above and beyond

Chapter 4

As long as Leon approves of it, Gloria is allowed to stay, until she is able to figure out who she is and where she is supposed to be. She feels bad for lying about that part, feels bad for not saying that this is the only place she wants to be, but she knows that she can't, and that it would never work if she did.

Her first night, she can hardly sleep, and when she tries to lay still, she is reminded of how unfamiliar her body is now. She can't help but kick her legs, tossing her blanket up as she does, overwhelmed by everything. Tomorrow, she will have to get serious about winning over Leon, so that she will be able to remain this happy forever.

~X~

But Leon is a very important person, with a very busy schedule, and she barely has a chance to see him before he is gone, off to attend to his packed day. Hop eats breakfast with her, watching her as she marvels at all the human food, each bite a new experience for her.

"That must be good, huh?" he asks, grinning. "Are you not used to food like this? Or do you just not remember any food at all?"

She shrugs, not sure how to answer, but then he passes her papers, bound together in a book, and a pen, so that she can write, I've just definitely never had anything this good before. He nods like he understands, even though she knows that he has grown up here, eating like this every day.

Her food back home is good too, but entirely different. She keeps finding more and more thinks to like about being human, which gives her fresh determination to woo Leon, but that is off the table for today. Instead, Hop is going to show her around town. He has permission to go outside as long as there are guards following him, but he tells Gloria that things are always so peaceful that he really doesn't have anything to worry about.

"It's cos everyone likes Lee so much," he says. "I mean, my parents, yeah, but you should see how Lee is with people. It's a good thing that he's next in line for the throne, I guess, huh?"

Gloria keeps her notepad with her as they explore together, leaving through the gate that they entered the day before, and heading for the town that she has only ever seen from a distance. Humans pack the streets, some stopping to smile and wave at Hop, and not one of them thinking anything is strange about Gloria, because to them, there isn't anything strange about her.

She is normal to them; she fits right in, even though this is all new to her. And everything is so new, so exciting, that she wants to see it all. Her excitement gets the better of her as Hop leads her along, until she is writing, I want to see that , so often that she ends up just pointing at the page, rather than rewriting it. Soon enough, Hop lets her take the lead, dragging him into shops, stopping to watch people in the streets, and marveling at all of it.

"You really must not remember much," Hop says after a while, after she has to stop and catch her breath. It took her a little bit to figure out walking, but running has come to her naturally, and her legs already feel just as natural as her tail ever did. Being on land feels right to her in a way that she can't explain, but in comparison, being underwater felt like going through the motions. Only now does she realize that swimming felt temporary.

"I just mean because you're so excited by such normal things," he continues, when she doesn't reply, too wrapped up in her own thoughts. "It's like everything you do, you're doing it for the very first time. That's not a bad thing, though! It makes it all a lot of fun!"

I'm having a lot of fun too , she writes. I do feel like I'm doing everything for the first time. I think it's all very exciting.

"Maybe before, you didn't live anywhere like this?" he suggests. "I thought maybe something might have jogged your memory by now, honestly."

I don't think I've done anything like this before. It's not entirely a lie, but it is a lie to say that she doesn't think she's done it. She knows that this is all new to her, but she can't tell Hop about that. Or, well, Nessa said that she can't tell Leon. Does that mean she can tell whoever else she wants? And if she can, what if they tell Leon? Would that count and would it ruin everything?

She doesn't want to take that last risk, though she is pretty sure that telling someone other than Leon would not be much of a problem. It's just that she doesn't know Hop very well yet, and he is Leon's younger brother. He might think that she's crazy for saying it, and he would almost definitely tell Leon either way, and whether or not they believed it was true, whether or not they thought she was crazy, it would still undo it all.

So she settles for telling Hop half-truths that all lead back to the lie about having amnesia, and she enjoys her first real day on land. Her first real day being human, her first day doing all the things that she has only ever dreamed about, and even things that she never knew about before. All the while, Hop follows behind her, laughing at how amazed she is by things that he thinks are very simple, but it's never mean-spirited. Hop is very nice, and though she has only known him for a day, she feels close to him in a way that she never did back home.

This must be what it's like to have a real friend, she thinks, and if her first friend is human, and made so easily, then that only further proves that she was meant to be here, and meant to be human. She exhausts herself easily that day, and so sleep comes much more easily, but before she falls asleep, she lets her thoughts return to Leon.

He was so busy today that she barely had a chance to see him, which means another day has passed without making any progress. Being human is fun, but fun can wait. Right now, she has a goal to focus on, and once she has achieved that goal, she can stay forever and have as much fun as she wants. Even better, she'll be able to do all of it with Leon, once he has fallen in love with her.