Jay and Lisa sat in silence for a bit, quietly finishing off the remains of their lunches. The food court of the mall they'd gone shopping in had always been a surprisingly good place to eat, but after the sun's change, the vendors had realized that there was money to be made in catering to the transformees and gone a bit wild with the idea.
Indeed, the hardest part for Jay had been getting a sandwich that wasn't quite so tailored for carnivores - she liked her meat, as she always had, but foxes were omnivores, and the peppers and mushrooms added so much to what would otherwise have been a plain steak sub. Whatever her other thoughts on this body, the fox-girl loved the way her enhanced sense of smell brought out the flavors in her food.
Lisa, for her part, had gone with a salad of assorted greens, with some grated cheese and dressing for flavor. This was nothing particularly new - she'd usually have something like this, just not as a main course. She wasn't sure yet if she was going to be herbivorous or just have an affinity for this stuff, but this worked for now.
Jay polished off her sandwich, took a long sip of her soda, and leaned back in her chair. Normally she'd be looking at the skylight, but that had been covered over - it was a 24-hour mall now, and while the un-changed were getting pretty good about looking after themselves (or else didn't stay un-changed for long,) it was a deferral to anyone who did get stuck in the mall after sunrise. She wondered idly if businesses would start introducing adjustable light controls eventually.
Leaning forward, she looked at Lisa. "So," she said. "That answer your question?"
"Hardly," her friend said. "It explains a lot about your attitude, but it doesn't answer the question at all." She grinned slyly. "But I'll let you off the hook for now...can't go badgering you too often."
Jay laughed. "I suppose. What's next on the agenda?"
Lisa looked thoughtful. "Good question. I've got some clothes to fit my new size...I've put you in an assortment of stylish dresses...made you try heels...I think that pretty much covers everything I had planned. Anything you wanted to do?"
Jay grinned, her ears perking up. "Well, I understand that little computer store in the far end of the mall just got in some new netbooks, and I'm afraid I've worn my keyboard all to hell..."
Her friend laughed. "Oh, you! Can you go six months without wearing out a keyboard?"
The fox-girl shrugged. "Hey, it's not my fault they don't make 'em like they used to. If they made a laptop with a keyboard like the old Model M I'd be all over that..."
Jon had just been coming out of the classroom when she saw the confrontation between David, Tiffany, and the devil-girl unfold. By the time she got there Tiffany was stomping away and David was talking with the devil-girl. At least they both seemed okay...
Suddenly she felt a sinking feeling in her gut. Turning to look, she saw Tiffany looming over her. Great. Cramps, crazy stuff happening in class, and now Tiffany coming after her - what a day this was turning out to be.
Jon tried to maintain her cool, but with the jagged shadow aura around the other girl and the way her leggy form towered over Jon's low-to-the-ground build, she couldn't help feeling small and threatened.
"You." Tiffany spoke with a hiss in the back of her throat. "You think you're pretty funny too, don't you? You all think you can just find ways to offend me on purpose and get away with it. Well you stay away from me, got it?"
Jon couldn't help feeling nervous, but she frowned. Despite the instinct she was feeling to turn and run, the slug-girl inched closer to Tiffany, rearing up and putting her weight further back on her foot, lifting herself up off the floor. It didn't bring her to Tiffany's height, but it did expose more of her underside, with its coating of thick mucus.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, her antennae bobbing in Tiffany's direction. "The only time I've ever given you offense is when you were bugging me first. I'll stay away from you if you stay away from me, but I'm not just going to jump at your say-so."
She could see Tiffany's anger dueling it out with her growing disgust as she inched toward the...whatever it was Tiffany was. Jon could feel her heart pounding, skipping beats when Tiffany's aura zagged out in her direction. Whatever this was, every instinct and gut reaction was telling her to get away from it.
Finally, mercifully, disgust won out. Tiffany made a guttural noise of spite as she backed off. Jon wanted to make the backing mutual, but forced herself to hold her ground. As Tiffany rounded a corner into another hall, Jon let out a gasp and collapsed back down to her sitting position, her whole body trembling.
"Hey, are you okay?" She looked up, panting as her heart rate returned to normal. The speaker was Tim, who was offering her a hand, apparently under the impression that she'd fallen. Karyn wasn't far behind, and David and the devil-girl were off to one side.
She waved him off. "I-I'm okay, thanks," she said, though her voice was obviously shaky. She put on the best smile she could.
