Lisa sighed. She was trying to figure out if she'd seen the landscape in the satellite photo, but she was having trouble staying focused. Maybe it was her brain trying to rationalize the effects of S.A.D., trying to make her emotions into sensible thoughts. Maybe it was the memory of the little thrill she'd gotten doing things on impulse, back before she was a grown-up and had to start acting responsibly. Maybe it was just the thought of all the things she missed doing. But...Jay's suggestion was almost starting to sound like a good idea to her. Just a moment's action, that's all it would take. She'd change, and there would be no second-guessing, no turning back, and then she'd be free.
Of course, she knew things were never that simple - there was no telling what she'd become, and whatever it was, she'd be stuck with it and have to get used to it. If it was something she didn't like, there would be no reversing it, and she'd have nobody to blame but herself. Still...the idea had a certain appeal to it.
"Jay?" she asked. "Do you really think I should go out in the light?"
The fox-girl shrugged, one tail curling around her leg. "You're an adult," she said. "I can't tell you what or what not to do. And even I wouldn't say it's a smart idea. But...as your friend, I'll say this: the smart decision isn't always the best decision, in the long run. Sometimes your gut is better at figuring things out in the long term than your brain. I mean, you know how many times we've followed up on a story out of instinct even though there wasn't really much to go on, fact-wise, and had it turn out for the best."
Lisa nodded thoughtfully. "Don't rush into anything," Jay said. "But...give it some thought, maybe. If you'd like, I could go with you."
The human woman smiled. "Thanks, but no," she said. "If...if I did do this, I'd want to become what I would become, not something influenced by someone else. Even you."
Jay nodded. That made sense, and she wasn't offended by it; they were good friends, but not so close that either would want their life defined by the other. Besides, she didn't know if she even would exert any kind of influence; she thought that maybe Terri's change had been influenced by Toby's anime-type aura, but she certainly didn't have anything like that.
Suddenly, Lisa laughed. "Hey, I've got it!" she said. Jay's ears perked up. "You know where that is?" she asked.
Lisa nodded. "It's a vacant lot out in the suburbs. Used to be a big 1920s townhouse, but they demolished it back in...the '70s, I think? I never was too clear on why. We used to play there when I was a girl. I recognize that pond - we tried swimming in it once, but we all got leeches."
Jay smiled. "Got the address?"
"No, but if you give me a couple minutes, I can find it on a map. Just...be careful, okay? Obviously that light wasn't a nuke or anything, or we'd all be dead, but who knows what it was."
Jay grinned. "I'm a cunning little fox, Lisa. I can look after myself."
Michael shrugged. "You could just ask for permission to not wear clothes, couldn't you?"
The devil-girl frowned. "I guess," she said. "It just bugs me that Sarah gets a free pass just because she doesn't have hands, and the rest of us are supposed to live with the old standards, even when we're different, too."
The raptor-girl pondered this. "Well, they did make her fill out a permission request, even if they did let her off a little easier. Why do you want to do that, anyway?"
"I dunno." The devil-girl shuffled her feet, her hooves scraping gently against the hallway floor, her leathery wings gently flexing in and out. "I mean, it's my natural state, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess so," Michael said. She looked down at her blood-stained top. The stains were hardly going to come out with a proper laundering, let alone washing them in the bathroom sink, but eh, she didn't feel like making a fight out of it. "Well, I gotta go clean up," she said.
The devil-girl nodded as her classmate headed off to the bathroom. She'd find something to wear, something that didn't make her feel cooped up, and then...maybe she would fill out a request. She giggled to herself; she hardly thought she actually had any kind of hex powers, as amusing as it had been to pretend. She certainly didn't feel any kind of connection with the forces of evil. She wondered, then, why had she become this?
