Tony grinned and moodily, Emma started to walk again. He even seemed to be enjoying this! 

"Oh, come on." Tony chided. "It's a wonderful day for taking a hike in the snow. Look on the bright side of it. It's beautiful out here!" 

Grudgingly Emma harrumphed something which, with much imagination, could be interpreted as a 'Yes'. It was indeed a wonderful day. The blizzard which had pummeled the town over the last two days had vanished, leaving nothing but a clear, blue sky. Brightly the sun shined down, illuminating the white and blue world in brilliant light. The temperature was still well below freezing, but the sun gave an illusion of warmness. 

"Karen should have brought him the assignments!" she complained now. "She could have flown, without having to walk." 

Tony shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, that would have been the best solution. But now it's too late. And since there are no talons-free phone systems for Gryphons right now..." 

Emma had to suppress an involuntary giggle. Karen in her Gryphon form, wearing an oversized headset, screeching in her Gryphon language into the microphone... hilarious!

But unfortunately, Tony was right. Yesterday, when they'd been the sorry souls who had drawn the task of bringing Lorcan his assignments, Karen had already been gone home. And when they'd tried to ask her this morning, she'd already left, probably flying and hunting with Al somewhere in the woods. 

Therefore she and Tony had to deliver it themselves. On their puny, merely human legs. Damn. 

"Don't make that face." he said now encouragingly. "Look, we're nearly there!" 

Exhausted, Emma looked up and released a relieved sigh. She could already see the caravan on the large clearing. "Thank god. And may God have mercy with Lorcan if he isn't at home. Because in that case, I won't have any!" 

Tony chuckled. "Well, it looks like Lorcan won't need it. If my eyes don't deceive there he is, sitting in front of the caravan."

His eyes didn't deceive him and Lorcan was indeed sitting in front of the caravan, outstretched lazily in a plastic garden chair, blanket draped over his legs and bathing in the sun. Albeit not alone.

"Hi, Tony, Emma. What brings you here?" Lorcan asked friendly and cocked an eyebrow at Emma who was panting heavily, all the while glowering at him. "Did I do something wrong?" 

Emma sighed. "No... we brought you your homework assignments. I expect you to appreciate this, the way up here wasn't easy, you know? Lots of snow..."

Lorcan's face fell. "Oh, damn. And I hoped that I'd dodged that particular unpleasantness thanks to the blizzard." 

"Don't worry." Tony said now, before Emma could use this comment to tease him a little. "It isn't that much. School had been canceled on Friday even before noon, more than half of the pupils didn't come because of the storm. It's doable in a couple of hours, really." 

He smiled and Lorcan's face became brighter again. Emma, on the other hand, pouted. The corner of Tony's mouth twitched as he saw this. Apparently, she had indeed intended to tease Lorcan a bit in equalization for her predicament of hiking through the snow. 

But she wasn't a resentful girl and therefore, she simply shook her head and smiled as well. 

"Yeah... so..." she turned to look at the second figure who lay sprawled in a garden chair. "What are you doing here, Diana? And how did you get here? I haven't seen any footprints in the snow. Besides ours, that is." 

"That's easy to answer." Lorcan chimed in. "She's a Phoenix. Obviously, she flew." 

Diana nodded. "Yeah... and that's why I'm lying in this chair here. I flew over carrying a bag with my veils and clothes. I may be a big bird, but not that big. The flight has been pretty exhausting. I think when I'm flying back home later, I'll leave my stuff here and get it another time." 

Lazily she looked at Emma. "Could you please step a little to the right? Ah, yes. Perfect..." 

Relishing she closed her eyes as her face, formerly shadowed by Emma's body, was lighted by the sun again. 

"As for why I'm here... well, I wanted to talk to Lorcan regarding veil making. I've had a couple of new ideas and wanted to discuss them with him. Speaking of which..." 

Her eyes popped up again and she studied Emma and Tony with interest. "Actually, your showing up is perfect... how long do you intend to stay?" 

"Um, we simply wanted to bring Lorcan his assign-" Emma started but Tony cut her off. 

