“I am not short!” Joel protested, waving his arms above his head as if trying to make himself look bigger. “I am a perfectly normal height!”
“Yeah, sorry Joel, you’re short. Only Shrub is shorter than you!” Fwhip snorted.
“No! I am taller than more people than Shrub! I’m not that short!” Joel argued, stepping into Fwhip’s face. Just for good measure, he stepped on his toes as well. He opened his mouth to say something else, likely threats, but he was stopped by Jimmy speaking.
“Actually, no, no—height check! Height check! How tall is everyone?” Jimmy interrupted, turning around to look at them all curiously.
“Oh, sure, the tall people want to know how short everybody else is,” Sausage snarked, sticking his tongue out at Jimmy. Shrub let out an offended noise at that, shaking her little fist at Jimmy.
“That’s not what I meant!” Jimmy protested, smacking Sausage on the head jokingly. “I’m genuinely curious!”
Shrub eyed him skeptically, before turning to look at Sausage. They had a silent convo for a minute before Shrub nodded and Sausage followed her lead. “I suppose,” Sausage declared stiffly, lifting his head up.
They shuffled around for a few minutes, trying to get into a correct order. Joel kept trying to get to the front of the line, the little bastard, and had to be threatened with being put in the shortest spot if he didn’t stop.
They finally got into a correct line, glancing at each other curiously to see where they were in line. Lizzie was the tallest, of course—she’s a ten-foot goddess, who else would be there? Jimmy was second at a solid eight feet. Not nearly as tall as his sister, but still a decent height for the damaged egg. Scott slotted into third at six and a half feet, being an elf. He had apparently decided to lord this over everyone else in the line, grinning smugly and completely ignoring the two people who he was not taller than. Pearl was next at six foot five, remarkably tall for a human even if Gilded Helanthians were a tall breed. She refused to share her secrets, grinning teasingly at her friends with all good fun in mind. Katherine was fifth, only an inch shorter than Pearl. That was reasonable, though, seeing as Katherine was a flower fae. Fae always tended to be taller than most others. Gem and Fwhip were tied at six foot, despite Gem’s claims that Fwhip was an inch shorter, being identical twins in all except gender—and their hybrid halves, but once you ignored that, they were identical! …Sort of. Sausage squeaked in at eighth with five foot nine, shorter than his adopted siblings. It wasn’t his fault that they were absurdly tall—he himself was taller than average, he just had the bad luck of being friends with a bunch of people who were absurdly tall. Pix was barely a fraction of an inch shorter than Sausage, and at times appeared taller than him. It’s probably just a prophet thing, though. However that worked. Joey was next at five foot eight, a reasonable height for a human, even if he insisted he was half elemental, which he was not. Joel was second to last with five feet four inches, scowling at them all and daring them to say anything. Shrub, of course, was the shortest, certainly taller than three feet but not quite four feet.
“Didn’t expect Sausage to be that short,” Jimmy commented, laughing when Sausage trained a death glare on him.
“Now you listen here—” Sausage started, cut off by Jimmy speaking again.
“Not that you’re short!” Jimmy protested quickly, waving his hands desperately to stop Sausage. “You’re about average! Just, I’d expected you to be taller.” Sausage settled back, grumbling under his breath. “Besides, Joel’s the shortest, with the exception of Shrub, but she has an excuse.”
Joel burst into angry screeches, shaking his fists at Jimmy. “Oh, you little—I’m going to kill you, I will kill you!” Joel rushed towards Jimmy, tackling his and pulling at his collar with his little hands as if trying to strangle him.
Jimmy fell backward laughing, trying to pull Joel off of him with little success. A few others stepped in to help, and they soon ended in a pile on the ground. With these emperors, nothing was ever normal or mundane, no matter how simple is sounded. Not even height checking. Honestly, they acted like preschoolers sometimes!
…Xornoth would have been in second at six feet, six inches, and six tenths of an inch. He loved to joke about being ever so slightly taller than his twin, and Scott hated it to the fullest extent. His jokes were all in good fin though, always friendly towards his younger twin—even if he was only younger by a few minutes.
