= Showers and shoulders =

The shower had been warm, and comfortable, and she'd gone in there with her heart beating rapidly from fear. It shouldn't have been comfortable. She'd walked into the enclosure with what amounted to an icy stalactite hanging from her shoulder, albeit an articulated one, and she'd be walking out of it sans an arm.

She'd tried, too. She'd really tried. She'd turned her face into the stream, dug at her emotions and felt for the tears that she was sure should be there, then laughed at the ridiculousness of her own drama. Her arm was melting – sure, this was something like the eighth time she'd broken part of her own human form, and only six of those had left her anything like humanoid. She'd stepped into the shower with an icicle. It didn't even feel like much of anything, just a bit of chilly water running down her leg.

It made a comfortable contrast to the warm rivulets running down her from the faucet, so long as she didn't think too much about it. She'd completely lost feeling in (the remains of) her arm.

No, this was fine. She'd just– explaining to her friends– well, they'd understand.

There was still a fair bit of ice left, so Aisha busied herself taking that shower. This was one of her favorite times of day, and she wasn't going to let something as silly as – er, losing a limb – take that away from her.

She wasn't.

Reaching for the shampoo, she considered that. Maybe she wasn't over it yet. She'd broken herself before, just never publicly, and…

"Um. How… do I…"

Aisha stood frozen in the shower, shampoo bottle in one hand, missing the other. It was a plain, smooth plastic bottle. She usually had to peel it open with her fingernails. It was definitely not built to be opened single-handedly. Maybe if she bit…

The inside would be all encrusted with old shampoo.

Aisha smacked her head against a corner of the shower, allowing the water to run down her back. That left one, no, two options. She could ask mom for help. The greatest magician in the western world would certainly not be bested by a bottle. Or – and she felt frustration beating in her like a heart – she could fix it herself, like mom always hoped she would. Her tools were the dull edges of the shower door, the duller edges on the bathroom table, and magic that would probably turn her into a donkey if she tried. Or…

Aisha was a smart girl, which meant she'd figured it out immediately. She just hadn't wanted to think about it. But her other, alternative tool was rapidly melting, so if she wanted to try it then her only option was basically right now.

Aisha wasn't smart enough to think of other options, like clawing it open while holding it in place with her feet. Then again, maybe it was just the excitement of that first idea. It was her own arm, after all.

Before she could think better of it, she swung it heavily against the wall. The left, of course, or what was left of it. It shattered like glass, with a sharp pain that she had to grit her teeth against.

A second later she was blinking, spitting out an errant shard of ice. And just like she'd hoped, though there was very little left of it below the elbow, the elbow joint itself had broken into a few sharp protruding bits that moved when she tried to flex them. Even as ice, she had anatomy.

These were her… bones? They were still just ice, but it wasn't as eroded and mushy as the rest of her arm. She tapped one thoughtfully, thinking she could probably cut herself on that.

It'd do. Nod, nod.

It was even easier to open the bottle than usual. Though she broke off a few more flaking bits of ice in the process, and by the time she'd finished washing her hair– clumsily, using one hand– there was nothing more left of that arm at all, except for a fleshy stump going halfway to her elbow. Dressing herself one-handedly would be hard. She guessed that'd set the tone for the day. She didn't feel too bad about it. In fact–

Aisha eyed the stump critically. It was ugly, frankly, and it was just too long to hide inside a t-shirt. Maybe– mom did say to solve her own problems, so maybe–

Once again taking action before she could talk herself out of it, she closed her eyes and pushed in a particular way, pictures of her friends flying through her mind. No, she certainly wouldn't want Fiona or Samantha to see her this way. Restoring her arm was far too much to hope for, yes, but if she–

She shuddered and bit her lip, queasily clutching her shoulder as the flesh beneath it starting slipping through her fingers. It felt awful. It felt right, and she could feel her fingertips slipping through muscle. It felt terrifying. It felt– her left arm-stub fell against her body, twitching and powerless, and it felt exhilarating, like she was exercising a muscle that had been cramped for years. Flesh parted like clay, her fingers slipping into the hollow of the joint between her body and that arm.

She'd never actually tried this on herself before, only on what-might-have-been-dinner.

Aisha opened her eyes, looking down, and carefully not looking to the left. There was a strange assortment of colors washing away into the shower drain–yellow, brown, even some hints of red–her heart had to be doing three hundred a minute, and she had to force herself to maintain focus. Crazy ideas kept sprouting up, like making her shoulder sprout tentacles, or– spores that'd make more of her, or– definitely nothing she wanted.

Cutting the arm off wasn't the hard part of this. Making sure the cut looked healthy, or was at least covered with skin? That was going to be the hard part. It was all within her grasp, of course. Mom kept saying so. Blood vessels, cartillage, skin, capillaries, nerves, mesenchymal cells… she didn't know the names, but she knew, at a level below words.

It would be incredibly embarrassing if she walked out of the shower and had to ask her mom to fix a bleeding wound.

Gingerly, as carefully as she possibly could, she brushed a finger over her clavicle and scapula to smooth away some of the protrusions. Of course it didn't quite work. The arm had been easy– it was barely hanging on by a few shreds of flesh, and it was going into the drain. The scapula? She needed that, but her power trembled, flaring up eagerly and consuming far more of the bone than intended, and paralysing her with pain. The moment she could, she snatched her hand back like it'd suddenly caught on fire.

A gasping half-sob later, she finally made herself turn her head and stare down at the damage.

It looked like someone had dipped the bone in a powerful acid. Her flesh was literally crawling around it, squirming like it was made of tentacles rather than muscles, but the bone she'd left exposed looked like someone had sprayed hot water at an icicle. She had recent experience with just that, after all.

She'd more than halfway cut through it. She couldn't possibly fix… but… bones were strong, weren't they? Just so long as she was careful…

If the entire rest of the process hadn't felt so good, she might have vomited. Aisha knew she wasn't really risking anything but embarrassment, and maybe not even that, but– that had been awful.

"I'm so grounded," she groaned. "The party. Linda's going to kill me."

Unless– unless she could keep it a secret. She had a month, or two, maybe. Then it'd break. Guaranteed. And when it broke–

It was a distinctly glummer girl that finished the job, smoothing down the skin and muscle until her left shoulder looked like she'd just never had an arm, the remains of which went down the drain as planned. Maybe it was compensation, or maybe just her mood, but she didn't have another flare-up. It almost made up for finally realizing that mom, in fact, already knew she wasn't supposed to be armless.

oOo

However, when she exited the shower, her mom was standing there smiling at her. And thought she protested and blushed, and tried to cover herself with her one hand–

"I used to change your diapers, Aisha. You've nothing I haven't seen before."

"Mom!"

A scandalized tone, this time. She wondered if she'd get to hold a conversation today that wasn't a single-syllable exclamation. Still… it was nice. Though she blushed beet-red from the exposure, after a few painful attempts at drying her hair on her own, she gave up and sat down naked on her mother's lap.

The brush flowed comfortingly through her hair.

She leaned into her mother's chest, smiling dreamily. Neither of them tried to start a conversation. Maybe it wasn't so bad, after all…

That attitude lasted, maybe, ten minutes. Coincidentally, that was was long as it took before she found she couldn't put on clothes without help, either. Not even panties, though she tried, oh she tried, and mom found it all far, far too amusing for someone who was supposed to be on her side. She could sit out gym class today… right?

The way her luck was going, Aisha thought glumly, the answer was 'Probably not'.