Jon had been looking over her notes from yesterday's class when the devil-girl had gotten sent out. The teacher had been attempting to catch back up on the material they'd been studying a month ago, so yesterday was a quick re-overview of the Gallic wars and the Roman occupation in northern Europe. She recalled with interest that historians now thought Julius Caesar's account of regular, massive human sacrifice by the Druids was grossly exaggerated in order to sell the war back in Rome - there was some archaeological evidence for the occasional ritual killing, but it seemed that even many of those were criminal executions rather than religious sacrifices. She'd also been amused by one soldier's writing that "a whole band of foreigners will be unable to cope with one Gaul if he call in his wife." Wasn't that a picture! And there was the tidbit that, apparently, the Celtic Britons were much like the Spanish Gauls, only a bit further behind technologically. She wasn't sure she really got all of this, but the teacher's enthusiasm for the material was pretty infectious. Jon wondered idly what, if anything, of this was relevant to that girl in the British dress.
Mostly, though, she wondered about the devil-girl. She'd had a very womanly air about her, the way she walked out of the room, but it wasn't at all the skeezy, manipulative hypersexuality she'd seen in Tiffany. Nor did she have anything of that freaky shadowy aura about her. Was she just like Sarah, then, feeling that she was so removed from humanity that human standards no longer applied? Or was it some kind of exhibitionism that had simply been suppressed before her change? Who was she, anyway? Not that Jon really would have known what she was like before, anyway. Still, it was kind of an intriguing question.
She was still trying to work up the nerve to look around at some of the guys in her class. She was going to get past this, she would make sure of that.
Ken's mind was reeling. The cute oriental girl was a guy!? How had he not noticed? She...had there been any clue? Anything that he had missed? She seemed so shy and quiet - he'd just assumed she was being demure and feminine, or something. Was she embarrassed by her change, or what? Oh God, this was confusing. He felt like he'd just had the rug pulled out from under him, only the rug was covering up a deep pit that he was still falling down. Confused, shocked, angry with himself for not figuring this out, but...well, not really angry with her. It wasn't her fault, and even if he had asked, it wasn't really any of his business...
He briefly wondered if it even mattered. She had been a guy, but she was clearly a girl now. But then, wasn't she still a guy in her head? He'd seen a lot of physical changes to people, but he had yet to hear of anyone who'd been changed in their mind. Then again, did that mean it didn't happen, or just that he hadn't encountered it? Was this why the slime-girl was trying to brush him off, because Haru - or was that really her name? - was a guy trying to come to terms with being turned into a girl?
Really he just wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere, or to turn back the clock to two days ago and find a way to handle things that didn't make him look like such a complete idiot to himself...he leaned limply against the wall in the hallway, Brandon propping him up to keep him from sliding to the floor. There was no turning back time, though...what would he do now? He'd already made his move before he'd had any idea what was really going on - how could he salvage the situation? What kind of outcome did he want to salvage it into? He didn't know.
Harry had been trying to hide in her textbook when the fox-boy had suddenly freaked out about something and ran off to the bathroom. She wondered what he was so shocked at, before she remembered his attempt to ask her out earlier that morning. Had he...had he found out the truth? Was he horrified by the knowledge that the girl he'd been hitting on was a guy? Did...did he hate her now? She wanted to go see if he was okay, find out if he was angry with her, but she was scared of what she'd find out. Zoe had said that she needed her space...
No. No, she might be confused and scared by her changes, and by everything that they implied about her interactions with other people, but she wasn't just going to sit around and let things happen to her and about her and never take a hand in them. Checking in on him was the least she could do. She excused herself, the teacher rolling her eyes and letting her leave, and went out into the hall.
He hadn't gone very far. He was standing against one wall a little ways from the classroom, looking dazed. His confident smile was gone, and she wondered what his blank stare meant. She approached cautiously.
He noticed her. "Did..." he started, "did you...were you really a guy?"
She nodded. "Yes...I'm sorry, I should have told you..."
He shook his head. "No, I...it's none of my business...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you..."
"No, it's all right," she said. "I...Zoe's just trying to protect me, but I don't want to just hide..."
They stood there for a long moment, not saying anything. "You..." Harry said, "are you angry?"
"No," he said. "It's not your fault. I guess I jumped to a conclusion..."
Harry smiled weakly. "Do you...can we still be friends?"
Ken took a deep breath and forced a smile. "Y-yeah," he said. "Yeah, we can."
