=::= Tally's PoV =::=

"Hello Mr. and Mrs. Lambert," Jessica smiled as she greeted my parents. "My name is Jessica Carlisle. I'm one of the coordinators here at QSAW, along with Maria and Kara."

My folks looked a bit awkward again as they greeted Jess. I was already sitting across from them, and I had Kara beside me in a repeat of our first meeting two weeks earlier. And as my folks shook the redhead's hand I couldn't miss the runic tattoo visible on her right wrist.

I already figured she was part of the coven but now I knew she was one of the leaders, since her tattoo wasn't the simple one like me and Beth and her family had. Jessica's was more complicated, like Kara's. I was pretty sure it translated to 'Scribe' or something like that, which was kind of cool.

It was another Saturday afternoon, and Ms. Watson drove me over to QSAW but she didn't stay to moderate this time. I was a little more nervous because it meant I didn't really have any familiar faces on my side here, but I kind of understood when she explained the reasons.

Like the fact that I was living with her meant it was sort of a conflict of interest for her to be the mediator, that was supposed to be a neutral position. And the fact that my mom was still angry that Jenny broke Dylan's nose three years ago just made it even more awkward for Ms. Watson to be in that position.

On the other hand, she could have just swapped places with Kara. Like the tall strong enby could have been mediator and Ms. Watson could have been on my side with me. She didn't say it and I didn't ask, but I had a feeling she didn't do that because she wanted me to get used to being more independent or something. Like not that I was all alone, but I was sort of dealing with strangers instead of a friend. Or my girlfriend's mom anyways.

After exchanging greetings, my folks sat down across from me while dad asked Jess "Was there a reason Ms. Watson didn't want to meet with us again?"

The redhead nodded slightly, "Maria asked me to apologize on her behalf. She realized it was inappropriate for her act as mediator while Tally was staying with her."

Both my parents seemed to understand that, so we got on with the meeting.

Dad looked at me and asked, "How are you doing Tally? Dylan said he gave you that envelope like I asked?"

"Yeah," I grinned. Even a whole week later I still felt excited about the new ID. "He did, and he even apologized? It was kind of weird I guess, but in a good way? Other than that I haven't really seen him though. Like I barely saw him at all last week. I guess he's been avoiding me?"

Mom still looked and sounded a bit uptight as she stated, "Your father asked Dylan to apologize, and asked him not to bother you anymore."

I was still smiling as I responded, "Oh ok. Thanks for that."

Dad asked, "Is everything else going ok? You have exams now right? You're handling things ok?"

That made me grimace, "Yeah we've been writing exams this past week. It's gone ok though I think? Ms. Watson's been pretty strict about making sure we all study and stuff, she's even been limiting the TV time and made sure we all went to bed early and everything. It's kind of a drag but I guess it makes sense."

My folks exchanged a little glance, and I wasn't sure what that was about. Like maybe they were thinking Ms. Watson was doing a bad job looking after me, or maybe they were worried she was doing a better job than them? I really couldn't tell.

I was seriously tempted to try that truth spell Ms. Watson taught us Tuesday after dinner. It wasn't quite like mind-reading, but it would let us see the truth in things which was kind of similar. Like it'd let me see my parent's true feelings if that's what I was trying to find out.

Except with both Jess and Kara there, I was positive they'd notice me doing a spell on my parents and there was no way in the world I'd risk something like that in front of the coven's scribe and champion.

"How about your friends?" dad asked next. "Folks at school are still treating you ok? The teachers are handling your situation all right?"

"Teachers are fine," I replied with a sigh. "Beth and me are still girlfriends, and I'm friends with Jenny and Sienna. Stuff with Steve though... Things got a bit weird last Friday, and since then he's been kind of avoiding me? I'm not sure if we're still friends or what's going on."

The whole situation felt uncomfortable, and it was hard enough talking about it with Beth or her mom. It felt even weirder discussing it with my parents, because there was already that whole layer of weirdness about how they thought of me or whether or not they understood yet who and what I really was.

Mom asked, "Steven's having trouble coping with his best friend suddenly turning into a girl? Or do your...animal parts turn him off?"

