A Summoning: Part XIV

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Part XIV
~Hermit~

After a brief explanation, Zotha watched Rachel's expression carefully as she stared at her grandfather—now a catgirl five or six inches shorter than she was. “I-I just can't believe it,” she said after a moment.
“Hmm.” Graham crossed her arms. “I'm not too certain what proof...ah! I could recite what I gave you for any of your birthdays, 'least.”
“Er, I-I don't mean it like that,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “I mean—I believe it's you, I-I mean I trust Lady Zotha to be telling the truth too, and I can sorta, like there's not really any more logical explanation. I j-just mean, I can't believe it,” she said.
“Ah.” Graham reached a hand up and twiddled at the tip of an ear for a second or two. “Expression of shock, eh?”
“Yeah. Um. You look sorta like a younger sister almost, except for the white hair and the uh..ears.”
“Can't forget about the tail, neither,” Graham said, picking it up in the other hand briefly before letting it free again.

“S-so, you're a...'Neko'?”

“Sure.” She crossed her arms. “Just the Japanese word for cat. Not sure how they get on in that country without a mess of confusion.”

“It is pretty obvious whether you're looking at a literal cat or a cat-person, at least,” Zotha pointed out. “Anyway—as far as I can tell it might have happened because he was descended from one, maybe a long way back.”
“Oh.” Rachel paused a moment, then turned toward the demoness. “S-soo..if grandpa was descended from them, then I am too, right?”

“That's generally the way ancestry works,” the deity said, crossing her arms. “Unless you were adopted or something.”
“She weren't.”
“Um..does that mean you could uh...?” Rachel seemed to actively resist finishing the question, instead rocking back and forth on her feet for a moment or two.
“What? You can ask me,” Zotha said.

“W-well uh. I-it's just, you've already done so much for me...a-and for uh. Her,” she said, pointing to her transformed grandfather, “I d-don't, feel like it'd be right of me to ask anything more...”
“Maybe. But what would you ask if it didn't matter what was right or not?” Zotha said.
“Um..” Rachel blushed slightly and looked away. “C-could I be one too?”

“Eh, a Neko like me?” Graham said. “It comes with some powerful strange instincts, besides probably all this fur bein' a pain to maintain.” She also stared at her own hand running through her hair for a moment, perhaps contemplating the maintenance of that too.
“Sure..maybe, but...i-it just looks so cute,” Rachel said. “I uh...i-it's not like ever knew something like this was possible before, b-but I think if I had I'd have always wanted it. You know?”
“It's a change of your very nature,” Zotha warned with a mildly stern expression. “It's not just some accessory you can take off again, you know.”
“I-I know that. B-but still,” she said, poking her fingers together.

“...Tell you what. Give it one day,” the deity advised, holding up an index finger counting 'one'. “Really think about it. Discuss it with someone wiser, maybe,” she indicated the white-haired catgirl. “Text me if you still want it by then. Just so you're not making a major decision like that rashly?”
“O-okay. I'm, sorry for being so greedy,” she said.
“It's not a big deal. Technically I have only done stuff that directly benefits her anyway,” she said, gesturing vaguely in Graham's direction. “And I think awakening an inner potential like that might be easier than a lot of other stuff...considering it can happen by accident.”

“Well, we're mighty thankful, anyway,” Graham said, “again. I'm sure you've got some sorta 'godly' business to get to, eh? Don't wanna keep you around too long.”

“I'm sure I'll be all right,” the deity said, turning back to the catgirl to pat her head a couple of times. “But sure, I can take my leave now. See you two later,” she said, giving a brief peace sign before shadow-shifting straight from there to her dorm room.

---

“I suppose it's obvious in hindsight,” Prama said. “Yeah, I mean there has to be some big reason we never noticed magic stuff before. People are really bad at upholding a huge conspiracy like that all on their own, so of course there's something helping. A lot.” She was sitting on Jess's bed, with Jess herself on her desk chair turned to face it.

“So...the 'magic is real' isn't gonna be spoiled by this. It's probably not even the first time some relatively public figure has turned into a werewolf, thinking about it. But..” Zotha's high priestess gave a contemplative headtilt. “If magic people see it, that could be, maybe a slight issue? After all—the expected result for them would be a male werewolf, so the opposite means something else 'weird' happened. If one of his closer streamer friends or something is a magic person then...an interception might be necessary.”

