Tiffany rolled out of bed, moaning to herself. God, what time was it? She stared blearily at the clock. How could she have gotten up so early if she was...no, no, that was P.M. Ugh...another day mostly consumed by the massive sleep-debt she'd built up over the course of a month. Why did this have to happen? Even if it did, why couldn't it have let her down gently, just left her needing sleep again but not this...this God-awful withdrawal...
Standing, she threw on her bathrobe and staggered out of her room, her head so low that she accidentally put a hole in the sheetrock in the hall with her horn. She frowned and pulled it out, then made her way downstairs to the kitchen.
Mr. Saunders glanced up as he heard his daughter come in. The feeling of dread was gone, and thank God, but he was still feeling a little skittish, and he felt bad about it - she was his daughter! He looked at her, studying what she had become. In the daylight, the glow she emitted was no longer visible as such, but there was just a hint of a whitish haze around her. The horn was still as striking as...huh?
"Uh, Tiffany, honey," he said gently, "you've got some gypsum on your horn..."
She frowned at the mention of this foreign part of her and made a motion to brush it off, though she didn't get all of it, then sat down at the table, staring into the distance. "C-coffee," she murmured. He nodded and poured her a cup, and she began to sip idly at it, gradually waking up.
There was a long and somewhat awkward silence as the two looked across the table at each other. Tiffany still blamed her father for bringing in the teacher, taking away what she had achieved...but she was tired, far, far too tired to want to fight...she just wanted to even be able to really wake up...
"So this is it, then," Karyn mused, staring at the book and then back at the stone. "Jon...what do you think is the story here?"
The slug-girl frowned. "Pardon?"
Karyn nodded. "Well, it's obvious whoever made the book built it to work with the stone as a key. So the stone and the book are somehow connected, I think. I wonder how, and who all is involved in this..."
Jon shrugged. "I have no idea. All I know is that the book is really old. I think if we want any real information we're going to have to hope that Brittany has it."
The cecaelia-girl nodded. "I suppose so." They sat for a while, Jon on her bed with her foot coiled around her, Karyn on the chair with her tentacles spread out over the edge of the seat.
"...Jon?" Karyn asked. "Suppose we did something like-" She caught herself and put the stone down on the desk. "Suppose we did something like wishing for the sun to change back only people who would be happier as their original selves?"
Jon thought for a moment. "I suppose that's not a bad solution."
Karyn nodded. "How many people do you think would change back?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well," Karyn said, "I mean that if people...if they spend another nineteen weeks like this...some of them are already used to it. Heck, I myself stopped being weirded out by my change two weeks in. So I'm kind of wondering if the only people who won't have gotten used to it in another five months are the ones whose changes are complete anathema to them."
"Hmm," Jon mused. "Maybe we could wish for people to change back only if they wanted to?"
Karyn shook her head. "No, 'cause then you've got the problem of people's desires being fickle and half-imaginary. I mean, you see kids who really want nothing more than to get a new toy and then get bored of it within a week. You could have someone who wants to change back, then gets back to being human and remembers it wasn't that great, but they don't have any way to go back to what they actually liked better. That'd be awfully depressing."
The slug-girl sighed. "True," she said. "And we can take advantage of the stone to know what it is they'd really want. Suppose we came at it the other way around? Suppose we wished that the sun would change back everybody except those who would be happier remaining as they are?"
"Isn't that basically the same thing as the first idea?" Karyn asked. "It sounds like the only difference is whether you want there to be a lot of changed people around, most of whom are indifferent, or not as many, all of whom are actively happy."
"Huh. Yeah." Jon frowned. This was something they'd have to keep thinking on...
Hiro sighed as he approached his house. Was Julian right? Was he really just...resigning himself to being some kind of...leper, or something? He knew he didn't want to just let people look down on him, but...he wasn't so proud of his change himself. Maybe he could make something of himself, maybe he could...
...no. Julian was just trying to sweet-talk him. All he wanted was digital muscle to order around. For all his talk about the robot-lady "exerting her dominance" over him...he'd been under Julian's thumb for how long now? It was sure as hell long enough that whatever "debt" he owed ought to be cancelled!
But still...what would become of him? He didn't want to just be some kind of pariah, but being the flunky to an ascended wolf wasn't what he had in mind. But...what did he have in mind? He didn't know. He wanted to make people respect him, but...he didn't want to hurt people. He didn't want to be the cold-blooded monster he was afraid of becoming.
Perhaps there was some other way...some better path. Something that would make Hitomi proud, not worried. He sighed as he opened the door, then went inside.
Hitomi was there, staring up at him with a concerned expression on her face. "Hiro! You're hurt!"
"It's...it's nothing," he said. "Just some small punctures...not even any tearing."
She jumped up into his arms, and he winced slightly as the strain hit the part of his shoulder where he'd been bitten. He cradled the little fairy-girl in his mechanical arm, sighing in relief.
"You were in a fight again," Hitomi said, sighing. Hiro felt his heart sink. He hadn't wanted to make her worry, that's why he'd gone out quietly! If it weren't for Julian screwing everything up...
"Last one," he said. "I promise. I'm done with all this..."
She nodded and smiled slightly, then kissed his cheek. "Good. I got an email from Mom and Dad. They said they're gonna be flying out from Tokyo early tomorrow, and they should be back tomorrow evening if everything goes well."
"What?" the cyborg said. "Did they say how they are? They're okay, right?"
Hitomi shrugged. "That's all they said. But they must be all right if they're capable of making the trip!"
"I gotta say," Rachel said, tail swishing, "that place wasn't at all what I expected. No fluffy clouds, not even a harp!"
David laughed. "There was a piano in the corner. You going to sue generations of cartoonists for false advertising?"
The devil-girl smiled. "I could, but nah. It was nice, even if it was kinda mundane. Good food."
David nodded. "Quite an afternoon, too."
"No kidding. That asshole...I want to just...just...argh!" Rachel's tail was thrashing now, agitated.
"It'll be okay," the angel-girl said. "It sounded like they'd be able to repair it. Besides, she's...she's going to have enough problems to deal with. And nobody to blame but herself."
"I dunno," Rachel huffed. "Sounded like she was doing a pretty good job of blaming us, at least to herself."
"Well, yeah," David said. "But you can only keep that up for so long, I think. Eventually she's gonna have to realize that her situation is entirely her fault..."
Rachel whistled. "That'd be a bit traumatic. Oh hey, this is your house, right?"
The angel-girl looked up. So soon? That trip had hardly seemed long at all. "Uh, yeah," she said. "That was fast."
Rachel nodded. "Yeah. So, see you at school tomorrow?"
David nodded idly. "Mm..." She hesitated. "S-say...you want to stay for dinner?"
The devil-girl looked at her, then smiled. "You know, yeah. I think I would."
