Synopsis: Terri begins to learn more about herself through a dream and discovers that her responsibility to herself extends past her hygiene.
 
 

Accidental Magic

By
Allystra Krane

Chapter Eight
Dreams And Growing Up.

---

 
Terri sat at home Friday after school. Cindy had just called and cancelled the sleepover party, much to Terri's relief.

"An important family matter" was the excuse given, but Terri didn't care. Her weekend was suddenly free and she was enjoying it, by lying on her ratty old couch, the voice of Bob Ross once again filling the air with "Happy little trees".

She felt herself drifting off to sleep, the calming soothing voice just letting her go.

She vaguely heard her mother come in, and lightly drape a soft blanket over her. She didn't even register falling asleep.
 

~*~
 
"Is this what we want?" Terri heard herself say, or at least her male voice said.

She looked around, and amidst the blackness that carried itself on forever; her gave fell upon a nude version of herself, lying as if on a table. She felt like she was looking down upon herself.

Its eyes snapped open and focused on her. "Is this what we want?" it asked again, in her male voice despite the body it came from.

"What?" Terri asked this version of herself. "This body? Is this what we want? ANSWER!" it shouted.

"I... I don't know."

She watched her own body bend forward slightly to look down at itself. "Why do we not know?"

"I don't know that either." Terri replied. "I want to hate that body, but I can't."

"That's because it's you, or at least part of you." came another voice from the blackness.

Terri turned to face the voice, but couldn't find the source. She thought she had recognized the voice, but she wasn't sure.

"Who said that?" she called out into the darkness.

She turned back toward her nude form only it wasn't female anymore. It was male, more like what he looked like in the park earlier in the week, but more muscular and defined.

This male form had no strange streaks of missing body hair. The large somewhat diagonal stripe across his chest that had been devoid of hair now looked uniform with the rest of him. His legs also were now uniformly tufted in light brown hair, instead of the barber pole look she remembered.

As Terri stared at this body, she noticed another form, gracefully walking forward out of the darkness behind the male form.

It was another nude female form, but it was not the same as Terri's current body. Its features were highly exaggerated. Larger breasts and an hourglass figure so pronounced, she thought she could might have been able to get her hands around the waist, This was only made worse by hips so wide, her legs did not touch at the crotch. The way she walked looked impossible for a normal human.

"What the hell?"

"Do you not recognize us?" they both said in unison.

"No, I don't"

"That's because we're separate here. We used to be one..."

And with that ominous statement, both bodies seemed to blur and collect together, as if Terri had suddenly gone cross-eyed. She shut her eyes momentarily and when she opened them, she gasped.

Standing before her was her old self. The body she remembered. Just looking at it caused her mind to drift back to all of the pain she had been in. If she could feel her legs at that point, she was sure they would be buckling, but something was holding her upright, forcing her to face the abomination that she had been.

"What are you telling me?" Terri cried out, her eyes threatening to swell with tears.

"Nothing you don't already know." Said the single figure. "We figured this out already, but you're still refusing to believe it."

"You're saying that the reason I was freaky looking, was that Those parts of me were female?" Terri said, as she pointed to the smooth part of his abdomen.

"If that line had been even three inches lower..." interrupted the figure as he gestured to how the line passed just above and nearly bisected the penis. "...Then we would have had to pee sitting down."

It continued to speak, regardless of how what it was saying was affecting Terri.

"The reason we were in pain was that puberty caused our parts to move in different directions. We were tearing ourselves apart."

"But, was I born this way? Do I know? Do WE know?"

The other Terri shook its head. "We do not know."

"But I just saw this skanky version of me. How come I don't look like her now?"

"Because we look like how we imagined ourselves to be if we were to ever be female."

"You mean the spell..."

"Was made to work on our desires, and if we hadn't wanted to be a woman, then we would not have changed."

The figure in front of her blurred again, and she was again staring at her own nude form, a more realistic model of the female form.

"Now, answer us. "Are you still unsure if this is what you want?"

Terri broke down completely. She wailed for a few moments, before looking back up into its eyes.

"I DO want it. It IS what I want, but I didn't want to be forced into it. Why can't I choose when I want to be female?"

As the figure faded out, it smiled. Terri knew that smile well. It was the same one she gave to others, when she wanted to scare them. Just before it disappeared, she saw it speak, and she barely heard the whisper. "The choice
may not be ours to make."

Suddenly, with no point of reference, she felt like she was falling. She looked down to whatever she was falling toward. She could see a pinpoint of light suddenly growing bigger and bigger, until it engulfed her.

