Jon/Tiffany still had 15 minutes before her first class started. Right now, she stood in the girls' bathroom, looking in the mirror. If at first she had her misgivings about the plan and her prospects of being stuck with this body, she was really lightening up with them now. In short, she could barely believe how adorable her new body was. She was starting to think before, 'ok maybe being a girl isn't even all that different, and it wouldn't be hard to live with it', but now it wasn't just as an unfortunate situation that was less than ideal, now she genuinely wanted to try out being in this body for a while anyway. It was so strange and different but she just couldn't get over the thoughts 'this is me, that pretty girl is me', as she posed and looked in the mirror and down at herself. This really wasn't bad at all! She smiled at her reflection. And then Sarah McMillan walked in the bathroom.
Sarah looked at Tiffany in the middle of striking a pose. Tiffany looked down a bit, while Sarah wagged her tail in mirth. Sarah was literally a bitch now. But in a very cute sort of way. Some sort of canine, not necessarily a fox or a coyote, Jon had given the stone a lot of leeway when it came to the abundance of various furry demographic compositions. But seconds passed.
"You're, not going to, even say anything, mean to me?" Tiffany asked.
"Why would I do that?" Sarah asked. "Have I ever been mean to you, since we broke up? Didn't we part on good terms?"
Jon opened her mouth as if to say something, but was too shocked to do so at the revelation.
"How's Karyn doing, and Josh?"
"They're, fine. They're, just fine."
"Well, that's good. Besides, who could make fun of you for posing in the mirror, when you're that cute?"
Wow, Sarah was a nice person? What is with this world, maybe it's kind of better than the original one in a lot of ways anyway. "Thanks," Tiffany said, her tail raised up.
"Don't be late for class," Sarah said, entering a stall.
The more Karyn thought about it, the more guilty she felt. She had definitely impulsively gone too far in what she had done to Jon. But it also should be an easy fix. They were panicking before but they could just do what she had already earlier done to get rid of the blonde hair and big tits for her, namely just to retroactively wish for a time duration for the wish. It wouldn't contradict the wish for Jon to be female. Karyn's heart beat anxiously in her chest as she thought about it. It was a concern though, if Jon wished for it to be fixed while she wasn't there, she would just not be aware of it, her entire thought process on the matter would be erased. That was basically death, wasn't it? To just be replaced by a different version of yourself that wasn't doing the same thing or thinking about the same thing and whose memories were different. The stone carried heavy consequences. Jon could make his, or her, move, at any moment, and then poof, Karyn as she knew herself would just be erased from existence, replaced by another one that maybe wouldn't even remember Jon had even been turned into a girl.
At lunch, however, Karyn was joined by the still female Jon. "Damn I hadn't really thought about it this morning, but she's actually really cute," Karyn thought to herself. But then they were joined by someone else who was talking to Jon.
"Karyn, we've got a change of plans," Jon said to her.
"Ok, I guess. Maybe," Karyn said anxiously. "But I think we can just fix you just the way we fixed my hair and, um, you know. Who's this."
"This is Josh, my boyfriend," Tiffany said with a deadpan straight face.
Karyn spit and sprayed orange juice everywhere.
"Nice, Karyn," Jon/Tiffany said to her, bursting into laughter.
"Oh ha ha, I thought you were serious, very funny," Karyn said.
"I was being serious."
Karyn stared at Jon, not sure how far she was going to run with this joke.
"When you turned me into a girl, remember, reality changed so that everyone not in hearing range would remember it always being that way. So that means my family remembers me as being a girl, everyone else too. Girl-me has her own name, her own life, which I don't remember, and Josh was girl-me's boyfriend, from the other version of reality where I was always a girl, and he is friends with both of us and knows about the stone already."
"Oh," Karyn said more somberly. "Well that at least makes more sense. It's also really weird."
"It's weirder for me that neither of you remembers me, that I'm just a stranger now, and it may not seem like a problem that needs to be fixed to you. But as far as I remember, the three of us have always been best friends. We had sleepovers in first grade. All three of us would watch movies together while all of us were in bed together. To see it from my perspective, imagine if because of Tiff...Jon making a wish, he ... that's pretty messed up for me, just saying that, he didn't remember you and you were never friends, and now imagine if you were to try to convince him that the two of you were supposed to be friends, but he didn't believe you when you told him that and thought you were just some crazy girl that should get over her delusion. So it actually kind of really hurts that you both don't remember me and think I'm some sort of other person, an outsider," Josh explained.
"Oh. Holy crap," Karyn said. "My mind is blown. But then, what happens if, I mean..."
"Yeah I think I know what you're thinking," Tiffany said. "And that's what we want to talk about now. Josh and I have agreed that it's best if we don't wish things back the way they were, if we just adapt."
"What? But then you'll be, I mean, none of this is real!" Karyn stammered.
"I don't know? Is that the case? What if the stone actually changed history, instead of just screwing with our memories? Does it even matter? Isn't this reality just as valuable as the first one? Why should it be overwritten?"
"But if you just accept this new life, you'd be stuck as a girl," Karyn said.
Jon thought back to her morning in the bathroom. "No I wouldn't. I could still change later. But, I think, I might, be starting to think, I wouldn't really, mind, trying out, living like this, at least for a while, anyway, I think I maybe, kind of, like it, so far." she said.
"Huh," Karyn said. "I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, that you would be open to the idea of seeing it as a chance to broaden your horizons, but it's still weird, if you decide you like it long term, it's hard for me to think of you as my female best friend, you're still just not traditionally feminine, I'd even go as far as to say there's nothing the least bit feminine about you, Jon."
