I woke slowly, not because I felt groggy or anything, but because I felt incredible. You know those Saturday mornings when you know that you don’t have to do anything that day? When your bed is so soft and warm, and you feel so decadently comfortable? Yeah, that’s why I woke up slowly, because I wasn’t all that keen to wake up.
Nearby, I heard my parents murmuring to each other, volume too low for me to make out individual words. Ugh, if my parents were nearby I guess I should crack an eyelid and see what was up.
Giving a yawn, I pushed myself up onto my elbows and peered around. I was still in the living room — on the other sofa now, with the faint but distinctive smell of air freshener telling me that the vomit had been cleaned up.
My parents froze when they saw me, and I froze right along with them, eyes widening. Mum had fox ears! They were about six inches long and sticking out from the sides of her head, the same place where her human ears used to be.
Behind her was a long, fluffy, and luxurious tail in the same dark brown as her hair. It twitched nervously as we stared at each other. I twitched my ears in sympathy… wait—
My hands flew up to the sides of my head, and sure enough… my ears were a match for hers. I twisted in a rush, searching for a tail that I could already feel.
Mouth hanging open in amazement, I reached out to gently brush my fingers through the dark purple fur of my new tail. So soft, oh my goodness, so damned soft!
A smile broke out across my face as I played with it, brushing the fur this way and that with my fingers, all while my heart hammered in my chest. Fox spirits! Our ancestors were fox spirits, so whatever happened with the leylines it must have made the nature of our souls way more… physical.
"So this is new," I laughed awkwardly, then promptly gasped as I heard my voice.
I was high and sweet, with a slight roughness to it that for some reason made me think of hazelnuts. You know when you crunch down on one and it's sort of creamy and crunchy at the same time? Imagine that in voice form, with added sugar, of course.
"Are you okay?" Mum asked tentatively, eyeing me up and down like I might start bawling my eyes out at any moment.
I blinked. "Uh, yeah? Why?"
Dad was the one who answered, gesturing down at my body with an awkward throat clear.
I glanced down and… oh. I jerked the collar of my T-shirt open and had another look. Boobs. I had boobs. Not big ones, mind you, they were clearly still a uh… work in progress, but they were there.
My hand flew to my crotch and grabbed at it, coming away with a handful of underwear and not much else. They were gone! The whole package was missing, replaced by… uh… well, to put it bluntly, a vulva.
"Wow," I breathed, withdrawing my hand slowly from between my legs. With a gulp, I turned to my parents. "I think… I think I changed a little more than Mum did…"
"Are you okay?" Mum asked again, approaching me with slow, gentle care.
She knelt in front of me where I sat on the sofa and took my hands, searching my eyes for some sort of sign as to my emotional state.
"Maybe? I'm not sure," I told her truthfully, trying to figure out if I really was calm, or just in shock.
I had a girl's body now, plus a little extra. What would this mean, going forward? Was I still recognisable as myself, or had I changed utterly?
"Actually, I'd like a mirror," I mumbled, feeling so very strange about the whole situation.
Mum turned and looked pointedly at Dad, who stared back for a few seconds before jumping into action with an, “Ah.”
As he left, I asked in a whisper, “It’s because we have magic, isn’t it?” Play it dumb, Itias, play it dumb. You definitely don’t know the exact reason behind this.
“Possibly,” she murmured, then sighed and pushed herself up to sit next to me. Retrieving the remote from the table, she clicked the TV on.
The news of what had happened was everywhere. Earthquakes across the whole globe, or so they thought. No damage to speak of, mysteriously so in fact, at least to the public. Thank goodness the magical explosions didn’t have all that much ability to damage physical stuff or we’d have been fucked.
The biggest thing though, and by far the craziest… Mum and I weren’t alone.
“It is currently estimated that between five and ten percent of the world’s population have gained non-human characteristics, such as my… uh… bunny ears,” the lady on the TV said, pointing awkwardly to two floppy bunny ears that were sort of nestled in her hair and out of the way.
“The cause of this phenomenon is not currently known, and governments around the world are asking for patience and kindness towards those affected. Meanwhile, the APA has issued a preliminary statement stating that the cause of this worldwide event appears to have been magical. They have further stated that an emergency meeting of their high council is currently taking place.”
“We’re not the only ones. Thank fuck,” I groaned, relaxing a little where I sat. That had been my biggest underlying worry. If it had just been Mum and I, we’d have been screwed. The APA and their Hunters would've ‘disappeared’ us in a flash. Now though, we were just two out of millions of victims.
“Yes,” she said from beside me. “Itias, I will be fine, but you…”
“I didn’t just get a cute fuzzy tail and a set of pointy fox ears,” I nodded, still staring at a now muted TV.
“Are you okay, how do you feel?” she asked, staring down from her greater height with open worry. “You are always such a closed book, I worry for you.”
“Uh,” I stalled, trying to get like, any thoughts to come forward. My brain was a mess though, and nothing coherent was forthcoming. “I like the tail… and the ears…”
“Yes, but what about the change in plumbing?” she asked with an exasperated laugh.
Cautiously, I shrugged. “Guess I have to sit down when I’m peeing?” Like I didn’t do that already.
If I was honest with myself, yeah, I was a little terrified. My fear was mainly fueled by confusion, why was my soul female? I wasn’t sure I wanted to just, suddenly swap to being a girl. I’d get bullied over it for sure, and I wasn’t a fan of ultra-girly clothes and stuff. I liked the middle ground, when it came to fashion — the kind of style that, when worn by a boy, would get him bullied for being ‘gay’ and, but would get a girl disapproving looks from grumpy old women.
