Oh my, what did she go and do?
     

--- back at the cabin the next day ---
     
     
     Jun walks into the living room and goes over to the table that has been setup with food for lunch. Amy is curled up in one corner of the couch wrapped in a thick down comforter, the white feathers on her head contrasting with the dark tan and browns of the fabric.

      “Jun? Um, how many tails does your costume have? I thought it was just three,” Amy says just loud enough to be heard.

      “Yea, that’s right. The costume just had three tails.”

      “You’ve got five tails,” Amy says a little bit quieter.

      “I know,” Jun responds as her ears flatten against her head.

     Amy waits until Jun has gathered up a plate of food and comes to sit down next to her before saying more.

      “How is that possible? Why are you still in your costume?”

      “It’s not a costume anymore. Just like your feathers on your head and your eyes are a permanent part of you, this is me now. I have fur, paws, tails, pointy ears on top of my head, and a muzzle.”

      “But, you’re a doctor. You knew there was a problem with me not taking off all of my costume. What happened?”

     Jun sighs and curls up into a ball as she gets comfortable, her tails all curling around herself as she snuggles up against her friend and offers the plate of food to share.

      “I did know there was a problem. And I knew I had to find everyone else as fast as I could. It didn’t work out that way though. I got so caught up with trying to find the others that I ran myself ragged that first day. I finally just lay down in a convenient spot in the forest to take a short rest and fell into a deep sleep out of extreme exhaustion. By the time I woke up again it was morning.

      “I was afraid that I’d gone past the twenty-four hour time limit and my costume was working on permanently bonding with me. I tried to get any part of it off and for a short bit nothing would budge. Once I managed to get it to start coming off it was painful, almost like I was trying to skin myself alive. I could do it, but it hurt a good deal too and I was afraid I might start bleeding from where I managed to get the suit away from my own flesh.

      “I knew then that I was just over the timeline. I could either take it off although it would be painful, accept it and keep it on and find everyone, or give up and lose my mind. Maybe even kill myself. I chose to take it off. It was easily the hardest and maybe the worst decision I’ve ever had to make for myself. But I couldn’t let it destroy me, I had to pull something good out of it. I persevered, removed the costume, then after taking a rest I got up and kept searching.”

      “But, you obviously put the costume back on again at some point. Why?”

      “Well, for one I was nude. I didn’t bring any clothes either, so all I could do was go back to the cabin through the woods with bare feet just to put on the clothes I had worn out here. I was far enough away that was impractical, although I tried for a short bit before realizing I’d probably cut up my feet too much. I waited for an hour and got back in it again and continued my search.”

     The sound of a motor heralds the appearance of Susan in her wheelchair as she enters the room.

      “I was able to get Susan’s attention and bring her up out of the waters of the lagoon. She had done the same thing you did Amy. She figured the microprocessor inserted into her uterus would be fine if she left it in place but took off the rest of her costume. It bonded with her at the same time yours bonded with you. She’d been hiding it under her towels when she came to breakfast each morning with us.”

      “The last time I pulled off my scales,” Susan says, “my thighs were actually fusing together from my crotch to mid thigh. I couldn’t open my legs anymore. When I surfaced to find Jun on the dock I’d had my tail on for over twenty-four hours. It was already a part of me by then.”

      “Seeing how Susan’s lower body moved I realized she was well into her transformation. Her tail was more flexible than it should have been. That reminded me of my own issues. I let Susan go off on her own up to the cabin and I gave myself another physical. Despite the outer appearances and functions of the costume, I’d given myself a physical before and could easily find my human anatomy underneath. I was still able to find all of my human parts, and still pull the costume away.

      “I found Peter the next day. I’d taken the time to fully remove my costume at dawn that morning and I had no problems with it. After telling him to come back here I went looking for the last two members of our crew of misfits. I never found Brianna, but I did find Alex. Or I should say, she found me. I’m not going to explain everything that happened between us, just suffice it to say that it was highly stressful, painful,” and she rubs the bandages on her belly, “and I was a ... guest ... in her parlor long enough that I lost the race to keep my fully human body.

