"You look very nice and I don't at all want to be you!"

"I cannot fathom how most people relate to transformations," Hazel remarks. "Isn't the ability to change your form between one hour and the next the most brilliantly delightful opportunity this world offers?"

"Honestly yes. After I've had my fill of having my Actually Correct Base Form for a while, we're going to start collecting materials for a lot of frequent changes. Each headmate has their own look, and I have a handful I'd cycle between myself."

"Oh?" says Hazel curiously. "What manner of transformations might you like? Perhaps I'll have an idea of where to find the ingredients."

"Goodness. Hailey would enjoy wings she could really fly with, as long as she kept her arms too. Other than that, I'm the only one who sometimes wants animal transformations: swapping between kitsune and lamia intermittently. Everyone has different heights and figures and hair and eye colors, I've got like three different heights and figures I'd swap between just myself too, um.... I think that's everything?"

"'Kitsune' is your term for the fox spirits of the deep woods, if I recall correctly? 'Lamia' is a little more familiar, I believe some of the more established populations of snake-morphs have been known to use that name. You'll find those in the desert, and the friendlier ones are willing to trade for their transformatives; that's where I got this tongue, though I've made some improvements on it since then. As for heights and figures and eye colours, those are all easy enough to achieve using refined candy eggs. Wings to fly with is the trickiest thing here; the honey I've been able to source from Torok's bee-girl friend has no latent wing transformation available, the harpies of the mountains do have wings in place of arms, and the next best lead I have is a rumour that there might still be drakeflowers growing in the volcanic area south of the mountains."

"I could go hunting for drakeflowers," Torok volunteers. "Once I've got that armor, anyway, and maybe some more practice handling myself in a fight."

She nods at Hazel's question, then gapes a bit at Torok. "That would be amazingly helpful. Of course, we'd need to keep a stock of mandrake to reset the wing, kitsune and lamia transformations in between, as well. The whole process of swapping different animal transformations would be complicated and perhaps should wait until we get everyone separate bodies. For now, perhaps I'll just write down everyone's heights and colorations. Or maybe after testing. It's probably been a minute, hasn't it?"

"Yes, there should have been enough time for any subtle alterations to have propagated. Here is your label." They hand it over and get out a new vial.

Down her name goes onto the tag, and then she holds out the same arm.

Tag onto vial, knife (already carefully cleaned) onto arm, blood into vial, a fresh square of bandage.

She holds the cloth to the arm, smiles softly, and shakes her head. "The things we do for knowledge. I think we'll swap Neo in next. She'll probably fill some of the time writing down everyone's appearances."

Hazel nods, screws the cap onto the vial, and stows it in the basket.

She winks, blows a kiss at Torok, then pulls out the notebook and their own pen to start writing.

Sable: current default height (5'10") along with one notably taller and one very short and petite, current violet hair or sometimes pure white hair with violet eyes

Maya: similar height to Sable's default, copper hair, copper eyes, bigger breasts

Neopolitan: petite, tri-color hair (right half pink with a single streak of white, left half brown), left eye pink, right eye brown, breasts maybe a little smaller than Sable's default

Hailey: petite, black hair, vibrantly green eyes, breasts a little smaller than Neo's

Ruby: petite, black hair that turns dark red at the tips, silver eyes, breasts around Hailey's size

She tears the sheet out neatly and passes it to Hazel, but then taps Torok, taps the side of her head near her eyes, and points at the sheet.

"...I gotta introduce you to Crystal," he says, getting up to look at the paper over Hazel's shoulder. "And Rain."

"This all seems very doable," says Hazel, nodding thoughtfully. "And the paper is fascinating! How is it made? How is it cut? The edges are so precise!"

She tilts her head curiously at Torok, then grabs the paper back for a moment and writes some notes on the back.

Processed slurry made from wood pulp, bleached chemically, rolled into sheets in huge batches by machines, then cut by more machines. Factories.

She follows that up with an annotated sketch of a blob of wood pulp on a conveyor belt, a large roller flattening the slurry against the belt, and then a rough guess at a piston-driven cutting machine.

Then she hands the paper back.

"Fascinating," Hazel murmurs, lost in thought.

"Oh, uh - Rain and Crystal are nymphs. Nymphs don't have voices so they talk like you do. I guess I've never tried giving them pencils before, but they'd have trouble keeping the paper dry... maybe a slate and chalk? No, the chalk would just wash off..."

She was only just starting to learn this before they left... can she manage?

She carefully signs 'Hello Torok', then writes another little note.

Our old world had sign language, which could be done with just your hands. I was only just starting to learn it.

"Yeah, nymphs have something like that but I haven't really learned any, I haven't known them for that long. Maybe we could both learn theirs, though."

She grins and nods eagerly! Then she holds her arm out to Hazel, figuring it's been a minute or so.

"I've never known anyone to learn the nymphs' language before but it would certainly be interesting to see," says Hazel, fishing out a label and an unused vial from the basket. This time they collect the blood first and hand the label to Neo to write on afterward.

And down the name goes onto the label, and she closes up the wound like the others.

And then it's Ruby's turn, bouncing a bit where she sits. "Hi! I'm Ruby!"