Honesty

Sequel to Duplicity.

The "Best" RPG Ever-17

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The castle was really starting to show its age now: The corridor the party of four was trying to follow their target through was full of rubble, requiring all of them to climb around carefully, and take the occasional pause so Zack could push some of it around to make more room.

"So, theories. What do you think this thing is?" said Katherine.

"You're the one who said 'boggart' earlier," Mika chimed in.

"Well yes, but..that doesn't quite make sense. I didn't feel particularly afraid of what I saw, and neither did Zack. Or, did you?"

"No," he said flatly.

The psion thought a little more. "Was it acting in self-defense? Does it think this place belongs to it and we're intruding?"

"It was taunting me to attack it," said the knight.

"It was taunting you to attack me. If it doesn't like all of us being here, killing off one or two like that would be a quick way to get the rest to run away. In theory, at least."

"Are you..sure it was really taunting you?" said Nora.

"Yes."

"Well, I mean, w-what did it say?"

"None of your business."

Katherine sighed. "Let me put it this way. It looked like you. Did it say something you could imagine yourself saying?"
"No. Never."

"So, it said something you'd hate yourself if you said."

"Why is this about me all of a sudden?"

"It's not about you, it's about the monster! Or whatever we're dealing with. We can't get a clear picture of how it works without more information about what it did to make you so angry."

Zack dropped the rock he'd been moving, and sighed. "It looked like me in a wedding gown."

"So?" said Mika. "You'd look pretty good in a gown."
"It implied I was marrying someone. A guy."
Katherine nodded. "Mhm..And you think of yourself as a guy. You might not be afraid exactly of acting like a girl so much you decide to marry a man, but the idea is at least very upsetting. Right?"

He shrugged. "I guess so."

---

After an hour or so of walking and resting, Aria said, "So hey, you know, what this party really needs is a healer. Like, a dedicated healer to keep everyone else alive and stuff."

"No, ya think?" said Rayna.
"Mnghf," grunted Lynn. "No argument here."

"Any idea how far off we are now?"

Rayna looked up, turned around in a circle, then looked down at the ground, then forward again. "I'd say..we're a little more than halfway there."

---

Katherine said, "Saaay, you looked really worried about me getting hurt. I didn't know you liked me that much!"

He stopped, turned around to face her, crossed his arms, glared. "I don't like you. I dislike you. There's a slight chance I hate you. But I dislike seeing people get hurt more." And then turned back around and continued, ears folded completely back against his head.

"Uh.." Nora said, "..A-are you sure your mind hasn't been rewritten some to match the 'knight' class when it changed your body?"

"Hmph. Not unless it rewrote most of my memories, too. And I don't wanna even think about that."

Mika stopped in her tracks, her head forming an idea too rapidly to concentrate on anything else. And then she had to scramble over some of the rocks saying, "Hey! Heey!" to catch up.

The others turned around, and Katherine said, "What?"

"I think I get it. It's a troll."

"A troll." said Zack. "Last time I checked, trolls don't do anything this thing does."
"No no," she said, shaking her head, "not a fantasy troll. Like, a person who's a troll? It doesn't care what happens as long as it gets a reaction out of people. It didn't do anything but look like a spider for a second to Nora because she screamed at that right away, and I think it tried to scare me with an angel because I look kinda like a demon to it? It kept looking like you in a wedding dress when you reacted to that," she said, turning to Zack, "and got a reaction out of her" (here pointing at the cat-girl) "by getting you to attack her!"

Katherine scratched her head. "That...makes sense. It didn't kill anyone based on the report we got. But why make the guards not remember it before sending them back? And more concerningly, how?"

"If it sent back guards with some clue of what was here, there wouldn't be any reason for more people to come around other than to try and get rid of it," said Zack. "A mystery means people would keep coming here to figure out what it is, without a clear idea on how to get rid of it.

"..I'm as worried about how as you are. Why don't you write down what we've figured out so far, in case that happens?" He got out the notebook and handed it to Katherine.

"Why don't I? Why don't you?"

"I have to move rocks," he said flatly, and started on the way forward again.

