I rise from my bed slowly, tapping the alarm on my phone as I do so. Ow, I must have turned the volume up a bit too loud on my alarm. I look around the still unfamiliar room. I'm lucky enough that Kaeden had a spare room in his cabin, but two nights in it hasn't stopped it from feeling weird waking up here.

It's been two days since I was dropped off here by Jack, and there's been no communication since. I'm sure that he's trying not to draw much attention to us out here, but I can't help worrying about my friend. It's the second day since seeing him though, and he did initially say one to two days. Hopefully he arrives sometime today.

Pulling myself up from my bed, I'm surprised by how loud the floorboards creak today. I brush my hair out of my eyes, walking towards the bathroom.

As I walk past the mirror, I stop, turning to look at myself slowly. I stare for several tense seconds as I find my eyes drawn to the two large bunny ears growing out of my head. I'm stunned into complete silence, partially out of absolute disbelief and partially out of respect for my newly sensitive ears. I turn my head this way and that and the ears flop gently as I do so. Strangely, I can feel them moving. I try and flex the strange muscles and I find that I can fold them down towards my face, and doing so actually makes things a bit quieter.

In a complete haze, I continue to use the restroom and start my routine. When I get to my face washing though, I just look from the headband to my ears and back again. Very gently, I slide the headband on, being careful to stop before my ears. They seem floppy enough that pushing them back shouldn't hurt, but I really don't want to chance it right now. I continue through my routine, paying attention to just how much louder everything is now. It's not unbearable, but I definitely feel like I can hear much better than I used to be able to.

While I'm completely distracted exiting the bathroom, I accidentally bump into the door. Despite this being a relatively safe mistake to make, I feel a sharp pain from my chest where I bumped into the frame. I rub the spot gently to soothe it and I find that the area is actually quite tender. Turning back to the mirror, I lift my shirt gently, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with my chest other than a bit of tenderness. I pinch my arm gently, and then a bit harder. But no other part of my skin is that tender. I drop my shirt, feeling strangely self-conscious suddenly.

Sufficiently unnerved already, I step out of the bathroom carefully and make my way to my bedroom. Kaeden should be waking up any moment now and I kind of want to process my new ears alone for a bit.

I crack the window inside my room open a bit, sitting on my bed and closing my eyes. I just process the sounds coming in, amazed at the wide variety of sounds that I can pick out now that would have been muddy and inaudible before. I attempt to identify each of the sounds, pinpointing the gentle rustle of the leaves and the distant whistling of bird song.

I strain to pick out some of the other sounds, the gentle snapping of twigs caused by the nearby fauna being one of the main ones. As I focus more, I’m able to pick out a few more animal calls, but I’m not familiar enough with the animals around here to put a face to them. I think one of them might be a wolf or a coyote?

As I’m focusing, I feel a sensation of unease creep up on me slowly, distracting me from the sounds of the forest. The unease suddenly spikes to a dead panic and all I can do is stand up from the bed, whipping my head around quickly to look for whatever is causing the panic.

“AAAAAAAAH, WHAT THE HELL?!” My ears instinctively fold forward as I hear the screech and I jump in panic at the scream. The panic doesn’t fade, so I run out of the room and towards Kaeden’s room, fearing the worst.

Dashing across the wooden floors of the cabin, I slide to a stop at Kaeden’s room and I fling the door open. As the door swings open, the feeling of panic disappears suddenly. Like being dunked in cold ice. It’s lessened enough that I feel momentarily confused as my eyes fall on Kaeden. He’s sat upright in bed, his hands rubbing his chest gently. His… chest?

I feel my brain short circuit as I try to put some reason to the situation I’ve found myself in. As my brain slowly takes in everything, I realize that he’s stopped feeling up his chest and is looking at my ears. He looks just as stunned into silence as I am. My eyes drift upwards towards his head and I realize that he has two strangely shaped horns sticking out of his hair.

“Y-you have ears. Bunny ears…” he says, awed as he stares at them. I can feel one of my ears subconsciously twitch at the mention of them.

