"What button do I press?"

"The little movie camera, Mellie."

"I did...I pressed it, now the screen is black. Did I mess something up?"

"No, you just...your finger's over the lens. Take it off."

"Oh."

The darkness subsided, replaced by the face of a teenage girl. Lips pursed, amber eyes squinting, honey-tinged hair falling softly to her shoulders. A low groan of frustration escaped her throat.

"Claire it's looking at me now, what did I-"

"You must have pressed another button or something when you moved your finger," another girlish voice interrupted from out of sight. "Melody, this isn't hard!"

"I-It is to me," the honey-haired girl, Melody, answered with strained voice and small frown. "I don't use my phone to do all this...stuff, I just make calls with it!"

"Are you, like, a hundred or something, Mellie?" Claire questioned with exasperation. " 'cause that's what it sounds like. Everyone knows how to do this stuff. Little kids do this stuff."

"N-no, I just...I just never had a reason to poke around in the thing," Melody answered, her eyes lifting upward to look beyond the object of her frustrations.

"I should have called Jenna over here to do this...seriously, Mellie, we're gonna run late 'cause of you, and the game's gonna start and he won't be able to play and..."

"Ignore her, Melody," a new voice called amidst Claire's increasingly distraught words. Audible, but at a noticeably lower octave than that of the two girls, yet still deeper, masculine. Cheery, and with a hint of laughter. "Everything will be fine, just take your time. You'll get it soon, I know you will."

Melody's eyes looked down once again, her still-pursed lips curling upward even as the muscles of her cheeks tensed in an attempt to keep her smile to herself.

"Th-th-thanks, Corey," she said softly, almost too soft to be heard. The tanned skin which covered her straining cheeks began to redden with an all-too evident blush.

"Besides," Corey continued from somewhere nearby, "we're running late because a certain someone just had to change into her uniform even though her game isn't 'til tomorrow."

"It's our last soccer weekend. We needed to match for this..."

A boisterous laughter sounded off in response to the timidly delivered defense, a laughter which seemed to ease the tension in Melody's cheeks, allowing her smile to come through with just the barest hint of white enamel visible between her lips.

"Well it's still 'cause of you," Corey continued through fading chuckles. "So don't try to pin it on Melody when she's being nice enough to help us out."

At that, those already red cheeks practically began to glow.

"Well, I mean, she really should experiment with her phone more," Claire eventually replied after a moment of silence, shame evident in her voice as she addressed Corey. "You really should," she continued, seemingly changing her focus toward Melody, "they have a lot of neat things to experiment with. And you could learn to take some really cute pictures with you and Ashley."

"I'll try," Melody responded softly, lips pursing again. "So um, how do I get it to look at you again?"

"There's a button that looks like a camera with an arrow wrapping around it. Press that."

"Um," Melody sounded meekly, yet within a couple of seconds her nervous, reddened face disappeared from view. What replaced it was another teenage girl, adorned in a black soccer uniform and sitting idly on beige carpet with knees arched. Her left hand hovered within inches off the side of her head, thumb and forefinger seemingly pinched together. "There, I got it. We can do this now. I think."

The girl, Claire, smiled, and that hovering hand parted from its location near her head. Slowly, her arm stretched forward, the girl putting forth a clear effort to keep a measured and steady pace. Soon enough, the two pinched fingers had found a new spot to hover next to - though "above" was more like it. Slowly, carefully, the fingers lowered, until their tips were pressing into the flesh of the apparent soccer player's knee. Just as methodically they began to part, but only by the slightest amount, and then they lifted away, leaving something behind which most would easily miss without a closer look.

A small, black dot.

"Okay, get closer and use the bar on the left to zoom in on him. Make sure I'm in the frame before you do though, 'cause the picture won't come out right if you don't confirm that first."

So closer Melody got, until the top of her friend's knee rested in the foreground, and her distant, smiling face could be seen beyond it. That black dot had become something just a little more, some slight peachy tones mixing with the blacks. It became more yet again, each movement forward expanding it, giving it greater detail. It didn't take long for that dot to become a person, a young man, standing alone on bronze plain. Hands on his hips, and clearly amused as his blue eyes looked forward.

"Okay, I'm in as close as I can get, I think," Melody announced.

"Is it close enough? How's he look in it?"

"He looks...he looks g-good," Melody stuttered out, her voice pitching just a bit higher and eliciting a snicker from Claire and a curious, raised eyebrow from the small man on her knee.

"Can you get me a stand-alone picture of him real quick for me? The little segmented circle at the bottom."

"Okay....smile?" The eyebrow lowered, and a wide smile split Corey's face. "Got it."

