Room #336 was basically a carbon copy of Taz’s room, from dimensions to the position of its furniture, window, and bathroom, except room #336 had a particular smell.

Taz walked in, and was inundated by Madeline's familiar perfumes, her laundry detergent of choice, and just a smell that was wholly, uniquely hers, one Taz smelled when they hugged and a bushel of springy hair slapped her face.

The wall was covered in discolored spots where posters must have hung, the nearest dresser covered in stains from candles, knick-knacks and quick care products it once held up, and there were two desks side-by-side on the same wall as the door; one empty, the other already covered in pictures of people Taz didn’t recognize outside of Noelle and personal effects, including a nice, sleek looking laptop.

Even though the decorations were foreign, walking into a room and just feeling her older sister’s presence…

It was so terribly familiar that Taz paused at the end of Madeline’s bed. Melodica swam in after her, looking equally nostalgic of those days she’d run into Madeline’s room back at her aunt’s house. Her dorm space was more mature, of course, but Taz could tell Madeline chose the same bed she had.

Melodica ‘laid down’ on Madeline’s bed, clean and wrinkle-free, probably thanks to housekeeping or whatever they had. Taz went over to Madeline’s empty desk and pulled out the chair, sitting down in it thoughtfully. She could imagine Madeline’s computer in front of her, a pen in her hand, Madeline leaning against the desk and chatting with her, telling her what to do, how to do it…

On the opposite side of the room, Noelle seemed to be about halfway moved in. She definitely had some class to her, with small, portable portraits of people that Taz assumed were family members on her walls. The amount of makeup occupying the girl’s dresser top certainly gave Taz pause; tubes, tubs, jars, and mirrors, and a jewelry box that Taz suspected would flood the room with gold shine if opened.

She even had her own comforter, a massive, fluffy looking, heavy blanket, and four additional pillows that didn’t match the one on Madeline’s or Taz’s beds. Noelle’s side of the room smelled heavily of perfume, and Taz suspected the girl’s morning routine was unenviable, yet looking at the French beauty sitting at the edge of her bed, staring at her with eyes like sweet chocolates, Taz believed that, whatever efforts Noelle spent on her physical appearance were worth it.

“Are you well Taz? Melodica?” Noelle asked, hiding a pleased little grin at Taz’s long, quiet stare at her corner of the world.

Taz smiled a little to herself. “I’m okay.”

“I think we’re both just kinda… like not overwhelmed, right?” Melodica glanced over at Taz from the bed.

“Nah, not overwhelmed. I’m whelmed though.”

“Yeah, I think we’re both just normally whelmed.”

Noelle giggled, then said, “I’ll assume that is a good thing.”

“Yeah. Just…” Taz rested her chin in her hands. “I mean, I’m at PA…” She met Melodica’s eyes.

“We’re away from mom…”

“I’m getting a roommate…”

“One outside your head!”

Both girls giggled at that, and Melodica darted from the bed over to Taz’s side, shaking her progenitor’s shoulder with such excitement that Taz tried to shoo her away with a whine.

“We’re finally here!” Melodica squealed.

Taz drew her arms tightly into her chest, and after a sharp flare of excitement built up in her, she suddenly collapsed on the desk with a smack of her forehead, and groaned.

“Oh man.”

“What? What’s ‘oh man?!’”

“I just had the scariest thought: what if we screw this up?!”

“Oh come oooon, don’t limp at the finish line!” Melodica twirled around Taz’s body, drawing a laugh from Noelle.

“You sound like Madeline on our first night here.” Noelle said, making Taz lift her head up and stare.

“Really? Maddy was scared she’d screw up?” Taz asked disbelievingly, and Noelle laid back on her bed, hands under her head as she closed her eyes.

“Oh, ma choupette, I arrived late on our move-in day to find mon amour all but weeping into her pillow in terror!” Noelle’s smile turned a bit sad at the memory. “‘I feel so alone!’” Noelle imitated Madeline’s deeper voice. “‘What if I’m not good? What if I taught Taz the wrong things?!’” Noelle looked up at Taz and grinned. “I thought you were una chienne with a name like that.”

“A-a what?”

“A dog~.”

“Wow.” Melodica huffed. “Rude!”

Noelle giggled, kicking off her expensive shoes with little care. “Pardonne-moi, Rène, she set me straight quite quickly after that. But, if you must know, your big sister was, how you say, a ‘ball of nerves’ on her first day. You will be fine! You have her,” she gestured to Madeline’s bed, “et moi!” And swung her hand back to herself.

Taz leaned back in Madeline’s chair, head hanging back as she thought about it. Her entire life, it seemed like Madeline had the most promise in their little family. She was older, true, but she also simply grasped concepts and ideas so quickly.

