Scarlett was crying into her hands. Tears of frustration and defeat leaked from her 4 pairs of eyes into twice as many hands. Stifled sobs escaped from her 4 mouths. She stood upright on her 3 pairs of legs. Her two upper torsos stayed side-by-side - as she moved her arms occasionally she hit her other torso.
Further down her body, her front pairs of legs faced backwards, causing her to present 2 asses forward to the mirror in front of her. Her original torso, now with 4 arms and 4 C-cup breasts faced straight down towards the ground. That was the only part of her body wearing clothing: the shirt that had changed her twice now was still on her lower torso. Behind that her original pair of legs held up the far end of her much changed body.
She peeked out beyond her hands. There in the mirror, she saw her drastically changed self. All 4 sets of red eyes looked back at her. 3 more sets than she should have. Her sobbing resumed instantly. Wanting someone to hold, but without thinking what she was doing, she turned her left torso to the right and her right torso to the left then wrapped herself in an 8 armed hug. Her heads nestled between each other as she leaned over her other torso's shoulder.
Despite the weirdness of physically hugging herself, Scarlett began to feel a little better. The reassuring touch of a person who cared. The sensation that she was not alone, even though she clearly was not hugging another person, the physical sensation drew on her past experiences and caused a resurgence of past comforts and happier emotions.
Scarlett's stifling and tears slowed, but continued as her emotions buffeted against the waves of comfort. A light tap on one of her arms focused her attention, and one pair of eyes opened to see Skye there. Skye looked terrified and somber. The previously boisterous friend now seemed depressed, sullen, and perhaps even... a little remorseful.
"Hey, are you uh... are you okay?"
*Sniff* "No..." Scarlett spoke with exactly 1 mouth. Her other 3 heads continued to sob lightly. "I'm a fucking freak." she choked out. New tears rolled down her cheeks.
"No no you aren't. That's the whole point of this place. When everyone can be different, no-one is. You aren't a freak, you're just different."
"I'm a goddamned *sniff* freak. I know what I am." Scarlett's eyes closed as her emotions swelled, and a new bout of crying started. "I haf four fucking heafs!"
"No Scarlett... You.. oh for fuck's sake. Of course. Don't go anywhere." Skye's footsteps echoed away. "Hey, you! Don't try anything funny on her. She's having it hard enough. No! Get the fuck out of here!" A second set of footsteps echoed and a door slammed. The only sound that remained was Scarlett's sobbing.
Time either barely passed or hours had gone by before the door creaked open again. Too absorbed in self loathing to care, Scarlett barely noticed it. Another tap on her arm brought her attention back to reality and a pair of eyes slowly opened to see Skye again.
Skye was, surprisingly, clothed. Her 4 breasts barely fit into her street clothes. Her top pair threatened to pop out through the low V-cut neckline. In her hands, Skye held a glass of water, and a small blue pill.
"Take this. It'll make you feel better."
"*sniff* No it won't."
"Scarlett! Look I'm sorry. I pushed you too far, shouldn't have. Now will you please let me help you." Skye's wide open eyes revealed the truth of her remorse.
"Fix *sniff* me."
"Yes, yes, I will. I'm trying to. I need you to take the pill, okay?"
Another chorus of sniffles escaped Scarlett's quartet of mouths. Not possessing the emotional fortitude to separate her torsos, she reached out with 2 arms and accepted the glass and pill. She quickly downed them.
The changes were immediate. Scarlett's depression and self-loathing lifted in mere moments. Her hatred for her changed body evaporated and was quickly replaced by curiosity and even a hint of pride. The flood of tears quickly dried up, and her sobbing halted.
Surprised by the sudden change to how she felt, Scarlett separated her torsos and turned her right torso to look at Skye as best she could. Her left torso inspected her changed body in the mirror.
"What WAS that?!?"
"Feeling better?"
"Yeah, a lot." "I'm not actually repulsed by my body any more." "What was in that pill?" Scarlett spoke to Skye with alternating heads, waiting for a sentence to be finished before speaking the next one.
"Well, uh. When I suggested this room, I forgot that it's an 'essence changing' room. So we kinda didn't normalize you when we should have."
"Huh?-" "-What?" Scarlett crunched both Skye-facing heads into expressions of confusion.
"Um.. Right. So an essence change is one that changes who or what a person is at their core. If a change is permanent, it has to be an essence change."
"Wait!" "This is permanent?" Scarlett interjected.
"An essence change isn't necessarily permanent. So... probably not?" Skye shrugged
"Oh thanks" "That's reassuring" Scarlett sarcastically respond.
