Things were finally starting to settle back down to normal from where Brian sat, once again hosting support group meetings from the usual rock. From what he'd been able to gather from the huskies, everyone involved in the recent shady business was waiting for their day in court, and the FBI no longer had agents crawling over the park conducting interviews. He had less to deal with too, lately. Attendance to the park had dropped a bit since the investigation began, and none of the newer arrivals had been switching sexes. At least, none that were seeking out his group. Meanwhile, a number of the people he'd been counseling had either left the park, or come to terms with their new bodies well enough to stop attending regularly. All in all, the regular crowd was down to just five guests.
Of course, that wasn't counting Cheryl and Pamela. Brian had hoped that they would open up and start talking about themselves, but frankly, it was getting a bit worrying. He'd seen his fair share of sexist former males that went through a period of self-loathing and denial like this, but these two... it wasn't that they were ashamed of their new bodies, and the status they felt came with it, they were outright proud. Clearly, they'd grown up believing women were only good for one thing, and they were outright embracing the notion. Granted, they were both quite... skillful when it came to that one thing, but he'd seen rabbits who had more dignity about the whole thing. When they weren't wearing him out through sexual competition, they were falling over themselves to bring him fruit, give him back rubs, offering to let him use their laps as pillows if he was tired. He was starting to develop feelings for them in spite of everything, but this only made it worse to consider how the rest of their "sisters" were being treated by those frat boy bucks outside... and he still wished he could get them to give an honest answer when he asked them about their wants and needs. No matter what he asked, it was clear they were just giving him whatever answers they thought he'd want to hear... although that was somewhat illuminating in its own way. How could anyone be so clueless about how to handle a longterm relationship?
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It had only been a matter of time before sailors and beach-goers had a good enough look at Charlotte and Naomi for the park to start caving to their demands. While there didn't seem to be any risk in allowing people to swim around in mermaid forms, there wasn't a place for them to stay at the park, and there were serious legal concerns about just letting people swim out into the open ocean with no oversight. Naomi however pointed out that she still had all the security training from her years in the park, and there was a strong demand from mer-enthusiasts wanting to trade their costume tails for the real thing. The new arrivals of course had to sign a stack of wavers, absolving the park from any safety concerns, but eventually another seven merfolk were released out into the ocean to join them.
All but one of course were female. Fishy fantasies were something that seemed to appeal more to women, since how often do you see a movie about a curious merman? Naomi couldn't help but notice three of the new girls were redheads as well. It also seemed all of them were straight, which proved the bisexuality treatment the original pair had received hadn't become a permanent part of the pattern, and had the side effect of making the token merman, Justin, quite the popular addition to their little group. Naomi was fairly sure the only reason Charlotte wasn't visibly drooling over the sight of him was that they were underwater, and try as she might to deny it, there was a very big part of her that wanted to feel what Charlotte had in the few days where she'd been a man.
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Irene was totally at a loss of what to do with herself. When she could, she was still doing her best to preach the joys of finding one's true self, but with Lawrence locked away awaiting trial, she felt like half of herself was missing. She didn't know how much of it was the result of some sort of "mental augmentation" like everyone else kept shouting at her, and how much was really just a pure and deep connection between two souls, but she couldn't handle the thought of life without him. In her former life, she'd always been so independent, but now she knew she absolutely needed her man in her life. She needed someone to soar through the valley with, hand in hand. In a few months, their child would need a father. Her physical needs were rather pressing too. Her pegasus body came with quite the demanding sex drive, and after being with a man who was quite literally hung like a horse, nobody else could ever hope to measure up. It didn't help matters that if they'd robbed her stallion of his magnificent body, it would mean she was now the only one of her kind in existence. Eventually, she resolved that she couldn't just sit idly by and hope for her dear Lawrence to be released. It was time for drastic action.
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The rabbit situation had been just one more headache for an already overstressed Steve. He really wasn't sure how best to handle it. Mostly he just wished this crazy documentarian's "will" had been brought to his attention a month ago, when he could have just advised the park to deny access to such an obvious troublemaker. As it stood, they clearly couldn't keep her here, the park's reputation was suffering enough without rumors of holding people against their will, and she clearly wouldn't be willing to terminate her pregnancy so she could safely be returned to her former self. Steve wasn't really too thrilled with the idea of impressionable children growing up in the rabbits' warren either. There'd never been precedent for it, but it occurred to him now that it was a huge mistake not to render that particular form infertile, for a number of reasons. That just left releasing her as she was... but the mind of a rabbit girl wasn't well suited to life on the outside, and there was that in-built dependency on others of their kind. Just sending her off alone would be psychologically scarring for any of the rabbits, and of course the one in question would have to be the one who was notoriously skittish to begin with. That really only left one option to keep from getting sued one way or another.