Jake’s mind began to wander as he thought about the implications of the pendant’s existence. That it had disappeared nearly as soon as he had found it meant that it could indeed move from person to person whenever someone would no longer be able to use it. Was he really its first owner? No, it couldn’t be. He’d never heard of any flying robots, living inflatable dolls, or fairies or angels or imps or other humanoid fliers… wait…
He’d HEARD of them, certainly. They’d been dismissed as stories long ago, but it wasn’t impossible that, if the pendant was old enough, someone might have used it to create things like angels, tengu, fairies, harpies, and more. Though the lack of any information on them now brought that into question. Plus, the change had been seen as normal when he’d used it on Zack, er, Zelda, and most stories involving creatures like that were seen as abnormal even back in their day. Or at least, Jake was pretty sure about that. Though, if the pendant’s users could pick the victim’s past, they could, by extension, pick how people perceived them. He’d WANTED Zelda to be accepted, in the weird little world he’d imagined. If someone wanted to turn people into angels that would be perceived as otherworldly, rather than normal, that could have been possible too.
It all made his head swim. What if it had already been used on people in his life, before, and he just took it as normal, just because? He was pretty sure he didn’t know any humanoid flying beings aside from Zelda, though… Or at least, none that he thought were abnormal enough to be a blip on the radar.
He rubbed his forehead, trying to get his bearings, glad he’d opted to sit out the current round of the game they’d been playing. Trying to figure out how deep this goes would just throw him off his game.
Jake heard Zelda descending the stairs, but paid her no mind. He looked over himself. He didn’t have feathers, plastic or metal skin, or any kind of wings. He didn’t remember flying in any form, personally.
He turned to Axel, the big brother he remembered having all his life. He was tall. Fair-skinned. A little overweight nowadays. Kind of a slacker. Just as Jake remembered him being this morning. Perfectly normal.
Zelda took a seat beside Jake, but he avoided looking at her for now.
He examined Pablo. Jake had been friends with him for a few years now. Pablo was pretty athletic. And startlingly knowledgeable and artistic, too. Said it ran in his family. Tall or short when he wanted to be. One of the perks of balancing on a long tail instead of having legs. Healthy, shimmering emerald scales. Feathery wings that shimmered like a sunrise. Yeah, everything still looked about the same as the day they first met in high school. Perfectly normal.
Wait…
Okay, yes, Pablo was a distant descendant of Quetzalcoatl, one of the rare ones to express the gene in a way that affected his physiology, a flying snake-man… but… that was normal… Wasn’t it? He couldn’t have just known a humanoid flier for two years and NOT suspected his origin the moment he found the pendant, right? He was smart enough to put two and two together… It seemed crazy to think about it, but… could Pablo have been changed?
He turned back to Zelda, whose beak seemed to somehow be smirking as she watched the games unfold on-screen before her. His eyes trailed down to her chest, the chilly, round mounds, above a toned belly. He was about to look away, feeling guilty about perving on a friend he’d made into… this, when he noticed something off, just above her bust.
He hadn’t been paying close attention to every detail of her before, and the current angle made it hard to tell for certain, but… was that eerily-familiar-looking pendant always there?
~~~~
Zelda was tempted to come up with some excuse to get all the guys outside so she could watch them all take off at once, and enjoy their flight immediately, rather than waiting for them to finish playing games and whatever other plans they may have had for the night. In fact, she felt a strong wish to fly herself, despite remembering flying over here less than fifteen minutes ago. But she knew they’d find it weird after they’d all agreed on the first evening’s plans at the start.
Still, with the power to share her cherished gift of flight finally in her grasp, she couldn’t just sit around and wait until morning. She HAD to try changing at least one person tonight. Why not make it a friend?
She stretched out her wings, then furled them up again, and went back inside, and down the steps to the basement. Axel was hunched forward on the sofa, tensely mashing buttons. Beside him, Jake was rubbing his forehead, lost in his own little world, as far as she could tell. And laying belly-down on the floor, calmly tapping away at his controller, was Pablo.
She’d spent time with Axel, and knew that he’d become a slacker in recent years, but she didn’t think of him as a friend, like Jake or Pablo.
