Northern Lights - A Celestial Gacha Story - Semi-SI-ish, Worm, MI UP

[Inkyfoxxo]

Spoiler: Starting Perk:

Starting perk:

Insatiable Stomach
(Gourmet Of Another World): High level dishes made with spiritual ingredients normally contain vast amounts of energy which is why they can improve the consumers' cultivation. This also means that you unfortunately can only eat a certain amount. After all, too much energy can become harmful and in a large enough quantity cause you to explode. You however, are special like the child Xiao Ya and you possess a truly insatiable stomach. No matter how much food and energy you absorb you will never become full. In addition there is nothing that can upset your stomach. Even items that are normally toxic or filled with berserk energy will seemingly have no adverse effects on you.

A/N: Here we go! Apologies, this is rough. Both emotionally and craft-wise. It does get better.

My thoughts were racing. They went a little something like this:

I'm a parahuman! I have a power.

It's absolutely useless.

I can never become full.

This doesn't make me not gain weight, it doesn't make me get powerups from food.

It means I can eat toxic things, and my stomach won't get full.

Lamest power... ever.

...okay. It might be kind of useful.

I'm living on the street. As of yesterday. I got kicked out for being a lesbian, because some bitches at school decided to spread a rumour that happened to be true.

I...

Last night is kind of fuzzy.

I woke up this morning in an alley, with empty pill bottles strewn around me.

I think my power might have saved my life? What there is to save, anyway.

I... woke up with new memories. Of another life. It... didn't really seem relevant? Nothing about it was familiar...

Except for the suicide attempt.

But now I'm awake. I have my phone, the clothes on my back, and... half a pack of gum.

What the fuck am I supposed to do now?

...I bet they haven't moved the spare key. I could get my stuff, get out. Maybe grab some cash?

They'd both be at work right now, wouldn't they?

---

I slunk back, my phone on the verge of dying.

This wasn't giving up.

I was taking what I needed and running, not crawling back with my tail between my legs.

I managed to fill my dad's suitcase with clothes, with books, with my stuffed fox Miss Fluffy.

While I was getting some nonperishable food, I heard the front door open. I panicked and froze for a second, then grabbed my suitcase and ran out the back.

I wasn't fast enough. My dad was home, along with men I didn't know. One of them caught me by the hair and yanked me back. I screamed, and got hit. I don't know how many times, it all sort of dissolved into impacts and pain. But one of the men was in blue and black and his shiny police badge caught the light.

I don't think anything was broken? It was hard to tell, the pain felt sort of distant, everything a little far away.

But I was in the trunk of a car and my dad had said nothing.

From context I picked up later, my dad was a high level nonpowered lieutenant for the E88. Me being outed as a lesbian was bad for him. Really bad.

I was being taken for an initiation.

Not mine.

I was the initiation.

I was kept in a cellar overnight. Nothing I could do to get out, but cry.

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

A/N: In the early turns I was trying to do this thing where she'd get her powers at dawn every day, and then when we left the prologue, on the dawn of the first day of the week. I later decided to move that to 'Whenever dramatically appropriate'.

Oh, and... This one's about as dark as it gets.

---


In the middle of the night? Early morning? It was hard to tell, no light makes its way down to me here. I was thrown a bottle of water with mix-in drink flavouring in it.

It wasn't very good. The water flavouring had a chemical backtaste like the really bad sugar free ones, but it was still water and I was very thirsty. I chugged it eagerly. I knew I'd need to pee soon and there was a bucket that I really didn't want to deal with. But, I was so very thirsty.

Half an hour later, the door slammed open. I scrambled back from the door, and the stereotypical skinhead stared at me for a second. Then shut the door without saying anything.

A few minutes later, a freezer burrito, still half-frozen, was tossed through the door. And it had been even longer since I'd eaten. The backtaste was there too, and worse. Was it freezerburn? Was this how freezerburn tastes?

It was disgusting. But it was still food and my body thrummed with the need for it.

I sat back, reflecting that at l I wouldn't get food poisoning because of my useless superpower. I winced as the movement pressed on my tender bruises.

I had no warning for the door slamming open again. Two men entered. One muscled, tattooed, stereotypical skinhead. The other looked like a middle school teacher. A soft plaid shirt, thick-rimmed glasses, and belted khakis. But his expression was wrong. He just seemed irritated, while the skinhead seemed bored.

"You couldn't have cooperated, could you? No you have to make this as difficult as possible for everybody." He stepped forward and wrenched me up by the hair and shoulder. I cried out in pain, the movement setting off the remnants of the beating from the day before

"Don't give me that. If you'd eaten or drunk like you were supposed to, I wouldn't have to hurt you, so this is your fault." He started dragging me towards the door despite the pitiful struggle I put up.

"Hey Hendricks?" The skinhead's voice was surprisingly crisp. Cold and clear.

"No names!" The man holding me hissed.

"Look."

"I'm kind of busy at the moment. You know you could help." He gave my bruised back a vicious elbow as I tried to bite his hand over my mouth.

"Hendricks."

I glanced up to see the empty water bottle and burrito wrapper being held up by the skinhead. Hendricks froze too.

I could almost hear the gears clicking in his head.

"You don't think..."

"How long?"

"Check."

There wasn't much in the room other than the bucket, but the skinhead looked around everything, in every corner. I hung limp and panting, aching and just wanting do be done. Then he pulled a phone from his pocket to check the time.

"Yeah, both doses? She should be dead by now."

"Go. Call him. I got the kid."

Hendricks tossed me away, wringing a pained cry from my body as I hit the floor. The skinhead flipped the empty bucket over and pulls his gun. He sits on the bucket and watches me. Finger on the trigger.

"Now don't try anything. If you're lucky we might be coworkers soon. Wouldn't that be nice."

He was tense. Ready to shoot me at the first sign of... what?

Eventually I scraped up the courage to ask "What's going on?"

He stood from the bucket, took two steps to give me a vicious kick to the stomach. I retched in pain. Right. No talking. He sat back down.

I didn't know how much time passed. It sort of blurred, but a man in old world war two uniform came through the door. He pushed it only lightly, but it slammed hard against the wall. I looked up, uncomprehending, at his gas mask.

"Well. What a pleasant surprise." His accent was English? With a hint of something else. He approached, and as he did it felt like I was under thick snow. It pressed down on me, soft but unrelenting. "It genuinely has not happened before, us sweeping up a new trigger to star in an initiation. My men had no idea how to handle it. So now, we come to have a conversation. Your future has two paths. The first, I ask you a question. You answer honestly. We welcome you into our organization, with some assurances of your behavior. The second, you lie. I would never sell a proper white girl to the ABB, of course, but you aren't one, are you? You think you're a dyke. Very embarrassing for your father when it came out. But. Well, I'm sure you'll learn better at their... what was it called? Oh yes. The farm. After a few years and a few thousand men you might even learn to enjoy it."

I gulped.

"We know you have a parahuman power. Describe it."

For a brief. Tiny. Moment, I considered lying. Saying I didn't have one, but the pressure on me tightened and I cried out in pain. I sobbed.

"I can't get full."

"Yes. And?" Tighter squeeze.

"That's it! I can't get full and nothing I eat can hurt me."

The squeeze this time made me scream, and I felt my bones grinding together.

"And it's offensive ability?"

"It doesn't have one!" I sob. "It's useless."

The pressure tightens enough that I feel one of my fingers crack with pain. My vision whites out for a moment.

"That's it! That's the truth! I swear!"

A second finger snapped, and I screamed.

"That's it I'm sorry I don't know what you want from me!"

Through tear-blurred eyes I saw him standing there. I couldn't discern an expression from him through his mask.

"You." Krieg snapped his fingers at the skinhead. "I assume this safehouse has bleach. Bring it."

"All of it?" he balked.

"An unopened bottle." Krieg ground out. Were they getting ready to kill me?

No. Krieg hauled me up and locked me in place with his power, then forcefed me the entire bottle of bleach. It tasted awful and I retched a few times, but it all went into my stomach apart from the amount scorching my lungs and making me cough.

I was thrown across the room, screaming and cradling my broken fingers. They throbbed in time with my lungs and at this point I just... wanted it to be over. Everything went hazy and distant.

Krieg watched me carefully for a couple of minutes, then pulled out his cell phone.

A torrent of rapid German came back and forth and I could follow none of it. I think, exhausted, I passed out here.

I came to in the back of a moving car. My fingers throbbed with every bump, and I whimpered in pain.

"Ahhhh awake I see."

Krieg glanced back at me from the passenger seat. The doors were all locked with child locks - I checked - and Krieg explained pleasantly, like he hadn't just forced me to drink a bottle of bleach.

Outside, the first light of dawn was shading the sky.

"You know, I have to thank you." He seemed in a good mood. "Oh, your power is useless, except for keeping you alive. But that makes you very, very valuable."

He adopted a lecturing tone, and I got the sense he was bragging, more than actually trying to tell me something. "You see, the children of parahumans are more likely to get powers than those of regular people. But the problem with any sort of breeding program is that they have powers. And thus, are harder to contain. But you, fraulein..." he chuckled. "Oh we are going to get so very many soldiers from your womb."

The horror of what they were planning on doing to me sunk in, and tears leaked from my eyes.

"Oh, hush, no, don't cry. You'll be doing the world a service, and motherhood is the greatest joy a woman can hope for." The soothing, reassuring tone of his words only made them worse.

But there was something happening. The dawn was approaching, and with it a sense of pressure, of tension. No, that wasn't quite right. It felt like the moment where all the wheels of a one-armed-bandit are spinning, or a coin is flipping through the air, or bingo balls rattling around inside a cage. The feeling built, and built.

"I have some friends here who are going to take you out with them to fish. And by the time they return, you will be partway to your new home. And don't despair. Brockton Bay will not be left untended. I will be able to trade you for several of their broken toys, and the Empire shall take very good care of the city, indeed."

That pressure, that anticipation, rose higher and higher. The car was halted by the docks, left running while they waited, and minutes later I was being dragged from the backseat.

The sensation built, until we approached a smallish vessel that reeked of fish. I would have struggled. Screamed. Cried out. But the men on the boat were the only ones nearby and Krieg had shown he would just hurt me until I did what he wanted.

I was being dragged into an empty storage space in the boat, and tossed in. Just after my scream of pain, I could hear bolts sliding home and a lock clicking shut.

The motor coughed and started, reverberating through the deck, and that pressure finally popped. Or, it felt a bit like a pop. Or a coin landing in a hand, the ball bouncing into place on a roulette wheel, a capsule rolling from the 50 cent dispensers at the store...

And a little vial appeared in my hand. I couldn't see it. There was no light to see by. But I knew what it was. It was Alexandria in a phial.

Well, no, that wasn't accurate, it was a few hours of flight, strength, toughness, resistance to... to magic? The ability to see the invisible, and some sort of eye thing.

Part of me made connections even as I carefully put the vial to my lips and bit into the rubber cork and pulled.

Was this what my power actually was? Every morning I'd get a new lame superpower or a useful one-time-only item?

Sure each individual power sucked. But layered on top of each other?

The cork came free with a pop and an electric scent of artificial apple filled the air.

Well, it couldn't be worse than bleach.

I tossed it back.

Power flooded through me. It wasn't mine, I could feel it was being layered over me, and would wear out. But for now, I flew straight up and burst through the deck, gritting my teeth at how this hurt my already existing injuries. I reared back to- to what?

Kill them? Punish them? Bring them back to Brockton Bay?

Take them to the protectorate? The police?

I shivered the the remembrance of the beating from the police men that gave me to the nazis.

No. No, I just wanted away. The girls at school had driven off my friends, and my family-

No. I wanted out. Away.

I looked down at the boat, where the men had firearms aimed up at me but had not started shooting yet.

I tried my eye beam thingy.

It let me feel whatever I was looking at, and I could grab it with that electric green beam. And I was strong, now. For now.

I flew out to the side of the ship, avoiding the bullets being fired at me right now.

I grabbed onto a panel near the bottom of the boat, something that went down under the water. I got a firm grip on it with my eyebeams... and I tore it away.

There. Whatever happened next was not my problem. I flew up, up, up, until I wasn't worried about bullets anymore. But all around me was the ocean, with no land in sight. I looked frantically for any sort of landmark, but the only things I could see were the sun just after dawn, the blue sky, some puffy clouds, the ocean, and a distant boat.

Wait, the sun!

It rose in the east!

I took a moment to remember what that meant in relation to Brockton Bay and the ocean... And set off, speeding as fast as I could away from the sunrise.

I didn't want to run out of power over the ocean.

As I went, I thought, and cradled my wounds.

I didn't want to go back to Brockton Bay. I'd started in that direction because it was all I could think of. But maybe... Maybe I could just fly until I ran out of superpowers. Wherever I ended up, it would be better than where I started.

...

It was kind of wild, seeing the ground from this high.

I mean I was in an airplane once. (twice, there and back) But it was different, seeing the ground through that tiny window and seeing it spreading out beneath me as I flew in an electric green-apple glow.

I... was glad I wasn't trying to go back to Brockton Bay, because I only saw one city and lots and lots of lakes, and the city's bay was the wrong shape for brockton.

I flew west. Then I flew over a squiggly river and then I was over the ocean again. I was... pretty sure that Nantucket wasn't that wide and New York had... New York on it.

I flew and flew and flew.

Tiny towns. So many lakes. winding rivers. Highways. Endless forests. Mountains. Forests slowly being eaten by fields of crops, until there were only tiny strips of forest among the many long fields. There was a river, and I could see a big city off to the left in front of me. After some hesitation, I veered right for a bit. Cities had heroes. I was in my dirty pyjamas and no mask and powers that were about half out. Or worse, villains.

And back to forests and lakes and tiny towns. I followed a river for a while until it veered right and I stayed going West. Huh, that was a big lake, then a big city. Not big-big, but maybe Brockton-sized off to the right. A flying speck rose from there and I hurried past. I caught a glimpse of sparkling crystal before I was gone.

I was running out of power so I needed to find a place to land. Were there, like. Radar? Were people going to track me? Didn't planes fly like super low to avoid that? I descended, flying level with the trees on either side of the railroad tracks I was following.

I felt stupid for not thinking about that earlier. But my throbbing fingers made it hard to think.

This low, the ground was a blur beneath me, it seemed so fast!

Still, it felt like I had been flying forever, and I really needed to pee.

When I had just a few minutes of powers left, I saw a larger town come up. I wanted somewhere where I wouldn't be super obvious, right?

But that was a later problem. There were a lot of woods and I had a lot of pee.

...

I had made a minor miscalculation.

I was limping along the side of a road into a town.

I was young, in bloodstained pyjamas and cradling obviously broken fingers. One of my eyes was swollen half-shut so it was probably like... suuuuper purple.

The potion must have been helping me with the pain because everything started feeling worse and worse. Or maybe it was just the fogginess wearing off.

A few cars did pass me like I expected.

In Brockton Bay, you were told to call the cops when you saw something like that. Don't approach. Don't make yourself a target.

I was about ready to collapse and try to get some rest when a grey minivan skidded to a stop in front of me.

A man got out of the driver's seat hurriedly, detangling himself from his seat belt.

He approached me, and some paranoid part of my brain screamed 'they found me!'

He was dressed sort of like the schoolteacher-nazi-man. Which did make me afraid, but he also... It was like the same pieces were there but assembled differently? It was too hard to think to figure that out.

"Honey, are you okay?" He knelt in front of me. "Do you need help?" He scoffed in self deprecation. "Of course you're not o- holy shit lets get you to a hospital." He was staring at my fingers, two of which were obviously pointing the wrong way. The kindness, the gentleness, it broke whatever I had been using to hold the last few days at bay, and I started wailing.

I didn't follow a lot of what happened next.

Just warmth, and pain, and movement, and noise that didn't resolve itself into anything legible.

But eventually, it trickled through to my consciousness that I was safe.

I slept.

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

I woke to the beeping of monitors and the antiseptic smell of a hospital. I ached, but it was in a sort of distant, floaty way. I could hear voices, but they weren't quite assembling into words at first.

I think I had been woken by the feeling of the prize wheel spinning up, the sticks beginning to be shaken in the jar, the ball being released to bounce among the pegs.

Every day? Powers, if I get to keep crap powers or use better one-time items "I would like a healing potion please and thank you."

The others turn and I realize I said that last bit out loud. How much of it?

Wait, others?

There was the car man the man with the van. But he had like a domino mask on. Why did he have a domino mask on? That was dumb it looked silly with his supenders.

A doctor! I knew she was a doctor cause she was in a big, sharp, white coat over blue pyjamas. No, they're not pyjamas...

There was a woman in crystalline armour, a faint chill radiating from her. The armor was sleek and feminine, but constantly shifted, new ice crystals poking through transpiring old ones. Her chest plate was especially mesmerizing, and took me a moment to realize I was being talked to.

"-mily, can you hear me?"

I said the first thing that came to mind.

"You're pretty."

Wait no that's not what I meant.

I met her eyes through her frosted ice mask.

"You should be careful." I reached out to tap on her visor but she was too far away. "If that melts everyone can see you like Mr. Van Man. Hi Mr. Van Man, thank you for- my fingers have armor. Am I a superhero?"

The metal braces on two fingers covered blue padding.

It sounded like the ice lady was trying not to laugh. Did somebody tell a joke? she tapped on her plexiglass visor.

"Don't worry about it, if my plexiglass is melting, I've got bigger problems. But Emily, you flew here, right?"

"You really should not be talking to her without someone present."

"This is just a little cape-to-cape chat."

"As I showed you, her MRI proves she is not a parahuman, and she is heavily drugged."

"Well I have pictures of her flying over international borders twice and reports of her attacking a fishing boat with 'eye lasers'"

"Which are clearly ludicrous. You-"

"Um. Scuse me?" I cut in, and the three adults turned to me.

"If daddy sold me to nazis then I don't belong to him anymore, right? Do we need to go get the nazis to talk to Ice Lady?"

"Christ." Mr. Van Man breathed.

"Right. I'm calling CPS." The doctor turned on her heel, brushing past a woman with dark hair to leave the ward. She turned and addressed the woman.

"No. Out. This is a patient's room, not a-"

"You thought you could run from me?" The woman raged, staring at Mr. Van Man.

"Monica, this isn't the-"

"From me?" The floors and walls around her rippled, to the sounds of groaning steel and panic.

"Ma'am, this is neither the time nor the-"

"Shut up, slut!" The wall bulged, and a monster wrought of plaster and concrete erupted from it. Above, the building started groaning as supports were disrupted. The monster leapt at the Ice Lady and crashed through the wall.

"For fuck's sake, this is a hospital." Mr Van Man was seething, the floor under him rippling but him keeping them small and contained.

"Your fault. I told you what would happen if you ran from me! This is YOUR fault!" Another monster formed, and the ceiling sagged.

"Monica, I'm on vacation, this has nothing to-" The monster leapt, and in an instant, Mr. Van Man pulled the material of the floors and walls up around himself like armour, the pouncing monster toppling them through the wall and floor. The first rays of dawn shone in through the ravaged, broken walls.

Monica sobbed, then turned to the doctor.

"Are you fucking him?" then to me. "Are you? Really? A fucking kid?" She started to draw more from the building, but the building had had enough. Inside me, the cup was coming up off the dice, the cards revealed, and-

With a screaming of steel and the roaring crush of stone, a lurch in the pit of my stomach, we all began to fall. My bed slid sideways but I couldn't see much among all the concrete dust, only feel myself get pelted and the bed jostled as we fell.

I could feel myself changing, every cell becoming something new, something mutable. Something flexible, something- The crush of stone hit my left arm and pulled the braces off my fingers even as my arm bones gave a sickening snap.

Suddenly, I was done. Just. Completely. I wanted comfort. I wanted safety. I wanted to not hurt and I wanted my Daddy to be a good man. I wanted Miss Fluffy. My stuffed fox. She was... in the suitcase somewhere? Foxes didn't get kidnapped by nazis. I wish I could be a fox.

And then, I was.

I hit the ground and my animal keen of pain was overshadowed by the roar that shook the earth, the scream of steel, the blaring of alarms.

And then, elsewhere, I could still hear crashing and crunching and I could feel the rumbling through my body, but the only thing that moved where I was, was dust. I was tucked between two pieces of rubble. If I had still been a person, I would have been crushed. My ears were ringing, and everything was muted.

As it was, I could see... I could see wavering daylight try to make it through the dust, and I scrambled towards it. Stopped, gave a keen of pain, and then started limping on three legs.

Nope.

I was done. Nuh-uh.

I limped out of the rubble, the crashes of a fight between stone titans making me flinch, as each jolted through my body. I slunk in the other direction. I could hear nothing.

Past rubble spattering the street, past a car impaled with a jagged spear of concrete and rebar, out into some trees. But no, that wasn't far enough. I could still feel the jolting of crashing stone.

Further, further, across two highways with no moving cars and only a few still ones. Into more woods. It seemed big to me, but everything seemed big to me.

I debated turning human again, once I found a little hollow to lie down in.

But it was fox-sized. And I was just so tired.

...

I woke hungry and aching. In the middle of the night. Or... the night, anyway. The world was so different like this. It didn't look all that dark, but I could see stars up above. The trees and grass were a mix of greys and browns, and there were black streaks that I could see dripping through my fur.

The world was a riot of smells, only some of which I recognized. And the ones I did recognize were so much richer, so much deeper, so full of nuance.

The world was silent, the only noise in vibrations I could feel on my paws or whiskers.

Wait, no, that wasn't right. Weren't foxes supposed to have good hearing?

I was a fox.

I wanted to be excited. Remembering playing pretend at being my friends pet fox as a kid, the fox poster on my bedroom wall.

I wanted my bedroom. It wasn't safe and daddy wasn't safe but I ached to sleep in my own bed after all the chaos.

No, I just ached.

And I was hungry.

I struggled to my feet, falling over a couple of times, and limped towards the houses on the other side of the forest. I couldn't really focus on much other than limping forwards. Houses meant people meant food, right?

Pretty soon, I was too tired to keep going. I was hungry, but... maybe I could just rest for a little...

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

I was dragged awake by the feeling of the tumblers of a one-armed bandit moving, cards being laid out face down, a hat slowly filling with slips of paper.

I whined. Did it have to be every morning? My power woke me up before dawn, and then something awful happened, and then I limped away to collapse before the next thing. Could it please stop?

