Eva and her mother went home the next morning, with the promise that Eva and I could hang out again soon. I really hoped that our parents kept that promise, but I wasn’t hopeful. My mother was a bit of a flake.

School was cancelled for the foreseeable future while the world figured itself out, with strange phenomena happening all over the world. It was honestly a nightmare out there, with covid raging, magic coming back, and international relations tense.

The white house, already terrible at dealing with the many different problems facing the nation, was predictably paralyzed by this latest threat to modern society. Due to this complete lack of meaningful leadership from the top office, it was once again every state for itself. Could you even call us a set of united states anymore?

Maine seemed to have its shit together on this one, thankfully, with a task force already in place to monitor the situation. That, of course, was government speak for figure out what the fuck is going on.

There was one important decision that had been made. People who had been altered in some way by the resurgence of magic were given protection from persecution by a rushed state level bill that had been rushed through. It basically just reaffirmed our status as humans and citizens of Maine, but it was nice to know where the broader state government sat on things.

On the magical side of things though, life was a bit more interesting... 

While Concord, the capital city of the state, was mostly untouched, there was some very strange shit going on in the north. The Baxter State Park had become a dense, ancient forest overnight, not unlike the spirit forest I’d landed in when I died. Nobody was able to make it more than a few hundred meters into the place before they found themselves mysteriously back where they’d started. It practically screamed fae to me, and I resolved to stay well the hell away from the place.

There were actually a whole lot of crazy things happening, but they were all small, isolated incidents and peculiarities, rather than anything earth shattering. The spirits were being chill, for the most part. Well, either that or they were biding their time.

The worst thing in my world right now was the fact that Mum had bought me skirts. I was not interested in her damned skirts. Something she was trying to push on me at that very moment.

“Mum, I don’t want to try on the stupid skirt,” I groaned, folding my legs up onto my bed.

“Just try it, I think you’ll like it,” she told me, offering the skirt again with an irritated flick of her tail.

I gave her a long glare, flicking my tail in grumpy opposition. “Why are you so keen for me to wear a skirt? Can’t I just wear jeans like everyone else?”

“Just try it Tia, for the love of god!” she exclaimed, tossing the garment onto the bed next to me.

“Good thing I don’t love god,” I said sarcastically, nudging the skirt off the bed.

I think I actually saw a blood vessel pop in my mother’s eyes as she watched the skirt flop to the floor. Luckily, Dad rocked up at about that time.

“Honey, let him ease into this,” he said, wrapping an arm around her as her tail twitched madly back and forth.

“Her,” she stated forcefully. “She is a girl now, she needs to get used to this type of thing.”

“Her,” he repeated, still looking at my mother. “Let her get used to things a little. Having your whole body changed so completely isn’t going to change the person she is inside, and if you remember, she’s just as stubborn as you are. Pushing her into things will only make her reject them more.”

“I was always going to reject the stupid skirt,” I said, crossing my arms defiantly.

Dad turned to me now, giving me an awkward but genuine smile, “Tia, dear… why don’t you go for a little walk or something? You and your mother have both been cooped up in this house together for a week and a half now since the change, I think it would be good for you to get some fresh air.”

He did have a point. I hadn’t been outside the house since I’d changed. Maybe I’d go for a walk in the local green belt park.

“Alright,” I agreed, hopping off the bed.

I swept my sneakers and some socks off the floor on my way out, taking extra care to give Mum a wide berth. She might be annoying, but she was definitely the bigger fox in the household.

I had to turn back the moment I left the room to grab one of my old hoodies, because it was a little windy outside and I didn’t want to end up freezing my newly acquired tits off. Damn thing was pretty big on me though, I looked like the tiniest gangster you’ve ever seen, sans baggy pants. I had shorts on instead, which… you couldn’t actually see once the hoodie was on. Oh well.

The suburb we lived in was one of those that had sky high house prices, but the actual houses and people living there didn’t match them. Typical inner suburb stuff, the land had a lot of value but it hadn’t been gentrified yet.

Between my suburb and the city proper was a green belt, a series of parks and reserves that served as a sort of border between the two. It was nice really, except that a whole bunch of it had recently been bulldozed to create overpriced apartments.

