With the money I had gained from my opportunistic ways, money that was probably not marked I didn’t really need to go out and about as my thieving alter ego for a few weeks. It was nice, because it was going to be Christmas soon, and I would be spending time alone, without family or friends, for the first time in a very long time. I didn’t miss my family, but my friends were some of those I did miss.

Missing my friends was what prompted me to make a great many purchases in the days leading up to Christmas day. My purchases included a length of CAT5 ethernet cable, a drill, a whole bunch of nice PC parts, and more. Basically everything I would need to start playing games again with my old online friends. I snuck into the downstairs apartment again, drilled a hole in the wall and fed the cable up to my apartment.

I guess my social situation had not really changed in the grand scheme of things. I was still a lonely nerd with no offline friends and a penchant for hiding from any place I could make them. The biggest difference now was that I had realised I was a woman. I mean sure it had taken literally being physically altered to match that before I realised, but nevertheless I was a cute woman with fox features.

Swinging the huge computer chair I had bought myself around to allow me to sit, I marvelled at my new setup. My friends were going to be so terribly jealous! My desk was a sort of shallow U shape, and it held three 4k monitors (a webcam perched on the central one), my mechanical keyboard, my mouse and my headset. The computer itself was under the desk, full to the brim with the best parts I could get my hands on, and like any true nerd/engineer, I had put it together myself.

Now, you’re probably wondering how on earth the headphones work now. Well, it’s complicated. I had to find some headphones that were adjustable to hell and back, and even then I had to cut out chunks of the headband and add extra adjustable parts to the contraption. It was a little awkward, and I actually slotted the small headphone cups into my enormous ears to keep them there. It probably looked super silly, but it worked and I was just happy to have a setup.

Sitting down in my chair, I reached down with my tail and pressed the large power button. I felt myself grin as I returned my tail to my lap and snuggled it affectionately. If all else failed, I’d always have my tail. So warm, soft and fluffy! I felt a sort of burbling happy sound escape my throat and I twitched in surprise.. What was that? Why did I just make a strange sound? I sat back and glared at my tail in suspicion, was this another fox thing?

My tail wasn’t talking, so I continued with the routine that everyone who bought a new computer went through when they booted up for the first time, I installed all the programs I used to use. The first to get on the computer was Discord. I was very excited and more than a little anxious to login and finally get back in touch with my friends.

I punched in my email and password, and got hit by a captcha. I know all these measures are needed to keep hackers at bay, but holy shit it’s annoying each and every time it happens. I clicked my way through a series of blurry pictures depicting cars until there was none left and hit the enter button. Then it wanted me to verify via an email because I was signing in from a new location. God damn it.

After having jumped through all the hoops just to log into Discord of all things, I was assaulted by notifications. I had messages from dozens of people, and I had been tagged multiple times in the two servers I had frequented the most. I made my way through, clearing all the notifications, reading through the messages first. Most were messages from my friends asking if I was okay after the Emergence, then growing more worried as I failed to reply. I clicked on my old gaming clan/guild/thing and took a look through all the chats and channels I had been tagged in. I didn’t make it very far before one of my friends noticed I was online, a new tag bringing my attention to the general chat.

Inkniix: SHUTTY!!

Inkniix: Holy shit is that actually you?

Sommie: SHUTTY!! Dude are you okay? Where have you been??

Caser: !!!!! Shutty!! Please be okay!

I took a deep breath, oh boy…

Shutty: Yeah, I’m alive.. Don’t know about okay tho.

Sommie: What happened? Where have you been?

Caser: hugs!!

Inkniix: I hope you’re more than just alive bro!

Shutty: Well, I’m emerged now. My body is like, completely different to before. I’m also stuck in the states with no identity…

I saw all three light up with the wiggling dots that signify that they were typing. Their names disappearing and reappearing as they typed and retyped responses to me.

Caser: Whatever you look like now, we’re still friends okay dude?

Inkniix: Oh fuck Callum that sounds like a crap time…

Sommie: Where in the states are you? I know Inkniix is aussie but Caser and I are here as well, maybe we can help you? If you need anything just let me know and I’ll do my best to help okay? I’m sure we all will.

Shutty: I'm in Penrith

Caser: Fuck, be careful Shutty! I heard emerged have been going missing and shit up there!

Shutty: I'll be careful! Okay I’m going to go ahead and show you guys.

I took a quick selfie using the webcam and then posted it to the chat. The chat remained free of jubilant dots for a long while, until finally a message came through.

Inkniix: No fucking way. You’re fuckjing with us. Have I got heat stroke? Like fucking wit my minnd or something?

