Jon felt a little bad for snapping at Maggie. It was a little exasperating trying to get it through to her that she wanted to return to her own life, but there was no mistaking that the little harpy's intentions were good. "I...sure," she said, putting on a smile for her "sister." "Let's go see the ships."
Maggie beamed at her and started down towards the harbor. Jon felt a little disappointed that they'd have to get back to the inn for the evening shift before she'd have a chance to do any serious investigating into whatever wizard community or whatever there was around here, but there was always tomorrow. Besides, she had enjoyed watching the ships come in as a kid, when they'd trek up to Duluth to visit her aunt. And she was still curious about that steamer.
Still - she did wonder what she was going to tell Maggie when the time came to return to her own world. She wouldn't have to ask twice to get the little harpy to follow her home, if such a thing were possible, but that'd never work - there was no place in the real world for something as fanciful as a sunny little harpy-girl. More's the pity, she thought.
Of course, she could always use the stone for something along those lines - but then, it caused enough trouble with minor wishes...
Jon was so wrapped up in this that before she knew it, they were down at the docks. She and Maggie spent a while just walking past the various ships, the little girl asking countless questions and Jon answering as best as she could - although her knowledge of sailing ships was even more limited than her knowledge of modern ones. She took a good long look over the steamer - while it was built in a much different style than the old Mississippi riverboats she was used to seeing pictures of, there was definitely no mistaking it.
But up close, with a better view than that afforded by the narrow little windows in the bathhouse, she could see that there were a couple armed guards posted on the deck, and a flag prominently displayed on a mast sticking out of the middle, where the smokestack would've gone on a steamboat that didn't rely on magic heat-transferring stones for its engines. She wondered what it was that they were carrying that required an official escort - although the guards in question seemed relatively casual about it, like this was all pretty routine to them.
It took a while, but she finally realized, upon seeing several deckhands hauling large sacks down to a nearby wagon, that it was a mail steamer - a smaller, faster ship with a mechanized engine could make deliveries on a punctual schedule regardless of whether the winds were favorable, and the guards were there to prevent anyone from tampering with the mail. That was interesting, Jon thought, because the existence of a regular mail service implied that this island was, if not the property of, at least affiliated with some larger government. She'd been too busy the last few days to pay a lot of mind to the question of how this place was organized politically, and the centaurs hadn't mentioned anything about it, so perhaps the island was mostly left to mind its own business, but it was interesting all the same.
"Expecting something?" asked a voice. Jon started, and turned around to find herself staring at a massive snake with a woman on the end of it. The human half of the naga-woman was quite beautiful, dusky-skinned with thick, full black hair and an elegantly sculpted face; Jon wasn't as much of a judge of aesthetics when it came to snake bodies, however. The woman was coiled up atop herself, apparently waiting for something from the ship.
"U-uh, n-no," Jon said, a bit rattled. "Not really. We were just having a look around down here."
The snake-woman nodded. Part of Jon, the part that was an overgrown songbird, felt a little nervous around this creature, but she showed no signs of aggression. "Say, I recognize you," the stranger said. "You were at the baths earlier today, weren't you?"
"Yep!" interjected Maggie, grinning. "It was our first time!"
Jon was about to object and argue that it wasn't the first time she'd been in a public pool, but she supposed it was the first time she'd bathed naked with a bunch of other women. But that...that was neither here nor there.
The woman smiled. "Well, you should come over and chat next time. It's half the reason to go to the baths." She gave a sly snaky grin. "And you should come over to my stall sometime when you're feeling hungry."
"You do cookin'?" Maggie inquired eagerly. The naga smiled warmly at her. "I do. I make the only proper curry on this entire island." She glanced up at the ship. "Or at least I will, if they ever get my spices off that boat."
Jon felt relieved - she was half afraid when the snake-lady had mentioned running a food stall that this was going to wind up with Maggie feeding her...stewed rats, or something. Curry she could deal with. Well, as long as the spicing didn't get too crazy. She laughed. "Well, let's make a deal," she said. "You come hear us play at the Rooster one of these evenings, and we'll come by your stall for lunch one of these afternoons."