Suddenly, she was at school, but it wasn't really her school. The normally straight lines and angles of the hallways were twisted and dark, like some kind of dark funhouse at a fair. She then realized she was naked, holding nothing but a pen and a clipboard.

On the clipboard were hastily drawn two columns, one marked 'BOY' and one marked 'GIRL'. From the number of hash marks marking fives of people, her girl side was coming out ahead by a landslide. 'BOY' had just one vote, and Terri thought it might have been her own.

Just then three girls came by, stopped and looked over her body.

"Can you turn around?"

Terri felt objectified, but compelled to do so.

"Hmm, what do you think ladies? I'm thinking Terri looks much better now."

"Yeah, better give another three votes for 'Girl'. They said, then laughed and continued on."

"What the hell is this?"

"What the hell is what?" came another familiar voice.

Terri looked up and saw a giant version of Lexi looking down at her.
 

~*~
 
Terri realized in that instant, she had just woken up. She was no longer nude in a strange version of her school hallway, but lying peacefully on her ratty couch, fully clothed, looking up at Lexi who was bent forward only enough
to get a better look at her.

"You were having a nightmare." Lexi answered flatly. "I did not want to wake you up, but when you spoke, I thought you were talking to me."

"How come you're still here?"

"My parents are both busy with their jobs tonight, so I am staying here."

"Where are you going to sleep?" Terri asked. "All the guest rooms are filled."

"That's why I'm standing here. You have such a large bed and your mother wondered if you could share it."

Terri looked at the little girl for a minute, but before she could muster a reply, Lexi added. "Your mother and I spent all day cleaning up your room and washing clothes and sheets to butter you up."

"Another crack about my hygiene?"

"Not at all, she was worried that you had not washed your sheets since last weekend when you were sick, and you've been busy lately, so we took it upon ourselves to help you out."

"Still sounds like an insult to me."

"Well, your mother did comment on the lack of dirty underwear. I must ask, are you wearing any now?"

"Actually no. I haven't been wearing any underwear in the last couple of days."

"That is the foulest thing I've heard out of your mouth in years child," came her mother's voice from the hallway as she stepped into the room. "You can't be serious."

Terri's mother looked her daughter over, scolding. "My own daughter, not even with a hint of decency. You flaunt your body in those outfits you've been wearing lately. What if you were to start your period?"

Terri flinched. Yet another of the many realizations of womanhood that she was trying so hard to avoid. "I don't really want to think about that."

Her mother shook her head slightly, but with a smile on her face."Did she say yes, Lexi?"

"Not yet, but I am hopeful."

"Yeah sure, ya brat." Terri said. "Just don't be surprised if I don't sleep too much with you."

"Of course you aren't going to sleep if you take naps in the middle of the day," said Terri's mother. "Are you feeling ill?"

Terri couldn't stop herself from answering, "No more than usual as of late."

Lexi gave Terri a small hug. "Thank you. I won't keep you up all night."

"No, I'll likely keep myself awake most of the night."

"Could I ask you one more favor?" Lexi said, still standing next to the couch. "When I woke you up, I realized you are in need of a shower. I am not making fun of your personal hygiene, just informing you that not only have you have been so stressed out that you are missing sleep, but that you might relax under the hot water."

"Yeah yeah, I get it. I'll go take one quick before dinner."

"You've already missed dinner, sorry."

"Oh, well then I'll just raid the fridge afterward. I'm not really hungry at the moment."

With that, Terri hopped up off the couch ducked past her mother and bounded up the stairs.

Lexi began folding the blanket Terri had been covered up with, when Martha, one of the boarders, stopped in the hallway outside the door.

"Oh, I was wondering if Terri was awake yet. I was hoping she could assist me with something."

"Anything I can do?" asked her mother.

"No, I needed a teenager's opinion mostly. My presentation is geared toward an audience a bit younger than us I'm afraid."

"I know what you mean." Terri's mother mused. "What fun it would be to be back in high school again."
 

~*~
 
Terri grabbed her towel from the hook behind her door, and then stepped into her closet. From there she lifted the notch in the rear panel that allowed it to swing back into the attic.

She stepped out from under her hanging clothes, and straightened up as she closed the hidden secret door. She suddenly shuddered, as this was almost exactly how she got into the mess in the first place.

The previous Friday, at almost the same time, He had used this same entrance to the attic to hopefully go unnoticed as he went looking for some distinctly female clothes to try on for a few brief minutes without being caught.

She slowly made her way down the thin, ragged path between piles of junk until she came to the box and stopped to reflect.

It was her grandmother's steamer trunk, but as many times as he had played in the attic, he never remembered it being there. Opening it the first time one week ago, he had found a soft, silky leotard in sliver. It looked like a polished surface as he had picked it up and quickly disrobed to wear it instead.

