(TF, melting, boiling, twinning, merging, etc...)

A continuation of The Merging

 “So our honeymoon gift to Gena and Jim is going well, huh?” asked Caroline. “I think the whole thing was a really great idea. And I think the newlyweds are enjoying the use of us immensely.”

Lexi giggled. “You know, it's funny, when you told me that Mr. Wintergreen had a transformation potion for us called 'Cottage and All Its Contents', I thought you were kidding!”

“I know, right? You never know what that man is going to come up with next to sell in his magic shop.” Caroline's voice lowered, taking on an almost taunting tone. “Were you scared to drink the potion at all?”

Lexi stared out at the woods around where they were situated, recalling her mixed reaction to Caroline's mention of Mr. Wintergreen's newest product. Admittedly, the potion had transformed Caroline and herself into an utterly perfect, cozy cottage for her friends. And she was enjoying every minute of the bizarre experience. Yet of all the silly things she and her friends had done with Mr. Wintergreen's potions and scientist Gena's inventions, this was the most intriguing of them all – and the weirdest.

She had been slightly anxious about the transformation itself, wondering what it would be like to merge with her friend and then become an actual building – as well as every object inside it. It sounded like it might be very overwhelming. But as she and a squeaking Caroline began to merge and then expand, the delightful feelings of metamorphosis took over her changing form, and she was quite content. As she grew larger and lost all semblance of living flesh, she could at the same time feel parts of her and Caroline separating off and becoming furnishings for their inside – she was becoming a soft bed and blankets, plus a hard metal headboard. She was a throw rug, a curvy bathtub, a towel set and faucets. She was plates and pots and a stainless steel refrigerator. She and Caroline were simply becoming anything that was needed, and she chuckled at Caroline's yelps of ecstasy. They were everything, all encompassing, and then their metamorphosis was abruptly done.

The outline of Caroline's face popped out from the front wall and screamed, “I want more!”

“Calm down, Caroline,” Lexi's features appeared beside her friend's as she mock-chided her.

Then Gena and Jim had entered, and strangely, everything about the following experience seemed completely normal. There was no embarrassment as the newlyweds bathed together in a bathtub that was Lexi and Caroline; in fact it felt wonderful being filled with water and feeling naked flesh against their surface. They were wrapped around the lovers' bodies as towels, and twisted around them as blankets. And as a bed... the night was full of activity, the pleasure of which did extend over to Caroline and Lexi as well. The cottage and its contents were thrilled that the newlyweds were enjoying them.

Now Gena and Jim slept, and Lexi and Caroline watched the first light coming through the woods.

“Yes, I was a bit nervous to do this potion,” Lexi finally answered.

Caroline sighed. “I guess I was a bit too, because I wasn't sure how the transformation would go, but it was probably the most amazing one I've ever experienced. And this is coming from the girl who turned into a space heater at one point.”

Lexi chuckled. Caroline was the most adventuresome of them all. One never knew what crazy idea she would come up with next.

“Ooh, Jim moved!” Caroline squeaked.

“Yup, I felt it. Oh, he's still sleeping though. We're good.”

Caroline was silent a moment. A light wind buffeted their shutters, and she smiled. “Whatever I am at the time, I always say it's the best.”

“Well, yes, because you start thinking like it. And you're proud to be such a good...whatever... picture frame.”

“Do you have a favorite transformation experience?” Caroline asked. “Because I'm not sure I do! I love it all! I just love being other things and feeling my body's shape change!”

Lexi was deep in thought. “Well, you really were into the fruit stuff. I guess that's fun.”

“I also love the melting and the evaporating...I could do that over and over!”

“I don't know, it probably would get boring after a while.”

“Oh, please, Lexi! This is me you're talking to. Caroline the Cottage!” She made a cheeky smile, caused the wall to pucker around her. “When we turn back, I'll do another video of me making all that stuff exciting and new! I mean, melting, evaporating...that never gets boring. I'll show you.”

“I can't wait,” Lexi smirked.