I nod, still slightly dazed as I point to his head. “You have horns.”

“WHAT?” His hands shoot up to his head quickly and he grabs one of his horns, feeling it up.  My ears fold down, still not used to how sensitive they are to loud noises. “How did I miss that I have horns, I was so busy worrying about my, uh… my…” His eyes move down towards his chest. He stops feeling his horns, tentatively poking his chest once again. “Am… am I turning into a girl?” he asks, looking up to me.

I take a step back, a little caught off guard. “Uh… well, I mean… do you feel like a girl? I mean, gender is complicated and I mean, you don’t have to be, but if you, uh, I dunno how you--” I stammer out a couple of explanations, but I struggle to string together a coherent thought before he interrupts me.

“Okay, okay, yeah… I get it. Gender or whatever,” he says, sighing.

I cringe inward slightly, my ears drooping slightly at my inability to help my friend. “Sorry… I’m not very good at this either.”

He chuckles, glancing over at me. “You’re in the same boat as me too then, huh?”

I look up at him, tilting my head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

He gestures to me, waving his arm up and down. “I mean, I’m turning into a… I don’t know, bull? Cowgirl? Demons have horns, right? Something like that. And you’re turning into a bunny girl.” He taps his chin lightly, tilting his head slightly while he stares at me. “Or I guess just a really effeminate bunny boy.”

I freeze at that, my hand instinctively reaching up to my chest like Kaeden did. I feel the same tenderness from this morning and, focusing more on the feeling, I realize that it does feel a little fattier than my chest normally does. “Am I turning into a girl too?” I say, losing myself in my own complicated gender feelings. Strangely I don’t feel immediately disconcerted by the thought. Maybe it’s because I’ve already come to terms with the fact that my body is changing in several other strange and unfamiliar ways. Becoming a girl on top of that just feels… different. Not bad or good, just different. “My chest isn’t much bigger, so I didn’t really think about how different it feels, but I think you’re right”

Do I want to be a girl? As soon as I ask the question, I decide to box that question away and answer it later. There are other things to worry about, like my friend who seems much more freaked out by this revelation.

Trying to pull myself out of my own head, I focus my attention on Kaeden. He’s watching me fairly casually as I have my own internal freak-out session and it actually seems that he’s cooled down a lot watching me freak out. He smiles at me as we both just kinda look at each other, a silent understanding coming between us. I sigh, pushing my hair out of my face. My ears flop back over my face limply and I mentally push them back up without a second thought.

“So then, what’s the plan?” Kaeden asks, getting up from the bed. He looks a little disconcerted by the shifting of his chest, but he tries to ignore it.

I chuckle, looking at the ground in thought. “Jack should be back today sometime, so… I guess we just wait until then? Same plan as always, I suppose.”

He folds his arm, his chest resting just over his arms. “Well, he better hurry up. I’m definitely gonna want to make some wardrobe changes as soon as I can.”

“Oh?” I ask, my curiosity piqued slightly.

He stares at me for a couple of seconds before pointedly looking away. “Bras. I meant bras.”

“Oh.” I blush slightly, looking away too. “Right, those. You, uh, might have to wait for the changes to finish so that you know your final size.”

“Fuuuuuuuuck, I didn’t think about that,” he says, his posture drooping slightly. “And if you are growing breasts too, how come yours are growing so slowly, but mine grew so much overnight?”

I wince, looking down at my own chest and then at his. “Um… maybe, this is just a theory, but… maybe it’s proportional?”

He squints at me, scrutinizing me as I try not to meet his eyes. “Are you saying that you’re just smaller than me?”

“It’s just a theory,” I say again, quietly.

He snickers slightly and I glance at his face, meeting his eyes. There’s a mirth behind them that is nice to see. “Really torn between lording this over you and being annoyed by the inconvenience. Speaking of size…” He stands up straighter, looking down at me. It’s only then that I notice the height difference is so much wider than it would be. “Am I taller, or are you smaller?”