      “When I finally got free I gave myself another physical hoping I was wrong. Not this time. My costume was no longer a costume. I couldn’t find any seams or edges anywhere, and my legs were pretty much done rearranging themselves. My hips, leg bones, and feet had altered to become digitigrade limbs. My ‘human’ limbs were gone. I was afraid to do the next part, but I had to know. I checked my head as best I could. I couldn’t find my ears under the fur on the sides of my head, the only thing I have for auditory pickup is on top,” Jun states as she gently grabs an ear with one hand.

      “I have the jaw and skull structure for a proper muzzle. And I can still talk normally despite it. That part is really messing with them,” she giggles slightly. “My entire jaw and larynx should not be able to allow for normal human speech, but I can. They’re still trying to figure out how my backside is able to support multiple tails too.”

      “But, you only had three tails. Where’d numbers four and five come from?” Amy asks.

      “Don’t ask me, I have no clue. The company is totally baffled over that one; they can’t even begin to provide a plausible explanation for it.”

      “So where is Alexa if you found her?”

      “I don’t know. We had a long talk about some things, and I asked her to not abandon her friends here and come back with me, but she’s dealing with a lot of difficult issues in her head and turning into a Drider did not help like she thought it would. I just hope she listened to what I said and will come back at some point.”

      “What about Pete, err I mean Petra. How is she doing?”

      “I’m ... adjusting,” comes from the doorway.

     Heads turn to look and watch their friend slithers into the room on her snake body.

      “I’m glad you’re joining us this morning. It’s about time you came out of your room,” Jun tells her. “I have to ask though, what changed? You’ve been, well, extremely protective of your ... clutch.”

      “Yea, I have been, haven’t I?” Petra admits.

      “I have been having a hard time with all of this. The gender change is probably the hardest thing to deal with,” she says looking down at the sports bra which contains her breasts. “This damn double melon support isn’t too bad until it catches on a scale and reminds me what it’s there for. Which happens often,” she grimaces.

      “The whole species change is oddly secondary to that. I am handling that better I think. Well, slightly better I guess. My eating habits are a bit distressing even to me,” she says sadly while glancing at the still visible bulge in her serpentine belly.

      “So, your ... eggs?” Susan prompts.

      “I don’t know. When I laid them a couple days ago I freaked out. I kinda retreated deeper into the Naga persona that had already started to take over. I was still me, but somehow I thought I had always been a Naga.

      “In my mind pushing out a clutch of eggs is an entirely female act and I didn’t take it well at all. Those eggs were my children, I was their Mother now, and I just had to protect them at any cost. I apologize for threatening anyone who tried to get close.”

      “Apology accepted,” Jun tells her. “I have to say, you were damn scary coiled up around your eggs and hissing at anyone who even opened to door to your room. Definite protective mother vibes there.”

      “And that’s exactly how I felt too. Until this morning when I woke up. It doesn’t feel nearly as ... imperative, to protect them now. I don’t know why,” she says while shaking her head in confusion.

      “I totally get that,” Amy interjects. “I felt the same thing when I lay my one egg. I had to protect it and nurture it at all costs. I wouldn’t let anyone near my egg for a couple of hours then it just seemed to fade out. For me it only took about three hours or so to get to where I didn’t really care about it anymore. I guess with you it took a couple of days.”

      “Why is that? What changed to make you not care? Either of you,” Susan inquires.

      “For me, it seems that the egg was not viable. Not fertilized. So it was not going to develop and produce a chick. Once I stopped trying to brood over it they examined the egg and figured it out. Something instinctual inside me realized it first though and I lost interest in it. I bet that now you’re away from your eggs it’s going to be something similar for you too Petra.”

      “That sounds reasonable now that you explain it. I think you’re right, somehow I know I won’t be hatching any young from this clutch so they no longer matter.”

     Petra gets a slightly disturbed look on her face a moment later.

      “What is it?” Amy asks.

      “Um, I think that if I didn’t already have a somewhat large meal digesting in my stomach right now then I’d probably have eaten the eggs. I still kinda want to go back to my room and do that as it is.”

