Re: dining area
She knew some things. She was smart. She knew that it hurt sometimes, becoming real, and that it didn't happen all at once. She was willing to wait for it. She was patient, and she didn't break easily, and she didn't have sharp edges. Often. She didn't have sharp edges often. And she didn't need to be carefully kept. Oh no no. She didn't have to be carefully kept at all. She could be thrown any old way, and she wouldn't even get dirty or injured. All these things were important for being real, and she was smart, so she knew things. But there were bad things about being real, too. She didn't want her hair to fall off, and she liked her eyes just where they were. She would rather they not drop out. She didn't really want to get shabby either, but she thought these things were most of the time and not all of the time. She thought she could be one of the few that became real and stayed soft and pretty. She liked being pretty and soft.
She was a soft brown color, and her skin was supplesoft like velvet, but it was still skin- she could pinch it, and it hurt, and she could scratch it, and it got marked up. Her hair was a darker brown, and it was kind of fluffy, like poofy feathers just out of the dryer, but she was kind of used to having hair, so she smoothed it down and called it hair, and that made it hair as far as she was concerned. She thought maybe making things real wasn't so very hard if she could do it. Her ears, those were soft too. They were pink inside, and the left one flopped in front of her face. It was damp at the tip, and she wondered if someone had sucked on it, because she didn't remember sucking on it herself. Or if she did remember being very scared and pressing that soft tip between her lips, she wasn't going to admit to it here. Here was big and strange, and maybe they didn't like it when almost-growns sucked on floppy ears.
She wore a dress that was cream at her belly, with brown straps at her shoulders. The brown continued to the hemline at her knee, and her soft brown skin led to feet that were tucked into little brown shoes. She primped, even though she knew she didn't need to. Being real meant that shabbiness didn't matter, but she wasn't real yet, and she didn't think it would hurt to make a good impression. She knew she wasn't supposed to mind how she looked to people, but maybe that was wrong a little bit. She floofed her hair, and then she set off exploring.
The elevator took her down, and it was great fun, but she wasn't going to become real where there was no one to love her. Determined, little nose twitching, she went deeper. When the hallway swayed, she was very afraid, but maybe no one became real without being afraid sometimes. Real lasted for always, and it was worth being scared for. Bravely, she stepped into the dining room, and she noticed the glint of the boy's scissors almost right away. "Hi. Are you real?"