Nicola was taken aback by the appearance of the stranger standing on her doorstep, not because there was anything out of the ordinary about her, but for the exact opposite reason.
"I'm Noelle" the young woman broke through the awkward silence by enthusiastically offering her hand.
Noelle was exactly the kind of girl Nicola might have expected to serve her in a vinyl record store, if she had ever visited one of those. She was actually very naturally pretty, but the affectedly scruffy clothes, stud below her lip, medium length dyed black hair and tattoo on her arm weren't to Nicola's taste and seemed incongruous with her polite and preppy manner. Still, she was far from the bedraggled old madwoman that had been anticipated.
"That was awfully quick" Nicola spoke suspiciously without taking up the offer of a handshake.
"Yeah, I can see how that might have freaked you out" Noelle laughed "I'm a novice witch. I can teleport and stuff. Pretty cool huh? But I can promise you you're perfectly safe"
"So can I come in?" The young witch added after another perfect silence.
James was squatting in front of his increasingly froglike reflection wondering what was taking so long when the door swung open to reveal his friend and her guest. He was on the one hand taken aback by Noelle's beauty and on the other suddenly acutely aware of his nudity and freakish appearance again.
"Noelle, this is James" Nicola gestured to her cursed friend without much optimism for how this was going to go.
"Woah, a slow frog transformation!" Noelle seemed more impressed than anything "Cool! Oh, and sorry. Hello James!"
"It's nice to - gribbit - meet you" James moved his arms strategically in front of his privates.
"So can you do anything?" Nicola asked folding her arms.
"Well, I can't reverse it or anything like that" Noelle answered apologetically "but I can help you find Meredith. Or I can take you to someone who has more magical experience than I do. But I have no idea if they are powerful enough to help or not and time is against us. Once the transformation completes, well..fixing this becomes an awful lot trickier"
"So you know where Meredith is?" Nicola asked cautiously.
"Roughly" Noelle answered "and I can get us there but whoever we decide to visit...it won't be quite your reality as you know it. It's kind of hard to explain"
Nicola sat down on the bed, ran a hand through her hair and sighed "This is so fucked up but whatever, lets go"
"Great. You'll need to get changed first" Noelle seemed far too excited by all of this "You would stand out as an outsider dressed as you are and that might be unsafe for you. I have some suitable attire for us both. I must warn you they are a little revealing but...well, it's not like you will know anyone there"
"And it's fine for him to hop about like that" Nicola nodded down at James "Isn't he going to stand out?"
"Ooh, good point" Noelle looked at James a moment "I could shrink him. That would make him easier to conceal?"
"Yeah, definitely do that" Nicola quickly assented.
"Hey - griibit - don't I get a say in this?" James protested tetchily.