"Oh, we've nothing planned for today. We can stay quite some time." 

Now Diana sat herself upright, clapping her hands. "Awesome! Now I can show Lorcan my new veil!" 

Veils? What was Diana talking about? Emma looked questioningly at the Phoenix girl. Lorcan, on the other hand, seemed to have grasped what Diana had planned. 

"You're not actually proposing...?" he started and Diana scowled. 

"Oh, come on. Why not? I'm sure they will be willing. And you had no problem with giving the others this stuff last weekend." 

"Well, the others are all mystics." Lorcan replied tartly. "Those two are humans. And the last time I gave 'this stuff' to humans I ended up in a hospital." 

"Pff!" Diana exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "Your argument is invalid. Karen wasn't a human, has never been. There's virtually no danger. You simply managed to prick your finger with the single needle in the haystack. The needle is gone, the rest of the haystack is harmless. That's what statistics are saying." 

"I'm bad in math, you know?" Lorcan retorted. "But I have to acknowledge that logically, you're right. There probably isn't any danger. It's only... since the entire episode I'm kind of inhibited regarding veils and humans." 

Emma harrumphed. Both Lorcan and Diana looked at her. 

"Ahem... just one question - what are you talking about?" 

Lorcan snorted. "Diana and me are trying out making new veils. She just wanted to talk to me about a new veil she's created and, since you're available, she wants you to test it. You've been volunteered, so to say."

"That's right." Diana piped in cheerfully. "So there's only one question - you want to try it out?" 

"Um..." Tony said. "Excuse me for asking, but what should we need veils for? We're already humans." 

Diana beamed. "Of course, but those are not veils to transform you into humans. They are veils to transform you into mystics." 

Emma gaped and on Tony's face appeared an interested look. 

"That sounds... interesting." he said, stroking his chin. "So this will transform me into a mystic? For how long? And does it hurt?" 

"That's the beauty!" Diana said. "We tried making veils which don't hurt. So it will prickle a bit, but nothing more. And the change will only last for about one hour." 

"Are you sure about this?" Emma whispered towards Tony. "You want to be transformed? Really?" 

"Sure, why not?" Tony answered her. "It'll be interesting, being another species for a short amount of time. And since I've seen Karen in her Gryphon body, I've always wondered how it feels for her to be such a creature... especially, since she's lived as a human for her whole life." 

"Hm..." Emma was still not entirely convinced but Diana was already rummaging around in her backpack, materializing a small flask with some liquid. 

"Okay, I'm all game." Tony said. "But what mystic will I change into?"

Diana smiled conspiratorially. "That will be a surprise. I haven't even told Lorcan yet." 

"Hm..." Tony reached for the flask but Diana shook her head. 

"Nope. You'll burst your clothes. You have to strip first." 

Emma looked startled. "Strip? In the snow? It's freezing out here, you know!" 

Tony wasn't looking that happy either, so Lorcan stood up from his chair. 

"Oh, well. If I don't help Diana with this, she'll moan about this for the whole next week. Come with me!" he told Tony. "You can change in the caravan and take a blanket with you to cover yourself. It will be cold for a couple of minutes, but once you've changed you'll be okay." 

Two minutes later, a shivering Tony stood a couple of yards away from the caravan, treading his naked feet in the cold snow. 

"Um, Diana, could I please have the veil now? It's really cold here." he pleaded and Diana laughed. 

"Yeah right." smugly looking she went to Tony, giving him the flask. Thankfully he gulped the substance down, choking on the stuff. 

"Ugh, that's disgusting, whoa-" 

He cried in surprise as his whole body started shifting. Emma looked with wide eyes as his bones changed their structure, forcing him into a quadrupedal stance. Hands and feet became paws and his face formed a muzzle with long, sharp fangs. 

"He's becoming a Nemean Lion...?" Lorcan asked as yellow fur appeared on his body, but Diana shook her head. 

"No, just wait..." 

