Possible Impossibilities

Posted on Fri Mar 31st, 2023 @ 1:31 by Rebecca McMillen & Kaylee Ashton BSc

Chapter: Prologue: Dawn of Avalon
Location: Common Room
Timeline: Tuesday, September 29, 1992
3390 words - 6.8 OF Standard Post Measure

After getting herself a sandwich from the kitchen, one of the newer additions to the Avalon family took to the common room to relax, to enjoy the safety and security afforded by such a facility, and to see if she could meet any of the faculty that she'd be working with. Living with.

She settled down with her plate and sandwich, which was mostly sliced cheese to be fair, before she gave a glance up to see who else was here. "Oh, sorry, was daydreaming about this sandwich for the past few minutes." she provided as something of an excuse. The blonde's accent was clearly Londoner, and if she kept talking a skilled linguistics practitioner could probably narrow it down to which block.

"Didn't mean to be rude. My name's Rebecca, I'm new here. Maybe the newest, I don't really know." she offered to the other woman seated in the common room. "It's nice to meet you."

Kaylee had been sitting in the common room reading through a few scientific papers while listening to some music on her walkman through a set of headphones. Hearing someone talking to her over her music, Kaylee took her headphones off just in time to hear the person's name, "hello, My name is Kaylee. I'm the Physics teacher here and I'm pretty new myself" she said as her eyes drifted down to the sandwich on the plate, "hmm, care to join me while you eat your lunch?"

"More the merrier." Rebecca offered as she made her way back up and over to join Kaylee on one of the larger pieces of furniture. She reached behind with a free hand to tuck under her tail, and move it so she wouldn't sit on it. "Had it for years, still in the way." she complained softly to herself before settling in. "Kaylee, what a lovely name. I hope I didn't interrupt your reading." she paused for a moment, having only brought the one sandwich. "Want half?" she offered, moving to tear the cheese sandwich in two.

“No it’s fine. The good thing about a book it it’s always there” Kaylee said as she looked down at the sandwich, “and I’m good, you enjoy your food.” Just then, Kaylee caught sight of Rebecca’s tucked tail. Although this wasn’t the first physical mutation she’d seen, it was the first she’d met in person besides Claire, “um, I hope you don’t mind me asking, how mobile is your tail? Like can you grab things with it?”

Rebecca followed Kaylee's glance down, and then when she noticed the object of curiosity, the blonde simply smiled softly and shook her head, "Only thing it's good at grabbin' is trouble. I can tuck it against my leg fine enough, and I can *almost* coil it like a belt, but as for picking other things up..." she mused for a moment, "Car keys? Mostly cause the keyring. I'm good with it, but no nothing more than keys I'm afraid." she took the moment of silence after her answer to take another nibble of her sandwich. Rather than whole-hog attacking it, she wanted to be able to reply to conversation quickly. "It's alright, ask away. It... it helps calm my nerves, helps cement that this is a safe place."

Giving a small sigh of relief that Rebecca was rather open about her mutation, Kaylee mentally shrugged to herself and figured she might as well take advantage of her willingness to talk, “so is your mutation just the tail or is there more to it?”

"Oh I wish it was just the tail." Rebecca said, shaking her head slightly, "Shoes are a problem for me sometimes, on account of the paws." she pointed downward, towards her slippered feet. "So the balance is nice, I don't really trip over anything and I can ace any walk-the-line test." she said, finding humor in the moment.

"I can also talk to rats. Mice too. Dunno' about anything else, never really tried, but there's plenty of rats to talk to in any city." the blonde continued, pausing momentarily to nibble on her sandwich quickly. "Yeah, yeah I know. Girl who talks to rats likes cheese." she snickered. "The tail, the feet, they really help when I'm tiny. That's the big one. Yeah, I know, ha ha. I can become tiny. Like, size of a mouse tiny." she held her fingers about five centimeters apart.

"So, mind if I ask what your gift is? I like the word gift, better than talent or certainly better than trick. Gift makes it sound like something positive. Although Power is nice too..."

