Much debate ensued as the crowd of devil-changed gave thought to Robert's words. "I wanted to give them something to think about, dammit!" one man grumbled. "So what the hell are we supposed to do, stand on the sidewalk and say 'please be nice to us?'" Natasha asked.
Robert sighed; she hadn't really planned on this. She was a primarily a pastor, not an activist, and her experience with social agitation was limited to the recent stuff she was no longer at all proud of...and to be honest, she hadn't been much good at it then, either. But if these people didn't have any suggestions for what to do instead, probably more than a few of them would just revert right back to plan A. And...the Russian succubus had a point; Robert personally professed belief in turning the other cheek, but few of these people would be likely to go along with that, and it wouldn't accomplish much...they had to be doing something, not just standing around nobly suffering.
But doing what? They could counter-protest and vocally disagree with everything the other side said, but when people simply replied to accusations with plain denials, it was human nature to assume they were lying and hiding something, or why wouldn't they show that it wasn't true? But how could you show that you weren't sinister, evil manipulators? You couldn't, they'd just say you were biding your time and waiting for the right moment...
"Tricky business, isn't it?" Mr. Pitchford said, smoke idly curling from one corner of his mouth like he was smoking an invisible cigarette. "Public perception is difficult to manipulate even for a seasoned huckster, but here's how I see it. People have a hard time conceptualizing what they don't see. What you need in a situation like that is to give them something else they can see and latch onto that's mutually exclusive."
Robert nodded thoughtfully. "We can't make them think we're not evil by not visibly being evil...but if we were good?"
He nodded. "Something like that. But I don't think you're going to get some whitewashed picture of wholesome, 'safe' people out of a group of protesters gathered in a bar. And even if you could get everybody here to go all Norman Rockwell for an afternoon, many of us would go and undermine that as soon as they got back into their personal routine. Maybe thinking of the options as 'good' versus 'evil' is narrowing it down too much."
She hadn't thought of that; she was used to viewing the world in those terms, especially after the past month. And she still did, in some senses; but he might be right, there might be a simpler way to approach the problem. They wanted to show they weren't evil...they wanted to show that they weren't what they were accused of being...but if you couldn't demonstrate its absence visibly...maybe they could show what they were, instead?
"You could...have a bake sale?" she suggested. "Sort of?"
The big demon chuckled, but not too derisively. "A bake sale?" he asked. "Oh, this I gotta hear."
"Well, not necessarily baked goods, I guess just a food tent or something. Something to show people what devil culture is really like, instead of what they're saying it is."
He smiled. "Now that's an idea," he said. "Strictly I'd say it's more of a small subculture, but I think that's not a bad approach. This place is about the one common subcultural touchstone we have, and the food is good. Throw in a keg or two to go with the meat, and I'd say that's going to attract a lot more attention than people stomping around with signs."
Robert nodded. "And you could still work the anti-propaganda stuff in, just put it on a display where people will see it while they're waiting for their meal..."
Mr. Pitchford nodded. "We don't want to come on too strong, though," he said. "If we play up the whole rivalry with the wannabe religious persecutors too much, people might think the message is 'try evil, it's more fun,' rather than 'seriously, we're not evil.'"
The devil-woman thought for a minute. "Maybe we could get the angels to help?" she mused.
"Who wants them?" one of the people in the crowd scoffed. "I thought we weren't trying to be all goody-two-shoes!"
"Hey, shut your gob!" said a blue-skinned young devil-girl with a British accent. "There was one of them in here just last week with a girl from this area, she wasn't like that at all!"
The imp who worked the counter nodded. "I remember her," he said. "Amusingly shy, but she seemed like a decent enough sort."
Robert eyed him curiously. "They were from the area?" A devil-girl and an angel-girl... "Were they close friends?" she asked.
The blue devil-girl smirked. "That's one interpretation, I suppose," she said.
"I think that's David and Rachel," Robert said. "The ones...um, our senior pastor was telling me about." She didn't feel quite like mentioning the full details of their encounter. Maybe Father Maxwell knew how to get in touch with them... "If we got some of the angel-changed to do their own thing," she said, "people could see that it's not just us against the Purifiers, the 'other side' isn't fond of them either..."
