While Kari’s husband, Shin, had always been, a dreamer, visionary, and a grand prankster, who didn’t mind leaving the “little things” to be taken care of by others, Kari herself had always hated having to rely on servants. She'd preferred getting things done with her own four tails. She'd always wanted to do things herself. It'd always made her feel like a dress up doll or a pet.
However, her family insisted that she bring along at least one servant on this early morning visit. She didn't like the idea of being away from Phillip so soon, but it was for Phillip's sake this visit was so important.
"My Mistress, we have arrived."
"Thank you Eliza," Kari said as the carriage landed.
The servant who'd spoken, Eliza, sat at the front of the carriage, directing the otherworldly beast that had pulled the carriage. Enchantments existed now that made the taking care of or employment of four legged beasts gratuitous for travel; the carriages could carry themselves. But it was considered a sign of status to be able to either take care of such a beast or have one in your employ.
Eliza herself was dressed not as a eastern servant would be, but in the stereotypical french maid outfit you'd expect from a western family. This was due to a fetish of one of Kari's uncles, Sosuke.
Eliza looked like a anthromorphic fox with one tail... except for the small detail that she had no face. There was no empty sockets or sealed mouth, it was simply smooth skin and fur where a face would be. Her muzzle stood out with no nose, whiskers, opening, or teeth. In spite of this, she could 'see', 'smell', hear, 'breath', speak, and other such things perfectly normally.
She was a Nopperabō. Trickery was hard wired into the kitsune, when granting boons to anyone, there was always a twist. It was all but involuntary.
Uncle Sosuke had found Eliza during a plague: sickly, her family dead, and doomed to die of the plague herself. Uncle Sosuke had offered a place, a home, employment, and health. Naturally Eliza had accepted.
And Sosuke had given her the blank fox mask. Telling her she'd wear it as long as she was in his employ. Again, Eliza didn't even hesitate in putting it on. And the mask ceased to be a mask.
'What use does a servant have for a face?' Had been Sosuke's words that had become part of Eliza's very being. It couldn't be argued that Eliza's standard of living had definitely gone up in the centuries since she'd entered the Kazura's service, if nothing else.
The animal and carriage was handled by shadowy masses in the shape bipedal of felines with glowing yellow eyes staring out from their dark shapes.
"Follow me Eliza."
"Yes, My Lady." Eliza followed three steps behind her.
The sky had a giant golden full moon that the wolf-beasts would have been proud of. Violet clouds slithered across a black sky. Behind the foxes was a city of spires and bridges that rose into the sky and dug into the ground on countless levels, Bakeneko and Nekomata chafing against each other in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
The mansion on the looming hill looked like a beast ready to pounce. Shadows moved about, feline eyes constantly on the foxes.
A cat girl maid with violet, striped fur greeted them at the front door. Like Eliza, she didn't have a face.
"Lady Kari, welcome to the house of the mistress."
"Thank you Claire," Kari said, wishing she could have handed off her kimono to the servant, and walked around free in her fur. But she wanted to appear official and formal when meeting with Bao. Wearing jewelry was always a gamble when visiting this demiplane, you risked it being lifted off you, or you risked being seen as 'lesser' for not wearing any.
A burning screech from one of the shadows informed Kari that someone had tried to liberate her of the burden of wearing a necklace with several anti-thievery enchantments on it (against both magical and mundane theft). Kari would never bring any jewelry that had held any sentimental value to this place. The feline shaped shadow twisted about to put the flames out.
Nobody missed a beat.
"Mistress Bao awaits my lady." Claire bowed and bid them follow.
The foxes walked up the grand staircase, gold statues of felines in vicious poses frozen in time lined the rails, ranging from feral to the Nekos. Kari didn't hazard to guess how many were true works of art, and how many had been rivals of Bao.
Claire led them to a room filled with jewelry. Kari's tails ached from the layers of curses placed on every last one of them. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, with little nude neko figurines hanging from it. Her 'ring of thieves' Bao called it, those who had tried to rob her family, and failed (if they'd succeeded, they'd been hired by now).
And laying at the center of the treasure room on a roman couch was Bao, looking over a ledger. Her fur was a dark gray, her eyes the same yellow as the shadows. She was wearing several bits of diamond studded jewelry, bracelets, necklaces, tail rings, claw rings, ear rings, but nothing that humans would have called modesty. This also meant the claws marks across her body and in particular her back were on display.
Bao indifferently looked up at Kari, her two tails swaying lazily behind her, marking her as a Nekomata.
"Ah, a little fox has come into my den," Bao said, pretending she hadn't gotten and replied to the message for appointment. "You're always so bold Kari... for one so very, very, VERY young!"
