The Problem With Pink Hair and Cat Ears

Something was very lightly poking her.

Poking her back persistently...annoyingly.

Evelyn shifted in her half-asleep state, and that made it stop. For a while.

It poked her again.

She opened her eyes.

The room was dark, the ceiling lights long off with the window letting in only the faint blue of a moonlit night. She blinked at the wall in front of her for a moment, registering where she was, and then turned her head.

Elayna was standing beside her bed.

Evelyn saw her standing there in the dark, in her over-sized nightshirt. With one finger still extended near Evelyn’s back, Elayna was also still staring at the poking finger and Evelyn’s back. She apparently hadn't realized Evelyn had woken up.

Evelyn stared at her.

Elayna stared at her finger.

"... Hmnm?" Evelyn managed. It wasn't really a word. It was just a sound her throat made on the way to waking up.

"..."

Evelyn pushed herself upright, slowly, and looked at Elayna properly with eyes that were still barely halfway open.

Elayna was looking at her with the expression of someone who had spent considerable time getting to this point and was now not entirely sure what would happen next.

"Elayna?" she said, her voice rough and groggy. "What's wrong."

Elayna looked at Evelyn. Opened her mouth. Closed it.

"I..." she started, very quietly. "I want to... talk."

Evelyn looked at her.

Talk.

She turned the word over. Middle of the night. Elayna standing over her with her poking finger and her enormous nightshirt and looking at her with wide, anxious eyes that looked like they'd been awake for a while.

Oh, Evelyn thought, becoming considerably more awake.

She'd been expecting something like this, especially after Elayna confessed she wanted to talk, in the corridor after dinner earlier that evening. But not necessarily tonight, not necessarily at midnight. She'd seen Elayna's face at dinner. The way she'd gone somewhere else entirely after Caitlynn had kissed her. She’d also seen Elayna’s face go completely beet red at whatever Cait had done to Elayna after the kiss, she suspected Cait had taken Elayna’s hand or something under the table.

Still. It seemed like the talk was happening now. Elayna really looked quite bothered.

So. Here we are.

Evelyn had always wanted a younger sister.

Aldric, her older brother, was absolutely wonderful. He was strong, kind and righteous to a fault in the sense that he would probably give his life to save a complete stranger if he felt he had to. Her brother had a strong spirit and always believed in doing the right thing, no matter how hard that would be. Aldric had also been the one to suggest to their parents that Evelyn should begin training as young as possible, which she had then done, despite her reluctance for it at the time. Evelyn was forever grateful for her older brother for always doing what he thought was right and always sticking up for it.

But Aldric's idea of a deep conversation was "you'll be alright" delivered with a wide, warm smile and a firm hand on the shoulder, and while that had served her well for nineteen years it had also left her with something missing. The warmth of sitting somewhere quiet and just...talking. About feelings, about the future and about confusing thoughts about the world, about whatever. About... Girly stuff.

She looked at Elayna standing there in the dark with her finger still slightly out.

Well, she thought, something exciting moving warmly through her chest. I think I might have one now.

"Go grab your pillow," she said.

They went into the bathroom and sat down in the showers. It was cool under their feet, the stone tiles smooth in the dark. Evelyn found the candle on the shelf by the door where it always sat and lit it, setting it between them on the tiled floor. The flame steadied and it lit a warm, gentle gold across the small space.

They sat against the wall on their pillows, Evelyn cross-legged, Elayna had brought both of her pillows and sat on one with her knees drawn up and the other pillow clutched against her chest. She looked at the candle for a moment.

Evelyn looked at Elayna in the candlelight.

She looked very small. Hair soft and loose, the nightshirt enormous on her, one strand across her nose doing its usual thing. Golden eyes on the flame with the expression of someone who had things to say and wasn't quite sure how to begin.

Right, Evelyn thought. Older sister. I'm the older sister now. I can do this.

"Whatever you say Elayna," she started, quietly, "I'm not going to laugh. I'm not going to think less of you or think you're silly. I said we could talk so we can just talk. About anything. Anything and everything, I just want to help. Okay?"

Elayna looked at her. Something in her shoulders came down slightly.

"Okay," she said quietly.

"Just talk without thinking about it too much. Maybe start from the beginning."

A short silence. The flame shifted.

"Still. Is there maybe anyone else you could ask to talk to?" Evelyn asked gently. "Your mother, or—"

"I send a letter home every week," Elayna said. "I agreed to that before I came. They’re like updates or how it’s been going and so..." She pulled at the hem of her nightshirt slightly. "They said I could send extra ones if I need to but... this feels like something I should figure out on my own." A pause. "But I would actually probably ask my sisters. They'd know what to say. But they're both very busy and we don't—" Something moved briefly across her face. "We don't get to see each other as much as I'd like."