Both girls had gone to see a psychic specialist when they were ten years old. The tests were fairly simple, befitting their age: basic telekinetic and telepathic tests, measuring both strength and distance, but also testing more complicated disciplines. Taz spent ten minutes trying to light one of those pyrokinesis trainers, and later struggled to identify helium separate from oxygen in a balloon using untrained biokinesis.

The proctors weren’t expecting ten year olds to have anything more than a passing understanding of the definitions of thermal energy and biology, the tests were designed to be simple so that even a newbie could figure it out with some instruction.

Taz was deemed to excel in the more empathetic and creative disciplines: telepathy, mimicry, dividualism, and if it ever came up, domination. Like lots of more creative-minded kids, she struggled when it came to the more scientific or mathematical disciplines; even basic telekinesis was a struggle.

It was determined that Madeline had no weaknesses. Not an entirely rare deduction, there were plenty of psychic children who were considered balanced, and even exemplary at both the left-and-right disciplines, but it certainly left Taz feeling like she was underperforming.

She was always feeling like she was in Madeline’s shadow in technique, but Madeline did everything she could to help Taz develop. Taz struggled to hold a grudge either way, but with her big sister constantly looking over her shoulder, holding her hand, complimenting her abilities… She was never angry.

That was why it was strange to hear that Madeline was going through the same thing. Strange, yet relieving. Maybe she’d still struggle with the more technical classes, but Noelle was right, she had more than enough people to ask on campus.

“I’m gunna hold you to that.” Taz said with a smile.

“Yeah!” Melodica pumped her arms, doing little flips in the air in her excitement.

“You’d best!” Noelle grinned. “Now, why don’t I prove that?” She swung her legs over the side of her bed and sat up, starting to pull her braid free.

Taz and Melodica shared a quick, curious look, then glanced back.

“How do you mean?” Taz asked.

“You have arrived to learn, non? Then let me teach!” Noelle beamed, almost a warning with how cheery it looked.

Taz and Melodica glanced each other’s ways again.

“Like what?” Melodica tilted her head.

With a flourish, Noelle unbound her hair, letting it fall about her scalp in somewhat stiff, interwoven strands, and ran her fingers through it to shake it free.

“Whatever you wish! It’s my fourth year here, I would like to believe I have learned more than enough to teach at least some beginning lessons.”

After a few moments of thought, Taz, with a smile, asked: “How about just some telekinesis stuff! I’d like to lift stuff up heavier than a few pounds, or… do what you did with my laundry!”

“My specialty~!” Noelle beamed. “Where do you feel you are lacking? Or, hmm, mayhap it would be more telling if you simply showed me!”

The three girls sat on the meager amount of floor between the two beds. Taz sat criss-cross applesauce, Noelle on her knees, and Melodica curling her tail in a most abnormal, serpentine way, sitting upon herself like a snake.

“Now,” Noelle began, raising a hand up, and in response, a rack against the wall across from Noelle’s bed shivered. Two dumbbells–a pink five-pound weight and a baby blue ten-pound weight–flew from their resting places on the rack, moving with a surprising amount of speed, enough to make Taz flinch as they both swung around and landed easily and gently in between the three girls. “Tell me, what is telekinesis?”

Taz stared at the two dumbbells, marveling at how easily and cleanly they’d maneuvered through the air without so much as a wobble. The speed they’d flown would have been impossible for her to control, but Noelle had done it with incredible ease.

After a second of hesitation, Taz answered, “It’s the discipline of moving stuff with your mind.”

“That is what it is mostly used for, yes, but to speak in such simple terms is to discredit the father of all psionics!” Noelle spoke with a flourish swirl of her finger through the air, and the pink weight suddenly shot upwards, spinning like a wheel in front of her face. “Telekinesis moves things, yes. It is your mind asserting control over reality as we understand it. This weight can be lifted in my hand? Why not with my mind?”

The latch to Noelle’s trunk wordlessly popped, and out flew a glass jar, which settled in Noelle’s hand, full of a sweet scented white wax. “By the same token, this candle can be lit aflame, yes? We merely need fire. But what is fire? It is heat energy. What is heat energy? It is rapidly moving molecules. I can move this thing that I can see, why can't I move something lighter and more numerous, but is invisible to my eye?”

“Uh, err…” Taz struggled to keep up with the explanation, and Noelle tittered.

“Oh dear, am I going too fast?”

“No, just…”

Melodica looked at Taz worriedly. “We really shoulda paid attention in science…”

“It’s booorrriiiiiiinnng!” Taz whimpered.

With a sigh, Noelle set the candle down, and with a moment’s concentration, a flame lit on the candle’s wick, and the glass jar sat in the exact middle of the two girls, filling the space with the scent of clean cotton laundry.

