Adam hesitated. "Uh, sir, I just have to ask...you do know we're a retailer, right? I mean, we don't have any manufacturing facilities, no R&D; division, we do our marketing in the mall flyers, and as far as distribution channels go, we're the endpoint?"
The alligator-man shrugged and nodded. "All true. But hey, Apple started as two guys in a garage, Commodore was a typewriter-repair shop that grew into a calculator company. And they were going up against established competitors. I'm not saying this is sure to work, but I figure, why not? Compared to that, we have a potential new market and nobody currently moving to establish themselves in it, and at least some capital. If we can secure a couple decent VCs and we remember to start small, I think it's a possibility, at least."
The harpy chuckled. "Okay. You're the boss." She went into the back room; if she had an official dispensation to investigate this instead of working the register, she wasn't going to argue.
"Atlantis," eh? It was an interesting thought; certainly there had to be a significant number of aquatic transformees, and probably more than a few of them were as specialized towards their new environment as she was toward hers, and similarly inconvenienced in a land-bound society because of it. It made sense that, as more of them became accustomed to their changes, they'd try to find a more convenient way of living.
Accustomed to their changes...there was that nagging thought again, that reminder that she was no longer just a night-side observer in this whole affair. She might possess functional legs like mermaids didn't, but she had her own set of problems to deal with, in just as real a the-rest-of-my-life sense as the people who were looking at building an underwater city. What would happen to her?
She didn't think she'd need any special city - after all, she had no trouble moving around on land, and it wasn't like she could live in the air indefinitely as aquatics could in the sea. A nest had to be built on something...huh, that was kind of an odd thought. But the point stood: it wasn't the environment that was the problem here, it was, well, the fact that she didn't have any hands, the closest alternatives were on the ends of her legs, and...well, there was also the fact that she was facing life as a...as a woman.
She tried not to think about that too much, but the truth was what it was. But...well, there would be time to come to terms with that later. Right now, it was a bigger priority for her to figure out how to get by with all the other aspects of her change. And before that, it was time that she was getting back to work. She sat down at the computer in the back room and started trying to work out how to use it, before settling on putting the mouse and keyboard on the floor. There, at least she could reach that. Now if only the muscle-memory for typing would transfer over to her talons...
Alex and Sally arrived home from school that afternoon to find their parents looking a little tired and disheveled, for some reason, but in a good mood nonetheless. "Hi, kids," their father smiled - the first such greeting after school in a long time, that Alex could recall. "How was your day?"
Alex sighed, her wings unfurling and sagging a bit. "It was...interesting, I guess. Kinda exhausting...they gave us this test with all kinds of questions..."
Susan nodded. "They'd mentioned something about that. How did it go? It sounded like it was more of an assessment?"
Alex shrugged. "Kinda...I dunno, it was a lot of stuff I understood, but it was all written kinda weird."
Sally nodded. "The counselor said it was all to try and figure out if we had any problems or not, from our change."
"Hmm," Andy mused. "How did that go?"
Alex frowned. "Well...uh, pretty good, I guess. She said I'm not...you know, I haven't lost anything by getting younger, but...well, I kind of told her I'd like to be in Sally's class."
Her parents looked surprised. "Why is that?" Sue asked.
The dragon-girl shrugged. "Well, I...I don't know anything about...well, about being a girl! And I thought Sally could help me, and anyway if I stayed in my class I'd be the youngest, and..." And, she thought to herself, now that she's not trying to show me up all the time, I kind of want to spend more time with her. But she didn't exactly want to say that to anyone else.
"Huh," her dad said. "That's a big decision, Alex. I guess I can understand that you're worried about feeling out-of-place, but still, I'm not sure you should risk losing ground in your schoolwork over it."
Susan nodded. "She has a point about having Sally close at hand, though. I think we'll have to talk some more about this before we come to a decision. But Alex, honey, we need to get you some new clothes before anything else. You can't keep borrowing Sally's forever."
