Moontouched 26

Sidney yawned hugely.  “Sorry, I really need to sleep.  We will figure all this out in the morning.”  As she levered her way off the couch and headed toward the bedroom she looked back at Donna and Gwen’s hybrid body.  “And... I’m not comfortable with her being in there with us.  But I don’t want to go to bed alone, either.”

Donna nodded slowly.  “I understand.  I think I can find a compromise of sorts.”  She gathered up some of the room’s dust, and spun it into a familiar shape.  It was tiny, at first, so Sidney wouldn’t be disturbed by how it was assembled.  Working with mundane matter was so much slower than with self-stuff now that Donna had to discipline herself into patience with it.  After about a minute, a likeness of Duncan grew from mote-sized to full size in front of Sidney, making her gasp.

“Is that really you?” Sidney asked the simulacra.

Donna ghosted out of Gwen’s body, and into the new one.  “Not entirely.  But it’s close,” she answered in Duncan’s voice, trying to affect his mannerisms.

Sidney stared into his eyes for a time, then sighed.  “I’m too tired to figure out how I feel about that.  Come to bed.  Just bed.”

“For the best,” murmured the simulacra Donna was wearing.  “With the bond Gwen and I share, she’d know about anything we did anyway.”

Before long, Sidney was snuggled up in bed and breathing regularly.  Donna wasn’t sure if she was asleep or not, but she figured she could wait for a few minutes more to be sure.  However, a growing sense of unease was flowing over the link from Gwen, so she soundlessly ghosted from the Duncan body and returned to the living room.

When Donna reappeared as a crystalline ghost beside Gwen, she saw that welts and burns were forming on her arms.  Donna swiftly merged with Gwen, and hugged her arms about herself, smoothing the wounds away with a thought.

“Gwen, it’s OK.  I’m here.  You’re safe.”

“I’m sorry,” sniffled Gwen.  “I couldn’t make the memories go away, and...”

“I know.  I’ll keep you safe.”

“Don’t you want to go back to being Duncan?”

Donna shuddered.  “Not really.”

“Was being Duncan so bad?”  Gwen asked, after the silence had stretched on too long.

“I made the body without a mind.  Sort of a meat-puppet, not a real person.  It felt really weird to inhabit it... him.  Still, Sidney bought it enough to fall asleep.”

“She’s sleeping with a zombie?”

Donna made a face.  “When you put it that way...  Ew.  Maybe I should have made him a robot, like Kate.”

“You could do that now...  It might be handy to have a robo-Duncan around this coming month.  If nothing else, it’ll let Sidney sleep better.”

Donna effected the changes without leaving Gwen alone in her body, undeterred by the drywall between her and her target.  Bone was replaced with foamed titanium, muscles with electromotive fibers.  The result looked like as perfect a match to her former body as she could manage.

“There.  Easily ninety percent less creepy,” said Donna when she was done.

“Are you going to make it stay around?  I didn’t notice you making the change permanent.”

“Ooh, good point.  Thanks.”

A moment later, Donna settled back on the couch, looking out towards the windows instead of back toward the bedroom.  “Done.  Now what shall we do?  I’m not tired yet.”

Gwen pondered that for a moment.  “Neither am I.  I feel bouncy.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re just a boob, silly.”

Gwen giggled.  “Not like that.  But yeah, that too.  What do you usually do after the club closes?”

Donna shrugged.  “Pretend to sleep with Sidney.  Play with the power a bit, until she notices, and then guiltily stare into the darkness.”

“Well, one thing you could do with that power is make Sidney’s diamond permanent.  It faded while you were distracted.  You should make good on at least one of your promises to her.”

Donna blushed, and set to doing just that.  As she worked she muttered about just how slow going it was to use normal matter.  Gwen asked if she could alloy it with magic somehow, noting that she’d become more malleable each time she’d been absorbed by Donna.

Donna’s eyes went wide at the idea, and a little bit of practice produced a row of small diamonds of varying magic to mundane alloy ratios.  Making each one permanent was easy, and once she was done the only way to tell them apart was to judge how difficult it would be to change them again.  Donna grew the ‘lightest’ one to the same size as the original, and made that its new permanent size.  When she was done she giggled giddily.  “That was... too easy.”

“So make some gold bars as well.”

Donna shook her head.  “Can’t make money.  Gold bars count.”

“But you can make priceless diamonds?  Huh.  You made a tiara for Rowan, how about thick gold chain necklaces?”

Donna and Gwen stared at the immense pile of gold chain that was making the coffee table creak in protest.  “Well,” said Donna after a while.  “That’s enough gold to make Mr. T jealous.”

