Mountains of Magic - Ch.27 - Friendship Salvaged (Patreon)

"I didn't think of this until afterwards," I commented quietly to Soneya, "But it crossed my mind that since Lia can change the personal information on our ID, maybe she could change it up even more?"

The wolfgirl frowned as she responded just as quietly, "How do you mean?"

We were both keeping our voices down while our small sister enjoyed her cartoons. She'd been patient for half the day and put up with the boring news and used her magic to fix our ID, so now she was getting her reward.

"Like we were talking about with my folks last night," I explained, "Getting you a job might be an issue. Same with a bank account and everything else? Maybe Lia could change your ID so you have an Ontario license. Maybe she can change your passport so it says you're Canadian? Or maybe she can even conjure up a fake Ontario birth certificate for you? Then you could open a bank account, get a job, the whole thing."

Soneya looked thoughtful as she considered that for a few seconds, before shaking her head. 

"I'll keep that in mind as an option," she replied. "We're already taking a chance with what she's done for us. As real as our ID looks, she's only changed the plastic. The government databases will still have the correct information in them, and getting a job or trying to open a bank account might be enough for someone somewhere to try and check it? If I had forged Ontario documentation that'd definitely come up."

That made me grimace and I nodded, "Yeah ok. That's a good point. Our ID is good enough for casual checks, but it won't stand up to any real scrutiny."

"Yours might," she shrugged. "Your info was mostly correct to begin with, right?"

Before I could respond my phone buzzed with a text message, so I picked it up and had a look. I was expecting to see something else from my mom, I just hoped it wasn't even more bad news. Instead I found something else to make me cringe.

It was a text from my friend Derek, basically saying he was downstairs at the front door waiting for me to buzz him in. Apparently he was off work today and decided to drop by. According to his text he was worried about me, and he said he owed me an apology.

"What's wrong?" Soneya asked. "More bad news?"

I sighed, "Not exactly. It's my friend Derek, he'll be here in a couple minutes. I'm going to have to convince him who I am, then I'll introduce you two."

She winced, "Ah. Good luck."

"Thanks," I gave her a weak smile as I buzzed Derek in. Then I got up and moved to wait by the apartment door, while Soneya stayed with Lia on the sofa.

I didn't have to wait too long before he was knocking at the door. I took a deep breath and braced myself, then opened it up. And once again I found myself dealing with the height thing.

Last time I saw Derek was just over two weeks ago, at the bar when he and Curtis told me they weren't going on our big camping vacation. And the two of us stood eye to eye at the time, he and I were almost exactly the same height. Now I was twenty-five centimetres shorter, and I had to tilt my head to look up at the guy.

Derek wasn't especially handsome, but he wasn't unattractive either. His short sandy brown hair was usually neatly combed. He had a narrow face that he usually kept clean-shaved, but today he had a day or two of stubble. His hazel eyes were kind of nice, but were always hidden behind a pair of tinted glasses. And usually he was pretty relaxed and laid-back.

Not now though, instead of his normal calm expression he was staring down at me in surprise. Or more specifically he was staring at my tall fuzzy ears. His eyes were wide and his mouth hung open a bit. A moment later his gaze shifted past me as he noticed my big floofy tail.

He was dressed pretty typical for him, in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with some geeky pop-culture image across the front. He had sneakers on his feet, and a navy blue fall jacket that he hadn't zipped up. I was even more casual, none of us had gone out at all yet today so all I had on was leggings and a tee. I hadn't even bothered with shoes yet, I was still barefoot.

My friend blinked, then frowned and glanced at the number on my apartment door to make sure he was in the right place.

"Hi Derek," I greeted him. "Yes this is my apartment. Come on in, I know you're about to ask a million questions."

He didn't move yet, but he finally found his voice. "Who are you? What are you? Is Victoria here?"

I grimaced, "Please come in, we'll talk in the kitchen and I'll explain everything. Ok?"

"Where's Victoria? Who are you?" he asked as he finally followed me into the apartment. 

I closed the door then led him into the small kitchen so we could talk without disturbing Lia and her cartoons. I was positive Soneya had at least one ear pointed our way though, I had a feeling our pack leader would be ready to intervene if this reunion got out of hand.

After another deep breath I looked up at him and said, "It's me Derek. I'm Tori. Some crazy stuff happened last week and, well..."

