Lilly arrived home in a bit of a daze, still trying to figure out what it meant that she couldn't quite remember her old name, and didn't feel...she didn't know what...at the sight of that devil-girl. She wasn't exactly upset, at least not in an immediate-distress way, but she was confused and unsettled, and a little sad to be feeling that way when she'd had such a fun afternoon just before. She glanced at the tree outside her room for a moment, but went in the front door - partly because she was a little worried about damaging her uniform while she shimmied up it, but mostly because she wanted to get straight to Mom.
Her mother was in the kitchen, making a lunch for her dad for when night came and he went to work. She turned and smiled, looking a bit relieved. "Welcome home, Lilly," she said. "Where did you get off to this afternoon?"
Lilly smiled at the memory of their trek. "I met a girl at school today, an' she's a h...um, a harpy, but she was afraid of flyin'! So I made her come with me an' we went out away from town, an' she flew, Mom! Jus' like a bird! An' Bruce was there too, but he wasn't mean t'day."
"I see," her mother smiled. "I'm glad you had fun, but..." Abby thought for a minute. Part of her wanted to insist that Lilly clear everything with her ahead of time, that maternal protection instinct that wanted to know where she was and that she was safe at all times. But...she remembered that pure spontaneity is one of the joys of childhood. If Lilly had to live through a second childhood, and put up with the restrictions it imposed, she couldn't very well deny her the rewards that came with it, not within bounds of reason anyway. And it wasn't like this was really an unsafe area; even the woods didn't get that thick and predator-friendly until further out towards Hedgeton, and she doubted Lilly could get that far in an afternoon, not on her little legs. "...next time you should let your dad or I know where you're going first, okay?" she finished. "You can call home from the school."
Lilly gave what she could muster for a penitent look. "Okay," she said. Then her thoughts turned back to the reason she'd rushed in to see her mother, and her face fell. "Um, Mom," she said, hesitantly, "I...I f-forgot my...my name...today."
Mrs. Gordon turned to face her daughter, visibly startled. "Oh, honey," she said, leaning down towards her. She picked up the squirrel-girl and carried her into the living room. Lilly felt a little strange being held against her mother's pregnant belly, but the feeling of being wrapped in her arms was very comforting. Her mom set her down on the couch and sat down next to her, keeping an arm around her shoulder. "You mean the name you used to use?" she asked. Lilly nodded.
Mrs. Gordon sighed. This was exactly the sort of thing Les had been worrying about since their children had first changed...and while she thought he overdid it with the worrying, finding out that it had, in some small measure, actually begun to happen was pretty gut-wrenching. How was she supposed to respond to this? What could she say to this little squirrel-girl her son had become, whom she loved dearly, whom she wanted to reassure...whom she could never lie to?
There was a brief silence, during which she gently ran her fingers over her little daughter's fur, gently rubbing her back, then smoothing the fur back down. "How did it make you feel, to forget that?" she asked at last.
Lilly bit her lip. "A...a li'l sc-scared..."
Her mom nodded. "I'm sure it did. Does it bother you not to remember it, or are you just worried about what might happen?"
The squirrel-girl thought for a moment, her tails shifting this way and that. "I...I guess...'m worried? I dunno if it both'rs me..." Did it? If she wasn't using that name, why should she be bothered by not having it? But being...being her old self was part of who she was! She didn't want to just forget that...
Her mom hugged her. "I understand, sweetie," she said. "I can tell you your old name if you want, but I understand why you feel worried. I wish I could do more to help you with this..."
Lilly nodded. "An'...an' there was another thing...I saw a girl, an' she got no clothes on. An' I...I thought I shoulda felt something, but I dunno what, an' I didn't..." She hunched down, burying herself in her mother's side, feeling embarassed but not really knowing why. Her mom held her close, stroking her through her fur... "M-mom, wh-what's...what's gonna h-happen to me?" she asked.
"I don't know, sweetie," Mrs. Gordon said. "It might be..." She hesitated; she knew how Les felt about the idea of saying this, and she was none too sure of it herself...but what else could she say, if she wanted to give her daughter an honest answer? "It might be that you're going to have to accept life as a girl, Lilly," she said.
