After multiple days straight of intense training, being able to relax without any worries was a welcome relief. As I laid down on my back, staring at the tree canopies above, I listened to Alvin and Karla’s chatter.

The two of them had been talking for most of the afternoon, after I’d told Alvin about my name. They showed no signs of slowing down, even now as the edges of the sky started to turn a slight orange. As loud as they were, it was comforting listening to them.

I was safe here, with the two of them. I was comfortable. I didn’t have to worry about someone seeing my ears and tail, or about the other village guys making fun of me. I could just… relax.

“The days are gettin’ pretty long,” Alvin said, staring up at the forest canopy. “Feels like we’ve been out here for ages.”

“Yeah, it’s about to be the summer solstice,” Karla replied.

“Oh, you’re right!” Alvin exclaimed. “That’s Triss’s birthday!”

“It is?” Karla quickly crawled over to me, her eyes shining. “You never told me!”

“Yeah, I…” I glanced away. “I forgot.”

It wasn’t… unintentional, that I hadn’t mentioned my birthday. Birthdays and me didn’t usually get along. In the past, birthdays meant that my father would try to give me presents that would… make me more like him and Alvin. Weapons and weights and training equipment and so on.

And now… the idea of him, or someone else, doing something like that… It made me more uncomfortable than any of the times that had happened in the past.

“That’s so lucky!” Karla gasped. “We’re going to be here for your birthday, Triss! What do you wanna do to celebrate?”

…Maybe this one wouldn’t be quite so bad, at least. This time I had more than just Alvin… I had a friend.

“I don’t know... what do you usually do on your birthday?” I asked.

Karla opened her mouth and quickly closed it, before finally shrugging. “Oh, I… I don’t do much, actually. I’m usually with the mercs and not many of them are very into celebrations and stuff. It’s kinda nice to be able to just spend a day on me, though…” She crossed her arms behind her head and leaned back with a long sigh, pretending to relax, then opened her eyes and winked. “You know, to take a break from all of them.”

To me, that sounded very nice. Just being able to relax, not having to deal with anyone else… and in my case, getting away from the other reason I tended to avoid my birthday.

In the village, the summer solstice was a day of feasts, to celebrate the harvests. Feasts that I… always tried as hard as I could to stay away from, just so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the other guys in the village.

I would usually just stay cooped up in my room, reading.

Occasionally Alvin would bring me things from the feast, and we’d have a small celebration of our own, without anyone else around. I was honestly really thankful that he did that, because it meant that I had something to look forward to on my birthday.

But now… I couldn’t go home unless I transformed back.

“Got any ideas?” Karla asked, leaning in close.

“I… I’ll let you know.”

Since I couldn’t go home, maybe the three of us could have a small feast in the forest, instead?

That felt… silly. Alvin and Karla both seemed like the kind of people to have fun being in the village for celebrations… I didn’t want to ruin the day for them.

For instance, Alvin would often spend his own birthday out and about, talking with the other villagers and having fun. And at the end of the day, we’d have a larger dinner than usual to celebrate, and invite a bunch of those villagers… those friends. If that was what he liked, I was afraid that making them spend the day in the forest celebrating me was just… too much.

And maybe if I didn’t spend so much time alone… I’d enjoy something like that too — spending time with friends, messing around and having fun.  But… I just… didn’t.

It just wasn’t my kind of thing, that’s all.

I glanced over at Alvin and Karla, watching her shuffle back into place just next to him. The two of them had struck up a conversation once more, and Karla seemed to be regaling him with tales of life outside the village.

The two of them seemed so close. Much closer than before.

I wished that I could have something like that. Alvin had always been there for me, yeah, but... I didn’t have with him what he had with her. It was different. It was more. Was I... jealous? Not of Karla, no... of Alvin.

Maybe. 

Maybe I was jealous of Alvin. That he fit in, that he could have fun in the village with the other guys. That he didn’t have to avoid the feasts, that he enjoyed his birthdays... Even if I was happy being Triss, I still had to avoid those things. I still had to avoid people.

Even if I would usually choose to only interact with a few people — the ones I trusted — that didn’t mean I wanted it to be my only option.

As Triss, was I destined to spend my life alone?

Was I—

“Hey, Triss,” Alvin asked suddenly, interrupting my train of thought. “You got a book about steam power, don’t ya’?”

“Huh? Uh... yeah,” I slowly lifted myself back upright, turning to look at the two of them. “It has… diagrams of different kinds of machines.”

“You two have never seen steam power in action?” Karla asked. She had shuffled close next to Alvin, almost to the point that she could lean against his side.

“Well... You know we ain’t ever been out o’ the village... Whether or not we wanna.” Alvin stared wistfully off into the distance. “Nah, been cooped up in here since the day I was born. Triss, too.”

“Oh, the things people are doing with it... They’re amazing!” Karla’s eyes lit up, and she began to babble, waving her arms around animatedly. “Great big buildings stretching up into the sky, huge carriages that can carry hundreds of people at once, without horses pulling them…”

She rested her head against Alvin’s shoulder, her voice growing quieter.