And then a lump started to appear on Tony's back, pushing outwards and shoving the blanket away which had covered most of his body until now. He had a tail, Emma could see now, but the tip of it was strange... and then she gasped in surprise as the lump on his back took shape - the shape of goat's head!

Fascinated, Emma looked at the fantastic creature which stood there in place of Tony. He had a lion's body, but his hind legs where some kind of mixture of paws and hooves. Over his lion's head, a goat's head sprouted and instead of a tail he had a long, flexible snake whose tongue was needling in and out. 

"Very nice!" Lorcan exclaimed. "A Chimera!" 

Satisfied, Diana nodded. "Yeah. When you were playing around with multi-headed forms last week I thought that maybe I should follow suit." 

Grinning she went over to Tony who was clumsily moving his paws and craning his three necks - well, two necks, to be fair, and in case of his snake 'tail' one spine. 

"Hey Tony, how do you feel?" she asked. "Don't sweat it, it's probably pretty confusing, right?" 

Tony responded by a growl of his lion head and a bleat of his goat one. His snake tail wasn't making any noise, but Emma could see that its mouth was opening and closing also, revealing a pair of long fangs. 

"Oh, boy!" Diana laughed now and stroked the goat head, a motion which he seemed to enjoy because he began purring with the lion head. "You can't talk in this form. So don't try it." 

Amazed, Emma went to Tony as well, taking in his feral, merged form. She'd known Tony for nearly all of her life. To think that he was now inhabiting a fantastic body which could have come right out of a fantasy story...!

"Wow..." she breathed, stroking his fur as well. "Tony, you're still in there?" 

The creature's goat head looked at her and then bleated once. Miffed, it turned all its heads, even the snake one, towards Diana for guidance. 

"Well, I can understand that this is kind of fantastic for you, two." she responded smilingly. "Tony, to show her that it's still you, simply pad one of your front paws on the ground once, okay?" 

The lion head growled in acknowledgment and raised its left front paw, removing the last doubts Emma still had. Still, it didn't finish its move. Instead, Tony seemed to become top heavy. And with a startled look on his goat and lion heads, he toppled over, plunging into the snow. 

Lorcan and Diana burst into laughter and Emma had to join in. The sight of Tony in his Chimera body, lying in the snow on his side, all four paws wheeling in the air, was magnificent. 

Tony, apparently, didn't find this quite as amusing, because his snake tail managed to entangle itself from the wreckage, rising up and looking at the three laughing teenagers, hissing indignantly. 

"Oh, hush!" Diana grinned, making her way towards the stricken creature. "Don't take this personally. Come on, I'll teach you walking as a quadruped..." 

Soon, Diana had Tony standing again, giving him instructions. 

"All right, left hind leg and right front leg forward at the same time, then right hind leg and left front leg..." 

It did look amusing at first how the strange creature was clumsily moving his body. More than once Emma had to suppress a laugh, but after ten minutes, Tony was walking and even sprinting over the snow without crashing. It still looked far from being gracious, but considering that he hadn't been a Chimera for more than a quarter of an hour... 

"He's looking as if he's having fun." Lorcan commented now, observing Tony sprinting around the caravan, lion head low above the ground and goat head high in the air, his snake tail standing upwards as well, looking forward like some kind of submarine periscope. 

"Well, yeah, he does." Diana responded smugly. Then she grinned and looked at Lorcan. "So... I win." 

Lorcan raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?" 

"Our little competition, obviously. Last weekend, we had a draw. Now we've continued. My transformee is enjoying the change. Does yours?" 

Now Lorcan seemed a little bit taken aback. "What are you talking about? I don't have one!" 

"Exactly." Diana nodded vigorously. "Victory by default. The best victory of all. Unless you manage to gobble up a competing change as well." 

"But I have a competing change! I tweaked one of my last week's veils!" he protested now. 

Diana beamed. "Perfect! Use it then!" 

"Um..." Emma tried to interject, but Lorcan was faster. 

"Then I'd have to give the veil to Emma!" he objected. 

Diana was unimpressed. "So?" 

"She's a human! The last time I changed a human..." 

