"Wait a sec..." Cornelia looked quizzical. "You want me to what?"
Elyon looked right into her eyes. "I want you to kiss me. Y'know, like, on the lips."
"But why?" It had to be a joke. It just had to be. But that look in the younger girl's eyes said different. It wasn't sincerity that she saw per se, but there was a longing in there somewhere that just couldn't be false.
"Because I'm curious and I want to know what it's like." Elyon's face took on a forlorn cast, and she shifted from a sitting to a kneeling position. "I mean, really, think about it... I'm twelve. It's going to be years before I can even go on my first date!" She looked down and away. "Every day I have to sit by and stare at all the cuties at school and listen to all the other girls talk about how wonderful it is to go on dates, how nice it is to be kissed, just sitting there and wondering about it because no one would want to do it with me. I want to know how it feels to be wanted, y'know? To have someone like me because I'm pretty. Someone to see that I'm a girl with feelings and not just a little kid living completely in the background."
Cornelia sat in silence for a moment, torn between the strangeness of the request and the look of longing on her friend's face.
"Please...?" Elyon crawled a few inches closer. "I've been thinking about this for weeks, and I just know if there's anyone who would help me, anyone who would care enough to show me what it's like to be appreciated for my looks and my feelings, it's my best friend in the world..." she reached up and touched Cornelia's cheek. "...and the prettiest girl in school."
There was a pause, during which the guardian weighed things in her mind. On the one hand, this sort of thing was not what people were supposed to do. Like wearing white after Memorial Day or making any sort of reference to anything that was on television more than three months ago. Then again, wasn't this part of what it meant to be a friend? To do whatever was needed to help? In her younger years, even Cornelia Hale, most popular girl in history (or so she would like to think) had sat on the sidelines of life at some point or another. In that light, anything she could do to alleviate the feeling of being on the outside looking in seemed like a favorable idea. But what about... kissing another girl? That was pretty strange stuff there, regardless of any other factors. 'Though it's not as strange as some of the other stuff we have to go through these days', she told herself silently. Of course, Elyon was a pretty girl, and anyone who didn't see that was a definite dip. With her flaxen hair in a braid like it was, light hued and glassy-smooth skin, and those innocent eyes, she was the very picture of cuteness. Ignoring that, however, they were both girls, and that wasn't exactly something they could reconcile.
...or was it? Okay, so it seemed strange at first. But then, how strange was it to spontaneously grow fairy-like wings whenever she transformed? How weird was it to be able to summon up a horde of ensnaring plant roots from the ground? If she saw someone else do that without understanding the whole 'guardian' thing, wouldn't she think it was creepy as all get-out? Naturally she knew it wasn't, but of course, that was from her perspective. There was cheese on pizza, too - when she was a little girl the stringy white ooze made her gag, but in later years she learned how to deal with it and appreciate the flavor despite the outward appearance. So maybe, just maybe, something else that seemed creepy would turn out not to be if she just gave it a chance.
The silence stretched, and that look in Elyon's eyes started to show a little more worry than curiosity, but after a moment the older girl closed her eyes and sighed. "Oh, you poor thing... I remember exactly what that feels like. It's like being alone in the middle of a crowd." She took Elyon's outstretched hand in her own and held it. "Like being an outsider."
"Like a loser."
"No!" Cornelia's response was almost reflexive, and with her free hand she gently gripped her friend's chin. "You are not a loser. You're my friend, and no friend of mine can be a loser." She smiled. "Not with me here to help you out when you're down."
Elyon's eyes practically sparkled. "So... you'll do it?"
"Hey, what kind of best friend would I be if I let you go on feeling that way? And that sweet little face of yours just doesn't look right with worry written across it."
Elyon bowled her over with a hug, and her head hit the pillows with a 'whump'. "You", the younger girl said with emphasis on each word, "are the best."
"Yeah, I know."
"So", Elyon said in a hushed voice as her face hovered above her friend's with narrowed eyes and a grin that would have made Cedric proud, "any time you're ready."