"The opposite actually?" I told her. "He kind of tried to confess to me? Like I think he wanted to start dating or something, even though he knew I was still girlfriends with Beth. And I already told him I wasn't into guys. He basically said he's into me, and it was confusing and everything. I mean, confusing for both of us? So yeah, it got awkward and weird and now I don't know if we're friends or not."

That left both my parents looking a little shocked and neither seemed to know what to say next.

Dad recovered first, and he tried to change the subject. He started asking me something about my exams but he was cut off by the sound of someone's phone playing a short loud ringtone.

We all turned to look at Jessica, and she grimaced as she apologized. "I'm so sorry. Please excuse me for just a moment, I have to..."

She slipped out of her chair and hurried out into the hall as she fished her phone out of her pocket.

"That was her 'emergency' alert tone," Kara explained. "Otherwise she wouldn't have interrupted the..."

The enby's voice trailed off as we all heard a loud happy squeal from out in the hall. A moment later Jess dashed back into the meeting room. She had a huge smile on her face as she held her phone out for Kara to see the screen.

"Oh my Goddess Kara look!" Jess exclaimed happily.

Sitting beside the enby I could see the screen just as easily as Kara could. I recognized the two head witches, Nicole and Samantha. Samantha looked like I remembered from a couple weeks ago, but Nicole looked tired. And instead of being all dressed in black she looked like she was in a hospital gown.

Both of them looked happy though as they sat side by side. Samantha was holding their toddler Fiona, and Nicole had a new tiny baby in her arms. Text under the photo read, 'Rebekah Elliot-Carlisle, born 12:42pm, June 20th. 3.54kg'

"Too bad Nikki couldn't hold out another twelve hours," Kara said with a lopsided grin. "Then she could have hit the summer solstice."

Jessica rolled her eyes and gave the enby a friendly smack on the arm. She still had a wide happy grin on her face as she took her phone back and sat down again. She stared at the picture for a few more seconds before she finally seemed to remember we were in the middle of something.

Her grin quickly faded and she tucked her phone away as she apologized, "I'm sorry Mr. and Mrs. Lambert. That was my sister. Her wife just gave birth to their second daughter."

"In that case congratulations," dad said with a little smile.

Mom added, "Yes, congratulations."

I didn't need the truth spell to know mom was a little weirded out. Like about Jess's sister being married to a woman and those two women just had another baby.

And it felt like our meeting had kind of stalled at that point, so Jess suggested we take a break for some drinks and stuff. That worked out ok, there was coffee ready so Jess and Kara gave my parents a couple mugs. I got a bottle of water, Kara grabbed a coffee as well, and Jess got a cola.

My folks stayed in the meeting room together while me and Kara and Jess were in the break room again like last time. We didn't talk though, at first Jess was tapping out a message on her phone to her sister. And she seemed kind of giddy again.

"I'm sorry Tally," she said after she sent her message. "I'm probably not making a good impression on your parents. I hope I haven't made things worse for you."

I shrugged, "It's ok."

My folks had started talking quietly, and much as I tried not to I couldn't help listening in. One of my big pointy ears angled towards the door, where the sound was reflecting in from the hallway.

I heard dad ask mom to lighten up a bit, then mom complained about this place being full of 'those' sorts of people, which almost made me laugh. Like it was a queer support organization, so yeah mom there were going to be some queer people around.

Still, it sounded like dad was the one who actually wanted to be here. And I remembered, he was the one who wrote that letter and he was the one who asked Dylan to leave me alone and stuff. I had no idea what my brother really thought about me, but it felt like dad was making the effort and stuff. And he was trying to get mom on board too.

Eventually I pulled out my phone to try and distract myself from my parents' private conversation. I had it on silent for the meeting so it wouldn't disturb us, but there were a few messages there from Beth.

I opened up the messaging app and immediately grinned. The first four messages were just pictures of cute foxes. She'd started doing that about two weeks ago, she subscribed to a couple feeds that posted hourly or daily fox pictures. And a couple times a day she'd forward all the best ones to me. This afternoon's batch included three pictures of arctic foxes and one of a baby red fox. They were all adorable and I almost made an 'awww' sound out loud as I scrolled through them.