---

"Hey, could you open your mouth for a sec?" said Lynn at another rest.
Aria did as requested. "Aaaah. How come?"

"Well, when you first showed up, your teeth were huge and sharp-looking, like you were some kinda horror-movie monster or something."

"That's weird. They've never been sharp before. Maybe it's a demon sword thing?"
"Hmm..I dunno," said Rayna, staring at her. "Your race isn't listed as human. It's..I'm not sure how to pronounce that row of letters. Maybe you're some kind of shapeshifter?"

"Well, how would I be able to tell?"

The fox-girl shrugged. "Try to have sharp teeth?"
"I'll try, I guess. Hnngh." Aria had closed her eyes and clenched her mouth, expecting it to be difficult, but as soon as she thought about her teeth growing big and sharp, she could feel them moving around. She opened her eyes again, halfway opened her mouth and probed with her tongue a bit to find they had changed just as imagined. "Well, lookit that," she said with a bit of difficulty thanks to the altered shape of her mouth, and then shifted them back. "I wonder what else I can change?"

"What if you can turn back into a guy?" suggested Lynn.

"Yeah, I'll try that!" Aria stood up and tried to turn back to how she'd looked before entering the game. She could feel her hair sliding up her back as it shortened, her chest pulling in slightly, and her figure becoming steadily less pronounced, but the change stopped at just a more androgynous female, well short of a truly male appearance, much less actually turning her into a man.

"Wow. That's..a pretty dramatic change," said Rayna, noticing her hair and eye colors had even shifted around. "Does it feel like you're straining anything to stay like that?"
"No," said Aria, and paused to note that her voice had deepened somewhat, almost enough to mistake for a man's. "It didn't take any more effort than the teeth did, either. But it does feel...I dunno, unnatural? Like I don't think I could get used to this very quickly." She quickly shifted back to her earlier appearance: long white hair, green eyes, bigger chest, so on. She was now exactly as she had started, despite not really having thought of what she was shifting to in any more detail than 'turn back'.

"Say...your clothes changed to fit you, too," said Lynn.

"I didn't tell them to do that. I mean, not the way I told my body to change. Maybe they're enchanted to do that or something?"

"If you buy some more clothes and shift in them we'll find out," said Rayna. "What about fuzzy parts? Like, I grew this tail and furry ears when I picked a class.."

"Let's see!" said Aria excitedly, and tried to give herself fox parts like the illusionist's. Her ears visibly grew in size, became covered in fuzz that progressed into fur, and soon began wiggling around; at the same time, a thick-furred tail slowly pushed its way out from her back. Her fur was white like her hair, except at the tips, where it was black. "Wow, this is neat!" she said, pulling the tail around to her front and hugging it.

"Does that feel unnatural?" said Rayna.

"Kinda? A lot less so." She let go of the tail and tried walking around a bit. "I'm not having any trouble balancing with this. Hey, I wonder if I can change my stats like this!" She tried changing again, focusing specifically on making her muscles stronger, but it just felt like she was tensing all of them normally, and she relaxed after a few seconds.

"I'm not seeing any difference," said Rayna.
"Aww."

---

"H-hold on!" Nora stopped at a door, and the others stopped to turn and look at what she was doing. She closed her eyes and walked forward a couple of steps, then back to the door, turning to face it. "It..doesn't go past here. And it's a-a lot stronger through this door than most of the trail was."

"So, you think the troll-ghost-whatever is through there?" said Katherine.

"It's..l-likely. Should we go in?"
"The door opens out, and there's too much junk in the way. I'd have to break it," said Zack, "so no element of surprise if we do."

"Wait-wait-wait, I thought we already figured out what is," said Mika, "shouldn't we just leave?"
"Correction: We figured out what it wants," said Katherine, "or at least we think we did. We still don't understand its nature well enough for someone to get rid of it, or decide whether they should."

"Can you tell there's something in there?" said Zack, looking at the psion.

She closed her eyes as if to think for a few seconds, and then opened them. "No. I'm sure I could sense it if it had a physical brain, so it must not."

"Then..neither of us can do anything to it, if it isn't physical. So I'll break the door, and you two start throwing fire in," he said, waving the witch and weaver closer.

