"What's this all about?" Jason asked, baffled. Elsie regarded him curiously, and the harpy woman looked a little dismayed. "You really don't remember, do you?" the harpy asked. "Back when you were a Caretaker...?"
He shook his head. "Sorry, I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Are you confusing me with someone else? I'm not even from around here, I grew up in Portland..." Just then, he winced, grabbing at the wound on his shoulder.
"Oh my," Elsie said, looking as upset as the girls had ever seen her since their meeting yesterday. She turned to the harpy. "Are you certain the anti-virus is up to the job?" she asked. "We're probably approaching the limit for treating it..."
The harpy medicine-woman frowned. "I don't know," she said. "It should be able to take care of it, but...I don't know. If he remembers a whole other life...is it possible he was reborn further down his own line of descent? The Caretaker protections might have diminished somewhat, if that were the case..."
Elsie sighed. "Dear me," she said. "I hate to say it, but he might not be in the clear after all. Be a shame to have to transform such a legendary figure, but..."
"...it'd be better than leaving him to become one more minion of that pack-leader," the harpy finished. "Jason, listen closely. I will change you as we planned, but you will have to be willing to allow it, or the Caretaker protections will fight this change just as they would the lycanthropy. Do you understand?"
Jason nodded. "I...I guess so, yeah," he said. He wasn't any more enthused about the idea than he had been before, especially not when it'd seemed like he was safe for a minute there, but they were right...anything was better than becoming just another subject of the werewolves. "I...I'll do my best," he said. The medicine-woman smiled. "Very good. I'll be right back."
She went into the cave, the three young transformees-to-be watching her peculiar bird-like strut as she went; when she returned, she had a little satchel hung around her neck. She dropped it on the ledge and began to sort through it with one talon; they were impressed by the way she balanced on the other, and a little nervous, realizing that they were going to be under the same limitations themselves soon.
"Uh...um, Ms. Harpy?" Jess asked. "Are...are all of you...um, naked?" She'd been trying not to stare ever since the medicine-woman had landed to meet them, but the idea that...that this was what she would be, however temporarily, stuck in her head. She might be able to deal with not having pants that would fit over the tailfeathers, the harpy woman seemed to have a down covering for her privates, but she was completely bare-chested...
The harpy laughed. "Oh, humans...yes, child. It would be a bit of a bother trying to dress ourselves without your hands, wouldn't it?"
Jess blushed. "But...but I don't wanna just...just go around with my breasts showing!"
Becky shrugged. "You were the one that decided to go with the harpies, Jess," she said. "Besides, don't forget our plan."
Jess frowned. Even however temporarily... "I don't care!" she said. "I don't want that!"
Jason chuckled wryly. "Oh, I wouldn't mind it..."
The medicine-woman eyed them carefully. "You really don't want that?" she asked. "I can work around that, if you feel that strongly about it..."
"Please," Jess said, a little sulkily. The very idea...
The harpy turned to Jason. "And you want that?" she asked, curiously.
He bit his lip, grinning sheepishly. "Well, I wouldn't mind it, but I'm not going to tell her what to do."
"I see," the harpy said, smiling. "All right, then, I believe I have a solution." She removed a few things from the satchel and stood up. Taking three feathers, she handed one to each of them. "Hold on to these," she said. "Focus on them." Then she retrieved a couple of polished agates. She handed one, egg-shaped, to Jason, and a more cylindrical one to Jess. "Focus on these as well," she said. "The two of you that don't mind, you may want to undress. Even you, child," she said to Jess, "should at least uncover your bottom half. We don't want your tailfeathers getting caught and kinked."
Jason shrugged and doffed his clothes, which were uncomfortably grungy after three days on the run, anyway. He covered himself just for courtesy's sake, though he wasn't sure that there would be much point to it if they were all going to be like that. Becky followed suit a little more reluctantly, holding her arms at her sides and trying to accustom herself to the idea. Jess was last, taking her shoes and socks off and reluctantly stepping out of her pants and underwear, blushing as she did so. The harpy raised one talon and deftly slashed the sides of her shirt from the armpit to the waist. "Hey!" she protested, but the harpy shrugged and indicated the base of her wing; Jess could see that the connecting tissue between wing and torso extended nearly that far down.
"All right," the medicine-woman said. "Now, the three of you, form a circle around the nest." They did so. "As I said, focus on what I've given you, and will yourselves to allow the change I am about to make." They did, as best as they could; none of them were particularly excited, but anything would be better than getting caught unprotected by the werewolves...
The harpy shut her eyes, nodded solemnly, and spread her wings. With a dancer's grace, she ran around the group, curving her wings around them as if she was symbolically encircling all three at once. When she had made a full circle, she drew her wings back in, stepped into the center, into her nest, and kissed each of them in turn - just a short peck on the forehead, laying the tips of her wings on their shoulders as she did so. She drew herself up to her full height and thrust her wings skyward, and suddenly all three felt the change begin.
It started with a prickling sensation that ran all along their lower bodies, and from their shoulders to their fingertips. As it increased, their skin began to sprout what looked like goosebumps, but soon erupted into growing feathers. Partway down the leg this new plumage gave way to dry, scaly skin. As the plumage began to reach full coverage, they felt their hands begin to change, the fingers stretching out but losing articulation, becoming stiffer structures to give shape to the developing wings. They could no longer hold onto the totems they'd been given as this happened, but with the change already well underway, it didn't matter.