      “Um, ew? I hope I don’t have issues like you two if I ever lay any eggs,” Susan comments.

      “Well, do they know if you’ll lay eggs or give birth to live offspring? You’re costume was part mammal and part fish,” Jun wonders.

      “Good question. They don’t know. It could be either. I won’t know until it happens.”

     The sound of the front door opening gets everyone’s attention then is followed by hooves clopping on the hardwood floors. A moment later and Brianna carefully ducks under the doorway and enters the living room.

      “Where in the hell have you been?” Jun demands. “I ran all over the forest for days looking for you.”

      “Bree, what have you been doing? You’ve got that super satisfied ‘cat just drank the cream’ look to you, and I swear you’re glowing,” Susan notes.

      “Oh my god, no, you didn’t. Brianna, you got laid!” Amy shouts.

     Their Centaur friend grins somewhat bashfully and blushes a bright red.

      “Yes, I did,” she admits.

      “But how? Did you go all the way up to the stallion pastures?” Jun asks to which Brianna nods. “No wonder I couldn’t find you. I didn’t think you’d go up there.”

      “Bree,” Amy asks hesitantly, “What have you been doing, precisely, for the last four or five days?”

      “I’ve been getting shagged several times a day for the last three days.”

      “Oh good lord. Why?” Petra wants to know.

      “I’m a woman now,” Brianna sighs contentedly. “I was feeling down after the last morning breakfast I joined you all at. I was in this amazing body and still didn’t really know what it was like to be female. At least not in my mind. And Susan’s comments the other week about me not really knowing what certain things were like was still echoing around in the back of my head too.”

     Brianna carefully makes a plate of fruits for herself and grabs a bowl of dry oatmeal then pulls a bunch of cushions off some chairs to lay down on them and get comfortable while her friends quietly wait to hear her tale.

      “I took off up to the regular pastures that morning. Initially I told myself that I just wanted to test how the regular horses would react to me. See how they might accept me in my Centaur form. I came up on the field where Jenny was let out in first. I whistled to her and she came trotting over, but stopped a good ten feet away from me.

      “I called to her and carefully approached while talking to her so she could hear my voice. She stood still and I could see her taking in huge snorts of air trying to get my scent. Her eyes were showing the whites just a little bit, so I knew she was uneasy. I stopped before getting close enough to touch her and let her come to me if she wanted.

      “Her curiosity got the better of her. Eventually she took a hesitant step craning her neck forwards as far as she could. It took her several minutes to get close enough that we could touch. She went around me several times, looking and sniffing all over. I was her clone in a way, but I was also the person who she knew took care of the place and her.

      “She finally came up beside me with our flanks touching and nuzzled me. She accepted the new me. I spent the rest of the day with Jenny and she got pretty comfortable around me. She introduced me to some of the other mares in the field and intervened when one of them appeared to take exception to my presence. I think she adopted me into her herd.”

      “So what did you do that night?” Jun prods.

      “Well, since I was up at the main farm, I kinda snuck into the birthing barn where our costume equipment was still set up and got out of the costume for the night. I slept in my own bed at home,” she smirks. “The next morning though I was up early and back out to the barn. I had come up with an idea, and I admit to myself now that what I was about to do was precisely why I had gone back up there.

      “I gathered up some of the hormones we use to entice a stallion to mate with a mare that isn’t quite in season yet. I set them out where I could get to them easily in my Centaur body but didn’t use them, yet. Getting back into my costume I trotted out to greet Jenny and the other mares again. After rubbing hips with them I went over and entered the stallion pastures. I figured it would help make things easier if I had the scents from the herd on me.

      “In a way it did, but I was disappointed too. The stallions had to go through figuring me out like the mares did, but without Jenny there as my buffer. It went well enough, they didn’t reject me, but they didn’t seem to care to do anything more like I wanted. Once the novelty of my new shape was over they ignored me. I even tried standing right in front of a couple and presenting myself as openly as I could, shifting my tail out of the way and everything. Nothing. I wasn’t in season so they didn’t care.”

      “Good grief girl, you were prostituting yourself to the stallions and they turned you down?” Susan says and Brianna nods. “What did you do?”