"I'm not sure I can throw fire.." said Nora.

"Well, do some kind of magic attack. We need to know if it can be hit by those."

After giving them a moment to get ready, Zack smashed in the door with his sword, and pointedly stepped back, not looking inside. Mika stepped forward and threw a fireball in, lighting up what seemed to be a storage room for banners with a big barrel labelled 'TNT' in the middle. Nora held off while the witch made her fire float above the ground and circle around the room. "Where is it?" she said.

"I-it's, uh--" Nora closed her eyes, reaching out to pinpoint the location of the thing, and pointed straight at the barrel. "It's either inside of that or it is that," she said.

"Hang on!" Zack quickly switched to Dark Form and held up his magic-shield between the doorway and the rest of the party. "Okay, try it."

Mika nodded and waved the fire right toward the barrel, which hopped sideways away from it; the fire continued on its course toward the doorway and hit the knight's shield before he could get out of the way, which put it out.

"Hmmnp!" Nora tried pulling some of the stone bricks out of the wall next to the thing with enough force to hit it, and they passed straight through it. There was a giggling sound, and the barrel seemed to fall straight down through the floor.

"Where'd it go?" said Katherine, looking around.

"I..I think it's still below us. But it's leaving..that way?" said Nora, pointing at a nearby wall. "I'm sorry, I don't think I can track it.."

"It's okay," said the psion. "At least now we know it doesn't like magic demon fire. And it's definitely immune to physical attacks."

"So, should we go report about it now?" said Mika.

Zack thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "We should at least try and head toward the exit, see if it does anything to stop us."

---

Rayna looked ahead at the town's walls and gates, the guards standing outside of them. "Ah, finally, civilization!"

"Mmh, yeah." Lynn nodded. "For as medieval-looking as it does, it's surpisingly comforting to see."

One of the guards ran up to the three girls as they got closer. "Are you hurt?" she said to the archer.

"Yeah. Big brute clubbed me in the side. They're not, though."

"Well, I could use a nice bath after all this," said the fox-girl; the guard ignored her and yelled for some more to come over.

"It'll have to wait. Tell the captain what we found." The guards were getting ready to outright carry her inside. "And you—" She pointed to Aria. "—No murdering in town."

"What about out of town?" asked the shifter just as Lynn was about to be out of earshot.
"Probably not!" she shouted back.

They had to wait outside the captain's office for a few minutes. Rayna had an attentive look, her ears turned partially toward the door.

"What? Can you hear what's going on in there?" asked Aria.
"Not with you talking two inches away."

"Well, I expect you to tell me."
"Why don't you just get your own ears?"
"I can't—oh, wait."

She went with cat ears this time. It wasn't entirely clear how she knew the difference, but it worked well enough. It seemed the captain was scolding a guard who had been in a drunken brawl the night before. Her voice was very quiet but not pleasant, instead sounding like there was such an overload of rage that it wrapped back around to seeming calm. This, Aria decided, would not be a smart person to provoke.

After a while, the guard walked out of the office looking nearly distraught, and the captain stuck her head out the door, looking at the illusionist. "Good, you're back. Where's your partner?"

"She's getting a wound fixed. Also, this is Aria, she's..well, we'd better explain in private."
The captain nodded. "Come in."

Rayna handed over the sketchbook and went through an explaination of her findings, ending with the tear and explaining that Aria had come out of it. The captain occasionally asked for clarification, and turned to the white-haired girl at this last point. "So where did you come from?"
"Um..I can't exactly remember," said Aria. "I mean, I remember being somewhere with a sword stuck in the ground and pulling it out, and then cutting a hole and jumping through it, but most of before that is a blur."

"You still have this sword? Show it to me."
"Okay." She brought out the sword, still in its sheath, and leaned it against the captain's desk. "I, uh, it wouldn't be a good idea to unsheathe it."

The captain picked up the sword and examined it, and Aria found herself having to push back against an urge to punch the small woman and take it back immediately. After a moment, though, it was handed back, the captain giving a face somehow even more serious than usual.

