I felt silly buckling up on the way back to my home away from home. Even as a heavy plush, it was hard to see myself as fragile given my size. Nevertheless to appease Laura I clicked it. With her help, of course. I found this “being helpless” stage peculiarly comforting. Like I knew I should have some pride or self respect, but I simply couldn't take myself seriously as an animated stuffed animal. I decided I would lean into it and see what happened, trying to adopt a bit of that devil-may-care attitude I admired in Laura.

“Uppy!” I cried in my best impression of a baby as we got home, producing the desired result as Laura both laughed at my antics and picked me up to rest on her hip. 

“I don't know what I expected, but a literal child was not it.” 

“What? Do you want sourpuss Jake back?” I felt weird speaking in third person. 

“No,” she laughed, “this is quite alright as long as you aren't using comedy as a cover for pain or something.”

“Whoa, buzzkill alert,” I scoffed, causing her to pause and look at me with mild concern.

“I mean I’m fine. I think. I'm doing as well as can be expected.” I tried to sound confident, but my thoughts had been a whirlwind in every silent moment since I had woken up in the garden.

I assumed she was satisfied with my answer, because she carried me the rest of the way to the house and plopped me on the couch. I heard her rustle in the kitchen for a moment before her voice carried through to the living room. 

“You hungry?”

I suspected if my stomach could growl it would. Somewhere in my abdomen ached with hunger, that was for sure. “I could eat,” I called back.  

“How does mac and cheese sound?”

“Like ambrosia.” I flopped sideways and rolled onto my stomach. Fun as the tail was, it made sitting inconvenient for sure.

I let my mind wander as the sounds of cooking carried over like a lullaby. 

Being a knot thing wasn’t half bad; Laura was right. Being small was still novel enough, being soft and plush was pleasant enough and there were other small boons too. I’d often been dismayed at my limited and low vocal range since puberty and voila, instant androgynous range. Bordering on squeaky at times, though, if I wasn't careful. Still. No matter. Being tall was also kinda old and tired, so it was fun to try out being short for once. No more top shelf duty for an entire month! Woot!

Still, it wasn't all upsides; the wings and tail got in the way of things and I could only pretend so hard that it was fun being treated like a stuffed animal. But that was supposed to be the beauty of this process, I guess. A brand new me. Blank slate. Bespoke. I wondered what the real me was supposed to look like. I found myself idly hoping for something new. A change of scenery to really freshen things up. 

I got up on all fours, crawling up on top of the back of the couch to sit and let my tail dangle. My stubby little paws found purchase, which was handy because I already sensed gripping things would be a trick if there wasn't some sort of ambient magic field to assist me. Given how charged the heart of this thing was, though, that seemed like a trivial trick. 

I shook my head as I felt my thoughts begin to spin away again. Shapeshifting sounded like a much cooler super power when I dreamed of doing it all the time at will. Something about this one way shift hit different. Part exhilarating, part terrifying. 

“Laura...” I did my best petulant voice. “I’m thirsty.”

“Then come get some water, ya li’l shit.” 

I giggled and hopped off the back of the couch, pleasantly surprised to feel my wings drag the air a bit as I fell and bounced gently on the carpet. I wondered if I would miss that. I jogged the short trek to the kitchen as she collected a cup for me and filled it from the Gritta in the fridge. I accepted the cool glass with both hands, pleasantly surprised to find purchase despite the little claws of my hands being functionally useless.

“Thankies!” I drank deeply as Laura shook her head at my antics, pleased with myself for being a source of amusement for the first time in a while. I always liked when I could make people laugh a bit; I wondered why I had lost that silly streak from my youth. 

“So how long until you hit your terrible twos phase? I'm just waiting for the other shoe to fall and for the screaming fits to start.”

“Nah na nanana nah. Positive vibes only on this train.” 

“Oh yeah? Even with the growing pains?”

“That’s future Jake’s problem.” I waved dismissively. “Besides, that's not for another few days. God, I'm gonna have to find a hobby of some sort for this month. I don't think I can even hold a game controller!” 

“You can watch me play video games.” 

“Cruel. Just cruel. I mean, of course watching is fun too, but to rub it in my face? That's just low.”

“Mhmm, I'm just a bad evil friend like that.”

“The evilest,” I agreed and held up the empty glass for her to refill. 

“In all seriousness, thanks for volunteering to sponsor me. It does mean a lot to me.”

“No sweat. I'm not gonna hang out my best bud to dry for what could be the most transformative month of his life.”

“You really think I'm gonna change that much?” 

She stirred the macaroni idly for a moment, seeming to ponder her response. 

“Everyone changes a bit. I dunno. As a person? You don't really change from a KT -- that's what I call them, by the way, ‘knot thing’ is a bit awkward. Anyways. People tend to be dissatisfied with their bodies, ya know? It's like a fact of capitalism. You’re made to find faults and pay to fix them, but as a freshly unraveled KT, none of that happens for a glorious moment. I can't wait to see you experience that profound relief.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about KTs,” I murmured, and when she froze, my suspicion was confirmed. 

“You’ve done it haven’t you? It must have been before we met. What did you look like before?”

She gripped the counter and stirred pointedly for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and turning to look at me. 

“Yeah. I did a KT back when I was a kid. It was… it's very personal, okay? Maybe I'll tell you more about it some time.”

I felt like shit. Real brilliant of me to run my mouth off like that and hurt my best friend’s feelings. I climbed the drawers and stood on the countertop, silently pleased to see a bemused smirk return to her face.

“I'm sorry I pried like that. That was reckless of me.” 

“It's okay, I know you don't mean anything by it, it's just not something I like to think or talk about. People who haven't been through it are just weird about it, ya know?” 

I scratched the back of my head sheepishly, thinking back to how she had patiently listened to me whine and rant on the way to the bank about how bullshit KTs were. 

“Yeah… maybe when I understand it better it'll be something we bond over.”

She nodded her agreement as the noodle timer beeped.