But... I was in somebody's yard. Somebody- I recognized the scent of dog, layered with details that I didn't know enough to be able to identify.

Dogs were big and scary.

Time to go.

If anything, I felt even worse. Everything was stiff now, as well as throbbing. But I still moved.

One backyard, two. The smells of the world waking up before the dawn. I smelled something that made my belly ache with hunger, but it was all mixed up with rot and paper and spoiled meat and- Ah. That was a trash can. Was I that desperate?

I felt a scraping something, like stone grinding nearby, and leapt away from it. Didn't think, just ran. And then collapsed, whining in pain. I looked up to see an old woman in thick gloves and an old leather jacket.

I tried to scramble away, but her thick glove came and clamped down above my neck and shoulder and I expected pain.

What came instead was peace. She lifted me by there - oh, the scruff - and I felt calm. Safe. My left front leg and paw still screamed in pain and the rest of me ached, but it was okay. It wasn't my problem to deal with right now. Right now, I was in safe jaw- hands.

She supported me gently with her other hand but it didn't really feel like I needed it. I felt a vibration, like a purr or the feeling of someone talking but- oh, I was deaf. Her lips were moving, I could feel the vibrations, but I couldn't hear her. But I was safe. We moved next to a battered station wagon, then I was hoisted through into the bed.

I registered the cage lined with towels and smelling of many other creatures, and fear, but I was indifferent to it at the moment.

And then she released my scruff and gently put me down in the cage. She closed the cage door and latched it shut.

She said something and closed the back of the car.

I began to panic, but it fizzled into exhaustion.

Yeah, that would be the next thing to happen.

...

The flipping coin landed while I was in the truck, the prize bell rang.

And a book landed on me. I scrambled back and thought about what my power told me about it.

It was a magic book. A book that would teach me a spell! Sure, a lust-based spell but it was a power I could use! That wouldn't just be another way to survive and escape!

I cackled in a foxy laugh, then realized. I couldn't get it open. There wasn't enough room to manoeuvre it, nor was my one usable paw dextrous enough to flip pages. I could try to transform back... and find out what a thick wire cage does to a girl too big who suddenly finds herself inside it.

Or I could wait.

...I rested my pouty muzzle on the book and sighed.

...

It wasn't until the car had stopped for good, and the back gate was opening that I realized I overlooked something.

Random objects appearing next to me was getting to be old hat for me, but this person had sealed a fox into the cage, and was about to find a fox and a book.

She said something, I think she laughed? She peered at the book, then picked up the cage without letting me out.

I couldn't control my sounds of alarm and didn't really try.

But we soon entered a place that smelled of fear and pain and animals of a dozen kinds. But even over that, was the same smell I recognized from the hospital.

Oh. She...

She was trying to help.

That was... nice.

But the lights were off until she flicked them on, and she didn't go stand by a counter. She took me through a door (human buildings were so big now!) She did some things I couldn't see, and then opened the cage, wrapping me tight in a towel so I couldn't squirm. I complained, and I could feel her laugh softly. I tried to pout at her. She wrapped the towel in something warm that made everything go a little hazy at the edges, and then there was a brief spike of pain, then everything went hazy.

I got moments. Being placed into a big machine, something tight on my left front leg. Cool, refreshing water.

The world resolved itself. I was back in the cage from before, but the blankets had been changed out with ones that smelled of detergent. A towel had been draped over the cage. The woman - the vet - sat in a revolving chair near the cage. Her mouth was moving, and she was looking at me, so she was probably talking. She leaned back, stretched, and picked up the black book. I started to protest, but then she clicked the latch. The book flipped open in her hands to the first page. The pages began to flip, one by one and speeding up. As each flipped, they dissolved into ash, something invisible flowing into the vet. When the last page flipped, the cover dissolved into ash.

She stared at her hands for a long moment, then looked at me and said something? She seemed agitated. She walked out of the room. I dozed.

She walked back in, her face dripping water and wearing new, non-ash-caked clothing. She methodically swept up the ashes, poured them in the trash. She was still talking, occasionally pointing at me with the dustpan to make a point.

I really wish I knew what she was saying.

She sighed. Locked the door. Opened her computer and with a disbelieving shake of the head she started navigating. Her cheeks flushed a little grey, and her scent changed a little, going spicy-sweet. Ever so often, she'd make a weird gesture at me, then sigh and go back to what she was doing. Eventually, when she had started squirming and the spicy-sweet smell was filling the room (at least to my nose), she held her hand out in that strange gesture, and heat flooded into me.

It felt... really good. I couldn't tell if it was just the pain easing, but I could swear the heat infused me all over, lingering in my belly.

After a couple of seconds, there were a couple of distinct pops and the world exploded into sound again.

"Holy shit what a rush." Her voice was a little scratchy, like she'd been a smoker a long time ago. It was a comforting voice, and my ears perked up on hearing it.

"Oh? You can hear me now?"

I nodded and she did a double-take.

"And your leg?"

I shifted experimentally and whined in pain.

"Maybe it takes more than one? I'd try again but that really took it out of me, and I really don't want my employees to knock on my office and find me in my office with an injured fox and scrolling porn." She grinned wryly "Not a good look. Tomorrow?"

I sighed and nodded.

She paused, then cocked her head at the same time as my ear swiveled back to hear the front door opening.

"Duty calls. This is..."

She trailed off, but closed whatever she was doing on her computer, shrugged on her white labcoat, and left the room.

I was bored for a little bit, until the remnants of the haziness took me to sleep.

I woke to her door opening. Well, I woke a few times before that, and the humiliation of peeing on the blankets in the cage is something I'm going to remember for a long time. If I was human I would be cringing in a ball.

And not on said pee-blanket!

But she entered. The light had changed, the smells warmed, and she smelled of antiseptic, medicine, cats and dogs, and something reptilian?

"Whooo boy. Busy one today." She sank into her chair, putting a paper bag on her desk.

I made a fuss. Her eyebrows shot up.

"What's got you in a fuss?"

I couldn't speak so I eeeeEEEEeeEEEEee'd at her.

"Bored?" I cocked my head, then shook it, making her startle. "Right."

"Hungry?" I hesitated, nodded a little, then shook my head. "So yes you're hungry, but it's not that."

"Thirsty?" I huffed at her and pushed at the bars.

"Ah. You want out. Sorry kit bu-" She stopped. Narrowed her eyes.

"You're not a fox." It was half a statement, half a question. I did a nod then a head shake. "Yes but no. You're not just a fox." I nodnodded.

"Christ on a cracker. You know I'm half convinced I'm going crazy?" She settled, meeting my gaze. "That book wasn't meant for me, was it?"

I gave a particularly annoyed eeeEEEeeEEEEEeee. She huffed a laugh. "Sorry, sorry. No, don't give me the puppydog eyes, I can't give it back to you." She hesitated. "Can I?" I just rattled the bars again.

"Right. So you're not just a fox." She paused, and sniffed. "You're pissed off you had to piss on the blankets."

I gave my most vociferous EEEeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEeeeeEEEEE yet.

She huffed a laugh, then raised a hand.

"Sorry, sorry. I was treating you like an animal. Or... just an animal."

I rattled the bars again.

"If I let you out, can you promise me not to run around, put weight on that leg, try and jump off the desk, none of it?"

I huffed and nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm goin'"

She unlatched the cage and I was prepped for a lunge out but she pre-empted it with a finger wag.

"Hey, you promised."

I sighed and deflated. She helped me walk out, my underbelly wet.

"Okay, yeah, I can see why you're upset. Lemme get you washed off."

...

One very gentle washing later, as well as some kibble that I hesitated at, but... It didn't smell too bad? Or at least I wouldn't turn my nose up at it when I was this hungry. She still noticed. But a knock on the door came, and she cursed.

"My lunch is over. Look, here, let me get you some clean blankets, and you'll stay on the table?"

I planted my butt on the cold desk in answer.

"Good enough."
...

I learned her name was Dr. Valentine. She chattered, and asked questions, but only the immediate kind. 'Does that still hurt?' 'Feel like food yet?' 'Meds wearing off?' She chuckled 'If only all my patients were this talkative.'

She took me home, I slept on a folded towel, and the next day at the practice, she paused mid-morning.

"Now, your X-rays aren't great, I have no idea how you managed some of those injuries, but the only really problematic ones now are the toes and the leg. Do I need to set those, or will the spell take care of it?"

I considered, cocked my head, whined and put my head down.

"You don't know. Well crap. That means I'm going to need to do surgery anyway" I shiver. "I know girl, I know. You must be getting real tired of being drugged." I nodded emphatically.

"All right. Well, we'll give this a try."

One surgery later, she had set all the bones in place but not pinned them properly. I was half-conscious when she went back to her computer. She seemed to be having trouble making her scent go spicy-sweet. She managed it, though, and I felt so much better.

Another X-ray, and she was delighted. "Looks like I didn't need to set the bones, no pins, no nothing. Look at this!" She showed me an X-ray I had no idea how to interpret.

"Now, I don't want to do the spell on you again. You'll heal up fine on your own, but that spell is..." she blushed "A bit odd. You seem fine, and I'll prolly use it on other cases when I need to, but... Best be on the safer side. No, don't you look at me like that. You'll survive a week or two in a cast."

But I couldn't change back in the cast! I flopped over dramatically and then yelped in pain. She just chuckled.

...

"Now. If you were any other fox, I'd be taking you to a rescue. Rehabilitation, physical therapy, they might release you in, oh, two? Three months?"

My ears went flat with my disapproval.

"Right. And I ain't got space for you neither and... I get the feeling you weren't meant for me." I just cocked my head, confused. She interpreted that to mean... something.

"Yeah. Well you can get another book?" I hesitate, nod then shake my head. My power will give me something else. And... I really was grateful for the healing. I nuzzled her.

"Thanks." She hummed.

I sighed, and so did she.

"Look, is whatever your big purpose is going to hurt whoever you find?"

I shook my head. I didn't want to hurt anyone, even if I don't know what she's talking about.

"I know a place you might go. Good kid. Good mother. Running that hotel of theirs. They've needed some happiness since the dad died." She scratched at my ears. ohhh that felt really good. "Think you can manage that?"

I hesitate. Could I? I nodded. Then again with more certainty.

"Good. I'll take you out there tomorrow. And if you need anything, come find me?" I nosed into her hand and she giggled, the sound taking twenty years off her.

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

We took Dr. Valentine's old station wagon down the road, and for once I was feeling pretty clear-headed. Life was looking up. The world outside the windows was amazing. I could see why dogs stuck their heads out the window. To feel the rush, the howling of the winds, the hints of tantalizing scent that are gone in an instant, the beautiful grey woods going by.

There was a faint tug on my tail, not enough to actually pull it, just to get my attention. I pulled my head in and cocked it.

"Don't stick your head out the window. You just got those ears back, and I see too many deaf dogs from careless owners who let their dogs windblast 'em."

I pouted a little.

"Don't give me that, there'll be plenty of time to smell the roses when we get there."

...

"I ain't asked, cause you can't exactly say. But. Do you have a name?"

I hesitated. Did I? Emily was my name, but... Emily was sold by her father to nazis to be shipped off and raped for the rest of her life. Emily died in a hospital room during a superpowered brawl. Did I want to be Emily?

I shook my head. She glanced over from the road, perceptive as always.

"A new one, then. I'll let y'all sort that all out on the other end."

I nuzzled into her arm and she chuckled.

"You're all good, sweetheart. Just do right by them?"

I nodded, firmly.

"Well, here we are."

We pulled past a sign and through a road arched with branches, on cracked asphalt to a loop around a statue of an elk. There was another sign, in dark grey on brown, that said 'NORTHWOODS INN'

The paint was faintly weathered, and the whole building was done in a massive faux-log-cabin look. It was three or four stories tall, and looked... cosy. A little worn-down, but just enough to be comfortable.

We didn't stop there, though, pulling past parking and past a sign that read EMPLOYEES ONLY.

We pulled into a driveway for a small house, tucked against the back of the hotel. We pulled in beside an elderly blue pickup truck, and Dr. Valentine parked with a sigh.

She gave me a long look.

"I'll let you decide how much to tell them, when. But I'm trusting you here."

I limped across the seat, walked my front paws up her side, and licked her face. She chuckled.

"Enough of that now, time to meet the family."

...

Despite our parking spot, we walked around back to the front, to enter through the main front doors.

Dr. Valentine walked slowly to the front of the building, keeping pace with me. She seemed less stiff than she had before she used the spell on herself the night before.

She held the door for me, and I limped through.

"Wait wait no don't- Doctor Valentine? Why are you- Catch that fox!"

A flustered woman's voice greeted us, and my ears flattened as she rushed around the counter. She had dark brown hair and a harried expression.

She rushed towards us, hands out like she was going to grab me. I hid behind Dr. Valentine.

The woman paused, watching us as I returned to my spot and sat up with my tail curled around myself and as much dignity as I could muster with an eye searing neon-yellow cast on my leg.

"It's not going to pee on my floor, is it?"

The woman asked, warily.

"No, no, Julia. This one's a proper little princess." I flattened my ears at her. "Taught herself how to use a toilet and everything. Mind you, the cast did make it difficult. The look on her face when I fished her out..."

I added a glare to my flattened ears. Julia sighed, and stepped back behind the counter, like she'd been on an elastic cord and was returning to center.

"You brought it- her, to show Alice?"

"Well, yes and no. I remember when you found that tangled fox out by the treeline?" Julia nodded, but Dr. Valentine didn't wait for a response. "And little Alice asked and asked and asked. Begged to come visit in my office even when the thing was terrified and snapping at her."

"Yes?" Julia's voice was suspicious.

"Well, I wouldn't ever recommend a fox as a pet. Grey foxes like this one" I was a grey fox? "even less, they're more skittish then their red fox cousins, and both are nocturnal or crepuscular at best. But this one?"

She gestured as if presenting me to a panel of judges.

"Just coming off the edge of juvenile but grey foxes stay small. Doesn't bite, doesn't claw or tear anything up. Uses the damn toilet, even flushes. And the only time she made noise after I went to bed is when I left the oven on and she came to get me. Best houseguest I ever had, human or otherwise."

"You want to give her to us." Julia's voice was flat. Disbelieving.

"Give is a strong word. I'd like to see if y'all get along well. Y'all need something cute and fluffy in your lives and little miss Princess here would hate roughing it. If it doesn't work out, treeline's right there."

The doors opened behind us, and a road-weary couple entered. Dr. Valentine and I stepped aside. Julia checked them in, holding her professionalism tight and close around her.

"Okay, Room 213. Thanks. Honey, lets go get our bags from the car." They turned and caught sight of me. The shorter man visibly melted and made a sound that I didn't think humans could make. He squatted nearby and held out a hand for me to sniff. I appreciated it, it made him seem less like a mountain.

He smelled of fast food grease and hand soap and tired sweat and human. I bonked his hand with my head and was rewarded with ear scritches.

Ohhhh I was going to miss these when I became human again.

"Look at you, beautiful! You're so gorgeous." If I hadn't been melting from ear scritches, I would have been bashful. "Is she yours?"

"She's her own, but she's been staying with me a while."

The other man crouched down and immediately went to pet me. The general effect was of a small meteor headed my way. I tried to dodge and flopped over. Then, stood and nuzzled into his hands too. The same mix, but with fried dough and cinnamon blended in. The meteor-man, with a deeper voice, said

"Does she have a name?"

"I don't know, does she?" Dr. Valentine raised an eyebrow at Julia. She hesitated, then wilted.

"I'll ask Alice when she gets home."

"Great! Then my work here is done." The finality of the tone seemed to jar the men into backing up and moving on, and then Dr. Valentine was crouching, seeming surprised it didn't hurt. "You do good, okay? And sugar? Thank you."

I walked my paws up awkwardly to go for the closest approximation of a hug I could.

"All right. Now if it doesn't work out, you come find me."

I gave her cheek a lick, and she chuckled.

"Wait, does she need medicine or anything? Food? I can't just- just."

"Julia. Calm. It's okay. She'll be fine, and she'll let you know what she needs. She listens better than my ex-husband, and she gets at least most of what you say. Oh, and people food ain't any worse for them than it is for us, though stay away from chocolate and raw grapes."

"Henrietta, I can't just... What am I supposed to do with her until Alice gets home?"

"Consider it a bonding experience."

The words lingered longer than Dr. Valentine as she made her exit.

Julia stared down at me from behind the desk. I stared up at her from the floor.

We both jumped when the door opened again.

...

I settled on the floor behind the counter and snoozed. Occasionally, I'd flicker an eye open to see her steal glances at me. The cast was awkward, keeping me from being in the positions that felt most natural.

Eventually, she glanced at the door and crouched down. She held out a hand to me and I gave it a little lick. She smelled of cleaning solution and ink and paper and worry, covered with the faded hints of flowery perfume.

"If you disappear on us, I don't think her heart could take it." I put my chin on her hand and looked up at her. The flicker of a smile graced her lips. "But then, it's been a while since I've seen her smile."

The door opened, and she straightened.

In a story, this is where this Alice would have breezed in. Given a three sentence dialogue that established her character. Dissolved into saccharine amazement at the new floof in her home.

As this was not a story, three screaming children ran in ahead of their parents holding a sleeping fourth. I flattened my ears to try to block out the noise.

...

What must have been hours later, I struggled to my paws. Julia was dealing with a guest, so she barely noticed me slip past her. I followed the faint scent of urea and cleaning solution to the bathrooms. I found the women's bathroom, but I was met with my greatest enemy: Doorknobs.

I waited patiently for her to be done with the guests, and when she glanced down to find me gone, I gave a soft little yip to draw her attention.

"Oh? When did you wander off?" Her voice was a little wary, imagining what chaos the wild animal perpetrated in her place of business.

I yipped again, turned to go around the corner to the bathrooms, looked back at her expectantly, and yipped again.

She stared at me. Glanced at the door. Glanced down at the desk.

"Please don't be showing me a mess you're proud of." The words were a whisper but my restored hearing could catch it. I huffed, and stopped by the women's restroom door and stared at the knob. When she hesitated, I tapped at the door with my cast, gently."

"How do you even know- oh, scent." She opened the door and I slipped through. The silence of my three paws contrasted annoyingly with the thud my cast made. It was a three-stall restroom, and I checked each one and gauged the height of the toilet rim. It probably would have been fine, but I didn't want to make a bad impression. So I walked over to the sinks, found the little stepstool for kids to use, and nudged it towards the toilet. It was heavier than I was expecting, and I had to throw my weight against it to move it.

"Here." Julia stepped in and picked it up, in the manner of one experiencing a dream, then placed it in front of the toilet. I gave her a quiet eeeEEEeee, then tried to push it over to the side. Julia obliged, and I clambered up onto the toilet. Figuring out how to do this had been hard, and I was glad I had a tail to help balance. Something bothered me.

I glanced back at Julia, who was staring at me with wide eyes. I gave a little huff of indignity and she turned around blushing.

"Sorry." Then she seemed to realize what she'd just done. She turned around at the sound of the flush going off, and I met her gaze proudly from atop the porcelain throne.

"I guess she was right." She gave me an approving nod, and went to grab the stepstool. I accidentally slid sideways and slipped off the toilet with a yelp, my cast not giving me as much traction as I expected. "Oh! Are you all right?"

My dignity was dead. Rest in peace.

I scrambled up onto my feet and acted like absolutely nothing was wrong. She giggled, just a little, and then rushed back out to the desk. I stared longingly up at the sink, and then realized I was stuck because the door closed automatically.

...

I refused to acknowledge needing to be rescued from the bathroom and accidentally terrifying a poor woman on my way out. Julia was swamped, and I was surprised. I could smell that two other people worked this desk. Was that a lot? Where were they?

My favourite event of the day was getting to point out somebody's lost earring backing. It got me extra ear scruffles.

Julia ate a protein bar at the counter instead of taking a break. She looked worried that I would try to steal some of the chocolate, but I was just concerned. I was the one who can eat anything and not get poisoned. Did she think that was food?

Three naps in, footsteps came thudding in from down the hallway.

"Sorry Mom! Lost track of time."

She skidded to a stop at the counter. She was moving quickly and unpredictably enough that I decided being in other spots of floor was probably the best option. Julia sighed with affectionate resignation.

"Please try to keep better track of the time?"

Alice rubbed the back of her head in shame in what seemed to be the end of a long-standing ritual.

"Anything to know?" Alice was breathless, but smoothing her hair down and attempting to appear professional.

Julia opened her mouth, paused, looked down at where I had been, then glanced around until she found me perched on the bottom step of the staircase. Alice turned and then froze.

She was practically vibrating with excitement, but doing her best to stay quiet and still. She didn't look directly at me, and kept her voice low. All things that would have soothed me if I had been born a fox. And they did soothe me a bit, but I was mostly bemused.

"Mom, mom, when did he get in here? Oh, he's hurt! Is-" She caught her rising volume and cut off. I could hear Julia's fond smile in her voice.

"Dr. Valentine stopped by-"

"Ohmygod is he tame? How long is he staying?"

"Alice, I can't answer questions if you keep asking them."

"Right." Alice folded her hands behind her back and closed her mouth firmly.

"Dr. Valentine stopped by. She was treating her, but says she needs somewhere to stay."

Alice vibrated, and then deflated.

"I... I really really want to say yes but foxes aren't pets and I don't know if we have somewhere we can keep a wild animal." She sounded heartbroken, and the sound tugged on my heartstrings. I was several steps closer before I realized I had moved.

"Normally, I'd agree with you. God knows we don't need something else to take care of around here."

"But-"

"Alice, I watched her tell me where she wanted the stepstool to go so she could use the toilet. She flushed."

Alice's brow knotted in time with her thoughts.

"That's... not normal. Is she... Did she belong to someone before?"

Julia shrugged helplessly, at a loss. Alice glanced at me, then back to her mom. "You're exhausted. Sorry again for being late?"

Julia gave her a tired hug and wandered down the hallway.

Alice did her job, well. She smiled prettily at customers, was very helpful, answered questions and solved problems. But when she wasn't in the middle of something, she was staring at me like I was a puzzle made of chocolate.

I stretched and wandered over to her. I'd needed to vacate the stairs before, but there had never seemed to be a good time to come say hello.