The next morning saw Gena and Jim packing up, smiling at silly objects and patting the walls and floor a lot. “Bye, cottage! You did great!” Gena banged their door shut quite forcibly behind her, which the cottage did happen to enjoy.

The scientist and her husband then stomped down the front brick walk, which also felt quite nice.

“They're gone,” murmured Lexi.

“We feel so empty,” whimpered Caroline.

“Well, let's just enjoy it while we can. We only get to be a building for a few more hours.”

The change-back came slowly; first there was a general softening all around their foundation. Then they could feel the cottage's contents slowly merging back into their walls. “Nice, very nice,” Caroline murmured approvingly. They were shrinking and thinning into a human-sized mass which suddenly, with a bizarre popping sound, split into Lexi and Caroline.

Both tottered on their newly-formed legs.

“Wow, being a house makes you forget how to walk!” Caroline remarked, trying to steady her knees.

“Caroline, do you think they knew it was us?” Lexi asked uncertainly. “I mean I think they did, but...”

“Of course they did! Why do you think they said 'Bye, cottage, you did great'. I mean, most people don't talk to buildings and complement them.”

They stood there for a moment, looking into the dark woods. “Uh, Mr. Wintergreen should be here already to pick us up. Where is he?”

Caroline peered into the trees. “Well, he can't time it perfectly when we'd change back.”

“Why not? It was a twenty-four hour serum!”

Both now a bit nervous, they quavered at the night sounds in the forest. The hoot of an owl made Caroline jump. “Owl,” Lexi explained to her.

“I know what an owl sounds like. I just wasn't expecting to hear one.”

“You're in the middle of a woods, Caroline.”

Both girls stared at the dirt road. “Wish I had some of the Ultimate Potion right now to turn into a bird,” Lexi commented.

“Yup,” said Caroline nervously. “We could fly right home.”

Soon they heard the sound of an engine, which was a relief to both. A shiny black sports car pulled up and honked at them.

But no one was inside.

“What the holy hell?” gasped Caroline.

“Hey guys! New potion for you! Car-for-a-day!” The black car grinned at them mischievously.

Caroline tapped at the car's hood. “Mr. Wintergreen? Is this you?”

“In the flesh – well, in the metal and rubber, for now. Hop in!”

The girls settled into the comfortable front seat. “Oh, you're really comfy, Mr. Wintergreen! And you came out so sleek! You can drive yourself?” Caroline queried, running her hand down his upholstery.

He made a very slight moan at this, then answered a bit too quickly, “Yup! It's amazing! I'll get you girls some samples whenever you have time for it!”

“Damn, I want to be a car. That must be a great transformation too!”

“It is! It was very nice. Hold on tight, I like to give a fast ride!”

The car jerked into gear, and with a loud “Woo-hoo”, it was off.

“I hope no cops see us!” Lexi yelled over the wind.

“Caroline, hold my steering wheel, so it looks like you're driving,” the car called to Caroline, who was in the driver's seat.

“Oh my God I so need to do this immediately,” cried Caroline, her blonde hair flying in the breeze.

Now that Gena and Jim were on vacation, Caroline and Lexi were on their own for the weekend. Lexi had last-minute family plans, so Caroline was left to her own devices. She thought back to how she promised Lexi that her melting adventures could never get boring, and she prepared to make another video.

After Gena and Mr. Wintergreen had combined magic with science and come up with the “Ultimate Potion” which could do basically anything, there seemed to be a never-ending supply of it coming from Mr. Wintergreen in thanks. So Caroline slurped up a bit and then strode over to set up her video camera. As she fiddled with the buttons, she commented out loud, “I wonder if Mr. Wintergreen is adding flavoring to the potion now. This tastes like those purple ice-pops I used to love when I was little – oops!” Her finger slid off the 'record' button just as she pressed it. She was feeling cold, and she was shrinking... “Hey, Lexi!” she cried, trying to keep her face intact as the potion transformed her. “I'm doing that melting video for you, but in a whole new way,” she was hardening into ice crystals and turning purple. Her arms had disappeared into her sides, and her legs had fused and hardened into a wooden Popsicle stick. She gave the usual last shudder of pleasure and then grew still. But she had retained her face, purple and made of ice as it now was, and she looked into the camera, giggling. “I'm an ice pop! I'm delicious, and grape, and I feel... nice! So, you can't say this is the usual melting stuff...” The purple novelty was silent a moment. “Well, I could do that all from this yummy form! I'll melt into a puddle of sweet grape juice! You might need to speed up the video to watch me melt. Guess it depends how warm it is in here...well, I'm sort of in the sun...”

