The Outlands

Like she used to every morning, Tess laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, waiting for Ellie to come and get her. It was not quite the calming ritual it used to be, though. The prospect of the day to come had her all sorts of nervous, and she was acutely aware of the pounding of her heart.

She wasn’t the only one to notice, either. Silky was scuttling worriedly between Tess’s heart and the nightstand, where she could get a better look at Tess’s face. Isabella, too, seemed nervous – she was faux-sitting on the chair for Tess’s desk, watching over her with…well, her face hadn’t changed from her constant neutral expression, but Tess got a distinct feeling of worry from her.

It was cute, how her pets were so worried for her, even though they didn’t really seem to understand the situation at hand. Come to think of it, was pet really the right word for them? Minion felt too…cold and evil overlord-y, and children was too personal. Something along the line of servant was good but still was that little bit too detached.

But the line of thought was good. She thought for a while longer before eventually deciding on attendants. Something about it just…fit. It wasn’t too personal but also relayed that sense of being closer than a regular servant.

Further rumination was stopped as Ellie opened the door, already letting out an enthusiastic “good morning” as she walked in. She paused once she had time to take in the room, however, looking from Isabella to Silky and then to Tess. “Everything alright?” She asked.

Tess sighed, gently picking Silky up and placing her on the nightstand before sitting up. “Yeah, they’re just picking up on how nervous I am.”

Ellie smiled, walking over and giving Tess a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t worry about it so much.” She said. “No one’s going to remember how you were before. It’s just going to be business as usually for everyone, so it’s nothing to freak out about.”

She sat down on the bed next to Tess and grabbed her hand comfortingly. “If it would make things easier, we don’t have to come out as being in a relationship today. You’ve got enough to stress you out.”

Tess shook her head. “No, that’s fine. I think that’ll help, actually, making sure people know I’m taken and not to hit on me. It’s just…you know, a little scary.”

Ellie nodded. “I know how you feel, I’m feeling a nervous myself.“ She squeezed Tess’s hand. “We’ll get through it together.”

Tess threw the blankets off with her free hand then stood up, pulling Ellie up with her. “Yeah, you’re right.” She said. “I suppose we might as well get this over with, it’ll all get easier from here…right?”

Ellie chuckled. “That’s my understanding of things. Grandpa’s cooking breakfast for us, though, why don’t we go eat?”

“Yeah, sounds good to me.”

Isabella took this as a sign to float back into Tess and resume her standard pseudo-possession state, but Silky remained on the nightstand, giving a little wave as Ellie and Tess left the room.

“Morning, Tess!” Gramps said. “Your new uniforms are in the living room, don’t forget to wear one of them instead of one of your old uniforms.”

Tess flinched, having entirely forgotten about the whole uniform thing. She was…not looking forward to that. She hadn’t yet worn any skirts or dresses, and wasn’t sure if there was anything in particular she had to do to keep herself from…well, exposing herself.

She assumed it couldn’t be that hard, since kids did it, but she was more worried about old habits causing problems than she was about the actual things she’d have to do.

Ellie must have picked up on what Tess was thinking about, because she smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not that bad. Just keep your legs together and you’ll be fine.”

“I don’t see why skirts are required for the uniform anyway.” Tess grumbled. “We’re way past the point in society where we should be mandating that.”

Gramps shrugged. “It’s a small town and they tend to be more old-fashioned. Unfortunate consequence of where I picked to settle down, really. I didn’t want the information risk that came with being around more people, so being out here was much safer.”

“I know.” Tess sighed. “I just would prefer not having to do this.”

“It’s only for a couple months.” Ellie soothed. “Then you don’t ever have to wear one again. Well, probably won’t have to outside of super formal situations, but shouldn’t come up often.”

“You’re a freelancer, so you can get away with not wearing dresses.” Gramps confirmed. “A nice suit should work just fine in most situations.”

Ellie’s eyes lit up at that. “Ooh, I really want to see you in a suit. We should get one ordered.”

“Don’t.” Gramps replied. “It’s already being taken care of.”

