Really Strange Stuff - Ch.29 - The End Times (Patreon)

** note: this chapter introduces characters from our Mara saga, and refers to events which are Major Spoilers for that series **

=::= Mara's PoV =::=

"I'm bored," I suddenly announced with an exaggerated sigh.

I waited for a few moments, but nobody said anything. None of them even looked up, like they were all ignoring me or whatever.

Melissa and Amber were chilling on the sofa next to me, my best friend was reading something on her tablet while the cute little cuddle-bean was playing a game on her phone. Mira and Susan were sitting across from us on the love-seat, the tall strict-looking redhead was scrolling social media on her phone while my other half was reading an actual book.

So I tried again, "I want to do something fun, something exciting."

That got a response from Melissa, but nothing like I was hoping for. Without looking up from her tablet she replied, "We're going to see your moms next weekend for Thanksgiving. And we've got our big halloween party coming up at the end of the month. That'll be fun and exciting."

"That's not what I mean," I pouted. "Thanksgiving is nice fuzzy family feelings and food. And our halloween party is nice seeing friends and stuff, but the neighbours don't even get freaked out anymore by our 'costumes'. It's stale. I want to do something new and exciting! It's been forever since anything interesting happened."

Mira finally looked up from her book and gave me an incredulous look as she asked, "Nothing interesting?! In July we were reunited with our mehter after we all thought she'd been dead for three and a half thousand years!"

"Then in August we had a two week vacation in a fantastic villa on the Aegean island we called home in our previous life," she continued. "Last month we introduced mater and mehter to mom and mum, and you know how that turned out. Instead of 'Meeting of the Moms: Extended Edition' they turned it into 'DLP Mark-2: Moms Get Busy.' Then a couple weeks ago mater sold off some of Armaros's properties in Vegas, so she and mehter could buy that villa on Thera for us! So how can you possibly say there's nothing interesting going on?!"

I let out another exaggerated sigh and rolled my eyes at her, "That stuff's all in the past. And the villa thing won't be official for another month or whatever. I'm bored right now, I wanna do something fun and exciting and different."

"Like what?" Amber asked. "What do you think would be exciting and different enough to top everything else that's happened in the last few months?"

Now that the rest of the DLP were all looking at me, my lips started pulling up into a smile.

"You know how we're starting to see a lot more of those demi-humans around?" I asked. "Folks with cute fuzzy ears and furry tails? There's two foxgirls and a catboy at college this year, and I've even got a bun-enby in one of my classes. And we all saw those two ponygirls last month when we went to the Ex, remember?"

I flicked my tail as I added, "Oh! Plus there's that girl band we've seen at Pride the last couple years, right? The Ladies of Mount Whatever? They've got a catgirl back-up singer!"

By the time I was finished Susan had a thoughtful look on her face. "Mara's right -"

"There's two words you don't often hear together," Melissa joked, earning her a giggle from Amber and a smirk from Mira.

Sue smiled but continued, "It's Ladies of Mt. Helicon. And I remember the first time we saw them, I thought that was a gimmick or something? But it didn't take long to realize the way the catgirl's tail and ears were moving they had to be real. Same with those ponygirls last month, their ears were way too expressive to be fake."

"I've had at least a dozen demi-humans come into the store over the past year," Amber admitted a moment later. "Cats, dogs, bunnies, foxes, there's been all kinds. Guys, girls, and enbies."

Melissa frowned slightly as she added, "There was a bunnygirl bridesmaid at a wedding I shot a few weeks ago."

"I haven't seen any in the hospital yet," Mira said with a thoughtful look on her face. "But I did have an older patient tell me all about his 'grand-daughter' coming out as a wolf-boy not too long ago."

That left everyone quiet for a few seconds, until Susan spoke up again. She gave me a wary look and asked, "So what about these people Mara? What sort of mischief are you planning?"

Mira added with a frown, "You're not going to cause them any trouble are you? I'm sure they have a hard enough time just fitting in as it is."

"I wasn't going to mess with them!" I insisted with another pout. "I'm not like that, you all know me! Anyways I was just thinking, if it's ok for them to go around in public all day long with their furry tails and fuzzy ears out where everyone can see them, then why can't I -"

"Mara no!" Melissa interrupted. "You're not going out in public with your horns and tail out."

"But why not?" I protested. "Why's it ok for foxgirls to be all foxy at college, but it's not ok for me to be a little horny?"

Unfortunately my joke didn't earn me a single giggle, not even a snerk. So I pouted harder, "Why do I have to keep hiding what I am at college, while catboys and bunenbies can roam the halls at will?"

When nobody had a good answer I smiled triumphantly, "Tomorrow morning I'm not going to bother being invisible when I fly to school. And I'm not going to hide my horns and tail anymore. I'm going to show solidarity with the foxgirls and the catboys. Non-human pride!"

"Actually we need a flag or something!" I added as I got excited about the idea. "Or maybe someone's already made one? I need to look into this."

I grabbed my phone and started searching for non-human or supernatural pride flags, while Melissa face-palmed and Amber shook her head before turning her attention back to her game. Susan just rolled her eyes, but Mira was still giving me a look.

"You know what kind of trouble you're going to get into with mater if you do that Mara," my twin warned me.

"Yeah I know," I shrugged. "I'll have to sit through another big lecture again, just like the last time I revealed my horns and tail at college."

Susan arched an eyebrow, "Do you mean when you revealed them during your play, in front of dozens of classmates and hundreds of audience members? While hoping they'd all just assume you were wearing some advanced costume accessories?"

