Welcome to Gaia! ::

Victoria swirled the wine in her glass. There was nothing like suddenly becoming a mother to make one settle down. She was not complaining at all. Matter of fact she was rather happy, she had always wanted to have a family. However, physically it was not possible. Then by some odd chance… She inwardly smiled.

Victoria roused from her thoughts by the sounds of glassware scraping across the table glanced from Auden to Alison. Her eyes went large as she heard them both snort. Okay one might think that strange but all things considering she could not.

"The last of the peas are MINE," Alison narrowed her eyes.

"No they are MINE!" Auden's voice was a smidge louder than his sisters was. He reached out and snatched the bowl back from her. "Mine!"

"You know I could cook more." Victoria's voice sounded like a whisper compared to theirs. She watched as the peas sloshed back and forth in the bowl. She was waiting for them to any moment to cover one or both of them, at which point she would laugh at them, throw a towel at them, and tell them to clean it up.

"MINE!" Alison snatched the bowl back.

"I said they were MINE!"

Victoria knowing she had not been heard sat the wine glass down and went to get a towel. She decided she was going to prepare herself ahead of time. She turned back around just in time to watch as the peas sloshed all over Alison.

"My favorite shirt!" Alison screeched.

Victoria chuckled and threw the towel at her. "I can buy you another one. Seriously if you had just listened to me this could have been avoided." She put her hands on her hips when they gave her a look. "Don't give me that look- I offered to cook more."

They both rolled their eyes.

Victoria narrowed her eyes when they were about to say something. "Clean it up." She grabbed her glass and headed out of the kitchen.

Auden picked up one of the peas off the table and ate it.

"That's gross."

Auden smirked.

"Auden! Alison!" Victoria called out to get her children's attention. "I really do appreciate you helping me with this."

Rhine smiled, "My pleasure. I know how it is-" he was about to say something else but was distracted from doing so as the two called came into the sitting room. "Nice to finally meet the two of you," he held out his hand.

After looking to her mom she looked towards Rhine, she shook his hand, "Nice to meet you too."

Auden a bit more hesitant looked the other male over. Family or not, having never met this person before he was hesitant. Deciding it was best not to be rude he extended his hand.

Rhine could see a lot of himself in Auden and did not take offense to the hesitation. Instead of exchanging pleasantries, they shared a look.

"I hope you don't mind but I brought someone else along to help with this-" Again Rhine was interrupted from finishing.

Vlad did his best to look soft but it was difficult.

Victoria gave her dad the once over and chuckled. "Of course not. Actually, I'm not sure why I didn't think of you first dad." In truth, she was a bit relieved that Vlad had come along. She had wondered how a male would be of help to her daughter transforming. It was not the fact of competency it was the fact of gender.

"If you don't stop with the puffed up act you'll scare her." Rhine chuckled.

Alison, now the timid one, studied Vlad. Why was grandpa going to be the helping her?

Victoria clapped her hands together and smiled, "I'll be in the study if you need me." With that she took her leave.

----

"Come Alison let's go to your room." Vlad said as he extended a hand.

Alison, trusting her mom's decision to leave her with her grandpa, took a steady breath as she took his hand.

Vlad could sense the discomfort coming from Alison the moment she had taken his hand. "What to know a secret," he whispered when they were out of earshot from Auden.

Alison nodded her head. Anything to break the tension.

"I'm a girl."

"But-"

"It's complicated."

----

"That leaves me and you," Rhine said as he motioned for Auden to lead the way to his room.

Auden nodded his head and started towards his room. "Does this hurt?" He had not thought about it until seconds ago.

"I'll admit at first it isn't pleasant but the better you get at it the easier it is. The biggest thing is the headaches. You have to concentrate hard at first. Eventually though it becomes a natural thing."

Auden wandered what he had gotten himself into.

Once they were both in the room, Rhine closed the door. "To explain this better, I'm going to need to undress."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to do this right alongside of you."

"And, you don't want to rip your clothes?"

"Yes."

Auden shrugged his shoulders, "okay."

