Karyn lifted a lock of her now restyled hair to take a look at it. The last inch or two of said hair had been dyed a soft autumn red and curled lightly, in contrast to the straight blond look up to the roots from there. “Fuck.”
Evidently some big influence in their lives (no awards for guessing whom) cared much more deeply about fashion than either Jennifer or Karyn had before, and it showed: both of them had, somehow, been given a complete makeover from the ground up in the blink’s worth of time it took the stone to grant the wish. Gone was the old baggy sweater Karyn had just been wearing, and in its place appeared a sleek, form-fitting turtleneck in her trademark forest green, that to Jen’s eye seemed just a touch smaller than it should’ve been. Matched to it down below was some earthy-brown pantyhose underneath a short plaid red skirt, all capped off by high-heeled leather booties, also in Karyn’s favorite forest green.
Jen had it even worse: she wasn’t even wearing any kind of sweater at all now, just a plain black tank top, once again tighter than it needed to be, with a violet scarf the only concession made to warmth. It was hard to think that it actually helped any, given how far downwards her neckline plunged into her cleavage, to the point of even exposing the uppermost edges of a lacy pink bra. On reflection, warmth was probably not the goal, given how all her limbs were exposed to open air save the calves wrapped up in black stockings; the rest of her leg was only hidden under a lavender skirt even shorter than Karyn’s. And at least Karyn’s heels made some functional sense in her boots; Jen’s were just some girly pink stiletto affair of which “walking” seemed to be of least importance in design. She couldn’t see it herself, but dye had appeared in her hair too, this time in the form of black streaks in the blonde mass.
Both of them found themselves adorned with more accessories and makeup than before they would ever have cared for: Jen with dark eyeliner to open up her dark eyes, Karyn with some bold red lipstick, Jen with some bubblegum pink lipstick, a hairband for Karyn, a black choker and some faux-silver bracelets for Jen; How did Sarah talk us into all of this!? Jen wondered.
“Okay, so, I’ll be wanting that back now,” Jen asked Karyn, reaching out for the stone. “This is why I said we should lock that thing away! This sort of thing was bound to happen." She sighed.
Reluctantly, Karyn let her have it, but not without a bit of protest along the way. “How does that even count!? I didn’t even say anything after the ‘I wish’ bit!”
“It’s a valid, complete elliptical sentence, Karyn, the stone knows what you meant!” Jen replied, tucking the artifact safely away in her purse and out of harm’s way. “It probably would’ve known what you meant if you said it in Incan or whatever language the creators spoke, too. It doesn’t have to be obvious English.”
“I… guess?” Karyn said, thinking over the peculiarities of language where the stone was concerned. “But even still, we heard the wish, right? So it can’t just make us suddenly be friends with Sarah, it’d need to overwrite free will for that!”
”What are you gals talking about?” Sarah asked, walking up to Karyn and Jen and abruptly making her presence known. She looked a bit different too, somewhat more modest than her old style had been (though, for her, that really wasn’t saying much). Most notably different was the presence of highlights in her hair, this time coming in the form of a single, broad, powerfully pink streak down one side of her head. Is this just a thing the three of us do now? Jen wondered.
“Uh… Hey,” Karyn replied sheepishly. Neither she nor Jennifer had any idea what they were supposed to say here, and as a result what ended up happening was a very painfully awkward silence settling over the new trinity for a few seconds. “How much, um, did you just overhear?” Jen eventually asked.
