Chapter Text
Sometimes Iris forgot that her best friends were, in fact, not human.
For all the weird alien phrases and terms and idioms, they did a remarkable job assimilating to Earthling culture— with the occasional exception, of course, but everything had exceptions. Talia sounding out every syllable of every Earthling idiom she'd ever read, for one, and Auriana's gung-ho attitude towards things Iris had always taken for granted, for another, and Amaru being neither a dog nor a cat nor a rabbit and yet somehow managing to come off as one or another or the last to everyone they talked to, for a third. But still, as far as Iris knew, no one suspected they were actually parkour-doing, wand-wielding, spell-slinging princesses from an alternate dimension sent to collect stones made of crystallized goodwill with the power to defeat an evil overlord using music and friendship. Which was great! Everything was fine, and nothing was weird.
Until one day, in all seriousness, Talia and Auriana cornered her after rehearsals for an intervention.
"We have some concerns about you and Nathaniel," Talia began, blunt as always.
Iris blinked. "What is there to be concerned about?"
"Given the symptoms you've displayed—" Auriana began.
"Daydreaming, needing constant communication, grinning like a fool at absolutely nothing, planning matching outfits," Talia listed.
"—It is, in my humble observer's opinion," Auriana continued, hands gesturing as she spoke. "Obvious that you have contracted a dangerous Earthling disease known as cooties!" She shouted the last word like a nine-year-old on the playground that'd caught her best friend making goo-goo eyes at an oblivious male classmate.
Talia folded her arms and nodded empathetically. Iris looked from one friend to the other, scanning for any sign of jest. Seeing none, Iris sighed.
"Cooties isn't a real thing, Auriana," she said. "It's just something that kids made up because they think the opposite sex is gross. Little kids. Like, eight years old little. We're not eight, we're sixteen."
Auriana narrowed her eyes. "How do we know that's not the cooties talking?" she challenged. "Maybe it's like a parasite that infects your brain. I read about it in National Geographic."
"You read about cooties in—" Iris cut herself off, unable to finish that thought.
"I, at least, know cooties is a myth," Talia continued. "Auriana's only saying so because she can't pronounce syphilis. But I am worried it might be signs of another Cupid spell the twins made to mess with us."
Iris rubbed her temples. "I don't have cooties or syphilis, and I'm not under a spell. I can promise you that. Sometimes, when two Earthlings— or anybody I guess— love each other very much, they do things like hold hands and kiss."
"Suspicious," Auriana said.
"It's really not."
Iris pressed her fingers to her temples, counting backwards from ten and taking a long exhale through her nose. It makes sense, they're aliens, she tried to tell herself, as Talia was trying and failing to give Auriana the actual pronunciation of the word syphilis, ignoring the fact that Auriana wasn't really listening.
"I'm not going to get cooties from kissing my boyfriend!" Iris finally blurted. "Jeez! Can we worry about real problems, like putting our album together?"
"The concept of cooties is a very real problem!" Auriana insisted. "And if you don't have cooties and you're not under a spell, then explain it!"
Iris sighed, but tried anyway, knowing there was really no escape from this conversation.
"Well, kissing is like," Iris pursed her lips, trying to explain it. "It's what two people do when they love each other a whole lot, but in a very particular way. I guess the actual process is a little gross if you don't do it right, but really, it's just… something. It's hard to explain."
"You smush your faces together, right?" Auriana asked, mashing the palms of her hands together and scrunching up her face. "Like that? For like, an hour?"
"Not an hour," Iris muttered. She clearly hadn't been setting a good example. "And it's not just smushing faces together, you have to move your lips right so it's not awkward. You'll know when it's awkward, trust me."
Auriana put a finger to her chin thoughtfully. "So… we'll know when we do it? What sort of love do you have to have to kiss someone?"
Talia leafed through a book to try and answer, but she wouldn't be able to find it there.
"Romantic love," Iris sighed. "You know, the kind where your stomach gets all twisty, like it's full of butterflies? Really… really violent butterflies, but it's just a saying anyway, and you get all sort of dreamy. Everything turns pink for awhile. Or is that just me…" Iris frowned thoughtfully. Was everything going pink and sparkly normal? She'd heard hazy or foggy, but never pink. How strange.
"Anyway," Iris shook herself out of her thoughts. "Your heart beats kind of fast around them, and you feel like you can do anything! It's really awesome."
"Like the song!" Auriana burst out.
"Exactly!" Iris sighed in relief. "Exactly like the song!"
"Oh, that's great, isn't it, Talia?" Auriana grinned, looking to Talia— who, oddly, wasn't looking nearly as excited as she normally did when her questions were answered. There was a flush on her dark cheeks, eyes half-hidden behind her bangs and shoulders hunched upwards, a hand over her mouth, as if she were trying to make herself smaller.
Auriana frowned. "Talia?"
"I think that's enough," Talia decided, turning on a heel. "Our questions were answered, that's all we need to do. I'm going to clean up."
At that, Auriana looked almost sad— Iris didn't really know why. Though come to think of it, Talia and Auriana were closer to each other than either of them were to Iris. They'd known each other before finding Iris, after all, and Iris still didn't know much about what their relationship was really like. How had they met? How did they get along before Iris was there to witness it? There were a lot of questions that Iris had, and she wanted them answered.