"I'm not exactly house size," Rhine admitted as he took off his clothes and tossed them onto the bed. In a matter of seconds after getting undressed he had shifted into a dragon.

Auden with eyes the size of saucers watched as Rhine went from human to dragon in a matter of seconds. It looked so easy! He did his best to contain his amusement.

Rhine did his best to stay put. He could easily replace anything broken but preferred not to. But oh, how he wanted to stretch out. "I really hate this form when not around water."

"Why?"

"Because I get itchy."

"I could deal with that. At least you can get around easier." Auden pointed out.

"True but I have extremely short legs. I'm a swimmer not a runner."

Auden tried not to laugh.

"If I can manage to take all of me and shift into a human I know you can take that small tail of yours and make legs." This was Rhine's version of a pep talk.

Rhine did have a point. "Okay."

"First thing I want you to do is clear your mind and focus on your tail."

"Can you do bit by bit?"

"Kind of. But, it looks really funny." Rhine thought about it for a moment and instead of having a right paw, he had a hand. "It took me a good while to manage a human shape and even when I did manage it I still looked really dragony."

"Still impressive," Auden admitted. "Focusing," he said as he drew in a deep breath. Clearing his mind was not an easy task. He thought about food, his hair, and the upcoming shopping trip.

Rhine shifted ever so slightly and the table near his tail wobbled.

Auden opened his eyes. "This is a lot harder than I thought it would be."

"That is the way life is. You want something; you have to work hard at it."

Auden nodded his head and closed his eyes. Finally, the zillions of thoughts started to fade away.

"Now focus."

Despite Rhine's voice sounding far away, Auden did not try to focus on it to hear it better. It felt calming to be thinking of nothing at all. He wondered if this technique could help in other aspects of his life.

"Think of your tail and what you want to do with it."

Auden thought of his tail. He loved his tail! Then he thought of his mom's legs and feet. He thought of how she used them to walk. He thought about their shape.

"Concentrate."

Auden then imagined himself with legs. He felt a tingling at the tip of his tail.

"Remember you really want this."

Suddenly it felt like his fin was being torn in two. The pain was near mind numbing and caused him to open his eyes. What he saw frightened him. "I have feet!" In addition, that was that. His mind was back to thinking of everything especially the searing pain. Unfortunately, that meant that his fin was back. He frowned.

"You did good for a first try." Rhine smiled. "You've just got to keep at it."

Auden's eyes narrowed. His breathing was labored. He was still really hurting, especially his head.

"Look." Rhine said trying to ease Auden. He did not want to give up so easily. Slowly Rhine transformed himself bit by bit. This took a lot more of his focus because he was use to all or nothing.

Auden watched as the dragon before him slowly became more and more human. He wondered if he would ever get the concept down and all he had to do was his tail and not his entire body.

"There are still some things I cannot get rid of. Like my ear fins and tail but I've come to accept them and I actually love them because it is what makes me, me." Rhine smiled as he sat Indian Style.

Auden stared at his tail. "I love my tail."

"Not saying you don't. I'm sure it will come in handy. Might actually be in your favor when you decide to attract a mate."

Auden gave Rhine a confused look.

Rhine chuckled. "That is a long way away and your mom would probably shoot me if I went into that conversation."

Auden nodded his head, "okay." Given the explanation, he was not going to press further.

"Come on try again." Rhine encouraged.

Growth Prompt: Man those inconvenient tails! Changing from that to legs is really really hard at this point! Auden has to will himself to change his tail but something unexpected happens with his powers due to this! What is it? Solo Auden.

Prompt Summary: While practicing transforming his fin into human legs he ends up with a pair of unicorn legs instead. And, as Alison will point out he's got a cute tail to go along with this change. Unfortunately, this change seems to be somewhat permanent.

Prompt Response: Auden stretched the length of himself. His fin, dangling off the edge of the bed, flipped up. The sun was not even up yet. He was an earlier riser, or he was as of late. He often took this time to practice. He drew in a couple deep breaths and stretched again. He was having an unusually hard time waking up this morning.