She said it simply.

Evelyn felt something tighten in her chest.

Two older sisters she trusts, she thought. Probably a whole family she loves. And she's here alone at midnight asking me.

"Well. I'm glad you trust me enough to talk to me about whatever this is," she said, and meant it more than she'd expected to.

Elayna looked at her with her big golden eyes, looking even more vibrant in the candlelight. Then she looked sideways at the shower floor with a strange expression.

"You're probably the smartest person I know here... And I don’t think I could talk to anyone else about this. Kiri or Zyvara I mean," she said shyly, but with the complete sincerity of someone saying something they completely believe in.

Evelyn felt something in her chest bloom so warmly and so suddenly that she had to take a quiet breath before she said anything.

Oh, she thought. Oh Elayna—

Saints Elayna... You’re so precious, you know that?

"Okay," she said, keeping her voice steady. "Tell me everything. From the start."

Elayna told her.

Hesitantly, with many pauses and sideways glances at the candle, with a very pink face that deepened in shade several times. But she told her. About the teasing that had started in the line on the first day, to the rooftop with Cait. About the kisses in the corridors, the way Cait looked at her. About how Cait had brushed her with her tail and grabbed her thigh under the table at dinner today.

Evelyn listened and nodded and asked small questions and felt the conversation going exactly where she'd expected it to go. Except for the thigh part. That had caught her a bit surprised.

This is the conversation I was sort of prepared for. Heart feelings, I guess I'll call it... she thought. Elayna has feelings for Cait and doesn't know what to do with them... Still, so that was why Elayna went so deep red after the kissing... Cait grabbed her thigh...That damned Catgirl really is brazen isn't she.

Still. I can help Elayna figure these things out. She really does deserve someone to help her with this.

"So, you like her," Evelyn said with a small smile. "It sounds like you really like her."

"I think so," Elayna said. "Probably. Yes." Each word slightly quieter than the last. "...I think I maybe like her...very much, maybe."

"And does that scare you?"

"No," Elayna said quickly, and then paused. "...Yes. A little." She answered, slower.

"That's normal," Evelyn said with a smile.

"Is it?" Elayna said, with a slightly anxious expression as she fiddled with her hair with a finger, staring awkwardly at the candle.

"Liking someone that much this quickly is always a little scary," Evelyn replied. "Even more so for you because this is probably the first time you’ve liked someone this way, I would assume?"

Elayna looked at the candle and nodded slowly.

Evelyn felt extremely fondly about Elayna.

Good, she thought. We're doing well. Elayna is coming to terms with liking Cait and seems to have been reassured that everything is normal. This is going great... Even though it’s Cait I’m extremely happy this is how Elayna’s first relationship is going.

Evelyn watched Elayna’s expression gradually turn into something a bit happy and relieved, and thought... She’s so cute.

Then Elayna’s expression became anxious again after looking like she’d forgotten something and said slowly, carefully:

"B-but there's also... something else."

"Okay," Evelyn said. Sitting herself up straighter again and preparing herself.

"When Cait is close to me. O-or when she kisses me. Or when she—” Elayna stopped. She was still staring at the candle, and she made herself very small and hugged her pillow at her chest. “...When she bites my lip—"

Right, Evelyn thought. This I knew. How innocent Elayna is. Completely expected. Cait kissing her is probably still a few steps too much for Elayna—

"—there's something that happens in my chest. It sort of... locks up and my breathing feels heavier somehow." Elayna said as she stared at the candle with a knit in her brows.

"That's normal," Evelyn said warmly. "That's part of—"

"And then there's something in my stomach," Elayna said, the crease between her brow growing more prominent. "A kind of...warmth. That goes lower."

Evelyn kept her face very calm.

O-okay, she thought. That’s normal when kissing someone you like. A warmth that—

"Into my lower belly," Elayna said, looking up at her now. "And as of late with Cait it feels like it’s been going further down each day I'm with her..."

Ah, Evelyn thought.

"And when she—when she had her hand on my thigh at dinner today, I felt—"

She stopped. Her face had gone deeply pink bordering red. Evelyn felt her own face warm up a bit.

"You're doing well," Evelyn said, in her steadiest voice. "You can — you can keep going even if it might be embarrassing."

