Jon eyed the catgirl. She didn't seem all too distraught by not being involved in the exercises, but she did look a little disappointed, and Jon felt a bit bad that she was being left out. Still, she had a feeling it was as much due to Max's own shyness as it was to her physiological limitations.
"You know," she said, "aren't P.E. clothes covered under the school budget? I don't think we have to pay for them, last I heard. You could probably get the school to supply you with a couple sports bras."
"O-oh," Max said, staring down at her paw-like feet. "Um...I don't want to make a big deal out of it...and, uh, people would still stare..." Jon couldn't actually see her blushing, under the gray-and-white fur, but everything about her body language suggested it, and her black, leathery nose did look a bit redder. She frowned.
"No, seriously," she said. "You're going to want to take care of yourself, right? Besides, I don't think you're going to draw any more attention than you would anywhere else in the school. Probably less, considering it's all girls out here."
"Slug's got a point," Sarah said, walking up. Max blushed brighter as she realized they were overheard. "If you're having trouble with those as it is, you're going to want to keep in shape."
The catgirl frowned. "Wha...? I don't get it."
The harpy smirked slightly. "You guys...what do you think they're made out of?"
Max thought for a moment, then realized what Sarah was getting at. "Uh...um, fat...?"
She nodded. "Mostly, yep. So, if you get chubbier, what do you think is going to happen to them?" Max cringed a bit at the thought of having to deal with not just six breasts, but six large breasts. Sarah nodded. "Yeah, you see where that goes. You don't have to look like it's the end of the world, though, criminy."
Max blushed again. "Um, I wasn't...I..." She trailed off when she saw the wry smile on the harpy's face. She supposed she did look a little silly being worried about all this, but...this was strange enough as it is, she didn't need to think about it being more pronounced!
Jon hesitated a moment, then ventured a question. If she was, for the moment, just one of the girls, or something near to that, there was no reason she couldn't ask. "Uh, if you don't mind my asking," she said, "how do you deal with that?"
Sarah seemed a bit taken aback for a moment, then smiled, then frowned. "Well, it's not exactly easy," she said. "Walking's no problem, but jogging's kind of a pain in the ass. Still, it's better than I thought it was gonna be...I haven't gone to the doctor to find out or anything, but I think the natural supports in mine are stronger than usual, so they stay in place better. It's probably an adaptation for flight or something."
"Huh," the slug-girl mused. "I would've thought flight would be even worse..."
Sarah shook her head. "Not really. The thing is, it's not so much where they're hanging as how much they move around, and most of flight for me is longer, smooth movements, so they're not jerking all over the place like they were when I was jogging. Any other details about my breasts you'd like to know?"
Jon flushed a bit. "Uh, sorry, I didn't mean to-"
The harpy snickered. "Heh, don't worry. Actually, I think it's kinda funny, all you ex-boys suddenly taking an interest in the practical side of things..."
Jon felt a bit miffed at that, and thought about saying so, but thought better of it. "Anyway," Sarah said, "I still haven't gotten my answer about how you were keeping up. It can't just be a slippery thing, because you have to have traction somehow, right?"
Jon frowned. "Uh, I guess," she said. Mostly she didn't really feel the mucus trail underneath her; technically she could perceive it, but it was background sensation, ever-present but never really fully felt. But if she thought about it, she could feel some differences. It felt like there was a different kind running down the length of her underside, thicker and stickier than the stuff around the edges, which was indeed a bit slicker. Maybe the thicker stuff was what gave her traction?
But how did it work, anyway? She didn't generally think about it much when she was moving, because that had tended to make her lose the coordination that her subconscious mind provided, back when she'd first become this (though she supposed that after six weeks, she probably knew her way around her body a little better.) She knew she wasn't doing any kind of extend-retract thing like a caterpillar, there was no way she couldn't notice that...what did she do when she moved?
Waves, that was it. Now that she thought about it, she could just recall the feeling of little waves of muscular contraction traveling down her foot, pulling her along like tank treads. They were so gentle that she hardly even felt it, and with a foot some five feet in length, just a few waves cycling along the length once per second or so could give her a steady (if not particularily speedy) rate of movement. So then, to go faster, she must be increasing the rate at which they travelled her length and re-triggered at the fore...no wonder she got tired of it quickly.
She explained that to Sarah, who seemed moderately interested, then turned her thoughts back to Tiffany...she wondered again how it was that she had had two changes, something that was, to her knowledge, a singular occurance in this whole incredible event. Her first change...as Sarah had said, it did seem pretty awful, on some fundamental level, like she'd never seen with any other changed person. Weird was common, it was something everyone was getting used to, but she didn't know of any changes that seemed so wrong. Could the sun really have done that to her? But if not the sun, then what?
The sounds were beginning to filter through the door, heavy and dampening though it was. Word having gotten around, some of the students had gathered outside the counselor's office waiting for Tiffany to come out. With multiple students gathered in one place, naturally a conversation had struck up, and their laughs and frenzied discussions were loud enough to be heard inside the office.
Which, to be fair, was just part of operating in a school; on the other hand, considering that they were there to gawk at one of her patients, she had little sympathy for them. And it seemed to be agitating Tiffany, as well...
"They're laughing at me," she muttered.
"That's not really important right now, Tiffany," the counselor said. "Besides, we don't know that. Now-"
"The hell it's not important!" she said, tears beginning to form again. Damn it, why couldn't she keep herself from breaking down here? She didn't want to give anybody an in... "They're laughing at me!"
The older woman sighed; this was plainly upsetting Tiffany, and she couldn't really disagree that they were out there in order to get a chance to take a jab at her when they could. She hated getting in disagreements or arguments with the students, but if they were going to be like this...
The gathered students were expecting to see Tiffany when the door to the office opened, but the sight that greeted them would've been startling even if they'd been expecting it. An angry Gorgon is something to behold, and while the school counselor was more just annoyed, the sight of her leaning out the office door, snakes in full, wild array around her face, sent more than a couple students scrambling back to the other side of the hall. Even the ones who weren't familiar enough with classical mythology to know quite what she was were stunned.
"I'm seeing someone right now," she said, just a hint of a hiss in her voice, accented by the gentle sibilant emphasis she'd picked up as one of the minor side-effects of her change. "Could you please give us some peace and quiet?" They did, and she withdrew and shut the door.
She had mixed feelings about exploiting that, but she reasoned that Tiffany needed an environment in which she could speak honestly, without interference from other parties. It was obvious that there were deeper issues here; it seemed like she had an instinctive drive to direct others which was exploited by...whatever thing or whatever rationalization of darker urges brought on by her first change...whatever that was. And there were emotional issues, too...she hoped she wasn't biting off more than she could chew here.
At the very least, she thought, she didn't turn anyone to stone. She was inexpressibly grateful that nobody became petrified by looking at her, and that she seemed not to be able to induce such a change; or if she was, not unintentionally, at least.