Shutty: Nah… I’m going by She/her and Kalia now too… just so you know.

Sommie: I guess you and Caser will get along pretty well then now lol :P.

Caser: AAAAAAAAAAHH!! Sister!

Shutty: I figured you’d like it Caser ^.^...

Caser: Damn right! I’m stoked to have another trans person in the guild!

Shutty: Trans person… I guess yeah that does apply to me. Didn’t work it out till I was already running around with boobs already though.

Sommie: She has fox ears too! Are those real as well? ;)

I sighed, guess it was time for a video call. I scrolled down the list of direct messages until I found the dead group chat that we had used a while back, and gave it a call. The call was instantly picked up by all parties and I switched my video on.

With a nervous little wave I said, “Hi guys, guess this is the new me? You guys are the first people I’ve spoken to who knew me before.”

Caser activated their webcam and their familiar, thoroughly gender-norm shattering face held a cute grin, “Holy fucking shit Kalia, you’re straight up adorable!”

Sommie popped on next and she rushed immediately into a question, “Are the ears real Shutty?”

Inkniix turned his webcam as I took my headset off and wiggled my long fluffy ears at the camera. I pulled them down in a display of sadness, and then back in anger.

“So yeah, they’re real,” I giggled, and my tail shifted off my lap and into its customary position, hiding everything but my eyes.

I heard Sommie make a sort of strangled squeal when my tail came into view, and Inkniix gave a quiet, “No shit…”

“Oh my god you’re adorable!” Caser exclaimed.

“I guess so,” I said, my cheeks flushing with happy embarrassment.

“You’re really Shutty?” asked Inkniix with a hint of something I couldn’t identify in his voice.

“Yeah. I um, I was walking back to my hotel the night of the Emergence and I got mugged. They took my satchel with everything inside, then they beat me up. Next thing I knew I had become a short girl with fox features,” I told him.

“Damn… that’s nuts. Are you all good now?” He asked.

I gave a shrug, my voice fluctuating slightly as I spoke, “I’m going ok. I have an apartment in Penrith, but no identity really. It’s been hard.”

“Would you mind if I came to visit for a few days?” Caser asked with a large helping of compassion in their voice.

“Um, sure… I guess that’s fine. When?” I asked, lowering my tail a bit to get a better look at the screen.

Caser looked to the side in thought, “Like, in a day or two? I’m in Pittsburgh so I’m only like 7 hours away from Penrith. I can keep you company for Christmas! If you celebrate it I mean?”

I laughed softly, “New Zealand kinda stole Christmas from Christianity and made it a secular holiday, so yeah, I guess so.”

“Sweet, same with my family!” Caser said, before their eyes widened and they continued, “Oh, shit, I’m sorry I just like invited myself over! You can totally say no if you want to. We haven’t even met IRL before!”

I giggled, and made shushing motions with my hands, “No, no, you’re good! It’s fine!”

The conversation continued on after that. I found out how things had been going in Australia, for example. Inkniix told me about how a huge mountain range had phased into existence along the desert edge of the “Great” Dividing Range. Thousands were never heard from again in the region the mountains had replaced, and those on the other side of the mountains found themselves cut off from the majority of Australian civilisation.

Sonnie was from Portland where a great many refugees from Seattle had ended up, and things sounded grim there. A lot of Emerged fighting each other, desperate people trying to use their powers to stay alive and fed. Her family lived a few miles out of town, and were thankfully avoiding the worst of it.

We spoke for a long time as I downloaded games we could play, and once one of our old favourites had finished downloading, we jumped in and spent a significant amount of time playing. Just hearing these people again and getting to once more enjoy a part of who I used to be did wonders for my mood. The events since the Emergence seemed to recede slightly for the moment and I was able to for the first time truly be myself. Not as I used to be, but as my true self, free of the weight that had held me down for so long.

****

In preparation for Caser coming over, I bought a couch. It was a really big fluffy one, and I think the delivery guys hated me for making them heave it all the way up to my apartment. It almost didn’t fit through the doorway, but with some encouragement from me they got it through. I now had a big fluffy couch pointed at a blank wall. I hoped that one day I would have an identity and I could sign up for the horror that was a cable package.

I also went to great pains to hide everything that was related to my night time activities as Vulptrix. It wouldn’t be good for them to find out about the fact I was a part-time villain now.

The final day before they arrived was spent playing games with my group, and someone even gifted me a month sub to WoW so I could play with everyone. I bought junk food, downloaded a bunch of movies and TV shows and made sure my router was set up so they could plug their laptop into the internet.

