[Content Warning: N/A, at long last]
[And so the final chapter is available to all patrons.]
In my very justified mad dash to get to Mariem’s residence, I’d left my house keys, along with the briefcase I’d had them in, at the district courthouse. For most people, this would have been a problem. I was not most people.
After the car pulled up in front of my townhome, I simply got out of the car and thanked the put-upon soldier who’d gotten me home so quickly, looked in my front window, and fell apart into flame. When I had a body again and opened my eyes, I was standing in my living room.
The TV was off. The lights were on, and the small legion of plushies I’d removed from my bedroom and splayed out on the couch for Hounaida’s benefit were still there, but the usual background noise wasn’t there. And more importantly, neither was the couch’s usual occupant.
Neither was Gorou.
“Gorou?” I called out, ears flicking to and fro as I scanned for any errant sound that might allay my fears… and I didn’t hear a peep. But that might mean anything, I thought with some meager hope; foxes were ambush predators, after all, and Gorou was nothing if not stealthy.
So I walked up the stairs, turned left at the top towards my bedroom, and headed inside to see… oh.
“Oh, Gorou…”
My blankets had been thrown across the floor, tangled and twisted in disarray. Great rents and gashes made the fitted sheet tear itself apart under the strain, revealing the shredded ruin of my mattress topper underneath. And sitting at the head of the bed, all but one of my pillows kicked away… was Gorou.
He faced away from me, head resting on my favorite pillow, ears limp and low. His tails were splayed out behind him, their arrangement limp and messy rather than the usual neat, controlled bundle he always wrapped around his body or left to gently sway in the air. There was no strength in his frame, and I could see the occasional tremor run through his haunches or send a single tail fluttering. Not a sound left his muzzle, but I could see the way his neck tensed, how unsteady his breathing was.
I walked around to the side of the room he was steadfastly staring at and slid onto the bed, then brought up one hand and delicately ran my fingers through his fur.
“... I failed you,” he whispered.
“What — no!” I protested, sliding off the bed to kneel in front of Gorou and look him in the eye. “No, Gorou, you didn’t! I… if you hadn’t helped me, if you hadn’t let me think again, I, I just… I couldn’t have…”
“I thought I could handle it,” he murmured, closing his eyes and tilting his head slightly away from me. “I believed I would endure it more easily, but… but I couldn’t. Then you needed me.” There was a soft, keening whine building at the back of his throat. “I felt you begging, pleading, praying, and… and I left you alone. I wasn’t there for you, you needed my help, and I wasn’t there.”
Oh… that’s what it was. I’d initially thought those tremors I’d been seeing to be lingering phantom pain, remnants of the gunshot wounds that still lingered nearly five hours later, but no. That wasn’t it at all. He wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t in pain.
He was sobbing.
“Oh — oh, Gorou…”
He still wasn’t looking at me, still wouldn’t let me in, and I knew nothing I said was going to snap him out of this. So I didn’t say anything.
Instead, I reached under his front legs to lift him up, laid both paws and his head on my shoulder, and hugged my greatest-grandpa for dear life.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know,” I whispered in his ear, and ran my fingers lightly through his fur.
“Why can I never do enough?” he asked, though I could tell he was asking himself more than anyone else. “Why am I always too late? Always apologizing for…”
I held Gorou tighter as he let out a heaving sob, that whine at the back of his throat now as close to him crying as his anatomy would allow.
“You can’t keep blaming yourself,” I told him, “especially not this time. You still helped, Gorou, more than you know. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything if not for you. And…”
I paused, wondering whether this was safe to say — actually, you know what? I didn’t care. I was going to say it.
“She survived, Gorou. Hounaida survived. Because I did have one more person to ask, you know. All thanks to you.”
“What?” Gorou pushed himself out of my hug, both paws on my shoulders as he looked at me with sudden worry. “… my mother?”
I swallowed heavily, and nodded.
“Naomi…” Gorou brought one of his tails forward and brushed my cheek. “Oh, child. There is always a cost to these things, so why? Why do this?”
“Because it wasn’t even a choice, really. I was there, and I could, so… so I did,” I told him, laying a hand atop his head. “The same as you did for me, all those years ago.”
Gorou looked deep into my eyes, seeming to search for something within their depths. Another of his tails came up and brushed at my other cheek, lightly applying pressure with the two to turn me this way and that. But whatever he was looking for, he couldn’t seem to find it.