“No kidding. So you claimed to be witches when you talked to her sister?” Prama repeated. “We don't know exactly how powerful witches really are, but it could be a plausible excuse anyway if you want to avoid explaining our goddess's true nature to a relative unknown. On the other hand, they'll still know you're powerful enough to do something like that. Knowing someone has power and is relatively friendly is a recipe for wanting something from them.”
“Not necessarily..”
“I'm worst-casing this,” the bespectacled girl stated. “Worst case they get you to do stuff, notice your magic is different from what they'd expect from witches, do some more digging and run into one of the numerous people who are in on stuff and not particularly great at keeping secrets now that we're not, you know, blackmailing or threatening them to keep them. Then they know what Zotha is anyway. I believe it's in our best interest if you tell any such person like that the truth, but explain that you introduced yourself as witches to our little werewolf's family to not overwhelm them with too much magic stuff at once—you know, in the middle of a clearly very traumatic experience. Especially do that if the person seems at all suspicious of you.”

“That's a pretty good plan,” Jess nodded to herself. “I have to run it by Master, of course, but...”
“Obviously it's a great plan,” Prama said, crossing her arms. “I came up with it, after all.”

“Heheh,” the priestess couldn't resist a giggle at that. Her former roommate tried to glare in response but only managed an adorable pout at best.

“Soo, what was it you wanted help finding?”

“Well—” A swishing, windy noise startled Prama, as Zotha appeared near the foot of her own bed. “Eep!” She squeaked, recoiling away from the sound and drawing her knees up in front of her chest.
“Hel-lo there,” Zotha said, giving a small wave before looking between the two of them.
“Oh, it's just you.” Prama slowly moved to return to her previous positioning.
“I don't know whether a goddess should be insulted at that reaction or not,” Zotha said with a slight chuckle, heading over toward the kitchen.

“I'm simply not accustomed to people popping into existence less than five feet away from me,” Prama said.
“So: Do it from a couple yards off next time? Got it.”
“No—hh.” Zotha was fully in the kitchen by now, in earshot but not really conversational distance.

“Anyway, I'm trying to figure out how to get into potion making. Assuming firstly that magic potions are a thing, which it seems exceedingly likely they are, and secondly that it's something anyone with the right tools and knowledge can do. So if there's any of our 'magic-aware' followers who knows someone that makes potions, or teaches making potions, I would appreciate a reference.”
“Certainly,” Jess nodded.

“Are you two hungry?” Zotha called. “I'm 'full' myself, but I can always eat more.”

“I ate already,” Prama said.

“I was waiting on you, Master!” Jess reported. “Did, whatever you wanted to do go well?”
“Sure. I think we got a new follower out of it. Speaking of which, I'm planning to meet a couple of friends of mine at the...what are we calling it? 'Ritual shack' doesn't sound very appealing if you ask me.”

“Worship center?” Prama suggested. “If you're feeling particularly grandiose, your 'first temple' even.”
“The former's fine for now, I think. Anyway: I told them what happened with me and offered to see if there was something I could do for them. Unless there's something more pressing for me to deal with?”

“I don't think so, Master,” Jess said. “Prama's pointed out something we might need to address eventually, but it isn't likely to come up tonight.”

“Oh?”

Zotha returned from the kitchen with two large plates of food—and a smaller plate with a couple of desserts on it casually floating through the air behind her. The former she set down for herself and Jess, the latter offering itself in Prama's direction. The diminutive genius crossed her arms and turned away slightly with a small 'hmph', but mere seconds later reached out a hand to take a bite and gingerly place it into her mouth.

“So, why'd you bother going into the kitchen when you literally just create the food into existence?” she asked once her mouth wasn't too full to.
“Hmm..I dunno.” Zotha shrugged. “I guess it just feels like the natural place to 'make' food. There isn't anything like a kitchen at the—aaah, the 'worship center', so I guess it didn't come up over there. I could make more in this room if I thought about it, but it seems like if I'm not thinking about it, that's what happens.”

---

“Have you told anyone else this has happened?”

Onida and Damon looked at each other briefly. How could they have? It had only been last night, after all! “No,” the elder sister said after a second, and the wolf-girl nod-nodded in agreement. “I don't really—know who else we could tell.”
“Hmm.” The interviewer nodded, writing slowly on a clipboard.