She lay there, not even aware of the passing of time as she was enjoying her new form to the fullest. When Lexi viewed the video, Caroline realized, she would simply see a purple ice pop melting into a puddle onto the floor, although it often lurched and giggled to itself. That usually would not be too exciting – except that ice pop was really a transformed person.

It was delightful as her hard form softened and warmed closer and closer to room temperature. She could actually feel herself turning to liquid, which was gathering around the remainder of her ice pop body. She gazed into the camera. “I'm almost a purple puddle, Lexi!” she chuckled as her stick began to bob on her liquidy form.

When she was completely liquid, she smiled from the puddle. “See, you think the evaporation part is boring too? Watch me make it interesting!” The puddle disintegrated into purple gas which floated into the air and became a grinning cloud. “A purple cloud! I'm a fluffy purple cloud now!” The cloud bounced around a moment before growing still. “Now what else...oh, the twinning stuff!” Bits of her left the cloud as drops. Raining to the floor, she yelped out, “incoming purple precipitation!” as she splattered to the tiles. Soon the cloud was gone and a newly-formed purple puddle lay below where it had been.

She could feel herself seeping into the floor, which was always a nice feeling. “Now I'm becoming part of my own house!” she pointed out. She wanted to stay like this, but since it was not viewable on the video, she drew herself together from the cracks, reforming her puddle-self. “Okay, you think twinning is boring? How about, two purple ice cream twins...no, even better...”

From the liquid, two distinct ice cream novelties formed – a purple ice cream sandwich and an equally purple ice cream soda. “I even am my own straw!” yelled the soda, and the sandwich cried, “and I'm...well, both the wafers and the creamy middle...Oh boy, that sounds kind of X-rated. Hope Jim doesn't see this...but,” and both wobbling novelties announced simultaneously, “we're both Caroline!”

“And it's a bit hot in here. Want to join me?” the sandwich asked the soda.

“No problem!” On this cue, they both melted down completely and merged together into a creamy lavender puddle.

The puddle sat there, blinking at the camera. This was fun, but Caroline realized that Lexi hadn't been totally wrong, when she thought of it. She was still melting and forming and doing the same actions over and over – even if she was just an ice pop instead of a person this time.

She had to do something new.

But what? She wanted to do something different, not just transforming. Yes, she could become anything, and her mind could dredge up the silliest of forms – a ruler, a tea bag... “Oops, didn't mean to become them!” she cried to the camera and she first thinned out into a wooden ruler then shrank into a tea bag. “All I need is some boiling water and I might make someone a tasty beverage...give them a real caffeine jolt...” Suddenly the tea bag froze. Boiling?

“Of course! I've melted, but I never boiled! How fun would that be?”

The tea bag exploded back into Caroline, who grabbed her video camera off the tripod, flicking it off, and raced with it into the kitchen. She set it down on the counter facing the stove and turned it back on. “Okay, Lexi! You wanted new, here's new!” She bent down and fished around in her cabinet until she found a clear glass pot. She set it on the stove then paused, thinking out loud. “Well, I guess I have to be water. So, I'll turn on the flame first,” she twisted the dial, “and then I'll jump into the pot,” she shrank down into a moth, fluttered into the pot and yelled in a tiny voice, “and then I'll turn into water!” The moth simply burst into a splash of water, which sloshed around the pot quite happily.