"I like it," Pitchford said. "We're going to have a busy night getting this all re-organized, but I think we can handle it. Can we count on seeing you there?"
Robert thought for a minute. "I...yes and no," she said. "I'll be at the church; I have things to get done there, still. But...I don't want to be any 'guest of honor' or anything...I'm just a priestess, not a martyr, and...this isn't about me, it's about...all of us." Us. There was a word she'd never expected to use in regard to devil-kind...
He nodded. "Fair enough. But you oughta at least have a drink before you go."
She hesitated. "Oh, I, uh...I'd better just be-oof!"
While she was recovering from a hearty slap on the back, Mr. Pitchford laughed. "Come on!" he said. "This place is part of your subcultural heritage, you know. Hey!" he said to the imp behind the bar. "A mug of the house specialty for the lady."
Adam had only had a couple mouthfuls before she realized that this was only marginally less mess and trouble than eating it plain off the plate; the human face just wasn't design for easy hands-free ingestion. She glanced down at her talons in annoyance; the idea of eating with her feet seemed bizarre and off-putting, but eating with her face alone was hardly all that elegant, either...
"It's okay, sweetie," her mother said. "Those are your hands now, there's nothing wrong with putting them to use."
She blushed a bit; this was all so weird! But...she looked back down at her talons. They kind of were, weren't they? Granted, she was missing a digit, but the toes were flexible and long enough to pass for fingers, and the back toe could work as a thumb...
She sighed and reoriented herself on the chair, leaning back and lifting her legs up onto the table. Hesitantly, she picked up the makeshift sandwich, then clamped down when stuff started to slide out. One talon to guide it into her mouth, the other to hold the back closed so nothing escaped...
It was a bit awkward, and a weird stretching exercise even though she found she was flexible enough to pull it off now, but she managed, and it was far easier than trying to do it without. The talons were acquitting themselves pretty well; she didn't think she could handle a knife and fork or anything, but they were good enough for this, at least.
She had seconds, and then leaned back, satiated. "Thanks, Mom," she said. "I...thanks."
Her mother smiled. "You're welcome. If you need help with anything else..."
She nodded. Now the hard part...
"Um, Mom," she said, "about that thing I found...if you could come with me..."
Her mother nodded, and Adam led the way up to the dresser in the master bedroom. She opened the drawer where she'd hidden it and rummaged around until her talon closed upon a familiar shape. She turned and set it gently on the floor, then sat down next to it.
"This is it," she said, as her mother joined her on the floor, staring curiously at the little bubble and gently poking at it. "Listen, Mom," she said, "could you please take your hand off it for a moment?"
Her mother glanced at her. "Oh, I'm sorry...?"
The harpy shook her head. "No, it's fine. It's just...listen, this is really important, and I'm absolutely serious. If you're touching it and you make a wish, it grants it."
Her mom stared at her. "Adam...you are serious, aren't you?" Her son-turned-daughter nodded. "So if I-"
"Don't!" Adam yelped. Her mother startled and pulled her hand back. "I'm...I'm sorry, Mom," she said, "it's just...if you make careless wishes...that's how Hedgeton disappeared, and I was even trying to make a good one."
"Really?"
She nodded. "I...I wanted to use this to help people, so I wished that the sun would change back so everybody could go back to normal. But this thing...it seems like it works by...by sending you somewhere where the wish can be true. So the whole town was transported to a world where the sun changed people back to humans..."
"Oh, Adam," her mother said, sympathetically. The harpy-girl nodded. "I was...I was just trying to help people..." she said, feeling like she was going to cry. It had all gone so wrong...
"Of course you were," her mom said. "But things got back to normal, didn't they?"
She nodded. "Yeah...some other people helped with that...and then I thought, if I really wanted to help people in this world, I should be changed so I know what they're going through...and now I do...now I'm a...a..."