“I only pray that the cost is not too much for you to bear,” he said softly, and pulled his tails away.
“And even if it is, well, at least I have you, right?” I smiled, despite the slight trepidation I could still feel. “Anyways, um… I need to let a few people know everything at least turned out alright-ish.”
“And bathe,” Gorou murmured as the top of his snout scrunched up slightly, and he pushed me away with a paw to the forehead. “You stink of blood, sweat, and… rose water?”
I looked down at my borrowed sweats and blinked, then thought for a moment. That made sense, actually.
“These are probably Mariem’s spares,” I murmured. Gorou huffed and pushed me away again, then started poking me with his tails until I got up. “Alright, alright, I get it! I stink! I’ll go shower after I check my emails, God!” Gorou’s only real response as I got up and plodded out of the bedroom was a wordless yowl, which had me chuckling.
If my laugh was a little wet, and my eyes a little teary with relief, well, nobody else needed to know.
My emails told the story of a rather curious cascade of events: a notice from the District Court that I’d been found in contempt, cc’d to my boss Alice’s email that the court had on file; an email from Alice asking how I’d finally managed to piss off a judge badly enough to get slapped with contempt; increasingly concerned follow-ups from Alice and Casey as the news clearly broke about my ballistic flight across the DMV; an email from Chief Judge Farley that the contempt charge had been vacated in light of current events and inviting me to file a judicial misconduct complaint against Judge Dahl…
And lastly, several emails all demanding to know if I was okay because somebody, probably Megan or Mariem, had spilled the beans that I’d gotten shot. Alice’s in particular told me to, and I quote, “stay the fuck home for the next week or I’ll force you onto medical leave,” which… sounded like a great idea, actually. I mean, I’d gotten back from my vacation, which arguably was only half a vacation because I’d been abroad to attend a professional symposium, and immediately hit the ground at a dead sprint. The last month or so had been all gas, no brakes, and quite frankly? I was exhausted.
… okay, maybe that exhaustion was partly due to the stress of today finally catching up to me. The shower helped, yes, but I was still just feeling run-down and out of juice. I wanted a nap.
Once my hair and fur were all nice and dry, I retreated to the bedroom for that nap and—
Wait, shit. Right. I forgot. Gorou had kinda wrecked my mattress topper a little. Uuuh… to the couch?
To the couch. But first?
I went over to the bin of plushies I had in the corner of my bedroom, a literal chest of them, and dug around for an old favorite: a shark I’d gotten at one of the many aquariums in Tokyo. It was well-loved and had a lone button eye remaining, and I adored this thing to bits because it’d been a birthday present from Satsuki. I loved it so much I’d had to redo the stuffing twice, and the most recent instance of that had left it extremely snuggly and good for cuddles. Better than Gorou, even, largely because Gorou tended to kick me if he had an active dream.
I tucked my shark under one arm, grabbed the blankets from where Gorou had tossed them aside, took my favorite pillow, and dragged it all downstairs. Gorou had set up shop on the sofa again while I’d been in the shower, and gave me this adorably resigned look as I descended the stairs… but he did move without complaint.
Though right as I got comfortable, he wedged himself between me and the back of the couch, and used my butt and thighs as his pillows.
“Really?” I grumbled.
Gorou didn’t dignify that with a verbal response and just huffed, then laid a pair of tails over his eyes. Fair enough, I supposed, and laid my head down. God, though; I really must have been tired. Immensely so.
Normally it took a good fifteen minutes or so for sleep to come, but this time, I was out like a light within seconds of my head hitting the pillow, which was—
—kind of… huh?
I blinked. Except I didn’t, really. I was seeing, I had sensation, but I had no eyelids to blink, no eyes to see.
Yet see I did, as I looked up from what I felt as a cushion, but was in truth an ash-gray dusty plain, and looked up to see the planet I called home. It was — wow. I understood now why astronauts always seemed to come home changed for the experience, because this was… beautiful. But it was also baffling.
I could see the lunar surface beneath me, but I felt something else entirely: an impossible cushion, at the center of a temple that could not exist, and yet which I knew to be as real and true as anything. And beyond that? I could sense… a presence. A familiar one.
… ah. Of course. Anything at all; that’s what I’d offered, if only the child might live. And she had lived, yes, but… well.
I hadn’t actually upheld my end of the bargain just yet, had I?