"Yadda, yadda, yadda!" Diana cut him off, jabbing a finger at Tony's exuberant shape playing in the snow. "What has he been before he drank my Chimera veil?" 

"A human..." Lorcan replied. 

"Eeeexactly! And he's looking fine, doesn't he? You see, no harm." 

"But in Karen's case, the complications emerged days later...!" he tried to defend his loosening position weakly. 

Diana grinned, sensing her impending victory. "Gobbledygook. That was a once-in-a-lifetime chance and you know it. So give Emma your veil now, will you? So that we can continue our competition." 

"Pah." Lorcan carved in. "Whatever. But only if she's willing." 

Diana looked questioningly at Emma and the girl sighed. 

Thanks for asking for my opinion on the matter! She thought a little miffed, but on the other hand... That would be interesting, wouldn't it? And Tony there looked like he's having fun being a Chimera... I wonder what Lorcan has in store for me?

"Well..." she replied slowly, looking at Diana and Lorcan. "I'm not sure. I mean, Tony looks like he's having fun, but..." 

"Ha, fun! He's having the time of his life!" Diana exclaimed and then whistled loudly. "TONY!" she shouted. "Come here!" 

Immediately he sprinted towards the group, all three heads looking quizzically at Diana. 

"Emma here is wondering whether she should try one of Lorcan's veils as well or not." Diana explained. "What's your opinion on the matter?" 

Tony answered by walking behind Emma and beginning to push her towards Lorcan, lion head pushing her thigh, goat head pushing her spine and snake head poking against her neck repeatedly. 

"Hey, ouch, yeah, Tony, I get it, STOP!" Emma shouted, rubbing her neck. "Stop that poking with your tail... err, snake... whatever! It hurts!" 

She glowered at the little head in question, tongue needling in, needling out unfazed. His other two heads simply voiced an amused bleat, growl respectively. 

Emma sighed, then patted Tony's goat head. "It's all right, I get the message. I'll do it. You look like you're having fun. And I have to admit that there's a certain appeal in becoming another species for a short amount of time." 

She looked at Tony. "Do I need to...?" 

"Yeah, you need to disrobe as well. You'd blast your clothes." he said and Emma nodded a little precariously at Lorcan's confirmation that, just like Tony, she'd probably become a class 3 with no human features at all. 

"There are blankets lying directly next to the entry. You don't have to worry for Matt being there, he's gone into the forest this morning." he added. 

Inside the caravan, Emma donned her clothes and wrapped herself into the thickest blanket she could find. Still, her feet weren't covered and, as she stepped into the snow, the coldness radiated into her feet like a thousand needles. 

"Uh, that's really, really cold!" she exclaimed, hopping and alternating between her legs just like Tony had done earlier. 

Diana seemed unimpressed. "All the better. The colder you are, the faster you are gonna want to change. Lorcan, where's your veil?" 

"Yeah, all right, no hurry." Lorcan sighed and handed Emma a flask similar to the one Tony had gotten before. Fascinated she eyed the liquid inside. 

So this will change me...? she wondered and then looked at Lorcan. 

"So what will I become?" 

Lorcan opened his mouth but Diana intervened. "Don't say! I want it to be a surprise, just as mine! I'm already wondering what it is!" 

"You heard the lady." Lorcan resigned and Emma pouted, but then she opened the veil and brought it to her mouth. 

"Stop!" Lorcan shouted and Emma raised an eyebrow.

"What? It's cold, you know." 

"Yeah, just bring a little bit distance between you and my caravan." he smiled conspiratorially. "You're going to be big..." 

"Okay..." gingerly, Emma stepped to the ice cold snow until she was a couple of dozen yards away from it. Then she looked at the flask again.

Oh damn... she thought. Now or never!

And with a large gulp, she donned all the liquid contained in the flask. Which tasted horrible. 

"Buah!" she exclaimed loudly, but then her entire body started to tingle and the flask fell out of her fingers. Shocked she stared at her hand which somehow seemed to be crumbling, the fingers receding in a matter of seconds. The same happened with her other hand and horrified Emma cried out as both of her arms vanished into her shoulders as if they'd never existed. There was a funny feeling in her feet as well and Emma went headfirst into the snow as her feet vanished, too, her legs merging together, forming one long body together with her torso. 