“Ma choupette, believe me when I say that I agree.” Noelle’s finger stirred the air, the smoke rising out of the candle beginning to swirl. “I like the sciences, but it is the maths that make me snore. How this world works is interesting, but these methods of counting and calculating are awful.”

“I know.” Taz nodded, relieved.

“But the sciences need maths to explain it.”

“Aww fuck…”

Noelle gave her a quick smirk. “Much can be done with telekinesis without knowing the sciences, but understanding thermal energy lets you do more with thermokinesis. Fire is not created with anger or raw determination as some gurus might have you believe.”

“But with molecules.” Melodica repeated, earning a pleased smile.

“Just so! Now I see the confusion writ on your face, amour, so let me assure you, I am only telling you what your teachers will tell you: the science they teach you is to improve your understanding of what your abilities are doing. The only true exception is telekinesis.”

“Why’s that?” Taz tilted her head. She glanced down at the pink weight sitting in front of her and held her hand out, and with a squaring of her shoulders and a focusing of her mind, her mind reached out.

“Because science, as is, struggles to explain what you are doing now. Telekinesis cannot be easily understood like thermokinesis; instead, telekinesis is best trained through rigorous practice.”

Taz didn’t catch what she’d said right away. Her mind spread through the world, but rather than seeking another mind to connect to to create a bridge, or enter a thought bubble to be one of many fish swimming in a sea of psychic currents, her mind was grasping something real.

She thought of it like echolocation: she sent out a radar-like scan of psychic power and felt the physical world around her, and carefully she focused that power around a specific item. Taz took a deep breath as the weight began to lift, her mind burdened by its weight, its shape, its very texture; she could feel the chipped and ragged edges of the dumbbell’s bulbous ends where it had been dropped in places.

It wasn’t like feeling with the tips of her fingers or anything like that, it was too… comprehensive. Without physical flesh to touch the item, the sensation of the rough texture was almost sterile in her head; the idea of rough texture rather than the sensation.

With the dumbbell rising in the air, Taz’s head began to steadily warm.

“Do you exercise, Taz?” Noelle asked, standing up. Taz was overly focused on keeping the dumbbell in the air; supporting five pounds was more stressful than simply moving it from one spot to another, at least then she’d have gravity helping her.

“N-no…” Taz admitted weakly, and flinched as a pair of hands squeezed her noodly bicep.

“My my, so thin! I thought you American women were supposed to be all plump like movie stars!” Noelle teased, and Taz’s face steadily reddened as her soft hands roamed her bare arm, the dumbbell shaking in the air as Taz grew flustered. “But like so many others, your body betrays you! You need to ignore me.”

Taz’s face burned as Noelle sat nearby, utterly harmless, not moving nor touching her, but her sheer presence left Taz wanting to melt into the floor.

“Your mind is like a muscle, Taz, you must exercise it. Every day I go to the campus gym to exercise; when my body aches, I lift with my mind. When my mind burns, I go back to working my body. Regular practice, constantly pushing your limits will help you with your telekinesis.”

Taz nodded, her brow pinching in strain. She needed to keep her eyes off of Noelle, but, damnit, how was she supposed to not look at the perfume-scented, beautiful-bodied, cute-faced, perfect-haired, piercing-eyed, bare-legged, fingernail-painted, glasses-wearing, braid-flipping, coy-smiling, giggle-making beauty right next to her?!

“Oooookay.” Melodica’s voice penetrated the thickened atmosphere. Taz felt the strain on her mind lift as her tulpa took the dumbbell. “Somebody is a little too focused on the taste of baguettes to be practicing.”

“Eh?!” Taz yelped. “I-I’m not—I can do this!”

“Uh huh…”

“I can!”

The dumbbell flew out of Melodica’s hands, and Taz stewed grumpily as she tried to focus on keeping it aloft again, all while Melodica swam around it, grinning tauntingly, just waiting for Taz to falter.

“There, see? You focus, and you succeed.” Noelle watched, pleased. “Now, try rotating it longwise!”

Taz did her best to comply. Once an item was in the air, it was pretty easy to manipulate, but having it spin steadily and constantly was an additional stress on her mind. Like exercising a muscle… she just needed to flex, and keep flexing. She tried to ignore the beacon of loveliness by her side as she did.

“Don’t concentrate too hard, chanteuse; you’ll burn out if you strain yourself too hard. Good, keep it aloft, as long as you can.”

Madeline’s bed was nice.

Not as nice as her bed back home, but the mattress wasn’t rock hard, and wasn’t as weird as an air mattress. It helped that she didn’t wake up to find herself laying down on a deflated plastic sheet with rocks digging into her back…

Taz laid on her side, staring across the darkened room at the other bed. She couldn’t see Noelle, but she could feel her, sleeping fitfully in her bed. As Taz curiously examined her, she could sense… relief. Noelle was comfortable in that bed, probably much smaller, much cheaper, and much tougher than what she was used to.

