By the time I woke up the next morning, the pain had mostly faded away, but I still couldn’t hardly move at all. My arms and legs had that same unusually heavy feeling to them, just like they did yesterday after my soul was, uh… reunited with my body. After some effort, I found that I could at least sit upright on my bedroll—until a dizzying wave of nausea nearly floored me all over again.
Alice was more than a little worried; she wanted to spend the whole day by my side and brew me some stamina potions. Viela insisted that there wasn’t a way to speed up the recovery of my condition with alchemy, but apparently I should be fine again within a few days.
Eventually, Alice agreed to head out with Freya and start gathering the herbs we came here for. After promising to return well before nightfall, the two of them departed side by side, chatting like they had been good friends for ages.
For some reason, it felt like they had gotten a lot closer in the past couple days—especially after witnessing my ‘death.’
Well, even though I didn’t really die, I felt like I was kind of reborn in a way. If I was Lady Beryl the First before, could this make me… Lady Beryl the Second?
I know that’s not how lineage works, but I’m not exactly planning on having descendants here! Especially not like ‘this,’ at any rate. So… I might as well claim the title for myself!
I watched Titania stumble through an awkward apology to Viela for threatening to ‘impale’ her yesterday, but the fox spirit said it was alright. After the lancer left to gather more firewood, I realized there was one more who stayed behind.
“You didn’t want to head out with Freya?” I asked the snow leopard cub that was staring up at me.
It was still hard to tell the two cubs apart by appearances alone, but given her demeanor, this one had to be Arwen. I got the distinct impression that she was trying to communicate with me in the same way she had yesterday. However, that similar level of understanding we had shared before just wasn’t there at the moment. That must have been because I was back in my human form now.
Maybe I really could ‘talk’ to animals if I shifted into my fox spirit form… or was that just because Arwen was part snow leopard spirit, thanks to Freya, and it was a spirit thing?
I had a strong suspicion it was the latter…
“Just give me a minute,” I told Arwen with a quick pat on her head.
Physically, there wasn’t much I could do with my body for now, but I didn’t need physical strength for this. I closed my eyes and focused inward, trying to put myself in that familiar meditative stance.
A sigh of relief escaped me. For the first time, I could get a clear sense of my own soul, my Divine Gift, and my soul bond with Viela. Finally! It felt more like I was looking through a window from afar instead of being right next to them in the astral plane, but that was more than enough.
I reached out to the ‘comet’ orbiting my soul and sent a surge of mana into it. My efforts were rewarded by a sudden jolt of electricity that nearly made me scream—and the sensation of two fox ears overhead and a dark, fluffy tail behind me.
In hindsight, there was probably a ‘sweet spot’ of using just enough mana to trigger the shift without using too much and getting shocked like that. I’ll get the hang of it one day…
Arwen jumped onto my lap, a newly-perceivable stream of images and emotions flowing across her eyes.
‘Fox!’
“After all that… is that really all you wanted to say?” I laughed. “No, I’m not a fox.”
Her head drooped, and the cub gently rubbed her head against me.
‘Fox…’
“Oh. You were just worried about me too, huh?”
Arwen finally relaxed after I started petting her thick snowy fur. She curled up into a ball of fluff on my lap, purring like a contented kitten… at least, like a really big, cat-sized snow leopard kitten.
“Alright, you win. Just for now, I’ll be a fox for you. But we’ll have to work on your vocabulary later!”
***
After sunrise of the second morning, I found I could finally stand up and walk again… for a minute. My legs started aching like I was sprinting with every careful step, so I ended up staying back at our camp in Freya’s cave for another day of recovery.
Viela still seemed a bit guilty about what happened when I almost died drinking her potion. Even after I told her it was fine, and I knew it was going to be risky anyway, she insisted on cooking something that she said would make me feel better.
“Wait, this just tastes like soup you made from some wild mountain vegetables!” I said.
Viela blushed and looked away. “Well… is it good?”
Huh? I thought she was trying to make medicine, but did she really just want to cook something for me?
“Yeah, this is actually pretty good. It’s not too salty or too spicy. I’m surprised you were able to give it this much flavor from things you gathered around here.”
The fox spirit smiled, her cheeks turning a little redder. She could be surprisingly cute at times like this…
With nothing better to do, I spent the rest of the day petting and playing with Arwen again. Alice and Freya returned a little earlier in the afternoon, well before sunset.