Speaking of gay… I was definitely attracted to girls, which would make me a lesbian, right? I just didn’t know what to make of it all.
“Itias,” Mum chided gently, giving a long suffering sigh.
“I don’t want to swear skirts,” I blurted, fingers tangling in the fur of my tail nervously. “I don’t like really girly clothes — that hasn’t changed. I also don’t want like… long hair and stuff. Also no makeup…”
Wait, no makeup? I mean, lots of makeup-style stuff was cool. Makeup didn't have to be all red lipstick and sparkles and pink… Eva would get very mad at me if I said it was.
“Still a boy at heart then?” Mum asked, reaching out to run her fingers through my hair affectionately.
“Yeah,” I nodded, gut twisting weirdly as I spoke. “I think… probably. No, definitely.”
Don’t you just love it when you have an emotional reaction to something but you have no fucking idea why? Like yeah, awesome thanks, brain, thanks for the random spike of fear, but can you please tell me why you’re worried? Jesus, us humans were not user friendly.
“We’ll see how you feel once you’ve seen yourself,” she smiled wryly, ears twitching with... I think it was amusement? “You’re very pretty now.”
“Oh no,” I grimaced, already thinking of what my ex-peers had said about pretty girls when they weren’t around.
“What? You don’t want to be pretty?” she asked, slightly taken aback.
“No, that was me realising I’ll have to deal with guys trying to get with me,” I explained morosely. God, I was so not keen for that.
I got a half second stare from Mum before she let out a guffaw of amusement. “If any boys try anything, you let me know. My girl is underage, they can damn well wait til she’s 18.”
“She?” I gulped, feeling the blood drain from my face and my heart begin to race all over again. “Your girl?”
Mum froze, and that moment of hesitation saved her from having to reply. Dad came in with the huge, full-body mirror from their bedroom, and plonked it down in front of me without so much as a hello.
Not that I’d have noticed, because my thoughts narrowed down to one thing, and one thing only.
The girl in the mirror.
Fluffy, thick purple hair framed my face at a length that looked short on a girl, but would have had my Dad talking about going to the barber if I were a boy. Long, purple triangular shaped ears sprouted from the sides of my head, twitching and shifting along with my eyes as they roamed across my new features.
Mum hadn’t been joking about my looks, I was very pretty, but in a sort of… antagonistic way, if that makes sense. You know those girls whose cheekbones are just a little too sharp, eyes just a little too piercing, with jawline like a knife? The ones who you see walking a runway in a high end artsy fashion show? I was like that. I was beautiful, but also sharp. Maybe the guys wouldn’t be coming after me after all?
I mean, I was small though, even shorter than I had been before, so I still had some cute factor going on. It was hard to tell.
Eyes travelling lower, I took in the rest of the changes that had taken place. Slim shoulders gave way to a narrow waist, almost too narrow in my opinion. Beyond that were my hips, wide but not overly so, and then… there were my legs. Thick, and a little longer than they should be, with a rather substantial gap between them. Gosh, I was going to look killer in some yoga pants. You could drive a semi through that gap. Wait no, that sounded gross. You could fit three fingers in there easy, though. Yeah… that sounded, um… not much better. Oh geez.
Putting the metaphorical shovel down, I turned to Mum with a sort of defeated look on my face. “What do I do now? No one is going to take me seriously when I tell them I’m a guy.”
“You’re not a guy anymore my dear, I’m sorry,” she said with a sad, apologetic smile. “You’ll just have to get used to it.”
I gulped and dropped my gaze to my tail, now laying across my thighs to keep things a little more modest. Shit… Was that it? I just had to be a girl now? I didn’t feel like a girl. I mean, sure, I had boobs and a vag, but was that really all it boiled down to?
“I’m not wearing any skirts or dresses,” I told my parents, sounding a little whiny, even to my own ears — my new, big and very fluffy ears. At least I liked those new features, they were fun.
“We’ll see,” she said, clearly not believing me.
Nah, screw that, for real. I was with Eva on this, hoodies and jeans and shit — all the way.
Dad on the other hand, he looked sort of awkward about this whole thing, trying to avoid looking at me and stuff. That was fine though, he was always a bit weird about things, especially women. Kind of a shy dude, really. I was surprised Mum was able to pin him down.
“You need a new name,” Mum told me seriously, bringing my attention back to her. “I think—“
“No!” I blurted, giving her my biggest frown. “I’m almost fifteen, I’m choosing my own name, thank you very much.”
Her eyebrows met her hairline. “Alright, let’s hear it.”
“U-um…” I blinked, not at all prepared to actually offer anything. Shit… what did I choose? Uh, uh… okay, my name is… um… Itias right? Currently, at least? So where do I go from here? Fuck, I was so bad at this!
“Itias… Iti… oh!” I exclaimed, feeling the name hit me like a brick to the chest. “Tia! I’m Tia!”
Despite not wanting to be a girl, that name resonated with me right down to my toes. Oh yes, that was it, that was so it.
“Alright, that’s a pretty name,” Mum said, seeming happy with my decision. “What do you think, George?” she asked, turning to my Dad.
“Oh, it’s… good, very good,” he nodded, a little too quickly to be sincere.
“Awesome, sick… I’m Tia!” I laughed, doing a little drumroll on my tail with my fingers. It made no sound though, being as obscenely fluffy as it was.
You know, maybe this whole body change thing wasn’t bad? Definitely an improvement over the old one. I guess I’d take it. I was going to fight the gender thing though. It felt downright wrong to give in so quickly. The only way I was going to accept being a girl was if it was my own damn choice — not a weird roll of the dice or pressure from my mother.