"I felt something," Elayna said, and her expression seemed to say she was still trying to understand what she'd felt, "that I can only describe as a sort of... warmth, b-but not the same warmth as before. It was also something like an itchy tingling. And it was almost..."

She trailed off. She gestured very vaguely downward with one hand while her other hand gripped her pillow slightly harder. Elayna stared at the candle.

"Almost..." she tried again, and made herself even smaller.

She appeared to be physically struggling with the next part.

"...Almost between my legs," she finished, mouth tight behind her pillow, in a voice so quiet it barely existed. And then immediately looked at the floor, or the pillow. She was making herself so small while hugging the pillow so tightly they seemed to become one.

Evelyn sat very still.

Right, she thought. S-so we are not in heart feelings territory anymore. S-still I’ve got to make sure she’s talking about what I think she’s talking about.

She took a deep, quiet breath.

"W-what do you mean with not the same as before, how was this feeling different?" she asked carefully.

Elayna was silent for a while and seemed to think about this with great seriousness, still looking at the floor.

"It's hard to describe," she said. "It's like a...funny feeling. I don't know the right word for it. It's strange and warm and tingly, it should probably be embarrassing but it felt—" She paused. Her face went red. "It felt... funny. Nice-funny, m-maybe not bad-funny."

"Nice-funny," Evelyn repeated.

"I don't know how else to say it," Elayna said slightly quickly and slightly defensively with a small pout forming.

Evelyn looked at this small earnest person sitting in front of her on the bathroom tiles describing what she could only conclude was probably arousal as "nice-funny" and felt something in her chest that was so overwhelmingly fond it was almost painful.

Pull yourself together, she told herself firmly. I need to be serious and mature and helpful now. You can and are going to help Elayna with these things.

Evelyn was still not sure where to even start with helping Elayna deal with what would surely be an embarrassing and completely overwhelming topic for her. She wasn’t even sure she herself could go through with this conversation without getting overwhelmed.

So, she decided to simply try from the beginning.

"Elayna," she said carefully. "When exactly did the... Funny feeling happen? Can you remember specifically?"

Elayna's face did something complicated.

She pulled her knees slightly tighter to her chest. Looked at the candle. Then at the wall.

"When Cait had her hand on my thigh," she said, very quietly, "and then... At the end..."

She stopped.

"A-at the end?" Evelyn prompted gently.

Elayna's mouth pressed together. She looked like she was gathering something.

"She..." Very quiet. "She squeezed."

Evelyn didn’t quite hear and leaned forward slightly. "Sorry?"

Elayna looked harder at the floor.

"She squeezed my thigh," she said, in a voice so small it was practically non-existent. "That's when I felt it."

Evelyn sat back.

She processed this for a moment.

Cait squeezed her thigh, she thought. At the dinner table. In front of everyone. And that’s when and how Elayna felt—

Right.

She took a breath. Composed herself like she would before a fight.

"Okay," she said. "I'm going to explain something, and this is probably going to be hard to listen to. It might also be embarrassing but I need you to not be overwhelmed and space out Elayna."

Elayna looked at her with wide apprehensive eyes, and nodded slowly, unsurely.

"What you're feeling," Evelyn said slowly, "around Cait. The warmth, in the lower belly, all of that...that's your body getting, uhm... Inter— no, aah... Excited. Excited around Cait."

Elayna blinked and tilted her head. "Excited?"

"Like...your body feeling a specific kind of excited," Evelyn tried. "Around someone you like in a certain way."

"I get excited watching fights too, excited watching Cait fight, and I like her" Elayna said, genuinely confused, furrowing her brows in mild annoyance at not understanding.

"Not — not that kind of excited," Evelyn said with a shake to her head, not to Elayna but to herself.

Differently, she thought desperately. Explain differently. She needs to understand somehow.

"It's a..." She stopped. Started again. "It's a... physical excitement. That your body feels. Around someone it—"

She caught herself right before the word wants and redirected.

"—around someone you have strong feelings for. Romantic feelings. Physical romantic feelings."

Elayna was looking at her with those wide eyes, clearly trying very hard to understand.

"I'm not sure I—"

"It has to do with," Evelyn said, and then stopped. Not really hearing Elayna as she was too busy within her mind to word this right. And then she said the next part very quickly, "wanting to be... physically intimate and close with. With someone. In a — in a sexual way."

She'd just blurted the word sexual out. She'd been so busy working it out in her own head that she'd said it out loud without meaning to.

Silence.

Elayna looked at her.

"...Oh. Uhm," she said.

Another silence.

"Oh," she said again, differently. “Y-you mean... Se—sexual... As in s-sex?”

