The Next Chapter: 20

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 20: Aren't You Another Fox?

Ed woke up first when Jay had to get up; she stayed in bed, managing to eventually fall back asleep. She had her own alarm set—usually so she wouldn't waste the entire morning sleeping, and/or have to be in a rush to get to class on Tuesday afternoon. But today, when she woke up to that alarm and got ready, it was for a different reason.

There was still plenty of time for breakfast, of course. She headed to the kitchen after showering and changing, thinking through what was probably still in the communal fridge to eat. As she approached, her wolfish ears picked up the sound of someone inside, and—of course—when she entered she found a short, white-haired fox-girl scarfing down probably her second or third previously-frozen sausage-biscuit.

"Mmfh..." She put a hand up to wave.
"Uh...morning. I guess you're Ulrich?"
"Glmp." She nodded, but then sat up slightly. "I don't think I wanna go by that name, like this, actually. It really doesn't fit, right?"
"Well—I mean, it's your name."
"Sure, as a guy. This face," she said, pointing, "is just not an 'Ulrich', though."

Ed headed toward the fridge to get her own breakfast. "What'll you use instead, then? Ulrica or something?"

"Nope! Rejected! Do you picture anything cute from that name?"

"I..dunno? You really can't tell just by someone's name." They were both talking at normal volume, despite being in different (though neighboring) rooms; this was one advantage of everyone involved in a conversation having animal ears.

"Fair, but...well, I don't like it anyway. Instead, uh—um. Hmm. Lrrr..ich..liirii...ah! I've got it!" She actually snapped her fingers. "Lyrica! Nice to meet you, Edward, I'm Lyrica~!" she said enthusiastically as the wolf-girl came back with her own breakfast: One donut.

"Uh—same, I guess. Are you still hungry?"

"Hmm...nope. I'm finally full! I guess going for meat helped out," she said.

"'Kay." Ed sat across from her to eat. "So uh..I've got a list in my phone of stuff you'll need—besides clothes, I mean. Nancy lent me the card to pay for it. The only thing is, we're supposed to use a specific store for the clothes, and...it's kind of a long walk."
Lyrica tilted her head slightly. "You don't have a license?"

"I don't have a car."
"Oh. Well, that's no problem! I've got a car. It's parked by my old dorm, so not too far to walk."

"...Are you..planning to go out in, that?" Ed asked. "I'd be embarrassed just leaving my bedroom in that little."

"Hahah! This is my house too now, right? Everyone's got a right to be shirtless and slovenly in their own home," Lyrica said.

"I...don't think the 'shirtless' part works when you're a girl. Especially when some people living here are gonna be guys. Look—you're, looks like around the same height as I was when I was first changed. So you can borrow some of my clothes."
"Oh?" The fox-girl leaned up slightly. "How'd you get so much taller, then?"

"Fe—uh, L'hoxifel helped me uh..'customize' a little bit, I guess. She'd probably do the same for anyone—once, I mean. Not, like, repeatedly." Somehow Lyrica seemed like the kind of person who might 'shop around' for a form she liked if given too much of an opportunity, and Ed had no desire to promise that on the demon-girl's behalf.

"Hahah. Nah, I think I'm good. Buuut, if you bought all your clothes pre-'customization', that does explain why your top's showing off your belly! "

Ed's face flushed slightly. "Uh..y-yeah."

They went to Ed's bedroom after that, and she offered Lyrica a few options from her dresser. The fox-girl went into the bathroom briefly to get the top she'd woken up in from half-off to entirely off, then put on a white t-shirt and some shorts. "Oh, hey—I promised my parents a pic after I'd changed! You mind taking one?" she asked as she came out.
"I..guess not?"
"Just use your phone, 'kay? I'll give you my number to send it over."
"All right."

"Cheese~!" Once Ed had her camera app ready, Lyrica posed, grinning and putting up double-peace-signs.

Ed showed her the picture after that. "Okay, happy?"

"Yeah, that's perfect!"
"Let's get outta here to buy your stuff, then..."

Lyrica needed a moment to adjust the seat and mirrors, of course, but at least she didn't ask Ed to do the driving. On the way she asked, "Say Ed—you game, and you're majoring computer science, right?"

"Yeah."

"So—are you planning to make a game some time?"

"Well...no. I mean, I had that dream once—like in middle school. But, that whole industry's just..." She shook her head. "The big studios basically abuse their workers with crunch time, and lots of other awful stuff. And there's so much competition for independent games that they hardly make any money unless they're really amazing. I just, don't think I'm creative enough to come up with something that'd stand out in the crowd."

"Awwh, that's kinda sad. I say, if anyone has a dream they should chase it! Even if something seems unrealistic, work even harder to make it a reality. But don't get me wrong—I'm not telling you what to do with your life or anything. Do you at least have a new dream now?"
"I dunno..not really."
"Well, I'm sure you'll find one. Maybe game dev truly isn't your fate, but I bet there's a calling out there just for you!"

What a nice way to view the world, Ed thought. Even if it's a little unrealistic...

Before long, they'd gotten all of the other necessities, and were on to the clothes store. This part of the list said, feel free to get a few things for yourself if you're bored!, so Ed took the opportunity to pick out a few tops that actually fit her new height...and bust size.

