her until the elevator started to complain about being held open. Danger, Lieutenant Loveworth, danger, jailbait off the starboard bow.
“You coming?” Pixii asked.
The girl seemed lost in her writing.
“Hey!” Pixii stepped forward and tapped her on the wrist. “Inkling? Are you coming?”
Inkling dragged herself out of her writing and blinked at Pixii in surprise. She had stunningly blue eyes that were too old for her face. “What?” She clicked the ballpoint pen nervously.
“Are you getting off?” Pixii jerked her head toward the lobby.
Still clicking her ballpoint, Inkling stepped off the elevator. “I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect it to be this—this surreal.”
Shinigami Rem from Death Note, two shrine maidens, and a samurai brushed past them, pouring off the second elevator car that opened beside them.
“First anime convention?” Pixii asked.
Inkling gave a tiny nod. “First of a lot of things.” She scanned the lobby, looking for someone.
“They headed for the convention center.” Pixii pointed in the direction the other girls had galloped off toward.
She looked back at Pixii. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah.”
Inkling held out a hand. “Come on. You can hang out with us.”
Pixii stared down at the hand. You know you really want to.
The puberty Easter bunny had not been kind to Pixii. She was four foot ten, boy flat, and had the voice of a first grader. Inkling was mistaking her for a kid wandering around all alone. “I might look twelve, but I’m really older than you are.”
Inkling twiddled her fingers at her. “Please? I really want someone to talk to that isn’t obsessing about ponies.”
Pixii laughed with surprise and relief. “So they are cosplaying equines.” She took the offered hand. It was warm and soft and welcoming. After six years of drowning in testosterone, it was a healing touch. “I wasn’t sure, I don’t know the show they’re doing.”
For some reason this triggered a blush. “They’re actually cosplaying this angst-ridden fanfic loosely based on the show. It’s a story about a girl that sees a ghost . . . and . . . well . . . by the end all the characters are dead.”
Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt. Not that she ever talked to people about it. She’d learned early in life that telling people about the weird stuff only she could see was very bad thing to do.
Instead, she said, “I’m doing Magical Girl Dark Pixii, which is a totally original character, so I can’t criticize.”
They caught up with the others and moved as a herd to the steel and glass Baltimore Convention Center. Even in the sea of cosplayers, the girls drew notice, although all but Inkling seemed oblivious to it. They were thoughtlessly free with one another in a way that was innocent and yet provocative. Add in young, athletic, and skimpily dressed and Pixii found herself subtly blocking men with Dork Buster as they moved through the crowds.
By the time they hit the convention center, Pixii had pieced together that the eight girls all lived at different private schools for girls of very rich and powerful families in the Beltway area. They were the ultimate in sheltered innocents. Most of them had never actually met before; their friendship was based on an online message board for fan fiction. The older sister of the skirt flipper had gotten them a hotel room, and then vanished with a boyfriend. The missing sister, however, was the only adult who actually knew that they were in Baltimore, and not where they were supposed to be. Pixii didn’t count herself because she had no clue who the girls really were since they were using a mix of character and screen names. Lyra was a character from the story, but Chibi used ChibiX on the forum.
In the lobby they fended off several requests for photos of all the ponies together.
“You didn’t want to be a pony?” Pixii asked Inkling.
“I didn’t want photographic evidence that I was here plastered all over the Internet.”
They made their way to the dealer’s room as a united front. The massive room was packed to the brim with dealers of everything imaginable related to Japanese culture in general and anime in particular. Testament to the range of items, the first booth had Japanese snacks and in the far corner, there was a towering samurai statue. All the bright treasures on display quickly peeled away girls with squeals of “Look!” and “Oh my God!” and “Oh so cute!” Before they’d reached the end of the first aisle, only Pixii and Inkling remained