A feather-light touch of something too complex, too other to describe pulled me out of a thought spiral before it even had a chance to begin, and it was only my reflexive attempt to offer thanks that had me realizing I was… different, up here. Up here — out here? Over here? What even was the proper way to describe this state, this place? This odd confluence of material and metaphorical, the lunar surface but also a fragment of what lay hidden away inside…
In this liminal space, those two things blended; poetry existed as prose, here. I had referred to the flame within me as a kernel of flame, a burning core, or as my ‘foxfire soul’. And out here…
A vaguely person-shaped mass of amethyst flame, wispy embers curling off of what could only be ‘me’. Humanoid, yet bestial. I could still… not feel, exactly. But I knew my shape, could somehow sense the solar wind playing with the flame that approximated my ears, and my tail felt… tight. Not quite bound, but as though its flame licked at the glass of a lantern.
It wasn’t a conversation, not really. Even like this, even in a space where meaning mattered most, I still wasn’t quite… ‘enough’ to intuit what was being presented to me. But some things didn’t need to work around my limits.
Even bodiless, body language was enough.
That presence kneeled before me, a featherlight touch bowing my head as my flame quieted beneath it. The touch lingered briefly there, teasing at the flame-forged effigies of my ears before creeping down along what stood in for my spine, and came to a rest at the base of my tail.
Anxiety, trepidation, and mute terror stilled my flame. Please, I begged with a soundless voice into the abyss of space. Please don’t make me go back to that, please don’t make me go back to having to try and fail to be him, I know I promised anything and that meant anything but—
The presence receded briefly, and though I was alone in this soundless sea, sitting unaccompanied in that stellar temple, I still felt it: a hug, warm and welcoming and an apology for my fright. In that instant I knew I’d overreacted, mortal panic obscuring divine intent — but there was no blame in it, only apology. Reassurance that no such cruelty would befall me, and… a question. Couldn’t I feel it? That I was constrained, that I was — ready?
I didn’t understand. But… I didn’t have to.
I just had to trust.
That presence took my renewed calm as permission and agreement, and I felt that touch at what could only be the base of my tail again. That odd tightness I’d felt lessened somewhat, ever so slightly. Then it pressed something into my hand, and bade me look.
It was a thread of azure. I followed it around my back to where it looped around my tail, and… I understood. It wasn’t a binding, as I’d initially thought. It was a support. The same as you would tether a young sapling to sticks so that it may keep upright and grow properly, so too had this azure weave helped to define a proper shape into which I could grow. And I had. But, but I knew this azure, this shining, brilliant blue.
This was of Gorou — the essence of his self, yet bound to me. If I let this go, then…
But I had to. I could feel it constricting me, containing me. Perhaps this meant that we wouldn’t be as close. Perhaps our fates would no longer be intertwined, and I would once again be alone in the sanctum of my soul. But I’d known for years now just how tempting it was to let myself stagnate, let myself stay comfortable, to not change. And I’d already chosen to deny that. I wouldn’t betray that decision here.
The burning fingers of my soulself closed around that strand of blue, and I tugged.
It came loose without effort, sliding apart and spooling together in my grasp. I looked upon it with a sort of melancholy. If not for this, if not for his sacrifice — he’d given of himself so freely, without expectation of reward. I’d long thought what had been his to now be mine, but… no. That had never been what happened.
He had merely provided the template for me to follow. And now? I briefly tightened my grip, and then… let go.
Now, I give it back.
I stared at that wisp of azure flame as it drifted to the Earth above, fading out of view against the pale blue marble I called home. That accompanying presence pulled me into an embrace. I felt something atop my head, between my ears.
Once again, I burned. But this time, it was not the radiance of a thousand suns, the godhead that threatened to sear my soul to ash.
No; it was the gentle warmth of fireplace and candlelight, of campfire and lighter held aloft, of a torch guiding me home.
My foxfire soul grew, blossomed, bloomed.
And as I fell back to the Earth, the last shreds of my not-sight showed me the curving cupids-bow of H E R smile.
Consciousness was slow to return, grogginess and discombobulation tearing a confused groan from my throat. My eyelids were heavy and didn’t want to open, but my mouth was drier than the Sahara and there was a pressure on my lower abdomen telling me that I had to answer nature’s call.
Or maybe that was one of the half-dozen or so plushies I’d still had on my sofa digging into me.