I grimace, looking around the room. I am almost certainly smaller and I wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t pointed it out. “I think I’m smaller…” I mutter. He chuckles at my expression, a lot of his tension having drifted away now.

I can’t help chuckling myself, feeling a warmth and cheer emanating from Kaeden. Unlike the panic, it's warm and reassuring. For once, I can tell that these aren’t my own emotions and that the emotions I’m feeling are Kaeden’s. I was really worried that it might take Kaeden a while to adjust, but surprisingly he seems to be taking things in stride. Aside from being able to feel these pleasant emotions, it does help alleviate some of my worries knowing that my friend isn’t having a hard time with the sudden changes. “It seems like you’re not terribly broken up by these changes anymore.”

He shrugs, tilting his head from side to side in thought. “I mean, I figure that it’s a unique experience at least. I’ve spent the last couple of years trying to explore new experiences and one thing I’ve learned is to give everything an earnest try. So, I’ll see how it goes for now. Speaking of which… you should call me Kay. Might as well try everything out while I’m at it.”

I nod, thinking about that. “The pronouns and everything else too then?”

“Why not? If it sucks, I’ll stop you,” she says. “Probably not dresses or anything yet, they don’t exactly seem very good for my outdoor lifestyle.”

I smile, nodding happily. “Alright, Kay, sounds good to me.”

She smiles back, stepping over and tapping me on the shoulder on her way to her closet. “What about you, then? Are you gonna try anything out too, or are you pretty sure about yourself still?”

Frowning, I look down at myself. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m not sure about any of this. Trying things out with Kay would be the healthy thing to do, right? As opposed to ignoring everything and bottling things up, which is what I was going to do. “I guess I should, yeah. I’ll try the same.”

When I look back up, I realize that I’m looking at Kay’s bare back as she is getting changed. My face goes flush and I spin around quickly so that I don’t see anything. Even if we used to change in the same changing room in high school, it feels different to be in the same room as her now while she’s changing. “Any thoughts on a name you want to try then?”

“I haven’t really--” Before I can finish that thought, I can feel my senses fading in and out, the words dying on my tongue as I stumble forward slightly. I grip the edge of a table as my vision flickers gently between this room and another more clinical one.

“Amiya,” a familiar voice says from behind me. I straighten up, turning around to face her with a smile. She’s a taller Feline woman with green eyes and hair that’s almost white, leaning very slightly green in tint. Despite how young she looks, I know that she’s been around a long time and seen a lot of things that I couldn’t even fathom. She’s the head of the medical department and someone that I look up to for advice very often.

"Dr. Kal'tsit! What can I do for you?" She looks at me for several seconds, holding a folder in her hands. I hold the smile while she scrutinizes me and even though I know that there's no fooling Kal'tsit, it's important to me that I'm able to keep smiling.

She holds the folder up to me and I take it, opening it up gently. "There was a new recruit while you were out on your mission. Earthspirit told me that they wanted to meet you if you have the time." I look over the information on the operator in the file.

I look up at Kal'tsit, slightly shocked. "She's Draco?" She merely nods, her expression as neutral as always. I turn back to the file, reading it over more. "And she's from Rim Billiton? Is she here right now?" The landship is nowhere near Rim Billiton at the moment, did she come all this way?

"She's in the training room with Franka."

I smile, dipping my head slightly to Kal'tsit in thanks. "Thank you for telling me, I'll go meet her now then." Before I can get too far, Kal'tsit calls out from behind me.

"Amiya." I stop, turning back to look at her. She's staring me in the eyes and I can't read her expression. Eventually, she closes her eyes and sighs. "Get some rest afterwards."

I smile nervously, waving a hand in front of me quickly to reassure her. "No, I'm fine. I got plenty of rest last night and I still need to make sure that the trading posts and workshops are all working fine. Then I have to order some new resources to keep them stocked for the upcoming month."