The interview was being watched through a camera system—it didn't record, in order to maintain the level of privacy the agency promised to give any 'victims' of supernatural incidents. However, it did have a small crowd watching the feed today, the top brass of the unit included. “Maybe she don't know,” someone suggested. “Forgot how computers work?”
“Wasn't aware it was recording at the time, or even what 'recording' looked like. I'd take that from the expression,” another person, pointing to a paused video displayed on another monitor, suggested.

“That far gone, I suppose they made the right choice. Hard to say whether she even can be restored at this point.”

“Well, evidently there was enough willpower in the first place to last a night without eating anyone...”

“So now they're witches, huh,” said the captain, shaking his head.

“It's only been a couple of days,” an analyst said. “Besides, no artifact I know of grants the kind of power trace we caught on her.”

“What'll we do about it?”

“Maybe we should bring them back in?” another suggested.

The captain's phone buzzed loudly on a desk. He picked it up and said nothing, listening to a voice on the phone. After a long pause, he said, “Yes, my maker,” and hung up, looking around the room. “Orders from the top. No need to investigate—he knows what's going on and will make direct contact of his own when the opportunity presents. Maintain as much control over the situation as we can, but do not confront Zotha, or anyone too close, directly.”

A small burst of reactions to this followed, including complaints about how much more work this would be—but overall, an immediate acceptance of the order.

Following the end of the questioning and some other standard processing, the new werewolf and her sister left the office without apparent incident. They were given contact information—whenever Damon felt sufficiently in-control to resume a 'stronger' form, they would attempt to turn her male again under controlled conditions where a failure wouldn't result in anyone being hurt, and could be reversed. In case of any biting, or even scratching incidents, Onida could call them to help prevent it from doing permanent harm, or in particular causing her to turn too. Overall, the trip was generally comforting to Onida. Someone had seen this sort of thing before and understood what to do about it. It felt good to have some sort of authority on the matter on hand to contact if anything went further strange...or more wrong, or anything else like that.

---

There were a few things it seemed particularly unwise to do in public. Riana turning male, or Cameron female, for starters. It would also look a little weird for her to pet him, as much as both of them liked that. But, a boyfriend and girlfriend sitting close together on a bench out on the lawn after class, the latter leaning on the former, was normal enough for people to ignore. People were more or less finished staring at Cameron's unusual features, too, especially with his habit of baring his teeth a bit—so to speak—when a stare started to get rude.

He ran a hand through her hair a bit. “You're..thinkin' about something, right?”

“Mmhm.”

“You wanna let me in on it? Or nah?”

“Hmmh...”

Riana took a moment to sit up slightly, and spoke quietly. “Zotha wants to do good. I like that.”
“Yeah?”
“I wouldn't say it's wrong to guess she wants to do the most good possible, with all that power. Right?”

“Sure, I guess,” he shrugged. Both of them had still barely met her, but the assessment seemed correct to him.

“Well then. Why don't we start with cancer? Or osteoporosis? Or, the flu or the cold?”

“Uhh..that seems like a lot,” he said, scratching his head. “Can magic, like, even do that?”
“I'm pretty sure by now that it can make a person immortal—at least in the sense of not aging anymore, or undoing aging. Turning cancer cells healthy can't be that far off from healing and transformation magic. And anything some magic can do on a small scale, I bet a lot of it can do it on a big scale.”

“There's like...a lot of people though.”
“Seven billion and counting,” Riana nodded. “But Zotha's a goddess, and her thing is supposed to be change, right? Why shouldn't that include changing the world for the better?”

“Not that I don't agree with you, but uh, I kinda get the feeling it might be too big, is all,” Cameron said.

“Sure, but...maybe we can get bigger, too, until it's not. In the meantime, we could at least try it out on the scale of, say, our little college town? I think I'll bring it up next time we meet.”

“Heheh. Well, I'm not gonna try to stop you.”

---

“Ssssheesh, and I thought you didn't know much about being a fox,” Steph said, once their third wheel finally left. “I guess I should be impressed she managed to keep it from her parents; that kinda thing is tough even with the Veil's help. Aand stay safe with only one tail and half a clue.”