The naga laughed. "Fair enough."
Diana shuffled idly around the little village square, kicking at loose stones here and there and generally not doing much of anything. It had turned out that the Lady Fairweather wasn't in harbor - in fact, the harbormaster had said that they hadn't seen that ship for some months. He seemed curious about what they wanted with it, which she guessed was because Melia was, apparently, a professional thief, but he didn't give any indication that they were unwelcome here because of it.
Sarah and Tom had gone off to see about getting lodgings for a day or two; she'd remained out here, mostly just out of lack of anything better to do. It seemed like nobody much was out and about right now; she supposed it was around lunchtime, so maybe they were all at home eating? She didn't know. Anyway, it wasn't like she knew anybody here or anything. Well, aside from that boy with the rabbit ears and tail, and she'd only just met him.
She sat down on the warm, sunny cobblestones, her tail curling around her folded legs. It felt nice on her bare legs; to Tom and Sarah's surprise, she hadn't really felt like she needed shoes or socks, and with her jumper only hanging down to her knees, most of her lower body was in direct contact with the pavement. She smiled, savoring the warmth.
Diana found herself wondering what would happen to her now. She was, for the moment, safe from the threat of getting shipped off to that boarding school place her "parents" had been talking about, and as soon as Melia arrived she'd be able to get far enough away that they'd never catch her. But she still had no idea what to do about finding a way to return to her own world or her old life, if that was even possible. She didn't even know where to start looking or who to ask. She couldn't imagine asking Tom or Sarah - how freaked out would they be if they knew that the little catgirl traveling with them used to be a human man? And why would they even know anything about being transported to other worlds?
Actually, now that she thought of it, it was a little odd how many things about this world Tom wound up having to explain to Sarah. But then, she'd already gathered from overhearing their conversations that he'd found the clockwork girl in some abandoned laboratory belonging to a dead inventor. Maybe her creator had just never lived to give her all the knowledge that she'd need to live in this world. At least he'd finished her in other respects, because it wasn't like she was missing brain function or anything like that, she just apparently didn't know a bunch of stuff that Tom did.
That would be so weird, Diana thought, stretching out on the sun-soaked ground. She wondered what it was like to be Sarah, to always have that clicking and whirring noise going on in your head, to have to wait for people to wind you up every so often - was Sarah "awake" during that, she wondered? - to be a machine instead of a living creature...well, she supposed that depended on how you defined "living," but still...
Something white and fluffy bobbed into the top of Diana's field of view as she laid stretched out on her back. She craned her head back to see an upside-down view of the nearby buildings, and in front of them, an upside-down bunny-boy peering at her curiously. The young catgirl suddenly realized how absurd she must look splayed out like this, and hastily snapped bolt upright, doing her best to try and avoid acknowledging that it'd ever happened. She stared warily at the boy.
"H-hi," he said timidly. "My...my name's...Peter." Between hiding in the bushes and now his attitude here, he seemed kind of reserved for a young boy. She wondered if that had anything to do with being part rabbit. "U-um, hi," she said. "I'm...Diana."
There was a brief pause. "S-so, um, what're you here for?" he asked at last. "I heard my dad tellin' you 'bout that ship that wolf-lady owns." He frowned slightly. "Every time she comes here, Miss Rachel up at the mill winds up goin' all wolf-ey for a week or two."
Diana giggled. "Does that kinda thing happen to everybody?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Not everybody, and not every time neither, but a lotta times it does. Dad says it's 'cause the people that useta live here wouldn't let any different folk around, so their bodies stopped knowin' how ta fight off those influences. Like how when a ship comes in from a strange port, somebody can wind up catchin' some new kinda cold from 'em or somethin'."
Diana wasn't sure what to make of that. On a certain level it seemed like a sensible explanation, just like how things worked in the real world; on the other hand, real germs didn't turn you into other stuff, they just made you sick. But then, this was a world with magic and stuff - she herself had already been transported to another world and into another body, so it wasn't like she could say that kind of thing was impossible. She wondered how many different kinds of transform-ey diseases these people could catch.