She knelt and held out her hand, averting her gaze. I gave her a sniff. Lake water, sand, sunscreen, sweat, all over a cherry perfume that covered her own, natural smell. It was pleasant, and I gave it a little lick.

She gave a tiny cheer.

"Wow, you... It's been a few years but you really don't act like the foxes I remember reading about." She laughed as I puffed up in pride.

She turned away to deal with a customer, as the gacha finally came to its ponderous rest.

There was a tinkle as a little vial of electric blue liquid hit the tiles and started rolling. I would have tried to catch it but was flabberghasted by my new power.

A harem? I'd never had a girlfriend!!!

Alice had stooped and picked up the vial.

I pawed at her leg, Eeeing.

She glanced at the rubber stopper and slid a thumb over it.

"Embossed with a fox. Is it medicine?" My eeeeing doubled in volume, but the doors slid open and the vial went into her pocket. I stayed quiet with the guests here.

The sun had long set and Alice had long brought out papers and books and put them away again when Alice yawned and put up a sign.

"That's that for the night. If someone needs something, they'll call Mom's cell." She paused. "I don't think it's good for her to not get enough sleep. She and dad used to trade off, but-" She cut herself off.

"Right. Lets go grab food and figure out a place for you to sleep."

...

I ended up in Alice's room. Alice's room was a mess, a mishmash of styles of a girl who hadn't quite figured out who she was and who she wanted to be.

I got a blanket nest, and both she and Julia made sure that I had access to the bathroom and a little stepstool.

Also, their dinner was KFC and I was victorious in trying out my fox kit eyes.

It was so much saltier like this, though, and it was so hard to be a neat eater. Everything had to be tiny bites, torn off with the food wedged between my one working paw and my cast.

Alice spent much of this time staring at me and pondering names. "It has to be perfect."

Julia looked in on us once, her silhouette weighed down with shadow.

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

A/N: If this goes over the line into NSFW, then I will happily move the thread. It does involve sexually-adjacent situations but nothing explicit.

My morning snooze was interrupted by my power deciding to be punctual. I ignored the feeling of the clattering of dice, the spinning of the dial, even as it wound up and up. I shut my eyes tight. Determinedly sleeping.

It didn't work all that well. But when I looked up to see Alice getting up and getting changed my face went right back down into my tail. Did foxes blush?

The pachinko ball settled, the bottle stopped spinning, and...

Huh. Okay. I mean I can work with that? When I get hands again? I pout at my cast.

"Huh? What's this?"

Foxes are known for making an unholy racket. I leapt from my nest of towels on Alice's desk, tripped and fell because of my stupid cast, and started making noises trying to jump up on her.

"I'm just looking, jeez. Why are you so work..ed... up?"

The black book that Dr. Valentine had used, the one that was ash? It was turning to ash again in Alice's hands.

I made the loudest, most alarmed noises I could, and Julia came running.

She arrived just in time to see the last few pages flip and burn, and the whole book turning to ash that fell on Alice's dirty laundry.

"What the fuck?"

Julia was across the room in an instant. I stopped making noise because there was no point. My ears and tail sagged with disappointment. That was the second time someone else got to read it before me. I brightened up, though realizing that it would be coming back, probably.

Julia had put her body between Alice and me. Alices eyes were fluttering and she came back to herself.

"Mom? Mom, it's okay. That... Wow. She tried to warn me."

"What was that?"

"...so... this is going to sound insane, but a magic spellbook."

"What?" Julia checked Alice's forehead to see if she was feverish.

"No, Mom, it. I don't... I'm not... I can't cast it right now but it's a healing spell."

Julia was frantic, but took deep breaths to calm herself down.

"Why can't you cast it?"

Alice blushed.

"Um. In that school of magic, the more powerful the spell, the more... mumble you have to be."

"The more what?"

Alice hid her face in her hands, and said only slightly louder.

"Turned on."

Julia turned on me.

"You gave my daughter... Sex magic?"

I flattened my ears at her.

"No, no, Mom. It's not. I don't have to do anything... like that. It's just a base requirement. And she did try to warn me off."

I sagged.

Where was...

I walked across the floor, sniffing for the freshest of the dirty laundry. I found her hoodie from yesterday and started pulling it over.

"What are... Oh!" Alice put the dots together quickly. She took the jacket. "Thank you... you really need a name."

She fished the vial of blue superpowers out and stared at it.

"I found this by her yesterday. She tried to get it back then, too."

"Is this a sex potion?" I shook my head vigorously.

"...aaand I just realized you can understand us perfectly, can't you."

nodnod.

"Not a sex potion, but a potion." Julia stared at it. "Is this some kind of tinkertech?"

I shook my head, paused. Did it count? No, it mentioned magic. Shook my head again.

"Is it dangerous?"

I tried to figure out how to convey it.

I poked Alice with my nose, as she was holding the potion. Shook my head. Not dangerous. Looked around the room. turned my head one way, the other, then nodded slowly.

"Not dangerous to her, but a little dangerous to her surroundings"

Julia hid her face in her hands. She drew them down, revealing just how tired she was.

"Is this something we need to deal with right now?"

"Mom, it's a magic potion!"

I shook my head. She paused. "Does it go bad?"

I paused, then shook my head a little uncertainly.

"Okay. We've missed the bus, so I'm going to drive you to school, Alice. Finish getting dressed. And you?" Julia pointed to me. "We're going to have a talk."

I walked with them to the car, but I was kind of slow on three legs. Alice scooped me up and I gave a squawk of surprise.

On the drive to her school, it was quiet, until...

"Hecate?"

"What?"

"As a name? For her." She was holding me and she was nice and warm. I still looked at her and gave her an unimpressed look. She actually giggled. "No? Wait. Do you already have a name?" I shook my head then jolted as we went over a bump.

"I'll think about it! I'll see you after school! Bye mom!" Alice was out the door, the chilly morning air blasting us. Julia pulled out of the school, pulled to the side of the road, and slumped back in her seat.

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the occasional car passing.

"I need coffee. Do you drink coffee?" She blinked, replaying that to herself. "Never mind. Wait, do you?"

I shook my head.

"Well I do, and after today I'm springing for the good stuff."

She pulled the car into a big town, at least big for around here. She noticed me looking around with interest, even with the stumbling the truck jostling did.

"Are you new to the area?" I nod, still looking outside.

"It's a pretty place. Tourists are the lifeblood." She pulled into line at a drive through. It wasn't a chain I knew, and seemed maybe independent? "Big cape fight happened about a week ago. Blew up the hospital. We don't get that kind of thing here. I mean it's not Winnepeg." She laughed, like she was sharing a joke with someone, then cut off suddenly. She glanced at my seat. Not at me, but a little above eye level for her. Then she turned forwards. I wanted to distract, her, and maybe share some.

I waved my garish yellow cast to get her attention, then kept waving it.

"You went to the vet, yes- no?" I flop over in the seat and waved the leg. It was starting to get tired. "You got hurt in the hospital cape fight." I nodnodded, and sat back up.

She chewed on that, pulling forward.

"Did you... were you one of the capes fighting?" She sounded nervous, but relaxed when I shook my head.

"Are you a cape?"

I cocked my head. Maybe? But then I'd never heard of a power that matched anything like mine, and it talked about magic a lot.

"You don't know."

She pulled up to the window, and ordered her coffee.

"Holy shit is that your fox?" The twentysomething in the window gasped. "Oh my god is that. Do you want a dish of whipped cream? All of ours is real cream."

Julia looked at me.

I wagged my tail.

...

It was delicious.

Our ride home and almost-conversation was interrupted by a call to Julia's cell phone, and then a white knuckle dash back to the Northwoods Inn. She dashed out the door of the car, barely pausing to turn it off, and was inside as fast as humanly possible.

I looked around. At the inside of the car.

At least this one I could reach.

It took my third try, this one using my uninjured paw, to lever the handle so the door flopped open.

I escaped!

...

I stared at the open door wasting the jeep's batteries. Slumped. Ran to grab a guest on their way out and lead them to the car.

Nonplussed, they shut the door. I sat like a good doggo and swished my tail.

"You're... welcome?" The man having the oddest morning of his life decided to move on.

...

I had to wait for somebody to let me into the Northwoods. Visibly unsure they should do so, I trotted calmly inside.

Okay, limped calmly.

I couldn't find Julia, and her scent trail lead to the stairwell. The stairwell I'm not climbing on this leg.

The counter was empty, stool and papers askew.

...I managed to climb onto the stool after a few attempts, and then a sliding, scrabbling almost-fall onto the counter.

Right. What have we got here, Okay, looks like used keys go over there.

It looks like everything is just entered into an excel sheet.

...I held down the control key with my cast and carefully, carefully boooped my nose into the S, by finding the f dot and going two over.

The file saved. Head nodding in a job well done, I sat like a good doggo on the counter, upright with my tail wrapped around my legs. I had a really pretty tail. Soft and silky.

A woman nervously approached the counter with her room key. I turned and, only slipping once on my cast, pulled a notepad up onto the upper counter. A nudge with my nose pushed the cup of pens toward her.

She hesitated, but scrawled down her name and room key number and the words Checkout. She was about to leave, but I swished my tail across her hand and pointedly stared at the clock behind the counter.

"Right." She added the time. "Thank... you?"

...

I handled three more checkouts! It got easier after the first time. Nose the key over to the pile, most of which even stayed on the lower counter and not the floor. Nudge the notepad towards them. Prompt them if they forgot anything. I started adding a pleasant 'Awoo' to say goodbye.

Julia came down the hallway, exhausted and grease-streaked. Her thought process was visible. She took two steps towards the counter, looked back down the hallway at where the person who had been behind the counter was handling whatever the issue had been, panicked, took another two steps, registered my presence, stared. I nudged the notepad towards her.

She picked it up and sagged, giggling a little hysterically. I swished my tail twice on her shoulder in a 'there, there.'

...

"Thank you." Julia said, while entering the data into the excel sheet.

I gave her another little "Awoo"

"You're weird. But you're trying to be helpful?"

Nodnod

"We desperately need staff, but two more quit last week. We've been haemorrhaging workers since-" She cut herself off, then continued, quieter. "Since Dan died. And he was always the one who handled hiring. I just don't know how and haven't got the time to figure it out and every time I pick up one dropped ball I find three more."

She was teetering back and forth over the line between speaking and sobbing. I lay my head on her shoulder, and that pushed her over. I just rested with her, and when I heard a guest coming down the hall, I nudged her back into the breakfast prep kitchen. I handled that checkout too.

These... weren't really problems I could help with? None of my powers were helpful here. I glanced at the handwritten sign saying "Complimentary Breakfast Selection Reduced Due to Staffing Requirements." I didn't really know how to cook, but I had all the time to learn. Once I had hands again.

And I was placing my own problems on them, which made me feel worse. Granted, most of my problems were being a fox and having really weird powers, but still.

I kind of loved being a fox?

The world smelled so much richer, I was so soft and people patted me and gave me scritches. The funny looks people gave me when checking out were hilarious, and... I didn't have to be Emily. Would I go back to being Emily when the cast came off?

Because I wanted the cast off. It was awkward and annoying, but also I missed hands. Missed being able to talk. Missed being able to reach doorknobs.

Of course, they took in a well-behaved fox on a trial basis.

They didn't plan for a fox dropping random magical artefacts and potions.

Or the girl who was in the shape of the fox, with nowhere to go and heroes asking me questions.

Julia came back, looking refreshed but still a bit red-eyed.

I sat with her while she worked, and when she needed to go off and handle a crisis, I sat on the counter. She had written out three signs on the notepad and torn them out to tape them to the desk. The notepad then got a little table for people's name, room number, checkout time, and additional comments. She showed me on the desk phone, where the speed dial buttons were.

"I'm number two. Can you dial that?" I tried but my paw was slightly too big. I nudged a pen and the tape at her. "Great idea." She took the cap off, taped it to the button so that I could tap it and only hit that one button. "Right. I need to go check on Mrs. Saunders in room 104."

...My idea had been to tape the whole pen to the side so I could tap it like a lever. Hers made so much more sense.

...

Alice saw me first thing in the door and burst out laughing.

She was doubled-over, gasping. I looked at her, gave exactly one tail swish, and booped the pen cap. The phone dialed on speakerphone and Alice looked up.

"Northwoods Inn, this is Julia. Sorry about the receptionist, but I'm happy to help."

"Mom?"

"Oh good! Alice. Would you please take over for her? The job really does require thumbs and English."

"Why?" Alice was beaming, delighted. "She seems like she's doing a good job."

"Or you could come help clean out a few rooms with me?"

Alice hesitates, genuinely conflicted. She glances between her backpack on the counter and the phone a few times.

"Alice, honey"

"I can come join you after my homework?"

"Thank you Alice. I... Thank you. Yes, that's me! How can"

The line cut out.

Alice came around to the back of the counter. She hesitated, then hugged me and buried her face in my soft fur.

"Thank you" She whispered. I twisted to put my head on her shoulder and curled my tail around her side. Alice pulled back.

"She's been working so hard. Dad's gone and now the whole world is falling apart. You know, yesterday, I was out with friends, and the only thing I could think of was how much extra work I was giving her. My friend actually had to talk me down from an anxiety attack." She huffs in self-deprecating amusement. "But if she finds out I'm freaking out, that's just more on her."

She hugs me tight.

"So thanks. For being here to listen and hug." She gave a watery grin "For manning the front desk, which how did you even get up there? And..." Her smile turned just a little wicked, if still fragile. "For giving me that spell."

I huffed in exasperation. She giggled a little wetly.

"Yeah, I know, you didn't give it to me. You also didn't bite me to stop me."

I could have done that. I totally could have done that. I didn't think I would have, but the option never occurred to me.

"And I..." Alice rummaged in her backpack, pulled out a folder, and slid a piece of lined paper with lots of scribbled out names and a few not scribbled out. "Had ideas. Now. A fox as pretty and dignified as you needs a proper name. Something mythological, not 'Pancake' or 'Red.'" I snorted in agreement.

"So I narrowed things down to these three."

She tapped their places on the paper as she spoke them.

"Lisa is the word for fox in Russian, but also an awesome figure from their mythology. Freya is the name of the goddess of love, beauty, and war who brought magic to the Norse gods. Or Brigid, the goddess of spring, blacksmiths, fertility, healing, magic, and poetry. Though those two are sort of the same thing in her context."

I considered. They were grand names, for all they weren't all that uncommon.

"Oh, uh, is naming you after a goddess okay? Like we're not going to make them angry?" I blinked at her and cocked my head. "And you don't know. No, the thought never occurred to you, did it?"

I shook my head

"Okay! So! Are these three okay? Which one do you like best?"

I thought for a second. No, that wasn't right. The names were fine, but...

I put my paw on her shoulder, stared her in the eyes (as best I could), and gently bonked her forehead with mine. It did mean my muzzle got a little squished into her face, but she understood anyway.

"You want me to pick."

I nodnod.

"Okay." She chewed her lip. "I think. Thinking about it, naming you 'fox' in any language is like naming a dog 'dog' or a bird 'bird'. Pointless and vaguely insulting."

I gave a foxy giggle.

"Freya and Brigid are both goddesses, both associated with magic and fertility." I cocked my head.

She raised an eyebrow. "That spell you gave me?" I huffed in her face just a little "Fine. That spell I got? Tell me that doesn't scream 'fertility.'"

I put my head down and covered my nose with my good paw.

Alice practically cackled.

"Okay, okay. I think... Bridget. Except in gaelic they pronounce it like... Breeeshjz. So Bree for short?"

I nodded happily.

"Hello, Bridget. It's nice to meet you."

I held up a paw to shake and she giggled and shook.

...

"Absolutely not."

"She said it was safe!"

"To you! We can't have this place falling down."

I went to refute it, and then remembered crashing through the deck of the boat, and tearing off one of its panels.

"See?" Julia was pointing to me.

"But Mom, it's a magic potion"

"Bree, would drinking the potion help with any of our problems in any way?"

I cock my head. Thinking. No, not really. The telekinetic eyebeams might be able to help with construction, but...

I shook my head.

"And would it give us new problems?"

I thought about Miss Ice Lady following my glowing trail from Sault St Marie to Munising. I reluctantly nodded my head.

"Bree, come on!"

I gave a nonchalant expression, and put my head on my paws. Well, okay. It was angled weirdly because of the cast.

Alice huffed. Hesitated. "Fine. Did you get dinner?"

Now Julia was the one to hesitate. "I'll grab something on my way in."

Alice chewed her lip. "I'll make mac'n'cheese? Do we have any hotdogs?"

"...Mac'n'cheese sounds wonderful. With or without the hotdogs."

"Okay. Good night mom."

"Good night, Alice. Good night, Bree"

An affectionate ear ruffle and she was off.

Did Emily's family ever feel like this?

Alice watched her mom go until well after she'd passed out of sight.

"Right." Her smile was brittle. "Have you ever had mac'n'cheese? Yeah? Well I bet you haven't had it the way I make it."

...

I woke up to a spicy-sweet smell that tugged at me, quiet rustling and heavy breathing. I looked over to see Alice in bed, her face screwed up in concentration, moving under the blanket-

Oh. I realized what she was doing and hid my nose in my tail and shut my eyes. Which meant I was surprised when the flow of heat hit me. It flowed through my entire body, lingering in my leg and paw, my skin, and then settling deeper into my core.

I gave a quiet "Awoo"

"Yeah!" Her voice was a little giddy and breathless. "No worries." Then a minute later, whispered to herself in a manic giggle "I did magic." A pause. Then she started moving again and I tried to stop having senses. The door was shut so that was about my only option to avoid combusting in embarrassment.

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

We were eating breakfast when it happened. I was eating a scrambled egg and cut-up toast, Alice was staring sleepily into her cereal, and Julia was worshipping her morning coffee. The phone rang, startling all of us. Julia took it in the other room, and I couldn't quite make out words but her tone was getting increasingly agitated. Alice and I exchanged a worried glance.

Julia practically sprinted for the door, and spoke as she struggled her coat on.

"Alice, can you please call Ryan and ask him to come in and take care of the Inn? I've got to drive to Houghton."

Alice was instantly more awake. "Mom?"

"It's your uncle, Arthur. He's trying to pull something with Dan's will."

Alice tensed, but Julia rolled on.

"Just please call Ryan and then catch the bus? I love you sweetie"

And then she was gone.

Alice slumped. "I didn't get to talk to her about your leg."

I nuzzled into her leg.

"Yeah, thanks, Bree." Her hand absentmindedly gave my ears a scritch.

She stood up, found the house phone and a battered notepad.

"Hey, Ryan! Yeah I'm doing okay, how are you? Mom had to run into Houghton for an emergency, would you be willing to- ... Yeah. Yeah I know. I'm sorry. No, please don't- Fuck."

She buried her head in her hands. I nudged her, and she startled.

"Oh. Ryan, our employee? He just quit. I don't... I don't know what we're going to do."

I leaned into her leg, offering support and comfort.

"Thanks."

She stayed there a moment, then slapped her cheeks a couple of times and looked determined.

"Okay. I can do this. I've done most of it before."

I nudged her. She smiled, a little shakily.

"That's right. We can do this." She hesitated. "But today is definitely a scene day." Twenty minutes later we were slipping into the Inn. Alice was in freshly-donned armour of heavy mascara and eyeliner, fishnet arm warmers, skinny jeans, and an oversized sweater that hung off one shoulder, exposing a bra strap. She had tied a ribbon with a bow around my neck, including me in her preparations.

We convened behind the front counter, and she helped me onto it so I didn't need to scramble up.

"Okay. So. Lets make a list of things that need to get taken care of today." She bit her lip.

"Cleaning rooms after people leave isn't going to work with the two of us. So any room that someone checks out of is not a room that exists anymore, today."

She nodded firmly.

"Okay. So with housekeeping off the menu for the day, we need to get the breakfast set up, man the front desk, accept reservations, help people check out, deal with any maintenance issues... We really need one person at the desk, one working the building. You could man the desk... fox the desk, but you can't exactly take reservations or deal with payment..."

I nudged her, and when I had her attention, nosed the phone near the pen cap that made dialing the speed dial easier.

"Oh! Yeah that's a good idea. You just keep doing what you did yesterday, and I can put my number into the phone. I think."

After about five minutes, during which a guest came and asked about breakfast, Alice got her number into the speed dial and another pen cap in place. Then she dashed off to open up breakfast.

The morning passed like that, with me handling what little I could and Alice constantly on the move. I called her when I needed to, to talk to a customer, and figured out how to conference her in for bookings. I couldn't exactly enter the bookings myself, but I managed to shakily write room numbers with my pen in my mouth.

By two Alice was nearly in tears, but gritting her teeth. I tried to give her foxy softness when I could. I tried to get her to take the cast off so I could help, and that was when she did actually start crying. She thought I was asking for something else from her, adding another demand on the pile, so I quietly let it be and gave her what comfort I could.

At three, she flopped into the stool behind the counter and put her head down.

"I don't know if I can do this, Bree." I cuddled her, then swished her with my tail to get her attention. She looked up, mascara running a little, and I nosed at the phone.

"No, I can't call Mom. Uncle Arthur always talked about selling the Northwoods to some big chain or something, and he's not getting my home."

I shook my head and nosed at the phone again.

"What, someone else?" I nodded. "Who?"

I cocked my head and waited attentively, the very image of a fox waiting to her to say something.

"You don't know. Who..."

She chewed her lip.

"Maybe... She and Mom kind of had a blowup a few years ago, and I don't know what it was about, but... Aunt Addy would be able to help. Probably? She's good at everything. Would Mom be mad?"

The phone rang, and Alice sprang to take the booking.

"Okay. Yeah. I need to call Aunt Addy. Where was her number...?"

The gacha, which had been spinning up all morning, slid home. A perk to help me be a better friend. And uh. Lover, but, I wasn't exactly interested in other foxes that way, and I didn't want to date anyone who'd be interested in me like this.

But... not particularly helpful.

Alice returned a little bit later, smiling and with her mascara running.

"She's coming. She has to settle things and then travel from Maine, but she's coming to help."

She slumped onto the desk and I nuzzled her.

"That makes this so much easier to carry."

She rose, and we got back to work. I had started experimenting with typing in bookings, but it took so much time and I made too many mistakes.

And still, a small, secret, guilty part of me was glad that the cast was still on. That I couldn't change into a human.

...

