Your faculties return to to you at once, like you’ve suddenly emerged form a pleasant, dreamless sleep. Your eyes pop open to stare at the ceiling of the candlelit study, but you’re groggy and disoriented. Cloudy memories of events from the point you entered the room pass by in a blur as you try to make sense of the strange feelings you’re getting from your body. You attempt to sit up, but you can’t seem to control your abs or arms. You test moving a leg, but are surprised to see a feminine knee enter your vision in response. Somewhere above you, you hear the female servant groan and she comes to.
“Wh- what happened? My legs feel weird,” you hear her say, her voice belying the same mental fogginess that you’re struggling against.
“I can’t sit up,” you try to say, but your mouth feels wrong, and you hear your own voice say something closer to “My canthb sib ub.”
“It’s okay, calm down both of you,” you heard Agatha say reassuringly. As she approaches, you feel her footsteps in the floorboards beneath your… Head? You still don’t understand your current arrangement. The only thing that feels relatively normal are your legs, but even they feel wrong. You get vague senses from other body parts, but you can’t move them no matter your efforts.
“Here, let me help you up,” she continues, “It will be difficult at first, but I promise it will get easier as the magic subsides.”
You think she’s talking to the other woman, but you suddenly feel a tug on your head pulling you off the ground. You manage to catch yourself on your feet, but it’s immediately apparent that your vision is to too close to the ground even though you’re standing upright. Before you, Agatha stands, or at least her pelvis does. You look up to see her holding hands with two arms that extend back to somewhere above your vision. She looks down at you and smiles.
“Alright, we’ll go slowly, and I’ve got you if you stumble. Just follow me,” Agatha says.
She keeps hold of the hands as she steps backwards, and you feel a weight above you follow. On hesitant steps, you walk with her, barely managing to stay upright. You stumble a couple times, but the weight on your head corrects you and keeps you from falling.
“Why are my legs moving on their own? Why can’t I walk right?” the female servant asks.
“Just hold on, we’re almost there. It will be easier if I show you rather than explaining,” Agatha says calmly.
Slowly and carefully, Agatha leads you over to a large mirror in the corner of the study. It takes you a moment to fully grasp the image that stares back at you. Before you, you see the naked reflection of the fully-restored female servant. She has hands at the ends of her writs again, and her ears are almost normal human-sized, though still somewhat longer and pointed. However, though her reflection is in the mirror, it doesn’t seem to be meeting your gaze. Rather, just below her belly, a pair of familiar eyes stares back, looking into yours.
“Is that me?” you try to ask, though once again it comes out a bit garbled. As you attempt to move your mouth, you see her crotch move in tandem. You realize that what you thought were her labia actually look more like a mouth turned sideways. You stick your tongue out and watch as the tip of a tongue pokes out of the reflected woman’s groin.
“Oh my god!” she exclaims, looking down. A hand reaches down to inspect your face—if you can call it that-- as the woman realizes that you’re both sharing her body.
“Is that--?” she trails off, still trying to process everything.
“Yes, the two of you are temporarily sharing a body,” Agatha explains. “I know it’s confusing now, but I promise it’s necessary for what I need you to do today. But first, the two of you are going to have to learn how to maneuver that body together.”
Agatha has the two of you practice walking around the room a few times. With each lap, it gets easier to work together to balance, and you find that though the woman doesn’t have direct control of your legs, she can kind of mentally suggest how she’s expecting your shared body to move. After a bit more work, you find that you can do likewise.
Convinced that the two of you are sufficiently capable of getting around, Agatha hands both of you a set of nondescript women’s clothing to put on. You awkwardly work together to don the outfit while Agatha explains what you’ll be doing.
“In the town nearby, I’ve hidden a very special amulet,” she explains, indifferent to your struggle with the clothes. “Once I knew that things may be going sour for me, I began making preparations. It’s hidden in the basement of a seemingly abandoned building and protected magically from those who might stumble across it. I’ll need you to find it and bring it here.”
The two of you have managed to put on the outfit that Agatha gave you. Your vision is completely obscured at first, but the clothes are adjusted so that the waistband of the pants rest just below your eyes, and the hem of the jumper lands slightly above them, giving you a thin opening to look out of. Once your sight is unobscured, you find that it was Agatha that made the adjustment.
“You’ll both have a role to play in getting the amulet back here,” she continues, meeting each of your gazes in turn. “Head, you’re in charge of getting the pair of you to the hiding place. Once there, the only way to remove the amulet is by putting it on and walking out with it, but at that point, you’ll be useless until you return. Legs, that’s where you come in. It’s up to you to make sure that you both make it back. I’m giving each of you a locus so that you’ll be able to find your way there and back.”
She places a hand on the woman’s forehead and the other just above your eyes. Your mind briefly blanks out and snaps back as if you just nodded off momentarily. You realize you now have a sudden awareness, almost a pull to the front door of the mansion. If you had arms, you could point exactly to the knob of the door. You don’t really know how you know this; you just know.
Once Agatha thinks you’re as prepared as she can make you, she walks with you to the front door.
“So it should be simple. Just get the amulet and come back,” she reassures you. “But don’t forget, my warning from yesterday still stands. You’ve both been inundated with magical energy. Do not under any circumstances interact with or, most especially, touch anyone else. It could be harmless, or it could be disastrous, and there’s no way to know until it’s too late. Also… please be careful.”
Realizing that she revealed a bit of genuine concern, she put back on a forced air of confidence again. “I expect to see you back before too long. So no dallying.” And with that, she pushes you out the door.
Once outside in the light of the late morning for the first time in what feels like days, the two of you linger for a moment on the front steps of the house. You can’t help but feel a bit of trepidation at venturing back out into the world in your strangely altered states. You’re the first to break the silence.
“Well, I guess we can’t do anything other than just going and getting to it,” you offer, speech muffled by the pants.
“Yeah…” she agrees. “But it’s still difficult going out like this. It’s just so weird. And it makes me feel weird, and like… exposed? Does that make sense?”
“Definitely,” you say. “I can’t imagine getting used to this. But maybe if we’re quick, we can just be out and back before we know it, and she can change us back to normal. Or at least normaler.”
You feel her nod in agreement. “I’m glad I’m not having to do this alone, at least. I mean, it would be nice if were weren’t, you know, this together, but…”
“Same,” you say. “I promise I’ll support you the whole way there and back.”
She groans at the bad pun and laughs.
“Alright then, Legs. Let’s go grab an amulet.”
“Sounds good, Head. Lead the way.”
She thinks for a moment, then points off into the trees, mentally nudging you to walk in that direction. “I think it’s that way.”
You follow her lead and begin walking your shared body back into the woods, chatting idly on the way.