“Yes,” Evelyn confirmed steadily, with a composed face that she felt was growing very pink.

Another long silence passed. Only during this one Evelyn studied Elayna’s face throughout it and saw her slowly and gradually understand what her body was telling her. Elayna’s face first went pink, then a deeper pink. Her brows pulled together and her lower lip pushed out in a small involuntary pout that pretty clearly conveyed that Elayna didn’t really approve of what her body was telling her.

Then Elayna squeezed her pillow and stared hard at the candle before visibly forcing herself to keep on discussing this with Evelyn so she could understand better, which was the whole idea of this conversation.

"I felt that," Elayna said, in a very small voice, "because I want to..."

She couldn't finish it.

Evelyn had a complicated expression. "Well not exactly that you want to. More like your body is uhm... Somewhat. Excited by the idea?..."

"...With Cait," Elayna said.

"Yes," Evelyn said.

"... S-sex...With Cait," Elayna said, eyes widening in terrified bewilderment.

"It's a completely normal bodily reaction that happens with couples. Also, Elayna being sexually excited doesn’t mean directly that you’re interested in only sex, sexual excitement can mean you’re just interested in being more physically intimate, it could mean that maybe—"

"Mm," Elayna said.

That was not an agreeing mm or a thinking mm. It was more like the sound of someone sitting still while they quietly fell apart.

Evelyn realized she was becoming flustered herself and was probably saying way too much way too fast, and was most likely only confusing Elayna even further.

...Evelyn then felt this was somewhat, deeply unfair. I mean! I haven’t even done anything more than kissing myself! She thought. And explaining this to someone as pure and innocent as Elayna is just — is just...just too damn hard!

They both sat pink-faced and quiet for a moment, the candle burning steadily between them, two girls sitting on bathroom tiles at midnight, having arrived at a certain point in a conversation neither of them had quite expected to be in.

Then Evelyn straightened up. Cleared her throat.

... Right, she thought. I can still do this. No matter how hard this is. I promised to help and I will. We have to move on. This is another part that really matters. Focus.

"Elayna," she said, and felt her tone shift into something warm but more serious, "Maybe don’t think too much about that, it might not even be something you have to worry about for a while. Instead, I need you to listen to me now. Really listen."

Elayna looked at her. She seemed to sense the shift in Evelyn’s tone, she shook her head slightly, visibly dislodging the profound embarrassment and met Evelyn's eyes with her golden ones and gave a small and tentative, but firm nod.

Good, she's listening.

"... If you ever decide you want to be physically intimate with Cait," Evelyn said, "there are things you need to understand first. Things that matter more than anything else."

Elayna nodded with her red face. Listening hard.

"Communication, specifically communicating before you’re intimate," Evelyn said. "Before anything happens, you talk to Cait. About what you're comfortable with, what you're not, what you want and what you don't want.” She looked at Elayna to check if she was still listening and saw Elayna nod firmly and attentively. Good, she thought. “You don't assume Cait just knows, which I kind of suspect you would. You tell her. That conversation might feel awkward and difficult, but you need to have it anyway because it matters the most in these situations, intimate situations."

Elayna was nodding slowly, taking it in.

"And," Evelyn said, "if at any point — any point at all you feel uncomfortable, or you change your mind, or something doesn't feel right or something like that. You say no. And that's it. No means no. Not maybe, not later, just no. And anyone who doesn't immediately respect that—"

"Cait would..." Elayna interrupted, quietly but with certainty.

Evelyn looked at her and smiled.

"I think she would too," she said honestly. "But I needed you to know that regardless. Because it applies to everyone. Always. Your no is final. Anyone's no is final. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Elayna said. Clearly. Firmly. And then looked back to the tiles with a look of someone thinking hard about many, new difficult things they now had to process.

Evelyn nodded, satisfied with how this conversation was turning out.

They sat quietly for a moment.

And then, in the stillness, a thought arrived in Evelyn's head that she had been successfully keeping at bay for the entire conversation.

Elayna is going to have sex.

Not exactly now. Not soon maybe. But at some point. With Cait.

Cait...who is an incredibly strong fighter and is definitely slightly predatory in some way and if I’ve read her right is probably also capable of being completely ruthless when she wants to... No. My heart won’t take it, imagining Elayna with someone—no I really can’t think about that... But Cait really is — is at some point going to—

No, Evelyn thought, with sudden and overwhelming feeling. Absolutely not. No. Elayna, this adorable girl sitting in front of me in her oversized nightshirt looking at me with those big, honest eyes—

She's too innocent. She's too pure. She still called her first experience of sexual excitement a ‘nice-funny’ feeling. Cait cannot get her hands on—

I don't want this to happen, Evelyn realized. I truly, deeply, do not want it to happen.

