Slumber party – fanfiction by Refugnic

“A special day, a special day, today’s a very special day…” Laura sang, as she all but danced over the campsite, keeping her eyes peeled for her targets, her ears softly swaying in the gentle breeze and her tail bopping with every step.

Kasper slowly trotted after her, his head hung low in utter defeat.

“Um…Sir, is something…the matter?” one of the soldiers addressed him, making Kasper give him an incredibly tired look.
“Did…something happen?”

Kasper pointed to his bouncing little sister with his thumb and replied, “They trained you to withstand torture too, didn’t they?”
“Why yes, Sir. Standard procedure for the armed forces.”
“…I was…best of my class, you know? They threatened me with pain, drowning, and even the white room…but nothing…nothing they ever did…could compare to the inhumanity of hers!”
“Isn’t she…your sister, Sir?”
“…your point?”

Now Laura had finally realized that Kasper was no longer following and came running back, “Nope, you’re not going to back out of this one! After all you promised me!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming…”
“And I can’t hear you singing either…”
“I do not…”

Laura stopped dead in her tracks and gave her brother a death glare.

And if not for Sofia just happening to pass by, Kasper might well have broken down into a whimpering pile under Laura’s stern gaze.

“Sophie!” Laura squealed and sprinted over to the unsuspecting girl, who was currently doing the laundry.
“Laura? What is…what happened to him?” Sofia asked, pointing at Kasper, who thanked his lucky star for Sofia showing up.

“Eh, he, he…” Laura chuckled, producing a cardboard box with rusk from her bag, “…look what I’ve got! Meanie Kasper tried to hide them. As ‘Emergency rations’ or something he said…but he’s got a lot of it! Aaaand…”
“Aaaand…?” Sofia asks puzzled.

“The big tent is unused tonight! So I pulled a few strings and now I’ve got it all for myself tonight!”
“…and…” Sofia asked again, not quite sure that she followed.

Kasper now walked up to them and said, “She wants to have a slumber party with the girls…and lucky you, you’re on the guest list.”
“A…slumber party? Like…with pajamas?”
“And rusk! Lots of rusk!”

Kasper straightened himself and said, “Yeah, and lots of rusks…which we should really use as…”
“Nope! Those boxes are mine!” Laura said with a tone of absolute authority.

The look of resignation on Kasper’s face made Sofia giggle a little, as she picked up her laundry again and said, “Sure, sounds like fun. The big tent, yeah?”
“At sundown! Don’t be late! And bring your pajamas!”

And with that, Laura was already gone again, Kasper tailing after her as if he was a mere dog on a leash. It was already early afternoon when Laura’s guest list was, at long last, complete and she had convinced everyone to attend.

A few hours later, minutes after sundown, the party consisting of Laura, Sofia, Nina, Ada and even Julia had assembled.

As Julia filtered in at last, she looked at the rather colorful collection of girls with a sense of uncertainty, but Laura wouldn’t have any of it.

With unparalleled speed she moved behind Julia, pushed her inside and zipped the door of the tent shut, lighting the lamp standing on the crate.

“I…must say, I cannot recall ever being…invited to such an…event?”, Julia said after finding herself a spot to sit in the corner of the tent.
“Really? You didn’t have sleepovers when you were a kid?” Nina asked, as Ada picked up a piece of rusk and bit into it.
“Not that I can recall. My…parents were rather strict with whom I got to meet and with whom I was not. They always said that I was destined for greatness.”

Ada mumbled, spewing crumbs everywhere, “Fweah? Did fey alfo dell you do begome a gult leadew ow fwomefing?”
Nina chuckled at Ada’s attempt to articulate herself with a full mouth and handed her a glass of water, which Ada gulped down greedily, before munching on the next bite.

“I…” Julia started, but Laura was quick to intervene.
“Nope! Not on my watch! This is a happy evening! It’s a party! You will have fun…or else!”