Kaylee cringed a little at the idea of calling her abilities a gift. She would often refer to it as a curse, but maybe that was part of her problem when it came to control. Clearing her throat, Kaylee put on a smile to try and cover up her nerves, “um, I can control and create ice. I guess you could call it a cool gift” she said, cringing a little at her bad pun.

"I'm glad you said it before I did. If I said it was cool, that would just sound rude." Rebecca giggled. "I'm just glad you didn't say that I had a useful little talent. Golly, if I had a pound for everytime I heard that, I'd be set." a smile, another nibble, and then a nod. "Though, in all honesty, that sounds pretty exciting. Physics, you said? That's pretty high up stuff. Never could wrap my brain around stuff that heavy honestly. Algebra is about the limit I could handle." she offered, "And the rats are terrible tutors." she said with a smile. "I'm going to be helping out with the Art program here." she said, "In that, I'm going to be the Art program here."

“I can help you with that if you want, the algebra that is. I promise you it’s not at complex as it seems.” Kaylee offered. She was more the happy to help out fellow faculty with these kinds of problems as she’ll probably be helping her students with similar problems anyway.

"Really? Oh that'd be fantastic!" Rebecca leaned forward a bit, "I mean it looks so daunting, but I'd love to actually know it. I mean, not that it helps with my gift. I can't fly or mess with gravity or anything." she giggled. "Like I said, I just get tiny." she said as she relaxed and sat back down.

"If you need some art for your office or the classroom, we can do a trade."

“Why don’t we start off with the basics” Kaylee said as she stood up, walked over to a chest of draws to retrieve a sheet of paper and two pencils before returning, “believe it or not, you’ve been doing algebra since primary school” she said as she wrote out a simple maths equation of ‘1 + [ ] = 3’. Sliding the paper over to Rebecca, Kaylee smiled, “I know this is an easy question, but there is a point to this. So what number goes in the box?”

The mousey blonde watched, intrigued for the moment. Far more intrigued than insulted, that much was certain. She looked the paper over, then took the other pencil and put the number Two into the box.

"Easy peasy." She commented, looking over to Kaylee now, much like a student looking over at a teacher.

“Excellent, you’ve passed first grade” Kaylee said as a joke as she took the sheet back, “now, I’m going to rewrite the equation but with one small change that might be a little scary, but don’t worry i’ll be here to hold your hand” she said with a grin on her face as she copied the equation directly below the first one, but this time in place of the box, she put a lower case ‘a’.

Sliding the paper back to Rebecca, Kaylee nodded, “see, with one simple change, you’ve gone from solving a simple first grade question to doing algebra. This is all algebra is, finding the unknown number. However, before we move on, can I get you to explain your thinking process with this first problem. How did you arrive at the answer of 2?” She said, falling into her teacher roll a little too easily.

She giggled along with the joke, clearly amused at the notion. "Alright, let's see this." she sounded a lot more confident in her mathematics issues than previous. "Wait, that's it?" she asked, as though the whole secret to Algebra and higher math was 'Knowing the Answer, but Finding Out How to Get There'. Though, explain the thinking process... that was currently the catch.

"Okay well, I know I need to get to Three cause that's here." she motioned to the three with her pencil tip. "And, whatever it is I have, let's call it my mystery number, it becomes three when I add one to it. Whatever, plus one, equals three. Right?" she asked, not for the clarity of math, but just to make sure she was saying all of her parts proper. Speaking proper Algebra, as it were.

"So same here, then, except instead of a nice box to hold the answer, there's literally just an 'a'. A for Answer."

Holding back a laugh, Kaylee had to bite her lip to keep a straight face, “not quite but you’ve got the idea. Here let me show you what I mean.” She said, moving the sheet between them,

“so you’re almost there with your thinking, algebra just adds an extra step. Like you said, you have an answer of three and one unknown number and one known number on this side. Another way of figuring this out, which is what you’ve done unconsciously, is this. One plus something equals three, so therefore, three minus one equals something” she said, writing out the seperate equations as she went, making sure to keep the equals signs under one another.