I was so excited for them to arrive that I was sitting down on the steps in the frigid afternoon air, eyes glued to the entrance into the carpark. True to their word, they drove into the carpark, crunching over the snow that no one had bothered to shovel out of the way. I guess Mr. Slouchy didn’t pay anyone to do that?

When they got out of their car, I was struck instantly by how different they looked in person. I had never asked what they had been assigned as at birth and it seemed I wouldn’t be finding out from a casual inspection either. They were tall, I guessed around five foot ten, and a good portion of that was legs. Their torso was thin, too, as though someone had compressed it a little when they was small. You could probably describe them as willowy. Their dirty blond hair was worn in a severe bun that highlighted their bright blue eyes and the angular features of their face. They wore skinny jeans, a red T-shirt and a cutoff leather jacket.

I leapt up from the steps and rushed through the gentle snowfall towards them. I arrived at their car as they were turning around to see who was coming towards them, when I was unable to pump the proverbial brakes. My feet skidded along the slush and I was propelled into them at speed. Luckily for both of us, the car kept us from toppling to the wet ground, and I realised they had their arms around me in a steadying manner. I felt my face instantly flush with enough heat to melt the ice of our first face to face meeting.

I looked up like a fox in headlights and squeaked out a, “He-hello! Caser!”

“Shutty! Far out what a welcome!” they laughed, “Didn’t think you were going to be this excited to see me!”

I wriggled out of our awkward embrace in embarrassment and batted them with my tail, “Shush! Let me help you carry your stuff and we can get into somewhere warm!”

“Alright then feisty fox! Yes ma’am! Warmth sounds damn good right now, the heater wasn’t working properly the whole fucking drive and it was next level uncomfortable.” they agreed with a grin.

When we finished carrying their stuff up to my apartment, they flopped onto the couch and sighed heavily, stretching their legs out across the floor.

“You’re missing some key features,” they said, motioning to the empty area a TV would normally go.

Moving over to sit next to them I nodded, “Yeah, no official identity means I can’t sign up for a lot of stuff…”

They sat there and mulled that over for a bit, and I took the time to bring my tail up to my face again. I think I was becoming addicted to nuzzling my tail. Just like before, I made a sort of happy chirping noise and my tail started to wiggle a little. I slowly drew back from my tail and narrowed my eyes at it. What was going on with me?

“No. Fucking. Way,” Caser said slowly.

“What?” I looked up at them wide eyed.

“That noise you just made… It’s… hold on I’ll show you,” they said in excitement, pulling out their phone in a rush.

I waited, a little apprehensive, as they navigated their way to the video, and then eagerly flipped the phone to show me.

On the screen I saw a real fox in the midst of being petted by the hand of the person taking the video. The fox was wriggling around on the ground with a huge foxy grin on their face… making sounds exactly like the ones I had just made. Oh my god, the noises sounded like the mix between a dog’s whine and a kazoo. This was some transcendent level of embarrassing.

My tail went straight back to covering my face and I whined, “Please tell me that’s… aw fuck that is what I sound like, isn’t it?”

I heard them chuckle, and I squeaked in surprise when I felt a hand ruffle my hair, “You definitely sound like that, and it’s heart meltingly adorable. You really got an upgrade huh?”

“An upgrade?” I asked with a tilt of my head that sent my ears flopping to the side.

“Yeah, you seem… I don’t know, whole now? During the years I’ve known you I’ve never seen you this fully engaged in the world. It was like you didn’t fully exist in our reality till now. Ahh, it’s hard to describe, I’m sorry,” they said, gesturing ineffectually.

I gave a sigh and lowered my tail a bit, “I think you’re right. I haven’t spoken to any professional about it, but I feel like the world was kind of grey or dull before, and now it’s rich and colourful? It’s hard to talk about in any words that make sense I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re totally fine I understand. We use metaphors and similes to describe this shit because it’s a pain in the ass to talk about it clinically. I felt the same you know, before I transitioned,” they said, more calming strokes of my fluffy and dishevelled hair accompanying their words.

“Really? What was it like for you?” I asked in curiosity, Caser had never spoken about their transition to me before.

“I think I was a bit more sadness depressed than emotionless depressed like you seem to have been, but it was pretty hellish. I went through some rough times, and my parents couldn’t figure out how to help me. I was shuffled from one professional to the next, each one trying to figure out how to crack my problem. They didn’t realise that I didn’t need cracking, I needed hatching.