Groggy but awake enough to string two thoughts together he stared at the ceiling. He crossed his arms behind his head. He was doing his best to empty his mind that was already starting to fill with daily to do thoughts.

He flipped his fin again as he focused on having legs instead of a tail. He felt the usual tingling. At least it wasn't the mind numbing pain that he had felt at first. He rubbed his head around his horn. There was a sudden unusual tingling. He touched his horn, it was there but before now he never really thought about it. His horn was hot. He wondered if it always was and he just never realized it.

He wondered if he was getting sick. He didn't feel sick. Then he remembered Rhine saying that the amount of concentration it took could cause him headaches for some time. He settled on that being the cause of his head tingling.

Doing his best he went back to focusing on transforming his tail into legs. His mind was still partially thinking of the tingling in his head and how his horn had felt. He decided that he would not be able to concentrate until he further investigated it. He wondered if it was capable of glowing.

He did have a clue that he was magical he had just never accomplished anything magical. Well unless you counted transforming his tail into legs.

He found it oddly easy to get across the room. He chalked it up to maybe legs just came easier today. He had thought about it a good bit already in the little bit of time he had been up. Upon the first couple of steps, he realized his legs felt heavier and his footsteps even sounded different.

His stomach knotted up with worry. He really DID NOT want to look down. He just knew that something was not right. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked down.

He wanted to scream but his voice was lost to him. He took a couple quick steps backwards towards the bed. He tripped over the hooves he had instead of feet. His legs twisted and he twirled and eventually he landed on the bed.

He was fearful that this was not fixable. His heart felt as if it was going to pound right out of his chest. Finally, after what felt like hours of panicking he forced himself to breath deep. He stood up slowly and took a couple of wobbly steps forward- he hoped his mom would be of help.

About to the door he realized he was not wearing pants. Did this situation require pants? Could he even wear pants? If not pants then what? Thinking about pants about put him back into a state of worry. He shook his head and realized that was a bad idea as well. He grabbed a bed sheet and headed out the door. He hoped that his sister was still asleep. This was embarrassing.

No such luck avoiding his sister. Apparently, tripping over himself and knocking furniture over in the process had woke her up. He wondered if mom would be as easy to find, she was after all a night owl.

"Auden?" Alison said sleepily. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and blinking a couple of times to get things in focus. "What's all the fuss about," she could not stifle her yawn.

At this moment, Auden was thankful that ninety percent of the lights were off. She would be able to tell he had legs but not that they were the wrong ones. Then again, him wearing a sheet screamed that something was wrong. This morning was only going to get better…

Alison yawned and stretched. "Well?" She ran her fingers through her hair and scratched her scalp.

Auden never realized how much a mess Alison was in the mornings until now. This made him feel a bit better. Given her state, she was in no position to tease him. "Well." Where did one begin with this situation? "I'm all fuzzy from the waist down," he finally said after a long pause.

"That happens." Alison looked at her brother as if he was nuts because he was telling her the obvious.

"Look!" Auden shifted the sheet just enough so one leg showed.

"How long as it been like this?" Alison was certainly more awake now. Her eyes were the size of saucers as she stared at her brother's fuzzy leg. She reached out and touched his shoulder to spin him around. She shrieked.

"What!" Auden was now terrified. Could this get any worse?

"You've got a tail."

"A what?" Auden could not believe that what his sister had said. He certainly did not have a tail. "No I don't!" He protested. "If I did I wouldn't be panicking."

"Yes you do," Alison held up her brother's tail, "See!"

The tail she was holding up was not a fishtail at all. It was long, thin, and smooth with a tuff at the end.

Auden looked at what his sister was holding. "That isn't my tail."

"Really?" Alison gave her brothers tail a gentle tug.

Auden frowned when he felt that. "I want my tail back! MINE! Not this, this, this… whatever crazy crap that tail is."

Victoria emerged from the other end of the hall. "As much as it thrills me that you two are getting along swimmingly do you think you could keep it down?"