Julia returned shortly after that phone call. She looked exhausted but triumphant. I didn't want to remove that look, especially since she grinned seeing me on the counter.

"Hey girl." oooh yes scritches. "Is Ryan on a maintenance call?"

I hesitate, then shook my head. I don't want to make her day worse, but she needs to know.

"He's not... Bathroom? Some other call?"

I shook my head again, pointed my head out the door and nuzzled into her shoulder to comfort him.

"He... went to the store?" The dread and desperation crept into her tone. She knew what had happened.

"Mom?" Alice trudged in, her eyeliner and mascara now only smudges that made her seem more sleep deprived.

"Alice? Honey, did you have a rough day at sch-" Julia put two and two together. "Honey, did you stay home to cover our work? You should have called me."

"And let Uncle Andrew take away our home?" Alice's jaw was set and her eyes fierce.

"Alice, that's my job to worry ab-"

"I called Aunt Addy"

The words fell into the space between them like a slap.

"You called Addison?" I couldn't place the tone. At least Julia's. Alice's was full of defiance, but her hand was nervously threading through my fur.

"Yeah. Mom, we need help"

"And you called her?"

"Yeah. And you know what? She didn't even stop to ask what was wrong before she started packing."

"That's..." There was a moment drawn out like steel wire. Then, like it was cut, Julia sagged. "That was probably smart. I've just... I've been so overwhelmed."

Alice seemed like she was about to snap something, but bit it back and deflated.

"I love you, Mom."

"Come here." Julia drew Alice into a hug. I loafed, trying not to interrupt their moment.

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

A/N: This one gets dark again, in the middle. I was uh... pretty manic when I wrote it? I think? I like it and stand by it, but... yeah.

Anyway, there's a visit to and description of a battery chicken factory. It's... fairly realistic, which is to say awful. Cage-free has become much more the norm now, but... yeah. If you want to, you can skip over the section between the &&&&&&&&&&&&&& lines.

The tension and ping came before the dawn, this time. I had to stop myself from cackling in Alice's bedroom.

Magic!

Real, useful magic! Not my fox turning or eat anything magic, or objects that popped in and out of existence, but a full on discipline of magic.

Utilimancy.

Household magic.

Spells designed to do everything i couldn't do as a fox except talk.

There were hundreds of specialized cleaning spells, cooking spells, household repair, maintenance. There were more difficult but more flexible spells, that did things like let you repair any object or clean anything but the targeting was tricky and the directing complicated. Usually, it was better to just use the specialized spell for that situation if you could. Of course, the spells were designed for use in a household that used magic for everything, so there were no specific spells for electronics repair or vacuum maintenance. But even more general, there was a telekinesis spell! It wasn't powerful - i wouldn't be lifting cars or shooting knives like bullets, I'd need help with large furniture and objects couldn't go that quickly - but it was so flexible! I could do all the dextrous, complicated hand like stuff! And even better, there was some extremely limited automation! I could set a knife to cutting a cucumber into perfect slices and it would go from one end to the other and stop! I mean yes, it would be better to use the vegetable slices spell because it also stabilized the vegetable and didn't need an actual knife, but still! The last thing I found was four spells that seemed like an archmage's peacocking to his rivals, but they were basic kinesis spells for the four primary elements! They were... extremely weak, but better when used for things conceptually close to caring for the home. The hydrokinesis spell couldn't make more than small ripples in a pond, but could agitate water around laundry and dishes extremely well! When used against a person, the pyrokinesis spell was a stray spark, but could be used to light fireplaces and candles perfectly! The aerokinesis spell could cause a mild breeze outside, but could air out and help dust a whole mansion. And the terrakinesis could puff dust from the ground in your opponent's general direction but could attract or repel dirt and dust in the home wonderfully!

I realized I was doing quiet little he he he he he he he noises and hopped down off the desk. I landed badly because my cast still didnt not bend, but at least it didnt hurt!

The magic was perfect! But the best use for it?

I padded up to the Alice's bedroom door, figured out the configuration for the telekinesis spell, and turned the doorknob!

I blinked as nothing else happened, and then cringed in embarrassment. I reached into the spell that was steadily draining my... stamina? Magic? Energy? Something like that. Anyway. I pulled The doorknob and it swung open.

I trotted (well, lumbered) through the door and pulled it shut. Only then did I allow myself my foxy giggles.

I was going to cook the others breakfast!

This quickly ran into logistical problems. There was the end pieces of a loaf of bread, and two eggs. And no bacon.

They really needed to take better care of themselves.

My determination sharpened, I went over what I could do. There were lots of breakfast ingredients in the hotel, and I could get in there by myself now! But that would take so many trips and take so long, could I get it done before they woke up?

...yes. yes I could. Because it didn't matter how long cooking took, I could force Wonderland logic on it. I could walk to Mexico, bite off a stalk of grain and take it to a mill in Alaska, and repeat until I had enough for pancakes. Alice and Julia would not have yet woken. The butter I left with the pan on the stove would have just finished getting to the perfect temperature.

I stifled another cackle, and scampered to the inn door, where the house was directly connected to the Northwoods. Taptapclaktap went my steps. I made my way up to the complimentary breakfast prep area, where the big commercial fridge and freezer was!

What did I need? I wanted to make a big breakfast for everyone, but not break the bank. Ooh I could get the complimentary breakfast set up too, and that would be a good trial run!

...I couldn't see onto the kitchen counter. I grabbed the chair behind the front counter and jump-scrambled my way up it. There! Now. Pull out the carton-

Why were there no eggs here????? No cartons, no trays!

...I sighed. Okay. I had no money and no way to get money. Except by looking through Julia and Alice's wallets and that kind of defeated the point.

I didnt want to steal from the store, and didnt want to steal a dozen eggs from a farmer. Or at least a little home farmer, but maybe a big corporate chicken farmer would notice the eggs less?

I went to the front counter, and, with my new TELEKINESIS and the power of GOOGLE I found the nearest big chicken factory.

It was 50 miles away.

I started walking.

Walking 50 miles with one leg in a cast is a pain in the butt. But I'd started, and so I kept going. And... The moon never really seemed to move. Cars passed, and animals moved, but I never really felt exhausted or hungry. After all, I was still making breakfast. And there were so many new smells.

Such as the overpowering smell of chicken and chicken poop that came from the massive building ahead. There were only a couple of cars parked in the gravel parking lot.

So how to get inside.

The eggs that hadn't been counted yet would obviously be in with the chickens. So, to just follow the smell of chickens... Hm.

Doors! There were doors along the sides of the long, long building. But they were locked, with hasps and padlocks. I sat on my haunches and stared. And sneezed at the smell of chicken, so strong it felt like it was grabbing my nostrils and yanking.

Could I telekinesis my way through this problem?

I couldn't just rip the door off its hinges or tear the padlock apart...

The padlock was on the door by a hasp that was screwed in. And my telekinesis couldn't exert enough force to pull them out. So I looked back and forth across it, trying to see something that I could take apart.

...These hinges are on the outside. They're exposed, but the plates screwing them into the wall aren't. But-

The hinge is two plates held together by a pin, right? What if I just...

The pin slid steadily out of the hinge. Then the second hinge. Then the third.

I stepped back out of the way, and opened the door backwards, pivoting on the lock.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Or started to. The second the door was open I was hit by the reek of chicken and ammonia and something wheaty. Strong enough to actually send me tumbling backwards, my eyes and nose burning.

There were things living in there?

I crept forwards, holding my breath. The smell still clawed its way into my nostrils but it was better.

And the racket. I had heard it before, but it had been sort of a dull rumble of warrrk and clucking and the slithering of feathers.

But the door was unexpected, and the chickens were absolutely determined to make sure that LA heard about it. When they caught sight of me, they went even crazier, which made me feel bad.

But I couldn't focus on that. Because I'd caught sight of the chickens. They were stuck together in tiny cages. The top of their beaks had all been cut off, and I stared, breathless, at a dead chicken just lying in one of the cages, its head hanging out and eye glassy.

It wasn't even the only one I could see.

Horror battled with outrage.

This isn't how you treat chickens!!! Absolutely not. This isn't how you treat anything. The cages were in long rows, each stacked up on the next higher than humans could reach. The eggs, food, and poop were all moved by conveyor, a slow, grinding churn of horror.

Each cage had an electronic lock and a latch, but I couldn't reach the third row of cages in each column! I could use my telekinesis, but the chickens were already going crazy at my presence. spending a long time up near all the chickens wouldn't help their stress levels.

Should I go get someone to help?

No, I saw the fire sprinklers up above, and got an idea. Doors and stuff had to unlock when there was a fire, right? For safety! I just needed to find a way to make the building think there was a fire.

I had to take a breath and choked again on the reek.

...That didn't sound safe.

So no actual fire.

Fire sprinklers meant a fire alarm, right?

I looked around, through the haze of the chicken dust, and saw a fire alarm down at the end of the building. It was one of those kinds you see in public buildings, with a case over it, and I probably couldn't break it open.

But that didn't matter.

I scampered down the hallway, breathing and wheezing and coughing only when I absolutely had to. Tears were streaming down my face. Not because I was sad and horrified, though I was. No, foxes don't cry like that. Their tears are purely to keep things out of their eyes. And there was so very much CHICKEN dust in the air.

Finally, I made it close. The end of my cast was filthy, my paws sticky and awful with chicken poop, and I didn't even want to think about my fur. But every time I thought about turning around, I'd see the panicking chickens, frantically trying to move around, and the few dead ones just... lying there. It strengthened my resolve. Finally, I got close enough to see the case around the fire alarm. Chicken dust lay heavy on the top of the dome, but the sides weren't too bad. Clear enough that I could see enough to use my telekinesis to...

A piercing alarm filled the air and I jumped. I could hear all the locks on the cages going clunk clunk clunk, the cage doors spilling open from the pressure of frantic chicken.

And then the deluge came.

The sprinklers went off, and it turned everything into an awful paste and I just. I'd freed the chickens. The water was already getting them moving and they'd be okay. I just wanted out. I was closer to the end of the building than the door I came in through, so I squelched my way through the clear plastic hanging strips separating this room from the next.

I was startled for a second.

Eggs! The collections were too high for me to see, but I could see the conveyor belts bringing the last few eggs in from the long chicken pit.

There was a washing station, and the door out was past it. I saw a garage door opener and clicked it with a bit of telekinetic magic.

The door began to rumble up, and a blast of chilly air flowed out past me, making me even more miserable.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I mostly just wanted to go home, and there was another garage door opener that I clicked. It started rumbling up to reveal a loading dock, and I hesitated at seeing the cases and cases of eggs. It didn't seem right to leave empty-handed, and I didn't really care about the company realizing some of the eggs were missing. I tested one of the palettes and found it was juuuust light enough for me to pick up and take with me.

Screw this place.

I picked up the case, making it float along behind me, and started moving. It was still predawn, so I wasn't suuper visible, and there weren't a huge amount of cars. Whenever I heard one coming, I put the palette down and hid behind it. Which helped, because I couldn't carry the thing continuously, I had to put it down to rest semi-frequently.

I was miserable and triumphant. Victorious and disgustingly damp and reeking of chicken. My fur was pressed against me with the paste and I could feel it start to itch. And the smell kept making me sneeze.

At the first river I saw, I put down my eggs and dived in.

It was cold, and I had already been shivering, but I could feel the muck starting to sluice off me. I paddled around and, with a moment of concentration started using my hydrokinetic agitation spell to help get all the guck out of my fur. It took... far longer than I wanted it to, and I still smelled of CHICKEN, but I was no longer quite so miserable. I got out and shook my fur out.

That was a fun sensation, I kind of loved doing that.

But! Mood greatly improved, I picked my case of eggs up in a telekinetic grip and started to walk. My cast was still a little grimy, but even rolling on grass hadn't gotten all the white gunk to come off, so I eventually gave up for now.

The walk home was just as pleasant as the walk out, though my cast was feeling strange.

I proudly trotted (for a given value of trot) up to the predawn hotel and... froze. How was I going to get the eggs insi- oh, there was a loading dock.

I carefully put the stack of boxes on the palette down, and tugged at the plastic wrapped around it. With my teeth, with telekinesis, eventually I just got a knife from the kitchen and cut it. I pulled one box down from the pile, then opened it and pulled out one tray of eggs. I picked up the knife in my mouth, awkwardly, and made my way inside. I could only just barely hold two instances of telekinesis at the same time, and the knife, eggs, and door would have made three.

I placed the tray of eggs down on the counter with a triumphant smirk. And fox faces are well suited to smirking.

Ugh, I still smelled of chicken. I wondered if I could get a bath. The open door and my breeze smell helped, but didn't fix the problem.

...was I going to need to go find a bread factory?

I slunk into the commercial kitchen in the hotel, and was relieved to find that no. I was able to steal a loaf of sourdough, but we needed to get more. How did you get more? Did you just go to the grocery store?.

I contemplated trying to make my own muffins but I had no idea how.

Eggs, though.

I had a whole suite of egg spells. I tried them out, arranging the eggs on plates as I did so.

Each of them started by pulling the shell into two perfect halves, levitating the yolk and egg. From there, the scrambled eggs spell agitated the egg, scrambling it. Then, it provided heat.

Ooh, I see, there were preset ways to modify the spell that would provide eggs that had been cooked low and slow and soft, to high and fast and hard. There were spells for poached and hard and soft boiled, for fried and sunny side up and over easy and over medium and over hard.

There was a suite of omelette spells I wasn't going to touch just yet.

Then... Jams and jellies and honey and butters, muffins out on a plate, everything to the table...

Bacon! How could I forget the bacon?

At first, I was confused because the best bacon spell I had assumed it would be slicing bacon off a slab of meat, but I could cook bacon with telekinesis. I found a pan, pulled the remnants of the bacon (and ham and sausages) from the commercial kitchen fridge, and began frying them up.

hmmm... was I missing anything? I... wasn't confident in my pancake making skills, so I went back to the commercial kitchen and used the waffle batter in the fridge in all four waffle makers.

There was even enough fresh fruit for me to try out my fruit coring and chopping spells, though I had to fish out some bits that had gone bad.

Part of this was me showing off. Part of it was also me just being so very excited I could again, but I also just really appreciated them taking me it. It didn't feel like it had only been a couple of days. I wanted to say thank you.

Right. Dishes? Washed! I loved my new agitate spell. Food? Ready. Time to take a quick shower to try to get rid of the stench of chimken and the lingering smell of lakewater. I was just glad I didn't actually need to touch or get near any of the food.

The shower was lovely once I figured out how to angle my head so the water wasn't blasting directly into the satellite dishes of my ears.

The pounding of the shower and the smell of wet chicken did remind me of those dead eyes, but I shook it off. I saved them. They'd wander away and free. They certainly didn't want a fox trying to coax them anywhere.

So shower!

I couldn't... really figure out using the shampoo but I gave it a good try and even fished the fur out of the drain!

And a quick shake off outside... I used my Breeze spell to try and get rid of any chicken or wet fox smell, and I was only a little damp.

Right. Table set. Heaped with steaming eggs of all different methods of preparation, breakfast meat, two slices of toast ready and two more in the toaster.

Look around.

...there were white marks on the floor from my cast, and some dirt and wet pawprints.

Oops.

But! I had a spell for that! Running it over the floor, I checked for anything else.

I think that was it?

It looked fine, and dawn was approaching.

The food looked amazing. And I did that! okay the meat got a little overdone here and there but I actually liked it like that! But yesterday I couldn't do anything! I was almost completely helpless! And today? I saved a bunch of chickens and made a wonderful breakfast for everyone! I began to let myself cackle in the way only foxes can.

I heard movement, and then Julia in her dressing gown and Alice in an oversized t-shirt pulled themselves out of their rooms. They still looked a little sleepy, and stopped in shock at seeing everything. There was a beat.

The toaster popped up and Julia screamed, startled.

The door burst open and a woman charged in. The morning chill clung to her, making her cheeks rosy, and her short black hair was messy. She wore a big leather jacket over a slightly rumpled dark teal button-down, dark jeans, and battered combat boots.

She burst in, eyes wild and fists starting to clench to hurt whatever made Julia scream. And then faltered two steps in, and took in the tableau.

Julia in her bathrobe. Alice in her sleep shirt, an enormous breakfast on the table. A stool in the middle of the kitchen, a fox sitting atop it cackling (though the cackling faltered at her entrance) and two slices of toast floating from the toaster to the table. (Though those, too, froze at her entrance.)

There was a beat, where her stance slowly shifted from combative to sheepish. A hand came up to scratch awkwardly at the back of her head.

"Uh... good morning."

Beat.

"Aunt Addie!" Alice ran and jumped at the woman, who caught her with an 'Oof'.

"Alice, look how big you've gotten! Wow!" She hugged back, and clocked me finishing moving the toast, as she'd already seen it floating.

"I, uh. Heard a scream." Addison says to Julia, eyes now on the breakfast dishes rearranging themselves one by one on the table.

Julia can't seem to make up her mind whether to watch Addison or the table.

"Um. No, it's fine. If we'd been in trouble..."

"Right, yeah."

There was a beat, while the extra place setting slowly floated, piece by piece, from the counter to the table. Alice let go and Addison ruffled her hair to a squawk of protest.

"Uhh... so is that... normal?"

I couldn't help it, I started giggling, and Alice, then the others joined in.

"Well, I, we..." Julia gave me a Look, to which I was unrepentant. "We apparently have breakfast."

...

Alice scooped me up off the stool and brought me to the table.

"Ack, why are you wet, Bree?"

I just pouted at her. With the addition of a soft eeeEEEEEeeeeEe.

Julia sighed. "At least the kitchen isn't a mess." She glanced at Addison, then away. All three sat down.

"How did you even do this?" Alice asked incredulously, spooning herself some of the slow-cooked scrambled eggs.

I just cackled, grabbing a sausage with telekinesis and taking a dainty bite. (Bites have to be dainty or they get kind of gross. I can't exactly chew with my mouth closed.)

Addison smoothly started serving herself, watching everyone carefully.

"Is there coffee?" Julia asked hopefully. I froze, and the last bite of sausage dropped to the plate from my telekinetic grip. I bonked my head on the table. She sighed and got up. She did, however pause next to my seat.

"Thank you, Bridget, this is really sweet."

I preened a little, and she got on to the job of making coffee.

"How did you get here so fast, Aunt Addie?" Alice, bright-eyed, was buttering her toast. Addison frowned.

"What do you mean? I was going to apologize for taking so long." Addison frowned, fork frozen in the air. "It's why I was so worried when I heard the scream."

Alice cocked her head a little like I sometimes did. "I called you last night?"

"It took me three days to get everything settled and another two to drive here."

I also froze. A bit of realization, as I frantically felt through my perks to reread Time to Cook.

"No, that doesn't."

There are certain noises that only foxes, the fae, and possibly aliens can make. The sound that a fox makes while exasperated and complaining to the universe is one of them, while also being unmistakeable for any other emotion.

This was demonstrated when I realized what had happened.

It also got the attention of everyone in the room. I...

I wasn't going to be able to explain this with charades.

I wiggled my cast in frustration, but Addison caught it.

"Uh oh, looks like you got your cast wet, it's crumbling a bit."

"What?" Julia was suddenly concerned. "Is that-"

"Mom it's fine." Alice cut in, and then realized what she'd said and blushed. Julia's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"I, uh, fixed it?"

"You cast that healing spell regardless of us talking about you not doing that?"

"That was before! Besides, you were busy yesterday, we didn't really have time for me to tell you."

Julia sagged.

"Yeah, I-" She brought two cups of coffee over. Addison jolted at one being placed in front of her, surprised.

"Thanks."

Only then did Julia notice that she had done so, and she closed her eyes in self-recrimination. Which of course made Addison's gaze drop in disappointment.

There was a moment of silence, broken by the sounds of eating.

"So... magic fox?"

"Mhm!" Alice seems very happy to change the topic. "Her name's Bridget but we call her Bree. She's... We don't really know what her story is."

"God, has it really only been less than a week?" Julia mutters, sounding so, so tired. Alice paused, and gripped her mom's arm in support.

"That big of a headache, huh?" Addison looked me over in cool assessment, a commiserating smile on her lips. If I didn't have such a good nose, I wouldn't have noticed that she has been uncertain and wrong-footed from the moment she entered the door.

"Hm? Oh, not Bree. She's a bit of a headache but really it's Arthur?"

Addison paused, connecting dots.

"Ah. I was sorry to hear about Dan."

The shadow that fell over the room muffled sound and movement.

"Yeah." Was all Julia said. Quietly.

"Where did you even get this many eggs?" Alice asked, after a moment.

I wiggled my cast, annoyed. Addison did a careful sweep of the room.

"After breakfast, I could help with that? That is why I came." Addison held Julia's gaze. "To help."

Julia grew tense with alarm.

"What time is it?"

Addison checked a battered watch. "Quarter to Six?"

Julia sighed in relief, but she was already mentally in the Northwoods Inn.

"Okay, I have time to make the continental, assuming we still have eggs, and work on the writeup for the advertiser then at the counter." She rose "I need to get going. Thank you, Bree, love you Alice... Addison. Thanks. For coming." And she was gone, in her bedroom getting dressed, every word visibly increasing her tension.

"Is... she like that a lot these days?" Addison whispered to Alice. Alice nodded, mournful.

"Greg quit yesterday, now it's just us and Natalie." Breath hissed through Addison's teeth as the visibly did not recognise the names, but still understood the point.

"Full staffing was what... 12? 20?"

"12 in the off season, 20 in the summer."

"Christ. And she can't hire anyone?"

Alice's voice was quiet. "Dad handled the hiring."

Addison's eyes shut in understanding.

"Fuck."

There was a moment of silence, that I tried not to disturb by licking my plate. Addison took a deep breath, lips moving as she muttered to herself silently. She slapped her thighs and nodded sharply.

"Okay. Can we use the leftovers here to help with breakfast?"

Alice nodded. "I think that should work!"

All of us rose, swept up in Addison's momentum. She glanced at me.

"What's... Bree going to do?"

One of platters that went mostly untouched, the medium-firm scrambled eggs, rose into the air.

"Fair enough."

...

The rest of the morning was a blur. First, Alice grabbed the platter and scolded me for being too blatant.

I spent time doing checkout, fishing out the signs from yesterday.

Julia got tied up in a bureaucratic snafu, and was on her phone in her office.