The fifth message was a text asking me how it was going with my folks. I tapped out a reply, I let her know dad seemed to be coming around and stuff but we were having a break.

She immediately texted back with another fox picture, this one was two silver foxes playing together in a field.

I texted her 'awww cute!' but that was all I had time for.

"Why don't we head back into the meeting room and see how your parents are doing?" Jess suggested.

"Ok," I replied as I got to my feet. I put my phone away then the three of us went back and took our places around the table.

Jess apologized again for disrupting the meeting then prompted my dad, "Mr. Lambert you were asking Tally about her exams before the break?"

"Right," dad nodded. He focused on me and asked, "Have you finished all your exams now, or do you have more next week?"

"Two more next week," I told him. "One on Monday, one on Wednesday. Then I guess there's a few more days of school, then we're off for summer break."

Dad asked, "And you're doing all right? Are you still planning to look for a summer job?"

I shook my head as I grimaced, "Actually I haven't thought about that? Um, the first week or so of June was so crazy and stuff I completely forgot about it? And since then I've been kind of focused on being me? And um..."

Obviously I couldn't tell them I spent an hour or two a day learning magic, but there were some other things I had to learn that I could share with them. Even though it felt weird talking about it, especially with my dad. "Like I've had to learn some um, health stuff that I didn't get taught before? Like women's stuff, and fox stuff..."

Both my parents blushed a bit, but dad looked like he was about to ask what I meant by 'fox stuff' so I quickly explained.

"The spell doesn't just stick on ears and a tail. It's a lot more complicated than that. Stacey Saunders can explain it better but like scientists are still studying demi-humans to figure out how it all really works? Basically I'm actually part fox now, like genetically? But it's not constant through my whole body. Like my tail and ears are mostly fox, my fingers and toes are mostly human? And it varies from one person to the next, like what the spell does depends on what you want, what's best for you?"

I was kind of on a roll as I got a bit excited about sharing all this new stuff I'd learned. I'd already told it all to Beth and Jenny enough that they were probably bored of it, but I thought it was really neat.

"So anyways, like foxes are in the same family as dogs right? And you know how dogs can't have stuff like chocolate? So at first I couldn't have chocolate either, just incase it made me sick? But obviously I'm not a fox, I'm still mostly human? And humans can eat chocolate. So it's just a question of figuring out if it's safe for me specifically, or if there's like a safe limit or something? I'm actually kind of thinking of learning more about science, so I can study this sort of thing maybe? Like not just chocolate but all that sort of stuff, because it would help make life better for everyone."

I had a smile on my face since I got to talk about something cool, and my dad looked like he actually understood most of what I said.

Mom was the first one to speak up though. "So does that mean can you eat chocolate? Or not?"

"Yes!" I replied with a grin. "I can't have like a big pile of dark chocolate, but a regular chocolate bar is safe once in a while. Or a slice of chocolate cake, or a glass of chocolate milk, or some chocolate ice cream? Basically like I can have one serving of chocolate and I'm ok."

Dad smiled as well, "Good to know hon. And I'm glad you're doing all right."

After that we talked a bit more, and it felt like things were going ok. Mom was still a little uptight now and then, dad seemed more relaxed. At the end, dad gave me a hug which was really nice. Mom wasn't quite ready for that yet.

And the best part was after the hug, we all realized dad's allergies weren't set off by my ears or tail. Which was totally another thing I needed to look into because it seemed really important.

My folks said bye and they finally headed home, then instead of getting Ms. Watson to come and pick me up Jessica offered, "How'd you like me to teleport you home?"

The way my tail was wagging back and forth was all the answer she needed. One moment I was in the meeting room at QSAW with Jess and Kara, the next I was in the front hall at the Watson's house.

And it was one of the coolest things to happen since I became a cute foxgirl witch!

PurpleCatGirl

This is a commissioned story, so updates only happen when patrons commission a new chapter. Patrons always get chapters one or two weeks before anyone else, so if you're eager to get caught-up join are Patreon and you'll get all the latest chapters and new stories! And if you'd like to help move this story along, think about sponsoring a chapter!
Today's chapter was courtesy of Jess who commissioned it!
https://www.patreon.com/purplecatgirl