I shrugged and gestured at myself, "I ended up speed-running the rest of my transition. And sprouted a tail, and fuzzy ears."

"That's impossible," he stated. "That can't happen. And those have to be fake, they can't be real."

I turned slightly so he could get a better look at my tail, while I twitched it up and down then swished it side to side. That little display left his eyes wide and his jaw hanging open again. Then I faced him again and listed off a few shared experiences that I hoped would convince him. Like when and where and how we met, a few memorable adventures we'd had, and trouble me and him and Curtis got into that nobody else knew about.

"The three of us were best friends for years, right up until I came out to you and Curtis back on Canada Day," I sighed. "That's when it all changed, right?"

Derek stared at me for a couple seconds, then sighed and shook his head. "That stuff all checks out, but you can't be my friend Victoria. You don't look anything like her, you're way shorter than her, and... And I don't even know what to say about the ears and the tail."

I frowned as I tried to think of something else to say, some other way to convince him. It took a moment, but an idea came to me. 

"You could call my mom?" I suggested. "She said you called her last week when you were looking for news about me, right? Give her a call, she'll confirm it's me."

He frowned but he did what I suggested. He pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and called my mom. It was a brief conversation, he basically told her he was at my place and there was a short redhead with fox ears and a tail who claimed to be me. Mom confirmed it, Derek thanked her then he hung up. Through the whole call he was staring at me, but by the end of it his eyes were wide again.

"Holy shit," he gasped as he lowered his phone. "So that's really you? What the heck happened to you?!"

I grimaced again, "Yes Derek, it's really me. As for what happened, it's a long story. The past six days have been pretty messed up, and honestly I'm probably lucky to be alive. I'm definitely lucky to have made it back home already, and in once piece."

We ended up staring at each other for a few awkward seconds at that point. I figured he was still trying to get his head around the idea that the short cute foxgirl in front of him was the same person he'd known for years. 

I eventually broke the silence between us, "So what's up? Why'd you come here? You could have just texted or called."

He sighed, "Yeah, I'm sorry for dropping in unannounced? But I didn't want to do this by text, or even by phone. I figured you deserved a face to face."

Without waiting for me to respond he pushed ahead and announced, "I'm really sorry for being such an asshole lately. You're right that things changed when you came out, but they shouldn't have. It kind of messed me up for a while? I was confused, I didn't really understand, and I guess I thought maybe you were turning your back on the friendship you and me and Curtis had?" 

"I know that's not true," he quickly added. "And now I realize that we're the ones who turned our backs on you, and the friendship we had with you. Most of that was Curtis, but I let him pull me along down that path. I let him convince me to act like a dick to you, and I'm really sorry about that. And I'm not trying to make excuses or anything, I guess I'm just trying to explain what happened."

I hadn't really been expecting any of that, and it took me a half minute or so to process it all. In the end though I wasn't really surprised by any of it. Thinking back, I should have known Curtis was the one who had the problem with me. Derek was generally a nicer guy, but he was easily swayed by both me and Curtis sometimes.

On the other hand it felt like the apology was a month or two overdue. At the very least it would have been nice if he'd said something at the bar a couple weeks ago, instead of just turning his back on me.

I finally asked, "So what changed? Why apologize now, why not two weeks ago? Or last month, or whenever?"

Derek sighed, "The Saturday after we last saw you, me and Curtis met up at the bar again like usual but you never showed up. And I felt pretty shitty about how me and Curtis acted the week before, I suggested we call or text you to see how you were doing but he convinced me it was fine and not to worry about it. He said you'd finally decided to stop hanging out with us or something. It wasn't until a day or two later that it occurred to me, maybe you'd gone off on that big camping trip by yourself? And that made me feel even worse."

"Then there was all the earthquakes and stuff Tuesday night," he continued. "The news and social media and everything was crazy. And when we found out some of that stuff was happening where we'd talked about camping I got really worried about you. I texted Curtis to see if he'd heard anything, and the son of a bitch said..."

My friend scowled and shook his head, "It doesn't matter what he said, but that's when it hit me just how much of an asshole he really is. And it made me feel like shit for listening to him, for letting him talk me into being such a dick to you as well."

"So yeah," he sighed. "That's why I'm here. I wanted to apologize, in person. I'm sorry for how I acted, how I treated you. The trans stuff still kind of confuses me and makes me feel a bit weird, but I never meant to hurt you. And I'm really glad you're safe. And uh, you look pretty damn amazing, however that happened."