When Alice noticed me petting the snow leopard cub in my lap, she ran up to me and opened her gathering bag.
“Beryl, look how many murkthistle seeds we’ve got so far!” she said with an air of pride.
To my amazement, Alice wasn’t the least bit bothered by having to fill that wicked witch’s enchanted, deceptively large bag. It was much bigger on the inside than the outside, and even more amazingly, the bag was nearly filled halfway with small dark seeds.
“That’s actually kind of incredible,” I muttered. “Since you’re doing so well, this won’t take us anywhere near as long as I expected.”
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Alice beamed at the praise. “So… can I get a reward?” She knelt down in front of me, staring expectantly back and forth between me and the cub snuggled in my lap with big, pleading eyes. “M-M… Meow~?”
Arwen looked up at her and mewed back. ‘…Kitty?’
“No Arwen,” I began, “she’s… Actually, you might be right. Alice, who’s a good kitty?”
I reached a hand out and patted Alice on her head. She wiggled with delight when I stroked her raven-colored hair, then lay down on her side, kneading her hands like a purring kitten’s paws.
“Arwen, you have a new big sister,” I said with exaggerated seriousness. “You have to take care of her now.”
The snow leopard cub hopped off my lap and sauntered up to Alice. After a moment of confirming her scent, Arwen started licking Alice’s cheek, making the young witch squeal with joy.
Hmm… if Alice had a ‘spirit animal,’ it definitely would be some kind of cat…
As I stared down at her enjoying the scene, Alice stared back up at me—and my fox ears.
“This is just for Arwen,” I said awkwardly. “I’m… I’m really not going to stay as a fox girl forever, or anything!”
Alice sat upright all at once. “No, I was looking at your hair!” she said stubbornly. “Beryl, have you been keeping your hair tied back in a ponytail this whole time?”
I don’t like where this is going… “Um, that’s just normal for adventurers like me!”
Her face hardened into a pout, then she changed her mind, softening again. “Well… you know I can help you take care of your hair,” she said with reddening cheeks.
My first thought was to decline, but I already knew how much Alice enjoyed this kind of thing.
After I agreed, she ran to her rucksack and retrieved a familiar wooden comb. Alice knelt down behind me, unfastened my hair tie, and got to work. She lifted the back of my dark, waist-length hair and began gently combing, starting at the ends and slowly working her way up to the roots.
It had only been a couple weeks or so since the first time Alice had combed my hair like this, but now, that felt like half a lifetime ago. This time, she was actually wearing clothes, and her comb moved much slower like she was being particularly careful—or because she wanted to savor every moment. I didn’t mind; for whatever reason, this felt every bit as good as I remembered…
As Alice hummed to herself while she combed and ran her fingers through my hair, I noticed the strange sensation of my extended tailbone twitching on its own. When I turned my head to check behind me and investigate, my whole body froze.
Oh, God… Why is my fox tail wagging like this?!
All of a sudden, Alice stopped and rested her hands on my shoulders. “It’s fine,” she whispered with a smile. “I’m glad you enjoy this, too. And… if I had a tail, it would be wagging even more.”
“Uh, yeah…”
I watched Alice start reaching her comb down to my fluffy tail, but she stopped herself.
“It comes out with clean fur every time!” I said. “I really did shift back and forth to test that earlier!”
Alice bit her lip. “B-But…”
“But you still want to anyway, don’t you?”
She nodded one moment, then shook her head the next. “We don’t have to! I mean—”
“It’s alright,” I said. “I don’t mind, now that I can shift back whenever I want to. It’s a psychological thing, like… Well, don’t worry about it.”
Alice gave my shoulder one last rub before she bent down and started grooming my tail. My body shuddered when I felt her fingers dip into my fur, followed by the teeth of her comb gently sinking in. I couldn’t help noticing that she took even more care now than before. That must have been because she wasn’t used to combing hair like this, and… she wanted to make sure this went right.
Just when I was about to compliment her consideration, I shuddered again at the sensation of Alice petting my whole fox tail.
“Beryl, your fur really is a little bit rougher than Viela’s~.”
“Wh-What?! Alice!”
“But, I… I love this kind of foxy…”
Slowly, Alice slipped her hands under my arms and hugged me in a tight embrace, resting her chin on my shoulder. Somehow, she always found a way to surprise me that put me at a loss for words.
As I felt her arms gently hugging my waist from behind, I wrapped my arms around hers—and really, really hoped the others weren’t staring at us too much…