“Really? Why’s that?” Tess asked.

“You’ll see.” Gramps said, smiling mischievously. “It won’t be done for a while yet, though, so you’ll have to wait to find out.”

The conversation died down after that, and Tess finished eating her breakfast. After that, she headed into the living room, where she found five uniforms lying on the couch, waiting for her. She scooped them up and took them up to her room, where she opened up her dresser and put all but one in.

She stared at the outfit in her hands for a moment before sighing and changing into it. It felt…different. Well, not that different, but she still felt almost…uncovered, not wearing pants. The last time she had worn anything remotely similar was when she was a kid and had used her dad’s oversized shirt as pajamas, so it just felt…odd.

She was snapped out of her reverie by the tapping of a small leg on her hand. She looked down to find that Silky had climbed up her leg and onto her arm. Once Silky saw that she had Tess’s attention, she pointed to Tess’s nightstand with a leg,

Curious, Tess walked over to find that her attendant had been busy. Laid out on the stand before her was the phrase “You can do it!” in shaky letters, written with spider silk. Surrounding that was a crude picture of a spider next to a sheet-with-eyeholes type ghost, as well as a few hearts.

Silky looked up at Tess, an obvious air of encouragement about her. Tess reached over with her other hand, giving Silky a couple of pats with two fingers. “That’s really sweet.” She said. “Thank you, that really does help.”

And it did. It was a really sweet gesture, and one that did make her feel a little better about all of this. She left the room and went to knock on Ellie’s door. “Hey, Ellie, you in there?”

“Yeah, what’s up? Need help with something?” Ellie asked, opening the door. She froze for a few seconds as she took Tess’s clothing in, only coming back to reality when Tess waved a hand in front of her face.

“Oh. Uh, sorry, you just…well, you look really nice in that.“ She stuttered, already bright red. “I wasn’t as ready for the skirt as I thought I was, I think. Uh, what did you need?”

“I wanted to show you something.” Tess replied. She led Ellie into her room, over to the dresser, where she motioned at the drawing Silky had made. “Look at this. Isn’t it adorable?”

“Yeah, this is…really cute.” Ellie admitted. “Did Silky make it?”

Silky scuttled about, climbing up Tess so she was in sight of Ellie, and then gave a salute.

“Well, it’s great.” Ellie told her. “Perhaps I was a bit too harsh on you earlier.”

Silky raised two legs as if she was shrugging.

Tess laughed, giving Silky another set of pats before scooping her up and placing her on the nightstand. “Alright, I have to go to school now. You can’t come with me, sorry, people are going to notice you if you’re in my clothes and if you’re in my bag it wouldn’t be exciting anyway. So, you just keep getting set up around the house, OK?”

Silky drooped a little but gave another salute.

“Don’t worry too much, Isabella and Ellie will be with me basically the whole time.” Tess told her worried attendant. “It’ll be fine.”

Silky paused, then gave one last salute before hopping off of the nightstand and scurrying out of sight, presumably to go create more webs or hunt some prey.

“I really need to get her some sort of telepathy.” Tess mused. “It’ll make her life a lot easier. Anyway, are you about ready to go to school?”

Ellie shook her head. “I need a couple more minutes to finish putting my makeup on. Unlike some people, I have to put effort into maintaining my appearance.”

Tess scratched the back of her neck embarrassedly. “Right, sorry. You’re just normally done by now so I just kind of assumed.”

Ellie smiled, leaning over and giving Tess a quick kiss on the cheek. “I usually am, but I’m putting extra attention into it today, seeing as how we’re going public. I don’t want to look too plain in comparison to you, futile though that may be.”

Tess blushed. “You’re exaggerating, you look great.”

Ellie laughed, moving over to the door. “And you’re selling yourself way short. I really do need to go finish, though, don’t want to be late on your first day back.” She shut the door as she left, and then there was the sound of Ellie’s door opening and closing as she went back into her room.

A few short minutes later they were in the car, and Ellie was driving them to school. The ride was mostly uneventful and filled with nervous small-talk, and shortly after Tess found herself walking through the doors to her school for the first time in months.