A short while later, Lyrica came out of the dressing room in a dark purple dress. "Eheh..aaa~aaahaha..I still feel kinda weird in this," she admitted, blushing.

"It's all breezy and open. Isn't that ultra weird?!"
"Yeah," Ed nodded. "Have you noticed I don't do dresses or skirts? The, uh, usual tightness of girl-pants is already weird enough for me."

"Well, I need to get used to it quick! My costume in a play could be literally anything! More skirts!" she said, whirling and going back inside.

"Urrrgh, I cannot get my hair to behave. It's always been curly, y'know, but now it's all long like this it's such a mess! You think there's room in the budget for a curling iron?"

"Uh..sure." The list had mentioned that as 'optional'; Lyrica must have simply forgotten. "The hair dryer and shampoo we got should help some, too."
"Right, right."

She came out next in a short skirt, dark collared top, and thigh-high black leggings. "Hmmmh.."

"This feels a little better. I guess 'cause there's at least something on my legs. I tried on the more 'tomboy' stuff first, sooo..guess I'll go out in this, try to get really used to it."

"Okay, great. I think...after getting the iron, we should have time for lunch on the way back," Ed said. "I can help get your stuff inside if we stop right in front of the house, but then I've gotta get to class after that."
"Sure~. I really appreciate your help with this! Now I can try out for the play this afternoon instead of having to wait!"

"Uh, yeah—no problem."

---

Late in the night, Kyosuke woke up very briefly. She'd felt...something. She sat up in bed, looking around, and identified the direction it had come from, determining that it was definitely outside her own room. Then she fell back onto her pillow, making a mental note to check on that later as she turned over and went back to sleep.

Once he was finally done with his classes for the day, he entered the dorm and went looking for where that feeling had come from. He only sort of remembered what it had felt like; he'd been half-asleep, after all! But the direction he was fairly sure of. He circled for a bit before stopping in front of a particular bedroom door. This was where their newest member had moved in the night before, he was pretty sure. He was also fairly sure she wasn't inside right now.

"Hmm..." he tapped a finger on one of his ears, thinking about the best way to bring this up.

"Some reason you're staring at my bedroom?"
"Wah!" Kyo jumped, finding Lyrica just a couple of feet away to his right. Either this thinking distracted him a little too much, or the resident of that room was a particularly quiet walker. "Oh. Sorry. It's just—hmm." He tilted his head slightly, examining her. "I thought I felt..?" He wasn't feeling anything right now, but that didn't necessarily mean much.

She just quietly tilted her head back. "Yooouuu 'felt'?"

"Yeah, hey—would you mind helping me test something out real quick?" he asked, deciding this was probably important enough to bother her about. "I need to go get some leaves."
"Leaves? Aaaall right then; I shall be in my abode," she said, shrugging.

He came back a little later after locating a potted plant in the lounge and "borrowing" a couple of its leaves; Lyrica was sitting at her desk with the door open. Kyosuke knocked and came in, offering her one of them. "Sorry if this doesn't work," he said, "but I just can't help my curiosity."
"That's okay, I guess?" she said, carefully taking the leaf.
"Just—see if you can copy what I do."

This was one of the simplest tricks for foxes; even kits could usually manage it, though they usually couldn't maintain it for more than couple of seconds. Kyosuke held the leaf up in his right hand and, with a brief puff of black smoke, turned it into a pencil. Its true form would come back as soon as he stopped concentrating, but it had all the useful properties of this false form in the meantime. There had been a few times he'd "made" a pencil like this because he'd forgotten his real one for a test in school.

"Hhhuh." Lyrica tilted her head slightly, staring at it for a moment. Then, holding the stem of the leaf he'd given her, she perfectly imitated the effect, a puff of white smoke turning it into an identical pencil. And, for the very brief instant that she was doing it, Kyosuke felt the same thing as the night before: Not just the power of a member of his own "kin", but a pretty strong burst of it!

"Aah! I knew it! Lyrica, you're a kitsune!" He was excited enough to wave his hands out and accidentally toss the pencil in his hand out to one side; it reverted back to a leaf in the process, and gently floated down to the floor.
"Wha—really? A magic fox-person, like you?" she asked, pointing with the pencil.
"Yeah! The house must've awakened you despite trying not to, which would mean you had a pretty strong potential to be one in the first place!"

"Cool! Can I do anything else?"
"Probably lots of things." He thought: When she'd sneaked up on him earlier, she might have been hiding her presence without even realizing it, just by wanting to. "You seem fairly powerful already, too—maybe enough to earn a second tail without much effort? I know a guy in town, if you want to see about that."

"Maybe later~. Buuut, if there's any basics you wanna teach me now, I'm down for it."

"Yeah, sure!"

---

When writing stories off of images, I always tend to take some inspiration from the details of the image itself. This is arguably much more the case when I'm using something someone else drew, but here I wound up with kind of a little "dialogue" of inspiration with a generated one. I got an image that I mostly liked for Lyrica where she was sort of holding up a peace sign, but the hand was screwed up. So I wound up trying to re-generate that while specifically asking for a peace-sign until I got the rather decent one used here. Then I needed an excuse for her to actually be posing, and someone taking a picture made the most sense...