"This is getting grim," I said quietly as me and Soneya both stared at the TV screen.

The wolfgirl nodded slowly, "At least they haven't said anything about folks like us yet. It's bound to happen though, sooner or later."

"Yeah," I sighed.

All three of us were sitting together on the sofa in the living-room. I was in the middle, with Soneya to my left and Lia on my right. Our small sister was mostly bored though, while the wolfgirl and I were definitely worried.

It was early Monday afternoon, and about forty-five minutes ago my mom texted to let me know they were doing a big press conference on all the local TV channels. The prime minister was addressing the whole country, and the news wasn't good.

Soneya's attention was half on the TV and half on her phone, as soon as we realized what was going on she started checking social media to find out what they were saying in the States, and to see what details the official news brief was leaving out.

Basically it all started around three o'clock in the morning, our time. News broke over in Europe about something in the water downstream of an impossible mountain over there, that it was making a lot of people sick and there were a growing number of deaths. Then folks in Africa, Asia, and even in Australia and New Zealand chimed in with similar reports.

Within a couple hours some information had leaked in the States about an outbreak of mysterious illnesses in Memphis, as well as a number of smaller communities along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers upstream to the Land Between The Lakes. Meanwhile in Canada folks in Alberta between Banff and Calgary were all saying the same thing, along with people out on the Gaspésie peninsula.

By that point all of social media was practically on fire and the various governments couldn't keep it secret any longer. So press conferences were scheduled all around the world, the prime minister addressed the nation here while in the USA their president was doing something similar.

"They haven't said anything about the 'sickness' going upstream yet," Soneya pointed out. "I wonder if they know about that and they're trying to keep it secret, or if they haven't figured it out yet."

I shrugged, "It might be moving slow enough they haven't spotted it yet. If they know and they're trying to keep a lid on it, that's probably just going to backfire on them when it does finally come out."

She didn't argue with that. Then she grimaced, "About the only good thing about all this is with everybody panicking about the water situation, it's all but drowned out the scattered talk about people like us."

That was yet another thing we had to worry about. Even though we'd made it all the way back home without anybody actually confronting us or outright attacking us, we'd definitely attracted a lot of attention. The most worrying thing was when Soneya found a picture of the three of us somebody posted to their social media feed. It was taken when we stopped for lunch in Montreal, but none of us noticed at the time.

We weren't alone though, the wolfgirl's searches came up with a handful of other reports. A pair of animal people were sighted in Arizona, outside the military exclusion zone set up around the impossible mountain there. Two cat-kin were spotted in Scotland, near the edge of Cairngorms National Park. There was even a report of a couple monster girls in Australia, not far from another of those magic mountains.

"Thank goodness for small favours I guess?" I sighed. "I really hate to say it but if the water situation keeps getting worse, maybe they'll never get around to worrying about the three of us."

Soneya just sighed, then her focus returned to her phone while I started paying attention to the TV again. They were talking about solutions now, what they were doing to help people and fix the water and everything.

Unfortunately the first thing they suggested was basically just a placebo, as they instructed people in the affected areas to boil all their water. I was positive they had to know by now that wouldn't help, but they were recommending it anyways. The second suggestion was a little better, but probably impractical for a lot of people. That was voluntary evacuation.

If people in the affected areas had friends or family elsewhere, they were being told it was a good idea to leave. For folks in the Gaspésie that might have meant heading west to Quebec City or Montreal, or south to New Brunswick, or to one of the other maritime provinces. People around Banff and Calgary could head to Edmonton, Lethbridge, or west into British Columbia.

As for actually identifying what was wrong with the water, all the government officials could say is they had everyone they could working on the problem. They also claimed to be 'taking steps' to ensure water quality wasn't further compromised, especially for places downriver of the affected locations. Mostly they were talking about places like Medicine Hat and Swift Current, that were downriver from Calgary. The assurances were vague though, they didn't actually say what steps they were taking or how people in those places would know if the water was safe.

Towards the end of all that they brought up the subject of bottled water. That was going to become scarce in a hurry, I figured people were already going to try and hoard it but the government was going to beat them to it. They announced that they would be diverting bottled water from safe locations and shipping it to the affected areas for folks who couldn't relocate, with a priority given to hospitals and nursing homes, along with emergency services personnel.

After that they wrapped up the press conference. The prime minister and the other officials didn't stick around to answer any questions, and I was positive all the reporters present had a lot of them. From there the TV cut back to the news anchors, but I muted it so I could talk with my companions again.

Soneya looked up from her phone and shook her head, "It's only going to get worse. The president said a lot of the same things. Boil water, evacuate, that kind of thing. Meanwhile people online are saying it's already hit Baton Rouge and New Orleans."

"Phoenix Arizona's going to be next," she added with a grimace. "Folks in the area are already talking about strange stuff going on with the water near Sedona? They say Oak Creek's flowing faster and deeper than usual, and that empties into the Verde River which is a tributary of the Salt River. That flows right through Phoenix before it joins up with the Gila River. And that eventually hooks up with the Colorado River, not far from the Mexican border."

I sighed, "When people figure out it's moving upstream the shit's really going to hit the fan. Right now I think folks are anxious, but it probably feels like the situation can be dealt with, right? I mean worst-case scenario, that's four major cities in the USA and one in Canada. It sounds like the mountain in Arizona isn't too far from emptying into the sea, the one in Quebec is practically next to the Atlantic Ocean."

"The one in Kentucky is going to do the most damage in the States with three big cities downstream," I continued. "And the one in Alberta is threatening a chunk of the prairies. Folks can see that and understand it, and as much as it sucks they can move. But when they figure out it's also propagating upstream, when they start looking at how much of our water's going to be compromised, it's going to be chaos."

