actually knocked the other times as well, always waiting for us to open the door. So at the very least, that fear was unfounded.
After a long pause, I heard his feet slowly move in place a few times. “It sounds like you girls are busy… So I’ll just leave the medicine and food, and I’ll come back later.”
“Sounds like we're busy… Busy with what? What does he think we're busy with?”
Mo suddenly chopped me on the head, bringing me back to my senses, if only partially. “You were talking through a door… Stop acting like he’s staring right at you…”
I felt like all the life drained from my body all at once. “He just left? Why did he leave? I should be happy he left, but wouldn’t it be more normal to just wait a moment while I finished changing? He didn’t even ask what was happening.”
“If you keep muttering like a depressed pigeon I’m going to smack you, put your arms through the sleeves.”
“Fine…” I slowly stood up, still hugging the blanket until she ripped it away by force, only then making me finally relax again. ‘She’s right… I’ll have plenty of time to act like a middle schooler after I’m done tricking an assassin into kidnapping me… Was this really the best plan I could come up with?’
I suddenly felt my skin stretch as the armor painfully dragged over the top of it until it was all the way on/ She fed laces through eyelets that held the front and back together over my arms, and after painfully searching them down, she latched several buckles. Only then did she explain how to take it off, although at that point I felt some combination of emotions that pretty much made it all go in one ear and out the other.
“Now jump up and down, or run in circles or something. You have to move around so that the armor readjusts itself to fit your skin, finding proper anchor points from where it will stretch.”
I nervously moved around.
“Bouncy.”
“Where are your eyes looking!” I growled.
She tilted her head. “Uhm… At you?”
I hesitantly did everything she said… Suddenly feeling a lot more sorry for Isy, but, when all was said and done, I was starting to get used to it, and in that sense it made me feel like what I had her do probably helped her after all.
Once finished, Mo attached all the plating that went over the top and helped me figure out the hood and mask before giving me her daggers. When all was said and done, I looked like an assassin… The antics had kept my mind off of it, but holding the dagger in my hand that had seen a fair number of murders already, it all suddenly hit me.
“That’s the knife I used to kill people.”
I slowly put it away as she opened the shades. “What a beautiful day…” I muttered, trying to get past the awkward silence.
“My fingers hurt… It was way too hard to get you in…”
“Is it bad? We made it work though.” I walked up to her and looked at her hands. They were naturally curling up even when relaxed, but they weren’t blistered or anything.
“Getting you all the way there was rough though.” She sighed, sitting down and leaning her head back against the wall, staring up at me. “Next time you have to do me.”
I lightly scratched my cheek, chuckling nervously. “Sure… I imagine it’s hard to put on by yourself…” ‘Something about this conversation feels wrong…’
“Why are you so big, my whole body is achy now.”
“Isn’t that just because you took too many pellets?” ‘I’m starting to feel glad our teacher came earlier…’
“Psh, I can put as much in my mouth as I want, it won’t bother me.”
“Mo…” I muttered awkwardly, drawing her eyes back towards mine. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to talk to boys…”
After a long pause, she slowly adjusted herself from sitting cross-legend to pulling her knees to her chest, her cheeks turning ever so slightly pink. “Why is your mind always so dirty Siya…”
I flinched back. “It’s… I was just– I mean… It’s not like that! I was just warning you… As a responsible young lady… You should… Be more careful… About how you say things and stuff, or something…”
“It’s not like what Siya… Are you saying you weren't thinking something naughty while you were talking to me just now?”
“I wasn’t!”
She sighed, resting her chin on her knees. “I know, nobody would think that way about me… Nobody I haven’t killed…”
I slowly swallowed. “Considering you’re still a kid isn’t that a good thing?”
“Of course. People that fall in love with your body should be avoided anyway.” She paused for a long moment as if lost in thought before glaring at me again. “So you should stop thinking about the body so much, or you'll become a bad person…”
I sighed, patting her on the head before taking a step to the side and jumping up onto my bed. ‘I’m not sure what weirds me out more… The fact I’m getting a lesson on this sort of thing from an eleven-year-old… Or the fact that it kinda makes sense…’ “I’ll keep that in mind…”
She slowly stretched her arms out over her head, rolling her neck to the side. “Sorry, messing with you made me feel better. I really hate it when people call you small, knowing I’m even smaller, so pretending like you were big and curvy helped me feel better, thanks.”
My body stiffened. “Oh… uh, yeah… Glad I could help…” ‘How much of it was on purpose though…’