"Don't bother, Hoshiguma and Swire are still here and asked for some extra work. They're already taking care of those things as we speak," she says, eyeing me carefully.

I feel my ears droop slightly as I turn towards where the workshops and trading posts are stationed. "Oh, I should go help them first then. I can't leave them to do all the work."

"No, Amiya. Go talk to Dowse and then go rest. Doctor’s orders." Her tone doesn't curb any argument so I let the tension out of my body and slump forward slightly.

"Yes ma'am," I say, glancing back at her. "Thank you, Dr. Kal'tsit."

She shakes her head, smiling gently at me for a moment. "No thanks necessary. It's important for Rhodes Island's leader to take care of herself properly. The other operators aren't just being nice when they tell you to take a break, you know?" She sighs, her smile dropping to her familiar neutral expression. "Besides, didn’t you just tell Ch’en the same thing not that long ago?”

I wince, nodding at the memory. It was a couple of days ago and I’d almost forgotten. I guess it has been pretty busy around here lately… “You heard about that?”

She nods once, folding her arms. “Hoshiguma mentioned it to Saria in the medical bay earlier and I happened to overhear. I won't always be available to make sure you're taking proper care of yourself, though. Please be more mindful."

I smile back at her. It's certainly not the first time I've heard that from her, but I appreciate her concern every time. "I will, thank you."

"See that you do." With that, she turns and walks the opposite way down the hall and to wherever she needs to be next. Turning around, I continue towards the training room, curiosity over our newest operator fueling my every step.

As my vision flickers back into place, I feel my senses coming back just as quickly as they vanished.

"You okay?" Kay asks from behind. I can hear her footsteps approaching as she steps closer from behind and rests a hand on my shoulder gently. I turn to look at her and see the same face that I saw in the operator record in that vision. I try to recall all of the data that was visible on the sheet, but it feels fuzzy and unclear. The things that stick out are her Operator name, Dowse, and the facts that I mentioned verbally. She's a Draco from Rim Billiton.

It feels like I shouldn't know what either of those things mean, but there's definitely some faint understanding of both of those terms on a basic level. Rim Billiton seems to be a place that I should be fairly familiar with. Or that Amiya, the other more real Amiya, is distinctly familiar with. As for the Draco, they seem to be a race that isn't very common for one reason or another. There's a couple other feelings that I can recall feeling with relation to Dracos, but outside of the memory they feel inscrutable. Like maybe they meant something to Amiya, but without the context I wouldn't understand.

"Don't strain yourself thinking about it, you don't have to choose one if you don't want to. Was just a suggestion," Kay says. For a second, I have no idea what she's talking about, and then I remember what we were talking about before the sudden vision.

"Amiya. You can call me Amiya for now," I say, massaging my head. It doesn't exactly hurt, but the confusion of it all is starting to make it hard to think.

Kay pats my shoulder gently and I can tell that she's still concerned about me. "...Okay, Amiya. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah… just another vision," I say with a sigh.

"Another one? Yours seem to come by more often than mine do. What was this one about?" She guides me to the bed and I take a seat. She returns to getting dressed and I'm grateful that she had me sit pointing away from her.

"I was talking to someone named Kal'tsit, A doctor, apparently. She had come to talk to me about… a new operator? I guess wherever I worked had just hired someone and well, it was you."

"Me?" Kay asks from behind, the sounds of a zipper and some quiet cursing coming after. "What do you mean, me?"

"Well, you know how you look now? I saw your face in the file. The horns were a bit bigger, but the same shape. Apparently you're a Draco from Rim Billiton."

"That… sounds strangely right. A Draco? So, not a cow or demon, but a dragon?" she muses, sitting down next to me. I turn to look and she's properly dressed now. Even though it's one of her normal outfits, it sits on her completely different to how it used to. "I'm not gonna lie, that sounds pretty cool. Did that file say whether I can breathe fire or not? That would be pretty neat." She flashes me a toothy smile and I can't help but laugh at the idea of her breathing fire. That would certainly be a sight to behold.