"This is a demon blade. For a while, dangerously powerful demons were sealed into physical forms like this one and bound to their masters. The problem is that the demon influences whoever owns the blade, and tends to drive the master insane. The loophole for keeping the problem truly at bay was to kill the masters and seal them in a way that made it very difficult for anyone to claim it, so that it had no master to influence. Do you remember why you took this out?"

Aria put the sword back in her 'inventory' once it was in her hands. "Not really? I'm sure I knew it was powerful, and wanted it for something, but I can't remember what."

"It may be an effect of the wards on the blade. If you went to all the trouble of finding it you would've known it had them, and been willing to pay the price. What does the blade want?"

"Blood." And then, realizing how sudden and blunt the answer had been: "Err, I mean it seems like it does.."

The captain nodded. "The blade answered before you could even think about it. That's..not the worst appetite you could have ended up with. If you intend to work here and feed it the blood of monsters, I have no objections. But if I even think you're sating its hunger with innocent people, I will kill you."

Aria blinked a couple of times, and nodded. "Yeah. Okay. I'll keep that in mind."

Rayna decided to try and change the subject. "So, uh, if you don't mind me asking, and since we're both sworn to secrecy on it anyway, do you know what the stuff I looked at is, exactly?"
"Demon summoning ritual," said the captain. "Tears a hole for one to come through, then closes it right away. The space will heal with time, but it was very fresh to be weak enough for her sword to cut through it."

"Demon? Like what's in my sword?"
"Same category of beast, but much weaker. If something like what's in your sword came through we would know about it."
"You think someone's trying to make a demon army and attack the town or something?" asked Rayna.

She shook her head. "It's a much more difficult ritual to seal it after just one comes through. This is classic witch or warlock work. To the end of becoming an archdemon—which, despite the name, are not necessarily hostile—a witch or a warlock summons, kills, and eats demons to take their power. One at a time is usually the way, since being stronger attracts stronger demons and it's much easier to kill just one at a time."
"So, is this a danger to the town or not?" said Aria.

"I don't know yet. I need to talk with some people first.

"At any rate, your job is done. I'll make sure your compensation is taken care of."

Shooting Star

Wolfbite

Happy Halloween!

Have a werewolf caption.

Fox's Beach

I don't know why so many foxes lately. I have like 3 or 4 more fox images with captions in the works for them, too. If you don't like the foxes I'm sorry, I can't help it.

Winds of Change

In addition to posting this caption up, I'd like to call everyone's attention to the "Writing Status" up in the top-right area of this blog. I've changed what information it gives from "vague idea of my current ability to write" to "information on how far along various projects are in hopes of giving some clue as to how long until a new thing is posted".

Included is a note on how many of The Witch's Friend pages already posted up actually need more suggestions before I can continue; if you want to help with that issue, look for pages with just 1 or 2 comments on them.

Midas Journal 16

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Entry: May 1

Yesterday night, after suppertime, Lue called me. She opened with, “Kael! Uuh, we have a problem. Or, I have a problem but you're involved. Or..”

“What is it?” I said.

“Weeelll, you know how I introduced you—or Kayla—to someone, uh, about a week ago?”

“Yes. Brian. We had a talk about that.”

“And! In light of that talk I'm willing to call this situation my problem. But as a friend I'd like to ask for your help even though it totally isn't your problem, and it's definitely, completely not your fault.”

“What. Is the problem.”

“Uh. So uh. The problem is, Brian's been getting kinda, well, he asked me if I had seen you since last Friday. Seen Kayla, I mean. I may remind you that I have a lot more experience of the world than I look or sound like I do, and judging by his behavior I think he likes you. Likes Kayla, that is.”

I didn't say anything for a few seconds, and she added. “Umm, yeah, I know, this is bad. In keeping with my promise of not playing matchmaker I haven't given him a straight answer, which I find harder to do than you'd believe.”

“So, what do you want me to do about it?”