Am I going to become some snake or what? Emma thought numbly as her now limbless body elongated, her neck receding as well, connecting her head directly to her body. Her mouth stretched out, becoming a large snout, indeed forming a snake's head. She bent her body to look at it. It was still elongating and brownish scales were forming everywhere. 

Somehow this body looks familiar to me, she pondered while she kept becoming bigger and bigger, being now almost fully snake. Where have I seen such a brownish, snake-like... wait! But... that can't be...!

As if on cue, Emma felt a lump growing in the upper half of her long body and she turned her head, fixating the growing lump which started forming a familiar shape. 

Benjamin had a snake-like body with brownish scales... Emma thought, torn between awe and trepidation. But that means that I'm becoming...

By now, the lump had finished growing and shaping, and it, or rather Emma, opened its eyes. It was like seeing two television images at once. On each 'TV' she could see a large, snakelike head staring back, one head with the caravan in the background, the other with the forest behind. 

I'm actually becoming a Hydra like Benjamin! she contemplated, somehow unable to believe it. But at the same time, more lumps were forming, and one by one, more new heads emerged from her body, each one with its own 'TV' and its own mouth... seven lumps in total, making her an eight-headed Hydra as the change stopped. 

"The Hydra again?" Diana asked Lorcan, both looking at the stupefied, many-headed serpent lying in the snow, its length at least 30 yards from tail to heads. "But this time brown, bigger and with eight heads?"

"Well, I told you that I'd tweaked one of my last week's veils." Lorcan explained. "She's bigger because she's older than Hex. And I thought that I should move the number of the heads up since four seemed to work." he shrugged his shoulders. "I figured that doubling it would be nice, therefore eight." 

"So what does this say about our competition?"

"Draw again, I'd say...?" 

"Bah." but somehow, Diana didn't seem miffed by this. 

That's two heads more than Benjamin! The thought flashed through Emma's mind while she tried taking in the changes. That she didn't have arms or legs anymore was actually not more than a side-note. But her eight heads... it was incredible! She could feel and see from every one of them. She still somehow knew which was her original head, but the others were for all intents and purposes identical... eight pairs of eyes, eight mouths, eight noses, eight tongues, eight necks... 

She 'saw' eight pictures at once, most of them showing a bunch of identical snake heads looking astounded at something. One head, though, had coincidentally emerged in such a way that it was nearly directly looking at the caravan and Diana, Lorcan and Tony in front of it. Testing, Emma tried moving this head closer to them. Which was when chaos broke out. 

With another of her heads, she saw its brethren move at the corner of its field of sight and, by instinct, moved this head towards the one which had moved. Which led it to collide with two other heads between them. The result was a chain reaction par excellence. Suddenly, seven of her eight heads where colliding with each other and panicking, Emma tried evading with each of them at the same time. And achieved the opposite. 

The gentle sway of her heads was replaced by a dissolution into a whirling chaos, most of them getting entangled with each other until there was no more movement possible. In shock, she turned the one 'surviving' head around, gaping at the sight, the other seven heads tangled up in a giant knot. But only for a couple of seconds. Then, the knot became too top-heavy and with a loud 'WUMP', the bundle crashed to the ground. 

One by one, Emma tried pulling her heads out of the knot. With two of them, she was successful. The other five, though, seemed stuck. Gloomily, she esteemed with those three heads the mess of her body. Now it was actually kind of helpful having three distinct views of the 'accident'. Although the other five were kind of distracting. 

Which was when she heard choking noises from behind. She let one head stay behind, looking at the knot, while she maneuvered the other two around towards the strange sounds. 

Those bastards! she thought sourly as she took in the sight. The choking noises had come from Diana who had crocodile tears running down her face in large streams, holding her convulsing stomach with one hand and keeping her mouth covered with the other. Lorcan had gone to his knees, both hands covering his face, shoulders heaving madly. And Tony was laying on his side again, his goat and lion heads making choppy bleats and growls. 

