My parents both watched in silent fascination as I levitated the fist-sized blob of water for another minute or so. Then I positioned it back over my plastic bottle, and carefully drained the water back inside without spilling so much as a drop.

"So that's it," I stated softly. "That's why I'm calling what happened to me, to us, magic. I can somehow manipulate and control water."

My mom and dad remained silent for another minute or two as they continued to stare at me and my water bottle. Soneya and Lia stayed quiet too, and I found myself hoping our pack leader wasn't too upset or worried about me revealing that secret to my folks. Lia on the other hand didn't seem to care. She was smiling happily as she quietly looked around my parents' family-room.

Eventually my dad spoke, but his voice was quiet and he still seemed sort of stunned. Maybe a bit cautious or wary too.

"That was..." he sighed and shook his head. "That was incredible. Impossible."

Then his expression shifted slightly, from shocked and amazed into more of a thoughtful frown. He stared at me for a couple seconds, then at Lia and Soneya, before looking at me again.

Dad gulped and said, "I hate to say this, I hate to question this but now that it's on my mind I can't leave it. You've come here with fantastic stories and you've showed us impossible things. You look and sound completely different, you're not even entirely human, and you've brought two friends we've never heard of before, one of whom appears to be your sister. Are you..."

He hesitated a moment then sighed again, "Are you really our daughter? Are you our Victoria? Or..."

Dad's voice trailed off and he shook his head slowly, unable to finish that thought. His question left mom looking worried and anxious as well, but nowhere near as uptight as I'd suddenly become.

My stomach was doing flip-flops and my heart started racing. After everything seemed to be going so well and my parents accepted me, my little magic demonstration turned out to be too much. I'd pushed too far, and suddenly dad was questioning my identity. And from the look on my mom's face, now that dad raised the question she was asking it herself. They were both starting to doubt that I was really their daughter.

"Mom, dad, it's really me," I replied softly. "I swear it's me."

They could probably hear the desperation and fear in my voice, or see it on my face. And I was positive my ears were drooping. If I'd been standing up my tail would be down between my legs. My mind raced for a few moments as I quickly thought of ways I could prove myself to them, and fortunately it didn't take long to come up with a few ideas.

I told them about the conversations the three of us had back when I first came out to them. I reminded them of things we all talked about over that long weekend, including some of the embarrassing stuff from when I was younger and first started questioning my gender and became aware of my dysphoria.

Then I recounted more embarrassing incidents from when I was a kid, things that I was positive they'd remember but that nobody outside our family would know. And I reminded them of stupid stuff I'd done, things that got me in trouble or got me grounded. Random details from my life that they'd know and hopefully remember, but nobody else would have even heard of.

I went on for almost ten minutes, talking quietly about my past and personal family stuff while inside I got more and more scared that I'd blown it and we were about to be kicked out of the house. I could feel my eyes starting to sting and a growing lump in my throat as I kept talking, and kept getting more desperate.

Then my mom suddenly got up out of her chair. She moved to stand in front of me, then leaned down and pulled me into a hug.

"It's ok hon," she said softly. "I'm sorry we doubted you. I know you're my Victoria, you couldn't be anyone else."

Hearing that was like a dam broke or something and I cried for a minute or two as my mom held me. Dad came over and joined in the hug as well, he apologized for upsetting me but I didn't quite catch everything he said while I let the tears out.

Soneya and Lia helped calm me down too, I felt a hand on my back and another on my shoulder as my friends showed their support.

"Thanks mom, dad," I sniffed once the tears had stopped. "And Lia, Soneya, sorry for all that."

Our wolfgirl smiled and shook her head, "It's ok Tori, no need to apologize."

"Yeah," Lia nodded. "Now that the story's over can we get food?"

That made me laugh, even while I was still a bit sniffly. I pulled her into a hug and replied "Ok little sis, let's ask my mom if there's something to eat."

"Let me go and get some snacks," mom said with a smile.

As she excused herself dad looked to my small sister and asked, "She's got a bit of a one track mind there, I take it?"

I continued to hold Lia as I reminded my dad, "Until a couple days ago she was a fox. I'm making some assumptions, but I have a feeling that up until Tuesday her entire life probably revolved around finding enough to eat to keep herself from starving. I can't imagine what that was like, but I'll bet it's not the sort of thing you just forget about overnight."

"Of course," my dad nodded. Then he addressed my small sister, "I'm sorry Lia, I didn't mean to make fun of you or anything. I hope I didn't upset you?"

She just shook her head, "Nope! Food is good though, it's super important! Tori and Soneya took me to a place today where there was endless food, more than I thought there could be in the whole entire world, all in one place! We couldn't take it all with us, but we brought lots of it back to our new den."

"I'm also learning about other things too," she added. "Like something called streaming cartoons? That's not as important as food, but it's really nice!"

Dad gave Lia a kindly smile as he nodded, "Food is definitely important. And I suppose I can see how cartoons could be useful too, especially if you've never seen them before."

To his credit my dad wasn't being condescending or sarcastic or anything. I was positive he was being serious, and probably thinking about how my small sister was literally a wild animal less than a week ago. And that she'd only been human, or human-adjacent anyways, for a couple days.

At that point mom returned, she had a tray of crackers and cheese in one hand and a dish full of veggie sticks and dip in the other. She set them both down on the coffee table, along with a little stack of napkins.

"There we go folks," she announced. "Enjoy, but try not to spoil your appetites. I'm planning to feed you young ladies dinner in another hour or two."

"Yay food!" Lia exclaimed as she pulled free of my hug so she could get a closer look at the snacks.