“Well, I generally believe the truth is the best option for an awkward situation. But if I told him that you're a recently-awakened reality warper who can change between being a boy and girl nearly at will, and are therefore not interested in any relationship at all right now he'll probably think I'm deflecting his questions by saying crazy things. I do that sometimes, it wouldn't be an unfair assumption.”
“So you want me to..”
“I could point you in the direction of his house, arrange it as a meeting between you two, and you could show him what the deal is so he'll believe it. Anyway, hearing you're not romantically interested in general from someone else's mouth is a lot less effective than hearing it from yours. Or—”

“Or from Kayla's, yes. You can stop doing that please.”

“Sorry. But you see what I mean? I know, I'm asking you to fix my mess and all. If you don't want to it's fine, I can just say Kayla moved or something? He might not buy it but a straight lie like that would send a message anyway.”
“No, it's..”

I sighed, I thought for a minute about how being around him as Kayla had made me feel. I thought about what Threa had suggested. I thought about how Lue was my friend, like it or not. It felt like about five minutes' worth of thinking but it must have been only a few seconds because it wasn't interrupted by the other end of the line. Finally I said, “It's fine. I'll talk to him. Soon as possible. When is that?”

“Hmm, I'll have to check with him but probably tomorrow. I'll text you the details after I get in touch with him. And, um, Kael.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Thanks. I don't know if you understand how bad lying and dodging around questions like I have been makes me feel. And I'm glad you trust me enough to not accuse me of playing matchmaker again.”

“Well, if you were, it would blow open as soon as I talked with Brian again anyway.”
“Heh, yeah, there's that.”

The next person to call me was Adena. She said, “Hey! Kael, guess what!”
“What?”
“Uugh, you're supposed to actually guess something when someone says that. Whatever, anyway, I figured out some more cool stuff I can do with my magic and I wanna show you! Like, tomorrow sometime?”
“I'm, uh, not sure when I won't be busy tomorrow. Long, annoying story.”
“That's fine, day after?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Okay, so meet me at the ice cream place a little after lunchtime maybe?”
“Sure.” So I can bet I'll have to write another entry for whatever insanity happens tomorrow, too.

But anyway, the reason I'm writing this entry is what happened today. This afternoon I went over to the address Lue sent me as Kayla and rang the doorbell. After I waited outside for a minute or so Brian opened up. In the time between I had been careful to focus on what I was going to say in an effort to keep myself from getting nervous, but I did feel nervous once he showed up, thanks largely to the same sort of feelings as before. This meant it hadn't been a fluke, which was, well, bad, I thought.

“Hey,” he said, “uh, Lue said you wanted to talk to me about something?” Well that was good, he seemed nervous too. For possibly reasons that might make him more upset about what I had to say, which was bad. After however long it took me to ping-pong that through my head he said, “Err, I mean, not out here of course. Come on in.”

He led the way into his living room, which was thankfully empty, and offered me a seat on a couch before taking one across from it. “Soo, uh, what's up?”

I had been thinking about how to introduce the topic since deciding to meet with him about it, and I was still pretty sure a good way to do that didn't exist, and if it did I probably didn't have it, but I had decided on what to do anyway, no matter how bad an idea it turned out to be, because stalling an hour while there trying to come up with a better way was worse than anything else, I figured. “I, uh, need to show you something, and then I need to explain all about it. It'll really be easier if you don't interrupt me, okay?” I said.

“Okay, sure,” he said, nodding.

“Good.” I decided to poke my own shoulder with the opposite hand even though I was using the 'built-in' turn-into-Kael power because I figured it was very important he know that my power usually was involved touching from the get-go. Once I had turned completely back into myself (with Brian looking surprised and confused, but keeping my 'don't interrupt' rule very well), I took a deep breath, and then poked my other shoulder with the opposite hand and shifted back into Kayla, wearing slightly different clothes because I hadn't concentrated on that detail at all.

“I was born as the guy you saw me turn into,” I said first, “named Kael. The morning after my eighteenth birthday, about two months ago, I suddenly became able to change people by touching them. S-specifically, turn guys into girls? With some kind of strange wish-fulfillment angle to it that I'm still not sure I completely understand. At points after that I figured out how to use my power on myself, I unwillingly or accidentally changed five or six different people. Err, I met Lue that way too.” (She had given me permission to mention that, I'd asked her.) “The way my powers work is kind of ridiculous, it doesn't just change a person's body, it moves reality around so that most people think they've always been that way, and even people who know they weren't can remember both what it was like when they weren't and a 'new' version of things where they were.”