“To be fair, I think having more power is sorta, a handicap?” Andrew said, looking much more sympathetic to the girl's plight. Well—he was a little bit in the same camp.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that's our plan more or less sorted. You wanna go get somethin' to eat?” The discussion and planning had chewed through most of the afternoon.
“Huh? Uh, sure,” he said, looking surprised for just a fraction of a second before recovering. Or—maybe not exactly surprised? Steph wasn't entirely certain how to interpret the emotion with so little time to perceive it. Whatever it was, he tried not to worry about it and headed out to lead the way to the food court.

Both of them were quiet on the way there. Well, they'd been talking quite a lot the past couple of hours, so a break from that was honestly pretty welcome. They waited in lines, got their food, and eventually sat across from each other at a booth. Andrew was picking at his food a bit, and that was enough to make his roommate worry.
“Hey, uh..”

“Hmn?” He sat up, his snowy ears twitching slightly.
“Are you okay? I mean, doing all this? I know you were a human like, Friday, so I'm sorry if it feels like I'm pushing you into anything.”
“Oh! No. Noo no no,” he shook his head quickly; again the way he expressed himself struck Steph as a little strange, a bit 'not-Andrew', but he focused on what he said next instead of that.

“Honestly, since I first become, um, a fox, it's like I feel this urge to do something like that. I think it'll be fun. Thinking that seemed kinda weird to me at first, but the more we've talked, the more I seem to understand your perspective on that and kinda take it on myself? Seeing the world this way is exciting and...I do really like it,” he concluded with a genuine, if brief, smile, which made Steph's heart melt just a little bit.

“It's just, uh..when I stop to actually think, I feel a little overwhelmed. I mean—I had a huge part in making a new god last weekend,” he whispered, the sound muted even more for anyone outside their booth. “Plus, magic? Being a Kitsune? This stuff is all new to me. The world seemed complicated enough before all this happened. I'm a pretty, like, simple-minded g—guy, usually,” he said with a strange hesitation about the word 'guy', “so it's hard for me to process it, is all.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Steph said. “It's hard for me to know what that's like, growing up in the 'magic' side of the world my whole life. But hey, I'm sure you'll figure it out. You've got a lot of advantages most people don't.”

“Yeah.” He looked better after this, starting to eat more normally. Then his phone buzzed, making him jump slightly, his ears and visible tail all sticking straight out in surprise until he realized what it was.

“Oh, uh, sorry.” He pulled it out while Steph tried hard to suppress a snicker at that reaction. It made him want to find a way to startle his roommate himself, just to see something like that again. After his eyes briefly scanned across the text, he looked up. “Hey, you remember Parker, right?”

“One of the higher ups at your cult, yeah,” Steph nodded. “Didn't he turn into a girl?”
“Yep. He 'wished' to be a genius and that was kinda a side-effect thing...something about trading stats, I didn't really get it. Anyway, Zotha wants to know if you know any alchemists, 'cause she's looking for a teacher.”

“Oh yeah, sure, let's just go on the campus website and find the college potionmaster,” Steph said, sarcastically waving his arms. “Actually it'd be cool for that to be a thing someday.”

Andrew sniggered a bit. “Like, a doctorate in potionology?”
“Hah, yeah, put that on your CV and smoke it.”

“..Seriously, though, I do actually know of one, at least. No idea whether he'd take on an apprentice, especially someone totally new to magic.”

“Ooh, kay.” Andrew texted back. “Zotha says she'll 'pay you to introduce her to him'. I don't think she necessarily means money, either.”
“I'm not sure how I feel about making a Deal with a literal goddess,” Steph said, his ears folding down slightly as he remembered the intensity of her power on display at their last meeting. “Can we talk through a proxy or something?”

“Umm...” After another pause for replies. “Zotha's busy tonight anyway. Jess—uh, our leader before all this happened, her high priestess now, could meet you.”

“Yeeah, that's..fine,” Steph said, nodding slightly. He was rather curious what their leader was really like; he'd heard him talking while spying on a few of their meetings, but meeting someone in person would be quite different from that. Besides which, Zotha had said something about him being turned into a girl, and that was an image he kind of needed to see for himself, at least once.

“Where to? Neutral ground, I hope.”

“...The main lawn, then. She says she can make the conversation perfectly private.”

“Great. Let's finish eating, first. Meet you in the dorm after?”

“Yeah,” Andrew nodded.