"Thanks. Now, uh, see that triangle at the top?"

"Yeah?"

"Press that when he's ready again, then just zoom out back to where you were. The phone'll handle the focusing and stuff on its own. Then just hit the triangle again and it'll complete the new picture."

"Alright. Ready, Corey?"

"Go for it," Corey replied, that slightly faded smile easily returning to its full lustre.

"Starting....now."

The enlarged form of Corey Lindon began to dwindle, dropping further and further downward into the tanned landscape he stood on as more and more of his true stature began to reassert itself. He was that little black dot again soon enough, and towering behind him once more was the face of Claire Lindon, a beaming smile that was an easy match for her brother's on full display as her brown eyes cast themselves oh-so slightly downward and toward her occupied knee.

"And...done," Melody announced

"Cool," came a synchronous reply from the two siblings, eliciting a small giggle from Melody.

"Alright, you should probably go ahead and take him to the game," Claire stated, her downcast eyes shifting upward. "I need to changed again and get my uniform packed away for the trip, make sure I'm not forgetting anything."

"You two nervous at all?" Corey inquired.

"A little," Melody replied with some trepidation, "they have the Rollins twins. They're the ones with the Olympic team parents. They're really good...especially Jessica. She's scored in every game..."

"Until now," Corey added confidently. "She hasn't had to deal with a keeper as good as you are, I'm sure of it. I bet you can shut her out, no problem."

"Exactly," Claire added with matching confidence. "No need to be nervous. We'll crush'em. Just like Corey's about to do to Central's team."

The two siblings shared a snicker, joined in part by a pleased bleat from Melody.

"Though I think I need to be there for that to happen," Corey appended seriously, and Claire's distant, playful visage went stoic.

"Uh, yeah, you two should probably get going. I'll be right behind."

Two fingers appeared then, a thumb and forefinger, both moving toward the diminutive man. Both bigger, thicker, stronger than the two that had initially deposited him. They tilted, dropped down onto him from above, and pinched together with perfect, practiced precision and carefulness before lifting upward once again before being pulled back out of view.

"Good luck, big brother," Claire called out with a gentle smile.

"Thanks," Corey responded from somewhere within his fleshy vice, "but we both know I don't need it."

The two girls laughed in a certain shared elation at that confidence, even as Claire's eyes fell upon the glass eye currently watching her.

"Did you remember to stop recording?"

"Oh. Um..."

"He did need the luck, for the record," Claire monotonously informed Stephanie as the video came to an end, the Alpha's eyes staring unblinkingly forward from her position sitting cross-legged upon the varnished wooden desk. "Up 1-0 with 5 minutes left in regulation, and he rolls his ankle on a routine save. Backup comes in, allows two goals, and everything my brother and his team worked for over that season gets shot to shit due to dumb luck. It sucked."

An almost imperceptible wince struck Stephanie, briefly shaking her steady glare. She almost didn't register it as her thumb glided gently over the leather back of the small doll splayed within her cupped hand. They sat in silence, Claire apparently done for the moment, and Stephanie simply continued her dead stare at a monitor that would have been perfectly at home within a movie theater. Her only real desire, in that moment, being that the silence would continue even as her mind replayed that stupid little video.

"You said were were going to a library," she muttered in scratchy frustration, her own desires once more failing to halt the uncomfortable feelings bubbling within her. She had said they were going to a library. This place wasn't a library, there weren't any books or anything. It was just a study with spartan accommodations, and shelves meant more for decoration than for any real usage. The only things the furniture here held were this computer and those...those photos she had briefly spied before deciding that her gaze was best focused straight ahead. And it had been, until the looming tower behind her had opted to just randomly play some silly home movie.

"I said we were going to take a look at a library. My library. And that's what we're doing," Claire responded politely, and Stephanie dully noted the media player being closed, bringing the directory back into view. "See?" Claire asked with some amusement, stretching a hand above Stephanie's head with index finger protruding, touching gingerly upon the screen. In particular, under particular selection words.

Claire's Library

That's what it said, and Stephanie simply looked at the words in silence for a moment, crinkling her nose. Eventually she raised her head up, and found herself looking up and into Claire's eyes again; as well as looking at a crooked, widening grin.

"Library," the Omega stated with that same humored tone, grin now at full goofy.

"That's awful," Stephanie replied tonelessly, a response that was apparently of great amusement to her warden as the larger woman chuckled with some delight before removing her hand. Stephanie's head lowered, turning her attention back to her little doll.