There were a few seconds of silence before I realized he wasn't sure whether or not talking at this point would be interrupting. “So, uh, there's a lot more details than that but if you ask me what you want to know I'll know which ones are actually important,” I said a little awkwardly.

“Lue and I have been friends for at least a couple of years,” he said, “are you saying some..most of that, is...fake?”
“Not really? I don't understand how my powers work, but your memory of things is probably more real now than a version where she wasn't around.”

“So, you're not usually, uh, you don't usually look how you do now.”
“I, um, usually like to stay as my original self, yeah. I turn into Kayla to...well, for a bunch of reasons, but it still feels weird and I have a hard time thinking of it as really me most of the time...”

He looked up at a corner of the ceiling for a few seconds. “Err..this is kind of awkward then. I, uh, I guess Lue told you as much, but I might sort of like you.”

“...I..hope you can understand how weird that is for me.”
“Sorta?”
“But,” I could feel some heat on my cheeks as I tried to spit this out, “since we first met I think I might, sort of like you too? I'm, just not sure what to do with that because I definitely don't want to stay as a girl for, I mean I don't know how to deal with the idea of dating a guy, and I don't know how to make sense of, uh..” I trailed off, not sure what I was even trying to say at this point.

“..And you said your power could change anyone? Like, you could turn me into a girl if you wanted to?”

“Well..I-I could, but I mean I don't want to do that to anyone who doesn't want me to, and I'm not totally sure my power doesn't mess around with people's minds, which I am really not okay with and trying to figure out how to be sure about...”
“But, what if...” He stopped, and looked like he was thinking.

“What if what?”
“Well, uh, my first idea was that maybe you could turn me into a girl and I could try dating you as a guy? I mean, you being the guy. If we still think we like each other after you did that. Y-you could turn me back if you wanted to too, right?”
“I..think so. My power has a weird bias, but at the least I think I've figured out how to give someone a power to shift back and forth like I just did without my help.”

“But then when you started talking about messing with people's minds..it sounds like you'd need someone to help you make sense of that, right? If you turned me into a girl and then put everything back the way it was maybe I could tell you if it seemed like you messed anything up with my head.”

I briefly wondered if he had somehow talked to Threa before I got there.

“Uh..are you sure you'd be okay with all that?”
“I mean, your powers sound pretty powerful, but they didn't make Lue your love-slave or anything, so I know they wouldn't do that to me, either. And what you could do is just make me turn back to normal whether I want to or not, you know, if I got messed up so that I didn't want to change back. Maybe after giving it a week? And if I agree to that now then you know I'm definitely okay with it.”

“I don't...get it, why do you want to do all of this stuff for me?”
“Well, I mean, it's not totally for you. I'm a little curious what it's like on the other side of the fence, and uh, this is gonna sound a little weird I think but..I don't think I've ever wanted to go on a date with someone so badly in my life.”

“Y-you want to go on a date with me?”
“Yes. I mean, probably. I definitely feel that way right now. And, w-we could sort out the details after I'm a girl and you're a guy, if I still feel that way. Right?”
“S-sure.”

He stood up. “Okay, so, I'm ready to try it if you are.”
“Y-yeah,” I said, also standing up and turning myself back into Kael first.

“Er, how does this work exactly?” he said as I walked over in front of him.

“For whatever reason, my power works by touching whoever I want to change...or, really more often it works when I accidentally touch someone I didn't really want to change, and keeps working whether I want it to or not.”
“That's what you meant by accidents, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said, now standing in front of him. I could 'feel' that he was definitely going to change if I touched him. “Are you ready?”

He nodded, and I reached out my hand and gently poked his forehead. I tried to tell my power to only do what he wanted it to do, and not anything else.

