there's only so much I can turn into

[mswoods]

The thirteen-year-old girl is coming back home from school, on foot.

There's a cat following her. It's been following her for a while, but from a distance.

She decides to be friendly. She stops and turns around to look at it. It stops as well. "Mow?"

The girl's face- changes. It's still a human face, mostly, but now there's something different about it. More feline than anything. Whiskers grow, her pupils dilate and her eyes get a bit rounder, her bones move under her skin, their shape changing a bit. "Mew," she says, vocal apparatus having changed a bit, apparently.

The cat blinks and approaches cautiously. "Moow...?"

She doesn't giggle, but she feels like giggling. She's talking to a kitty! Well, kinda talking to a kitty, it's not like she can understand kitty-speech. But still! "Maw!"

Comments

[mswoods]

"That's... a molecule, right? What should I do with that?"

[taste_tester]

"Make sugar from sunlight, is I think the usual use. Also turn green."

[mswoods]

"Mmm," she says, and focuses on the back of her hand. She squints at it, and it does turn green. But- "I don't think this worked. I think my magic got stuck on the 'green' thing and kinda ignored where it was supposed to come from."

[taste_tester]

"Not all plants are green. Japanese maples, say."

[mswoods]

"Hmmm, and it's the same chlorophyll thing? That might actually help."

More squinting. No colour changes happen.

[taste_tester]

"Yes, ornamental red plants still photosynthesize the same way."

[mswoods]

"...I think this worked, but I have no idea how to tell that it worked."

[taste_tester]

"Do it to your tongue, then go outside and go aaah at the sun and see if you taste anything."

[mswoods]

She giggles. "Okay, let me try that."

She tries that!

"I think maybe I tasted something but I may have imagined it."

[taste_tester]

"Well, sun yourself while chlorophylly for an afternoon after skipping lunch and see how badly you want dinner."

[mswoods]

"But wouldn't that just make my skin cells get really sugary? How would the sugar get to the rest of my body? I'm not sure I could feasibly- well, I tell a lie, I'm pretty sure I could grow plant vessels around my body but I dunno if I could interface it very well with everything else."

[taste_tester]

"Yes, that's true. Go around with chlorophyll in your lips on a dry day and then nibble some skin off them."

[mswoods]

"That's a good idea! And I might just leave chlorophyll on them anyway." Pause. "I wanna see if I can understand cones well enough to grow new ones from that book," she says, and grabs the book.

[taste_tester]

"Should I leave you to that for the day?"

[mswoods]

She has not reached eyes yet. She looked at the index and there was so much stuff and she got distracted and- "Yyyyes, I think so."

[taste_tester]

"Same time tomorrow?"

[mswoods]

Sadde takes a while to answer- she's become engrossed with something. "Oh, yeah, same time, sure!"

[taste_tester]

Addy lets herself out. She's back the same time the next day.

[mrwoods]

Sadde has a black eye!

Also he's a boy today.

[taste_tester]

"What happened to you?"

[mrwoods]

"Got into a fight," he shrugs. "I kept this because I wanted to show you that I can make it go away! Not quickly, though." He gestures her inside. "Also I made it so it wouldn't hurt, that took a while so it hurt at the start, but eventually I was giggling. That's when I got the black eye. It's really hard to feel angry and hit back when it doesn't actually hurt and I'm giggling."

[taste_tester]

"Well, I'm pleased to see your dedication to the enterprise."

[mrwoods]

"This is fun! I can totally see why you do it." He starts working on the black eye. It doesn't exactly heal as if it were going through all the normal stages, it just... fades away, over a couple of minutes.

[taste_tester]

"What order were you doing that in?"

[mrwoods]

"What do you mean?"