"Let's just say I've never undergone a permanent change, and I've used this room dozens of times, okay? But that's not important right now. The important thing is how the soul handles changes to its essence. Most unprepared souls freak out and become super depressed... Like you did."
"Yeah that..." "...was not how I wanted to spend the evening."
"I know. Look, I'll keep saying sorry as long as it takes. Sorry! I forgot to get the normalization spell on you before we started."
"So what IS a normalization spell?" Scarlett's interest was clearly peaked. The blue pill had taken effect instantly on her - she reasoned it must have been a spell in pill form.
"I don't know exactly. They're super complicated shit that only master mages can cast let alone understand, but they're also incredibly useful. Everyone is supposed to get one applied before they put on any clothing in here, cause all the changes the clothing makes are essence changes. It makes the soul accept the changes, makes the soul think that even though you've changed, that's your 'normal' state."
"But I know this isn't how I normally am."
Scarlett scooted her body around so that both of her upper torsos faced Skye. All 4 heads watched and listened to Skye.
"Sure, your brain knows that. But your soul doesn't. Different things. Your soul is like... it's crazy hard to explain. But let's say that knowing whether you're normal is on your soul, not your brain."
"Huh." "Okay..." "Still doesn't make much sense." "The gist is I shouldn't be freaking out now?" "Cause my soul thinks this is how I am?"
Skye's eyes lit up, and her demeanor quickly returned to cheerful. "Exactly! It's great! Can change your body in tons of different ways, and your soul will be fine with whatever you do. I've heard it's even possible to split a person into a couple of people sharing the same soul, and they'll be perfectly fine."
"Pass on that." "I already feel like a couple people," "with all these heads."
As they talked, Scarlett felt a change surface in her mind. Her stream of consciousness, of thought itself, had become different. Now when she thought, she was aware of other streams of thought also thinking at the same time. She was no longer limited to a single stream of thought, with individual thoughts pushing against the banks each trying to get forward.
Now she found she had 4 separate streams of thought. Thoughts traveled freely between the streams, letting her think in a completely new and different way. It felt good, efficient, and potent. Deep down, Scarlett instantly found an affinity for the change, a reason to appreciate having 4 heads.
Outside the recesses of Scarlett's tangled consciousness, Skye continued to explain the normalcy spell's effects, "That's not the only thing it can do either. The normalcy spell also makes people accept whatever form you have as normal. They won't notice that you aren't normal."
"What, so they just don't notice that you have 4 boobs?"
Skye grinned at the reference to her doubled rack, "Well, they'd see that. And might even comment on it. But they wouldn't react to it in a, uh, not normal way. They would, like, treat me as though I was a normal person but differently abled. Uh... OH! Like when you saw the girl at the bank without any arms. It's just like that, but it works with any essence change."
The thoughts racing through Scarlett's minds let her explore a wide variety of possibilities with this new info. Huh, so if I stayed like this, people wouldn't panic or report me to the FBI. They'd just think I have a special kind of handicap. That's neat. I could really get used to being like this. It would really help with finals. Plus now that I'm not freaking out, it's really not so bad. Maybe I'll just try it for a little while.
"Is there a time limit or anything?" "Are we forced to change back when we leave?"
"Hah! I knew you'd be into this. Time limit, uh, no? So uhm, confession time... Cause I forgot to get you the spell before we came in here, I had to get a maximum strength normalcy spell in order to get you back under control. It's uh.. permanent."
"Cool-" "-Neat."
"Well... yes but... not really. It means that the magical reversion square downstairs might not be able to fully revert you. To get you back to normal human, we might need to do some clever clothing tricks."
"I'm okay with that." "Not a problem." "No biggie." "Doesn't that mean they can't force us to change back then?"
Skye raised an eyebrow and laughed, "No, but they also don't do that. Well, not before leaving the club. You can leave without changing if you want. All of the club's normalcy spells will reverse any changes when they end, but that's it. They actually sell normalcy spells of different durations."
"The normalcy spells aren't free?" "So how much did that one you gave me cost?"
"Well, the basic 24 hour spell is free. Anything above that costs. It's the main source of their income. And uh... don't ask. I uh... I fucked up. I owed you at least that much. Don't worry about it."
Scarlett stepped towards Skye and grabbed Skye in a big hug using all 4 arms on her right torso, the 2 front-most arms on her lower torso. After a brief hug, Scarlett released her friend, and immediately grabbed her with her left torso's arms for a second hug. After breaking off the second hug, Skye grinned at her friend. "So, what now? They've got a few other rooms if you're interested, and well... there's still plenty to play with here."