It hadn't really struck David until now just how surreal things could get in the altered world. Things were odd at school, to be sure, but a naked devil-girl was just one of hundreds of unusual sights there - a slug-girl, an elf-guy, some younger kid who was a statue - so that all the crazy disparate elements of the student body blended into a kind of stew that made everything seem almost normal.
Here, though, Adora was a singular oddity in a perfectly ordinary suburban setting, which made her parents' unremarking, unqualified acceptance of her that much more surprising. And, David realized, she must seem just as strange to Adora - she'd never noticed this at home, because she was never looking at herself through her parents' eyes, but now that she was looking at a situation like hers from the outside...it was kind of stunning.
At least the eggs and bacon were going over well - luckily, while food-related sensations were shared between her and her sisters, their sense for hunger, being specific to their bodies' needs, wasn't diminished by anyone else's eating, so they weren't getting bloated because she was eating while they were full. All that really mattered were the taste and texture, which were perfectly agreeable.
She was getting some odd looks from her classmate's parents, though; not the standard unchanged-to-changed odd looks, she was growing used to those by now, but something a little more personal. What did they think of her? They seemed pleasant enough, not like people who were faking politeness to mask dislike, but what was it they wondered about her? Was it the fact that she used to be a guy? Certainly they couldn't have failed to pick up on that - hers was hardly an ambiguous name.
Or was it the angel thing? Did it have to do with their daughter's devilish form? David didn't feel any aggression towards Adora, at least not when she wasn't getting really invasive of her personal space, but maybe they were afraid she was going to hurt their daughter? Or maybe she was jumping to conclusions - they didn't seem hostile, just a little confused.
"So, Rachel," the mom said, "what's on your agenda for today?"
"Rachel?" Was that Adora's real name, David wondered? Huh. She wondered why she would go by a different name - it wasn't like "Rachel" was unusual or embarassing. Then again, there were a lot of things about Adora's behavior she didn't really understand...
"Oh, uh, stuff," the devil-girl replied, tail twitching in a fidgety way. "I was gonna show David around, maybe see about hanging out for a bit..."
Her mother nodded. "You did get your homework done, right?"
"Yesss," Rachel sighed. "Well, most of it. I'll finish it up tonight."
Rachel's father glanced at their guest, curious to figure her out but not wanting to stare. He had been seriously considering the idea of exposing himself to the sun and getting it over with - but now, confronted by a possibility he'd been more or less brushing off, he wasn't quite so sure.
This kid had obviously, judging by her name, been a boy to begin with, but she was quite clearly a girl now. Maybe the grace in her poise and movement was more an angel thing than a girl thing, maybe the shyness was just a pre-existing aspect of her personality - but she was wearing a dress, and she was even wearing lipstick! He wondered how she thought of herself, but he wasn't going to ask.
What if that happened to him? What if he became a woman? He didn't think his wife would just up and abandon him, but how would it affect their relationship? She'd never shown bisexual tendencies before, and they'd been married twenty years now. Would that change just because he did? Would he want it to? Or would they just become a Platonic couple?
Or what if...he'd heard of some people actually de-aging...what if he became a child? A sex-change might be surmounted, but if he were suddenly a kid and she remained a grown woman...ugh, how could things ever be the same after that? So many possibilities struck him that he'd been half-ignoring...he'd need to think about this. Seriously.
"Well, you kinda make it work, if it's any comfort," Jon said. It crossed her mind what an odd thing that was to say, but she couldn't say she disagreed. It seemed to fit him, really, just not in a way that one would have expected a geek turned D&D; creature to fit. He didn't look like his own fantasy character made real, he just looked like...well, him. Though, not having known him before his change, she couldn't say whether he looked more or less like himself than he had as himself.
Tim smiled. "Thanks. If you don't mind me asking, though, do you like being a...um, a slug?" He cringed as he realized how that sounded, but...it wasn't the dumbest thing he'd ever said to a...a girl.
Jon was a bit weirded out and a bit relieved at the same time - she was afraid he was going to ask what she thought about being a girl. Though that did touch on the subject of whether he realized she used to be a guy - she didn't think "Jon" left much room for doubt, but if he did realize he was acting awfully casual about it. Or perhaps he just couldn't figure out how to react...
"It's...eh, it's okay, I guess," she said. "It's not uncomfortable or anything, it's just kind of inconvenient, is all. I have to work to reach standing height for other people, and a lot of times it's hard to figure out where to put my, uh, my foot." That felt so weird to say - Jon was more or less used to acknowledging her changed body to herself, but talking about it to someone else...
"It's, uh, like with the driving thing," she continued. "The issue isn't so much control as where to put the majority of it that I'm not using - most cars just aren't built with much space under the dash. Also, uh..." She looked around and grimaced, a little embarassed to be admitting this. "...I keep whacking my antennae into things. And my foot sticks to stuff..."
Tim looked embarassed. "Uh, sorry, I didn't mean to..."
"Nah, it's all right," she said. "I asked you first, after all."