Seeing Jake stressed out about something made her tempted to change him first, and make him into a dignified, composed phoenix. The irony of one of her closest (and most overprotective) friends becoming a bird of the opposite “element” from her, but nearly every bit as immortal as her, amused her.
But at the same time, the note had made it clear that, not only was there no reverting a person to normal once changed, they couldn’t be “edited” or otherwise changed a second time, either. It was one and done. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t regret her choices, and that also meant she’d need to be at least a little careful about them, no matter how enthusiastic she was. She’d hold off on changing Jake for now, until she’d had a chance to talk to him about what was bothering him, and try to resolve it the old fashioned way.
Plus, she hadn’t one hundred percent settled on making him that species, anyway.
So that left Pablo. And, remembering his fascination with the imagery from a certain piece of mythology, she knew just how to share her gift with him.
Even knowing the pendant’s power had to be real, it took her some restraint not to gasp at just how quickly the scales appeared on Pablo’s arms once she’d been sure of her decision. Just an intentional thought really was all that was needed, if she so chose.
The brilliant green scales quickly spread over his hands, his nails retracting to be replaced with clear white claws, deliberately filed down to avoid scratching things too badly. His legs and feet rapidly began to shrink and retreat back into his body as the scales slipped under his shirt.
She moved quietly beside Jake on the sofa, who was still lost in his own thoughts, while she watched Pablo’s changes continue.
His shirt and pants both seemed to unravel and dissipate into nothingness, revealing his bare body near-completely covered in scales. She didn’t feel any particular thrill about seeing him naked; as with her own body, it just was what it was. She thought it kind of silly that most people got so worked up about clothing, or lack thereof, but she had no interest in rocking the boat about that, beyond her own personal choice to go without.
What DID thrill her, though, was watching two nubs grow from the back of his shoulder blades, stretching out into two thin limbs, from which dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of bright, elegant feathers sprouted, in hues of orange, pink, red, and every other color of the sunrise. The powerful, wide wings were quickly folded neatly behind him, still sparkling under the light trickling in from the narrow basement windows. His hips reshaped, his anatomy below the waist becoming more snake-like, including his spine extending further and further, becoming a thick, flexible, scaly, six-foot tail with wider, paler scales on the underbelly.
His jaws stretched forward, teeth sharpening, and his canines growing longer, while gaining a hinge, allowing them to fold back neatly into his mouth. His tongue flicked out every now and then, splitting a little further at the tip each time. His ears shrank back into his head. As his eyes turned a stunning yellow hue, the pupils narrowing, a crest of feathers, shimmering in the same hues as his wings, fanned up on his head, like an ornate headdress that he could fan out, or fold back, as he liked.
The physical changes came to a stop, but, even though she couldn’t see a sign of them now, Zelda had confidence that her changes to Pablo’s mind and past had gone through. Despite her enthusiasm, she doubted the pendant could turn a person into a full-on god, so Pablo was merely a distant descendant of Quetzalcoatl, with a form reminiscent of the winged-serpent, and much weaker versions of the god of the sun, wind, arts, and knowedge’s power; a little wind magic here, a greater interest in learning and in the arts there, and the mysterious tendency of those around him to find sudden bursts of creativity or wisdom. And of course, glorious, wondrous flight!
She couldn’t help but smile to herself, utterly delighted in what she’d created with the pendant. Things were off to an excellent start.
And nobody but her seemed the wiser to it. The pendant's potential to normalize things was so helpful. Though a part of her couldn't help wondering if it might be possible to leave a person with their past memories, so they could enjoy the contrast with their new life. A test for later, perhaps.
Then, a burst of intuition hit her, and she turned to Jake, only to find him staring at her. And not at her eyes. She laughed softly.
“Jake, I may not be a prude, about going ‘round nude,” she blinked, realizing her accidental rhyme, but decided to roll with it, “but staring at a girl’s chest so long, is still pretty rude.”
He blushed, as Axel and Pablo both turned back to look at him, blinking a few times. “Oh, uh, I was just admiring that, uh… pendant, you’ve got there… It’s, ah… it’s a really intriguing design.”
She shook her head and chuckled. “Suuure you were, Jake. Sure you were. Thank you, though. I think it’s really growing on me.”