The angel-girl was looking at Jon with the same awestruck expression she'd had when they first met. "W-weren't you scared?" she asked.
Jon chuckled weakly. "Oh hell yes," she said. "You shouldn't let her push you around like that, you know - she'll just take it as an excuse to walk all over-" She stopped as she noticed the devil-girl looking her up and down with an expression that she really hoped didn't mean what she thought it did. "What?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing," Adora purred, smiling deviously. "You're just so flexible..."
Jon felt a bit skeezed out by that. She'd never been much of an ogler as a guy, but if this was what it felt like, even those few occasions...she cringed. Still, right now anybody who wasn't toting around a crackly shadow thing was okay by her...
Haru was increasingly confused and more than a little scared as the day drew on. Had she seen those people before? If so, why hadn't she noticed? What did the things she'd seen mean, if anything? She didn't know.
Somehow, strangely enough, it had been the meeting with the teacher for the older kids that had unsettled her the most. The sight of the cords emanating from the angel was just kind of strange, and while the girl with the dark aura was scary, it was nothing she wouldn't expect from such a hostile being. But...the teacher had been nothing but kind to her, and she had felt a goodness within her...
...and she was still shaken. Haru had never before considered that "good" might not always be the same as "safe" and "normal," but the awe-inspiring wild thing she had glimpsed in that classroom...it was strong evidence for the idea.
It was just then that she realized she had been thinking of herself as "Haru."
Five minutes and a mad dash later, Har...ry had poured out her story from the whole morning to the school counselor. She had been very relieved to see no mysterious auras or strange visions around the woman - she was only as she appeared to be, and it was a great comfort to the three-eyed Chinese girl.
The Gorgon nodded thoughtfully and made some notes to herself. "So this is new as of today, is it?" she asked. "The things you're seeing, that is."
Harry nodded. "Well, I kind of...felt some other things, ever since I started school, but never like this."
"Hmm. These things you've felt...are we talking just simple intuitions here?"
"Well, kind of like that...like I could tell if someone was being honest with me, or stuff like that..."
The counselor frowned. "I see. Do you mean that these feelings turned out to be right?"
Harry's brow furrowed over both her normal eyes and her third as she thought it over. "I...I think so, yeah..."
"I see. Harry, when you came in here you were afraid you were going crazy, but...have you considered the possibility that you've simply developed a new form of perception?"
She gasped. "You mean...are the things I'm seeing real?"
The counselor sighed. "I don't know for certain," she said. "If this is a new sense, it's possible that it could be manipulable or fallible just like the other five." She shifted, trying to adjust her tail around the easy chair she sat in.
"But I'll tell you one thing I do know," she said. "That angel-girl you saw? There are six angel-girls in this area, most of whom are currently attending this school, and they're all connected in some way they have yet to fully disclose to us. I think you may have seen their connections."
Harry gaped. "You mean I...no, this can't be for real...I'm hallucinating, right?"
The counselor leaned forward, her hair-snakes angling out towards Harry (though not in a threatening fashion.) "Harry," she said, "I once read a story where a woman discovered she was a seer - she saw real people and things in her dreams. She went to talk to someone about it, and her advisor told her that it was exactly as it seemed, but she didn't want to believe it, because the idea was too frightening."
"Well, what did she do?" Harry asked.
"What her advisor suggested," the Gorgon said, "was that she stop thinking of them as dreams and start thinking of them as News. You don't have to believe everything you read in the news, and maybe none of it's true at all - but if you're thinking of it as something from outside and not as internal signs that you're losing it, you might not be quite so terrified and confused."
Harry frowned. "But...what if there is something wrong with me?" she asked. "Isn't there something you can do to just make this go away?"
The counselor sighed. "Yes," she said. "There are drugs we can prescribe for hallucinations. But look at it this way: if you mis-diagnose or jump to a conclusion in the medical field, your 'treatment' can be far more damaging than the perceived 'disease.' If this isn't a hallucination brought on by a chemical imbalance or neural disorder, then at best our attempts to treat it would do nothing - at worst, we'd be breaking a perfectly functional part of your brain. Nothing is worth that."
Harry scowled, her lip trembling. "B-but...I didn't ask for this! I don't want it!"
The counselor nodded. "I understand," she said. "You've been dealt a lot of changes that you didn't want and don't know how to handle. That's why you're here with me to begin with. But you can't just deny it; that's not healthy, and it won't make it go away, either."
Harry sighed. "No," she murmured. "No, it won't.."