You know it’s funny, all those poor psychs couldn’t figure me out because when they presented the trans thing to me, I was like, no, I don’t want to be that, it doesn’t feel right. It wasn’t until an online friend of mine casually mentioned the concept of someone who is Non Binary that it suddenly clicked.

I’m not going to tell you I was super happy and living a fulfilling life after that, it took a long time and a lot of hormones, not to mention trial and error in the fashion department, before I felt like myself. There was that moment though, when one of my friends convinced me to come out to a party for uni, and I got myself all dressed up. I looked in the mirror when I finished with my makeup and I just, I blew myself away. I think I ruined my makeup crying tears of happiness, but I so did not care at the time.”

I sat there, my tail now content to sit in my lap as Caser had told me their story and I considered their words, relating their story to my own. I’d never really gotten a choice had I? Growing up it was always, be a man, study a real profession, get a high paying job, make the family look good. Always make the family look good.

So, would I have been happier as a girl growing up? My parents had always been overbearing and crushing with their expectations of success and status, and would have been regardless of my birth gender.

Caser was content to watch me think through my intertwined memories and emotions. I lost my gaze in their forest green nails, thinking along the twisting lanes of memory. I hadn’t had any wearing mother’s clothing moments, but I had always chafed at the constant urging from my father to “act as a man should”. Plus there was the pretty overwhelming evidence that I was much more comfortable now. Yeah, I was definitely meant to be a girl, if not through the lottery of birth, then definitely here and now. It just felt right, and although my life had been full of sadness since the Emergence, none of it had come from within.

Looking up into their vibrant blue eyes, I told Caser my thoughts, “Yeah, that’s… that feels right? Not your own journey I mean, but the feeling of wrongness that used to follow me hasn’t been around since I changed.”

“Yeah, it’s a common way to describe it,” they nodded.

I idly played with my tail for a moment, just spacing out, and ended up thinking about, like some inane bullshit surrounding how weird the word “describe” sounds if you start taking it apart.

Then I gave another kazoo squeak of happiness and I realised Caser had been slowly stroking my hair the whole time.

“That feels way too good Caser,” I hummed.

“Yeah doesn’t it? My ex used to do it to me and holy shit I’d like fall asleep almost instantly. You seem to have gone introspective though, you okay?” they asked with concern.

I nodded with a grin, “Yeah! Sorry, I was thinking about something dumb and spacing out. This whole trans thing is super confusing and I think I need more time to fully process it.”

“That’s fine, especially for you, since it’s mostly a post mortem kind of thing,” they said, giving me a scratch behind the ear.

I don’t know what nerves they just hit, because I basically fell into a heap in their lap and made a whole lot of happy fox noises that sent my embarrassment to new and uncharted heights.

I lay there in a fluffy fox ball while Caser scratched behind my ears, until I rolled over and looked up at them with a sort of dazed expression on my face, “Caser, I don’t even know your name and I’m in your lap being pampered. Isn’t that like, crazy?”

“Yeah it is a little wild isn’t it? I don’t know, I’m sorry if you don’t want this, I just figured you might need some comfort. I know you left a lot of stuff out when you were describing what you’ve been through,” they said gently.

“I… what? How did you know?” I asked in surprise.

“You’re a lot easier to read than you think Kalia, especially now that your emotions are unchained,” they giggled.

“Blah! Damn it! Alright, I’m going to go and get some food ready, do you have your laptop? I have some movies we can watch and stuff,” I grumbled, wriggling off their lap and standing up.

Retrieving some chips, dip and a salami sausage, I padded back over and placed the plate on the big cardboard box I was using as a coffee table. Caser had put their laptop on the box, too. I rushed off to my bedroom and came back with a bunch of blankets and pillows, tossing the lot on top of my friend with a fiendish giggle.

They had been unfortunate enough to be eating a slice of salami when I dumped all the bedding on them, and I got a satisfying startled cry from underneath the mound. To relieve them of their new burden, I hopped onto the couch and tugged some of the blankets and pillows over to me, revealing them in the process.

I giggled when I saw I’d messed their hair up, but nevertheless managed to ask, “So what would you like to watch? Here’s the flash drive.”

I tossed them the flash drive and watched their face as they plugged it in and navigated through the files.

They chuckled to themselves as they went, “It took me ages to get my hair looking nice, but if anyone was going to mess it up, it’s you.”

“What does that mean?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Nothing you should be concerned with cutie. Now, we're going to watch Tangled, because I love it and it's been too long since I saw it,” they said.

I shrugged and shuffled closer to watch, it was a fun movie after all.