When I saw Alice go by with cleaning supplies, I got her attention. Then I pointed with my nose from her to the counter, and myself to the cleaning.

"You want to clean? I mean sure, but your... uh... telekinesis... Might be a little slow?" I shook my head. I picked up a pen and wrote on the pad.

got 'Utilimancy' from today's pull. School of magic for household maintenance, cleaning, repairs, cooking.

Her eyes went wide.

"You can write!!! Holy shit we can actually talk now! Hi! Um okay. That's perfect! That... Definitely a good pick. "

I shook my head, while writing.

not a pick. get random power or artifact once a day. sometimes around dawn but it changes.

"Holy shit." She paused. "So you didn't give me the healing spell on purpose?"

I thought they were one use only, so when Dr. Valentine used it, I thought it was gone. I was surprised you both got the same random spell from the book, though.

"They come back. They appear next to you, like the book or... the potion!"

I nodnodded.

The elevator dinged and we both heard guests start to leave it.

She nodded.

"Later. Okay, do you need these?"

I shook my head.

"All right then. I guess I got the counter. Aunt Addie is waiting at 315."

I scampered off. Well. For a given value of 'scamper'

I took the elevator. My telekinesis can push buttons!

Addison had left the door open, and was stripping the sheets from the bed.

"Oh, hey... Bree?" She said it with a nonchalance I could barely tell was forced. "Have you seen Alice?"

I blinked and then stared intently down in the direction of where the desk was.

"...that's still so weird." She shook herself. "What's up?"

I wandered in, and started with a utilimancy spell.

I started at one end of the room, and this one was structured enough that there was a visible spell circle. Telekinesis and the others like it weren't proper spells, but discipines. This was a disc of azure light that formed symbols and shapes and patterns that rotated and squirmed under the eye. It hung about a foot off the ground, and began to pull dirt from the carpet.

Carpet vacuuming can do quite a bit. But it can't get everything, and that little bit builds up over time. So there was a visible stream of dust and particles from the area the spell was over, turning into a little grey-brown ball that the disc became a ring around. The carpet was subtly but definitely a different colour after it passed. I started moving it over the carpet.

"...Right. Perfectly normal. Magic vacuum." She covered her face with her hands. "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing here, girl."

I looked up at her attentively, and she chuckled. I pushed the spell into its sort of drift and bounce mode that, if you squinted and blurred your eyes, made it a little UFO roomba.

She sagged onto the stripped bed.

"I'd do anything for those girls, but it's been... years. And it feels like everything I'm doing is pissing on Dan's grave."

I nudged her.

"But they need help. I haven't seen Julia that bad... ever. And Alice is too skinny and... sallow? You can see they've both been stressed for a long time. Christ, it hasn't even been quite a year since Dan died. How did things get this bad?"

I laid my head on her knee in an attempt to provide comfort. She chuckled.

"And I thought I'd... what. Swan in like nothing's changed? I'm amazed Julia let me in the door. She always did blame me, and..." She gave a hollow chuckle. "I'm not even sure she's wrong to."

She sighed and dropped her head in her hands.

"And here I am, complaining to a magic animal while there's work to be done."

I EEeeeEEEEeeeeE at her and put my head on her knee more firmly, trying to hold her down.

"And what the fuck is up with you? Are you a cape? Biotinker shit? They called it magic, Alice said she did a spell, but..."

I pouted and waved my cast. Addison paused.

"Every time someone asks you a question that isn't simple, you wave that."

My ears perked and tail wagged.

"That's not an answer. That's you telling us how to let you answer."

I bounced up and did a little circle. Slightly wobbly. Finally!

"Well let's get that off you, then."

She took me to the bathroom and examined it.

"How old is this thing. It looks like you got it wet and then walked on it for a week." She grabbed the ice bucket and filled it with warm water from the bathtub faucet. "Stick your leg in that and we'll let it soak in for a bit, loosen things up again."

I did so, and then got an idea.

I reached out the the hydrokinetic ability I had and agitated the water. It sloshed, then settled into a low, droning buzz. I could feel it loosening the plaster and I couldn't stop my tail swishing.

Addison chuckled in disbelief.

"Well, I guess that'll speed things up, yeah."

After five minutes of that, she gently extracted the leg and was able to peel up the end of the bandage. She kept peeling, it coming off in one long strip until- there was nothing. The soggy padding fell out and my leg was exposed in a rush of foul chicken smell.

"Ugh." We both reared back.

I looked up to thank her and-

Froze.

If I changed back now, would I be Bree? Or would I be Emily again?

I really didn't want to go back.

But she looked so lost.

Maybe I could convince them to let me stay anyway? I was useful and they needed help, I could probably get one of the hotel rooms in exchange for work at least until they hired up full again.

And if not... Well I had utilimancy now. Maybe that would help me survive. I needed less food as a fox, so...

"Bree?"

I realized Addison had been trying to get my attention for a while.

Do or die time.

I hadn't ever consciously shifted shape. I had just... longed for comfort. I tried to remember the sensations of shifting, what it had felt like to be something else.

I changed.

Suddenly, I was sitting on the floor cross-legged, Em- Human shaped.

I opened my mouth. I wanted to say so many things. Hello. Thank you for helping them. Thank you for helping me. I'm sorry I stink like chicken. What I actually said was

"Please don't make me go back."

I watched her register my shift in form, and I watched her posture untense and the easy smile slide back onto her face. Only my memory of her scent kept me from being completely fooled.

"Well, how about that?"

...

Addison let me shower. I desperately needed it.

I explained some. Not about me. No, I explained what I'd seen about Julia and Alice's situation, and what I had been trying to do to help.

"Okay..." She pondered.

My hair was an unruly tangle and I just didn't want to deal with it so I didn't.

"Thank you. For telling me, and for what you've been doing." She sighed, then pinned me with a hard gaze. "But don't think I didn't see you dodging that. I'm not gonna pry too hard, but... You're running from something. That much is obvious. It chasing you?"

I hesitated, caught off guard and wrapped in a towel. I shook my head.

"You sure? To be clear, that isn't necessarily a dealbreaker. But I gotta know."

I shook my head with more confidence.

"The girl who became Bree died in a cape fight in a hospital."

Her gaze somehow got sharper.

"And is that you?"

I shuffled my bare feet.

"I don't want it to be. I... really don't want to go back to being her."

She nodded. Slowly, and then again with more confidence.

"Okay then." I swayed, taken a little off guard.

"Just okay?"

"Just okay. This is depending on what Jules and Alice say, but even if they disagree, we'll figure something out."

My stomach lurched at the thought of telling Alice and Julia.

"O-okay."

...

"Yes, how can we help you?"

Alice had caught Julia and was visibly making her sit down and eat a muffin. Alice's voice was friendly and professional and so distant it hurt a little. Okay, I knew I was getting too attached, too soon, but...

I glanced at Addison, who motioned as if to say 'your show'

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

"Uhhh so Addison took my cast off."

"I'm sorry, who are...?" Julia trailed off even as Alice was squealing

"No way! You're Bree? You're a person? Wait, what's your real name."

I shook my head a little too quickly.

"Nononono I'm uh. She's dead. I'm Bree."

That brought her up a little short.

Julia was visibly going back over every interaction, with this new piece of context.

"You know, a lot makes more sense now."

"Wait hang on, do you not have any clothes?"

I shook my head and blushed. Alice grabbed my hand.

"We're gonna go see if my clothes fit be right back!"

"Alice, it's cold, I-"

She faltered a second, face falling. I couldn't let that stand. I wiggled out of my bathrobe, tail swishing, and opened the door with my telekinesis.

Alice laughed, the first truly delighted sound I had heard from her, and followed me out.

...

We had been holding hands, and I'm not quite sure when that happened. She dragged me out the front door, and she had me try on some of her clothes. (They were a little long, a little tight in the hip, and a little too roomy up top. But they worked okay.) I'd gotten a little bashful, and her flat "I masturbated in front of you to heal your broken leg. I think we're past that" was contrasted by the red she blushed saying it.

"I closed my eyes! And buried my nose in my tail!"

"Your nos- oh." She visibly decided to ignore her current embarrassment by making me just as embarrassed. "Okay, drop the blanket, I didn't get a good look at your proportions. I don't actually know if my clothes will fit."

...

"Wait, so where did breakfast come from?"

We took the way outside, as the door directly into the hotel opened up in a labyrinth of back hallways, and it was actually quicker to just walk in the front door. The conversation between us flowed freely. I was so afraid this would ruin everything but Alice seemed to think this was the coolest moment of her life. I walked us around the house to the loading dock, to show her the palette of boxes of eggs.

"Wait what?"

I told her the story of the Chicken Heist while doing brief detours through how my power worked.

"Oh my god, you're a supervillain!" Her tone, contrary to her words, was pure delight.

Julia's head snapped towards us as the front door closed behind us. Thankfully, it was just her and Addison, poring over some documents.

"I'm not a supervillain!"

"You robbed a chicken farm. You made us all complicit in your dirty deeds~"

"I saved those chickens! They were torturing them!"

She faltered, but perservered, albeit slightly less loudly. "And stole a case of eggs"

"Well they didn't deserve them and I'd just walked fifty miles!"

Addison was visibly holding back as much laughter as Julia was feeling alarm.

"And you walked fifty back with a palette of eggs."

"We were out." I defended, weakly. Julia spoke up, eyes calculating, but not yet prodding.

"We aren't. I checked the commercial fridge and we still have a couple of gallons of egg beaters."

I blinked at her.

"What are egg beaters?"

Addison fell off the counter, her laughter leaking out, and Alice joined her a moment later. Julia just closed her eyes, visibly asking the universe for patience. But something had been niggling at me.

"Wait, but I can't be a supervillain." I protested, once the laughter had subsided a bit. "I'm not a parahuman."

That brought everyone up short and I blushed at their incredulity.

"I'm not! In the hospital, before-" I think I lost a moment here, but have no idea how long I had paused. "before, they were arguing about my MRIs. I can't be a parahuman, cause I don't have the... kroner pollenta. and the... gamma?"

"Corona pollentia, and gemma." Addison corrected gently. "You don't have them?"

"Nope."

"And you had powers before that?"

I think I lost another moment, here, because I was jolted back to awareness by Alice's hand sliding into mine.

"Yes." I said quietly. Addison turned to Julia.

"Legal definition of a parahuman is a human with the extra brain structures, the corona pollentia and gemma. It had to be, to stop accusations of cheating in sports and politics and everything."

"So. You're legally not a supervillain. Just a shapeshifting telekinetic thief." Alice swung our hands between us. Any reply I might have made was cut off by the ding of the elevator. Julia sighed.

"Alice, why don't you and Bridget work on some of the empty rooms. Bridget, Addison says you can help speed that up?"

I nodded, glancing at the family of three that were wandering out the elevator. Her use of Bridget instead of Bree felt... I couldn't quite identify the feeling roiling through me.

"Yeah. My stamina isn't fantastic, but I'm really effective."

"All right just... please keep the shenanigans to a minimum?"

Alice scoffed theatrically.

"Come on, mom, it's like you don't even know us!"

...How was I the reasonable one?

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

We found that my Time to Cook ability works even when I wasn't the only one cooking. Julia and I worked on the continental breakfast, and got it done on time even though we'd started a little late. My egg spells helped a lot, but... For all that I had spells to do many of the steps, that did not actually make me an amazing cook. Julia had to rescue things a couple of times. But still! It felt good to help.

...Of course, having to freeze the eggs so they wouldn't go bad was embarrassing. I might have gone a little overboard.

...

Julia had forced Alice to go back to school, insisting that we could handle the hotel.

We did. Though I could see that Julia desperately needed a break. But we had work to do. I did a lot of housekeeping, cleaning, stripping and making beds, vacuuming, scrubbing... Magic made everything easier. Although, the laundry spells assumed that we had some sort of wash tub with... something? Regardless, it was so ubiquitous to that world that there was nothing in the notes explaining what it was, only how to use it. So it ended up being much more efficient to just strip the beds and use the laundry machines in the basement. Or it would be, once Addison had finished fixing them.

Julia did paperwork at the front counter and handled guests. Natalie (Who I still hadn't met) would be coming in later to clean the lobby and hallways. I offered to do that, but Julia told me I was being a bit too blatant with the magic.

"But I'm not a parahuman!"

"Bree... Nobody will take you for an MRI. They'll see you using your... your magic, and see a parahuman that can be used. This isn't the big city, you can get away with it. But we need to sit down and have a conversation and make sure it's something you are choosing for yourself, and that we are choosing as a household, because it does put some danger on us. Whatever we, whatever you do, it's important to make sure we're thinking intentionally about this sort of stuff."

She paused, hesitant.

"And that's the sort of thing we'd need to talk about. I dont- You've been really good for Alice. And... you've been very helpful. You're... you're welcome here. But we need to have a good talk about where you came from. Actually... lets get you a room. If you're a person, you get a room. Don't... Don't worry about paying for it, you've more than earned it."

She fiddled through the computer and keys, and handed me a room key, to room 313, on the top floor.

I gave her a watery smile, somewhere on the verge of tears.

"Thank you."

It felt... I was being given a place here. That was nice. But it wasn't with the family. I was a guest. That was okay. It was.

...

Addison and I got into her battered sedan and picked Alice up from school. The drive was long, endless forest passing by, endless roads underneath, occasional bubbles of civilization. The trees formed odd patterns, the pines resolving into lines and dissolving again, the other trees a chaotic jumble around and through them.

...

The high school was on the water, Lake Superior stretching out into the distance. Even in the cold, the lake was a choppy mirror to the sky as far as the eye could see, with the occasional boat looking tiny out there. It reminded me of nothing so much as the ocean. Calmer, maybe, but without the scent of freshwater I would have thought I was near home. I stared into the distance, lost in thought. I was surprised by how much I missed school.

We'd gotten here a little early, and Addison got out to sit on the step next to me.

"I missed this, you know? The lakes. I grew up here. You're never far from freshwater, up here. When I- When I left, I drove west, ended up in Montana. The skies are so vast there, the mountains huge, but everything is so dry. There are trees, sure, but not like we have here. In Montana, they have forests. Here, the forests have us. And the ground. You can feel it, you know, the awe of the vast mountains, but here." Addison stamped on the ground with a heel. "This is the oldest place on earth. This rock was old when the Rockies were nothing."

She gave a slightly self-deprecating chuckle.

"No place like home, I guess."

I nuzzled my head into her hand, and she laughed and gave me ear scritches.

ooooh.

"Why are you sitting out in the cold?" Alice's voice came from behind us.

Alice had gotten roped into volunteering at a fundraiser the next day, and Addison agreed to pick her up. She said she'd thought that I needed more clothes, and there was a nice thrift shop near the church where the fundraiser was happening.

...

I'd never gotten to see Munising. Not properly. I had been at the hospital, then at Dr. Valentine's house, but there was much more. Addison and I dropped Alice off at the church, then Addison took me to a coffee place. The same coffee place, it turned out, as Julia had the other day. I recognized one of the baristas. I ordered my hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. It made me smile, remembering her enthusiasm. But I wasn't a fox at the moment, I was a high-school-aged girl in ill-fitting clothes and a spare jacket, drinking hot chocolate with a woman as she savoured her coffee.

It was a little weird being out and about, spending so long as a human. I hadn't spent all that much time human since I'd regained the ability to do so. Being a fox was just so much more convenient (now that I had telekinesis), so much more fun. It was strange for my senses to be messed with, the sounds and scents dulling even as the world bloomed into trichromatic colour. I felt off balance without my tail, which made no sense as I'd never walked on two legs with one.

...But they never let me have chocolate as a fox, and hot chocolate is a pretty good trade.

The time passed quickly, Addison and I perusing the used books that lined the walls of the coffee shop.

When we went to pick up Alice, she was still at the table in the church.

"Just need to wait for Melissa to get here, then I can leave." Alice was busy selling homemade baked goods to any passers-by. On the front of the table was a handmade paper banner asking people to buy cookies and support the repairs to the Munising hospital.

I made eye contact with myself and jolted back, saying loudly "I'm just gonna wait in the car, I'll send the fox to keep you company."

Then I snuck around and left a pile of clothing behind the building.

The ability to cheat at doorknobs is still my favourite superpower.

My entrance causes a bit of a stir, but once I sat down next to Alice in a 'good doggo' pose, it became more interest and less alarm. It felt weird having so many strangers touching me, but the pats and scritches did feel really good...

A few minutes (And enough sales that Alice was grateful for her relief showing up) later, the crowds had left me alone. I was staring at the wall behind the table. At the picture, where I'd seen myself earlier.

Pictures of those who perished in the attack on the hospital were taped to the wall, with slips of paper underneath.

"All right, let's go, Br-" Alice followed my line of sight and stopped short. "Huh."

"Emily Sarah Larsson." She read out the obituary below the picture. "Passed away March 17, 2010, after going missing March 16. She was born..." I looked away. Addison was watching us, giving us some distance with a knowing look in her eye. "-ton Bay. Emily was a devout Catholic, and was popular both in church and at school."

I was glad foxes couldn't cry. My ears were flat and mouth shut tight. Of course my obituary would be full of bullshit. I could still taste the bile from my body trying to get rid of the second bottle of pills I downed, after someone I thought was my friend said- Well. What she said.

"Emily attended Immaculata High School, where she was known for her outstanding artistic talent and outgoing personality. Her photograph 'Immaculate' was featured in the Bay Gazette, and her drawing 'Sunlight' won second place in the Brockton Bay Young Artists Competition in 2008. She is survived by her parents, Sarah Lee Larsson and Robert Kane Larsson."

I felt something almost escape my throat. A whine? A growl?

"Emily will be remembered for her optimism and dedication to family, church, and American values."

There was a low rumbling noise, and I realized it was me, growling. I tried to restrain it.

"In lieu of flowers the family requests donations go to the Immaculata Scholarship Fund."

Alice read, then turned to look down at me, eyes a little red.

"Huh? I thought it was nice. Must be weird, though. I remember dad's-"

We were interrupted, however, by a booming voice.

"Addison! I thought that was you!" It was a man, who had just set down another box of baked goods by the table. The girl... Melissa? quickly started sorting them onto the table.

"Samuel." Addison's voice was cool but polite.

"Haven't seen you in ages!" He squared up with her, voice full of a faux-cheer and eyes hard. "Shoulda known you'd turn up. Man, you didn't even wait 'til Dan was cold before sniffing around his wife, huh? Such a loyal friend." His voice stayed cheery.

Addison stepped sideways, posture loose and hands free. Her voice wasn't as light as his, but gave at least a token attempt.

"Huh. You'd know all about loyalty, right Samuel? Still with Rachel? Shopping around for wife number six yet?"

His teeth bared. It was not a smile.

"'course, you're not even at wife number one, are you. Not even the other dykes want you. Couldn't find another man's wife to pant at?"

Her gaze was hard. No emotion crossed it, but it flickered at that.

"Maybe you should stop trying to marry women. I thought you Brother Sun boys were all about each others guns?"

He took a step forward.

"I told you then, and I'm tellin' you now. The Brotherhood of the Sun ain't a real thing. It's a conspiracy theory by liberal whackjobs to send cops after good, honest Americans."

Her teeth were bared too. Fists clenched.

"That why you've got-"

"Don't you start fighting, this is a house of God." The middle-aged woman strode over with purpose. "World has enough fighting and people hurting from it." She nodded over at the pictures of the dead.

The silence hung in the air, the tension sharp. Then Addison stepped back, wearing an easy smile.

"Sorry, Martha. Samuel and I were just getting reacquainted."

"Mhm." Martha's tone made it clear just how little she believed Addison. "Ain't seen you round these parts Addison."

"Had work. Out in Montana. I..."

My ears swiveled as Melissa arranged things on the closer side of the table. She muttered to Alice.

"Sorry about my dad. He's going through a divorce, and..." Her voice was weak and tired, used to apologizing for him.

"Aunt Addie can handle anyone but Alexandria."

Melissa bit her lip.

"Just... be careful? Things are tense at the Lodge."

"Come on, girls. Time to go." Addison ushered us out, and my last glimpse inside was Samuel and Martha talking next to the table, looming over the tired form of Melissa.

...

There was no trace of the argument in Addison's posture or tone, but I could smell her stress.

"Well. How about we do some shopping?"

"Sounds good. What'd you guys do while you waited?"

I had led them around to where I had left my clothes, and realized I had not thought this entirely through. I'd left them in the slush, and they had soaked through with muddy water.

"Bree, my clothes are all muddy!" She sounds exasperated but not actually angry. Oops. I hung my head.

"Riight. I'll put them in the trunk and you can stay fox-shaped 'til I get you an outfit from the thrift shop to wear in." Addison moved us forward.

...

Why was there a hot dog costume in the thrift shop?

Addison's grin and Alice's giggles answered why they had gotten it for me, and I supposed that was a fair revenge. Alice waited by the car for me to change, only hastily turning away once I had changed shape and was showing all of mine.

The thrift shop was neatly-organized chaos. A riot of clothes in all different colours, on a dozen long racks, a jumble of chairs stacked haphazardly in the corner...

We quickly had stacks of clothing, and I realized that Alice had done most of the picking, and Alice... didn't stick to any sort of style or theme or anything. And a decent chunk of what she grabbed was for herself.

I... looked at myself in the mirror.

Did I look the same? My hair was tangled, but I had all the same features as two weeks ago, assembled in the same way. But... I looked different somehow.

The girl in the mirror didn't seem at home in the dress, any more than she did in the ripped jeans and fishnet-accented top. The hoodie felt like she was hiding, the skirt and blazer felt like trying to crawl back into a shape that didn't fit anymore.

"Oh right, you went to Catholic school, right? Did you have uniforms?"

"Yeah. I... kind of wore whatever outside the uniform."

"You're Catholic?"

"No." I sighed. "I'm not really religious." I made eye contact with Alice. "Most of that obituary was bullshit."

"Ah. Your obituary was on the wall. That would make sense." Addison caught on quick.

There was a pause while I tried on another combination.

"That would throw anyone off." Alice soothed. "Lets just focus on shopping. That one looks great!"

I frowned, confused, then glanced in the mirror. The girl in the mirror was visibly upset and uncomfortable, and wearing a striped blouse and black jeans.

"No, it's... Nothing feels right." Was it the clothes that didn't fit? Or me?