"My name is Tiffany now."
Karyn sputtered her orange juice once again and both Jon and Josh barely repressed laughter. "You're not going to drink any of your juice at this rate," Tiffany said.
Karyn coughed as she tried to recover.
"Anyway, there's something we need to talk about," Jon said. "I didn't want to just do something without your permission and without you there. The problem is, we've displaced the version of Karyn and Jon, or, Tiffany, who are native to this timeline. And I guess, the people who know them, would miss them, and we could maybe make things complicated and just wish for them to exist in addition to us, if we wanted to have twin sisters, but Josh and I were thinking, well, we just wish that I would have his Tiffany's memories in addition to my own, and the same for you, and we'd just go on from here with memories of it both ways. And we both have to be very careful with the stone from now on. No more willy nilly changing history, because that erases people from existence, you know?"
"Oh. Damn," Karyn said, contemplating all that. "But I haven't displaced anything, you said girls were part animal because you wished for it, that's the way it always was to me, I'm a resident of this universe, there's no alternate version of me."
"No you're not," Tiffany said. "You remember me as a boy. There is no Jon in this timeline, only Tiffany. There are 3 timelines involved, yours, mine, and Josh's, which is all around us."
"Oh." Karyn gulped.
"So we just wanted to make sure you know what was going on. We're going to make a few wishes to help us adapt and accept things without screwing with things or erasing anyone from existence," Jon explained.
"What about the people who were already erased from existence? From your original world, or mine? There were probably people who were never even born because of that." Karyn asked.
"I don't know. But it seems like maybe the stone tries to avoid that sort of damage. For instance, my family is still the same, and everyone I know seems to be here, the girls are all part animal, but it looks like maybe no one has been really erased from existence, just somewhat modified, but the modification of you and me was more severe, just because we were the only ones who were in hearing range of at least one recent universe-changing wish. That's what makes us different from everyone else. So I think we don't need to worry about restoring anyone except the version of me who grew up as Tiffany, and the version of you who remembers... oh no, no it's 3 for you, isn't it. There's MY Karyn, who grew up in a world where there was no serious sexual dimorphism and girls didn't have animal parts, there's you, who remembers me as a boy but grew up in a world where girls had animal ears and tails, and then there's the you from Josh's timeline who remembers the three of us being best friends since we were 4 years old. So you'd have to have all 3 versions crammed into your head for this to work. Maybe that's asking for a lot. Is that ok with you?" Tiffany said.
"Ah," Karyn said, understanding. "That's tough."
"How about this, we do me first. We merge me with Josh's Tiffany, and if that goes fine, then we go forward with you, but if it goes horribly wrong, well, hopefully we won't have to cross that bridge, but I think the stone seems to do a decent job of not making things into a horror story at least. But we try it with me first." Jon said.
"All right. I guess let's try it for you and go forward from there then. It's still scary, the idea, of merging my mind, with others. Will I still be me?"
"Don't think of it as changing you, just adding to you. I hope. So I'm going to do it now then," Tiffany said, taking out the stone. "I wish, that my mind and memories, would be merged with the Tiffany from Josh's timeline, the world which is all around us, and I would remember both lives and be both people." Tiffany said.
The stone was warm as it granted the wish.
"Wow," Jon said.
"Are you, my Tiffany, and her Josh?" Josh said, and then looked embarrassed. "I mean, Jon. Goddamn it, it's so weird and hard to think of you as a guy named Jon..." Josh said, his eyes wide, as Jon/Tiffany had surprise kissed him.
"Yes, I'm both people, and I think I am fine like this. Karyn, you have to do it. This is, so, cool. There's nothing bad about it at all." Tiffany said.
"Oh. Well ok then, straight from the horse's mouth, I guess it's nothing to be afraid of then," Karyn said.
"Ready?" Jon asked.
"I guess, do it," Karyn answered.
"I wish that Karyn's mind and memories from all three timelines would be merged and she would remember all three lives and be all three people," Tiffany said, with a small smile.
Karyn's world expanded. And yet it wasn't some trippy experience. It was just, like remembering something long forgotten. Memories, welcomed home, that should be remembered. It was so wonderful. How could she have been afraid of it. "Wow," she said.
"My turn," Josh said.
"Josh, you don't need to go through with it after all," Tiffany said. "I'm fine with you being my boyfriend after all. I get a variety. A girl and a guy. Guy me wouldn't have really been able to appreciate the situation, but my body is female now, after all. It's not exactly a big cope. I'm cool with it."
"Oh no, Tiff, you're not ruining this for me. You're going to have to settle for two girlfriends after all. Don't take this away from me," Josh said.
"Oh, I see," Tiffany said. "Well it's not my place to decide what you do with your body. Hey!" Josh had smoothly swiped the stone out of her hands. Tiffany's tail lashed in mild annoyance.
"I wish, that I was a girl, whose body conformed to Tiffany's deepest desire, her sexiest fetish," Josh said.
"For the next minute, for god's sake Josh say that, fast!"
"What?" Josh said, not really understanding what Tiffany was saying.
"Say the words 'for the next minute' right now!" Tiffany said, frantically.
"Forever," Josh said, realizing what Tiffany had been trying to tell him.
"Oh god damn it Josh," Tiffany said, chuckling. She loved that man. So annoyingly selfless sometimes. She was pleased to have him as a boyfriend. But he really didn't know what he was getting into. Or rather now, she didn't know what she was getting into. Well, being a girl was going to be the least of Josh's concerns in a moment.
When the stone was done granting the wish and the dust had settled, Josh looked down at her new body.