Now, this time she looked at the box, and was almost fearful to open it, afraid of what it might hold in store for her this time.

She put her hand on the lid, then lifted it and found the glowing stones, still brightly shining from where she had
charged them.

Monday morning had come as a bittersweet repast from the nightmare that had been the previous weekend. After spending two nights and days torturing herself over having found the spell and using it, she had managed to fall asleep Monday morning soon after midnight and woken much more calm and relaxed.

She knew she could go to school and no one would know the truth, but she had been determined to figure out a way to change back, so she had come back the box, finding spell books under the top layer of clothes, and the stones under that. As soon as she had touched one of the stones it began to glow, and Terri had momentarily lost track of time as she dredged her hand through the box repeatedly, lighting them all up.

She now knew what they were and why they had lit up. Augustine had returned the box from when she had confiscated it on Wednesday night, after informing the dumbstruck fledgling female that she was likely the most powerful magic user on the planet.

Terri looked around and found where she had tossed the rest of the clothes, looking for another spell to change her back, after she had read the first one. There were still marks of the ash left when the scroll burned up in her hand
upon being used.

She looked through them, and realized that none of them, including the silver leotard, were her mother's size. They were all her own, her NEW size. Her mother, even during her parent's supposed performance days, had lacked the figure that she, her daughter, now possessed.

"Damn Grandma. You Are good. If you're watching me right now, I just wanna say I can't tell if I'd rather hug you or smack you."

She shut the lid on the box and made a mental note to pick up the pile of clothes on the way back to her room.

Terri then turned and walked away from the case and on to the attic stairs. Located on the back of the house and sporting an entrance that was also hidden to prevent house guests from wandering up them. Terri regularly used this route to the shower on the second floor since she could go from her room on the third floor unnoticed. She did it, mostly for the thrill of moving through secret passageways, the greatest treasure a young boy could have.

As she got to the door, she lifted the latch rod and cracked the door open, peering down the hall before opening it far enough to slip out and close it behind her.

Terri had to share the guest bathroom, as the third floor had never been intended as a living space and had not been in the plan to be fitted with plumbing pipes when the house was built almost eighty years earlier.

The attic door on the second floor had been hidden when Terri's father had remodeled the home into the bed and breakfast. He had designed a clasp into a flowered trim relief that covered the door panel and the wall around it.

The lines where the door swung open were also not straight. They were hidden mostly behind flower petals and were difficult to spot.

Terri pushed the door shut with one hand, hearing the soft click of the locking clasp, and crossed the hallway into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door.

She sat down on the toilet lid, and untied her shoes, slipping them off and pulling off the ankle socks afterward. Her shirt fell to the floor and her shorts next, leaving only the symbiote suit.

It asked her what she wanted it to do, to just remove itself or simply hide for the duration.

Finding out the suit's definition of "Hide" meant a trip into her womb suddenly shook her up. She opted for the removal, promising it was only for a few minutes. The suit trusted her, and peeled itself off, falling into a pile at her feet.

Feeling air against her skin for the first time in days, she realized how cold and alone she now felt. The suit wasn't just protecting her; it had been gently comforting her and keeping her just a little bit warmer than her environment.

Since she could hear its thoughts and feelings in her mind, it had been actually projecting its happiness into her. Now with the suit off, the truth of its bond and its loyalty was now apparent. She hadn't felt truly alone in days, thanks to its careful, yet persistent pressure. She had been calmer, courageous and had more confidence, allowing her to function better over the last few days. She shuddered to think how off-balance she would have been if Allyssa hadn't given it to her.

Terri bent over, clutched the material and picked it up, holding it against her chest, and was immediately rewarded by emotion akin to a mental purr, that instantly drove out the sad, cold, scared and lonely feeling she now had.

"I can't continue without you anymore, I'm just not strong enough, am I?"

She waited for nearly a minute for a response that she knew wouldn't come. It would never make her feel bad by telling her how much she needed it. She simply continued to reflect warmth and strength toward her. She just knew she didn't want to let go of it again.

"Can you handle water? It won't dissolve you?" Terri asked, looking down at the blob pressed to her chest. After getting the figurative green light from the suit, she stepped into the tub, still clutching it to her chest and pulling the door shut behind her.

Terri started hot water filling the tub, and then lowered herself down into the basin. She idly let go of the symbiote and it flowed like molasses down into her crotch. She didn't notice however, as the warm water quickly filling up the tub began to soothe out her aching muscles and the heels of her feet.

Her eyes had just closed when they flew open again in surprise. She sat up and dove her fingers under the water, grabbing a handful of the symbiote, stretching it to the surface.

