Two young women faced down one of the most fearsome tasks that any students at a magical school would ever encounter.

A class project

Still for Katrina Claes and Mary Hunt, it wasn't that bad. Tedious, mind-numbing, and a little bewildering because the ancient runes they were studying simply didn't seem to have any consistent rules.

"So at this angle it's fire but at that one it's water... but they're not opposing angles, so, there's no elemental rules?" Mary sighed.

She was a red-haired woman currently wearing a fine yellow-orange floral design dress, staring down at the notes and textbooks across a table.

Across from her, her study partner, a blue eyed brunette in a white and blue outfit, also seemed baffled.

"And if you combine two at the water angle on the same page the runes are supposed to cast... lightning? I don't get this at all."

The subject was a form of magic that was rarely used, generally known as Runic. It was said it could once have been used by even those with little magic potential, and that mastery of it could allow any true mages near limitless power. Alas, most of the subject was myth, legend, and fairy tale. All that was known was one simply drew in charcoal on a certain kind of waxed parchment, and could focus magical energies through the runes...

The actual intent of the project had apparently once been to teach humility, that not everything could be fully understood. But over the years it mutated and  it was now basically just a late-term trolling exercise by the teachers of the Magic Academy in the Kingdom of Sorcier for their amusement.

And so our unlucky pair were still trying to figure out the chaotic mess of a half-forgotten system that was really only kept around as a joke.

"Well, we need to understand it to use these runic spells for the project, so..."

"How though? We're meant to figure out the rules of something that's nothing like other magic, and is literally just little lines drawn certain ways on paper and infused with magic. It's not like we can just start messing about with them at random," Katarina sighed.

And then began doing just that.

"W-Wait! Katarina, you don't know what you're doing!" Mary panicked a little.

"I do, actually, see, if these runes make no sense then the only sensible way to use them is to make no sense!" She giggled.

"That makes no sense."

"Exactly!"

Mary looked on as Katarina doodled a few things, and held up a parchment.

"Ta-da! It's a spell to summon a horse!"

Mary stifled a giggle at the quick sketch of a horse Katarina had impulsively drawn, even as her study buddy began wiping the charcoal off the parchment.

"Okay, but seriously... It's like this is the teachers messing with us, isn't it?"

"I doubt that... But let's try a book I got from the library," Mary said, opening one of the other tomes, full of pictures of runes.

"More of the same, inconsistent, and... Huh? Weird."

"What?" Katarina said.

"This rune here... it looks like a dress. And doesn't say anything below it. Like, the rest of the book has what they think it does but this one just says a question mark."

"Huh. This book, it's not one of the ones on the list for the project but it is runes..." Katarina noted, and impulsively copied the odd rune.

"Katarina, you can't just draw a strange rune down and hope for a result!" Mary chided, and then gasped as the drawn rune glowed to Katarina's touch.

"Hey, it actually does something! No idea what though? "

"Maybe another book has it," Mary wondered, and began looking through, as Katarina sighed.

...And then felt a tingle.

"Any luck?" She asked, suppressing a shiver as the tingle spread... and her glove felt loose?

"No... aha, here it is. Shapeshifting of the Unmoving? The caster may hyde (with a y) as ane inanimate objeccte between two strikes of midnight. Well, that's vague."

"Um... maybe not," Katarina gulped as she looked down at her hand that was presently shrinking, and turning a jade green colour... as well as slightly silky-looking

"Um, Katrina, I think you might be turning yourself into a dress for a day..." Mary realised with a wince.

"Oh, yeah, that makes... no sense at all! What? Why would this spell exist?!"

The hapless self-transforming victim was by now shrunken down, and her limbs were shortening even as her skin kept shifting to the jade green.

"Oh this feels so weird," She groaned.

"Well, um... M-maybe we can use this? I mean, it's got a time limit..."

"And if not? And did my eye just turn to some kind of gemstone?" Katarina said.

"Well, I'll get you help. And when you're normal it's our project presentation?" Mary said.

"...But dresses can't talk! I'll be so bored... I can barely talk right now, my tongue's turning into a ribbon or something," Katarina said, and Mary flicked through a book.

"Communication Runes! Drawn on the skin, we can share thoughts!"

Katarina blinked over gemstone eyes, still shrinking, and growing ruffles in a pale green that resembled satiny flowers.

"Try it fast, I'm running out of skin and turning hollow! My legs are turning into a skirt..."

Mary did so, grasping the last shrinking part of Katarina's arm and getting a drawing in place of the rune, activating it and one matching on herself just as Katarina's head began shrinking into the silky mass her torso had become

"I hope that worked," Mary said, as Katarina's change seemed to be finishing.

After a moment, a dress lay on the seat, inside a blue dress.

"...Can you hear me, Mary?"

Mary sighed in relief.

"Yes... Can you hear me?" She replied, and moved to remove the dress from the other one gently.

"Ow, careful!"

After a few moments, Mary looked at what Katarina had become, a silken jade dress, with a long skirt in darker satin green. Two blue sapphires were on the front chest of the design, atop a layer of pale green flower designs.

"So, uh, I think the gems are my actual eyes now, I seem to - ow! Don't poke my eyes!"

"Sorry... But you did make yourself into a really nice dress. And... well, it seems a shame to just leave you lying around all day to turn back..."

"Mary, what are you thinking."

"I could wear you for the rest of the day? It'd be more fun for you, right?"

"...Fine, I guess it's better than just sitting bored. And what if this spell to speak goes out of range..." Katarina reluctantly agreed.

"Great! I'll get changed right away," Mary said, whisking Katrina away and heading to a changing room.

"W-wait! Mary, at least pick up my dress I left behind! Mary!"

(She did come back to fetch it, once she had her new green dress on, and after putting the other clothes safely away, headed to class... where she enjoyed the compliments on the fine new attire. The attire itself, however, would have turned red if silk and satin could blush....)