"Clothes only have the meaning we give them. Pick whatever speaks to you, whatever tells the world who you are."

I stared in the mirror, and found I didn't know.

...

The room Julia had given me was room 313, on the third floor of the Northwoods Inn.

I had seen a big chunk of the rooms so far, and this was just another one. A minimalist queen bedframe, with cream sheets and a green comforter. Across from it, a TV sat on a long dresser, which was next to the desk and desk chair. There was what Alice, giggling, referred to as the 'cuck chair', and the empty minifridge. A few generic prints of photographs and paintings of the Upper Peninsula. A still and silent air conditioning unit beneath a window looking out across the lawn to the encroaching forest.

I'd started to get used to it, but... It felt a little like the furniture was swimming in so much empty space. It was less than it felt. Maybe it was that the ceilings were a bit high? The pictures not quite sized to the room? The desk chair was at the desk, and the bedside tables were at the bedside, but other than that none of the furniture was touching each other, or even right next to each other. With the dark green carpet, it felt like each piece of furniture was clinging to the floor lest it drift into the void.

It was just slightly weird interior decorating, nothing supernatural or powers-related. It just, felt... more intense now that I'd been given this room. I found myself slinking under the covers, relieved at their gentle weight anchoring me to the bed.

My new clothes were downstairs getting washed before I could wear them. I was alone, except for the vial of blue potion on my bedside table and the rising tension of cards being shuffled, of sticks of different lengths being swapped around and lined up.

The feeling built and burst as I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling.

...I could now learn languages by kissing people. Not... the weirdest thing. I supposed.

After a few minutes of tossing and turning, I turned into a fox.

That made it worse.

This room smelled of long-ago distant strangers, of laundry detergent and old cleaning products. It smelled of fabric and the soaps from the bathroom.

It did not smell like Alice. It did not smell like Julia, or Addison.

Still, I curled my tail around myself and buried my nose into it.

My own scent helped a little, but it wasn't all that long - an hour? Two? Before I slid out of the bed and padded across the almost-felt of the carpet to the door. A hesitation, and I was padding down the hallway in the bathrobe and clutching the room key in my hand.

The door to into the house from the hotel was locked, but that made sense. It was usually locked. I had needed to prop it open when going back and forth with ingredients for breakfast.

The air was cold. Not crisp, not chilly, properly cold, and I regretted not wearing anything substantial, and especially nothing on my feet. It was pretty soon that I ditched the robe, reveling in the warm fur of being a fox. The room key was held delicately in my teeth.

I crept into the house, mindful of Addison snoring gently on the couch.

I was better at being quiet in this shape. It was better for a lot of things.

I slipped into Alice's room, trying not to feel like a creep.

Her scent was everywhere, the way that living in a room will make it yours to the nose. Of course, the piles of laundry on the floor did help it along, with a modest helping of 'stinky teenager.'

The moment her scent hit me, I relaxed. Then scolded myself. I'd known her for what, a week? How the hell was I reacting like this already?

Distantly, the thought of people bonding in response to trauma bubbled up, but I ignored it.

There. On Alice's desk was a folded blanket with some fox fur clinging to it. That was my target. Not to sleep on, though a pulse of longing argued otherwise, but to take. I'd apologize in the morning, maybe slip it back unnoticed as soon as possible. I'd only need it for tonight, surely. A bit of comfort for tonight to tide me over.

I realized I had miscalculated when I got to the blanket. I'd need to pick it up.

With my hands.

I could drag it, but I immediately rejected that plan. Dragging it through the mud would be both incredibly rude and also defeat the point of getting it.

I sighed and transformed back into a human, pulling the room key out of my mouth.

Of course, now I was naked.

I glanced around, instinctively, at the feeling of being exposed. That led me to catching sight of Alice, sprawled across her bed in a position that cannot have been comfortable. But I yanked my gaze away, feeling even more like a creep. Standing naked in her bedroom. I stole the blanket and wrapped it around myself. Back outside, I ran from the cold, pausing only to pick up my bathrobe to slip inside. The front desk had the night time sign with Julia's phone number on it, and the room was otherwise empty. Still, it made me very aware I was almost naked in a very public space. The idea was a little exciting, electric... but mostly mortifying. I hurried behind the counter to the office space and kitchen back there, and slipped my robe back on. It was a little dirty from the ground, but... well enough. I decided to skip the loudly dinging elevator. It was a pointless gesture, the elevator ran all day and night and the people I wanted to avoid waking were in another building entirely. But it felt safer and stealthier, so I crept up the two flights of stairs to the third floor.

I slipped back into my room, breathing a little heavily and more awake than before I left. But... I didn't sniff the blanket. Not while people-shaped. It felt like that would be crossing a line. I tucked it into my bed and turned on the shower to warm myself up and clean off my feet.

Then, I yelped and turned the shower to what normally felt lukewarm, but currently felt almost too hot, my toes and nipples and nose still stinging from the heat.

I didn't know what I was going to do about my tangled hair. I'd spent an hour detangling yesterday, and now it was as bad as ever. I sighed and tried to keep it mostly dry. Not a right-now problem.

Right now, I needed to sleep.

And with the blanket, after tossing and turning and reverting to fox shape, I slept.

...

Sunday started awkward. Tired, in a new place, I felt off balance. But I managed to get into the swing of things.

"Did you sleep okay, Bridget?" Julia asked as we prepared that day's continental breakfast.

I hesitated.

"Mhm. Eventually. I, uh. Just needed an extra blanket."

"Well, you know where they are."

...

The day almost settling into something like routine was interrupted mid-afternoon. The front door opened to reveal a man with a charming smile and an ever-so-slightly rumpled suit. He ushered two more people in, one in a pantsuit and the other in a much more expensive suit. Or so I guessed. It looked more expensive, especially compared to the charming man's suit.

I was manning the desk - actually personing it this time - after having done my first round of cleaning.

"So glad you could make it! As you can see, the place has been well maintained. Spacious lobby and rustic up-north appeal. The new addition was built in 1973, with sixty rooms."

It was odd, but dude could just be enthusiastic about hotels. The man in the expensive suit looked around with a calculative air, and the woman in the pantsuit followed a step behind and jotted down notes.

"Here, let me show you one of the rooms."

The charming man lead the two down one of the hallways, and I didn't think much more of it. A small group of women had come to check in, and I needed to handle that. It was so much easier with hands! I could even key in the room key cards!

Half an hour later, the suited trio entered the lobby from the other direction. The charming smile man was speaking more animatedly, fired up and excited. Julia was in the office, and I'd seen that she'd fallen asleep on the desk.

I opted to just close that door. She needed all the rest she could get.

Something that was endangered as the man lead the other two around the counter towards the offices and commercial kitchen.

"Oh! Excuse me, this area is staff only!"

The animated man looked at me like I was something he'd scraped off his shoe and kept going. I managed to dart around in front of them. Something inside me quivered, but this man was annoying me.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to return to the lobby."

"I'm so sorry about this. One moment please." The man leading the tour spoke to the others, then turned to me. "Who are you, are you new? What are you even wearing? You look like a clown in that makeup.'

I shrank back a little, I'd tried out one of the more 'scene' outfits today, and actually had been a little proud of how the makeup had turned out. I huffed, finding a bit of spine.

"Just go back out there."

"Life tip kid, learn who owns the next place you work at. Which you'll need to look for cause you're fired. Get out." Then, his face smoothing back into the charming mask, he shoved me out of his way. I didn't really see what happened next, as for a split second, I was on the ground, batons and fists and feet pummeling me while I could see my Dad just... standing there. Watching.

Then the trio were gone and I shook myself. Right.

I ignored my trembling and walked quickly where I needed to go, which coincidentally took me away from them. Probably.

The office door banged open, startling Julia awake.

"Julia! There's a guy here who says he owns the place? Don't you own the deed?"

She frowned in confusion, then her expression cleared into a much different kind of frown.

"Arthur. Call-" She hesitated, then continued. "Call Addison. I'll deal with him."

I slipped out to the desk to hit number three on the speed dial. The two pen caps hadn't been removed from the first two speed dial buttons, so the third was covered in tape.

It rang, on speakerphone, and I could hear shouting begin in the other room.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Arthur?"

There was a pause, then I heard Julia shouting again.

"No, absolutely not! Get out."

The man in the expensive suit stormed out the door, the pantsuit woman scurrying behind like a frightened mouse. The other man, Arthur? As in Uncle Arthur? He chased after them.

"No, please, you don't have to worry about her, she'll be gone before you ever touch the property."

The other man stopped, waiting as the woman handed him an expensive, long jacket, which he methodically put on.

"It's a shame, Arthur. I was impressed with what I saw. Not incredibly, but you're right it would be an easy conversion. Call me when you have whatever... this... is, sorted out." He turned on his heel and left, the pantsuit woman hastily putting on her own jacket.

The moment hung in the air, then was interrupted by a loud BANG.

I flinched back from where Arthur had just hit the counter.

"You idiot!" He screamed at Julia. "I was this close to getting the deal."

"For the last time, Arthur, we're not selling!"

"Well that's not your decision to make, is it?" Arthur sneered.

"You have half ownership. And you have it on conditions."

"And I'm selling this dump before it becomes even more worthless. Why are you even fighting me on this? You're a wreck, trying to keep this place afloat!"

Julia self-consciously smoothed her blouse.

"We're doing fine."

"Do you even have any staff, or are you trying to do it all yourself, like always?!" Arthur caught sight of me behind the counter, next to the phone, "What the fuck are you still doing here, I fired you. Get out." He hit the counter again near me, and I flinched back.

"You half-own the property, Arthur, not the business. Hiring decisions are mine."

Was I even technically an employee?

"Stop being such a stupid bitch, Julia!" Arthur snarled. "Do the right thing for once in your goddamn life. I'm going to set up a trust for Alice's college. Dan would have been ashamed at how you've been-"

SMACK.

Julia's hand lowered from where it had just impacted Arthur's face. He loomed over her, more physically threatening than before. He opened his mouth, only to be cut off by a voice that rang out from across the lobby.

"I think" Addison strode across the lobby, her voice clear and crisp in the large room. "It's time for you to go, Arthur."

"Oh look, the rugmuncher." Arthur's voice was derisive. "Really, Julia? Did you even wait til Dan was in the ground to start fucking her?"

Julia swelled up, indignant, but before she could say anything, Addison cut in. Addison's voice was colder, this time.

"Arthur. Out."

She physically moved in between them. It should have been funny, he had several inches on her but backed off when she made him. He backpedaled a couple of feet.

"Oh, that's rich. Hiding behind your attack dog, just like when-"

Addison took a single step towards him. She had seemed imposing before, but now every movement screamed that she was dangerous, and rapidly running low on restraint. Arthur actually ran a couple of steps, then paused at the door.

"It's a matter of time, Julia. I'll see you in court."

Julia physically sagged, and I managed to start breathing again. Addison did not move until Arthur was truly gone, and then spun to cradle Julia's head into her shoulder.

"Jules, I-"

Julia took a step back, holding a hand up towards Addison. Where Addison had physically moved Arthur, she bent to Julia's touch without resistance.

"Just. Not right now. Thank you for stepping in. Can you just... go?"

Addison's wounded expression quickly smoothed into her normal carefree nonchalance.

"'Course, Jules. I'll go pick up dinner."

Julia flinched.

"Please, just... Bridget." I jerked upright, my trembling having wound down a little. "Get Addison the room next to yours."

Addison's face flickered, but her voice was soft and reassuring.

"You know he's full of bullshit, yeah? You aren't."

"Addison. Stop helping."

Addison reared back, and Julia amended quickly.

"For tonight. I just... I need some space." She turned towards the office again, but stopped in the doorway. Addison gazed longingly after her. "And. Addison? Thanks." Then she was gone. For a moment, it seemed like Addison was crumbling, like her bedrock had been yanked away, lost and hollow and aching.

"So that was Arthur. He hasn't gotten better since we were kids." It was honestly a little disconcerting. I knew she had been deeply hurt, and it seemed like she was trying to scrape together her usual confidence. I just nodded, and she leaned on the counter. I flinched, which was stupid. Addison was safe. She checked her motion, a little of the life coming back into her eyes.

"What do you say we get that room key, then we go bring take-" She paused. Looked over like she could see through the walls to where Julia was. She took a deep breath, visibly recentered, and then shot me a warm smile. The light was back, her body language open and warm. "Lets go get dinner. There's this place that did amazing fish n chips, caught fresh every day. I wonder if they're still around."

I shrugged, feeling like I'd run out of words, and still trembling a bit. But I got her key like Julia asked, and she slid it into her pocket.

Something was a little different, with Addison. I couldn't quite pin it down, but she seemed present, with me, in a way that she'd never felt.

"Or, it's cold out, we can see if the pizza place is still going? Best garlic bread you'll ever have."

She swept me along, but even when she physically pulled me into her side, I didn't flinch. It felt like her scent wrapped around me, lemon and soap and leather and Addison.

I still felt shaky and a little distant, my didn't seem to be working.

But with Addison next to me?

I felt safe.

For now, anyway.

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

A/N. Splitting this one up, not for length or anything, but because it feels like it should be?

One of the great things about being a fox at the front desk is that nobody brings complaints to you. Complaints about you, sure, but those can be scribbled on the paper you push forward.

Then, when I got my utilimancy magic, I was taken off front desk duty because that was no longer the most effective use of my time. Even now, when I had hands! Hands! I was never going to take them for granted again. When I had hands and a voice, Utilimancy meant that the best use of my time was always going to be cleaning. Well, that or doing the continental breakfast. Because cooking breakfast no longer took time to do, at least for me.

But just me, even with magic, I could barely keep up with the need for housekeeping. I got into a rhythm.

First, make sure nobody is in the room. That took two more accidents than it should have to get driven into my head.

Then, do a sweep for trash. This was another place where my otherworldly magic failed me. Because I had spells for making and turning compost, spells for unraveling garments into fiber, for removing ink from parchment, for separating metals and for mending pottery, wood, metal, and glass. But there was no spell for 'collect trash', because it seemed that 'waste not, want not' was the way that world worked. Anything not fixable was repurposed, anything not repurposable was burned. Oh and the word 'plastic' meant something that could be molded, not a material.

Cast my 'ufo roomba' spell. Really, I should be able to clean the entire carpet with a single spell all at once, but while I had the knowledge of a utilimancy archmage, I only had the power of a neophyte.

Cast spells to scrub the bathroom and clean the mirror, then when that was done set spells to stripping and replacing the linens. It had to be that way around because I just didn't have the capacity to run more than two spells at a time. Regardless, while that was running, check and replace the toiletries and towels.

Dump all the towels, linens, and assorted fabric into the laundry hamper, quickly cast spells to clean off the surfaces and dust the television, then direct the UFOomba into the trash bin on my cart. Finally, air out the room with a breeze.

Move on. Total elapsed time, about 15 minutes.

Which meant that I was about twice as fast as a regular housekeeper, while doing a more thorough job. Which was great!

It meant I could replace all the missing housekeeping staff. And make breakfast. But that still left me exhausted, and left all other work to be split between Addison and Julia. Alice helped where she could, honestly more than she should, but she could do homework at the front desk and a lot of the general management tasks that hadn't been getting done could be done there too.

I didn't see a whole lot of Addison, as Julia and Addison split the front desk between them, and Addison took the night shift. I filled in for a couple of hours here and there, and Alice did too.

And working the front desk was...

Guests were mostly nice.

Mostly.

But that meant that we usually had at least one problem guest. Someone demanding extra services, or complaining, or demanding we fix something that had nothing to do with us.

When I was a fox, I got to ignore that.

Sometimes, I wanted to go back to running the desk as a fox. I sometimes did the cleaning in that shape, and usually slept as a fox. It was just... more comfortable in a lot of ways. But I had been skipping most of the duties at the front desk as a fox, and now I mostly just had to handle dawn checkouts and reservations, but it was still a lot.

It was a lot for everyone, and there were no days off. Even someone working 4 hours a day would be worn down without days off, and Julia had been pulling off 12-14 hour shifts for a month straight.

So it was a blessed relief when we had a new hire walk in unannounced.

I had just finished laying out the breakfast for the morning, the door sliding open as I placed down the last sausage.

She was tall, blonde, with an undercut on one side and the holes for snake bite piercings. She looked vaguely uncomfortable in the skirtsuit she was wearing, and carried a folder.

Julia was just walking in, my shift at the counter ending at breakfast.

"Hello! Ready to check out? Or are you looking to make a reservation?" Julia's voice was friendly and professional, but makeup couldn't quite hide the deep bags under each eye.

"Oh, uh-" The newcomer faltered, thrown off as whatever internal script she had prepared was cast aside. "No, I'm... Are you guys hiring?"

Julia perked up.

"Oh! We are! Thank you, oh that's a re-" She caught herself. "Anyway, I'm Julia, I own the hotel."

"Oh! Uh, Leticia." She shook Julia's hand over the counter. "Call me Letty. Here, " Letty produced a resume from the folder, on expensive paper. Julia glanced down at it.

"What role were you hoping for?"

"That, uh... depends on what's on offer. But I'd prefer to work the counter. I can do housekeeping if I need to."

"That's fine, we have housekeeping covered." She glanced back down at the resume. "You're a student?"

"Yeah! I've just got a few classes left for my degree, and they're not offered this semester, so I'm just killing ti-." She catches herself. "Looking for opportunities, happy to work hard to earn my place."

Julia laughed.

"You don't need to worry so much, Letty. We're not that formal, and we are grateful for the help."

I slipped back into the commercial kitchen, starting on the cleanup spells. If I had a tail right now, it would be flailing in happiness.

Another worker!

With my spells, that puts us at the bare minimum required to function!

I hum happily, running a scrubbing spell over the flattop grill.

We.

Huh. When had I decided that this place was my home?

I hadn't been here long.

Granted, those days had been very eventful, but still. In some ways this felt like home. I felt invested in the success of the hotel. I wanted to give Julia time off to rest.

In others, I still felt distant. I still didn't know any of the others all that well.

I finished the kitchen and slipped up to the hotel room.

That was another distant part.

The hotel room was spotless. Magic made it so, and it was trivial for me to cast the necessary spells. It kept the room pristine, cleaned like any other hotel room.

But that was the thing.

It was just like any other hotel room. There was nothing of me in the room, except for my clothes. I have a couple of extra pillows that I'd grabbed from the supply, making a little ring of pillows and lined with Alice's blanket.

But it just... it felt emblematic of my place here. A temporary room, given for an uncertain length. A bit of stolen comfort to survive a place that was not truly my own.

This had only been the place I was staying for a few days, and it already felt like I'd lost touch with the others.

The house...

It somehow felt wrong to intrude.

Addison hadn't officially been banished from the house, not after that one night, but there was something raw between her and Julia. Addison had barely been inside the house since Arthur's visit, just stopping by to drop takeout for Julia and Alice in the evenings when she got up. Addison and I ate those meals together in her hotel room. She was bright, joking, and warm, but I couldn't help but remember. Before she knew I was a person, she let herself be tired and confused around me. For a few minutes, anyway. I tried to be there for her, and after the third night I started sleeping at the foot of her bed as a fox. Neither of us commented on it.

Alice was struggling to get caught back up with her schoolwork, which meant she was busy. I mostly saw her when she was at the front desk, and she usually couldn't talk so I curled up as a fox near her feet and snoozed. She would occasionally pat me with her foot which... I mean, pats are nice?

But it meant that I was very aware of my place here. Or lack of one.

But any time my thoughts strayed to being elsewhere, I remembered struggling to my paws, on a broken leg in the dark. Just before being foxnapped by Dr. Valentine. Or the smiling eyes above the obituary for another girl with my face and name.

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

A/N: Two tangents here, but I feel they're important? The Scion Cult thing will become relevant soon, and me rambling about the Upper Peninsula is just something you're going to have to learn to live with, I'm afraid.

Letty's first shift was the next day, and Julia just sort of collapsed in bed. Or so I assume.

When Addison woke up, I rode with her to pick up chinese from two towns over. It was a little cool by the time we got there, but that was fine. I was looking forward to my chicken and mushroom, and helped Addison carry the bags to the door of the house.

I knocked.

It felt weird to knock. It felt weird to just walk in.

Addison and I began sorting through the bags to figure out what we were going to pass in and what we were going to take to Addison's room.

The door opened to us precariously balancing food containers while Addison tried to look inside one. Julia was in her dressing gown, and we froze. She stared for a moment. A sauce container slipped out of the bag and hit the ground with a dull splat.

Julia started shaking, then giggling.

"Come in, you two. You're being ridiculous."

She took the container I was balancing, and swept inside.

Alice was roused by the smell of food and the sounds of conversation.

"Thanks for getting food, Aunt Addie!" she chirped. "Oooh, shrimp lo mein?"

After food was distributed, I grabbed mine and took a couple steps towards the door. I was intending to go eat with Addison in her room.

"Girls."

I turned to see her regarding all three of us with a complicated expression.

"We have two more coming in for interviews tomorrow. It's almost over. I'm sorry I-" She groped for words, then gave up. "We all have a lot to talk about, and we're going to have time to have those talks. But for now? Lets watch something on the TV and eat dinner together."

We all fell into line without thought, getting ourselves arranged. Julia in the recliner, Addison in the old wicker chair, and Alice and I on the couch. Well, Alice on the couch. I slid down to sit closer to the coffee table.

Julia picked up the remote, and there was a hint of that feeling of home. Us all together. Then a black leather book appeared out of nowhere next to me and fell on the coffee table with a loud thump.

I smelled concrete dust and the wail of hospital equipment for a split second, and Alice gave a high pitched 'Eep'. Addison was half out of her chair, and Julia just had a hand to her throat.

Oh! It was my spell book! I could finally-

"Nope." Julia said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "That is a tomorrow problem. It gets activated by opening it, right?"

"Mhm!" Alice chimes in. Julia leaned forward and snagged the book, then put it on the dining room table.

"Don't look at me like that, it will still be there in the morning." Julia paused, and I realized with some embarrassment that I was pouting. "It will, won't it?"

"I guess" I grumbled.

"We're having a normal night in front of the TV."

Julia clicked on the television, and after a moment, we were.

...

"-but sociologists have classified them in a few different overlapping movements."

A man spoke as he walked, the camera keeping pace.

