Chapter Thirty-Four – The Rules

When Teddy appeared it was with a breeze that fluttered across her room and coalesced into the young bear girl. This time was no different.

The air shimmered and twisted, and Emily found herself raising an arm to shield her face a moment before, with a sudden exhale, there was now someone else in the room.

Skill: Create Sister Successful!

“Hey,” Teddy said.

Emily lowered her arm, the wind having stopped as suddenly as it started, and she took in the new sister that she had summoned.

??? Wright

Owl Seeing Eye, Level One

The girl was a bit taller than Teddy, by maybe half a head. That still left her much shorter than Emily was, even with the poofy white and brown hair she had. There was a big round pair of glasses perched atop a little nose partially hiding a pair of huge nearly-yellow eyes.

The hair and eyes were the only strange things though, the girl looked rather normal otherwise. She had very pale skin covered by a white jacket whose neck and brim was covered in feathery fluff and perfectly ordinary mary janes on her feet.

The girl shifted, her shoes clicking together and her hands falling by her side. “Greetings.”

“Uh, hi,” Emily said.

“What kind of girl are you?” Teddy asked. “You don’t look like any sort of predator I know.”

The girl raised her head back and turned her head away from Teddy with a snooty little huff. “I’ll have you know that I am a proud snowy owl. I am very much a predator. Who are you?”

“Owls are smaller than bears,” Teddy said. “And bears are apex predators because they eat everything else. Plus, I’m the first sister, so you need to know the pecking order.”

“Who cares which order you came in,” she said. “All that matters is big sister’s opinion.”

“Ah,” Emily said. She wasn’t entirely sure how to act around the new girl, or any other stranger for that matter. The bit of tension between her and Teddy certainly wasn’t helping. “Um. Teddy be nice, your new… sister is new. And please, you should be nice to Teddy too. I’m sure she can teach you a lot.”

The girl nodded. “I can do that.”

“You should name her Boss,” Teddy said. “Get it over with so that we can all go to bed already.”

“Uh,” Emily said. The girl was staring at her now. Her eyes really were rather big, it wasn’t just the glasses making them look that way. Not so big that they would be considered abnormal, but certainly… large. “Maybe we should all get to know each other first?”

“I would love to get better acquainted with you… Boss?” the girl turned the last into a question.

“Yeah, she’s the Boss,” Teddy confirmed.

“N-no, you can call me Emily, you can both call me that unless we’re in, um, costume,” Emily said.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, big sister Emily,” the girl said with a nod.

“Good! Um… Teddy, you present yourself first,” Emily joyfully flung Teddy under the metaphorical bus.

Teddy crossed her arms. “I’m Theodora, but the Boss calls me Teddy because that’s a cuter name and it’s a kind of bear which makes it more fearsome. I’m a bear girl. I like communism and helping the Boss, and I don’t like it when people don’t share. And I like fish and other foods and sleeping.”

That was nice and concise. “Ah, I’m Emily Wright. I’m a student here studying English Literature and History, I… don’t know exactly what I want to become. I like… uh, looking at nice animals and quiet evenings at home.”

The new girl made a little interested sound at that, it sounded a bit like a cross between a faint whistle and a hoot. “That’s very interesting,” she said. “I like… I’m not certain what I like yet. But I suspect that I’ll enjoy furthering my education and learning many things.”

“That’s wonderful,” Emily said. “I’m sure we could visit the library, or, uh, something like that.”

The girl nodded. “Now that you’re aware of my preferences, will you be naming me?”

“I, uh,” Emily looked around. They had some food to eat, and not much else in terms of distractions. “Well, I, um, wouldn’t want to give you a bad name. So, please tell me what you think, or maybe what you’d like to have as a name?”

The girl hummed and adjusted her glasses. “I don’t know. Perhaps something that reflects my staggering intelligence?”

“Uh,” Emily said. The only names that came to mind when thinking of owls were a little bit bizarre for a girl. “Maybe something like… Alex? For the library of Alexandria?”

“That is rather nice,” the girl said. There was some hesitation there though.

“Or, maybe Athena?”

She blinked slowly. “Like the goddess of wisdom?”

“Yeah,” Emily said. “I think it’s a nice name.”

“I’ll call you Tina,” Teddy said.

“You will do no such thing,” the newly christened Athena said.

Emily shifted. “We do need a non-costume name. Not, not that I’m planning on doing costumed stuff.”

Athena tilted her head to one side. “Fine. Tina when at home, then Athena when in disguise. That seems perfectly logical.”

“Tina then,” Emily said. She smiled a little. It was relieving, at least, to see that her new summon was at least mostly normal. A bit… tiny bit, full of herself, but she seemed nice enough. “So, are you hungry?” Emily asked with a gesture towards the boxes of food. “We could eat while I… while Teddy fills you in on what’s been happening?”

That actually ended up requiring some reshuffling of things. Emily had a little stool and her comfy chair, but that left one person standing. She didn’t have any boxes strong enough for someone to sit on, and her nightstand was too heavy to move.

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Teddy and Athena, as the two smallest, ended up squished together on Emily’s seat while she took the stool and divided up their meal for two into a meal for three.

“Here you go,” Emily said.

“Thank you, Emily,” Athena replied as she slid the top half of one of the styrofoam containers closer.

“So, uh… do you mind if I look at your stats while Teddy talks?”

“Of course not! I’m certain you’ll be tremendously impressed by what I can do!”

Emily smiled at her while Teddy began a rather… exaggerated recounting of what had been happening, with some commentary about Capitalists that Emily couldn’t quite recall happening, but she set that aside. “Status Athena?”

That was similar enough to Teddy’s own status, at least the first time she’d looked at it. Terrible puns and all. If ever she needed a sign that the system was cruel it was right there.

“Status Owl Alone.”

Emily looked to the side, eyeing Athena as she carefully cut up her meal and ate it with careful little bites. That power seemed… rather ominous.

But Teddy’s power was dangerous too, that was no reason to judge one of her sister’s poorly.

She hoped.

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