Detour and Deja Vu

Tori pondered for a moment as she looked at her phone, before a smile grew across her face. She reached up to the GPS system on your dash, and quickly entered an address. "I do have to do a follow-up on something, might as well get it out of the way while we're out and about, right?"

You glanced at the map, and shrugged. You didn't have any plans this weekend, seeing Tori's unique way of working has fascinated you quite a bit so you figured you might as well go where she suggests. "Sure, no problem. I need to get used to these roads more anyway, it's been forever since I'd been around here. When does the lake open for the year?"

"Ooh, good question. Hmm, I think... it might be next month when the dock is open, but we can wander the shore whenever. Uh, one thing though, I hope you aren't planning on taking me fishing like we used to..."

You blinked, and glanced over. "Why not? You loved fishing when we were kids."

"Yeah, but... when my curse came into effect a couple years ago, I tried to fish. But then when I'd reel them in, the fish needed to escape! They would channel into me, and then immediately channel out to hop back into the water. I'm pretty hopeless at anything like that now."

You tapped on the steering wheel as you went along, thinking up scenarios in your head. "It's just one at a time for channeling into you though, right? As in, what if you channeled a bear who needed to eat a fish?"

Tori snorted and crossed her arms. "Okay, mister technicality. Yes, that would work. Kind of. The fish couldn't channel me if there was a bear inside me, but if I'm not having any luck with a fishing pole then there's a good chance I'd be in a river catching fish with my bare hands. My, uh, bear-controlled bare hands. Or I go find berries! Or give someone bear hugs! Who knows what I might do. Wild animals can be especially unpredictable with what they do with me, that's why I try to stick to the farms. People, too."

You turned on to a road, which seemed familiar for some reason--was this a road you had driven on yesterday? Maybe in the other direction. It's a good thing you had a GPS, or you would be lost all the time. "Do you channel a lot of people? ...Do they have to be alive people?"

"I can safely say I've never channeled a ghost," Tori said with a giggle and a roll of her eyes. "I don't spend a lot of time in cemeteries though, so maybe I'm just lucky. But, I have channeled a few people, at least so I've been told. People are weird for channeling, because they know how to be people. Other creatures don't, so they have more of me a part of them to help them make decisions and act more or less human around others, to a degree. But depending on the person, my personality is barely needed to help them through the day, so I remember virtually nothing while they can do mostly whatever they want. Though, they're still bound to certain things about me, like, uh, if I'm attracted to a person or if I'm allergic to a certain food. And they understand they're channeling the moment they do it, but then when it's done, if they didn't already know about the channeling stuff, then they seem to be pretty good about keeping their mouths shut. Maybe that's part of the curse, but of the people I've channeled, none have told others as far as I know."

"...how about plants?"

Tori seemed endlessly amused by your questions, though it seemed more that she was happy she could talk so openly with this about you. She probably had always known, but it's still scary to tell even someone's closest friend such a bizarre secret and not expect some pushback. "I've yet to meet a plant in need, I guess. Otherwise I'd be constantly channeled by grass that I stepped on, probably."

You turned onto a side road, and right past a few trees, three blue barns came into view. You quickly recognized where Tori had brought you, and you quirked an eyebrow at her. She looked over at you, adjusting her glasses with an innocent smile. "What? I come here a lot, I have a lot of follow-ups and checkups that I do at a dozen different farms around here. Tell you what, this will be quick since it's not an emergency, so you can stay in the car and I'll be right back."

Tori hopped out of the car and shut the door, suspiciously leaving her messenger bag, but you didn't dwell on it for long. Only Tori ever knew what Tori was going to do, so you knew it was best to just sit back and relax. You took out your phone to do a little online shopping, still searching for the final touches of furniture to finish your house.

A few minutes later, you heard the passenger door open. "Alright, we're good to go," Tori said, though there was something about the way she said it that made you glance up.

Seated next to you was still Tori, in a sense, but you recognized the Lucinda-inspired features! The darker hair, the little horns on her head, the... sizable chest and hips. She shimmied in her seat, with a grin, as she tried to get the seatbelt to close around her with the added size of her body.

"Lucinda? What's going on? We already took you home!" You said, wide-eyed. You hadn't expected to see the cow-girl variant of your friend again!

"You can still call me Tori," she said, with a little shrug. "Or Lucinda. It's half-and-half again, so not quite like the first time you saw me like this. I was thinking, the Bella situation wasn't very ideal for really demonstrating the willful channeling, so why not find a familiar face! Or, uh, familiar boobs. Gosh, these really are something, aren't they?" With a snort, she eventually clicks her seatbelt in. "Anyway, I thought I could still give you a better demonstration. Tori wanted to demonstrate the channeling again with a known quantity, and Lucinda is fine being away from her herd for a day if it means an opportunity to see more about human life. So, you can bring me back here tomorrow, and in the meantime we can have a Saturday uninterrupted by potential wayward channeling events. Sound fair?"

It was hard to say no to your friend, who seemed plenty eager to continue to demonstrate control over her curse to you! It all seemed so strange though... if people saw Tori, they would have questions. Should you really go back to town, or find someplace else to go? Or, should you even indulge Tori using her curse like this in the first place?