“It’s absolutely incredible. I think it’s currently only in the noble districts that there’s a ton of this stuff... the big buildings and steam-powered... trains, I think they call them. But it’s all slowly spreading around, becoming more common everywhere! Your village is the only place I’ve seen to have just about none of the stuff, but... it is pretty out-of-the-way, after all.”

“I really wish I could see it,” Alvin murmured. “I… really wanna see what it’s like outside the village.”

“I know, Al,” Karla replied, patting his leg.

The two of them grew quiet, simply staring off into the forest together. I laid back down on the soft grass, my eyes drooping as I listened to the sound of the bubbling stream.

Maybe the three of us could go travelling together someday… get out of the village, even if it was cosy and safe here. I imagined us making our way through the narrow mountain pass, travelling along the dangerous path through the thick, dense forest on the other side.

That was the route we’d need to take — the village was enclosed on nearly all sides by both the forest, and the mountains. That mountain pass was the only way in or out.

And the adults had always talked about how dangerous it was. A long, winding path through a forest so thick, the trees blocked out the light of the sun. In the less dense parts of the forest, any travellers seeking to go through would have to contend with vicious bears, huge wolves, and other animals that were capable of overwhelming a person. 

And in the darker areas… there were monsters.

The mercenaries seemed to know the path inside and out, however. Alongside their visits every so often as a large group, they were the ones that escorted the merchants to and from the village. 

Maybe Karla could teach us how to navigate the forest.

“We should get going,” Karla said, reluctantly lifting herself off of Alvin’s side. “The sun’s going down.”

Oh, right, it was nearly curfew time. I stood up, swaying slightly thanks to a slight dizzy spell. Had I fallen asleep for part of the day?

As Alvin and Karla wandered off in the direction of the village, I trailed along in their wake, fastening the cloak around my neck and lifting the hood up. 

It was nice to just… spend time with the two of them, alone. I felt a lot more comfortable than I ever had in the past. It was… relaxing, being the way I was now thanks to my transformation. I felt like I’d finally gotten used to it.

While the stream had seemed quite loud when I had first arrived, it had slowly faded into a gentle background noise. The sounds of the night insects no longer seemed sharp and painful too. My hearing was still much more sensitive than it had been before, but it was no longer… unpleasant.

Was this just because I no longer felt anxious about myself, and about what had happened to me?

It still felt unreal, the idea that magic existed. To me, it had only been something out of children’s stories, the kind that Colette had read to me when I was very little. And yet…

My body had been changed by what I could only assume was some kind of magic. And… I felt like I fit so much better. Things were no longer out of place with who I was. With my transformation… my worries had disappeared.

Though they were quickly replaced with new worries about being seen. Even if I felt so much more comfortable as some kind of fox… girl person, my guess was that half the villagers wouldn’t see me that way.

They’d see me as some kind of monster, lost to the dissonance.

I pulled the hood further over my head as we arrived back at the village. I only had a little bit further to go, and then I was back at Colette’s house. I was safe again. I— 

A loud crashing noise suddenly rang out from the centre of the village. I stumbled, barely able to keep my hood from falling off as I tried to regain my balance.

“What was that?!” Alvin gasped, his voice difficult to hear through the ringing in my ears.

In the clearing in the middle of the village, centred around where the mercenaries had set up camp, a blinding glow shone out. Bright, glowing lights spread out like the petals of a flower, slowly spreading out in the sky above us. As the ends climbed higher and higher, they gradually began to dissipate into the air, sparkling in a myriad of varied colours before finally disappearing.

A slight wave of heat suddenly passed through my body, sending me reeling a few steps backwards. Alvin had stumbled back in the same manner as well, his shoes scraping against the ground.

“...Is it time already?” Karla said.

“Time for what?” I questioned. That… explosion of colour was unlike anything I had ever seen before. And it originated from the mercenary camp.

What were they doing?

Karla shrugged, continuing off into the village. “Time for you to go home. Gotta make sure you don’t break curfew.”

Did she not know? Or did she just not want to answer?

I peered around at the houses we passed on the way to Colette’s house. With a sound as loud as that, I was expecting people to be running outside to see what it was, but… there was nothing. No loud stampede of people panicking from the loud crashing sound, no one staring at the grey cloud that had started to form in the wake of the glowing light…

Just the soft rumbling that had been left behind by… whatever that was.

“Here we are,” Karla said, stopping just in front of Colette’s front door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then? We’ll get back to training again.”

“Y-yeah…” Was that it? Was she not going to say anything about it?

As Alvin and Karla walked off further into the village, I stared at their retreating figures, my mind filling up with questions. Why did Karla seem so calm about what happened? Had she seen it before? I certainly hadn’t, and judging from his reaction, Alvin hadn’t either. He was just as surprised as I was.

Would he get more of an answer than me? He was closer to the mercenaries than I was, and very close to Karla.

The two of them soon disappeared behind one of the other houses, leaving only the sunset in the direction I was looking, the edges of which seemed to be tinged a very slight pink.