Brian closed his eyes for some reason. From the point where I'd touched him, his skin started to shift, getting a little paler and visibly smoother. The stubble on his face shrank away, and he shuddered slightly after the change in his skin spread down past his neck, probably because the rest of his skin was changing the same way. He was barefoot, and after a second or two I could see it spread down through his feet.

As soon as that was over, Brian started shrinking. He had been a little taller than me (Kael) and as soon as I noticed he was shrinking he was already right at my height. The shrinking was more than height, with his clothes looking baggier on him by the second, and he quickly reached down as his jeans slipped off of his legs to grab his boxers before they did the same. His face and hands and feet all looked smaller, and his shoulders were visibly narrower; his exposed legs looked slimmer and, as I'd guessed, their hair was all gone, too.

Next, Brian's hair started to grow out. Its color looked like it was fading, like a picture left out in the sun too long, and it grew relatively slowly (compared to how mine tends to grow, at least). He made a small “Mmh” sound in a voice higher than usual, and then muttered “I feel..warm..” in a voice still rising in pitch. Then his ears grew out into wolf ears again, except that their fur was now completely white (which his hair was fast approaching). And then a tail sprouted from his back. It was big, bushy, and white like his ears, and I noticed it was swishing back and forth slowly.

He finally stopped getting shorter when the top of his head was at the bottom of my neck, and his hair stopped growing just short of his shoulders, now completely bleach-white like the fur on his ears. Next, his clothes started to change: The pants on the floor turned into a small pair of denim shorts, his shirt turned white and grew longer sleeves but otherwise shrank close to his body, and then started to split apart at the center, growing buttons and button holes but only leaving one button attached by the time it was done. He didn't have any curves yet, and just looked like a scrawny guy, but his underwear quickly shrank into a tiny pair of black panties anyway, and I made a point of not looking there even though his eyes were still closed.

With his shirt split apart like it was, I could see that despite being small and scrawny-looking Brian still had a six-pack...and then, about as soon as I'd noticed that, he didn't. His stomach seemed to turn softer and smoother, and then, with his shirt clinging close the whole time, his waist shrank inward and his hips pushed out and back. “A-aah, w-wow,” he said, his voice already sounding like a young boy trying to imitate an older guy. His cheeks were turning more and more red as his body shape changed, and then his mouth opened again with a surprised “Aaah!” in a high-pitched girl-voice. I risked a look downward and saw that the panties had pulled completely flat between Brian's legs: He had just become her.

Then, with another, shorter “Aah!” in the same voice her chest pushed out into breasts. They were small at first, but kept growing, cheered on by a small “Mmmm” from deep in her throat. I started to remember that her name was Brie, and all of a sudden I started feeling nervous. As her breasts filled out into what must be a C cup at least, I started getting the same kind of racing-heart jitters I had had when I first met Brian, as Kayla.

When the changes stopped completely, Bria opened her eyes one at a time, and I saw that they were now red. “Wow,” she said, “you didn't warn me it would feel this good.”

“Uh, e-everyone says it feels good but it never does for me, it just feels kinda weird and awkward,” I said, not sure why I was even talking at all.

She looked up at me for a few seconds, her tail still wagging and traces of the blush still on her cheeks. “Uh..what?”
Without any warning, Brie pounced up at me and threw her arms around my shoulders, and planted her lips directly on top of mine. I was too surprised to react for a second or two, and once my brain started to come back from its blue screen of death my first instinct was to put my arms around her and return the kiss for a few more seconds before finally coming slightly more to my senses and pulling my head away. I couldn't make myself let go of her, though.

“Arf!” (she actually made kind of a high-pitched bark) “Well, I definitely still wanna go on a date with you,” she said, grinning. Then she blushed slightly and said a little more nervously, “Th-that was my first kiss, by the way..”

“Um..” I knew I was blushing, too. It had just hit me all at once: She was so cute, and hot, and beautiful all at once. The feeling of her breasts up against my chest, and her arms around me, and her face so close to mine, was unlike anything I'd ever felt before, as a guy or a girl. “I-I uh, second for me. B-but my first one was kind of stolen, and short, and not—uh, I mean, that was..on a whole different level.”

“I'd never know,” said Brie, “You're a really good kisser, Kael.”