"Yeah," the wolfgirl sighed. There was a long pause before she asked, "Where do you think all this is heading? Do you still figure it's part of some sort of grand plan?"

I slowly shook my head, "I don't really know. I still feel like it's all happening for a reason, that it's being guided? And I'm pretty sure the force behind it is called Gaia. Assuming that's the same Gaia we know from legends and mythology, we can probably make some educated guesses though."

"Right," she grimaced. "If we're talking about Gaia as in Mother Nature, she's probably got a pretty big grudge against humanity by this point. Between climate change, pollution, deforestation, and all the countless species we've wiped out over the past couple hundred years, it's not hard to imagine she's had about enough of us."

I shrugged, "Maybe? I don't think she's going to wipe us out. If that was her goal then why'd you and I change, why'd we get magic? And why are there others like us popping up around the world? For that matter, why does the water only make some people sick? If her goal was to get rid of humanity then she's not being very efficient about it."

Soneya frowned, "Huh. So maybe it's a warning then? Six days ago she gave the world a shake and had all those mountains pop up, now she's showing us what she can do. Except if it's meant to be a warning, she's going to have to be a little more direct about it. Like people will need to know why this is happening and who's behind it. They're not going to guess it's Mother Nature unless she actually spells it out in no uncertain terms."

"And even then I'll bet half the people refuse to listen," she added with a scowl.

"Yeah," I sighed.

I knew she was right. If somebody turned up claiming to be Gaia and tried to tell everyone to clean up their act along with the planet I was positive most people would outright ignore it. I could imagine conspiracy theorists coming up with all sorts of whacky explanations for the mountains and the tainted water. I could also see right-wing religious folks blaming it on queers or the devil or something along those lines. And I was convinced rich people would simply ignore it. The folks making billions off of fossil fuel and all those related industries wouldn't just give up all their money and power.

In fact the more I thought about it, the more the situation made me depressed. I couldn't help worrying about my parents, and all the good people in the world who were going to suffer because of this.

Soneya was quiet too, I was positive she was thinking about the same stuff as me. She ended up staring at her phone again, while I watched the muted TV news anchors. And Lia fidgeted impatiently next to me.

Our small sister eventually asked, "Are we still going to do magic stuff with your ID? Or can we watch cartoons again now?"

All my ID cards were on the coffee table in front of us, along with Soneya's wallet. We'd been talking to Lia about that when my mom texted to tell me about the news, and after that we kind of forgot about messing with ID.

I smiled, "Sorry sis. Would you mind if we got back to the ID stuff? I promise we'll put your cartoons on again as soon as we're done."

"Ok Tori," she agreed.

I picked up my drivers license and health card from the coffee table again then I sat a little closer to Lia as I held the cards so she could see them both.

"So like I was saying earlier these are my ID cards," I explained as I tried to pick up where we left off before the press conference. "They have my name and other information about me on them, and they both have a picture of what I used to look like before I changed last week."

Lia nodded, "I remember all that."

I smiled, "Perfect. So I was thinking about what you said a few days ago, back when we were in the hotel room in Amqui. You said you were trying to make an illusion so you'd look like a person, but somehow instead of an illusion you accidentally changed yourself into a foxgirl like me."

Our small sister nodded again, "I'm not sure how I did it though?"

"That's ok Lia," I told her. I put the drivers licence aside for now and just focused on the health card as I continued, "What I was thinking is, maybe you could try to do an illusion over one of my ID cards? So that instead of this old picture of me, you could make it show a picture of what I look like now? Nothing else on the card would change though, only the picture part."

She frowned as she slowly reached out and took the card from me. She turned it over in her hand as she stared at it, then finally ended up holding the card face-up.

"I could try?" she shrugged. "I don't know if it'll work though. And I don't know if it'll be real or just an illusion."

I nodded, "That's fine sis. Give it your best shot, and we'll see what happens ok?"

"Ok Tori," she agreed.

Soneya and I both watched quietly as our small sister focused on the card. A little frown settled on her face as she concentrated, and after about a minute I saw a flicker of light over the card. Nothing seemed to change, but it seemed obvious Lia was trying, and maybe it was building up.

Sure enough a few seconds later there was another, brighter flicker of light. Then a moment after that it was more of a flash, bright enough to leave spots in my eyes.

"Is that how you wanted it?" Lia asked as she held the card back out for me.

I thanked her as I accepted it from her, then smiled at the image. "Lia that's perfect!"

Soneya nodded in agreement. "How do you feel Lia, are you ok after doing that?"

"I guess so?" she shrugged. "Do you want me to try again with the other card?"

I nodded as I picked up my drivers license again, "Yes please. For this one there's two things that we need to change. The picture needs to be changed same as the first card, but this one also has my height on it and we need to fix that too."

"Here where it says one hundred and eighty centimetres," I added as I pointed it out. "That needs to be changed to a hundred and fifty-five centimetres."

Lia took the card from me and did the same thing as before, she turned it over in her hands as she frowned at it before focusing on the front of the card. It was basically a repeat of what she did with the health card, there were a couple flickers then a flash, and it was done.

I thanked her, then me and Soneya changed places so the wolfgirl was sitting next to our small sister. She picked up her wallet and with her cheeks going red she pulled out one of her cards. I didn't try and look, I didn't need to know what her deadname was or what the picture looked like on her drivers license.

Our pack leader carefully explained all the information that needed to be changed, then Lia repeated her magic trick again and it was done. Soneya's Pennsylvania Drivers Licence now listed her new name and gender, her new height, and depicted her new likeness.

Her passport was next, then she even got Lia to update the name on her bank card and credit card.

While the two of them were busy with that I went into the kitchen and prepared some cheese and crackers as a snack. I figured after all that Lia deserved a treat along with her cartoons.

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