How can they laugh when I'm in such trouble here! she fumed. They should try controlling eight heads on long, flexible necks for themselves!

She moved one head each in front of Diana and Lorcan, intending to give them a tongue-lashing. Instead, only an angry hiss came out of her mouths. 

Dammit! Emma cursed. Now I can't even talk anymore!

Finally, Diana wiped the tears out of her eyes and looked at the large snake head which's eyes glared at her. Lorcan needed a little longer and now Emma was a bit taken aback by her ability to look two people in the eyes at the same time. 

"Oh, come on, don't be mad!" Diana said eventually. "But... seeing you tangling yourself up with all your heads, that was... oh girl..." Diana started to giggle again.

Sulkily, Emma moved the other head from Lorcan towards Diana, glaring in stereo now. 

"I'm sorry... I really don't want to make fun of you, but that's just so... funny!" she burst into tears again and now Emma put her third free head in front of Diana.

"Yeah, it's okay." she sniffed. "I'll be good. Alright, I have myself under control again. Here, a little compensation." 

Grinning, she looked at Emma's three faces, then put each of her hands on one of her snouts and starting rubbing. Heaven! That felt... awesome!

"Feels good, doesn't it?" Diana asked and appreciatively Emma closed both of her petted heads eyes, nodding with the third one. 

"Well, all Hydras have a spot at their snout which's just super-comfy when being rubbed. Anyway..." 

Diana stopped massaging and started walking towards the wreckage of her other heads. Disappointed, Emma followed her with two heads. She wanted more! 

Begging, she looked at Lorcan with the third one who smiled. "Okay, but only for a short time. And only one!" he said as she let one of the other two dart back. 

Well, one is better than none... Emma thought as Lorcan petted her head and closed its eyes blissfully. Somehow she was getting better at... well... multitasking, she realized now. Her one head was basically in heaven, enjoying the little petting session and humming happily. She was feeling the sensation with her whole body, but she was still somehow able to prevent it from impairing her other heads. 

So Emma used the other two who weren't caught in the knot to follow Diana who positioned herself in front of one of their downed fellows now. 

"Gee, you've made a total mess!" Diana acknowledged devoutly which Emma answered with seven angry hisses. 

"Yeah, alright girl, I got the message. So let's untangle you. Let's see... hm... first this one. Try pulling it!"

She put her hands on one of Emma's heads which was laying on the top of the whole knot and pushed. Emma tried, but nothing moved. Quizzically, she looked at Diana who assumed a thinking pose. 

"Hm, let me think... that's like Mikado... okay, try raising this neck first. And then..." 

It took nearly ten minutes, but in the end, with Diana's help, Emma had managed to untangle herself. So now she was sitting in front of the caravan, all eight heads (Lorcan had stopped petting after five minutes, much to Emma's chagrin) moving cautiously. But she was getting better at coordinating all of them with every minute. 

Tentatively, she positioned all of her heads in a circle, with one head in the middle looking upwards. Emma giggled internally. This is awesome! I have a perfect sight of everything. Of every direction, everything above me...

"She's adjusting better to eight heads than Hex did to four..." Lorcan said while observing the large Hydra craning and twisting its heads. "I wonder why..." 

Diana shrugged her shoulders. "She's a girl. Probably better at multitasking, if you ask me." 

By now, Emma had started to try moving her body as well. Slithering didn't work, she realized soon. But when she put several of her heads on the ground and 'pulled' her main body with her flexible necks, she was getting forward. 

Interesting... she thought. The secret is slithering with my necks instead of with my main body... and then I simply have to pull the main body in the direction in which my heads have slithered... 

Amused, Lorcan and Diana watched as Emma pushed her body through the snow, all eight heads intently focused. Tony had joined the fun as well, padding in front of Emma, goat head and snake head turned around and bleating encouragement. And it didn't take long until he actually had to sprint through the snow to keep Emma from overhauling him. 