Ugh… what time was it? I groaned again and buried my face back into the pillow, and just flicked my ears to and fro. The TV was off, so it hadn’t been long enough of a nap for Gorou to get impatient and start watching his shows. There was birdsong and cicadas outside, but it was summertime, so that didn’t tell me anything. The air conditioning was on, but it didn’t feel all that cold in here… or maybe that was the blanket? Ugh… fine, I could just check my phone, I’d probably put it on the coffee table—
It was as my hand landed on something soft and fluffy while I simultaneously felt the pressure of my hand around the fluffiness that I remembered: my phone had been destroyed, and I hadn’t swapped my SIM card into my old phone or gotten it plugged in to charge. Uuugh, fuck… I had my tail in hand and shifted over onto my side, pulling my tail in closer to hug it since I wasn’t sure where my plushies had gotten off t—ow!
I sat up with a start and let go of my tail, letting it flop to one side and hurriedly blinking the sleep from my eyes. What the hell…? I’d had my tail in my arms, my legs were curled up, so what had gotten pinched between my back and the sofa cushions? I’d tied my hair up so it wasn’t that, and my tail was… uh… hang on, when, what… huh?
Since when was the tip of my tail white? And… and the fur was really, really sensitive, and…
I shivered slightly as a gust of cold air from the A/C washed over me, a shudder going all the way from the top of my ears to the tip of my tail, which — whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, what the fuck, wait, hang on, my tail was in front of me, why did, what, how…
Okay, okay hold on, uh… um…
I laid my right hand on my tail and held it in place, steadfastly ignoring the new white-furred tail tip that was seriously wigging me out. I took a deep breath, gulped, and turned to look at my other side…
Oh — oh fuck me, that, um… ah…
My left hand went to the base of my spine and followed down, then out. It danced across two great, furry lengths, and I could see them there on the other side of my couch, a full five feet away: two more brown-furred tails with white tips.
I, that… this…
“H-holy shit,” I gasped, my tail — my tails! Plural! — shuddering as I spoke. “Gorou? Gorou!?”
He appeared on the coffee table in a flash of azure flame, warmth and love and satisfaction in his shining amber eyes. His tails all swayed behind him, all four — wait, no.
All six.
“Oh my God… oh my God!” My hands flew up to cover my mouth, and I could feel the tears pricking at the corner of my eyes. That, he… he was whole. He was whole!
I flew off the sofa and pulled him into a hug, all but sobbing into his fur. Tears and fur were a terrible combination, and I was going to pay for this later with copious brushing and grooming but I just… I didn’t care. He was… Gorou was…!
His tails, all six of them, wound their way around my body and found their way to the small of my back. He laid his chin on my shoulder as his tails split off, three pairs of two wrapping their way around — oh, uh. That… whoa. Whoa.
Okay, um. My tail had been decently sensitive before, but this was…
My mind blanked out briefly, tears stopping short as raw sensory input overloaded me. I could… I could feel so much from each tail, and there was just — it was so different! The muscles, the tendons, the structure and length and range of movement, and oh holy shit.
“Naomi?” Gorou questioned, the feel of his cold wet nose on my cheek grounding me in the present. His eyes were awash with so many emotions, pride and smugness and concern chief among them, and he loosened his grip on my tail — my tails.
Oh, God, that was gonna take some getting used to.
“T-that,” I stammered, fighting to catch my breath. “Um, w-well… my boss threatened to put me on medical leave and, uh. I, I think I might… need it?”
“Mm,” Gorou hummed in agreement. He withdrew his tails from my own and used them to sit me back upright on the sofa, then hopped up onto its back. “I shall ensure that is set up for you, and after we can begin to familiarize you with this new development. But first, bathe and nourish yourself, Naomi. After three days, you need it.”
Gorou leapt from the back of the sofa to the bannister, down onto the stairs, and disappeared from sight a moment later. I sat there on the couch for a moment and just… looked at myself. Looked at my… my tails.
I didn’t know which one was there first, or if it was even possible to tell in the first place. Each of them were longer now, as long as I was tall. And they weren’t a uniform brown to match my hair anymore, either. Each tail ended with white fur at the tip, and… I don’t know. Part of me expected that to seem wrong, to be so weird and off and odd after eighteen years different, but it didn’t. It felt good.
It felt… right. And—
Wait.
What!?
“What do you mean, three days!?”