Adam moaned unhappily as her mother came over to the tub to comfort her. "Oh, honey," she said, "I'm so sorry. That must have been awfully uncomfortable. Did you have any idea that was coming?"
Adam shook her head, blinking back tears. "N-no," she stammered. "Oh, Mom, it felt like my gut was gonna turn itself inside-out..."
Her mother nodded, gently stroking her hair. "I'm sure. My God, look at those things...that must have been terrible for you to not know what was going on. We'll have to make sure we know more about harpies in the future, so you don't get taken off-guard like that again..."
The harpy sniffled. "I d-don't want to know more about it, I want to not have to deal with it!" she said, splashing her wings in the tub in irritation. For her to have been lying on the bathroom floor, pushing out...eggs, of all things... "It...it was so embarassing...oh, Mom, I feel like...like such a freak! How is anybody ever gonna take me seriously, if they find out I...I...how am I supposed to take myself seriously, Mom? I'm...I'm a..." A chicken. A brood hen. A freak. She couldn't pick just one. She opened her mouth to continue, but her mother shushed her.
"Adam," she said, smiling a bit sadly, "you're going a bit overboard. Do you want to know the truth? It's no more dignified for a human woman, even if it's less visibly strange. It's a painful, icky mess - but that's just biology for you. Nobody can live as a biological creature and retain their dignity at all times, honey. Even the Pope has to go to the bathroom now and then." She put her arms around her daughter. "But I'm sorry you had to go through that," she said. "At least next time you'll know what to expect, though."
Next time... Adam swallowed hard as she realized that there would be a next time. If she was stuck like this...if she was going to spend the rest of her life as this...there would be a next time, and a time after that, as this recurred again and again, month after month, until she was old enough that her body finally stopped...
Adam found her resolve wavering. Just one wish...just this one... She wanted to fix it. She didn't care about taking responsibility for her own careless use of magic, she didn't care about living with the results of her own planned self-exposure, she could take it all back...just one wish...
But she knew better than that. Even when she was ready to give in, the pragmatic part of her knew it wouldn't work out that way. The air bubble was fickle as the winds, in its own way...it had taken her wish to fix the Sun crisis and turned it into a whole other crisis that still fulfilled the literal terms of her wish, it could easily backfire on her if she wasn't specific enough. Even if she was, didn't it work by moving her in between worlds or something? It could take her to a world almost exactly like this one where she could be un-changed, but...it wouldn't be her world...wouldn't be her mother, or her coworkers, or anything.
No...no, she was stuck with this. She...she just had to live with it. Could she do that? She had to. She wasn't going to just give up. She...would have to live as this, as a harpy.
And...if she had to live as a harpy...maybe she could at least gain one thing out of it. She could fly. She didn't know that she placed the same value on it as the ship-girl had, but she could fly. She would.
Just not now...her aching body needed to rest before she thought of spending any amount of time in the air.
Max thought about it for quite some time. Did...did she want to be friends with Hiro? She wasn't sure...she didn't know him very well...and by his own admission, he had been kind of awkward when she did interact with him...on the other hand, he didn't seem like a bad sort, that she could tell. And...and despite her nervousness, it was silly to think that she couldn't be friends with him...but then that didn't mean that was all he wanted...
The more she debated it, the more she found herself becoming distracted from her own internal argument. It wasn't anything in particular that drew her attention, but...her muscles began to tense a little, feeling as though they held too much energy that wasn't being used. She felt a cool, moist breeze coming in through the window, which she'd opened a crack. The house was quiet, and there were things outside, things to see and places to go...for some reason, she wanted to go out. She felt like it would be better if it was night, but she was just restless...
Not fully knowing what she was doing or why she was doing it, Max slid the window open, stepped out onto the porch roof, and went out on the prowl.