I thought about bringing up the subject of maybe putting her down for a good several quiet seconds and then said, “U-uh,” which she responded to by pulling her face up to mine and taking another kiss, slightly longer than the first one. Then, as if she'd sensed my thoughts, she let go of me and easily hopped back down to her feet, leaving me dazed for several more seconds.

“Um..are your, uh, parents around? You're a little indecent, I mean, uh, it's a good look for you but this may be hard to explain,” I said.

“Oh, they're out for another hour or so, Kael,” she said, grinning mischievously. “But I know, with all the stuff you're dealing with we should take it slow..” she stepped back a bit.

“Um..any idea why your ears and tail grew out like that?” I asked, a little desperate for something to talk about.

“Oh, uh, for some reason I have a lot more moonlight.” She must have seen that I didn't understand that, because she added, “Werewolves use moonlight as power to change forms, you know, and we change completely on the full moon whether we want to or not because we always absorb too much moonlight and have to burn it off. Some people—like me now, I guess—have bodies really good at absorbing the stuff, and have to keep some wolfy looks all the time to keep from randomly going full werewolf at inconvenient times. Why, do you not like it?”

“Oh, no, I uh..well I've never been in a position to think about it this way before but I think I like them. They're, kinda cute,” I said, my cheeks getting hotter again.

“Heehee. So, uh, how's Monday night?”

“How's—oh, the date. Yeah. Monday's, Monday night is fine. Like, for supper?”

“Mhm,” she said, nodding. “You can pick the place, as long as it has meat. And not stupid expensive fancy junk, either.”
“N-no, I don't think I could afford that anyway.”
“Casual dress.”
“Sure.”

So now I guess I'm going on a date Monday night, too. The first date I've been on with anyone. I don't feel all that nervous about it, honestly, but that probably just means that whatever controls panic in my brain is way too far behind to have even noticed it yet.

And then on the way home Lue called me. “Kael! Hey. Did you, uh..turn Brian into a girl?”

“Yyyyes. But it was, well he wanted me to because after I explained all the stuff—”
“That's fine, that's fine. I was just trying to figure out why I remembered two different versions of...well, everything about her all of a sudden. Ju~st like the way I remember two versions of events in my own history.”

“Yeah, that's..usually what happens when I, uh, change someone. But it's usually just me and the person who got changed that remember the two versions...”

“Maybe it's because I knew Brian so well?”
“No, that can't be it. Ad—er, at least..two other people I've changed only remember the original versions of each other, and had to tell each other about having been changed at all. It—ohh.”
“What?”
“I told my power to change Brian exactly how he wanted to be, or tried to at least. Maybe he wanted you to remember both versions so you wouldn't be confused, or so he wouldn't be confused.”

“Why would that be confusing?”
“We promised each other I'd turn..her, back after a week. She's helping me find out if my power actually screws up people's minds or not. Hopefully.”

“It didn't screw up my mind. Well, not too much anyway, just enough for everything to feel natural, you know.”

“That's the thing, I—I can't be sure if when people are convinced their own minds haven't been changed that that isn't just part of what was changed, you know? So, something like an actual test is, should be good. For that.”

“If you say so. But if you find out it does mess up one's identity the way you're worried about, can you handle wrecking people's consciousnesses again to fix it?”
“Uh..what do you mean? I, I'd just put back whatever I broke, right?”
“But to the person I am now—for example—that'd be just breaking what was still in working order.”

It seems like it's always Lue making everything more complicated to figure out. Why? But I didn't say that, I just stopped, leaned back slightly and made a sound like “Uugh” into the receiever.

“...Well, at least I could make my power not break things whenever it acts again. I'd know what to tell it not to do, I mean. It's really better if it isn't doing what I'm worried about in the first place and I can just know for sure.”

“Of course it is, that'd be the easiest thing. But you really should decide what your moral imperative actually is in the hard case before you find out. So you don't go around harmfully altering folk's minds on a crazy impulse.”

“Yeah, again. If I basically have already.”

And I just can't wait to see what Adena's deal is tomorrow. I think the best I can hope for is it not making more problems for me to deal with.