“What we’ve done here is taken this positive one and sent it across to the other side of the equals sign, and in order to do that, we must change it from positive to negative. Does this make sense?” She asked, understanding that she may have jumped ahead a little too far for Rebecca. Not everyone understood mathematics in the same way.

Rebecca looked at the page for a few moments, "Alright, so... wait." she paused, "Okay, hold on I think I follow. So, it's an equal sign, so... what we do to one side, we have to do to the other. Keep it equal, right?" she asked, taking to the math a little better with something simpler handed to her.

"So, I take the one here, get rid of it, but then I have to get rid of it on the other side. It's a bit weird, but it all has to balance in the end. Like, like a scale." she figured, and then went to work. She quickly doodled a scale on a blank part of the page. On one platter, she wrote "1+a" and on the other, she wrote "3".

"Okay, so everything has to balance in the end, right? So, if I just took the one way from here, it wouldn't balance." she 'explained', "So I have to take one away from the other side too. Like you said. Is that it?" she asked. She was pretty sure she followed, just needed a visual aid to really get it.

Giving a nod, Kaylee smiled, “yes, well done. You’re getting it quickly. However I think we might want to pause our lesson here, as from this point it does get a little more complicated and I’ll need more then a sheet of paper to demonstrate”

"Oh, that sounds fun." from the sound of it, Rebecca was more sarcastic than excited. So she wore a smile. "Still, I appreciate the help. So, physics... it's more math like this? Think I'll stick to art history and design." She offered, in good fun. Another nibble at her sandwich before she put the plate down. "I'm a quick study, just a trick of keeping it. See, back in college my sister thought she was cute, bringing me to her classes in her pocket. So i had to learn fast and was always playing catch up. I changed colleges, which helped in my attendance, but still... has to learn fast."

"in her pocket? exactly how small can you get? I know you said the size of a mouse but are we talking common house mouse or field mouse?"

"Yeah, she was an absolute... you know what, nevermind." Rebecca shook her head to dismiss the notion and the memory. "On a better note to answer your question, about five centimeters. So, don't know about common versus city versus field, but about that, yeah."

"I don't like showing off, but since I like to learn visually maybe..." she took a breath, "... Do you want to see?"

Kaylee quickly nodded, “if you’re comfortable with it, sure why not. I promise I won’t pick you up and put you in my pocket”

"I appreciate that." Rebecca offered before putting her plate down on the small table, before she took a moment to get her proverbial bearings before, well at first nothing happened. Nothing seemed to be happening. Then it started to become slightly more apparent. More and more of her height melted away. Not in a literal sense, it's just that she was getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller. Centimeter after centimeter literally just vanished. Shorter and shorter and shorter...

It took a few moments, but eventually the diminishment of Rebecca finished. There, sitting in a vastly oversized chair was the incredibly tiny Rebecca. A mere five centimeters in height. To demonstrate her wellness after the event, she gave a wave and a smile. "So yeah.." she offered with a giggle, her voice higher in pitch. Almost a squeak.

"oh my, that's amazing. The physics of it would be fascinating to look into." Kaylee said, leaning forward to get a better look at Rebecca's new size. "do you still have the strength of your original size?" she asked before holding her hand over the top of Rebecca and rubbing her thumb and forefinger together, causing a small shower of snow to fall on her diminutive friend.

"The what? Oh, right, the crazy math yeah?" she asked, voice still adorably higher. She giggled at the sudden flurries, banishing the flakes from her hair and shoulders. "Oh, I *wish* I was still as tough as when I'm taller. It'd be harder for folks to pick on me that's for certain, but no. I have a good bit of strength like this but if I tried to carry my bags like this, I'd wind up under them." she giggled again, clearly amused at the visual. Amused enough to gather a little of the collected snow before it fully melted and make a makeshift snowball to throw up at Kaylee's hand. *Paff* and the projectile was gone. Just a snowball afterall.

