selkiesaoirse | (no subject)

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Saoirse wakes with a long stretch and a quiet groan. Then she wrinkles her nose. Her underwear is too tight. She reaches down to try to adjust it, but it rips a little from the strain. Her eyes shoot wide at the sound. She sits bolt upright and looks down at herself. Her night gown is short and tight on her body. Her underwear is digging into her skin. Her ankles are hanging partly off the bed.

"Mum!"

She rolls out of bed and grabs a blanket to wrap around herself.

"Mum!" she calls again, more urgently. She stomps through the house, her hair a wild mane. Cu groans curiously at her, then wines, and she makes her way downstairs.

"Mum! Someone's magicked all my stuff smaller!"

At sixteen, she's no stranger to magic, and all the various ways it can bugger with someone's life. She's lucky to have someone like Greta here, actually, who has a healthy respect — nay, fear — of most things magic.

She stops in front of her now, righteous indignation in her lanky limbs and expressive eyebrows, demanding some sort of recompense.

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There is one small sliver of light in all this, which is that Regan underwent a similar transformation recently enough. That, combined with Aggie's recent graduation party, and the subsequent thoughts and furtive hopes that had stirred up (might they be so lucky as to have both herself and Saoirse make it so far?), means that when an unfamiliar-but-still-familiar teenager comes stomping down the stairs and into the kitchen, Greta's actually quite quick on the uptake.

It's Saoirse. Older Saoirse.

But there's comprehending it, and then there's responding to it gracefully. This early in the morning, Greta only has the energy for one of the two. "Wh--" she starts, her gaze intense and incredulous as she takes it all in. She's much taller, and lankier, her baby fat having mostly melted away. But her eyebrows haven't changed much, and it's an instantly recognizable pout written across the girl's features.

It feels a little like cheating, getting see her like this without waiting through the intervening years. God, she needs to get her phone and take pictures.

... Though not without addressing Saoirse's claim, first, which is... quite possibly the most bewildering aspect of the whole thing, now that Greta thinks about it. "You, er..." Greta swallows, blinking away the tears that threaten to well up. "You think someone's magicked your things smaller?"

Regan had known what was happening to her, hadn't she? It had been similarly uncomfortable, at first, but at least she'd kept her head about it.

Saoirse stares at her, a very plain expression on her face that asks Greta if she's serious right now. "What else could explain it?" she insists. She pulls at her too-tight nighty and the underwear digging into her hips. "D'you think it's Sweeney? I bet it was Sweeney." She frowns and fusses with her clothes.

Greta shakes her head slowly, too fascinated by the odd tack Saoirse's taken to correct it, at least not right off. Not only has she grown up overnight, but she doesn't seem to find it at all unusual. Did Darrow also gift her with seven or so years of false memories?

"Here," Greta says first, because the poor girl's clothes must be pinching something awful, "let's get you back upstairs. You can borrow something of mine for the time being." As they mount the stairs, she carefully adds, "Why would Sweeney have done this? You haven't been leaving him offerings, have you?"

She stomps her way up the stairs with all the grace of a young giraffe. "No," she answers. "He told me not to years ago. He said I had enough of my own magic, I didn't need his, too." She's never understood that, but she hadn't argued, and she'd never left him an offering, she's certain of it.

"But he's a leprechaun! Leprechauns always get up to mischief."

"They do," she agrees, "but this is quite a lot of mischief for someone who hasn't crossed him." Sweeney likes Saoirse, and while she imagines he might be tempted to have a bit of fun with her, she can't imagine it being like... well, like this. "And I don't think he'd muck about with you just to get to me."

She steers Saoirse into her room, then starts to rummage through her drawers. She's been in Darrow long enough that her entire wardrobe is no longer tailored to her, and she has skirts and shirts that she just bought off the rack. They'll be a little large on Saoirse, but at least they won't fall off. She pulls out a few skirts with elastic waistbands and t-shirts, and some clean underthings, laying them all out on the bed. "Here, this'll tide you over until we can get to the shops for something that really fits."

