She is known as Noelle Meinhardt.
She once was an egg, was a hatchling. She was never human, but she is the result of humans and an inversion of the definition of a human. What is inhumanity but the space left by the removal of a human?
She is not what she was, what she could have been, what she will be. She knows this. She also knows that if the others hadn't wished for her to be as she is it is unlikely she would be. She would not be known as Noelle, and she would not be defined in the same volume as what was once Noelle.
This does not bother her. It simply is.
She is a liquid, filling up a mold, and a negative is just if not more voidful than the positive.
Still, she is not the same Noelle. Even in an infinite probability continuum of Noelles she is a particularly unlikely selection of the set. But she is the only Noelle that can be the Noelle they want, right now. A Noelle by force, by pressurized persistence.
A Noelle defined by peer pressure.
By the time they reach Rockford, she is the size of a medium-sized dog. Were it not for the van they'd taken from the lines of abandoned vehicles outside Madison, they would have had trouble.
She cannot control her growth, and honestly, really, why would she? Age is size is protection.
As it is, they barely all fit and having a dog-sized dragon-thing in the van doesn't make it any easier.
How she grows, they have no idea, considering she doesn't eat anywhere near what should be necessary, and doesn't seem to need to eat at all.
They're right, not that she'd tell them that.
She would also not tell them that the reason for her growth is because of them.
In all the ways that matter, they are her raison d'être, and they feed her so well.
Mars with her mild fretting but silent amusement.
Francis, who keeps looking back and whose slowly shifting perception tastes like a bite of ambrosia every time he glances at her.
Jess, whose envy is actually palpable.
Cody, a ball of anger and need to prove himself drowned in focus on driving, intentionally avoiding thinking about his failed posturing with Francis.
Luke with exhausted but silent acceptance, as steadfast as always.
Oliver, staring at his hands and wishing (wishing, o reader) to be home, a wish whose end she is drawing out like a cat with a mouse's life.
The question of how long it can drawn out is an experiment she looks forward to discovering.
Now if only she could get Marissa's hand to scratch just a little higher...
A/N: It's been a long time.