She started to cry for real now, and her mother moved over behind her and began to gently rub her back. "You're a very kind-hearted person, is what you are, Adam," she said. "You know, a lot of people with something like that would use it for personal gain; it says a lot that you tried to help other people with it."
"But now I'm a...a freak!" Adam sobbed. "I don't have any arms, and I can't put on clothes, and I'm a...a..."
"You're a lovely young woman of a wonderful new species, Adam," her mother said. "You're right, this isn't going to be easy for you, to adapt to a world that's not designed for this body, but you're not alone...and you are most certainly not a freak."
Steven sighed as she finished her shower and towelled off; it was tricky getting under her skirt, and around the base of the flower atop her head, but she managed. She went delicately on her petals; they were tougher than they looked, but she still didn't want to tear them. It felt weird to be handling them this way; it was harder to think of them as clothes when she had them in the shower and had to wash them by hand...
She lifted her arms and wrapped her top petals back around herself. She considered putting on a fresh pair of underwear, but...it was already close to bedtime and she wasn't going out, it would just be a waste. Still, it felt kind of weird going without.
She went back downstairs, feeling refreshed and reinvigorated. "Have a good shower, dear?" her mother asked.
She nodded. "When's dinner going to be ready?"
"About another thirty minutes."
Whew, she'd taken longer than she thought. She had some time to kill, she could go back to her room, or she could stay here and read, or...
She sat down, her skirt angling itself out of the way so that it didn't get caught under her. It felt weird to feel the smooth, cool surface of the chair on her bare backside, but she brushed that thought aside. There were more important questions at hand.
"Mom?" she asked. "Am I really...going to have to live with...with guys staring at me?"
Her mother nodded. "It's just part of life as a girl, honey. People pay a lot of attention to the opposite sex, especially at your age when they're only a few years past having discovered them for the first time. It's just like having girls check you out when you were a boy."
Steven blinked. "Huh? Girls never did that..."
Her mother smiled. "They're usually a bit more discreet about it, is all. Guys are more reputed for it, but believe me, teenage girls have their own hormonal drives, honey."
The flower-girl gulped, feeling a knot forming in her stomach. "You...but that means...I...?"
"Yes, dear. It might be a little suppressed at the moment, since you're still getting used to this body, but you should know that you are going to be dealing with your own sex drive, just like you were before."
She cringed. "But...that can't...I'm not...not..."
"Not attracted to men?" Steven nodded, blushing. Her mother shrugged. "Steven, you know as well as I do that these changes are capable of switching that around. You weren't, certainly, and maybe you still aren't. Or maybe you are. But even if you aren't, that doesn't mean you're asexual. In fact, I'm told that's the least likely of all the options."
Steven's mind reeled. She hadn't even really thought about this before...she'd just assumed that since she wasn't attracted to guys before, the issue wouldn't come up. But what if she was? Or what if she was still attracted to girls? The idea of being a lesbian was as alien to her as the idea of being a straight girl...
"M-mom," she stammered, "I...I can't...this c-can't be..." She felt tears stinging at the corner of her eye. Her mother came over next to her and put her hands on her shoulders.
"It's scary, isn't it?" she said. "You've faced so many big changes already, and in some ways this is the biggest, no matter where you fall on it. No matter what happens, Steven, you're still my daughter and I love you, and...I know you can handle this, honey. You'll get it figured out in time, and you can learn to live with whatever the truth is."
"B-but I don't w-want to!" she protested, crying. "I j-just want it to g-go away!"
There was that firm grip on the shoulder again, and she knew that meant her mother was in Serious Mode. She looked up to see the older plant-woman looking her right in the eye. "Steven," she said, "I didn't want you living in denial of your bodily changes, and that goes for this, too. I don't expect you to rush into this, honey, but you are going to have to know the truth, sooner or later. And you don't want it to go away, not really. You wouldn't know what to do without it."
Steven stared at her. She was serious...wasn't she? But...but...
Her mother hugged her. "I know this is scary for you, honey," she said. "But hiding from it and trying to pretend it's not real isn't going to help anything. You'll learn to live with it, I know you will."