At the same time Soneya smiled, "Thank you ma'am."

I noticed both my parents were mainly watching Lia as she helped herself to some of the goodies. I had a feeling they were worried she was going to try and gorge herself on everything, especially after hearing how obsessed she seemed to be with the subject. However I'd never seen her do that in the past, she didn't even take large portions of anything.

And it was the same with my mom's snacks. For all Lia's excitement she only took a couple crackers and some pieces of cheese. She even tried some of the veggies and dip.

The rest of us helped ourselves as well, and the conversation slowly picked up again in between munching on the tasty treats.

"So if all three of you were changed by magic," dad asked with a thoughtful look on his face, "And knowing that you can do some magic yourself Tori, have you tried to use magic to make yourself normal?"

He added quickly, "I don't necessarily mean reversing your miracle transition, but perhaps you could get rid of the tail and the ears? At least that way you wouldn't stand out, you wouldn't attract any undue attention."

I felt my eyebrows creeping up as I glanced at Soneya then Lia. I looked back to my dad and shook my head, "I don't think that's ever occurred to me? Hmmm."

It only took me a second or two of thought before I shook my head, "I don't think I want to try. I know it's only been a few days since it happened, but after everything we've been through it almost feels like a lifetime? And I'm honestly already really attached to my ears and my tail. They're part of who I am now, and I don't think I'd be comfortable without them."

Soneya looked thoughtful as well, as she seemed to be considering the question too. It took her a little longer, but after a half minute or so she came to the same conclusion.

"I have to agree with Tori," our wolfgirl stated. "Although I admit it feels strange to actually say it? But the ears and tail and the... This is me now. It's new and different, but at the same time it feels right, and it's comfortable."

She grimaced slightly as she added, "And I know it's going to cause us trouble, I've lost sleep worrying about how our different appearances are going to make things difficult for us in the future. But at the same time, I can't really imagine going back to who... To what I looked like before. I can't even imagine looking like I do now but without the wolf parts? That wouldn't be me."

Lia finished munching on a red pepper spear then announced, "I could turn myself back into a fox if I wanted. But I like being a people better. It's more fun and there's better food. Having to wear clothes is strange but I know you'd all be too cold without them because people don't have any fur. Except in a few strange places."

There was a bit of an awkward pause in the conversation at that point, like nobody was quite sure how to respond. Fortunately my dad broke the silence, and happily he also changed the subject.

"So you mentioned earlier about the new challenges you're all still facing," he commented, "Such as your new appearances, and Soneya's concerns about returning home to the States. What other sorts of problems are you worried about? Or how do you see those challenges playing out?"

I was chewing on a carrot stick, but after swallowing I responded "I guess going off the appearance changes, my next big worry is what's going to happen with work? I have another week left in my vacation, but one week from tomorrow I'll be expected to show up at the office and nobody's going to recognize me."

"I can't even be sure they'll still want me working there as a foxgirl, even if I am able to convince them it's really me," I added with a sigh. "Which leads into the ID problem? At least my ID all has the right name and gender marker, I'm glad I got that done a few months ago. And I was presenting femme when I got the new photo ID back in June. But I look absolutely nothing like that now. Heck I'm twenty-five centimetres shorter now than I was last week, and that's impossible!"

Soneya nodded slowly and there was some worry evident in her voice as she chimed in, "I have a lot of the same problems as Tori. More in fact, because..."

Her voice trailed off and she hesitated a moment, before she seemed to make a decision to trust my parents.

"I'm trans as well," she admitted quietly. "But unlike Tori, I didn't know that in advance. I started my hiking trip thinking I was a guy, and my ID has my guy name and my guy picture on it. Then I figured myself out, with Tori's help, and my body changed, and now I look like an entirely different person."

Needless to say my parents both just accepted that news in stride. Neither of them reacted or made a big deal out of it, which I was sure the wolfgirl had been worried about.

"Which is why I can't get back home," she continued after another brief pause. "The US government's not going to believe I'm the same person on my passport. And I can't believe Border Patrol is going to be very understanding if I try to convince them I got magically turned into a wolfgirl. I can't see them letting me go even if they did believe me? With the ears and tail, they'll want to lock me up and study me or something. Meanwhile I'm pretty sure being in Canada without valid identification makes me an illegal alien."

By that point I could hear how stressed she was. I reached out and took her hand in mine and gave it a gentle squeeze, then I took over again.

"So work and identification are two big concerns," I told my parents. "And they both lead to the next one, which is money. My salary isn't going to be enough to support three people indefinitely. We all need new clothes, and soon enough it'll be winter which means we'll all need winter clothes too. Plus I lost my car due to the earthquake, it's stuck in the park near ground-zero while I still have to make payments on it. Luckily we've got Soneya's Jeep. But she can't get a job here whether she has valid ID or not, and Lia... She's been learning to be human in a big hurry but obviously she can't work."

"All right hon," dad said in a calming tone. "I understand, you three girls are facing a lot of challenges. I'm glad you all trust Andrea and myself enough to share all this with us, and I want you all to know you're not alone. We're going to try and help you figure these things out, ok? I can't promise we'll find all the answers, but I can promise I'll do my best to help any way I can."

Mom nodded in agreement, and I felt another surge of emotion at their unconditional support. Soneya seemed to feel it too, neither of us were able to respond right away. For the next minute or so we all just sat there in silence, while I was blinking back some happy tears and our tall strong wolfgirl took a couple slow deep breaths.

Then Lia slowly leaned forward and quietly scooped up another cracker and some cheese, and the silence was finally broken by the sound of her munching on her snack.

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