It was a little surreal, seeing how everything was…exactly the same, really. Her entire world had been flipped upside-down, and the school was just…business as usual. The office was still there at the entrance, students were walking around the halls like they always had, and it all just seemed normal.

She got a few curious looks as she and Ellie went to their lockers and began to get the stuff they needed for their first couple of classes. And, after that, it was off to homeroom.

Or, it would have been, but she was intercepted on her way to the classroom by her homeroom teacher, Mr. Wallace.

“Tess, do you mind if we have a little talk before homeroom?” He asked. “I just want to ask you a couple of questions and make sure we don’t tax you too much with anything, as well as talk a bit about how we’re going to go about things.”

“Yeah, um, sure.” She replied. “What do you want to know?”

“Come with me to the teacher’s lounge, we can talk more privately there.”

She gave Ellie a nod and then followed Mr. Wallace down the hall to the teacher’s lounge. Once they both were inside, Mr. Wallace shut the door and motioned for her to sit down in one of the chairs.

“So, before anything, I guess I should ask how you’re feeling. I know you’ve been keeping up with your homework, which I think is a good sign, but I want to make sure you’re not forcing yourself too much.”

Tess shook her head. “No, nothing like that. I’m feeling better than I have for quite a while, and I’m basically back to full capacity.”

Mr. Wallace sat back, letting out a sigh of relief. “That’s honestly really good to hear. You had me worried there for a while.”

“Sorry. I just…wasn’t up to being around people. I was able to move around a bit, but school would have been too much for me.” Tess replied a little guiltily. It wasn’t entirely a lie, and she knew she wasn’t allowed to tell him everything, but it still felt bad not giving the whole truth to Mr. Wallace. He had always been a really understanding teacher, one that had been always ready to step up to bat for his students.

“Nothing to apologize for. It was out of your control, don’t worry about it too much. But…you said you’re ‘basically’ back up to full capacity. Is there anything we need to know? And, if so, what can we do to help?”

“Um…I guess I tend to get tired faster than I used to when talking to people, so maybe let everyone know?”

“Of course, that’s no problem at all.” Mr. Wallace said, smiling. “I’ll tell everyone when I tell them you’re back. With that out of the way, let’s talk about how the next few months are going to look. We don’t want you to have any health problems as a result of coming back, so for the next couple of weeks we’re going to make you exempt from gym. If you’re still looking to be in good health then, we’re going to start giving you some light exercise. Does that sound OK to you?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Tess said. “I should be fine for gym, though, everyone is saying I’m in the clear now.”

Mr. Wallace shrugged. “We know, we just want to be extra sure you don’t have any more complications during these last few months. Life’s been hard enough for you this past month or so, there’s no shame in taking it easy now.”

“I…suppose. So…what am I going to be doing during gym, then?”

“You can either study in the library or wait on the sidelines in the gym, whichever you prefer.”

“Oh. Alright, um…anything else or…?”

“No, that’s it. Go finish your preparations for class, and I’ll see you when homeroom starts.” He walked over to the door, opening it and motioning for her to leave.

“Alright, thanks, Mr. Wallace.” Tess said, standing up and leaving the room.

Ellie must have been waiting for Tess outside the room, because the moment Tess was out, Ellie was there. “How was it?” She asked. “Anything bad?”

“No, not really. Just Mr. Wallace checking up on me and making sure everything’s OK.” Tess replied. “And letting me know that I’m excused from gym for a couple of weeks. They want to be really sure it’s safe for me to do gym before making me or something. It’s not a big deal, though. I’m just going to sit in the library during gym time and do homework.”

Ellie smirked a little. “Shame, I was looking forward to seeing you after you’d worked up a sweat in gym clothes. Suppose that’ll have to wait for a bit, eh?”

Tess blushed. “You’re really flirting a lot more than usual today, you know that?”

Ellie laughed. “You’ve got me all excited, of course I’m going to flirt more than usual.” She reached down, grabbing Tess’s hand in one of her own. “Now, let’s get to class. We’ve got an announcement to make.”