"Lia?" I gasped as I stared at the teenage foxgirl kneeling naked in the middle of the bed. "What did you do?"

She cringed slightly and she looked anxious, maybe even scared. "I'm not sure? I thought to experiment with my magic, to make myself look like a human instead of making myself hidden? So I could go with you to places that don't like animals. Then something happened, and now I feel very strange."

"Did you actually change yourself into a foxgirl?" Soneya asked, "Or is this an illusion of a foxgirl?"

I slowly moved closer, then reached out and gently took Lia's hand into mine. It felt exactly as it looked, a soft delicate human hand. I glanced at our pack leader and replied, "It's not an illusion. She really is a foxgirl, rather than a fox."

"Ok..." Soneya responded slowly. "This might be a good thing? It means we don't have to worry about people freaking out at us because we're wandering around with a wild animal."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," I said in a soft but wary tone. "Lia do you want to try and make yourself normal again? Or would you like to stay this way for now?"

Our small sister glanced at Soneya then back at myself again. She still looked anxious, but she seemed to brace herself slightly as she responded "I will stay like this for now. So I can accompany you both to the human places."

"All right then," I was still holding her hand and I gave it a gentle squeeze. "We all need to get dressed before we go back out, but I can help you with that if you like?"

I was guessing but I figured considering she'd never worn clothes before she might need a hand with that. For that matter I also had a few other concerns, like if she'd even know how to walk upright and whether or not she'd be able to blend in as a normal person, but I figured we'd tackle all that as it came up.

Lia nodded, "Thank you Tori. I've watched you both use clothes but I didn't understand why before? Now I know, it's cold without all my fur."

"That's definitely one reason," I replied with a smile. "So why don't we all get dressed?"

Our small sister agreed, so we pulled out the new clothes and got started. For the sake of modesty Soneya went back into the washroom to get dressed in private. I wasn't so worried, by that point Lia and I had both seen each other naked. And I couldn't really help her get dressed without looking anyways.

Lia already understood some of the concepts but not others, and consequently it was kind of cute watching and helping her figure out clothes for the first time. She knew how to pull the different garments on, but hadn't yet grasped the more subtle nuances like most clothes had a 'front' and a 'back'.

On the other hand we were lucky in that while she was smaller than me, she wasn't that much smaller. So she was able to share all my new clothes without looking too strange. I got her sorted out with panties, a bra, leggings, and finally a t-shirt. That left us with two problems. I'd only picked up one pair of shoes, and they fit me but were too big for Lia. And more troubling, was what to do about her tail.

The leggings were bunched up beneath it at the back, and none of the t-shirts were long enough to come down over the back to conceal where her tail grew out of the base of her spine. Not that you could see too much, but it was just indecent enough that we'd definitely get even more stares and maybe some complaints.

I solved the second problem by letting her wear my new hoodie, and the camp shoes Soneya made for me worked for Lia as a temporary solution to the first problem.

Meanwhile the wolfgirl and I both got into our new jeans, and we both modified them the way we'd done a few days ago, by cutting a slit in the back for our tails. Then we used our belts to hold the pants up.

"We're going to need to pick up some more clothes," I commented as I finished getting myself dressed. "Lia needs shoes, I need another new hoodie, and basically we need another set of everything."

Soneya emerged from the washroom and suggested, "It's not even four in the afternoon so we have plenty of time. Though instead of buying more clothes, maybe we could find a laundromat and wash our other stuff? Your t-shirts and old hoodie are big, but they still work fine. And I could adjust the camp shoes so they fit her a little better too."

I found myself staring at her for a few seconds. I thought she looked hot before, but seeing the tall strong wolfgirl in a pair of tight jeans and a cute tee got my heart racing while my breath caught in my throat.

"Um," I mumbled as I scrambled to remember what we were talking about. "Oh right. I was actually just going to throw some of that stuff out, and wash the rest when we got home. And we'll need to get more clothes sooner or later. Plus I'm not really feeling up to sitting around a laundromat for two hours waiting for stuff to get washed and dried."

She hesitated, "I hate to bring this up, especially since you're covering the hotel room, but money's going to be a factor for me. I've got a little bit saved, but I just graduated college Tori. I didn't even pay my way for most of this trip, my friend Michael took care of most the expenses."

I nodded slowly, "I get it. I graduated just over a year ago, and I've been pretty lucky with my work? I do have some savings, but right now I'm basically loading up my credit card."

With a quiet sigh I added, "I just want to get through all this and get home. And right now, it's worth it to me to buy Lia some new clothes and new shoes, rather than sit around a laundromat dealing with stares or questions."

"Ok Tori," she replied quietly. "I'll help where I can, but I guess I just needed you to know my funds are limited."

I gave her a brief hug, "I understand Soneya. Now let's go get our little sister some clothes. I'll take care of that, and I can cover dinner as well."

She mumbled a quiet thanks, then the three of us set out together. As we made our way to the elevators I glanced at the wolfgirl and asked, "Oh I almost forgot, how'd it go with the texts and emails?"

"Pretty much the same as what you said. Some anxious emails from my parents, and a couple messages from my friends," she replied. Then as we got into the elevator she grimaced and added, "I got another text from Shane just after you got in the shower. Him and Michael spotted my car in the parking lot so they know I'm here now, and not still stuck in the park. He was hoping I'd text back and maybe meet them for dinner, or at least for drinks."