She was still replaying that video in her head, she couldn't help it. It was just such a ludicrous thing, and she chose to attribute her inability to look away to that same ridiculousness. The way those two girls, mountains to that little thing, had treated that Beta. That kindness, that elation, that sense of equality and of...of it mattering. The way that Melody girl had been blushing and falling all over her words just because of some empty noises it had made, as if simply being spoken to by it had made her day. They way they had treated - and the way Claire apparently continued to treat - that little game between specks as some important, unmissable event. It was ludicrous. It was.

And rubbing her thumb gently into her doll's back, it wasn't even what had bothered her the most. Seeing Claire pick up the doll had been one thing, as had hearing her talk about picking up an actual Beta. Watching her and her friend handle something that pathetically small, knowing that it was an actual living creature between those massive pads, with only the most infinitesimal amount of pressure being needed to reduce it to a tiny red dot ...

That had been something else entirely.

Sucking on her bottom lip, Stephanie halted the gentle massage she had been passively providing. That hadn't...it hadn't been right. They way Claire and Melody handled that little thing, how casual they had been in doing so. As if it was just the easiest, most natural thing in the world, for two people that fucking big to be able to hold something that fucking small without the slightest pretense of harm. And the way that little Beta had acted through that whole thing, through being squeezed between fingertips it could practically live on...

It wasn't right.

That Beta had looked so...so confident, standing there on a knee that could hold a housing block. So comfortable as its life was decided between by the most miniscule of actions. Like it didn't realize at all just how much danger it was in from those same actions. The way it had spoken so nonchalantly while enveloped in the swirls of their fingers, the way it hadn't made even the slightest signal of fear or mistrust when Melody's fingers had pressed all around its body, mashing it between them. It wasn't scared at all of being hurt or....or worse. It just wasn't.

The hand she held her little doll in began to rise, until she held it just a few inches under her chin. She started blankly down upon it, lips now parted slightly as her mind went to work. Her fingers soon joined it in activity, curling gently inward upon her little partner until she had it safe and secure in her fist. It came to her, why that little thing had been so confident, so unafraid. Why it could be pinched between those digits and carry on as if nothing was going on, and if it was perfectly safe

It was because he was. In the hands of those two girls, he was. He was completely, perfectly safe. He wasn't afraid because there was no reason to be. He was confident and comfortable because there was every reason to be. And Stephanie could tell that. She could tell that he would always be right to feel that way, in their hands at the very least. She could tell that they would never, ever hurt him. That they would never allow themselves to do so. She could see it in their eyes, that always lingered just a bit on him, no matter where else they happened to be looking. She could see that there was never a time they weren't consciously aware of his presence. As four words began to bubble up inside her, Stephanie didn't even notice herself sniffle, so engrossed was she in processing that simple, blunt truth.

It wasn't right. It wasn't right. It wasn't right.

Those words kept cycling through her mind, even as four others continued on their journey to join them, to append themselves upon that one little phrase she kept repeating internally. It wasn't right, none of it. That trust, that confidence, that sheer certainty. It wasn't right that beings so ridiculously massive, so stupidly powerful, could be a part of any of that. They they could provide that to something so utterly, remarkably fragile. Beyond fragile.

Stephanie blinked, slowly and tiredly. Then those eyelids came back up, and they were not alone. A wet film coated her eyes, blurred her vision. She paid it no mind. Another sniffle, and it was treated the same as the first. Those three words cycled through again, but much like her eyelids, this time they dredged something up with them.

It wasn't right. And it wasn't fair.

"I've recorded a lot of videos like that one over the years," Claire stated with a tone that couldn't be described as anything less than serene. It was with a jolt that Stephanie received the press of a warm object into her back, causing her hunched posture to straighten in an instant as it gently stroked her; up and down, up and down. "Do you know why?"

Taking one deep breath then two smaller ones, Stephanie's lips pressed firmly together and her eyes narrowed. In a quick, violent motion, her free hand grasped the fabric of her shirt and pulled it upwards and aggressively scraped around her eyes to rid them of that lingering wetness.

"I don't fucking know," Stephanie responded, forcing a growl to hide her quavering tenor and hoping that detail went unnoticed as she let her shirt fall back into place and brought her occupied hand to her chest. "Because you like playing pretend?"

"And what do you think I'm pretending about, exactly?"

"That he matters," Stephanie forced out coldly, unfurling her fingers slightly to look at her doll once again. He couldn't matter.

"Hm," Claire sounded from above, and Stephanie easily picked up on the pleased nature of that little sound even as the stroking of her back came to a halt and that warm object departed. Cautiously, she craned her neck upward, looking beyond the folded arms below her chest and meeting Claire's eyes. A gentle smile was on her lips.

"What?" she questioned with a snarl.

"Nothing," her keeper replied, though that smile remained. "I want you to take a look at something else real quick."