      “I went back to the barn and used the items I had put out. I had to get a little creative with the one product that is meant to be put up in the, um, vagina, but I got it done. That and the external spray and the injection all combined tend to make even the more reluctant stallions primed and ready along with making the mare more receptive.”

      “Bree, don’t some of the stallions get rather rough during, well, intercourse?” Amy asks.

      “Yea, one or two of them do,” Brianna replies while rubbing a fading bruise on one shoulder.

      “So, I guess it worked then?”

      “Oh yea, did it ever,” Brianna smiles. “I waited and watched while I was down wind until one of the stallions moved off alone. I approached him from the side furthest away from the others and came on to him. From there, well, nature took control.”

      “How was your first time?” Petra cajoles her.

      “It was amazing. And unexpected at the same time. You’ve heard people say that being hung like a horse is a compliment, but from what I’ve heard some women find that to be hard to take in love making to be honest. Well my partner my first time really was a horse, and damn did he ever fill me. I almost screamed in fear when I felt his huge member penetrate me at first, but after all I was also a horse of the same breed where it mattered and everything fit like it should,” Brianna blushes as she describes the act.

      “After the initial shock I relaxed and, well, it was just sex to be honest. I can’t call it love. But it was wonderful all the same. I took that stud for everything he had. By the time we were done I had a bit of an audience sniffing around my rear end. I barely caught my breath before another body was covering mine again.

      “I’m not sure if the artificial hormones remained effective and lingered that long, or if they kick started my own body and the intercourse got my own hormones flowing. Either way, I got really randy and for the next three days I got fucked more times than I can count.

      “I finally got some sense in me and I snuck off while those studs were taking a break. I could barely walk I was so worn out. It was a good thing I have four legs to hold me up or I would have fallen down and still be out there I think. I moved one hoof at a time so I could use the other three to stay upright. Once I was away from them and outside of the fence line, thank god for hands to open and lock the pasture gates, I made my way back here again.”

      “Good lord girl. Three days straight?”

      “Well, it wasn’t constant one after the other. At least not after the first round. I had time to breathe and eat in between, and I was even able to rebuff a few of them long enough to take a rest a couple of times. But they still didn’t leave me alone completely and kept me close. I couldn’t get away from them, and I didn’t really want to either. I was acting just like a mare in heat, I admit.”

      “Bree, when is the last time you got out of your costume?” Amy quietly asks.

      “Um, I don’t know. Damn, I didn’t even consider that once. Shit, it’s been three or four days. I’ve slept standing up with the stallions and woke up to another round of sex without even thinking about needing to get out of my costume before the twenty-four hour limit. I’m so used to having it on now I hope I don’t have too much trouble once I get it off.”

      “Brianna, take a look around. Look at all of us,” Jun tells her.

      “Alright, I’m looking,” Brianna says while glancing around the room. “What am I looking for?”

      “I kind of hate to say this, but at the same time in your case it’s the answer to your dream,” Jun says. “Welcome to womanhood Brianna. You’re female now. And you’re stuck just like the rest of us.”

      “Well, yea, of course. I’m a mare while I wear this costume.”

      “No Bree, it not just a costume. Look at me,” Petra says. “Look close. What do you see?” she instructs as she rises up and slithers out to the middle of the floor to expose her entire length.

      “Um, well, you are wearing your snake tail. And you have on a sports bra? In fact you’re filling a sports bra. That’s different.”

      “Keep looking, what else is there about me?”

      “Um, your voice sounds different somehow, but it’s still your voice Pete. Oh, hey, there’s a lump in your tail. What happened? Did you hurt yourself?” Brianna says with some concern.

      “No, Bree, I did not hurt myself. My voice is different because it sounds more like a woman’s voice, right?”

     Brianna nods.

      “And that lump you are seeing is in my belly. It’s a fawn that I killed and ate. I ate it whole Brianna. And these breasts are all me,” She informs Brianna while lifting them up with her hands. “I go by Petra now.”

      “What do you mean? Are you telling me that you’re actually a woman now? How? And how could you possibly eat a deer whole? That’s not possible.”