Noelle was in such a deep sleep that she was already dreaming. Of what, Taz didn’t invade to see, but it left Noelle at ease.

Taz’s mind still burned a little. Noelle’s idea of teaching involved mental exercise more than a lecture, which was cool, but at the same time, Taz still struggled to entirely grasp telekinesis as a concept.

‘That’s why we’re here.’

‘Hey Mel.’ Taz thought, closing her eyes as she listened to gentle, distant musical notes, like there was a piano two floors up next to an open window.

‘I can always help, you know. Remember what those two psientist guys said? I’m like an extension of your power!’

‘You are, and I know. I just wanna try to do it right without relying on you all the time.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re stubborn, confrontational, and like to embarrass me.’

No words came, but there was a general feeling of begrudging acknowledgement.

‘Where were you earlier?’

‘In your head.’

‘After the ceremony? You’d disappeared; I couldn’t feel you at all.’

‘The dean did his thing….’ The piano playing stopped, and Taz’s heart quickened, waking her up as she felt the undercurrent of fear from her tulpa. ‘I couldn’t see or hear anything, I didn’t know what was happening, I tried to talk to you… did… did you hear me?’’

‘No…’

‘I thought I was dead or something. I was scared you’d died. It took me a while to reform myself.’

‘You showed up at just the right time, didn’t you?’ Taz smiled to herself. ‘Noelle almost flipped.’

‘I was watching for a little while. I just… needed to be somewhere comfortable for a little while. And I wanted to make sure you made the right choice!’

‘In what? Spending the night with Noelle?’

‘Oh my GOD, yes! If you don’t kiss her, I will.’

Taz sank under her sheets with a blush. Her mind brushed across Noelle’s dreaming subconscious, bringing to mind the smell of freshly baked bread from a pâtisserie with the bitter tinge of a heavy, dark coffee roast. She heard voices speaking in a different language, more than likely uncontexted French nonsense strung together into little snippets by a subconscious mind.

‘... Mel, are we gay?’

‘I dunno, what does being gay mean?’

‘Like, wanting to kiss girls?’

‘We’re hella gay.’

Taz’s face burned brighter as she curled up under the bed, a void of uncertainty opening up in her belly. She could ignore it for now, try and understand it later. In the meantime, she didn’t have to think about it.

Melodica’s headspace piano started up again, distant, soft, slow, cheery, making Taz’s eyes heavy. The mermaid wanted her beauty sleep too, and she knew just how to lull Taz to ease her mind and slow her heart.

Her fingers settled on ivory keys, running up from a thunderous C to a chirping B. Her fingers moved without her needing to think, Debussy’s Claire de Lune drifting across a white void, where nobody could see or hear her play. Melodica smiled to herself, her short arms swinging across the keys.

New hands joined hers. She smiled at Taz, sitting by her side on the bench, their hands coming together, separating the notes between themselves, the both of them swaying their bodies and swinging their arms as they played a song so beautiful and familiar.

“We should find a piano and record ourselves playing for mom.” Melodica said thoughtfully, not interrupting her playing for even an instant.

“She’d really like that.” Taz agreed. “Show her we’re doing okay.”

“Yeah.”

As she played, she saw a figure off in the distance. Feminine, red-headed, a bit indistinct, but watching in silence amidst the empty, white void. She didn’t move, but Taz knew she was listening intently.

Melodica played to her, as did the Taz by her side. They knew this song so very well, and as much of a pain as it was to learn, it was one they both loved; from the soft and slow beginning, to the more energetic and flamboyant middle.

The notes flew into the void, where Melodica looked out at that lone, familiar figure.

Then, another one appeared. Strawberry-blonde, heart-racingly beautiful, sitting in a white chair that hadn’t been there before. The figure seemed confused at first, looking around at the vast nothingness, but as Melodica played, she stilled in her confusion and simply watched and listened.

A few other people popped into existence.

Some stood, some sat, all kind of indistinct other than a generally feminine shape. The void filled with a quiet apprehension that relaxed as they listened in. They looked around at one another, then at Melodica and Taz, some looking like they wanted to say something.

Do something.

But they didn’t. They listened as the girls played, until the void began to fade away, turning grey, than darker, then black, the people slowly consumed by shadows.

Then the piano started to fade, the notes becoming distant and almost discordant, and Melodica watched Taz stretch, yawn, and then disappear, leaving her alone in this black emptiness.

She threw her arms out in an unconscious showing of exhaustion, alone in this comfortable darkness, the peace of the piano playing fading in her mind as she let herself fall asleep.