Evelyn looked at her. With her big amber eyes staring confusedly at the floor, with a firm crease between her brows, her lower lip out in an unbelieving, conflicted pout that was definitely not intentional from Elayna. Evelyn could practically see all the thoughts on her face, how Elayna was currently interpreting what her body had been telling her how she felt about Cait.

... Can't she just stay like this? Exactly like this? Pure, innocent and absolutely adorable. Forever?

And then Evelyn thought, asking the universe: Is that not a completely reasonable request?

And then, before she'd fully decided to, she closed the distance between them and pulled Elayna into a tight hug with both arms.

Elayna made a small, surprised sound and went still, not really sure what they were hugging for. Then awkwardly hugged back, her arms coming up slowly around Evelyn's middle.

"You don't have to do any of this," Evelyn said, into the top of her head, with great feeling. "Not any of it. Not for a very long time. You should know that many couples don't take that step for a year. More than a year. Easily. Mm, yes that is completely normal. You could just — you and Cait could just stick to kissing. For at least a year. That's completely normal." she said as she hugged Elayna tighter and rubbed her cheek on top of Elayna’s head.

"... Something like what we’ve talked about might not happen before a year?" Elayna said, muffled slightly by Evelyn's shoulder.

"Minimum."

A short silence.

"I... It doesn’t seem like Cait would—"

"A year. At least," Evelyn repeated, with more feeling.

“... Maybe I should talk to Cait as well.” Elayna said out loud, absentmindedly, with a confused but earnest voice.

Evelyn laughed, soft and warm, slightly surprised by herself for being so silly. She held on to Elayna a bit longer than what she felt was necessary and then leaned back with her hands on Elayna’s shoulders and looked at her with a wide smile.

“Yes,” another small laugh escaped her, "you shouldn't take everything I've said as absolute truth. This is your relationship with Cait, not mine.” A slight pause. “But you still need to listen to what I said about communication.”

Evelyn didn’t feel nearly as guilty as she probably should have for what she said next:

“But it really is completely reasonable. Completely normal for couples to not do these things for a long, long time Elayna.” She added with a reassuring smile.

Elayna only looked confused for a moment before she smiled wide and happily as she looked up to Evelyn.

“Okay... I think I understand this better now.”

Evelyn closed her eyes and nodded firmly, twice. Perfect, that went better than expected. And I can also help her further in the future now that we’ve laid the groundwork and Elayna is hopefully a lot more comfortable talking about Cait and her feelings. I also somewhat understand where Elayna is in her relationship... I just really hope she truly understands things better now, rather than having misunderstood something or gotten confused about other things.

Then she looked down at Elayna, who was staring at the ground with a deeply thoughtful expression. Saints... she really is just too adorable.

They talked a while longer after that. Comfortably, and what Evelyn felt was, much to her delight, undoubtedly girl-talk. They talked about smaller things, Cait's expressions, more about the rooftop and their first kiss, the first time Elayna heard the word darling and genuinely looked around for who Cait was talking to, which made Evelyn laugh. They talked for a long while until the candle had burned low and Elayna's eyes were going heavy at the edges.

Evelyn looked at the tired Elayna with a warm smile. "Bed?"

"Hm," Elayna agreed with a slow nod.

They padded back through the dark room, Evelyn put her hands on Elayna's shoulders and steered her around Kiri's desk corner just outside the bathroom, the one Elayna sometimes forgot was there. Neither of them commented on the steering. Elayna found her own way from there, went and climbed into her bed and pulled the blanket up, and was quiet for a moment.

"Evelyn," she said softly.

"Hm?"

"... Thank you."

Evelyn looked at her in the dark, saw just the shape of her, small under the blanket, fingers gripping the top of her blanket.

"Anytime Elayna. Goodnight" she said, meaning every word. And felt the large smile on her face.

"Goodnight Evelyn." Elayna answered in a soft and small voice.

She got into her own bed and lay back, staring at the ceiling.

Aldric, she thought, with the fond exasperation she reserved specifically for him, I love you with all my heart and you are what I would consider to be a perfect brother, I’ve never asked for more from you, I don’t think I ever will have to. But this here, what I think I have with Elayna, has fulfilled me in ways I never thought I wanted to or even could be.

She smiled at the ceiling. Widely.

Sleep well, Elayna.