Lilly stared up at her, wide-eyed. She didn't look insulted or betrayed...just incredulous. Abby could hardly blame her for that. "B-but...D-Dad's lookin' for a way to ch-change us b-b-back..." she said, her lip trembling.
"He is," her mother said. "Lilly, your daddy is a very smart man, and he's doing the best he can. But that doesn't mean he's going to come up with a way to change you back very soon. That might not happen for a long time..." ...or maybe never, she thought. But...that felt like a bit too big of a bombshell to drop right now. "So it wouldn't be good for you to just try and wait for something that might not come until years and years from now," she said. "Honey, your daddy and I aren't going to tell you that you need to just get used to this, but...you might be happier if you did. If you can accept what you are now, you can live with it however long it takes for people to find a way to change back...and if you still want it then, you can take it, but in the meantime you won't have spent years being unhappy because it wasn't coming fast enough."
"But...wh-what if I don' want it anymore?" Lilly asked, trembling slightly. What if she just...became some...some girly-girl...or something?
"I don't know," her mom said. "What? Do you think it would be so bad to stay a girl?"
The squirrel-girl was silent for a long moment. Would it? What was it that she didn't like about it? Well, there was the fact that this body just felt weird to her, sometimes...less often now than when she first changed, though...and there was Bruce, who teased her for no good reason now because she was a girl...but was it bad? But wouldn't it have to be, since she wasn't supposed to be one? She didn't know...and part of the reason Artemis didn't like her was because she didn't like being a girl...if she did, could they be friends? But should she have to change what she wanted just to make Artemis happy? "I...I dunno," she said. "I-is it, Mom?"
Mrs. Gordon couldn't help but chuckle a little. "It has its ups and downs, sweetie," she said. "But I like it alright; I wouldn't trade it. But that doesn't mean you'd like it...I think the only person who can say for sure is you."
"Oh." Lilly stared down at the floor, down at her paw-like feet dangling over the edge of the couch, down at the body she had now, instead of her old one...what did she want? What would happen to her?
Morgan shoved back from her desk with a sigh. Her homework was finished, finally...why did they have to bother with all this stuff, anyway? Why should she have to care about some book about mockingbirds? If they'd only let her study what she wanted, she wouldn't have trouble concentrating...if she could write reports about books about magic and monsters and stuff, instead of boring people doing boring stuff, they'd hardly even have to ask! Grown-ups had it all backwards; they knew how to write about fantastic, cool things, but they put kids in school to learn about boring stuff that they said she'd need, instead of trying to make the world neater, make it into a world where the boring stuff wasn't needed. If she could do magic, say, then why would she have to worry about learning how to do reports and stuff?
And it wasn't like they could say that couldn't ever happen anymore, not now. The Sun proved it was possible; it was so neat! But it was disorganized, and maybe not quite fantastic enough, for her tastes; why couldn't it make magic fully a real thing, already? If she had magic...if she did have magic...what would she do?
Well, she'd make the world neater, of course. She'd let everybody have magic, and then they wouldn't need to go to school or have jobs or stuff like that...that'd totally be better than this. But that'd just be a start. If she were really powerful...well, maybe she could just make a better world. She could find some place where there was nothing, or not much of anything, and she could put her own design there. And if there were no people on it, maybe she could make some...or if she couldn't, if she could find some things...things that weren't people, and make them people...give them faces and Names...and then she'd have a whole world of her own, that she made, that she made to be the best world...
...would that make her its god? Morgan balked at the thought when it first crossed her mind; she didn't like gods. The idea of things like that, just sitting up somewhere, telling people what to do...ugh! It would be like grown-ups, only a million times worse! But on the other hand...well, it didn't have to be like that, did it? The gods she read about in books on mythology were jerks...but if people were gods, people weren't always jerks...if she made a world, she could do a good job running it! That would be better than having some god do it, right? She could be a good ruler, if only...
...if only she could ever get the chance...