"C-can I ask you somethin'?" the boy said, interrupting her thoughts. She nodded. "Uh-huh...?"
He started to say something, stopped, thought about it, then turned bright red. Looking around to make sure nobody would overhear, he stammered out, "U-um, it...wh-what's it like...bein' a girl?"
Diana blushed at that herself. She stared at him, not knowing how to respond.
"I-i-it's j-just," he stammered, "it's just that..." His ears drooped. "It's jussat Kevin - he's the innkeeper's son - Kevin says...since I got rabbit-pox...he says only girls get it, so since I got it it means I'm gonna...gonna turn inta a girl."
She frowned. "But there's boy rabbits too."
He nodded. "Yeah, so I thought maybe he was makin' it up. But I only ever seen girls get it, so I dunno if he's right...I just...dunno, 's all..."
Diana felt sorry for him. At least she already knew what she had to deal with. This boy wasn't even sure whether he'd really be facing that or not. She wondered how she should answer him. She, of course, intended to return to her old life, but he wouldn't have that option because this was the only life he had. She tried to think about what to tell him, without letting her own goals color the answer.
"It's...'sokay," she said, at last. "Some stuff about it's annoyin', but it's okay, I guess. I thought it was bad when I lived with...with the people who adopted me, 'cause they were tryin' to make me be all 'ladylike' an' stuff. But Sarah an' Tom aren't like that. They just let me be me, an' that's a lot better. So it's okay."
Peter gave a shy smile, and Diana felt happy. That must've been the right thing to say.
"I...I guess it's not so bad, then," he said. "But I still hope he was makin' it up."
Diana giggled. "I bet he was."
Sarah let out a heavy sigh as she shut the door behind her, not so much because of any physical exhaustion (she'd had to be wound several times today, but she didn't really feel any cumulative drain from the exertion of walking all this way) as from a general sense of relief that the hard part of the day was over and she could, for the moment, relax. If the ship Diana said would be here hadn't put in yet, they had at least until tomorrow before they had to worry about whether they were really going to do this.
And for the moment, Diana was off playing, and Tom was checking on something or other, and she had the room to herself. The last few days had been so busy that she hadn't even really stopped to think about how long it'd been since she'd really had any time to herself, and now that she was thinking about it she wasn't even really sure what to do with it. She had no phone, no Internet, no TV, not even a book on hand. She couldn't even take a long hot bath, since hot water wasn't readily available, whatever this inn had in the way of "facilities" didn't include a tub in the rooms, and anyway she wasn't sure if that would cause any problems with her inner workings or not.
The thought of taking a bath, though, reminded her of something she'd wondered about, back in Millicent's den the other night. She still didn't know what she looked like under her clothes. In fact, she hadn't even been out of this outfit since arriving in this world and this body - which was a less pressing concern since she didn't sweat, but it was still probably about time for a change of clothes. She'd picked up a couple other outfits at the tailor's in the animal-people's village, after getting some playclothes for Diana. Pulling one of them out from among their things, she slipped behind the folding partition that had been placed in the room for this purpose.
Sarah hadn't really taken stock of her outfit since her initial discovery in the abandoned lab where she'd awakened. It wasn't exactly frilly petticoat gothic stuff, but there were a surprising number of layers underneath the simple black dress she was wearing. It took her several minutes to get it all off without making too much of a mess of things. Nervously, she turned her gaze downwards and took stock of herself.
She didn't really know what she'd been hoping to see - the thought of lifelike sex characteristics on a clockwork automaton was just weird, and even moreso when she thought about being something like that. But this was definitely not what she wanted, either. Her torso was a single, hollow sculpted shell, like a mannequin's. The bust that filled out the top of the dress was nothing more than a swell in the outline of her body; there was a vague indentation meant to suggest cleavage, but nothing more, not even nipples. A tentative feel of her privates revealed much the same - there were the vague contours of a woman's pelvic area, but nothing even approximating what should've been there.
Jesus, she thought. I really am a doll.