"So, I'm a bit more sturdy, in regards to falling from heights. Still, don't like it, but I can take a fall easier like this. Lemme guess, it's cause I'm lighter, right?" she asked, and while there was a twinge of sarcasm in that amused inquiry, there was mostly honest curiosity there. If she knew more about how her powers interacted with the physical world, might be useful.

"something like that" Kaylee answered before she stopped the snow and then lowered her hand and placed it on the chair beside Rebecca, "Can you shape shift as well? Or can you grow in size larger then your original size?"

The diminutive woman stepped gently into Kaylee's waiting hand, proving instantly that she weighed next to nothing. "Well, I mean if I wear mousey pajamas I can LOOK more like a mouse, but no. Can't become a mouse or anything." she giggled, "And sorry, no Attack of the Fifty Foot Becca." another bout of giggles.

"I was just relieved the first time it happened, that I was able to go back to normal. Hell I would have settled for five six." a smile, her thin tail swishing side to side as she walked to the center of Kaylee's palm. Once there, she sat down to keep her balance easier.

Slowly picking Rebecca up on her hand, Kaylee was fascinated by her size and how light she was now. “This is amazing. Even your clothes shrink with you. I wonder, if I gave you something to hold onto now, would it grow with you? A paper clip for example.”

Rebecca gave a giggle, "Oh trust me, that was a huge relief. The first time this happened was a huge shock, but at least I wasn't tiny *and* naked." and then she shook her head, "And yeah, no, that was my first idea after I recovered from the shock. Be small, grab something valuable like a gold ring, be big, giant chunk of gold, retire." she had an entire outline for her retirement.

"So, I can take little things with me when I shrink. Backpacks, clothes, but not like PEOPLE." she started. "And if I let them go, once they're out of arm's reach they get big again. Now if I grab something while I'm small, and then become normal again, it stays small." a pause, "Again, no Early Retirement." another giggle. "Though maybe I'm trying to make the wrong stuff big. Because if I eat while I'm small, and don't fall into a coma, when I go big I'm still full." she mused, "Maybe it's because food isn't gold?" she offered.

"I have no real idea HOW I do it, just that things I bring with me have to stay with me, or they go back to normal, and if it started small when I go big, they stay small." she sat in Kaylee's palm, educating the educator as to the nature of things big and small. "Trust me, after the panic, whenever I had time to myself I was working on testing some theories."

She was silent for a moment, "So, as much as I dislike the whole concept of being a lab rat, on account of, yeah.... we should really see what the limits are."

gently placing Rebecca back down onto her chair, Kaylee sat back to allow her the room to regrow to her original size, "that sounds like a very interesting experiment. Maybe we can organize something with Claire"

Rebecca gave a giggle, returning to the scale or nomalcy. Perhaps the only thing that was really NORMAL among anyone here. Not that that was a vital metric. "Just, no wheels. Please. I'd prefer a regular treadmill if you and Claire need me to run. Just, bad memories." she shook her head, now sitting in the chair rather than standing in it.

Reclaiming her sandwich, she took a nibble. "But yeah, I wouldn't mind getting the full measure of what I can do."

After a moment of thought, Kaylee smiled, “so should we set up an obstacle course for you to run through? Maybe a few small holes to climbs through, or even a rope you have to clime up as a mouse?”

"Gonna put a piece of cheese at the end of the course for me too?" she asked, maybe a bit insulted... but she was still eating a cheese sandwich so it was hard to tell. "No no, I mean we're going to need to know the limits, sure, but I was also thinking of like 'Hey Becca, shrink with that battery and then throw it and see if it gets bigger' or 'Shrink and then grab that paperclip and see if it grows with you'." Rebecca remarked, with a smile.

"I guess it wouldn't be a proper lab test without a maze though." she commented, but this time with a smile.

“I’m sure we can figure something out. Perhaps we should approach Claire with this. What do you think?”

"I think we should. After lunch, though." she held up her sandwich.

Giving a smile, Kaylee nodded, “After lunch then”