"Well, how else do you explain it?" she asks. Her tone is still frustrated, but she pulls one of the skirts on so she can start changing her underpants without sending Greta out of the room. This is too important to put off, she thinks. Someone's shrunk her things!

She trades her too-small night shirt for one of the shirts Greta's laid on the bed. She doesn't bother with a bra. Despite being a teenager, she's still rather small there. Instead, she adjusts her clothes, which fit better than the ones she's just shed, and then sprawls on Greta's bed.

Greta bites back a grin as Saoirse dramatically flops onto the bed. It's such an odd mixture of the strange and the familiar, and she isn't quite sure how to respond to it. She ends up perching on the edge of the bed, a little more distant than her natural inclination might otherwise be.

"Well," she ventures, "do you remember what happened to Regan? The way she sort of... grew up, overnight?"

That earns her a slightly incredulous look.

"You think Darrow's made my stuff smaller? Does it even do that?" She pushes up so she's on her elbows, eyebrow quirked in an impressive show of teenage disdain.

Well, there's really no more beating around the bush, is there? "I think Darrow made you bigger," she says, reaching over to tweak one of the girl's toes. "Darling, you were eight yesterday. I'm not sure what you, er... remember... but it must be part of whatever Darrow mischief that changed your age."

Saoirse watches her, visibly skeptical. "Eight? Mum, yesterday I was fifteen, just like I am today." Her sweet sixteen is coming up in just a couple of months: she's not going to let Greta take this away! She eyes Greta suspiciously. "Are you going through a midlife crisis, or something?"

Greta can't help an incredulous snort at the suggestion, mostly out of surprise that Saoirse at any age is using phrases like 'midlife crisis.' Good lord, but Darrow's done a number on her.

"Yes, it's my midlife crisis that filled your bedroom with all of your eight-year-old self's furniture and clothes, changed you into something uncomfortable, and tucked you back into your too-small bed without even waking you," she says with a sort of dry fondness. "I suppose you think I hid all of your teenage things in the attic or something. It's an awful lot of effort for a very strange prank you're not even falling for, don't you think?"

She scoffs at the amount of sarcasm being leveled at her. "Well you might've," she points out stubbornly. Still, something in her expression wavers, and she holds up one finger. She goes into her room, looking for her phone. It's smaller than she remembers, and bedecked in the most hideous pink, baubly case, which she hasn't seen in ages.

She brings it back to Greta and loads up her Suddengram. That'll have all the picture proof she needs to show Greta she's supposed to be fifteen.

Except... none of the photos she remembers posting are there. In fact, there are only a few pictures of Cu, and some of her and Greta from when she was eight, and some of the sea.

"Did... did you delete my photos?" she asks. There isn't any accusation in her tone this time.

Greta just arches an eyebrow at the accusation; Saoirse must know how ridiculous an idea it is, really. Not that spontaneously aging seven years and being gifted memories to match is less ridiculous, but at least there's a bloody precedent for it.

She waits patiently as Saoirse fetches her phone and fiddles with it, going straight to her Suddengram account. When she finally speaks, it's clear that some of the wind has gone out of her sails.

"I'm flattered you think I could," she gently replies. "You know I barely understand how Suddengram works."

Saoirse frowns, scrolling through her page and refreshing it a few times, like maybe it's a glitch. Her memories of the last seven years, which felt so fresh and crisp and right only moments ago, feel now fuzzy and faded. She lowers her phone to her lap and looks at Greta.

"I... I don't feel eight..."

"Well, we do know Darrow can do things to people's memories. Though giving them new ones is... well. This is the first I've heard of that."

Greta reaches over to pat Saoirse's cheek, a fond, familiar gesture, though the shape of Saoirse's face has changed. "I know this is all very strange -- for you even moreso than me. But we'll work it out, okay?"

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