      “Brianna,” Jun interrupts, “It’s true. I saw her eat that thing myself. Just like a snake. Petra is both female and a serpent now. Hell she even laid eggs two days ago.”

     Brianna just stares at first Petra then Jun in shock.

      “We’re all victims of our own stupidity one way or the other,” Jun informs Brianna as she waves her hand around the room indicating the rest of their friends. “Even you.”

      “How? Why?”

      “None of us can get out of our ‘costumes’ because they aren’t costumes anymore.”

      “No, that’s not right. It can’t be,” Brianna says in a panic as she drops her plate and tries to open up her costume.

     She fumbles around her waist but fails to find the edge of the centaur suit she is expecting. Getting more panicked she reaches up and tried to pull her breasts off and winces in pain as they refuse to budge. Grabbing her ears she tries to get her finger nails up under the edge of the appliances only to scratch her skin hard enough to make blood ooze up.

      “No! I ... I have to get it off,” she says, oddly subdued. “I have to be Brian to run my ranch. I can’t be ...” her voice trails off.

      “I can’t be Brianna,” She says with wonder a minute later. “Can I?”

     She looks up at her friends as the realization finally hits.

      “I ... I’m Brianna. Forever?”

     Amy smiles sadly and nods.

      “Yes you are,” Amy tells her equine companion. “Forever and ever. You’re a woman now. Well, you also have to deal with being a mare and a centaur too. But yes, you are Brianna from now on. You can’t hide it anymore.”

     Amy unfolds and climbs out of the comforter so she can approach Brianna. She gently gives her a kiss on the cheek and wraps her arms around the new woman in a hug that is almost desperate in its intensity.

      “But, that means the rest of you ...” Brianna realizes.

      “Yes, we are all stuck as you see us,” Jun confirms. “Amy is the least changed right now, although she was the first to be found out. Her hair is gone and has been replaced by those feathers and her eyes have been altered by the contacts. She really does have an eagles stare because she has the eyes of an eagle now. And she laid an egg several days ago. Her internal anatomy has been altered a good bit we assume for that to happen.

      “As for the rest of us, Susan is fully a Mermaid now. She doesn’t have the leg bones to be able to stand upright anymore and she has to keep herself moist all the time when she is on land.

      “Peter, now Petra, is pretty much all snake from her ribs down. There doesn’t seem to be anything left of his human body below her chest, and even that is altered despite how it looks most of the time. There’s no way the human body could pass an entire baby deer through the torso like that.

      “And as for me, well, what you see is what you get. I really am a Kitsune now. I’ve even grown two more tails somehow and have five total. I can be a biped and walk digitigrade, or I am just as comfortable as a quadruped on all fours. I can’t quite figure that one out myself and I’m the one doing it. When I’m up on two paws my arms and legs are proportionate to a more human stance, but when I drop down to all four somehow I shift to that stance and I’m still appropriately shaped and sized as a four-legged creature.”

      “I’m so sorry. I feel so bad for you all to have to go through this,” Brianna says with genuine concern. “On the other hand, I’m finally me. I am Brianna. Sure, I have a horse’s ass stuck out behind me, and dealing with that is going to present some serious problems I can imagine. For the rest of you too I know.

      “But, I can’t say that I am entirely unhappy with the result of this ... problem. In fact, if I had known before hand that this could happen then I would have probably done it sooner. I love working with horses, especially my Shires, and now I get to be the woman I’ve always felt I was on the inside and I get to be one of the herd to boot? Nope, not all bad. I’m seeing more good out of this personally.

      “Oh! Oooo,” Brianna coos then looks down to find Amy sitting against her side and once again playing with the long hairs on her fetlocks. “You’re doing that thing again.”

     Amy smiles up at her friend then lays her head down against the firm bulk of her friend’s equine chest.

      “I’m glad at least one of us can see something good out of this,” Amy states. “I’m probably looking at laying an egg every month for the rest of my life. I won’t have a menstrual flow anymore, instead I get to lay an egg.”

      “Really?” Brianna says softly.