"Aaah, what do you.... think you're dooooooINnKK!" Terri pressed past her lips in a hurry.

After a moment of listening to its voice inside her head, she replied, "You have GOT to be ki-ki-kidding."

Her hand let go of the black substance, and she slumped back against the back of the tub. "No, no I want you.... stop, but it does feel.... good."

The water was now approaching the top of the tub, but Terri, her eyes closed once again, reached up and pressed in the fixture with one foot, and then it lazily dropped back into the water.

She was biting her lower lip to keep from making noise, her lower torso writhing about.

One hand snaked itself under the water, finding her nipple. It took only a few moments for her to realize how hard she needed to pinch to achieve the greatest effect.

"Oooh, you are.... pretty good at this." Terri murmured as her skin warmed up enough and a heat rash appeared across her cheeks and forehead.

The sensations brought on by the symbiote massaging her nether lips and clitoris were spreading across her entire body. She could feel her knees buckling and just as she reached orgasm, her face fell below the water.

A few bubbles came to the surface, before she forcefully tore through the surface of the water, splashing, spitting up water, choking, and gasping for air.

After she caught her breath, stopped thrashing around and choking from inhaling a lung full of bathwater, Terri realized the symbiote had let go and was floating in the water, waiting.

She slid her fingers into the slick substance, and then replied to the question posed to her. "No, I'm not mad at you. I had no idea how that felt. It was my fault."

It quickly stopped being worried, and returned to projecting positive thoughts.

"Okay, let's leave the teasing out this time and focus on getting clean."
 

~*~
 
Terri opened the bathroom door, wearing the suit formed as a towel but with socks on her feet. She had dried off and was making her way back to the hidden attic door when Cathryn cleared her throat from behind.

Without turning around Terri replied. "I knew I was being too optimistic to think I could hide from you."

"I heard your weekend retreat got cancelled, thought we could finally get started on your magic lessons tonight."

"Yeah, how convenient. So, what did you do to Cindy to get her to cancel it?"

"What makes you think I was involved?" asked Cathryn.

"I know better than to consider this a coincidence." replied Terri.

"Well, if it makes you feel better, a couple of us just talked to her and explained calmly how it was in your best interest..."

"... And yours too, or so you think."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Cathryn demanded.

"Hey, what's that behind you?" Terri suddenly changed the topic.

"What..." asked Cathryn, turning to find nothing behind her, and then turning back to find Terri was gone as well.
 

~*~
 
Terri rushed up the attic steps, nimbly dodging past piles of stuff, all the while the symbiote was reconstructing itself into the usual bodysuit and boots.

As she passed through her closet into her room, she stood up, only to find Cathryn, Martha and the rest of her boarder teachers standing across the room, looking at her with arms crossed.

"You really thought you could run?"

"There went my optimism again. I need to really stop taking its advice." Terri replied, as she strolled over to the bed, slipping on a t-shirt over the suit.

"We insist that we began your training tonight." said Cathryn.

Terri turned, flopped down into her desk chair, leaned back and laid one leg over her knee. "You just don't get it do you?"

"Are you implying that we are idiots?"

"Only if you think teaching spells to someone you eventually will have to fight, possibly for your lives, is a good idea, then Yes, I might be calling you idiots."

"What are you trying to say?" asked Martha, in a slightly calmer tone than Cathryn. "You don't think that your
Grandmother wanted us to teach you magic."

"Exactly," said Terri. "She didn't do this to me because it would be a good gag. She didn't seal up a vortex just to break it for no reason. Allyssa was right. Everything she has done has been to help keep me alive. As soon as Allyssa pointed this out, I realized that if I learned how to make shields and throw fireballs and magic missiles and stuff, I would be just as dangerous as the last one."

"Then why are we here?" asked Cathryn.

"Possibly so we could use her consent as a weapon." interrupted Martha.

She looked at Terri. "Terri, you have a valid point. May I suggest a few spells we could cast upon you that would be beneficial if you grandmother foresaw and is attempting to prevent a repeat of the death of the last vortex."

"Such as?"

"Mana sinks, one for each us and able to be activated during the battle."

"Would it drain me of mana completely? Make me worthless?"

"Unlikely, but it would make each of us more effective, and it would slow your own regeneration. Coupled with not knowing any offensive magic, we could likely defeat you easily and manage to keep you alive."

"It's a start. I seriously do not want to end up like the wicked witch of the east."

"You haven't had any urges to buy red Mary Janes and striped stockings?"

"Very Funny." scowled Terri, with a smile on her face.

---

 
To Be Continued...