Once again I needed some time to process all of that. Part of me was curious what Curtis said that finally set Derek off, but after a second or two I decided I really didn't want to know. As for the rest of it, I was positive he was being honest and he seemed sincere about everything he said.

"All right Derek," I finally nodded. "Thanks for coming clean about all that. And thanks for the apology. I appreciate it."

He gave me a tentative smile, "You're welcome. Sorry it took me so long to figure this stuff out."

"So um, what the hell happened to you anyways?" he added a moment later. "That must have been a heck of a camping trip."

I grimaced again, "Yeah. Let me introduce you to my new friends, then maybe I can tell you about my week."

He followed as I led him back out of the little kitchen and into the main room of my apartment. Then he stopped in his tracks and stared wide-eyed at the tall strong gorgeous wolfgirl and the cute teenage foxgirl sitting on the sofa.

"Soneya, Lia," I addressed my companions, "This is my friend Derek McGee. And Derek, that is Soneya Amarïs. And this is my new sister, Lia Chapman."

The wolfgirl's eyes tracked up and down over my friend like she was assessing whether or not he was a threat. Then she nodded once, "Hello Derek. Tori's told us a little about you."

"Uh, hi?" he responded. He looked and sounded a little unsure of himself, which wasn't too surprising considering the way our pack leader was watching him.

Meanwhile Lia just glanced at my guest before her attention returned to the TV again. She pointed at the cartoon and said, "We're watching ponies."

"Right," I smiled. "We promised Lia she could watch TV this afternoon. Why don't we go into the bedroom? We can sit down in there and talk a bit more."

Derek was obviously a little uneasy around my companions, while at the same time I knew he had to have a thousand more questions. For now he just quietly nodded, "Yeah ok."

"Should I join you?" Soneya asked.

"Only if you want to?" I shrugged. "Or you can keep Lia company, it's fine either way."

She ended up staying in the living-room for now, but I left the bedroom door open. I was positive she'd be keeping an ear on us, in case of trouble. The only place to sit comfortably was my bed, so I climbed up and sat crosslegged by the pillows while Derek settled awkwardly at the foot of the bed.

He gave me an uncertain look as he asked, "So um, how'd you meet them? Who are they? And what happened to you?"

I took a deep breath, then spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes giving him the same abridged story I first told my parents the day before. I didn't tell him about us getting magic, or that we suspected the water changed us, and I didn't tell him Lia was originally a fox, but I covered most of the other points and some of the scary stuff. By the time I wrapped up the story with our arrival back here Saturday night Derek's eyes were wide and he looked suitably freaked out.

"Holy shit," he finally responded. "That's... Damn. I'm glad you're ok, but I can't even imagine what all that must have been like for you. You weren't kidding when you said you were lucky."

I grimaced, "Yeah. It was a heck of a trip. And I wish I could say we're going to put it all behind us now that we're home and we're safe, but I'm not sure that'll be an option? Considering me and Lia and Soneya all sort of stand out now, with the ears and tails and stuff."

He frowned, "Right, that's gotta be weird. I guess you get a lot of people staring or freaking out at you? What are you going to do about work?"

"We've been lucky so far," I told him, "Nobody's freaked out at us yet? But yeah, we get a lot of stares. And a few people take pictures. As for work, I'm not due back for another week yet? But I'm going to call my manager tomorrow, to let him know I look a little different. Hopefully both him and the boss will be ok with having a foxgirl on the team."

Derek looked like he was going to say something, then caught himself and shook his head like he decided to keep quiet instead.

I frowned, "What? What were you going to say?"

"It's nothing. A silly idea," he replied as he shook his head.

"No, tell me!" I insisted. "You never know, maybe it's a good idea? The way things have changed lately we could use all the input and ideas we can get."

His cheeks coloured slightly as he sighed, "Ok, just don't be mad at me? It popped into my head that if you don't want to work the help desk anymore, you could probably make a killing as the world's first real live foxgirl cam-girl."

I stared at him for a second, then facepalmed. A moment after that I felt my own cheeks warming up as I admitted, "You might actually be right? But I don't know that I'm cut out for that kind of thing."

*** This chapter is brought to you courtesy of Camille who commissioned it! ***