Gwen laughed at that.  “And it’s all permanent?”

“Most of it.  Might have missed a few.”

“OK, now that your money problems for the foreseeable future are dealt with...”

“Wait, what?” exclaimed Donna.

“Give them to Sidney, she can take one down to a gold buyer whenever you run short.”

Donna flopped back on the couch, and started to laugh.  “Well.  I guess that makes worrying about going to work tomorrow kind of moot.”

“It’s not like you need much money anyway.  You could magic up anything you’d ever want.”

“Except for the mortgage payments, taxes, and such.  I’m not sure Sidney would entirely trust magic food, either.  Combined, that’s a pretty big bite of the budget.”

“You’re still set for the next year or more.  So... now what?  World peace?”

“No.  A proper box for Brunhilde.  I’ve got a silver bar downstairs.  I can’t work it directly, but I could create a crucible to melt it, and moulds to pour it into.”

Donna couldn’t touch the bar, so they used some heavy work gloves to carry it to the tool shed under the deck.  A bit of work with tarps made the space private enough to use magic, and soon it was cozy and warm due to the heat of the forge.  Gwen suggested an extraction fan, as inhaling silver vapour would be disastrous for them, and there might be other fumes to deal with as well.

There was a lot of tinkering involved in getting the box mould just so, and spinning it so that the silver was distributed evenly throughout.  Then there was the lid.  Gwen mentioned the genie bottle from the club, and how it wasn’t solid silver but had exposed glass underneath the silverwork.  So testing and experimentation was done to find out how large the gaps could be before the magic blocking effects were compromised.  In the end, they created a top out of an old piece of glass and a piece of silver that Gwen hammered and cut until it was approved as fully opaque.

“Now we just need to test the box.  Going to have to wait a while for it to cool, though,” mused Gwen.

“Shall I just hop inside to see how it works?”

“I suppose that’s the acid test.  So.  Did any of this help Duncan come back to the surface?”

Donna chuckled softly.  “I had wondered what you were up to, trying to draw me into the design work.  Sadly, no.  He’s still utterly overwhelmed by the whole apprentice Goddess thing.”

Gwen made a face, wrinkling up Donna’s breast.  “Could you stop saying that, please?  It reeks of blasphemy.”

“Sorry, sweetie.  But what else can I say?  I could stroll through a mall, and turn everyone in it into...well, anything.  Catgirls, probably.”

Gwen giggled.  “That would be funny.  And cause absurd amounts of panic.”  She sighed.  “Still, it’s... wrong.  The hubris, if nothing else.”

Donna nodded.  “I know.  Believe me, I know.  Duncan hates it too.  But...  I am what I am.  I can feel every person within I don’t know how huge a radius, but it feels like a mile or more.  Maybe not the ones wearing silver, but there are plenty of others.  I could do anything to any of them, except the handful out in public at this stupidly early hour.  What am I supposed to do, Gwen?  What am I supposed to think?”

“I don’t know.  I do know that it’s getting cold out here.  Has that box cooled enough that we can touch it, yet?”

Donna shook her head.  “But I could...”  Ice formed on the mould, chilling the air further.  A few minutes later, Donna popped the mould open, and the box was ready.  A fallen leaf became a velvet insert, and soon the box was ready to receive its first visitor.  Donna put the work gloves on once more, and carried box and lid inside.

Once the box was assembled, Donna stared down into it.  “I guess it’s time to test it.  Will you be OK in this body by yourself for a bit?”

“I’ll manage,” muttered Gwen.  Suddenly she had control of her body once more, and used that control to lift the lid.  A tiny ghostly fairy-Donna flitted into the box, and lay down on the velvet floor.  Gwen watched her carefully as she closed the lid, and just as it settled into place, both Donna and her bond to her winked out.

Gwen frantically lifted the lid again, and stared at the empty inside of the box.  “Oh, hell.  Donna?  Please come back.”  She tugged on the restored link to Donna.

With a tiny pop of displaced air, Donna reappeared inside the box, solid this time.  “That was... disturbing.”

“What happened?”

Donna shrugged.  “Intangible forms are a bad idea when you get cut off from magic.  I still existed, though.  Just... total sensory deprivation.”  She shuddered, her tiny wings fluttering in distress.  “The whole universe went away.  That was the worst part, losing the sense of the world around me.  Sight, sound... meh, I can manage without those.  But losing that?  Scared me.  Do it again.”

“What?”

“You heard me.  This time I’m solid.  Well, more solid.  It’s a test for what works and what doesn’t at Moonset.”