Cornelia was ready indeed, and proved it by wrapping her arms around Elyon and drawing their bodies together, producing a short gasp from her friend. "Remember to close your eyes", she whispered. Had there been another second for it she would have received a confirming nod, but no such second existed before their lips met.
The seconds that followed were uninterrupted while the older girl was treated to a delicious sensation of warmth that started somewhere around the middle of her chest and worked its way outward. It was a very new sort of feeling; it reminded her of the other kisses she'd had from dates in the past, but there was something more to it that she couldn't quite describe. A delightful revelation came in the form of realizing that it had something to do with the feelings she had for the girl whose weight now half-rested on her; there was something about the bond between them that lent a great deal of comfort to the situation, where it might otherwise have been strange. Having thought of that, she realized that feelings aside, that very weight did add something special to it. Something delightfully sensual, something that tempted her to maintain the close contact. She could feel her cheeks flushing, which wasn't unexpected, and something told her that she knew what to do next...
It really was a wonderful feeling, Elyon thought to herself. It was so warm, so soft... given the choice she certainly would not have waited another two years at the least for this. Cornelia had such a nice figure - the kind she herself wanted to have one day. It actually felt quite nice to be pressed against her like that, where she was absolutely sure that each could feel the other's heartbeat (which perhaps naturally was through the roof in both of their cases). Now though, if she recalled what she'd read in a magazine article a few weeks ago, the thing to do was return the hug, and...
As best friends so often seem to do, both of the girls reached the same conclusion at the same moment; they opened their mouths just the merest fraction of an inch so that their tongue-tips could touch, at which point the silence was broken by Elyon sighing deeply and relaxing completely into Cornelia's embrace. It felt so perfect, so pleasant to be there like that that she didn't even think before threading her fingers through her older friend's hair, relishing how the softness of it felt when added to everything else.
A long moment later Elyon put her hands back down on the bed and lifted herself, and both girls spent a few seconds catching breath.
"Satisfied?" Cornelia asked with a smile.
"Wow", Elyon responded with a smile that clearly indicated that part of her mind was somewhere else. "Just... wow."
"Yeah, Me too." There was a pause as the blonde guardian considered a newly-arisen impulse, one she would never have expected. "Erm... Want to do it again?"
"Really?"
"Well, if you didn't enjoy it that much..."
Elyon lowered her head to one of her pillows, placed her hands on Cornelia's shoulders, and gently pulled her closer. "What do you think?"
"I think that's totally a yes", the other girl replied as she let herself be drawn into a second kiss that, she decided after another eight-to-ten seconds, was every bit as good as the first. She mimicked Elyon's previous action, resting most of her weight on her elbows while twining her fingers into her friend's soft hair. She understood right away why the younger girl had done it; there was just something about the sensation added to everything else that made it feel perfect; almost like she was feeding a new kind of hunger, a craving for physical contact.
It was a good few minutes before they parted. Elyon shifted to a sitting position, and Cornelia followed suit. "That... was... heh!" She got a spontaneous smile and flopped over sideways giggling.
"Hey, what's so funny?" Cornelia asked. It was no use; another solid minute of laughter had to pass before she got any kind of coherent response.
"Heh heh hee... Hey, Cornelia?" Tears of mirth welled in Elyon's eyes. "Wanna be my girlfriend?"
Anyone else privy to the moment might have wondered how Cornelia's resulting look didn't send Elyon into renewed peals of laughter, but somehow it didn't.
"WHAT!"
"Because I bet I could search everywhere in the world and never, ever find a guy who can kiss like that!"
She would later reflect that it hadn't been that funny, but with the atmosphere as it was Cornelia just joined right in with her friend. The two of them spent the next few minutes flat on their backs laughing.
"Hey, Elyon?"
"Huh?"
"GRAPEFRUIT!"
A good twenty-or-so more minutes passed that way, with random utterances renewing the laughter until both their cheeks ached. At that point they finally made an effort to calm down, and the laughs died away into chuckles interspersed with deep breaths.
---