They both stood there, trying to figure out what to say next. "Well, before either of you ask," Karyn said, breaking the silence, "I am quite content with my changes. Convenient as hell, and kind of exotic, to boot!"
They both turned to look at the cecaelia-girl, who winked and gave a casual wave of a tentacle. All three had a good chuckle over her attitude.
"Y...you know," the drow-boy said to the slug-girl, "you kind of make it work, too."
Jon blinked. "Uh, thanks..." she said. "So, uh, where to now?"
Haru...Harry looked around the counselor's office. With the bomb scare at school yesterday, she'd never gotten around to making her visit like she'd agreed to, so she'd decided to come in today. The counselor was in anyway, and she had band practice later in the morning, so it was convenient for both of them...certainly more so than staying an extra hour after everything was sorted out after the evacuation and everybody was being sent home.
"So, Harry," the Gorgon woman said, "how are you feeling today?"
"Pretty...um, pretty good, actually," the three-eyed Chinese girl replied. "A little tired, though."
The counselor nodded. "That's good. Now, when we left off...according to my notes, the last thing we discussed was visions you had been having. Are they still bothering you?"
Harry wondered whether she'd meant to ask if the visions had stopped, or if she just assumed they hadn't. "Uh, I've still been having them, now and again," she said. "Less often, but I'm not sure if that's because I haven't been around as many people with stuff to...um, see, or if I'm just getting better control."
"Mmm. Are they still distressing to you, Harry?"
Harry thought. Were they? Certainly that one with Tiffany and the one teacher had been, but... "Nnno...," she said. "Some of them have been kind of scary, but it's not the fact that I'm having them that's bothering me, I guess."
"I see," the Gorgon said. "Are they things you'd be comfortable sharing with me?"
Harry frowned. "I...I dunno. They're not embarassing or anything, but they have a lot to do with some other students..."
The counselor nodded. "Of course. It's good that you respect their privacy."
Harry smiled. "Th-thanks. I guess I can tell you - there was one girl who let me look into her...I saw a long way into her past...things even she didn't remember, but she seemed to think they were true." She thought of Brittany...what a strange past she must have if even that glimpse of it were true! And now she was stuck here in the school...maybe she should pay her a visit later.
"Interesting," the counselor replied. "Harry, if you're not bothered by the visions themselves, how do you feel about them?"
She thought about it for a minute. "Confused, I guess," she said at last. "I guess I should be kind of excited to have a power like this, but it's not something I ever wanted or dreamed of having...it just kind of happened to me, and now I don't really know what I think of it. I mean, I wasn't planning on being a phone psychic or anything."
"Mm-hm. Well, any ability is just a tool - you may find uses for it that don't immediately spring to mind when you think of 'second sight,' or whatever you want to call this." The Gorgon-woman stretched, her hair-snakes writhing from one side to the other. "Touching on your plans for yourself, Harry...how are you feeling about these...feelings of non-identity you've been having?"
"A little better, I think," Harry said. "Less depressed, anyway...but now I'm kind of confused..."
"Go on."
"Well..." Harry blushed. "I...wonder if I'm becoming someone else or not. I mean, I'm kind of having fun with the band, and I'm getting to know some people, but...they all know me as Haru. As a girl. Even when they know I'm really...I used to be a boy, they call me Haru...and I go along with it...I guess I wonder if I'm not really becoming Haru."
"If I'm understanding that correctly," the counselor said, "you think that in trying to find out what you are, you're becoming someone you didn't think you were?"
"No, I..." Harry paused. Actually...that wasn't too far off the mark, was it? "I don't know," she said. "I guess that's one way to look at it...I mean, I wasn't interested in band before, and now I am, I wasn't good with people but all of a sudden I'm making friends, and I never would've let my mom dress me up to go out with..." She trailed off, thinking about everything that had transpired last night...
"And you're worried that, rather than these just being things about you that you hadn't discovered, they're things that your change has introduced into your personality?"
"...yes." Haru flushed, staring at the ceiling. Was she just making up complex explanations for things that she was scared to admit were just interests she hadn't paid attention to before? After all, her biggest problem had been exactly that - a fear to try things because of what might go wrong with them... "I guess that sounds kind of stupid..."
"Not really," the counselor said. "If it's any comfort, in the few thousand truly well-documented cases we have right now, no subject has displayed behavioral changes significant enough that you could say they'd truly become a different person and erased the old person from existence. But it sounds frighteningly plausible - it's only natural that people would worry about it."
Harry frowned. "Really? I've heard some stories..."
The counselor nodded. "As have I. And with as many people changed and only limited time and money to thoroughly study them, it'd be a lie to say that we know for sure that it doesn't happen. But as far as we have seen, while people may undergo significant behavioral alterations post-change, many of those are simply the person reacting, consciously or not, to their transformation. Even the more arguably artificial ones, like orientation changes, are hardly the kind of thing where you'd argue they're a different person."
Harry gaped. "W-wait, orientation changes? You mean the sun can...?"
"Yes, it can," the counselor said. "Not all the time, but it's not uncommon among the sex-changed for them to find themselves flipped around, relative to their old attractions. Do you have any concerns about that, Harry?"