"No!" Auden screeched. "I'm a, a, a," he was not sure what he was but he was not normal.

"Deep breath. All this ruckus is not going to help any." Victoria had yet to look down to see her son's dilemma. "Alison please go to the kitchen and fix us some hot tea. We'll discuss what ever has you so upset once you have calmed down."

Alison nodded her head and headed off towards the kitchen to make tea.

"Come on Auden. There isn't anything that cannot be solved over a hot cup of tea," Victoria smiled and rubbed her sons back.

Auden sighed and nodded his head. His mom was amazing when it came to calming either of them down, tea or no tea.

Alison was setting the table when they came into the kitchen. "It really isn't that bad," she smiled, "kind of cute actually."

Despite narrowing his eyes, Auden smiled. Having calmed down considerably in the past couple of minutes things did not see that bad. He sat down in the chair he always sat at and watched as his sister finished setting the table.

"Thank you Alison," Victoria smiled as she sat down.

"No problem!" Tea was a piece of cake. Probably one of the only things Alison could prepare at this point. She sat down across from her brother.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes sipping tea and relaxing. Auden in particular was trying to think of nothing at all. It was at that precise moment that his mind went blank that he had his regular fish tail again.

"See," Victoria pointed to Auden's tail, "nothing a little calming down cannot fix. Now how about we try one more time before we become concerned and have to give Rhine a call."

Auden nodded his head. Being wrapped up in a sheet made his feel funny. The sheet was sticking to his fish tail, which was odd because he never recalled it sticking before. Maybe he was just hot and sweaty from all the commotion earlier.

Victoria did not push further she instead just waited patiently.

Alison took her mother's lead and did the same, although, she was very tempted to cheer him on or support him in some way.

Auden did his best to not focus on the sheet or his family. He took a few more sips of tea and tried to get a good visualization of legs. He told himself repeatedly that he wanted legs. When he felt the sheet become less annoying he took it as mission accomplished. His head was pounding from having to concentrate so hard.

Victoria glanced out of the corner of her eye. "Perhaps this is just what is meant to be."

Auden frowned. Despite being scared of what he would see, he looked down. He about passed out. He was still stuck with unicorn-ish legs.

[Willow hummed softly as she picked out a variety vegetables to have in a salad. There were a lot of choices. It wasn't just lettuce, tomatoes, or peppers. Because there were so many varieties and colors, it made shopping difficult.

"Do you need help?" Alison asked as she came to stand by her.

"I just want lettuce and tomatoes." Willow sighed. "But, there are so many choices."

Alison knew all about choices. It could take her brother half an hour to pick out a half dozen apples. "Well," she said as she grabbed a nice sized tomato, "I don't know anything bout the names of things but this is what my mom usually gets and I know it tastes good." She smiled and handed the girl a beefsteak tomato.

Willow inspected the tomato. It was bright red, about the size of the palm of her hand, and firm. "Any suggestions on lettuce?"

"Sure," Alison moved over to the lettuce. She picked up a head of iceberg lettuce.

"Thank you," Willow smiled. She didn't inspect the lettuce like she did the tomato.

"My mom uses the lettuce and tomato not only for salads but for sandwiches also."

"Come on Alison I got the apples. Mom's waiting for us."

"One second." Alison looked over at Willow. "Is there anything else you need help with?"

Willow held out her shopping list that she had made before leaving her room. "Please."

"Come on you can shop with us. My mom will be a big help to you. She is really smart and knows about lots of things." She took Willows hand and led her over towards her brother so that the three of them could go find their mom.

"Who is your friend?" Auden asked his sister.

Willow, with vegetables still hand, hugged herself. She was a bit intimidated by the size of Auden. "My name is Willow," she squeaked.

"I'm Auden."

"I completely forgot about introductions," there was a hint of red in Alison's cheeks. She had been completely caught up in helping the girl that she had never introduced herself. "My name is Alison."

Auden noticed a few tears on the girls face, "are you sad?"

Willow smiled and shook her head, "no." She used her hands to wipe the tears from her face. "I just cry easily and over just about anything."

