Sophie was laying on her bed, earbuds tucked into her fluffy ears, when she saw a certain unicorn teleport into her room. Florence, despite being her great-aunt and despite having just turned a century old, was a teenager that always wanted to hang out with kids her own "age". It's a bit annoying sometimes, but at least she's old enough to buy beer.
Tonight was different, though, and the fox could see it clearly. Florence wasn't her hyper, bubbly self; instead she seemed exhausted. She sat down on Sophie's bed and spoke in a whisper. "Do you believe in Mistress?"
"Not really, no." She sat down next to her aunt. "Why're you asking?"
"I was at a dinner earlier - it was some work thing or something, and there's this rat who wouldn't stop talking about Mistress."
"Like, Mistress Mistress? The big lady in the sky that wants you to pick up trash?"
"She was talking like she knew Mistress. Not in some spiritual way, either, she kept gesturing towards an empty seat and asking where she went!"
"Talk about a load of bull."
"Yeah, but..." Florence opened Sophie's laptop. "I just wanted to show you something. She said that Mistress was this human, right? And her name was Marcia Elizabeth Simmons... You search for that, what do you get?"
"Nothing, because it's the ravings of an insane lady?" Sophie glanced at the screen, looking at the one result - a link to marcysimmons.com. Florence clicked on it, bringing up a nondescript black webpage. Across the top, there was text.
Welcome to the Mistress communication system! I'm sorry that I let the gun break, but it's irreversible as far as I can tell. Please enter your requests below.
Florence thought long and hard about her response, magically typing and backspacing and typing and backspacing until she got it right. She tenderly hit the "enter" key with her front hoof, and got an immediate response. Her long winded praise of Mistress got a short and simple reply: "oh, zoe must have told you right?"
Sophie was more shocked than Florence was. The site must either be an advanced AI that was snooping on their whole conversation, or it was a god. She snatched her laptop back, typing quickly, "if your really a god machine show me." As soon as she pressed Enter, she felt a tingling across her body.
Her room looked just like it did when she was in middle school, covered with posters of K-Pop groups that she hadn't thought about in years. She stood up, finding herself to be a foot shorter, and her hair was dyed hot pink - she really had been sent back to 7th grade. She looked back at her laptop. A new line appeared. "say you're sorry (out loud, i can hear you)." Sophie obliged, only to be met with another message. "say sorry again but in a maid outfit"
Sophie had already made it to her wardrobe when Florence spoke up. She started whisper-shouting into the laptop, "You do not treat my niece that way! Turn her back this instant!" Mistress responded, "have fun at school tomorrow." Florence shrank down to the age of 12, same as Sophie, but because of a unicorn's different lifespan, she was the size of a 2 year old.
Florence hadn't been in a school since the 50s, and never had to go while a toddler. Mommy and Nephie Joey had tutored her till she was ready for college, and... she needed her mommy. Or grammy? Was she her grammy now?
She'd started to cry when she felt Sophie pick her up, laying down alongside her in bed. Hopefully this was all just some dream, and there wasn't this big angry god... She'll wake up tomorrow, and she'll be with Mommy...
---
Sophie woke up with her alarm. It was a big day at school, she was gonna talk to Eric, and then the auditions for the play, and - the events of yesterday flooded into her brain. She dove for her laptop, going back to the site, and typed "change us back"
"have a nice day at school, then come back"
She slammed the computer shut. There's no winning when someone else holds all the cards. She woke up her aunt, and carried her downstairs for breakfast.
---
Can concepts be stressed?
Mistress sure was. The gun broke... she wasn't sure how. Now, she's stuck being the god of cleaning and "order". Loads of fun. It didn't help that the messenger that she made for her loved ones was already discovered by some annoying teens.
None of her friends had even found the site, either, and there wasn't any way to help them along. They had to search for her full name, and how likely was that to happen?
---
Zoe sat on a staircase. Apparently, in this new reality, she was the caretaker of the local shrine to Mistress. Her dumb decision caused reality to restructure itself, and now Mistress was a god. Unreachable.
In the distance, she saw a red fox and a tiny horse, wearing matching uniforms. The horse started calling out, "Hey Sowie!" Why would a toddler know her name? "We found out how to talk to Mitreth!"
The fox handed her a cell phone, telling her to "just speak, she can hear you." Zoe talked and talked, apologizing profusely and asking if Mistress could change things back. After a few minutes, she noticed a new line on the webpage.
"you know i have only one way to punish you right? have a fun day at school"
Zoe shot down from her modest 3'10" to an even 3 foot. She found herself wearing the same uniform as the girls - which she realized was just a simple maid's uniform. She had to go to middle school, in a maid costume, while being shorter than the unicorn toddler. She couldn't think of a worse punishment.