The two of them sat there for a long time, Laura cradling her son-turned-daughter's head in her lap with one arm and holding her gently but firmly around the shoulders with the other while Jon cried her eyes out. "I know this is difficult for you, honey," Mrs. Madison said. "And I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am about the rock. But sitting in your room and brooding over this all day isn't going to help things." She gave the new sphinx a gentle squeeze. "I know you probably feel like this whole thing isn't fair to you, and it isn't, but it's where you are now, and there's no changing it. You pretty much have two choices here: stay in your room and sulk about it, or start learning how to cope with what's happened to you. You've got friends and family who are more than happy to help you adjust however they can - but you have to let them, Jon. Okay?"
Jon glanced up at her mother and gave her a weak smile. "I...I guess so," she murmured. She really wasn't that convinced; it was plenty easy for her mother to talk about getting used to being a girl and an animal and having to go around on all fours and have no hands for the entire rest of her life... But at the same time, it was certainly true that sitting around brooding ever since yesterday afternoon hadn't actually improved her mood at all beyond a little initial catharsis. It probably wasn't a good idea to try and rely on that forever; she just wished she had even the slightest clue what to replace it with, where to go from here.
Her mother smiled. "There's my girl. We saved you some dinner; I can bring it up if you'd like."
Jon felt her stomach rumble; she hadn't felt in the mood to eat earlier, especially since trying to eat in anything like a human manner was one of the quicker ways to remind herself of her predicament, and she'd mostly managed to ignore hunger as she'd sat around being upset over this. But between the exertion and drain of crying it out in her mother's lap and the sudden mention of food, it came back with a vengeance. "That'd...that'd be great," she said, surprised at the suddenness of the pangs.
Her mom smiled. "Alright. I'll bring it right up." She turned and headed downstairs.
The sphinx-girl looked around the room, actually taking it in for the first time since she'd changed. Her mom had done a thorough job of cleaning up after her initial panic attack, and if she didn't remember it she'd never have guessed that half the furniture had been knocked askew and the floor littered with miscellany from her desk. But it was comforting that she otherwise hadn't tried to do some kind of makeover on the room; as much as her mother obviously felt that she should get used to this, she wasn't trying to force Jon into the trappings of some foofy girly life or anything. Not that there was a lot of possibility for that, anyway; it wasn't like she could wear poofy pink dresses or anything. But still.
She glanced over at the desk; propped against it, at floor level, were the pamphlets that the doctor had sent home with them. Jon hadn't read them, since she hadn't anticipated being this way for more than a few hours. She didn't really want to read them now, either, but she couldn't help but glance over them. Life On Four Legs. Earning Your Wings. Basic Fur Care. A Boy On The Cusp Of Womanhood, the ages-15-to-19 pamphlet for gender-changed transformees. And something called Too Few Fish In The Sea, which appeared to be something for rare transformees about the difficulties of finding a mate of the same species and alternatives for both companionship and reproduction. Somehow that was even more unsettling to look at than the gender-change pamphlet, probably because the specificness of its topics conjured up images that she really wasn't in the mood for, and she couldn't get them out of her head quickly enough to avoid wondering: were there any other sphinxes in the state? The country? From what the doctor said there certainly had been others, but she had no idea whether any of them were permanent or not.
The door opened, and Jon turned to see not her mother, but Karyn. "I dropped by to see how you were doing," the catgirl said, smiling sheepishly, "and your mom sent me up with this." She set down a plate of still-hot ribs and a bowl of milk, and frowned. "You look like hell," she said, concern evident in her voice.
Jon sighed. "I feel like hell. But right now, more than that, I feel hungry." She put one paw on each end of the rack of ribs and began tearing at it; it was a little embarrassing to have to eat this way, but she was too hungry to let that stop her, and besides, if she could trust anyone to watch this without making fun of her for it, she could trust Karyn. The catgirl watched her finish getting the meat off the bones, waited for her to lap up the last of the milk, and then moved in, grabbing at her hair and pulling out a brush.
"Hey! What...?" Jon said, surprised and not sure how to react; this was not something that people typically did to her, in her experience. Karyn chuckled. "C'mon, stop fidgeting. Your hair's a mess, and I don't expect you can manage this yourself yet."
Jon sighed, relaxed, and let Karyn begin to brush the tangles out of her hair, wincing occasionally as one yanked at her scalp. Karyn quizzed her on the things she'd missed yesterday evening and this afternoon; Jon had informed her that the stone was lost that morning, but hadn't covered much more than that due to the shellshock.
"I just don't know, Karyn," Jon sighed. "I mean, I guess what Mom's saying makes sense, at least from her perspective, but I can't just up and magically get used to it, if I even wanted to. Heck, I can't even completely convince myself that this is really all for real yet."
Karyn shrugged. "I dunno," she said calmly, as she methodically worked at her friend's hair. "Maybe you can't just magic yourself into being completely adapted, but you can choose to start accepting it, if you want to. If you really are stuck, that's gotta be better than spending the rest of your life feeling uncomfortable in your own skin."
Jon frowned. "But...seriously, Karyn! Get used to this? To this? And what do you mean 'if I'm stuck'? The stone is gone! How am I supposed to get back to normal without it?"
"I just think it's a better option than not getting used to it, if you really are stuck," Karyn said. "As for the stone...it didn't just vanish into the ether. We don't know where it is, but it still ought to be somewhere. And we already know magic is real; who's to say that there aren't other ways to accomplish stuff with it? Maybe there's a way to get you back to normal, somewhere out there."
Jon blinked, taking in the suggestion. "Huh," she said. "I guess...maybe you're right...?" Maybe there was a way, somewhere out there...if she could only find it!