      “Yea,” Amy sighs. “They did a bunch of tests and exams on me, being the first one I got it all once they got all of their equipment out here. The best I can understand it is that, when I decided to not pull the damn computer out of my uterus it started to bond with me internally. At the same time I was in the ovulation portion of my cycle so one of my eggs was floating around through my tubes. When it finally reached where my uterus was supposed to be, and technically it still is, it’s just changed, my new body took it upon itself to take my human egg and form an avian egg around it.

      “They found all of the necessary fluids and parts inside the egg when they examined it, that if I had sex and fertilized it first then it would have developed and grown a baby chick of some type. They have no idea how long it would have taken to incubate and hatch, but I could give birth to a child via an egg now. It ... doesn’t sound all that bad to me like it might to the others.

      “I’m part bird now, but still look mostly human from the outside. But I’ve been grounded,” Amy says sadly as a tear trickles down into the brown coat her face is pressed into. “They won’t let me have the rest of my feathers or my wings. It’s like they’ve pinioned me, not just clipping my wings but removing my ability to fly completely. It’s cruel.”

     Brianna looks down and sees the wet spot on her coat from Amy’s tears. She reaches down and gently runs her fingers through the feathers on her friend’s head for a moment before gently pulling the small girl up and cradling her in her arms. She looks up to the rest of her friends.

      “How can you do this to her?” Brianna demands as Amy openly starts to sob and buries her face in her friend’s chest.

      “But, if she puts on the rest of her costume, then she’ll change even more. She won’t ever be able to go out in public without being stared at if she is covered in feathers and has wings instead of arms. The rest of us are doomed to that already,” Susan states.

      “Really? Is that how you’re justifying this?” Brianna asks, looking directly at Jun. “We’ve all said that if anyone was born to fly it was Amy. She’s taken to life in the air faster than anyone dared to expect, and learned how to do things that even the expert on her team thought she would never be able to do.”

      “I took an oath to ‘do no harm’. The Hippocratic oath that all doctors take. I will not allow further harm to come to my friend,” Jun declares.

      “Bullshit. I say take a close look at this person in my arms, and I’ll throw that oath right back in your face.

      “We’ve talked before about that oath, and how it should be treated in a more holistic light. It should include all aspects of the patient, not just their physical wellbeing but also their emotional state as well. You even seemed to agree, or so I thought.

      “But here you are now, using it to deny this very special person the internal wellbeing they would gain simply because their outer appearance would be seen as being harmed by the changes that would happen. You’re a hypocrite if you keep this up Jun.”

      “We ... I, I just can’t Brianna. I’m afraid of what would happen to her. Especially after what I’ve already been through. I can’t do anything about it for the rest of us, it’s too late, but for Amy I can.

      “You don’t get it. She’s been changed internally. One of the devices that was in there was supposed to somehow make her lighter so she could fly. Apparently it’s gone and done the impossible. Amy’s bones are hollow Brianna. Just like a bird. They are so fragile now. She could easily break a bone with even a mild hit.

      “And what would happen when she goes out in public like that? Too many would see her as a freak. People are stupid, as a group, and cruel. She could be attacked for looking different. She’d be all alone, the only one of her kind, and defenseless. If they caught her on the ground it would be all over for her. I can’t risk that. I don’t want to see Amy in the hospital with every bone in her body broken. Or worse, and just as probable, dead.”

     Amy whips her head around and through the tears falling down her face screams at Jun.
      “I DON’T CARE!”

     Her head droops and she looks down at herself.

      “I’m not alone,” she says with less force. “I have all of you. You’re my best friends. All of you. We watch out for each other.

      “I’m already a freak,” she says while lifting her tear stained face to look around. “I don’t have a normal butt or vagina anymore. All of my wastes come out together from one opening, and I can’t sit to defecate in a toilet like a normal person. I have to perch up over the bowl which is really awkward with my mostly normal hips and legs. And it doesn’t feel right trying to pull some kind of cap or hoodie over my head feathers either, I’ve tried. It’s really uncomfortable. Trying to hide my eyes behind dark sunglasses won’t work too well either. My ears are mostly gone, at least the outer parts are. There’s nothing for the earpieces on the glasses to rest on.