True enough, compared to her elders of 700, 800, Kari's 300 plus years of life were like nothing. Maybe Bao found it amusing. But Kari did have one layer of protection: it was known that the Kazura were tightly knit to where the wolf-beasts would be proud.
Moonclaw hadn't been lying to Phillip. The wolf-beasts weren't big on modern conveniences nor modern taboos, but 'stand-by, and protect your pack-mates' was their one concret law (which made it all the more sacred), and woe be to any fool who thought you could slight or harm a hair on the head of one wolf-beast without making an enemy of an entire pack of extremely competent hunters and very efficient killing machines. It did a surprisingly good job of keeping wolf-beast social order.
"Eliza, at ease," Kari said.
Bao shrugged, sending ripples along her muscles. "Claire, at ease."
The two Nopperabō maids immediately took out a deck of cards and sat down to play a few rounds (they were kept in the same spot Eliza hid her taser and pepper-spray). It had become a game unto itself for the two Nopperabō maids to figure out the tells of each other given both had the ideal 'poker face.'
The line between slave and lifetime contract employee could be uncomfortably blurred for Kari's tastes. At least her kind had finally ended the practice. Vampires used thralls, who it was debatable if they could be considered still alive.
And dragons used kobolds who were fanatics in their devotion to their 'big cousins', some thinking that they'd reincarnate as a dragon themselves if they did well enough, others thinking serving the 'apex of all life' was honor enough.
The wolf-beasts didn't believe in masters or servants. Any pecking order among the fae was nominal at best, though promises were as unbreakable if not more so than any human legal contract. Angels were an odd bunch, they believed in servants, but not masters, only they understood what that meant.
Kari's eyes shifted for a moment, then asked,
"Bao, where's Ming?" Normally Bao insisted her child attend these meetings no matter how much she chafed under them.
"Recovering, I needed to discipline her after she failed to reach your new son in time to offer our family's case," Bao said casually. Kari shivered.
Kari remembered that most of Bao's scars hadn't come from rivals. Kari hadn't been there personally, but remembered how Bao had found Ming as an unwanted child in China after the communist revolution, adopting her and turning Ming into one of Bao's own kind. Kari wondered if Ming would have as many scars as Bao by the time she became a woman.
"So did you come just to ask that?" Again Bao fringed ignorance. "Or did you have something else so important you had to say it face to face instead of emailing it?"
Kari blushed, she hadn't quite figured out how that newest piece of technology from the human world worked yet. And enchanted scrolls were cheap and practical enough that she hadn't felt the need to make any transition.
Kari steeled herself, she would say what she came here to say.
"Do not touch any of Phillip's human friends or their families. They are precious to him, and so they are precious to me. I won't have my son's new life be tainted with knowing it came at the cost of the few humans he loved."
Bao laughed, showing her fangs. "Really Kari? Really? You came all this way for that?"
"I am serious Bao, if you try to use them as pawns in your game, you'll regret it."
"You would seriously start a war over that?" Bao asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't need to strike at you personally, we can still bite off tendrils of your empire. There are plenty of Bakeneko who will look the other way if it means taking a bite out of your coffers."
"... Hmph! Stupid one-tails. Don't forget to give that same warning to every single Great Family in existence then... Hmph. I rarely give out anything for free you naive little girl, so appreciate this free advice:
"You can't protect his friends and their families from every member of every Great Family. Sooner or later they'll be pulled in. It was their fate the moment the boy chose to become part of your family, or any of our families. You can either try to keep them protected until they die of old age in about a century. Or you make the choice of them becoming something that at least your son can still be friends with. Otherwise, sooner or later, they will end up absorbed into one of the other great families to strike at the new weak link you've added to your chain."
"Do not call my son weak."
"I'll oblige, since you are my guest. But remember, your kit's friends have parents, uncles, cousins, in-laws, you can't protect all of them. Sooner or later, you'll have to let them go."
"I'm hoping by then that the game will have moved on. After all, humans spend so little time on the physical plane before they move onto the next realm."
"And they grow up so fast... compared to us at least," Bao said simply. "But remember what I say, you CAN'T protect them forever nor from everything."
"I don't need forever."
"I give my word: I will not, nor my servants, nor organization, will target them. You have my word. ... After all, the human world is bloated with children abandoned by those who should love them, most of them before they were even born."
Kari bowed. "Thank you for allowing me to visit."
"Sure you won't stay for a spell?" Bao said charmingly.
"I must hurry back if I am to be present for when Phillip is introduced to the rest of the family. Good evening."