"Unlike every other religious figure, Scion is tangibly present. He puts out wildfires, heals disaster victims, and pulls kittens out of trees. But Scion has only ever said one word, that we have heard. Scion. But just because the golden man does not speak does not mean that there aren't people listening."

"Perhaps the most notorious of the Scionist movements - and once again, that is Scionist, not Zionist. Completely different thing - is what sociologists collectively call the Scionite Listeners. They believe that Scion has some message, or wants something from us, or is waiting for us to do something specific. It's a well known trope at this point, the conspiracy theorist in the basement with every known Scion sighting tacked up on the wall, but they aren't the only ones looking for a golden sign."

Now, the man was standing in front of an office building in the winter time, bundled in a thick puffy coat.

"Behind me was once the location of the infamous Golden Watchword. Known for the massacre at St. Hillsdale, this group started as a few friends in a basement, who believed they had found a pattern in Scion's movements. The group garnered private support until it was several dozen strong, all eager to hear Scion speak again. One of their members, Agnes Littleford, pinpointed a time and place that she believed Scion would cross. St. Hillsdale, on January fifth, 1995. They planned a great celebration, inviting millions to come and witness. But the leadership grew concerned. What if Scion passed through that place, and just... didn't stop? They became convinced that they needed to manufacture a reason for the golden man to stop."

The man began walking again, looking somber. I jumped, startled, as something touched my head. I whipped around to see Alice quickly retracting a hand. Had she just... pat my head?

"On January fifth, 1995, the group locked one hundred and forty five people, including seventy-eight of their own members, into a nearby venue. They gassed them, systematically shot each one in the gut, and then dragged them out into the field where the great action was set to take place. They finished the preparations five minutes early, and the three leaders - Agnes Littleford, Charles Wang, and 'Gleam' Olsen - awaited the arrival of Scion. The field was distant enough that the hundred or so remaining members of the Golden Watchword could keep others out of viewing range. And they waited. And waited."

The man looked down somberly.

"Scion never came. One hundred sixteen of their victims died slow deaths on that field. 'Gleam' Olsen was later quoted as being horrified. They were never intended to die. They were supposed to be dying, slowly enough that Scion could come and heal them all."

He let the moment hang. I looked down at my plate and decided that I was done eating. I pushed it away, and that seemed to be what Alice had been waiting for. She clicked her tongue to get my attention, and patted her thighs a couple of times. Like she was trying to entice a dog or cat to get onto the couch with her. I blushed, but shifted and wriggled out of my clothes.

"There we go." Alice settled me into her lap, petting me idly. Despite myself, I couldn't help but feel safe. I knew I had been here for less than two weeks. It was far too soon for me to be attached like this. But that thought was obliterated by Alice scritching my ears in a way that made my brain melt.

"But these days, despite the bad reputation from groups like the Golden Watchword, many just can't resist trying to learn what the golden man has to say."

The man now stood before a crowd filing into an auditorium. The angle of the camera hid the name on the show poster, but the iconography was very clearly based on Scion.

"Of course, there are others who are glad that Scion is silent, because it means they can speak whatever they wish to in his name. These are the Speakers of Scion, individuals and groups that decide that Scion ordained their particular belief system, and thus it was their duty to spread that belief system. This has inspired everything from motivational speakers to church groups to hate groups to take on the golden man's legitimacy, claiming to know what his intentions are."

He walked by a graveyard towards a church.

"But some believe they already have an explanation for Scion that fits neatly into their belief system. The Scionist Christians suggest that Scion is clearly Jesus Christ returned, saving us more physically that before. Many posit that his aura of sorrow is his disappointment in how we have handled the last two thousand years. Others say it is just his kind nature, his sorrow at the suffering of humanity. Some take this as a sign to go on a crusade, among other examples the Tyler-Longview Church Riots in '94 and '99. Others, to follow in his example. The Crusade Against Despair is often visible only hours after any major disaster, working with FEMA and other agencies to help those affected. They are actually a shining example of the Samaritan Scionists, who often seek to do good deeds wherever they go. Following in the footsteps of the man who leaves none."

"But for others, every disaster the CADdies help with is just another tick of the clock. A continuation of the ever-present doomsday cults, the Revelatory Scionists believe the end is coming. For some, the rise of Parahumans and the return of our saviour herald the end of days, and others point to Scion's actions as desperately attempting to forestall an ending that will come no matter his efforts. His sorrow a sign that he knows we are doomed and yet tries anyway. Whether or not that fits into any religion or mythology."

That was the last I heard as Alice's heartbeat and fingers combing through my soft fur lulled me to sleep.

WEDNESDAY

'Morning' as the time for the talk proved to be optimistic. I still needed to make the breakfast and Addison still had to take the night shift. Alice still had school, and Julia had to handle the interviews. I went through my chores, the pressure of that meeting coming up.

It was... basically just me being expected to tell them my whole story. My powers, what had happened to me. Lay it all bare to be judged.

And that judgement would determine if I stayed, if I had to go...

If they called the Protectorate or CPS.

The interviews went well. Julia hired Paul and Rachel, who would begin work in the next couple of days. Getting to a normal staffing level took a lot of the pressure off us all.

THURSDAY

Paul and Lettie were both working today, which meant Addison didnt need to stay up all night. Julia hovered, and I did my best to keep the magic out of their sight.

After I finished work, I slipped into my fox shape and went wandering through the nearby woods. They were so full of interesting new smells, it took my mind off things for a bit.

But only a bit.

What would I do if they said I had to leave? I wouldn't blame them. The Protectorate, or at least the ice cape, seemed mad at me, and the Nazis wouldn't be happy I had done some WWII re-enactment on their boat. I had powers, even if I wasn't a parahuman, and I knew better than anyone that powers mean conflict.

Addison had said she'd take care of me, back when my cast came off. I couldn't trust that, could I? She hung on Julia's every word. If Julia told her to throw me in a closet for the cops... she would.

I sought out Addison.

"Hey, kit. How are you doing?" Addison was doing laundry, and the humming and sloshing and thumping of the machines covered the noise of our speech.

I started helping.

"I'm okay. You?"

Addison sighed. "Just okay. Yeah, I feel that." She tossed an assessing glance my way. "Nervous for tomorrow?"

I didn't say anything, which seemed to be answer enough.

Something seemed to firm in Addison, and she gave me a cocky smile that I couldn't help but be reassured by.

"Don't worry about it. It's gonna go fine."

"But what if it doesn't?" The words spilled from my mouth without conscious volition, and I immediately wanted to cram them back inside.

Addison gave me a long, assessing look. Then she turned back to her laundry. I thought that was it, until Addison beckoned me from the door.

"Come on. Let's go for a drive."

...

We didn't talk about anything serious on the drive.

Or, well, no, that's not true.

We didn't talk about anything of personal significance.

I told her about Brockton Bay, the cape capital of the US, and what it was like to grow up there. I told her about my favourite ice cream shop, and the cat that used to come around to our house for food.

The forest rolled past on either side of us. The occasional car passed, but it was late afternoon on a Thursday in March. And we were driving through Hiawatha National Forest. The trees started to feel more like an ocean than a forest, Addison's car racing down a causeway.

Addison told me about Maine. About working as a boat mechanic, a car mechanic, a general contractor. She told me stories of the stupidest things she'd seen, like one yacht utterly ruined because its owner filled the gas tank with three bottles of everclear. Or the multimillion dollar shipping barge that was dead in the water. The captain convinced he was going to have to figure out how to replace the motor, a hulking thing that ran on steam and coal and spite. Only for Addison to find a place where mice had eaten through the wiring. Her solution? A ten cent bit of wire and a new cat for the ship.

I was slowly starting to understand that I would need to recalibrate how I thought about time and distance. In Brockton, there were very few places you couldn't get to within a 30 minute drive. Buses took longer, but everything was so close together. Here, in the Upper Peninsula, there were little islands of humanity amidst the forest, and Julia thought nothing of a 45 minute drive to take Alice to school, then a 45 minute drive back. Twice a day, though Alice often had friends drop her off in their cars.

This drive was a little over an hour, and Addison pulled a cooler out of her trunk. She kept the car running and slipped inside a weathered shop. She came back out with the cooler, and put it in the back seat.

Another ten minute drive, and then we got out and walked. The boardwalk was damp and slippery and steep in places. The gift shop closed. I didn't recognize the name on the signs, it seemed maybe Native American?

We came around a bend in the path and my breath caught.

The water stretched out beyond the trees, mirror-still and unfrozen. It had an odd, luminous blue colour and as we approached, I could tell that wasn't a colouring in the water. The water was so clear I could see the bottom perfectly, 40 feet below.

"When I got my first car, I found this place." Addison had a camp chair over each shoulder and I carried the cooler. "It became the place I went to whenever I needed a think."

We stepped out onto the small pier and onto the little barge. Addison leaned the chairs up against the railing and started cranking the wooden wheel, the steel cord pulling the barge out into the middle of the lake. The only crank was on the barge, so it couldn't be pulled back from shore.

Addison's voice was hushed, like we were in a cathedral or a grand library.

"Not when there are people around. I bet you've seen from the hotel that tourists are many things. Quiet is not one of them."

We sat in our chairs and stared out into the lake.

"Julia likes the pasties from Muldoons, up in Munising the best." Addison opened the cooler and passed me a steaming pastry. Like a calzone made with pie crust, and wrapped in chequered red and white parchment paper. Addison took a bite and made a satisfied groan. "I like the ones from Crazy Fox Bakery better." She shot me a wink.

I giggled and took a bite. It was hot, good, flaky and salty. The first bite didn't taste of much but pie crust but it was a good pie crust. Addison continued.

"Muldoons are pretty good with ketchup. But you don't need to add anything to Crazy Fox Bakery's pasties, and they do neat flavours. I got a philly cheese steak for myself, and got you their Crazy Good Original flavour."

I took another bite, my mouth filling with spiced beef, and root vegetables. The herbs wafted in the aromatic steam, and Addison continued.

"I made it a habit. Whenever something big was going to happen. A big test. Asking out a pretty girl." Addison glanced at me and explained. "Back then, it was much more of a big deal. Could be dangerous. Anyway. A big concert, a friend's wedding. Her pregnancy."

"I'd grab a pasty from the Crazy Fox, and come out here to think."

I looked around, and I could see why. Deep below, rivers of mud flowed and roiled across the bottom of the lake. The trees surrounded us on all sides, and the sky was just beginning to shade into dusk.

Even with the trees moving in the wind, it was still so silent. Everything felt so far away. Beautiful. Peaceful. A pocket of safety enforced by the land itself.

Something unclenched in my gut, just a little, and the warmth there wasn't just the pastie. We ate in silence for a bit, Addison letting the moment breathe.

"This is so dumb." I huffed. "I've been here what. A week and a half? Two weeks? Why am I this nervous? I shouldn't be this attached, right?" I should be able to slip away and not complicate their lives.

Addison chewed over her food and her answer, then spoke.

"There's some answer here about bonding through trauma, and even without the story its clear you've got more than your share."

I look away, at the rivers and mountains formed from the silt far below.

"But the truth is that trying to measure any relationship against some ideal or societal expectation isn't going to do anything but make people unhappy. As long as nobody is being harmed, don't worry about it. And... To answer your question from the laundry room... I'm not looking for reasons to kick you out, and I doubt Jules is either."

She leaned forward, making me meet her gaze involuntarily.

"Whether you stay or go, everyone needs to know what to expect. Dangers, opportunities, old ghosts... and Emily?"

I flinched. The word sounded wrong in her mouth. She relented a little.

"Bridget. Are you a current member of the Slaughterhouse Nine?"

I shook my head, vigorously. She cracked a ghost of her usual cocky grin.

"Then I promise you we will figure something out. I've been all over, and know people. If you need to go, you won't be out in the cold."

I nodded. The lump in my throat prevented any words, and my eyes burned. I didn't sob, or gasp. I just stared out at the crystal-clear water, fear flowing freely down my cheeks to join the spring below.

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

A/N: And now for the payoff. This uh. It's a chonker. Let me know what you think? I need to break up the monologues a bit in the earlier segment, but I think the story-time managed okay.

FRIDAY

It began, as so much of my life these days seem to, with breakfast.

I was still only a middling cook, relying on the spells to do most of the work, but the breakfast bar didn't need a huge amount of actual cooking that my spells couldn't handle.

Still, I made pancakes, separate, for us. It... I might have been a bit nervous and made too many but that just meant I could only bring the ones that looked good and not raw in the middle or burned.

Taking them out around the outside would have meant they were stone-cold by the time I got there, so I walked my steam tray through the hallways to the nondescript door that led to the original house. I knocked.

Alice was the one to let me in.

"That cooking time power you have is super wild. Like is time progressing right now? We're walking to the table. The old grandfather clock is stopped but it's been like that for years."

She helped me set the table, and I relaxed into the babbling. Once we'd finished setting the table, we waited, but there were no convenient knocks on perfect time. Julia was in the shower.

"Huh. It didn't make everyone arrive on time." Alice was puzzled.

"I mean. The power is explicitly working on Wonderland time. If it was reliable it wouldn't be Wonderland."

"I guess that makes sense." She giggled. "But I haven't believed in six impossible things yet, so it's not time for breakfast."

I paused. Is... was she...?

"You know, from Alice through the Looking Glass? I loved that story. Even the most outlandish things make sense in a story."

I blushed.

"I've never read any of the books."

Alice frowned at me, confused.

"But you have a wonderland time power"

There was a knock at the door at about the same time Julia came out with her dressing gown. She let Addison in through the front door, and I steeled my nerves.

"Well, over breakfast, lets talk about impossible things."

...

I said that, but the silence hung heavy in the air. Not absence of sound. The chiming of cutlery on silverware, coffee mugs being set down, the scrape of butter across toast. But the absence of words. I just... I didn't want to be thrown away, if I was too weird or they were afraid of nazis. And this was the tipping point. I fretted, cutting my pancake with my fork into smaller and smaller pieces.

Alice downed the last of her orange juice, and set it down with a firm tap.

"So!" She said, and I startled. "Hi. I'm Alice! I like hiking and reading and crokinole and poetry and cute animals. I don't know what I want to do with my life yet. I'm afraid my home is going to be taken away from me by Uncle Arthur. I-" Alice glanced at Julia, then me, then she took a deep breath and continued. "I don't want to be a burden on Mom, and I'm scared seeing how tired she is."

Julia startled, reaching out and opening her mouth. Addison, with a small grin, held up a hand to halt her, then gestured for Alice to continue. "I really hope that'll get fixed with the new hires. My dad died a few months ago, and it's been... really hard. I miss him."

Her voice had gone quiet, but she rallied, eyes fierce with determination. "One day, my friends dragged me to the beach because they were worried about me. I'd stopped hanging out, was doing worse in school, and looked tired all the time. It was really nice that they cared, but knowing all my problems didn't actually make them go away. I got home, ready to help and do my best not to make more work for Mom. But when I got home, there was a hurt fox. She wasn't like other foxes, she was smart and funny and tried to help and be there for me." Alice tossed me a smile.

"Things got a little better. The work didn't get easier, but maybe the attitude changed? But then Aunt Addy came home, and then the fox can turn into a girl! And there's an obituary at the church with her face on it and I'm really curious where she came from and what she can do but I'm also afraid because she looks hunted any time the topic comes up." There was a pause, then Alice stared into the middle distance, mouthing words like she was going over a list in her head. "Oh! And I want Bree to stay."

She deflated, looking vulnerable. At some point, Julia had taken her hand, eyes red-rimmed. Addison patted her shoulder, but Alice just turned and paid very pointed attention to Addison. Addison chuckled.

"I'm Addison. I came back to help an old friend." Addison made eye contact, imploring, with Julia. "I don't want to replace anybody or take anything that's not freely offered. I just want to help the people I care about. I missed you both so much. But I don't know where boundaries are, I don't know where we stand or if I'll still have a place here in a month." Addison paused, blinked, and then her cocky grin was back in place. "I'm a fair hand at fixing anything that goes when you put gas in it, and I used to play with a band. Your go, Jules."

"I..." Julia fiddled with her napkin for a moment. "I'm just... tired." The word hung in the air, but the expected successors were not arriving. Alice gave Julia an encouraging smile and a squeeze of the hand.

"Things have been insane since- Since Dan. Everything fell apart without him, and I tried to hold everything together but I just... wasn't enough. You have all been incredible. Alice, honey, thank you but you didn't need to carry this for me. It's my job to figure out how to carry it." Alice's chin raised in defiance but she didn't speak.

"Addison... I..." She lapsed into silence again.

"Thank you for your help. You're a good friend." The word was said with deliberate emphasis, making steady eye contact with Addison, whose expression barely flickered. Julia broke away first, huffing something that might have been a laugh. "I don't have enough good friends to go throwing them away. Just... give me time?"

Addison nodded, her trademark grin firmly in place. Julia swung around to me.

"Bree... I don't know what to do with you. You... you're just a ball of chaos. You're a sweet girl, but you keep doing things I can't understand. You gave Alice magic of her own, but it's powered by sex. You're standing in for the cleaning staff I don't have, but you broke into a chicken farm and stole a pallet of eggs and freed all the chickens. You're a fox half the time, even after your cast was taken away, but you're also a girl. You were in the Marquette hospital fight but you say you weren't a participant. You're good for Alice, but I don't know if you're safe for her."

She took a deep breath.

"I want to welcome you. You've been really good for us and I don't know how we would have gotten through this without either of you." Her gaze flickers to Addison then back to me. "But I need to know what I've let into my home. I can't slowly piece it together from conversations over the next six months. I don't have the energy. Bree, I'm tired. So I'm being harsher than I would normally be. Because I don't have anything left in me to be kind with."

I wince. If I was a fox right now my ears would be flattening on either side of my head, and I can't help that that really hurt. I can't argue any of that. But that doesn't make it hurt less. I thought back to how Alice started this.

"I-" I faltered, then tried again. "My name is-"

I stopped. Did I know?

The moment hung in the air. Bree, Emily, Bridget? Did acknowledging a thing make it real? By naming who I was, does that make it so that's who I will always be? Unbidden, Alice's words came back to me. 'Even the most outlandish things make sense in a story.' I apparently couldn't talk about myself like that. But I knew stories. I loved stories.

"Once upon a time," I began, gaze glued to my mangled pancakes, "There was a city called Brockton Bay. Like any good storybook, it had its heroes and villains and grand, climactic struggles. The heroes lived in a castle in a soap bubble, out in the middle of the bay, for the land did not belong to them. No, it belonged to the wicked. The dragon of the bay slept upon his hoard of gold and ravaged maidens, content to sleep as long as both kept flowing to him. A raucous chorus gained a taste of power, and ran through the streets forcing all to acknowledge it with fractured glass and limbs and lives. And in the heart of the city, an evil king held court over knights and valkyries. They yearned for a perfect world, and so they sought to cut away anything that did not fit their vision of perfection. But the world took oh so much cutting, and so they sought men and gold and blades."

Everything felt a little far away, as if I was reading a story of a girl telling a story.

"But this isn't a story of those grand villains. Not really. No, this is a story of smaller wickedness. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Emily. Emily, a long time ago, had been handed half a picture, and told to look it over. The picture was a girl in a skirt and blazer and shiny shoes, with blonde hair cut a certain way and blue eyes smiling. The girl wore a pretty smile and held a bible and laced her fingers with the other half of the picture, that had been cut away.

'This is what a good person is.' said her father and her mother and her priest and her teachers. 'To fail to be this picture is to be wicked.'

And so Emily memorized the picture. She looked at the others in her holy place of learning, and saw that they, too, had been handed pictures. The other girls all had the same picture, and the boys had the other half, of a man in a suit looking strong.

Emily, like all the girls, wore the outfit in the picture. She cut her hair like the picture and practiced her smile and tried to remember to hold her bible.

She went to school and grew and like a bonsai, clipping herself to fit within the image of the picture. But she could never quite match up. Her hair too red, her body too short, her frame too slender, and she couldn't understand why she was supposed to be holding the bible. She knew the words, kind of, but they didn't seem to match what the priests and the nuns and the teachers and her parents said.

'Look at the picture, they said. She does not doubt. She believes, and obeys, and you do too. You aren't wicked, are you?'

And Emily did not want to be wicked. And so she tried. She smiled, and tried to do as she was told, but she could never quite cut herself down into the correct shape for the picture. She could find the picture nowhere in her holy book, and more and more her heart raged against the inside of the picture frame.

But she found a compromise. She did her best, and hid as much of her wickedness as she could. That would have to be enough. It was enough. Her mother left for other reasons, not because Emily was wicked. She promised.

Her father was a man who was convinced of his own importance, and did not understand why the world did not see it. The girl in the picture said nothing and only smiled, so Emily tried to be quietly supportive.

Emily had friends that were only a bit wicked, too. There was Grace and Elizabeth and Peggy, but most of all there was Fatiha. Fatiha had an even harder time making herself the girl in the picture. Her hair was long and silky and black, and her skin a gorgeous golden-brown that reminded Emily of acorns in the autumn sun. Her voice echoed with hints of distant shores, and she shared her name with the first chapter of a foreign holy book.

The priests and the nuns and the teachers paid extra special attention to Fatiha. 'It's like you're not even trying!' They said, 'Look at the picture! Your hair is all wrong! Learn to do your makeup properly! If you don't match the picture, then you are wicked! You don't want to be wicked, do you?' And Fatiha would do her best and cut her hair and practice silence like the girl in the picture, and read her holy book fervently.

And even that did not seem to be enough, for almost every day, someone would tear the holy book from her grasp to ensure it was the correct one. They would riffle through the pages to ensure it was all present and correct, and then pass the closed book back without a word. Fatiha would ensure that she was holding her holy book like the girl in the picture, and try to find her page and verse again.

Emily admired Fatiha. She tried so hard to look like the girl in the picture! And Emily couldn't help but think, down where nobody could see her being wicked, that Emily liked the parts of Fatiha that did not match the picture.

She said so, once, but instead of being flattered, Fatiha told Emily that admiring wickedness was wicked in and of itself, and Fatiha was not wicked.

And so life went on, and Emily wondered about the cut edge of her picture. Fingers intertwining with a missing page. Soon, another girl found a boy, and placed her picture down next to his. And the two fit perfectly, the pictures lining up to make one picture. And the priests and the nuns and the teachers all applauded. 'Yes!' they said. 'You have discovered what you are for! You complete the picture for the boy!'