Gwen sighed and agreed.  Soon the lid was closed once more, and a tiny Donna fairy was trapped inside.  She waved up at Gwen and tried to shout to see if Gwen could hear.  Gwen cupped a hand over her ear, then nodded and opened the lid.

“I could just hear you.  Not easily,” said Gwen.

Donna insisted on one last test, this time as a heart-shaped crystal.  Again, Gwen could hear her very faintly through the box, though she had to nearly press her ear against it.

Donna declared it a success, and soon Brunhilde was ensconced in her new home.  The crystal remained silent and sulky, other than grudging thanks for taking the chains off.

The horizon was starting to glow with the impending sunrise.  “Not long left now,” muttered Donna as she paced back and forth in front of the living room window.

“Worried?”

“I have this terrible feeling I’ve forgotten something important.  Vital, even.”

“Well, worst case you end up disappearing again until the Moon rises once more, right?  You can handle that, if it comes to it.”

Donna finally sat down again.  “Yeah.  I guess.  As long as I’m not a ghost, I should be fine.”

“Are you a ghost?  The way you flit in and out of this body, are you really part of it, or just... possessing it?”

Donna cursed.  “You’re right.  This body is yours, not mine.  I need to...”  Donna settled herself more firmly into the body.  “There.  Thank you.  That would have sucked for both of us.”

“Yeah.  I don’t think Sidney would have been very happy, either.”

Donna sighed with relief.  “Well.  Not long now.  Ready to face a new day as nothing but my breast?”

“You know... I am.  This is going to be at least as much fun as Ronnie trying to be Rachel.  Are you ready to spend a month without all this power?”

“In all honesty, no.  I’m going to miss it big time.  I wish I could stash enough power to have my fun in between.”

Gwen and Donna stared at the swirling orb of light that formed in front of them.  “What are you doing?” whispered Gwen, urgently.  “That’s a lot of power.”

“Granting my own wish,” said Donna, not without a little worry herself.  “That’s... way too much power in one spot.  What should I do?  I’m scared to let it go, it’s enough to change dozens of people.”

“Bind it to something.  The big diamond!”

Donna forced the sphere of power into the diamond, and tried to bind it into the diamond’s structure.  She wasn’t entirely successful, as the diamond started to glow brightly.

Donna started randomly changing objects in the living room, turning random bits of fluff into bras, then fuzzy plush boobs to fill them, then simply marbles about an inch across.

“What are you doing?”

“See how it’s glowing?  It’s spilling power at a crazy rate.  If I don’t use it, who knows what will happen.  I have to drain it off.”

A few minutes later, the glow from the diamond went out.  Scattered across the floor of the living room were hundreds of pale blue marbles.  Donna picked one up, and rolled it about in her hand.

“It’s not leaking,” mused Gwen.  “How much power does each one represent?”

“Less than what it takes to make a bra.  A small handful would be enough, though.”

“So there’s your power storage.  A box full of these should get you through the month, right?”

“Except they’d fade out in a week or so.  Still, it gives me an extra week.”  Donna gathered up the marbles and tucked them safely into one of the storage bins that was supposed to be a home for toys, but seldom actually was.

“How long until the Moon sets now?”

Donna looked toward the west.  “Another minute or two.”  She wrapped her arms about herself.  “Well, if this goes badly... it has been fun.  Take care of Sidney.”

“Donna!  You’ll be fine.”

Donna sighed, and didn’t answer.  A minute later, she exhaled sharply with relief.  “Moonset.  I’m still me.  Are you with me?”

“Still your boob, yep.”  Gwen yawned.  “And suddenly really sleepy.  No more Moon-juice keeping me awake.”

They curled up under a blanket on the couch, and stayed there until Sidney’s screams woke them up.

Donna stumbled into the bedroom, Gwen dangling out through the gap in her robe.  “What?  What’s wrong?”

Sidney pointed at the Duncan-robot in the bed beside her.  “He won’t wake up!”

“Sweetie, it’s OK.  It’s just a sort of puppet.  I controlled it while you went to bed, then Gwen started to panic about being left alone...”

“So you abandoned me?”

“You were asleep!”

“After only a few minutes I wouldn’t have been.  Why is Gwen more important than me?”

“Because she was tortured to get at me, and the terrors came back.  Maybe the biggest downside to being able to change yourself with a thought is that your fears can become all too real.”

“What...  Tortured?  Why?”  Sidney sat up in bed fully, clutching the sheet to herself.  “You didn’t say anything about that.”

