New Beginning

Camden watched, allowing himself to relax a little bit as he saw that Saint had a firm handle on the situation.

The girl merely nodded, closing her eyes and focusing. She gained a fair amount of height, just a few inches shorter than Camden now. Her waist tightened in on itself and her hips slimmed out until she had to be a size zero, maybe even less if that were possible. Somehow she managed to add some bulk to her chest without looking several disproportioned. Her face became thinner, but there were no hollows in her cheekbones and no gauntness, which made absolutely no sense. Her legs were sticks, yet they still had shape. Somehow. That was all she managed before she gave a little whimper and sank to the floor.

Saint, barely schooled in chivalry, still knew and had the decency to move to help the girl. He moved to her side and placed a hand on her, shaking Rowan gently to make her open her eyes.

"Good job." he commended gently, giving a nod of approval. "She did pretty good, didn't she, Camden?" he directed to the other boy so he wouldn't be a completely outcast in this situation.

Camden nodded, walking over, feeling stupid for being so useless in this situation.

"Yeah, great job," he mumbled.

Rowan groaned softly and rubbed her forehead with a now shaking hand.

"W-Where am I?"

"You're in the Lucid Realm." Saint explained softly, being mindful of the headache he was sure she would have. Camden'd had one after first transforming. He figured it would've been the same for her.

"Don't worry, you can wake up at any time."

(actually it's the Lucid realm but okay -shot-)

Her eyes were a bit unfocused as she stared at him, trying to make sense of his words.

"Realm...Oh-Okay."

She looked down at herself and her eyes cleared and a spark of glee could be seen in her eye as she flexed and pointed her bare foot.

"Holy shit, how am I this perfectly skinny oh my god, "she whispered, excitement in her voice.

Was camden wrong in being slightly creeped out by that? He wasn't sure. But it sure as hell didn't seem normal for someone to react that way to being the weight of a skeleton. The onyl difference was that her bones weren't jutting out. Which was physically impossible, but her brain must have worked pretty hard to make that happen.

Saint frowned. Great. She was shallow.

"Do you think you can manage to stand?"

"Of course," she snapped, up in seconds. And then she swayed and was back on the floor, moaning about her head.

Camden turned to Saint and whispered, "We really need to tell her about the PASOS. It would probably be better if I'm the one who does it with her. I'm more stable than you in the Awake Realm."

She didn't even hear them over her own cries of pain.

At this, Saint immediately scowled. Yeah, jealousy wasn't exactly his strong point.

"Fine." he spat out, stepping back to leave Camden with the control.

If Camden would rather be around her, it wasn't his problem.

Camden blinked, unable to register what had just happened. Was Saint...was he jealous? What...

"S-Saint I-"

He stopped himself. He didn't even know what to say.

Rowan had finally stopped making noise and was sitting up, rubbing her head with a scowl of her own on her face, like she blamed them (probably just saint actually) for her pounding headache and weakened body.

Camden looked back to saint, then sighed and turned to the girl and licked his lips, trying to smile. It wasn't working too well.

"Here," he said, holding out a hand to her.

She looked up and the sour expression on her face melted away. The smile from before was back. Sickly sweet and slightly menacing.

"Thanks," she said softly, not at all embarrased about needing help from the blue-haired Lucid. She was way too light, it was kind of scary. She weighed less than Saint had at first. And that was saying something.

"Tell her what to do." Saint commanded bitterly, not even looking at the two.

Camden flinched at the cold tone. He had never seen Saint like this. It kind of...scared him a little.

"Alright so...Basically you need something called a PASOS, a partner attach system which means that whenever you turn Lucid, you appear in the same Realm as your partner. It protects you. Can't be alone in the realms. And uh...WE have to do that in the Awake Realm, which is when you aren't asleep. I'm going to have to meet up with you there. I'll explain more about it then, just know that some random guy with blond hair will be looking for you tomorrow and that he's not a stalker, he actually has a reason to be looking for you. Okay? I'll figure out the rest of it myself."

She looked confused, but she nodded anyway, leaning heavily into him as though she were incapable of standing upright. And camden knew that was far form the case. He ahd been able to stand by now. If she were actually this week, she woudln't have passed the test.

Knowing that creeped him out even more.

If possible, Saint's scowl deepened at the way she practically laid on Camden vertically. Or worse, how Camden was letting her.

God dammit, maybe all he felt was one sided... Maybe he was the idiot, the third wheel.

No. He refused to believe that.

It wasn't the truth.

He was just everywhere and nowhere with this new girl, he'd get control eventually.

"Anything else, Camden?"

The tone in Saint's voice helped snap him out of his confused stupor.

"I'm sure you can stand by now," he told the girl, lightly pushing her off of him. And then she stumbled and fell, crying out.

Camden stared. No. She wasn't that pathetic. No way.

"I-I'm so sorry!"

But he didn't stoop to help her up this time. She stared up at him with wide, hurt eyes.

Camden just hoped this would help Saint see that there was no reason to be...jealous.

Saint huffed and directed his anger to the girl on the floor.

"You are not that weak, or you wouldn't have passed the test and been here. Now stand up before I start kicking you."

Yeah, he probably looked like an emotional train wreck to her, what with the ups and downs, but he was pissed right now so he had a right.

"No, you're just an asshole with no compassion for people in need!"

No, she didn't sound weak at all with that self-important, angry fire in her voice.

This had started out as such a good night too, Camden mused. It really was this girl who had turned it all upsidedown. This partnership was not starting off on a good note.

Saint scowled.

"Say whatever you want, we've got work to do. You're supposed to be training right now, not sniveling and sobbing on the ground like a baby."

He gestured up with his hand.

"Get up and we'll get started."

He risked a glance at Camden and grew even angrier when he saw him staring at her, practically gaping. Maybe he had been reading the signs wrong...

She huffed and stood, dropping all pretenses of weakness now. The dirty blonde crossed her arms and waited silently for Saint to tell her what to do next.

Camden was extremely relieved when she didn't look his way. It made it easier to tear his gaze away from her and direct his attention back to saint who was-...shit he looked like he was just seething in anger.

"Alright, what do you want to look like?"

Probably even more like a whore.

She bit her lip, weighing the options in her head.

"I can look like anything I want?"

Her tone was dubious, even a bit suspicious.

"Well I did give myself blue hair," Camden muttered, perhaps a bit more loudly than he intended.

Rowan's attention snapped back to him and she laughed, like someone had finally said something worthy of her attention.

Saint sneered. Like, honest to God sneered.

"Yes. Anything."

He wanted to tear her apart.

"Hmmmm...I always fancied bright red hair. The color of passion~."

She winked at Camden on the last word.

The blue-haired Lucid really couldn't take her blatant flirting seriously by this point. It was just too ridiculous. Nobody was this obvious.

On the outside, Saint looked as stoic as ever, though his eyes screamed death. On the inside, he was burning with anger. And even further inside, he was terrified that Camden really did want to be with her.

"Shut it with the BS and just do it already."

She scoffed and turned back to face Saint, not quite realizing just how angry he truly was.

"Well I can't exactly 'do it' if you haven't told me what exactly I'm supposed to be doing, now can I?"

Saints' hands fisted, nails digging into his skin.

"Same way you made yourself look like a person, and not the freak you are."

Funny, that Rowan still looked surprised with every new insult that Saint added to the growing list of reasons why she was quickly growing to hate him.

Camden swallowed hard. He couldn't ignore this any more.

"Saint-...please."

He spoke Saint's name with just an edge of desperation, and ended the sentence softly, pleading now.