"Or when you let Kate and Hannah see your horns and tail outside the building afterwards?" Amber asked. "Then you showed off your wings when you took flight in full view of anyone who happened to be in the parking lot."

"Or are you referring to when you came out to your drama professor as an actual demon, so he wouldn't flunk you for cheating?" Melissa added.

Mira was giving me another look as she chimed in, "Or maybe you're thinking of the time you attempted to purchase the soul of one of your classmates, right after you got through convincing your prof that demons weren't dangerous and you were only attending college to get a drama diploma?"

"Come to think of it June was a busy month for lectures, wasn't it Mara?" Amber commented with a smirk.

By that point I'd forgotten all about the flag thing. I slumped back against the sofa cushions and pouted, "I never get to have any fun."

"Anyways maybe there won't be any lectures this time?" I added after a second or two. "It's not like mater's in my head all day long watching my every move anymore, not since she got her own body. And she said she was going to stay in London with mehter and Lexi and Marianne until it was time to come back home for the halloween party."

Melissa grimaced, "We always said an unsupervised Mara would lead to The End Times, and lo shall it come to pass."

That got another little giggle out of Amber, while Susan just rolled her eyes and finally turned her attention back to her social media feed. My other half continued watching me though, with a worried frown on her face.

"You're not serious, are you Mara?" she asked warily. "Please don't fly to school completely visible. That'll cause so much trouble, potentially for all of us. Because something like that won't go unnoticed. People will be recording it, and if they trace you back to here it could bring public attention onto the whole DLP."

Before I could respond she added, "Don't forget our girlfriends are all succubi, and two of them still need to go out and feed regularly. If we're all under close scrutiny that'll make it really hard for them, and maybe even get them caught."

"Folks might even go after mom and mum," Mira continued. "If they figure out who you are, it won't be hard to find our parents. How do you think that'll work out for mom's psychology practice? Or mum's job at the university?"

By that point Susan Melissa and Amber were all staring at me again, and the way they were all looking at me made me cringe while my shoulders slumped.

"Ok fine," I sighed. "I won't fly to school in full view of everyone. But I still don't get why I can't just have my horns and tail out all the time? Like seriously, why is it ok for the foxgirls to have their furry bits out but not ok for me to have my demonic bits out?"

Amber was the first to respond, and this time she sounded serious. "People don't believe they're real. They assume the fuzzy ears and furry tails are part of a costume, that the person's in cosplay for some reason."

"I even thought that myself the first time I had a catgirl in the store," she admitted. "Then I realized her ears and tail weren't fake. Plus my succubus senses told me she melted whenever her girlfriend scritched her ears. And she practically went into heat if the base of her tail was rubbed."

Melissa nodded slowly, "That's what I thought at first about the bunny bridesmaid. I couldn't understand why she'd wear cosplay to someone's wedding? Then during the posed photo shoot I realized she didn't have normal human ears at all. And her bunny ears were responding to sounds, like the shutter on my camera."

"So it should be the same for me then, right?" I asked. "People will assume my horns and tail are just a costume. Like they did during the play in June."

My girlfriends were all quiet for a few seconds as they exchanged some more looks, and it seemed like none of them wanted to agree with me. Then Mira gave me another warning look.

"Maybe it won't be the end of the world if your horns and tail are visible Mara," she stated, "But wings and flying are too much. People can't dismiss that and they'll know it's not just props."

I swished my tail around and smiled, "So I'll be invisible when I fly, but after I get to college I can leave my horns and tail out! Yes!"

There were a few more uncomfortable or worried looks, but nobody tried to argue the point any further. One by one they all turned their attention back to their phones and tablets and books, while I grinned happily and thought about how much fun I'd have in class tomorrow.

After another few seconds I finally looked down at my phone as well, and was momentarily distracted by the unfamiliar graphic on the screen. It only took a moment to remember I'd been searching for supernatural pride flags, and it turned out there was something out there already. It looked kind of cool too, with three colourful horizontal bars separated by some narrow strips of black.

The top bar was a bright lime green that was supposed to represent spiritual or undead supernatural stuff. Like ghosts vampires and zombies or whatever. Next was a bright cyan bar that was supposed to stand for magical humans, like witches and wizards and sorcerers and stuff. The light purple bar at the bottom was for non-human supernatural beings, like werewolfs, nymphs, demi-humans, and shapeshifters. I figured that bar probably worked for demons and succubi too. Finally the black bands in between represented the fact that all the supernatural stuff was supposed to be hidden away out of sight 'in darkness' or whatever, according to the text.

The wiki article said the design was first posted a little over a year ago, after being created by some silver foxgirl person. And since then it'd been used by a few self-proclaimed witches and a werewolf or two. I could definitely see a certain demon using it, and hopefully convincing the rest of her polycule to join in too.

With another grin I saved the flag as my phone's background image. Then I forwarded the article to the rest of the DLP, along with a note that we needed to get stickers or patches of that flag.

In fact I decided that if we were going to order supernatural pride stickers then we had to get some DLP stickers too. There was no reason not to cover my laptop and books and phone with that sort of thing. Same for the patches, my backpack was way too boring and plain.

And with my mind made up I spent the next half-hour messing around with graphics software, then found a place online that would get me a hundred DLP and a hundred pride stickers in under a week.

Finding a place that would do a rush order for the patches took a little longer, and was a lot more expensive, but by the time my girlfriends and I were ready for bed I'd spent a bunch of money and placed the orders. We'd have the stickers before Thanksgiving break, and with luck we'd get the patches in time for our halloween party.