Eliza and Claire ended their game and separated, the Nopperabō not saying a word to each other as the foxes left the mansion. Their beast and carriage was unharmed and well taken care of in their brief absence.
As the carriage took off, Kari asked, "Did you learn anything from Claire?"
"Ming will more than likely make a move on one of Phillip's friends in hopes of redeeming herself in her mother's eyes."
"I know. I caught that in her oath. But Ming won't do it in a way that 'breaks' the rules. She is Bao's daughter after all, and Bao would've taught her, the best way to not get caught cheating is to not technically cheat."
This was why orphans and those without close ties to humanity were brought into the Great Families, so they didn't have anyone close to them. But Phillip's friends... Kari remembered Bao's warning that they'd be brought into their world whether Kari liked it or not, and all she could control was what form they took.
'Not without a fight,' Kari thought.
++++
"And what are you up to Ruki?" Auntie Nabiki asked her niece.
"... I'm going over everything I'll be cramming into Phillip-Chan's head to make up for eighty years of being behind a normal kitsune his age... I'm going to be a four-tail by the time I'm done."
The various schools of magic, court manners and politics, economics, self-defense. Phillip-Chan was going to need to be taught a whole new written and verbal language, passive translation spells could only get you so far!
Ruki couldn't say she was looking forward to it, but it had been made her duty and responsibility to look after Phillip's education, and she was going to do it to the best of her ability.
"Oh little girl can't you just have some fun?" the pudgy kitsune plucked the schedule book out of Ruki's hands.
"Hey! Give that back!"
"We're supposed to be celebrating Phillip's ascension today! You can worry about all this later!"
Ruki sighed. "Yes Auntie."
++++
Technically speaking, there was no 'law' that said mythicals couldn't reveal themselves to the human demiplane. After all, humans already knew about such creatures, even if they thought they were just characters in story books these days (most blamed human collective ego refusing to acknowledge anything that didn't fit THEIR rules of reality).
And thus there was no legal punishment, nor any legal enforcement. And most humans as a matter of course when they did meet a mythic brushed it off as a dream, convinced themselves they saw something else, thought it was someone in a costume, anything as long as they didn't have to change their world views. Those that did know for a fact what they saw, usually kept their trap shut due to society at large would consider them fraud or loonies. And those who didn't keep their trap shut... well, society tended to ignore them, or quickly pretended they didn't say anything.
The few of humanity’s elite that did know about mythical creatures and thought it would be better for the rest of their species not to know, were generally the type that realized nothing drew more attention than looking like you were hiding something. There were no shadow organizations trying to hide the existence of such creatures to the public, and to John Q. Public, that obviously meant there were no mythical creatures to hide.
However, while there was no law against it, it was generally considered unpleasant and unwise. And Arata wanted to err on the side of caution for once as a kitsune, and not reveal all the big things to Phillip's friends all at once.
Of course there was the real danger about how ignorance was not a shield that would protect Phillip's friends, but Arata had never been taught those kinds of lessons yet.
While Will wouldn't say it, he was relieved that Phillip was alright, Patty was relieved as well, but she was still VERY curious about what Phillip wanted, but she had just wits enough to realize that asking him about it would only backfire.
As for Phillip, he was overjoyed to play with his friends, after his fears that he might lose that chance after his unusual adoption. Being back with his friends, playing, looking as he did, he was able to pretend that everything was still 'normal,' except for now having a family. Well, that, and the fact that he he could feel the ground through his shoes, or how he could feel things ON his shirt, like they were a part of him. But he did his hardest to ignore that, uncomfortable with where that logic led!
Thus he went with the idea he was a boy who had become a fox who had become a boy again, rather than thinking about how he was a fox now masquerading as a human.
The games Phillip played with his friends were normal; tag, catch, and so on. Arata was the odd one out, being a twelve year old among a group of eight and nine year olds (Patty had celebrated her birthday last month). But for Phillip's sake, he was willing to go along with it.
Phillip didn't notice that he was mentally listing everything that Patty and Will liked, what they feared, what they dreamed, and found himself imagining weird ways they could turn out (he didn't know the word 'ironic' quiet yet). And thinking how it might be fun to string them along somehow for a joke, they were his friends after all.
Though Atara would be lying if he said that he didn't want to show off his magic to these two humans, and make their games of pretend more visualized... Atara wasn't that powerful, he was only a two-tails after all, but he still had a few tricks up his sleeve! But after he'd told Phillip to keep his mouth shut, that would be just mean.
