Tiffany arrived home and immediately dashed up to her room. Pulling out her diary, which she hadn't written in in a very long time, she quickly wrote down what it was she'd learned - where she needed to be, and at what time. Maybe she wouldn't need a written copy, maybe she'd just remember, but she wasn't taking any chances.
That done, she pulled off her clothes and put on the robes that had come with her change, sighing in relief as the itching died away. She laid back on the bed and thought over what had just happened. What was that? For her to have just received direction, as if she'd tuned into some kind of cosmic radio station...that wasn't normal! People didn't just suddenly know what to do!
...but then, she wasn't exactly normal anymore, was she? Cosmic radio station, indeed, with the antenna planted right smack in the middle of her forehead...but that was crazy talk! Oh, this whole thing was crazy! She was going nuts, she was having hallucinations, she was...she was...she didn't even know. But for some reason she had the feeling that she should talk to the counselor about it. What would the counselor know about people having crazy-ass delusions brought on by their changes? And anyway, school was out until Monday...
There was a knock at the door of her room, and her dad poked his head in. Tiffany was glad she hadn't gone with her first impulse and left the robes off when she'd removed her itching clothes. "Hey," he said. "It felt pretty nippy out for a bit there; do you want some cocoa?"
Tiffany found herself grateful, not just for the thoughtfulness of the offer, but for its mundanity. Cocoa, of all things, when she was worried she might be going crazy! She was grateful for the intrusion of this outpost of simple, sane normality into what had become a confusing and kind of scary afternoon. "Please," she said, a little more emphatically than she had intended.
Jon tried to think the question over. It was one she'd been pondering in the back of her mind pretty much since the Sun had changed, and with each passing day, she knew she had less and less time to come to a decision. Granted, they weren't even a third of the way through the six months, but she didn't want to spend the whole rest of that time dithering over what to do and leave no time to figure out how to do it. Who knew how long it would be until the next alignment that would let her make decisions on this level; she couldn't afford to make a mistake with this. And there was the issue of not being able to directly contradict previous wishes...
"Jon!" came Karyn's voice. "Where've you gotten off to, I thought we were-" The cecaelia-girl caught herself as she wheeled into the room. "Oh, sorry. Didn't realize we were having a meeting. What's the topic?"
Jon shrugged. "We were just discussing...possible solutions to the Sun problem. Trying to figure out how best to resolve it. Brittany was saying that she doesn't think trying to find a middle ground is likely to be a good approach."
Karyn nodded knowingly. "You were reading that article on the world being half-changed, weren't you?"
Jon sighed and nodded. "Yeah."
Karyn chuckled. "Well, if it's any comfort, there's been some dispute on that study since the publication of the article. Not that there haven't been a lot of people changed, but it may not be as bad as all that. And the study people are blaming science journalists for playing it up, of course."
Jon shrugged "I guess. But it's been something that's been weighing on me ever since the start of this, too. I know I've said it before, but I don't want to be the person responsible for the extinction of the human race. Even if it's not as bad as that yet..."
Karyn looked a little miffed. "It's not like the changed will stop being people, you know."
The slug-girl winced; she hadn't intended to imply anything like that. "No, no, I know," she said. "But...I mean, all the same, even given that the changed are obviously still people, I don't think they're going to be the same kinds of people. You can see it even now; look at Sarah, for example. She doesn't act the same as she used to, she acts...I dunno, maybe it's too early to say that that's 'harpy behavior,' but she certainly seems to think so."
Karyn nodded thoughtfully. "So you think it's not merely the status of being sentient that defines humans as humans?"
Jon nodded. "Something like that. I don't think being human is a prerequisite for being a person, but I don't think the human form is valueless, I guess. I want to see humans preserved, just...sharing the stage with all the new species, that's all."
"I guess I see what you're getting at," Karyn said. "But you know, even if you make sure that humans exist after you resolve the Sun issue, that's no guarantee that they always will. I mean, say that mixed couples turn out to be likelier to have babies the species of the changed parent? Humans might be mostly bred out of existence, anyway. Unless you introduce some kind of segregatory breeding-favoritism mechanics, and we sure don't want that."
Jon shook her head emphatically. "No, of course not. I...I guess we just have to let the chips fall where they may on that."
Karyn brightened. "Although," she said, "what if you made it so that people could switch back and forth between human and changed forms? That'd solve the problem for people who are unhappy with their changed forms, too, wouldn't it?"
The three of them thought that over for a minute. Finally, Jon shook her head. "...I dunno," she said. "It seems like that'd just be confusing. I mean, you'd be making every person into two people. And...it seems like kind of a cheat."
"A failure to commit, rather," Brittany said. "How would any person come to accept what they are when what they are isn't even constant?"
"That, or they'd have the one form they preferred, and the other one they might not even like to admit to having," Jon said. "Besides, wouldn't that just make humans the 'default generic form' of every other species?"
Karyn shrugged, a couple of her frontmost tentacles mimicking the gesture. "I suppose when you put it like that," she said. "Still, though...if you're going for a solution that will leave everybody stuck in one form or another, you'd really better know what you're doing."
The slug-girl nodded. "That's what worries me. That's why I've been trying to figure this out for weeks, now...I guess I keep coming back to the idea of changing back the people who'd be happier being their old selves, and leaving everybody who'd be happier changed. Maybe even allow it to partially change them back, like if someone like Haru liked...you know, liked being a girl better, but wanted to be human."
The octopus-girl eyed her curiously. "You know, a lot of people might be thrown off by a difference between what they think they want, and what they'd really be happier as."
Jon nodded. "Well yeah, that's kind of what we'd be counting on. Otherwise you might wind up with someone who, say, thinks their changed form is cool now, but would get sick of it down the road. Or maybe thinks they'd really like to be human again, but would find themselves missing their changed form eventually. It might be a shocker for them at first, but if they'd ultimately be happier that way, then they can just live with it until they come to realize that."
"Huh, I suppose," Karyn said. "You don't think it might be bad for them in the meantime, though? I mean, what if you had someone who wound up really depressed because they didn't change back, until they finally came to realize they wouldn't want to?"
Jon sighed. "I know," she said. "But...I guess we'd just have to trust that the stone can tell what's ultimately best for people. It's gotta be better than you or I trying to decide that for them."
Karyn nodded. "Yeah, I suppose so."