When we emerged from the elevator the three of us got quite a few stares crossing the lobby. Like on the way in we just looked weird and scruffy, now we were all cleaned up. Soneya was a smoking hot wolfgirl, me and Lia were cute foxgirls, and it felt like everyone took notice.

Meanwhile I gave Soneya a worried look, "What did you tell them? Or didn't you text them back?"

She shook her head, "First I emailed my mom, I let her know I'm ok but that's about it. I kept it vague, didn't say anything about what happened. I'm really not sure how to handle that yet, to be honest. As for Shane and Michael, I haven't responded yet. I'm definitely not going to see them for dinner, but maybe I'll text them after? I'm not sure. I'll try and figure something out."

By that point we were at her Jeep, and Lia was about to follow me into the passenger seat again to sit on my lap. Which was cute when she was a fox but wouldn't really work as a foxgirl almost as big as me. So I helped her into the back seat then showed her how to use the seatbelt. And all three of us needed a few moments to get our tails sorted out.

We pulled out of the lot and headed back to that big box plaza, while I glanced at our wolfgirl again. I felt a little uneasy as I asked, "I don't think I've heard you say much about your family before? Are you... I know we've been talking about going to my place in Toronto, and I'm grateful for that, believe me! But what about your family, your parents?"

Soneya sighed, "I'm not going to be able to get across the border Tori. All my ID is wrong, my drivers license, my passport. If I tried, I'd be locked up. Either for identity theft or for trying to enter the country illegally. And that's not even taking the tail and ears into account. Once the government got their hands on me they'd probably want to study me, experiment on me."

"I couldn't even rely on my family and friends to help," she added with another sigh. "Considering none of them would know me or recognize me anymore. I'm a stranger now, I don't look anything like I used to, I have no way to prove who I was."

She shook her head as we pulled into a parking spot, "And now that we know this stuff's potentially happening everywhere, it's probably going to get worse. If other people start changing like we have, if other people start getting magic, the government's going to freak out. So will the public, once they find out about it."

"I get it," I replied quietly. I reached out and put a hand on her arm to try and reassure her, "We're going to be ok. And even if you can't get back home right away, I'm sure things will work out. You can still talk to your parents, keep in touch with them. We'll figure things out along the way, like we've been doing since this whole thing started."

"Yeah. So let's keep going," she agreed.

The three of us emerged from the car then Lia followed us back into the discount clothes store again. Our little sister picked out some clothes for herself, I grabbed more packs of panties sports-bras and socks, and we found her a pair of sneakers with velcro closures instead of laces so we didn't need to spend time teaching Lia how to tie her shoes.

We also picked up a few more toiletries, then as we finally made our way back out to the Jeep we started talking about what we wanted for dinner.

Neither Soneya or I felt like anything too fancy. After nothing but rehydrated camp food for the past several days we just wanted something simple, tasty, and filling. Basically we were just in the mood for some comfort food. And Lia had no point of reference at all when it came to restaurants or human food. All she knew was she was hungry and wanted to eat.

We ended up picking what looked like a fairly simple family-style restaurant. They had a good variety of typical North American foods, and looking at the menu actually got my mouth watering a bit. I also had to help Lia when we realized she didn't know how to read, though in retrospect I should have guessed that in advance.

Fortunately we didn't get any trouble from anyone, though we did get an awful lot of stares. From both the staff and the other patrons. The food was good though, and as soon as we were eating I forgot all about the funny looks people were giving us.

I went with a bacon cheeseburger and a side of fries, which wasn't the healthiest choice but it got my tail wagging pretty hard. Lia had a piece of fried chicken and some fries, and she looked like she really enjoyed that too. Though my mom would have been mortified at the way our small sister gobbled up her food. And Soneya got a half rack of ribs and mashed potato, which she seemed to really enjoy as well.

When we were all finished I was only mildly embarrassed about having to get some extra wet-wipes so I could clean Lia's face and hands.

"We're probably going to have to teach her how to use cutlery," Soneya commented quietly as she watched me and Lia.

"Maybe," I shrugged. "What do you think Lia? If you're going to spend a lot of time like that, there's quite a few things we need to teach you. But it's up to you."

She frowned but it looked like she wasn't sure either way. Once again she probably had no point of reference for what we were talking about.

The middle of a restaurant wasn't the right place to discuss it anyways, so I suggested "We can discuss it later. Maybe tomorrow, we'll have a long drive so there'll be lots of time to talk about stuff."

Both my companions agreed with that sentiment, so we took care of the bill then headed back out to the car. It was just starting to get dark out as we drove back to the hotel. The parking lot was almost full but we managed to find a spot off to one side.

Then before we got out of the car I commented, "Look at that."

Soneya and Lia both looked to the east where I was pointing. That strange aurora was just visible, low in the dark sky. It was dim enough that it could have been mistaken for sunlight reflecting off the clouds that hung low in the sky over that way, and something told me a lot of people probably tried to convince themselves that's what it was. Except I knew it'd be visible all night long, unlike the sunset.

After a few moments the wolfgirl suggested, "Let's get back to our room. It's been another long day, and we want an early start tomorrow."

"Right," I nodded.

As we started to climb out of the Jeep we were surprised to hear a young man shout at us, "Hey! Who the hell are you people? And what the hell are you doing with my friend's car?!"

"Ah shit," Soneya sighed to herself as her shoulders slumped.

Marching towards us through the parking lot were her two friends, Shane and Michael. And both of them looked angry. It seemed like they'd just got out of their own car, they probably saw us pull in and obviously recognized the wolfgirl's vehicle. They definitely didn't recognize any of the people in it though.

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