Welcome to Reality (Chloe)

Chloe appreciated the tour. Starlight was a really nice school, cheesy name aside. Aurora did mention that it was well-funded, and Chloe could tell that the school had taken ample advantage of that. She didn’t know why Cheeto was taking her into a dorm building, but she had gotten swept up in their conversation and forgot to ask. Words flowed easily between them; she felt like they’d been friends far longer than a single afternoon.

“Yeah, I have a room set up. It’s in one of the buildings over that way.” Chloe gestured eastward. “Not much in it yet, though, but I think I get to go shopping tomorrow. The school’s been really generous.” She noticed a concerned look in Cheeto’s eyes. Or at least she thought it was concern; except for excitement, Chloe didn’t know if she could read the emotions on a goblin-face.

Oh, they were going to Cheeto’s room. “I actually had a lot of sitting around doing nothing planned for today. Really important stuff, but… for you, I could probably take some time out.” Chloe smirked.

Chloe was staring at the messy side of the room.

She looked at the poster-covered walls, the models, the figurines. For the first time since coming here, she saw something familiar. Star Trek, Death Note, Pokemon, even a D&D manual sitting on the bed. These things existed in her old world, but they also existed here.

Slowly, but surely, Chloe’s face lit up. She didn’t expect something this small to make her so happy, but it meant so much! Here was a way for her to connect with people in this world! For a while, she worried that she would be a total outcast; a stranger to every culture in an entire universe. But this room, this shrine to nerdhood, disproved that. Though she came from another universe, passed boundaries of space and time that she could never cross again, she still had this. She still had a niche.

“Cheeto, is that your side of the room?” Now it was Chloe’s turn to be excited. Her tail was wagging and twitching uncontrollably, and she was even bouncing a little. She had stumbled upon an oasis of familiarity in what seemed like an endless desert of isolation. She was saved.

It was Cheeto’s side of the room. Chloe almost missed the question about the drink. She was too overwhelmed, trying to see and mentally catalogue as much of the room as possible Each new discovery, each thing she saw and recognized made her even more content.

“Cheeto,” Chloe announced, “I think we have to become friends now.”

She skipped over to the desk to get a closer look at the figurines. “Sorry, you said something about drinks? Um… what do you have?” She leaned forward to look even more closely at them; her tail was raised and swishing around happily.

Chloe looked up from the figurines and turned to Cheeto. “Actually, I said that we have to become friends now. You’re too cool and we like too many of the same things. It’s basically a requirement now. We have to.” She smiled at the goblin, then slipped past her to get to the refrigerator.

She bent over again, her tail twisting and swaying in the air as she scanned the lower reaches of the fridge. “Kinda surprised you’re into dungeons and dragons, though. Since they have goblins as always chaotic evil. Isn’t that a little racist? Or…"

The tail was twisting and turning right next to Cheeto's face. Tantalizing her. Daring her to grab it.

Chloe gasped. Her tail was very sensitive. She wasn’t used to people grabbing it. Or… touching it. Especially not like that. The tail squirmed in the goblin’s hands. It probably had enough strength in it to knock the goblin off her feet, but Chloe didn’t want to hurt her. The demon looked back over her shoulder.

“Uh…” She was about to ask Cheeto to let go, but she stopped. Whatever Cheeto was doing, it felt… really good, actually! She didn’t want it to stop. Her tail relaxed in Cheeto’s grasp.

“Oh! Found ‘em.” Grape sodas, right behind the orange ones. Chloe handed one back to Cheeto, then twisted off the other’s lid for herself. She stood up and shut the refrigerator door. “The Inquisition thing sounds interesting, but… maybe not today. It’d hit a little close to home for me. For now…” she looked again at all the nerd regalia on Cheeto’s end of the room. “Just… I’m actually surprised that you even have D&D here. Or Star Trek. My universe has those too, but… I thought we were different universes.” Chloe took her first sip of grape soda, then looked at Cheeto and smiled.