Ooh 🧠 for Adam and Bryn! They seem pretty differents after all lol
If anyone wants a thread with their switched selves, I'm open to it! For now, here's a short storyish thing. I think it was supposed to be a couple-sentence answer, but I got carried away. Enjoy!
Note: This is an especially amusing switch to me because they both live with a dark-haired, athletic, not-quite-magic-user named Kaidan. Also, Shepard has quite a bit of a mouth on her, and Kaidan (Alenko, not Lazuli) gets pretty upset, so... warning for that if strong language bothers you.
Adam woke in an unfamiliar bed- no, an unfamiliar body. A dark-haired man lay next to them, one arm wrapped around their newly petite shoulders as he slept peacefully. They slipped from under his arm and out of the bed, hesitating a moment at the sight of the metal floor. Gingerly, they stood, realizing how tiny their new body was- comparatively, at least. The floor didn’t burn, and they relaxed.
A quick glance around the room revealed a lot of information, none of which made sense. Along one wall of the oddly-shaped room, a long glass tank teemed with fish, most of which Adam didn’t recognize. A few steps led up to an office area, but before Adam could investigate much of what was on the desk, a horrible screech sounded to their right.
“Stars!” They stumbled away from the sound, falling sprawled across the floor, staring up at some sort of twisted humanoid head sitting on the desk, which grunted and growled at them.
“Shepard? What’re you doing?” The sleepy voice prompted Adam to look back at the bed, where the man had sat up and was looking at them with clear concern.
“Nothing, I’m fine. Go back to sleep. I just... “ Adam braced themself for the choking inability to speak that usually accompanied a lie, but it never came. “um, forgot that infernal thing was there.” Adam said hurriedly as they got up, wrinkling their nose at the thing in question, which snapped at them. It was not unlike the zombies in the movies Alex often showed them. They didn’t like it.
“Right. Goodnight, Jean.”
“Goodnight.” Adam gave a small sigh of relief as they turned back to the desk, only to find themself suddenly frozen in place, frost crackling across their skin.
Suddenly, the man was by their side, pressing some sort of high-tech pistol to Adam’s temple. “Shepard’s name is Bryn. So who the fuck are you?”
The first thing Shepard noticed when she woke was that she was alone. The second was that she was no longer in a bed. Instead, she swung in a hammock near the ceiling. She leaped from the hammock, only noticing the third thing upon landing.
For one thing, she was at least a foot taller, and for another, she had- were those... wings? Her hair brushed her neck as she tried to look over her shoulder to see the appendages on her back, and she shuddered.
She needed a mirror. And a weapon.
The weapon came easier. On the small nightstand- why did someone who slept in a hammock also have a nightstand?- she found a long, sheathed dagger that looked to be made of some sort of polished glass or stone. It wasn’t a gun, but good enough. That sorted, she crept out into the apartment, dagger in hand.
She found the bathroom easily, and nearly dropped her knife at the sight of her reflection. She did, in fact, have wings- translucent, dragonfly-like wings that flittered with her nerves. Her ears were also pointed, and her facial features sharp, almost catlike. She looked away, determined to focus on getting back to herself... somehow. A knock sounded at the bathroom door, and she whirled to face it, falling into a combat stance that, admittedly, felt fairly awkward and off-balance with her new, lankier proportions.
“Adam! Are you almost done in there?” She relaxed at the casual tone of the voice. Maybe she could pull this off. At least now she knew the name of the... fairy?... whose face she wore now. She flipped the knife in her hand to an angle that should help it go unnoticed and opened the door, coming face-to-face with a dark-haired, blue-eyed young man.
“Yeah. All yours.” She ducked past him and into the nearest room, which happened to be the kitchen. Another man stood at the stove, his back to her as he cooked.
“Morning! Breakfast?” He turned to her, setting aside the steaming cast-iron pan and pulling another pan that looked like it was made from aluminum from the cupboard. She set the knife on the table as she crossed to the stove, reaching for the handle of the pan.
No sooner did she touch the metal than a searing pain streaked across her palm. “Shit!” She cursed, snatching her hand away from the scalding pan and inspecting the red, quickly blistering burn across her palm. “Fuck, the handle looked cool!”
The man who had been cooking froze, staring at Shepard like she’d grown a second head. “Are... are you alright?”
"I mean..." she glanced up at him, then back down at her hand, "I've had worse."
"Why did you grab it? It's iron."
Shepard blinked, not understanding. "So?"
"So it burns you! You told me this yourself, are you sure you're ok?" He snapped, turning away from his cooking.
She gave up trying to blend in, and snapped back. "No, I'm not fucking okay! I'm not this Adam person you keep calling me..." she paused, thinking, "...or, I guess I am, I'm pretty sure this is their body, but my mind, me, the person talking? Not them."