"So why are you shopping alone?" Auden who was suddenly curious resist asking.

"I guess I could have asked one of the staff members to come with me but I know they are busy so I didn't want to bother them." Willow focused more on the vegetables she was carrying than to the person she was having a conversation with.

"So you don't have a family yet?" Auden was trying to make sense of this.

"The staff is like family."

"You could always come live with us." Alison smiled brightly. Not that she didn't love or appreciate her brother but it would be nice to also have a sister.

"Who could come live with us," Victoria asked.

"Willow." Auden and Alison said together.

Victoria glanced past her two children and noticed the girl standing there. She noticed that she was trembling like a leaf and about in tears. "I suppose. But you realize this isn't like you two getting another pet- right?"

They both nodded their head.

Victoria briefly compared herself to her parents. If she became like them she'd have half a dozen children in no time. She smiled. "So what brings you to the grocery store?" That had to be one of the stupidest questions she had ever asked.

"This," Alison handed her mom the list of groceries.

Victoria looked the list over. She surmised that the girl had no skills when it came to cooking. Everything on the list could be eaten as is or with minimal work, no cooking involved. Most of what was on the list she already had or was coming to get. "Simple enough," she said. "After we are done here we will look into adopting her."

"Thank you," Willow smiled.

"I love apples." Auden was trying his best to make things more relaxed again. "What is your favorite thing to eat?"

"Salad."

"Mines peas and tuna fish," Alison chimed in.

"Peas are good. They are green."

"You better watch out Auden might try and steel them." Alison giggled.

"Hey!" Auden snorted.

"There is and will always be plenty for everyone," Victoria shook her head and laughed.

Willow stared at the walls of her room. She'd been here a week and while it was home it still felt strange at times. The mom of the house had suggested she take time to make the room her own. Apparently, it was something like a family tradition.

The day previous Victoria had taken Willow out shopping to get supplies. They had bought lots of potted flowers. Most of everything was nature themed. The bedspread however reminded her of her clothes that were patchwork.

Willow scooted the dresser a little to the right to make it centered. She dumped her various processions from the complex into one of the drawers. There wasn't a lot, she didn't need or want for much. She was happy with what she had.

She took time to sort her clothes and to put the different types into different drawers. She sat a few figurines on top of the dresser.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and held her heart close to her. Where was she going to put this? Wherever she decided to put it, it would have to be some place special.

"What's the matter?" Victoria asked as she knocked on her daughter's door. Originally, she had come up to check on her and invite her downstairs for snack and tea.

Willow clutched her heart tighter to her. You could tell she was genuinely scared of losing it. "I don't know where to put my heart."

It was then that Victoria remembered that Willow's chest was hallowed out and that her heart was external. She wished she had remembered this earlier when they went shopping because then she could have picked up a displace case with a lock or something similar. "Well-"

"It isn't an easy choice to make is it?" Willow looked around her room. There were plenty of surfaces she could sit it on but none of them did she consider safe. She knew that no one in the house would run off with it but still.

"How about for now I give you a way to keep it with you. I have some purses in my room that you can use."

"What if I lose my purse or it falls out?" Willow frowned.

"I have purses with shoulder straps and it won't fall out unless you forget to zip it shut." Victoria smiled and sat down next to her daughter. "Also you can put other things in your purse like money and tissues." She had mentioned tissues because she knew that Willow cried easily.

Willow noted that Alison was right about their mom; she seemed to have a solution for everything. "I do like the idea of being able to carry it around. It makes me feel more content to know that it is safe. Thank you."

"Welcome. I see you have just about got your room squared away."

Willow nodded her head, "just a couple more potted plants and it will be done."

Victoria stood up. As she headed to the door, she motioned for Willow to follow. "Well then how about we take a break and you come to my room and we can look for the perfect purse. And afterwards we can go downstairs for an afternoon snack and tea."

"Is there anything green for snack?" Willow loved eating everything that was green.

"Green apples count?"

Willow nodded her head.