Sofia raised her head and asked a fatal question, “Or else…what?”
Before she could even react, Laura had already pounced her, nailed her to the ground and tickled her for a good 30 seconds, until Sofia finally managed to bring out between two fits of laughter, “I yield! I yield! I give up!”

Laura, satisfied with herself, retreated back to her corner of the tent, repeating, “Or else.”

Sofia straightened out her outfit again, thankful that she did not pee herself from laughter and a little embarrassed, that she couldn’t do anything against Laura.

“Thanks for the help, by the way…” she sneered over to the other girls.
“What, and become a target myself? Not happening,” Nina exclaimed with a cheerful grin on her face.

She then faced Laura and asked, “But just what did you do to Kasper? He looked terrible!”
Laura put up a mean grin and finally replied, “…I believe that some things are best left…unspoken. Let me just put it this way…he did well to comply when he did.”

A shiver ran down Sofia’s spine as she imagined the martial methods Laura might have employed against her own brother.

As the evening progressed, Laura revealed her program, which reached from playing games like ‘Commercial break’ with survival supplies or the classic pillow fight, over telling each other their respective stories and how they ended up with this merry bunch, up to the inevitable gossiping about the boys of the camp.

“So you see…” Laura started, “Sophie here has a really hard crush on Robert, but Robert is already into Ada and now there’s Julia in the game too!”
“Eh, for all I care, she can have him,” Ada replied dryly.
“I…I didn’t mean to intrude…” Julia started, while Sophia buried her face in a pillow.
“What do you think about Robert anyway?”
“Well, he is…interesting, to be sure. That he can use chaos magic without any sort of incantation or ritual hints at a tremendous potential.”
“Duh, but what do you think of him as a man?” Laura kept probing.

Julia scratched her head and then shook her head, “…I… don’t think I’ve ever thought about him that way thus far, to be honest. I was under the impression that he was taken anyway.”

Julia’s last sentence was clearly directed at Ada, who had already positioned herself for some shuteye and merely mumbled, “As I said, for all I care you can have him.”

The gossiping went back and forth a little more, but in the end, the conversation slowly grew more hushed and Ada eventually fell asleep on a pile of pillows, which extended over Julia’s legs, making her stuck.

Laura pulled out a book and started reading, while the hardships of the past day also caught up to Sofia, who managed to fall asleep with a piece of rusk still in her mouth.

Nina watched the couple with a mild smile on her face and asked, “Just look at the children…all exhausted from a hard day’s work.”
Julia chuckled lightly and asked, “Isn’t Ada older than you, though?”
“Age does not equal maturity, Julia…I’m sure you are aware of that. Some grow up faster, some take longer…some stay children forever.”

“So what am I then?” Laura asked from behind them, looking up from her book with a mischievous smile.
“You? You are a force of nature,” Nina said with a tongue-in-cheek voice.
“And you’d better not forget it!” Laura laughed and went back to reading.

Before long, she moved herself to a rather uncomfortable looking reading position, with her head hanging towards the ground and her legs extending to the far end of the bed.

While Nina asked Julia about what she is looking for in a man, Laura scooted a little closer to Sofia’s head and whispered, “Did you know that Kasper still talks about that time you climbed that tower? You really impressed him…how about it, I’m sure I could arrange some alone time for the two of you, so you can get to know each other better.”

Sofia, startled awake from her half-sleep, her face flushed a deep shade of red, which, in turn, caused a big grin to appear on Laura’s face.

“Slept well? Dreamed something nice?” Laura asked innocently.
Sofia slowly removed the now completely soaked piece of rusk from her mouth and stared incredulously at the hung over Laura.

After sitting up completely, she retorted, “Maybe…but I’m not telling you.”
“Oh c’mon, that’s not fair!” Laura exclaimed, making Nina remind her, that Ada was still sleeping and that they needed to be a little quieter, which Laura begrudgingly accepted.

They kept talking a little more before eventually turning in for the night.
But not before making a promise to each other, that they’d have another slumber party in the future…and that none of them was allowed to die before then.

Author: Refugnic
See this short story on Deviantart.