A face formed on the top of the liquid. “I hope you can hear me like this, Lexi! I bet I make a nice pot of water. I feel so good like this...” she paused again, a sudden uncharacteristic fear running through her. Would it hurt to have the fire up against her? She could see the flames under the pot, rushing at her and encouraging her to heat up... She didn't want to burn...

But she quickly dismissed her illogical worry. She was water! Water didn't feel pain! And once again, she had been a space heater with electricity and wires running through her. No pain, no burns from that experience...

The flames crackled against the glass, tickling her lower layers, and she now found herself looking forward to boiling. She could feel her temperature rising quicker and quicker, but it was a comfortable warmth, like drinking a hot cup of tea or coffee. “Mmm,” she uttered. “I'm so toasty!”

She could feel herself beginning to steam; little bits of her were drifting off her surface, and some of her was floating around in the air as water vapor. It felt like she was flying! This was even better than just evaporating! Here she was being forced up into the air as the flames licked at the pot...

And the remainder of her liquid form began to bubble. “OO!” she cried as the first bubble made its way up through her. It burst at her surface, followed by another and another until she was essentially an ecstatic frothing mass. The onslaught of bubbles forming from her was so stimulating, she could not even narrate the experience for her video.

She continued on, feeling more and more of her substance floating up into the air while dwindling away in the pot. Finally she was able to gasp, “I'm almost all up here now...floating and light...” from the cloud of water vapor that she was in the air. In the pot, the thin layer of water smiled a bit regretfully, “and I'm almost gone in my liquid form...oh, oh, here I go! Bye!” the water bubbled away to nothing.

Caroline floated happily another moment before descending to the ground so she could turn off the gas before the pot shattered. After accomplishing this, she bent down, sticking her head into the camera lens. “Well, there you go, Lexi! How awesome was that! You absolutely have to boil! It's even more amazing than melting! It's so cool I have to do it again! Now!”

She paused, again wondering how she could make this experience different. Maybe she would change into an egg and become hard-boiled? She tried to imagine how that would feel, her proteins all denaturing...

Without warning, she had quickly rounded out and hardened into a egg. Before she was even able to marvel at how interesting it was to have a thin, hard outer shell and be all gooey inside, she made a violent jolt, cracking her shell and sending her insides streaming to the tiles. As she began sinking into the grout, her face formed on the egg yolk. “Not that you can see me like this, Lexi, but I'm very...breakfasty now! I turned into an egg by mistake. I just wish I was up there on the stove like this...And you know what, I can be!” She drew herself back into human form and set up her best frying pan. Turning on the flame, she flew to the top of the counter as a moth, then regained her human form, only a one-foot version of herself. She stepped into the frying pan, chuckling. “Well, it's good I have on sneakers. Although if I don't change my form soon, they're going to melt right out from under me. Here I go! I'm an egg!”

This time she forewent the eggshell. Her body collapsed into egg white and yolk, and she winked at the camera from her yolk-face. Immediately upon contact with the frying pan, her form began to sizzle. “Glad I have a non-stick pan, although if I had heated up some butter in here, I'd be even tastier having been cooked in it!”

An intoxicating smell filled the air. “Well, guess what? I smell pretty amazing even without the butter! Imagine that, a cooking egg smelling how good it smells...” The egg yolk shook back and forth with continuous laughter as it hardened and denatured. “Oh...ooooo... you have to try this one too, Lexi!” Caroline cried as she finally was cooked through and through. “I'd go on, but if I let myself burn, I'll set off the fire alarm. That's a whole deal then. But I do like this form, so I'm going to enjoy it a bit first.” The fried egg slithered out of the pot and across to the counter. She poked her yellow face into the camera. “Cheese!” she yelled, then grew silent. “Hey, wait!” she was turning orange, growing into a cube, hardening a bit more. “Oh, no. I turned into cheese. I'm a block of cheddar! I wanted to stay as an egg a bit. Damn.”

Then the fire alarm went off. She had waited a bit too long to turn off the stove.

After Caroline took care of the alarm and set things back to rights, she sat back in a chair, wiping at her brow. “Wow, I'm hot. I'm not sure if that's from all the boiling, or maybe the running around and trying to get the damned alarm to turn off. Whatever.”