“It wasn’t his story to tell,” said Gwen, softly.  She told the tale once more, her voice barely above a whisper.  Sidney’s eyes went wider and wider.

“But... why?”

“Because of me.  The ‘midnight arsonist’ wanted what I have, power.  She was willing to kill and enslave to get it.  Gwen saved me, and probably all of us.  Last night may have cost hundreds of lives, but letting her rampage unchecked?  Thousands.  Maybe... everyone.”

“I don’t...” protested Gwen.

Donna patted her breast softly, “You did, Gwen.  Your bravery saved many lives.”

“Was just trying to save yours.  And mine.  If she got to you before the full Moon I knew I was done for.”

“Doesn’t change anything,” said Donna to her breast.  She turned to her wife.  “So you see... I owe her more than I can repay, and the least we can do is give her a place to stay for now.”

Sidney nodded.  “But why a breast?”

“Doctor Brown was little more than a puppet under that thing’s control, but he wouldn’t touch me there.  The rest of my body was broken and burned.  This feels... safe.”

“You both need a shrink, bad,” said Sidney with conviction.

Donna nodded.  “We’ll be seeing one later today.  And probably daily for I don’t know how long.”

“What about your job?”

“I’ll email them.  They’ll have to live without me for at least a few days, maybe the whole month.  I’ll see if I can set things up to work remotely for a while.”

“But... you can’t have that much vacation saved up, you only started there last year and you took a few days at Christmas.”

Donna shrugged.  “They need me.  We’ll sort something out.”

“I can’t believe how casual you’re being about this.  If you lose that job, how will we pay for the house?”

Donna walked out of the bedroom without saying another word, then returned with one of the gold necklaces.  “Here.  Your job today is to find out how much you can get for this.”

“Oh.”  Sidney weighed it in one hand.  “A couple of pounds.  Is it pure gold?”  At Donna’s nod she continued, “So... wow.  That’s a lot of money.”

“And there are thirty more where it came from,” said Gwen.

Sidney stared at the gold, then up at Donna.  “Seriously?  Wow.  OK.  Money no longer an issue, check.  Why bother arranging to work remotely or anything like that?”

“Because they need me,” said Donna, simply.  “I’d hate to leave them in the lurch.”

“You don’t owe them anything.”

“I know.  But... that job is a big part of who I am, too.  Maybe not as big as last night, but...”

Sidney smiled.  “So Duncan is in there somewhere, after all.”

“Yeah.  He’s a lot closer to the surface now that magic is off the table.”

“This is going to be an interesting month.”

Courtney woke up about then, so they went to get her breakfast.  Donna covered up, so as not to have to explain Gwen to Courtney.  Her daughter was happy enough to see “Auntie Donna” for a while, and took the explanation that they’d be seeing more of Auntie Donna well.  Donna tried to explain that she really was Courtney’s daddy, and got called “Auntie Daddy” for her troubles.

Later in the day, after Donna had emailed her boss for a few days off, Donna and Gwen visited Doctor Sakurai at her practice.  Arwen cancelled the rest of her afternoon appointments to make space for them, waving it off as a minor thing.  Thursdays weren’t generally all that busy, she claimed.  They talked about Gwen’s experiences, and Donna’s.  Arwen tried to draw Duncan out, with some success, though only briefly.

Mostly they focussed on Gwen’s trauma, and coping strategies.  That she was somewhere she felt safe and loved was a strong point in her favour.

“And the whole being a boob thing?” asked Donna.

“It’s an odd response, but one that seems to be working. If a coping strategy works, I don’t like to intervene unless it’s causing problems in the patient’s life.”

“Being a boob isn’t going to cause problems?” asked Donna, amusedly.

“Well, it sounds like you two can manage for a while.  How long do you want to stay like this, Gwen?”

Donna’s breast thought about it for a while.  “I don’t know.  At least a week, maybe more.  Not that it matters, I’m stuck here for a month.”

“Any regrets?”

Gwen smiled.  “None at all.  A month like this feels like a vacation from being me.  I can live with that.”

“Ah, but can Duncan?”

Donna shrugged.  “Having my sweetie as part of my body is odd, but I’m enjoying the closeness.  Sidney, on the other hand...  Ah well.  We’ll deal with it.  It’s not like we haven’t had multi-month dry spells before.”

Arwen probed further, but Donna felt it “wasn’t her place to say” and Duncan dove deeper when Arwen tried to confront him about it.  So they turned to Donna’s experiences instead.  Donna and Gwen argued over the use of the word Goddess again, and Arwen suggested they find something else to call it.  Donna settled on sorceress after a brief flirtation with archmage.