That didn't sound right to Emily, but then she was a bit wicked. Girl after girl placed their picture. Some boys snatched the pictures from their hands and lined them up. Others waited for the girls to come to them. The priests and the nuns and the teachers applauded the boys, then. 'Yes!' they said to the boys. 'It is your picture, so you may complete it as you wish.'

But no boy pawed for Emily's picture, and nobody even looked at Fatiha. This made Fatiha try even harder, rubbing chalk dust into her skin and attempting to pose like her picture. Fatiha even approached some of the boys, but they picked their pictures up before Fatiha could place hers down.

Emily looked at the boys, looking for the person she was supposed to be for, and found them all uninteresting. She didn't see the point, but she had gotten very good at hiding her wickedness. She comforted Fatiha. 'Once we are beyond this place there will be lots of boys and lots of pictures. Surely you will find someone to place your picture down beside.'

But Emily wondered, in the space where she hid her wickedness, what it would look like if she placed her own picture down next to Fatiha's. Could she make the hands clasp? If she could figure that out, then they could be complete together, and Emily could help Fatiha wipe the chalk dust from her cheeks. This thought grew and grew, until one day, Emily asked Fatiha to put her picture down upon the table.

'You mock me!' said Fatiha. 'You mean to point at the empty space and laugh!'

'No!' said Emily, baffled. 'Have I ever done so?'

'No...' Fatiha admitted. She reluctantly placed her picture down on the table. Emily placed hers down beside her and tried to place the two together. It didn't fit, the pictures weren't meant to be placed together, and Fatiha snatched hers back up.

'You mock me!' said she. 'You said you would not!'

'No!' said Emily. 'I mean it truly. What if we could line those pictures up. Place mine beside yours? Then we could be whole together.'

Fatiha's face curled into disgust, then snapped back into the smile of her picture.

'Silly, that's not how it works. The pictures are not meant to be placed like that. Now, how is my smile? My hair? My pose? Do I look like the picture?'

And Emily hid her tears down behind her picture, where she kept all of her wickedness.

And so life went on. Except it didn't. Everyone looked at her strangely, and whispered to each other from behind their pictures. Emily was confused, but she looked like the picture as best she could. Her pose was right, her bible tucked in one arm.

'Emily.' The holiest of holy men in the holy place sought Emily out. But he was not happy. 'You must be wary of wickedness. It is a terrible thing.'

'But I am not wicked!' said she, holding her picture over her breast. 'Look, see, my skin is pale as the picture and my eyes as blue.'

But Fatiha, who was nearby, tore away the picture, revealing the wickedness that Emily had hidden away.

'Look!' said Fatiha. 'She tried to make me wicked too, but I am not wicked! She is!'

And the holiest of holy men looked upon Emily with grave disappointment.

'Emily. You are wicked. You are a terrible thing.' And he set the picture alight in a candle. 'And you will never not be wicked.'

Emily cried, and blew the flames from her picture, and as she tried to save it, a boy approached Fatiha.

'Wow, you truly are not wicked. Would you place your picture down with mine?'

And Fatiha smiled the smile from the picture, and placed hers down with his.

Emily watched, clutching what remained of her picture, charred edges around a singed smile.

But when she returned home, her father was disgusted.

'You are wicked! No daughter of mine is wicked. This explains all the misfortune. Your mother left because of your wickedness. You are why the king has not seen me!'

And Emily cried and tried to hold what remained of her picture over her wickedness. But it was too small, and now all could see it. And they refused to interact.

'We do not associate with wickedness, for we are not wicked' said the ones she thought her friends, and the ones she barely knew, and her father and her priests and nuns and teachers. 'Wickedness should not be.'

And Emily grew lonelier and lonelier, finding it harder to match the smile on her charred scrap of paper.

Little did she know, her father had been an important man to the king's men. Not to the king, but he rose in attention of the court, and had a royal audience.

'I was going to appoint you to my court' said the king, his voice resonating through his armor made of blades, 'But I have heard your daughter is wicked. I could not have a man with a wicked daughter in my court.'

'No!' said Emily's father. 'I can work in your court! If my wicked daughter is the problem, then let her be gone!'

'Hmm... very well.' said the king. 'Here I have two knights. They are of the realm but sworn to my service. See their badges? Take these men and go remove the wickedness.'

And so they set out to find her.

But Emily had had enough of wickedness. Of being wicked. And so she found medicine, and took it to a place where she could not be found. 'Surely,' she thought 'If I take enough of this my wickedness will be gone.'

She gathered water and tossed back a bottle of pills, then the second.

'And if I go with it, then there wasn't enough of me to save.'"

I jolted as Alice's hand found mine, and I was abruptly reminded of the room around me. Alice, Addison, Julia. I avoided their gazes. I didn't want to see what they thought of my- of the wickedness of the girl in the story.

"And there wasn't. The medicine scrubbed and scrubbed and would have continued until there was nothing left. But Emily woke up anyway. She had not been blessed as the heroes in the castle in the soap bubble in the bay. No angel touched her nor devil gifted.

She woke with, in the place where she hid her wickedness, a die. A set of sheep knuckles. A roulette wheel. A deck of cards. A coin in a christmas pudding. It was all of these things and none, it was a gambler's wheel made of starstuff. And it had already landed.

She knew it had, because she could feel it in her soul. Emily could eat and eat and eat and never be filled. She would still grow fat if she ate too much food, but she could now eat anything without harm. If it could be put in bite sized pieces, Emily could eat a mountain in an afternoon to no ill effect. She could no longer be poisoned, and so the medicine within her had no purchase.

She stumbled to her feet and found her way home. Not to stay, but if she could not die then she must find a way to survive living. Of course, she could die in other ways, but was not thinking all that clearly.

But when she got inside, the door banged open.

In strode her father and two knights, men of law and justice. And she woke up aching, in a dungeon, with bruises decorating her skin.

The king had new men prove themselves, by beating the wickedness from the unrighteous. And so, all the use a wicked girl had was to be a way for a good man to prove himself not wicked.

They poisoned her, to make it easier to move her, but the poison took no better than the medicine.

'Oh!' said her captors 'She must have been given a gift by a demon. There are other uses for girls with gifts, wicked or not.'

And so one of the king's best men broke her bones until he was satisfied she had told him everything of her devil's gift. And to test it her poured more poison into her than a girl her size could hold.

'Ah!' said he, excited. 'You are not a trial any longer. You are a valuable trade good. Not your stomach, but your womb. For the devils give gifts to those born from gifted, and your only gift is to be harder to accidentally kill.'

While he dreamed of armies of soldiers from her womb, she felt the gears and wheels and dice move within her. When it released, she was in a metal box on a metal boat on the ocean. And she had a vial of green power in her hand. It could not poison her, so she drank. It filled her with power, so she broke the metal boat and fled."

My voice was dry, my heart and head empty and aching and distant. The words hung in the air. I was jolted from that state by Alice hugging me. She was crying, and I was a little surprised to discover I was too.

"Thank you" Julia said, quietly. "And I'm sorry."

I shrugged. I wasn't really feeling enough of anything to feel one way or another about her gratitude and apology.

"There's more, like the hospital fight" Alice jolted upright and Addison opened her mouth, but Julia just raised a tired hand. "But I'm not going to ask you to go through more of... that, right now. The only things I need to know right now are... Is there anyone looking for you, and are your powers dangerous to yourself or others?" She paused, thoughts racing behind exhausted eyes. "Or, are they dangerous right now."

I shrugged, surprised to remember that Alice was draped over my shoulder. She was taller than me, so it was a lot of draping for not a lot of shoulder.

After a moment, I remembered the question, and realized that there was yet more to be dragged from me. I still had to tell them about my powers. I went a little more distant.

"No. My current list of powers are-"

I was startled to realize that both Julia and Addison had left their seats. Addison's hand was warm on my shoulder, and Julia was on one knee in front of me.

"Don't worry about that right now." Julia smoothed one hand over my hair. "We'll deal with all that later. Thank you. I know that was hard."

I nodded, distantly. Okay. Could I just... get up then? Wait, no, there was a question. The whole reason I was here.

"So I can stay?"

Alice gripped me tighter, and Addison ruffled my hair. Julia's smile was sad, and she hugged me too. She smelled of ink and floral shampoo and Julia.

"Yes, sweetie. You can stay." She pulled back, and shot a wry smile at Addison above me. Had her eyes been red-rimmed this whole time? "At this point, I think you're stuck with us."

I nodded, something warm spreading inside me. After a long moment, the was a loud snap. It took a second to filter through my consciousness, and I belatedly glanced over to see that Addison had clicked her fingers.

"Oh... Yeah. You are 1000% not okay right now. Fox time, I think."

I frowned vaguely, not understanding what she meant.

"Budge up, Alice. Bree, time to be fox-shaped, come on."

I found myself curled up on Alice's lap, her fingers worriedly threading through my fur.

It smelled like home.

 

[Inkyfoxxo]

A/N: There! Done! Not happy with it, but I keep telling myself that this isn't the final text lol. Also, I'm back on my Upper Peninsula BS, this time with native trees of the upper peninsula. The Tamarack is also known as the Larch, but Tamarack is a much more fun word to say.

Alice had suggested I skip cleaning for today, but... It helped? Doing magic, working at the Northwoods... I felt like myself. Like Bree. Anything else was far away, and I liked helping! I still hadn't quite gotten over the thrill of channeling magic. True, my level of power was kind of pitiful compared to the notes and knowledge in the Utilimancy school of magic, but it was more magic than anyone else on this planet had.

It wasn't until that evening that we were all free, again. I sat on the couch, watching while Julia handled the black book like it was a live bomb.

"So. Magic."

"That's what it says? The power says it teaches a lust-based spell with a slight chance they become slightly more intelligent as well."

"What do you mean by lust-based?" Addison worked on repairing a pair of pants in her lap, thoughtful.

I shrugged. "That's all it says."

"It uses the symbolic resonances of lust to make certain types of spells easier. Like, my healing spell uses the logic of lust equals fertility equals life, so it draws on lust to bolster life. And, like, it makes sense? Weird, but it makes sense. Emotion-based spellcasting has the downside that you need to feel the emotion fairly strongly to cast, and most emotions are hard to call up on demand."

We all stare at Alice, who blushes.

"It's interesting! Like, the theory is interesting. And come on, it's magic."

"Sex magic." Julia seems fairly stuck on this point.

"Not... quite?" Alice waggles a hand in a so-so gesture. "Like sex magic would use the symbolism of the act of sex to use sex to cast. It's actually a better medium for healing magic because it's only a single step from sex to life, but it's not super practical to expect-"

Alice pauses, looks around, and blushes. "Look, it's interesting!"

There was a moment of silence before we, collectively, decided to move on.

"Huh. That's not super consistent with the principles of Utilimancy but they are from different pulls I guess? I'd sort of expect magic to be magic."

"You don't know already?" Addison seemed curiously intent. I cocked my head.

"No? I haven't gotten to use a book yet."

"And you don't... just know?"

I frowned.

"All I got was a description of the book. I think the power is the book, not the magic inside."

"What do you mean by description?" Now, Julia was giving Addison a weird look too.

"Like... it describes what the power or object is? Like Black Book says 'Totally unmarked, save for a blood red clasp that holds the covers closed. Capable of teaching the reader one lust-based spell. Slight chance that they become slightly more intelligent as well.'"

"In those words?"

"This one is kind of vague, they're not all like that."

"...That's not how parahuman powers work."

I blink.

"I'm not a parahuman, though?"

"Because you don't fit the legal definition." Julia held up the book, gingerly. "Because you don't have the brain structures."

I nod.

"Earlier, you said-" Alice faltered, then started again. "You said that the girl had not been blessed by angels nor gifted by demons."

"I mean, isn't that how it works? Good powers come from pushing your limits, bad powers come from trauma? And mine come from a one-armed bandit welded to my soul."

"No, actually." Addison was somber, catching all of our attention. "That's the narrative the PRT puts out to prevent people from being dumbasses. There are no good triggers."

"How do you know all this?" Julia asked, curiously. Addison gave her a slightly pained smile.

"My time away was busy." She leaned back into her seat with a sigh. The whirring, tumbling stars in my soul began to spin up.

"Oh! It uh... It's happening right now."

"A trigger eve- you're getting a power?" Addison had gone fluid, danger beginning to radiate from her.

"Like... eventually? It takes a bit."

A solid thirty seconds of expectant silence passed.

"Well, whatever it is, there's this." Julia smoothed a hand over the black book. "What do you intend to do with it?" She asked me.

"Use it? I mean..." I glance between her and Addison, realizing I had been unconsciously placing them in the roles of pa- people who had authority over me. That caused all sorts of mixed emotions I didn't really want to look at too closely.

Julia hummed for a moment, in thought.

"I suppose that does beg the question of what you intend to do in general. You have powers, and are only going to continue to get them. What are you going to do with them?"

I frowned. The question didn't really make sense.

"I mean, keep cleaning and doing breakfasts?"

"You don't want to be a hero?" The question briefly filled the air with the haze and reek of concrete dust, the throb of pain, the sound of steel and people screaming, and occasional heavy thumps in my chest of massive impacts. I blinked away the sensations, having lost track of the conversation.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

Julia was looking at me carefully, but I didn't really understand why?

"You just want to work at the Northwoods Inn?"

I thought of the Northwoods. Julia's tired smile after I prepare the continental breakfast in - for her - under a minute. Sitting on the crystal-clear water, with Addison's jacket wrapping me in warmth and protection and the scent of leather and rose and Addison. Alice excitedly describing a book she'd read, one hand gesticulating wildly in the air while the other absentmindedly tangles in my fur. The satisfaction of being useful, needed. The endless, clean halls of the Northwoods and the rickety old hardwood of the house.

I smiled, and it felt like the expression had more of me in it than any smile had for years.

"There's nowhere I'd rather be."

Julia opened her mouth to reply, but we all jumped as a wooden box thumped down onto the living room table.

Conversation thoroughly derailed, we all leaned in closer to get a better look. It was about the size of a shoebox, but intricately carved and inlaid. One end was made of dark, dark wood, but inlaid with an almost-white wood. The whole surface was carved, the white carved and inlaid in images of women and girls in frilly outfits. Towards the hinge on that side, the girls were just doing everyday things. Playing soccer, painting, eating together in a cafe. Towards the center, they began wielding magic and impractical weapons. They obliterated scraps of monsters, that got more and more powerful as the carving neared the center. From the other end, on wood that was almost white, were scenes of monsters in wreaking havoc. Dead and mangled bodies rendered in white were everywhere, and the monsters' glee was evident. Then, there were scraps of frilly costume, Monsters began fighting or... doing other things... to defeated magical girls. In the center of the box, there was a pitched battle, both sides fighting hard. The box opened along an irregular seam in the picture, opening like shutters. Inside, were...

"Wow" Alice breathed.

Ten crystals gleamed on velvet. To the right, five black crystals glittered on white velvet. They stuck up from an impossibly slender point, each tip set in a hole in the box. To the left, it was mirrored in silver crystals shining on black velvet. These were more round, facets sparkling up from the little indentations.

"So... guessing those aren't paperweights."

I giggled.

"No, uh. So..."

I displayed the underside of the black half of the lid, with the silver crystals. It showed a young woman holding the crystal within herself, radiating with power and in a frilly costume with a giant hammer.

"This is, uh. They're called power seeds. The silver ones give you a weapon and a lightly armored outfit and... They slowly remodel your soul to be able to natively generate magic."

Alice began vibrating, and I couldn't help but giggle at her.

"Can't you already do magic?"

"I mean kind of? I can do one spell, but like the theoretical underpinnings of more are in the book you gave me but I can't do anything but that one spell. It seems like it treats it like a power? Like, you can do this one thing now, but this is actual magic! We could do so much! Oh! We could learn Utilimancy! Bree, would you please teach me cleaning magic?" Alice gave me puppy dog eyes, and I turned away, blushing and feeling something clench in my chest.

"And the black crystals?" Addison's voice brought us back on track. My smile faded.

I displayed the other half of the lid. On it, a man was stabbed with a black crystal, tentacles and claws and teeth bursting from him.

"It makes monsters." The man's face is carved in agony, and I slowly close that half of the lid. "I don't... I really don't like those."

"So don't use them." Julia's voice was firm, but calm. She seemed to have come to a decision.

I cocked my head at her in confusion.

"I'm not going to tell you what to do with your... magic. But will these activate on their own?"

"I... don't think so?"

Julia flipped the lid back open, running a finger underneath the image of the crystal.

"Then don't stab someone with the black crystals." She smiled at me, warmly. "It's that easy."

I couldn't help but return the smile.

"But what about the silver ones?" Alice was very clearly trying hard to be patient and not seem eager. She was not succeeding.

I glanced at Julia. Would she be okay with me giving a crystal to Alice? She was upset about the book. Julia just smiled, steadily. "Well, Bree?"

I fished out one of the crystals. It was surprisingly warm to the touch, like fizzing, tingly sunlight. It was also strangely light as I passed it over to Alice. She cupped it in her hands, the gem reflecting light onto her face, far more than the overhead light could possibly be shining onto it.

Alice giggled. "Oh wow, it's tingly!" She placed it against her cheek and lips, then pulled back, rubbing at them and grinning.

"You sure?" I tore my gaze away to Addison, realizing that I had pulled the second gem out and tried to hand it to Addison.

I thought. For half a second. There was a brief flash of the sensation of my fingers breaking under impossible forces, before that was banished by the memory of the scent of her jacket.

I pressed the gem into her hand, and proffered the third to Julia.

"Oh" There was a quiet wonder to her voice. A hush that belonged in a cathedral. "Thank you, Bree."

I took the fourth and held it.

"I think we just... press them into our chests?"

Addison glanced down at her current outfit of flannel over a crew neck T-shirt.

"Do we need to get undressed?"

I shrugged, helplessly.

"On three!" Alice chirped. "One, two, thr-"

The world dissolved in silver and green as I felt words unbidden leap from my mouth. "Magical Girl Sugar Maple!"

I could hear others saying... something... at the same time, but couldn't make them out.

When the light faded, leaving a scent of fresh maple, I was wearing a frilly outfit. The skirt was in autumn oranges and reds, the top in vivid green. I was holding a wand of carved wood, and I could feel and taste maple lip balm on my lips.

I looked around, and there were others in the room. Which made sense, except they weren't Julia, and Addison, and Alice.

Beside me, in burgundy and green, Magical Girl Black Cherry was looking around just as confused as I was. On her belt, comically oversized cherries hung in pairs. To one side, next to the lounge chair, Magical Girl Hawthorne examined her wooden gauntlets. She flexed a hand, extending sharp thorns from the knuckles and then the fingertips, and then let them melt away back into the wood. Magical Girl Tamarack was on the other side, staring at the long, elegant staff in her hands. Her dress was in bright yellow and green and reddish-brown, and the roots at the end of her staff undulated, tendrils caressing her finger as she poked it.

Okay. I was in this room with three other people. There are three other people here. I'm in a magical girl costume, logically, the other people who were here too. I-

"Wow, that's trippy." Magical Girl Hawthorne squinted at Magical Girl Tamarack, who jerked her hand away from her staff. The tendrils flopped sadly. "I know who should be in this room, but I can't actually connect any of you- huh. I can't even remember your names right now. I... don't like that." Magical Girl Hawthorne flashed silver and in her place, Addison rubbed at her sternum.

"I guess that's convenient." Her chest flared for a second, showing the outline of the silver crystal, and then subsided.

I agreed, and dropped my own transformation. The others followed shortly.

There was a long moment of silence.

"Well if we ever decide to go do cape stuff, at least we have protection?"

Alice was concentrating, working her fingers into strange shapes and muttering. After a moment, she sagged with an adorable pout.

"It did say it would be a slow process, dear." Julia rubbed her own sternum, an unreadable expression on her face.

The moment was getting awkward, so I did the first thing that came to mind. I grabbed the black book off the table and chucked it at Addison. She caught it, and it sprang open.

Wait, no!

The pages began dissolving into Addison.

Now I have to wait another week!

...

On my way back to the hotel room, I passed Letty at the front desk. She stared at me, wide-eyed, and I self-consciously wiped my face. Was there something on it?

...

The hotel office was slightly less disorganized than the last time I'd seen it, and the pre-dawn light gave the clutter a cozy air. Julia led the way to the back of the office.

"Here, help me?"

We moved a small pile of file boxes, and behind them was an old safe set into the wall.

"Wow, that's... honestly really cool" It was. The modern(-ish) keypad slightly took away from the aesthetic, but it looked like a safe from back when they meant business. I had no idea how I would go about moving the massive construction of cast iron and steel.

"My father had a thing for tool restoration. There's a pile of his projects somewhere, rusting away, probably. The keypad was his compromise with himself. The old lock wasn't secure, but he couldn't quite abandon it. So, he installed this thing."

Julia knocked on the panel with the keypad, which looked like it had been torn from an old telephone.

"When I was little, the battery died for the hundredth time and my mom put her foot down. If it kept having to be taken apart to be opened, there wasn't much point in having it." Julia turned to shoot me a slightly sad smirk. "He pouted for months."

She reached down into the gap beside the safe.

"He ended up making it part of the design. If it was on purpose, it was a feature." Julia fiddled with an old broom handle, making sure it was in properly, and then started pumping it up and down.

"If you have to generate the power to run the keypad, then that's an extra step of security."

She stopped pumping and tucked the handle underneath the safe. Then grinned at me.

"Personally, I think he just couldn't admit he was wrong."

Julia started pressing buttons with faint 'bip!' sounds. I politely averted my eyes.

Then, with a small turn of the big wheel on the front, the door slid open. I fidgeted with my box. Eventually, I spoke up.

"You trust me with that?"

Julia shuffled some papers around the inside of the safe. She carefully checked a folder to see the yellowed paper of the one document inside. I caught the words 'Deed of Sale' before the folder was tucked away. Julia stepped aside, allowing me access to the safe.

"Yes. I do." She said, simply.

I hesitantly placed the box on the shelf, and Julia swung the door shut. Julia gave me a long, assessing look, and then sighed.

"There's a surprise coming for you, but Bridget?" She tilted my head to make me meet her gaze. "You have a place here."

I nodded, eyes stinging. She clapped her hands.

"Now. How about we start on breakfast?"