Stephanie watched those arms unfold, and slowly followed as one stretched above her and over the desk. She grimaced as she saw its destination: One of those stupid photographs, digital by the looks of it, that sat slightly to the left of the expansive keyboard. That guy was there again, the same one that had been in the little video. The same one that had been in that photo displayed on the fridge, and thinking back to that, Stephanie realized where that one had come from. As with that one, he was again sitting on a bronzed surface, and again he had that cheery smile on his face. But this time he was not alone. Next to him sat another person, an older man, though not too old by current standards. The resemblance, though, was almost uncanny. Indeed, age the man down a bit, and they would probably pass for mirror images. The only real difference in their smiling visages then would be their eyes - bright blue compared to dark brown.

Stephanie gulped as she realized who the new man likely was. Her fingers once more curled gingerly around her tiny charge, even as Claire lightly tapped the surface of the picture. In an instant, those two figures began to dwindle as the perspective shifted away, and Stephanie almost lost them momentarily as the photo shifted to its new state. Almost, but not quite. She could still see them, just a little - two little dots between what to them were the hill-sized knuckles of a smiling Claire.

Claire was not alone, either. Standing next to her was another Omega, seemingly equal in height. Dark hair, too, though with her hair cut off just below her jawline. Smiling as well, and with cool blue eyes.

"Who do you think this is?" Claire asked, hovering her finger over the new Omega's face for just a moment before removing it. Stephanie grunted, but continued to take in her features. She was young, definitely, possibly only a few years older than Claire herself. There was definitely some resemblance, though.

"How should I know?," Stephanie snapped with some irritation. "Your cousin or something?" Did Omega's have cousins? Another chuckle from above, and Stephanie faced the Omega once more. Her face was...different. That smile was still there, but now there was something off about it. Combined with Claire's newly narrowed eyes, the Alpha almost wanted to call it bitter.

"A cousin, huh?" Claire responded, and Stephanie had no issues ascribing that particular label now, especially when it was followed by a small, matching laugh. "A cousin? No. That's my mother, Stephanie."

"Bull," Stephanie uttered, turning to face the woman in the picture. She was...no, she was far too young, and Stephanie stood by her initial age assessment. Lives had gotten longer and aging had become far more graceful, but not that graceful. The woman looked like she should be finishing up a Bachelor's degree, not...whatever the hell it was she did as an Omega. She certainly shouldn't be having a twenty year old daughter.

"She'll be turning 90 within the next few years," Claire said, and for her part Stephanie could only continue to stare at a picture that did nothing but call the Omega a liar. "Ninety years old, and she'll still look barely older than I am. And the thing is, shes always looked like that. She hasn't changed at all in the years since I was born, or from photos she took with Dad a few years before that. Or hell, even from the few photos she has from before that. The only thing that ever changes is her hair. Sometimes it's longer, sometimes it's shorter. And she'll just keep on looking like that, 'cause...well, that's just how it is for us."

"So I have another question for you, Stephanie," Claire breathed, suddenly speaking directly into her ear and causing the smaller girl to jump at the sudden close proximity even as she pulled her doll in close once more. Her eyes left the photo and drifted to the side, where Claire's lips hovered just a few feet away. "How long do you think we live?"

"I...I don't know," she responded sourly to an exasperated snicker, still catching her breath that sudden startling closeness.

"A better answer than you might think, actually," the Omega informed her, and Stephanie watched in mild relief as the Omega pulled away to resume her position of looming behind her. "No one really knows when they'll die, of course. But that has a...different meaning for us. Because we've done tests on ourselves, you see. As a species, we've had our biology studied by the brightest minds in the world. By a person who sees far more than anyone else is capable of. Trying to work out our lifespan. Trying to work out when people who seem to just stop aging actually die. And we found that answer. A long time ago, actually."

"Do you want to know the answer we found, Stephanie?" asked a voice that now chilled her to the bone with such an absolute coldness that seemed surreal coming from a woman who had, up until now, been drowning her in a tender, disgusting warmth. A coldness that Stephanie responded to by pulling her little companion into a warm embrace against her chest, covering that one gripping hand with the other. "Do you want to know when we die?"

She didn't. Every word Claire spoke now seemed layered with more and more ice, that coldness reinforced by a sense of foreboding that seemed to be intensifying by the second. A sense that something was wrong and unnatural, even beyond the gross kindness the larger woman directed at such a little nothing. Beyond the impossible safety she could provide to him. Slowly, she began to shake her head, but almost immediately she knew it was for naught. No sooner had she begun the labored motion than those icy words began to wash over her once more.

"The answer, Stephanie, is that we don't."