A part of me wanted to message Eva to see if she was free, but something stopped me. I think I just felt like being alone at that moment.

I trudged through the meandering, empty suburban streets until I made it to one of the parks. It was a nice enough park, if a little run down. The folks in charge of maintaining it clearly weren’t getting enough funding, and that led to weeds and overgrown patches everywhere except the most travelled areas.

If I remembered correctly, this place was a known drug dealing area before magic came back. Not anymore though, with the way things were going, people were afraid to stray too far from their homes for work, let alone a little weed.

So I had the park mostly to myself as I stepped through the ivy-wrapped gates, the wind picking listlessly at my baggy sleeves. The sky was greying over, but not so much that it would be a problem. Concord’s weather was like that sometimes, volatile but usually fairly weak when push actually came to shove.

The center of the park was dominated by a small lake, barely bigger than a pond, and I headed for it along the path, gravel crunching underfoot. I could see a few other people going for walks, a couple on the grass down by the lake, an old man walking his dog on the other side. It was calm, a good place to sit and think about things.

I chose to sit on the opposite side from the other people, right next to one of the overgrown parts of the park where it would block the wind from getting to me. Even then, the wind had already gotten to my bare legs, so I tucked them into my hoodie to try and get some warmth back into their frigid lengths.

Funny thing about my legs actually, it seemed that my ears and tail were taking all of the hair-growing-juice in my body, because I hadn’t had to shave them once. There were small, thin little hairs down them like you’d expect, but nothing that you could see from any distance.

I actually kinda liked my legs. Despite my diminutive height, I had relatively long and slender legs in proportion to the rest of me. They were good looking legs, and the fact that they were also very feminine legs was somewhat… confusing. Did I like having feminine legs? I guess?

My other feminine features were making their impending approach known too. My hips were a little sore, and there was this dull ache right beneath my nipples. Guess I’d kept my previous adolescent development levels when I changed, only now it was all on the female side of things. Was I going to end up with big boobs and bigger hips? I kinda hoped not, boobs had always seemed like something I appreciated on other people, but I wasn’t so excited to have them on me.

Hips might be okay actually, I liked the way hips curved and… wow, did I really want that for myself? God I was so confused.

“What are we looking at?” a soft, feminine voice asked quietly from beside me.

I let out a strangled squeak and toppled sideways in surprise. Who the hell? What?

When I got a look, my surprise was not quelled in the slightest, because sitting next to me, was a dark red and black fox. In fact, it wasn’t just any fox I noticed, her eyes sparkling with hidden silver. She was the fox I’d seen in my yard!

“W-who are you?” I wheezed, still trying to recover from the fight she’d given me.

“Saoirse,” she said happily, her little foxy face smiling up at me as I righted myself. “I’m your cousin! Kinda… like, a million times removed. There’s a bit of a divide actually, calling myself your cousin is a bit of a stretch. Then again, explaining the actual familial relationship between us would take a rather long time, our ancestors did fornicate over three thousand years ago. By human standards, we’re not even related at that point, huh? I still like to think we are though, because you’re very interesting! I’ve always wanted a cousin anyway. I mean, another cousin, because I have quite a few already, but—”

Reaching out, I dammed the torrential outpouring of words from her little muzzle by clamping it shut.

“Slow down, please!” I begged, mind still spinning way too much with everything she’d just babbled at me. “Tell me slowly. Your name is, uh… Seershah?”

As I let go of her snout, she nodded, “Saoirse, yes. I am a fox spirit, the same line that your ancestors ah, bred with.”

“Uh, celtic, right?” I asked uncertainly. It was kinda crazy, what was happening right now. A long lost relative just tracking me down or something?

“Indeed,” she nodded, tongue lolling happily out of her mouth.

I had to admit, she was kinda cute. Very hyperactive, but who was I to talk? I did have one question though. “So uh, why did you track me down?”

“Oh goodness, where do I begin?” she sighed, foxy smile making way for a more serious expression. “I guess we can start with what you did.”

QuietValerie

Yet again, I have a character springing into my mind fully formed. Don't know how they do it, to be honest.