Will and Patty's parents both noticed the new kid in the group of course, but after a quick chat with Atara, they casually accepted Phillip's adoption and that yes, Atara was his new older brother, and there was nothing to worry about. The legendary charm spell was surprisingly basic as far as magic went. The spell only really made the subject see your ideas and actions in a positive light, like you would a friend's, not actually command them. It was a good trick to have up your sleeve to help smooth things over.
Though both sets of parents asked to meet with Phillip's new parents after poor Phillip had been in the child care system for so long.
"Uh, we'll see about that later," Atara said. "My family is pretty well off, but also really exclusive." He'd have to talk to otosan and okaasan later!
At this point, the sun really was setting, and it was only a matter of time before Will and Patty's parents called them in for dinner. Meaning it was time to tell Phillip to wrap this up. Getting Phillip into that little sage's kimono was gonna be trouble enough for his first time!
"PHILLIP! ATARA! I found you! I mean, hello!"
The children turned to see an Asian girl with flowing pink hair, her dress obviously on the upper end of the economic spectrum even if it was dirty and torn in places. Around her neck was a crystal pendant shaped like a monkey.
"Uh, hello?" Phillip asked.
"Who are you?" Patty asked at once.
"Oh!" The girl bowed. "I'm Fukuda Sakura, I mean, Sakura Fukuda! I'm Phillip-chan's fiancee!"
"You're his what?!" Patty gasped.
Atara just pictured a mushroom cloud in his mind. Phillip was left bewildered.
"Fiancee, it means we're gonna be married when we grow up!" Sakura explained.
Patty turned to Phillip. "When did this happen?!"
"This morning!" Phillip defended.
"It's tradition in our family," Sakura said simply. Phillip noticed her eyes were red.
"You're going to get married?!" Will asked.
"Not for a really long time!" Phillip defended. Phillip asked, "But how did you get here Sakura? I thought your parents said you, uh, couldn't visit because they were worried about you coming without a grown-up."
"I just snuck along with you!" Sakura said, putting on her best smile. Patty frowned slightly. She noticed the slightly reddened eyes, had she been crying?
Atara noticed the tell tale signs too.
"You got lost didn't you?" Atara whispered to her.
Sakura meekly nodded to the older kitsune.
"If you get caught you'll be in BIIIIIG trouble," Atara whispered.
"Won't you be in worse trouble for me sneaking along?" Sakura asked as she'd been taught.
Atara had to admit, Sakura was a true kitsune. "Okay, I'll cover for you. But don't corner me like this again!" Atara said perhaps a little more sternly than he wanted as Sakura shivered under his gaze.
"I'm sorry... I just... wanted to see this world for real, not with my parents protecting me from everything and only letting me see what they wanted to."
"... Trust me, there's plenty for them to protect you from."
Sakura nodded. Atara would have to ask what happened later.
"Are you okay?" Phillip asked. "Where were you this whole time?"
"I... was just seeing everything on my own!" Sakura said, unable to keep the nervousness out of her voice.
Patty crossed her arms. Will felt like he'd been channel surfing and was watching a show after missing the opening act.
"I could have shown you a lot of cool places," Phillip said. "Well, I wanted to play with my friends, but you could have played with us."
"... I'm sorry," Sakura said with a bow.
"What's with your hair?" Patty asked.
"What about it?" Will asked. "It's obviously dyed."
"Huh? Oh! Yes! I'm actually a natural blue!" Sakura lied with a straight face.
Will laughed. "She sure seems fun!"
"Patty dinner, time!"
"Will honey, you too!"
"And that's our cue, we better get back." Atara said sincerely. "Phillip has a family meet and greet and he's gotta dress up for it."
Sakura offered sincerely, "If you guys wanna come too, I have some neat masks you-"
"It's family only!" Atara said quickly, while Phillip wondered what the big deal was, if Sakura really did some masks that would let her friends come along.
Knowing she was on thin ice already with Atara who held her fate in her hands, Sakura backed off the idea. Though Phillip was now a bit curious.
"Come on," Atara said, taking the shoulders of the smaller disguised kitsune. "We're better get going."
The two humans waved the hidden foxes fair well, as Atara looked for a secluded spot to open the gate home.
"So, how do you look like a person, I mean a human? Atara said it was really hair for foxes with one tail."
Sakura held her necklace. "Otosan and okaasan got me this for when we visit the human world."
"Who are they?"
"She means her mom and dad."
"Oh."
"Okaasan usually holds onto it, but I... borrowed it without asking so I could come along!"
"Think I could get one of those?" Phillip asked.
"Once Auntie Ruki gets her paws on you, you'll learn to shape shift or bust," Atara foretold.
Phillip shuddered a bit, but still didn't regret in the least his new family. Speaking of which, it sounded like he couldn't put off meeting them anymore.