She turned the camera back on. “Well, Lexi, look at me. I'm sweating, I–” She stopped, another idea hitting her. “Why didn't I think of this before! I should turn myself into a thermometer! I could be mercury, and I could go in another pot of water... yes!”

The pot of water was placed back on the stove, and a one-foot tall Caroline climbed in. Quickly she stiffened, her limbs all molding together until she was a thin, long rectangle. As the glass and mercury formed lengthwise from her top to her bottom, she could feel the numbers of the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales etching into her surface, which tickled to no end. She began to jerk back and forth in the warming water at the sensation.

Soon she was completely formed, and she could feel the mercury part of her rise as the water temperature increased. Slowly it pushed up her glass middle, which was actually quite pleasant. As the bubbles in the water popped against her, it made the experience all the more fun until she was again giggling and shaking. “I'm rising, I'm rising...getting closer to my top, the water's boiling...Oh, I can't stand it! I can't...it's too much...” Of her own volition, she exploded. There was a tinkle of glass, and silvery bits of Caroline bobbed on the surface of the boiling liquid.

The pot seemed to be full of tiny laughing silver beads, which were thrown this way and that by the frothing liquid. As the mercury parts of her twinned and merged, Caroline managed to yell, “well, there's part of me on the bottom as glass, but I'd rather turn all of myself to mercury. It feels too good not to!”

Soon the whole pot was almost full of mercury, and Caroline cried, “I'm not good for the environment like this, but it's so worth it!”

Next time they all changed together, Caroline decided, they had to be mercury. It was too good not to.

Caroline had enjoyed being the runny silvery metal so much, she spent the rest of her weekend in this form. She walked around, doing her daily routine, only as a glob of mercury. When she needed hands, she simply formed them.

She slept as a silvery puddle.

“So I heard from Gena and Jim. They tried to call you, but I'm sure you were out being a barbeque or something,” smirked Lexi. They had met for dinner after work on Monday, and Caroline was posed over a plate of fried eggs and hashbrowns. She would never look at eggs the same way again.

She chuckled, reflecting on her friend's words. “Well, I sort of was being barbequed.”

Lexi's expression was comical in response. Before she could inquire as to what Caroline meant, the blonde asked, “How is the happy couple?”

“They're doing great, and they think we were the most perfect cottage ever.”

Caroline blushed. “Damned straight! You'd never find a better one, and we were cleaner than any place anyone could find! No bugs, no dust mites, nothing.” She made a little snort. “Unless we turned into some just for authenticity's sake.”

“So how was your weekend?” Lexi raised her brow slightly as she waited for what she obviously knew would be a very weird response.

“Well, I told you I was going to show you new stuff.”

Lexi rolled her eyes. “You made another video. You didn't have to, you know.” She took a bite of her salad.

“I know.”

“So?”

Caroline leaned over the table. “Lexi, I boiled!”

Lexi stopped chewing, and she had to force her mouth closed when it fell open. “Boiled?”

“Oh, God, yes. First as just water. Then, I was fried as an egg, and then I was a thermometer, only I got so excited that I exploded myself.” She began to laugh hysterically at this. “That didn't sound quite right...Anyway, then I just floated around as mercury droplets. Holy crap, Lexi, you have to do that. Have to!”

The two girls went back to Caroline's house. They placed the biggest pot Caroline had on the stove, filled it with water, and climbed in. Each girl became mercury, and Lexi could not stop exclaiming how great it was as they bobbed above and below the surface.

“Some of me is being pulled apart into smaller pieces, and other parts of me are joining together with...oh, that's you, isn't it? Now we're merging! Love it!” cried a very excited Lexi.

Soon even Caroline and Lexi themselves couldn't tell their separate parts. All of the mercury droplets were parts of both of them.

“We're just...” Lexi searched for some kind of word that perfectly described their situation. “We're just...” she let out a half-drunk cackle. “God, we're just awesome!”                                                                                                                   

“Damned straight,” was Caroline's simple response.