"What are they doing?" Diana snorted, as the unmatched couple drew circles of smoothed snow (well, actually it was mainly Emma doing the snow smoothing) around the caravan. 

"Playing tag...?" Lorcan guessed. 

Tony was taunting Emma now. His lion head was intently focused upon the ground before him, but his goat head stayed turned, bleating what sounded like mocking laughter at the surging mass of heads following. He was even slowing down deliberately to let Emma come into touching distance only to jump away just in time. 

Oh, just you wait! Emma fumed irritated, although she had to admit that she was having fun. See when I get you...!

There! Tony had stopped again, and this time a fracture of a second too long. With a winning hiss, she let three of her heads nosedive towards him, one from the left, one from the right and one from above. Tony looked calmly towards the plummeting snakes and then, in the last moment, simply jumped one step backwards. 

Emma had only time to register the unanticipated motion, not to change anything about it - and then, all three heads collided with each other exactly where Tony had stood before. 

Again, Tony bleated laughter at the stricken creature and Emma could do nothing more than glare from her other five heads. The three casualties were still seeing stars and  preoccupied of sorting themselves out. 

Tony was still laughing when suddenly his body started to change, reverting to his human gestalt. And shortly, a confused, naked boy was sitting there instead of the Chimera. 

Emma grinned, letting her heads hiss delightedly. Who laughs last laughs best... she thought and suddenly, the now shivering Tony was surrounded by a multitude of glaring heads. He gulped as two or three of those yawned, presenting large mouths with sword-sized fangs which would be more than adequate to impale him and swallow him whole, although not necessarily in this order. 

"Um..." he stammered, looking around, apparently unsure which head he should now talk to. "...parley...?"

***************************************

Of course, Emma hadn't eaten him. She had let him squirm (and shiver) for half a minute and then had offered one of her heads for a ride towards the caravan where he could dress himself again. Somehow the thought of having a naked boy sitting on her... well, scales, hadn't seemed awkward anymore. Afterwards, she'd tried out her strange body alone for the remainder of her transformation time, until she'd changed back fifteen minutes later. 

Suddenly being a human again had felt... odd. The first couple of minutes she had had trouble coordinating her hands and feet. And she'd actually missed the benefits of having eight separate sets of eyes. Although that feeling of disorientation had only lasted for a few minutes. 

"Well... that was certainly awesome!" Tony exclaimed a short while later, looking at Diana appreciatively. "It was strange and fun being some kind of quadrupedal animal. And having three heads... just woah!" 

He tossed a slightly jealous side-glance at Emma. "Although having five more is probably double as awesome." 

"It WAS kind of interesting. And fun." Emma acknowledged. "Thanks for the experience Lorcan." 

Lorcan smiled. "No problem. You have to thank Diana, she was the one who persuaded all of us." 

"Yeah, thank you!" Tony blurted out and Emma nodded, then sighed. 

"So that was the fun part." she observed moodily. "Now we have to trek back through all this snow again... I don't want to!" 

Lorcan rubbed his chin, starting to grin. "Hmm... and if you don't have to?" 

Tony cocked an eyebrow. "What do you mean, we don't have to? You have a skidoo hidden away in your caravan or what?" 

"Just wait!" he said mysteriously and disappeared into his moving house. Diana, Tony and Emma looked at each other wonderingly until the door opened again and a saddle came flying out, followed by a bridle. 

"A saddle?" Emma inquired. "You have a horse around?" 

Now Lorcan was positively beaming. "Well..." he said, conjuring a pair of flasks into existence, "...not yet." 

"You're saying..." Diana deduced "...one of them should transform into a horse and carry the other?" 

Lorcan nodded. "Yeah... that's the reason we're keeping this veil around. If Matt and me are cut off because of snow, one of us can use the veil to become a horse and the other one can still reach town riding him. We could also change into birds, but as horses we're able to carry much more supplies. 

Tony and Emma gaped again. Transforming into a horse? To be a transport animal? 

Come on girl. Emma chided herself. You've just been an eight-headed Hydra for an hour. Where's the problem with being a horse for another?