      “Please, let me have my feathers and especially my wings. I can’t stand not being able to fly.”

     Amy sinks back into Brianna’s embrace, the hard sobbing gone but still quietly continuing to cry.

      “It’s not right,” Petra quietly states with a shake of her head.

      “No, it’s not,” Brianna says firmly. “I’m not going to risk losing Amy to suicide. I am going to get her feathers and give them to her, like it or not. I don’t see anyone here other than Petra who has a chance in hell of stopping me,” She declares as she stands up to her full height with Amy still in her arms.

      “Get out of my way and don’t impede me from searching out wherever you’ve hidden them. Or better yet you can tell me. Either way this is going to happen.”

      “That won’t be necessary,” says a voice from behind everyone.

     Rebecca and George walk into the room together, their arms holding the feathers, wings, and talons that belong to the petite girl cradled by the angry Centaur.

      “We have them right here. I heard what was said, and we’ve never agreed with the judgment that was pronounced. That poor child has been so miserable these last several days it’s been breaking my heart,” Rebecca tells the room.

      “You can’t! Don’t give them to her!” Jun tries to stop them.

      “No. Stop Jun,” Petra grabs her friends furry arm.

      “But, you agreed with us,” Jun complains.

      “Yes, I went along with what you were saying. We are all afraid of how we are going to be received by the general public. And there’s something that you won’t tell us that has you absolutely terrified. We let that fear override our compassion. It hasn’t sat right with me, but I acquiesced to the two of you out of wanting to keep our friend safe.

      “We did something very wrong by doing that. We took away her ability to make her own decisions for herself. Treated her as if she wasn’t capable to reason out what will or will not happen. Looked at her like a young child who doesn’t know better.

      “But Amy’s not a child. She’s a fully grown adult and quite intelligent. And she’s allowed to make her own decisions and her own mistakes for herself, just like the rest of us.”

     Petra moves over next to Brianna and takes Amy’s hand.

      “I’m sorry, Ames. I ... no we, are wrong. They are your feathers, your wings. There’s no doubt about that, and we should not have kept them from you. I hope you can forgive us.”

      “Jun?” Susan questions hesitantly.

     Jun looks down at herself.

      “No, they’re both right Susan. We were slowly killing Amy, from the inside. We were extinguishing the flame of her soul, the part of her that makes her ... Amy.”

     Jun looks back up at Amy and the fur on her muzzle is damp.

      “You were already contemplating suicide, weren’t you? How long would it have been before you jumped off the roof?”

     Amy wiggles slightly and Brianna lets her down. She gives Petra a hug in thanks then walks over to Jun. With another hug she whispers into a furry ear low enough that only one person can hear it. Whatever is said makes Jun’s eyes close tightly and fresh tears squeeze out to roll down and be absorbed by her fur. The two women embrace tightly for several minutes.

     Finally taking a step back Jun gestures for Rebecca and George to bring their burdens forwards. She takes the pile of feathers from one and helps Amy into the body portion of the suit. With a joyful expression Amy is quickly enclosed within her avian shape from head to talons and wing tip to wing tip.

     Fully clothed in her brown white and yellow form, Amy stretches her wings wide then folds them back against her sides. Turning around she looks up at Brianna pleadingly.

      “Please Bree? Just this once?”

     Brianna smiles down at her avian compatriot and shakes her head.

      “You, little chicken hawk, are the only one who can get the pleasure so easily. Don’t you dare scratch my hide with those sharp talons though” she tells Amy with a mock glare.

     Leading the rest outside Brianna exits the cabin and waits for Amy. As soon as she has room Amy jumps into the air and uses her wings to guide herself to a landing on her friend’s strong back. With a pair of matching grins Brianna slowly trots away, her speed picking up as they both get used to balancing the weight on Brianna’s back between them. She makes a wide turn as she gets into a gallop and a moment later Amy spreads her wings to let the wind from their passage lift her up into the air with a joyous eagles cry.

     Brianna trots back over to join the others and watch the aerial acrobatics above.

      “You did the right thing,” she tells Jun. “Now, does someone want to tell me where the hell my little sister is at?”