As the wings were developing, their feet began to change as well, the second and fourth toes receding away into nothing as the others stretched outward, spreading farther apart as they did, and the ball of each foot growing out into a fourth, back-pointing toe. The toenails grew as well, into claws sharp enough to dig into a branch or cut apart a piece of meat. Their wings, by this point, were mostly formed, the skin of their arms having stretched out to cover the framework that had been built, and the feathers that had been awkwardly clustered now stretched out into the proper configuration for flight. There was a cracking and stretching in the base of their spines as the coccyx came unfused and extended out into a short, flexible stub from which large, broad, and stiff tailfeathers sprouted. There was a strange sensation as their bones became hollow, and then it was done.
Or at least, it was done for Becky. Jason and Jess found themselves still overtaken by the sensation of changing, even though they were just as fully harpies now as Becky...
For Jason, he felt himself shrinking. There had been a little of that the whole time - harpies didn't seem to be a very large species - but now it accelerated. While most of him was shrinking, he felt a swelling in his chest, and looked down, wondering if that could possibly be what it felt like, to see flesh build up into his nipples and expand into two moderately-sized and very definitely female breasts. He gasped, only to hear that his voice had changed - no doubt thanks to his altered body. His torso was changing in more than just size, as well, gently pulling in around the waist a little, and softening and sloping his formerly broad shoulders, while his pelvis grew outward and pushed his hips apart. He could feel his hair growing rapidly, cascading down his back, as his face softened. Panicking, he reached his new wingtips down to his groin, just in time to feel his manhood shrink away into a flat, featureless surface under the down, before his pubic mound gently sculpted itself into a more feminine shape, the lips of his new womanhood opening up slightly just under the feathers.
Jess, on the other hand, wasn't shrinking at all - though she wasn't growing either. Neither was her hair - shoulder-length, and tied back in a ponytail, and staying that way for the moment. However, she could feel her breasts dwindling away underneath her shirt, and she clasped her wings to her chest, trying not to think about what this meant. but the way her curves were flattening out into straighter, squarer lines made it all too obvious, especially when she saw what was happening to Jason. Soon enough her chest was entirely flat, except for the gentle delineation of a reasonably muscular young man, and nothing remained of her slightly hourglass figure. She could feel things rearranging in her groin, but she didn't feel like investigating - fortunately for her modesty, the downy patch covering her pubic area grew denser and deeper, becoming more of a shag carpet than a rug, and hiding everything suitably for the moment.
"And there you are!" beamed the medicine-woman to the three new harpies. "Welcome to the family, children. I'm sure you'll fit in just fine."
There was a brief pause, as Jason and Jess stared at themselves, then at her, then at each other, and then back at her, in disbelief. "WHY AM I A GIRL!?!?" Jason exploded, gesticulating wildly with her new wings. "And why am I a...a guy!?" Jess sputtered, hearing his new tenor for the first time.
The medicine-woman stared at them, confused. "Well, this gets you exactly what you asked for, doesn't it?" she asked. "You don't have to worry about showing your breasts," she said to Jess, "and you can enjoy it as much as you like!" to Jason. "Is there a problem?"
Both of them found themselves sputtering incoherently for close to a quarter of a minute. "Th-this wasn't what I wanted!" Jason stammered. "I never wanted to be a girl, I just said I...I wouldn't mind them not wearing anything!"
"And I didn't mean I wanted to not have to worry about people staring at my breasts by not having any, let alone being a guy!" Jess protested. The harpy medicine-woman shook her head. "Dear me. I'm sorry, I misunderstood you pretty drastically. I'm afraid when you get into the business of changing people's shape, you learn to read what they actually want into what they'll admit to you...I guess I did too much reading in and not enough reading...I'm terribly sorry, children."
There was a brief pause while they waited for her to say something else. "Well?" Jason prompted, after a minute. "Change us back!"
The medicine-woman shook her head. "Oh, I'm sorry, children," she said. "I've learned how to change others to join our people, but I've never actually looked into changing our people into humans. I'm not even sure if it's possible."
"W-well," Jess said, "can't you at least undo the sex-change? That's really the problem here..."
She shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't actually know how to do minor tweaks individually. It's easy for me to change that as part of making someone into a harpy, but actually changing a harpy? Not so much."
"But we can't be stuck like this! Jason protested. The medicine-woman shrugged. "I'm sorry, child, that's all I can tell you. Maybe someone else on this island can help you, but not I."
There was a pause as the three of them took stock of the situation. Three new harpies - Becky with her blonde hair matched by golden feathers, looking almost chicken-like, except that she had some measure of dignity, Jess in his new form, with his red hair, and his nut-brown plumage with a dingy white splotches of down on the lower front of his abdomen and scaly skin on his legs a paler yellow than Becky's bright plumage, and finally Jason, with her crisp white plumage contrasted by her long black hair. Two girls and one guy, and two of them the wrong sexes - would they really be stuck this way? Was there any hope of them ever changing back?
Meanwhile, the medicine-woman smiled to herself, her back turned on the group. She had seen the fire in Jason's eyes when she'd been angrily protesting her sex-change - that same fire that she'd been told the legendary Caretaker possessed. Perhaps he was beginning to awake after all...