She spent a good while staring down at her body and trying to figure out what to make of that. In high school, as a human, much of how everybody around her had related to her had to do with her sex appeal - and she had for a long time been happy not just to own that, but to encourage and exploit it (carefully and frugally, mind you) to her own advantage. That wasn't to sell her skills as a social player short, but, well, facts were facts, and teenage boys were teenage boys. And even if she'd grown tired of all the pressure lately, it was still a fairly large part of her own personal identity - she was (or she had been) a very attractive young woman.
And now? Now she was a...a Barbie doll. Similar enough to invite people to view her as a woman, but incapable of offering what a real woman could. Incapable of moving past being a thing of beauty to being an object of desire. Incapable of consummating a relationship, no matter how serious it got. Incapable of ever having children, certainly. Limited even in her ability to give someone physical pleasure, and probably unable to receive any herself. Just...just a thing shaped like a woman, nothing more.
Numbly, she slipped into one of the other outfits, a white blouse and blue skirt that she thought looked kind of amusingly like a school uniform or something. She'd gotten a couple heavier outfits for the potential sea voyage, although she didn't really feel cold at all, but as long as they had a day or two before that would be a factor, she might as well wear something a little lighter. The skirt hung loose, gently brushing the artificial skin on her legs, until she slipped on a pair of knee-length stockings that covered up to just inside the hem.
Well, that settled it, at any rate. She had to find a way to return to her old life in her own world. Sarah had, for the last couple days, almost thought she could've lived with this - lived with the slightly awkward, mechanical style of her movements, lived with the hassle of having to be wound regularly, lived with the giant metal key sticking out of her back, lived with the overall strangeness of her appearance. Maybe it wouldn't have been ideal, but she thought she could've lived with it. But this - to spend the rest of her life, maybe the rest of eternity, as a sexless animate inanimate object, to never really know a lover's touch, to never be able to have children of her own...
No, she thought, slipping her shoes back on. No, she couldn't do that. Not now, not ever, never. She had to find a way back. I mean, what am I even supposed to do with myself, like this? Even if she wasn't effectively immortal...
As she stood there thinking about it, Sarah began to sway, like she used to do as a little girl when she got upset. Something about it had always calmed her. It still calmed her, even if her angsting didn't express itself in jangled nerves and knots in the stomach anymore, but she also found herself beginning to get more and more caught up in it. Her inner workings had their own particular rhythm and pattern, and her swaying grew more in sync with it, and her motions timed themselves so naturally to it, that almost before she realized it she found that she was dancing, as if to some unheard music.
Gears ticked and escapements slipped like the percussion section of some unseen swing jazz band. Sway, sway, step, sidestep, spin, sway, step back, repeat. She didn't really hear music, she didn't even know what the music would be, but she could almost picture the scene in her mind - some dark, smokey lounge somewhere, a stark tiled floor, red velvet curtains. Hah, look at me, she thought. Look at me, a dancing doll. I could spend the rest of my life doing this, it must be what I was made for. Not for being a real woman, obviously. Just this. Just to be looked at, never held. She was vaguely disturbed by that thought - she didn't really think that, did she? No, she didn't, it was just...
She heard the door open. Suddenly the spell was broken, and she was immediately and fully aware that someone had just stumbled in on...on Sarah the goddamn music-box dancer. She yelped in surprise and sprang back, her mainspring whirring wildly, to find the innkeeper's daughter standing in the doorway, looking a little startled and embarrassed herself, as she clutched a set of clean bedclothes. Sarah tried to compose herself, feeling fairly mortified to have been caught like that, and hastily edged her way past the other girl, muttering a request to have her original outfit laundered. She'd been alone with her thoughts for too long; she needed somebody familiar around if she was going to be in a funk.
The innkeeper's daughter watched her go. She hadn't meant to startle the strange clockwork girl, but it had just been kind of mesmerizing to watch her so caught up in her dance like that. In fact, even after their guest had gone, she felt like she could still hear a faint, regular ticking sound lingering behind. Shaking her head, the girl set to work, easily settling back into the rhythm of her tasks.