“The great and powerful sorceress Donna?  I’m much happier with that than the... other term,” said Gwen.

Donna giggled.  “Just Mrs. Sorceress is fine.”

“Shouldn’t that be Dr. Sorceress?  Doctor Sorceress Donna?  It has a nice ring to it.”  Gwen broke down into giggles as well.

“I think you two will be just fine,” mused Arwen.  “Though I’d like to see you regularly for the next week or so.  Despite today’s progress, I’m pretty sure you’ll need it.”  They made appointments for the rest of the week, working around Arwen’s schedule.

When they got home, Sidney met them at the door, looking giddy.  “Do you have any idea how much all that gold is worth?”

Donna shrugged.  “I don’t exactly keep track of the price of gold, no.  It’s up of late, isn’t it?”

Sidney nodded eagerly.  “I checked around, and there’s well over half a million dollars’ worth of gold sitting on our living room table.  Closer to a million, actually, even after the brokers get their cut.”

“Oh.  Huh.  I guess it does cover the mortgage after all.  I wasn’t sure it would.”

“Cover the... we could buy a new house with that!”

“And there would be all kinds of questions, all kinds of hassle.  I’d really prefer if we kept a low profile about this.  If we sell one now, we’re set for a few months.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” said Sidney reluctantly.  “But can we at least renovate the kitchen?  I’ve wanted to do that for a decade, and we finally have the money.”

Donna grinned and said, “Who needs money for that, when you’ve got Doctor Sorceress Donna on your side?”  Gwen started giggling under Donna’s jacket, and soon Sidney was laughing as well.

“Are you really going to call yourself that?”

“Mmmaybe.  Certain people prefer it to the term I was using last night.  And to be honest, I do too.  I don’t want to start taking myself too seriously.”

Donna ditched her coat and headed into the more private parts of the house so Gwen could come out and talk.  The kids found it hilarious, which made Sidney just sigh and shake her head.  Donna and Gwen kept them occupied by reading them books, trading off as to who did which voices.

Shortly before dinnertime, Donna dropped the book and gasped.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sidney, looking up from her novel.

“Moonrise.”  Donna’s eyes darted to the curtains, but they had been closed earlier to ensure privacy for Gwen.  “I’m free again.”  She danced out of Gwen’s body, pirouetting in crystalline form once more.  Courtney and Victor stared at her in surprise and awe.  Then she settled on the couch beside Gwen, and resumed telling the story.  This time she transformed her head to match the each monster’s voice, causing even more giggles.

“Aren’t you going to run out of power?” asked Gwen when the story was done.  She was pressed up against Donna, but even so her arms were starting to tremble.

Donna weighed that for a moment, then flickered from crystal to flesh and back again.  “Nope.  Malleability infinite, transformation cost... zero.”

“You mean the craziness is going to continue all month?” asked Sidney, alarmed.

“It might slow down after the last quarter Moon in a week.  Maybe.  We’ll find out, I guess.”  Donna’s smile grew a bit strained.  “The new Moon’s going to be... interesting.”

“What do you mean, interesting?  Interesting good, or interesting bad?”

“Dunno yet.  I might get stuck as a giant crystal for a few days.  Or, um... longer.”

Sidney sighed.  “I guess we’ll manage somehow.”  Then she noticed what Gwen was doing to her arms.  The trembling had been replaced by scratching, and she was starting to draw blood.  “What’s wrong with Gwen?”

Donna didn’t even need to look, she just flowed into Gwen’s body and took over once more.  “Shh, shhh sweetie.   It’s OK.  I’m sorry, I forgot.”  She smoothed her hands over her arms, and the wounds went away.  “See?  All better.”

Gwen whimpered softly.  “So sick of the memories.  Can’t you make me forget?”

“I could make you forget you used to be human.  But I think that’s a really bad idea right now.  You need to deal with this.  We’ll all be here to help.”

Courtney and Victor agreed, and Courtney very seriously promised to do anything to help.  Gwen laughed softly at that.  “Don’t make promises like that, kid.  You might get turned into a bra.”

“Gwen!” said Sidney, scandalized.

Courtney just giggled, and asked what a bra was.  Gwen’s explanation seemed to confuse her, so Donna created a few examples.  The one made out of Lego made Courtney giggle even more.  She cuddled up against Donna’s side and kissed Gwen on the cheek.  “I’ll still help.”

“No turning her into a bra, you hear?”

“Yes’m.  How about a plushie?”

Courtney giggled and bounced on the couch.  “Can I Mum, please?”

Sidney sighed long-sufferingly.  “This is going to be a very weird month.”