"I don't know; I guess if horns are possible, then it's possible. You might have to wait for the changes to finish before you try, though. What if your fire-making glands have developed, but your immunity to fire hasn't yet and you barbecue yourself by accident?"

She frowns, thinking about it for a second. "Damn it, you're right. I guess I should be prepared for these to get bigger too then." She reaches up and for a second I think she's gonna grab her chest, but she actually reaches past and touches her horns. I feel myself turn slightly red in the face at my assumption, my eyes turning to my own chest at the thought. I guess I can't deny that I've been thinking about my own chest growing bigger too. The thought doesn't fill me with trepidation or excitement though, it's mostly just curiosity. I've never had breasts before; will it be unpleasant? Or will it actually be kinda nice?

"I see you've got your mind on something else though." I turn even redder as I hear Kay's snickers from beside me and I stand up from the bed.

I stride towards the door, not looking back at her. "I'm going to make breakfast," I announce as I swing the door open. She continues to chuckle, but I hear her get up and follow me out of her room casually.

"I guess I'll come help. Something tells me that if I get too into my work without some support, I'll probably injure myself.

As she says it, I know intuitively that it's true. "That's fair. You could hurt your back or neck, as well as damage your ligaments if you're not careful, which could lead to more pain down the line."

"Wow, you really are studying hard as a nurse. How much have you been studying?" I pause at the question, my own brain catching up with what I'd just said.

"I…" I look down at my hands, different than they used to be, but still mine. "I haven't really needed to. Everything we've covered has seemed second nature."

"...Really? I always knew you were smart, but dang." I can hear the mirth in her tone, but my own feelings feel muddy. Why did I know that? That's not something we've covered or anything I should be familiar with at all.

Maybe it's just more strange new memories from my change, but it feels too different. Too natural. I've always found my proclivity for knowing all of the things I did to be a little strange, but they couldn't be the same strange as this transformation could it? If something like Originium can exist in our world after all, what other things might also be possible? "Uh, yeah… I guess I'm a natural." I try to focus on making breakfast. I'll just have to add it to the list of things I have questions about. Jack seemed pretty knowledgeable about this situation, so maybe he'll have some answers for some of them whenever he gets here.

For now, there's no use worrying about them. I flit in and out of the pantry a couple of times, gradually taking my mind off of the strange happening by filling it with thoughts of cooking instead.

Just as I'm finishing up with the cooking, my ears perk as I pick up the sound of tires rolling over gravel. I clean my hands from the little bits of food that are all over them and turn off the stove. I hear the car park as I'm leaving the kitchen and make it to the door. Just as they start knocking, I swing the door open. I'm stunned into silence as I lay my eyes on the familiar person standing just outside the door. But it's not the person I was expecting.

The Feline woman from my vision with green eyes and almost white hair. The head of the medical department at Rhodes Island, Dr. Kal’tsit. She looks slightly different here now, her hair not quite as long and her face not exactly the same.

"...Dr. Kal'tsit?" I ask in confusion. Her expression is far more relaxed than I recall seeing her in any of my visions; the light smile I'd only seen briefly now seems to be her resting expression. Her eyes seem to sparkle a bit as she sees me, looking me up and down. Her outfit is different too, now a light green sundress that seems similar in color to the medical dress I'd seen her wearing in that vision. I can also tell that the tell-tale signs of infection, the black crystals that grow from your body, aren’t as visible on her at the moment like they were in my vision. Her sundress shows her shoulder off, but there aren’t any black growths there yet like there were in my vision.

"You seem like you're doing well. Mind helping me carry in the groceries?" she says, jamming a thumb over her shoulder and towards the vehicle. As I turn my head to the vehicle, several puzzle pieces click into place and my jaw drops.

"Jack?!" I exclaim, looking my friend up and down. There was apparently no time wasted in the embracing of a more feminine fashion, and honestly they pull it off well.

With the same light smile on their face, they just shake their head. "Kal'tsit is fine."