Diana intervened now. "Um... but that only works when one of them can ride. And what will they do with the saddle once they're reached the road?"

"Easy." Lorcan said nonplussed. "I'll change into a horse, too. Then I'll come with them and once they reach the road, the human of the two will put the saddle on me and I'll travel back. As for being able to ride... hm... that may be a problem... Emma, Tony, how's it looking? Can you ride?" 

"No, sadly not." Emma shook her head. Tony on the other hand... 

"Yep." he simply said and Emma stared at him.

"What?" he asked defensively. "My uncle has a farm and in the summer, I'm sometimes spending weeks there. Therefore I can ride." 

Lorcan grinned. "Perfect. Emma will become the horse, you'll ride her. Emma, do you want to remove your clothes again and change?"

"You really don't care for my opinion, do you?" she asked tartly, but then sighed. "Yeah, don't answer. I'll do it. In fact, becoming a horse sounds kind of cool. I'm sure quite a large number of girls have actually dreamt about this..." 

Therefore she simply entered the caravan again and, for the second time this day, emerged blanket-wrapped, grabbing the veil. One minute later, she was standing in the snow, all four hooves on the ground and craning her muzzle around curiously, inspecting her grey mare's body. 

Well, I have to say... she thought appreciatively while she slowly moved her legs, ...that this DOES feel interesting. 

"You all right in there?" Tony asked and padded her muzzle. "I have to say that you're one beautiful mare."

Emma neighed happily and then tried walking in her body. She had some troubles at first, but after maybe fifteen minutes, she was quite steady, even trying out a slow canter. 

"Yeah, I think that should be enough." Lorcan said eventually, summoning Emma to the caravan again. Interested and a little nervous she watched as Lorcan lifted the saddle and put it on her back. Then followed the bridle. It was a strange sensation having ropes around her head and she didn't quite like the feeling of the snaffle in her muzzle, but Lorcan talked to her soothingly. 

"Don't you worry. That may feel strange for the first moment, but soon you'll acclimatize." 

Then he looked to Tony. "You ready to try out riding her?" 

"Yes, sure, he said." looking at Emma in anticipation. "Although... she doesn't know anything about riding. So how does she know what my moves are supposed to tell her?" 

Lorcan grinned. "Don't worry about this. It's part of the spell. You'll see that she'll be a very tame horse to ride. That will be of course part of her mind being human. But the spell's also infusing some kind of muscle-memory so that her body will instinctively know what your moves are all about." 

Emma snorted suspiciously. That sounded... strange. But as soon as Tony had taken place on her back, she had to revise her judgement. Tony was indeed leading her, shifting his body subtly and she found herself responding almost automatically. When he pulled her bridle to the right, she swerved to the right. When he pulled it to the left, she swerved to the left. 

Emma realized that, if she concentrated, she could 'overrule' her rider, but she didn't. It was somehow... relaxing letting herself being guided by someone. 

As Tony steered her back towards the caravan, patting her neck and whispering encouragement into her flexible ears, she was actually enjoying this. 

Therefore she waited patiently for her rider to prompt her to move again while Lorcan stored her clothes and blankets - to be used when she would change back later - in her saddlebags. Then he went into the caravan, stripping as well, and another two minutes later, Lorcan was a large, jet-black stallion standing in the snow. 

Diana laughed. "Oh Lord, you two are adorable as horses. You should play like this with Sara when I've given her the Pegasus veil again. Anyway..." she looked on her watch. "Don't wait for me. I'll change back into my Phoenix form in 15 minutes anyway. I'll store my clothes in the caravan then and fly off." 

Lorcan acknowledged with a loud neigh, then reared up on his hind legs, turned, and galloped away in cloud of glittering snow. 

"What do you say, Emma?" Tony asked, grinning widely and Emma's ears twitched. "I know that you're still kind of wobbly as a horse, but do you want to let Lorcan arrive first at the road?" 

Emma denied with a loud whinny.

"I thought not!" 

And with that, Tony prompted his horse-turned friend to follow Lorcan in a thundering gallop as well.