Selena's pack sat together in the cafeteria at lunch. They treasured this daily opportunity to have a pack meeting in the middle of school, even if everybody had to stay in human form. Everyone was fawning over Skyler's new hair style.
"Kickass hair, Stella!" Beck said, clapping Skyler on the back.
"It really is!" Zoey chirped. "You pull off the edgy look soooo much better than me!"
"So fab!" Ashlee chimed in.
"Thanks," Skyler said, running a hand through her messy mop of short blonde hair. "I'm thinking about dying it purple soon. I did that just last night. Mom blew a fucking fuse over it this morning, that and my new muscle mass."
"Well, who cares what she thinks?" said Taylor. "I didn't let it get to me when my grandma told me to my face that I was going to Hell when she learned I'd converted to Wicca."
"Well, I do need to think about the family money," said Skyler. "Thankfully, Dad really surprised me and came to my rescue when the argument got outta control and Mom threatened to completely cut me off. He was yelling his ass off at her over how she was talking to me, and he's going to be taking care of my graduation nest egg himself! Mom really woke something up in him."
"Did your mom really threaten to basically disown you over a haircut?!" asked Brianna. "What a bitch!"
"Pure evil," Harper agreed, looking up from an anthro hyena herm she was sketching for furaffinity.net.
"Well, it wasn't just about the hair," said Skyler. "It sorta came up that I'm identifying as non-binary now, and she went apeshit. Good thing Dad's decided he'll always love me even if he doesn't always understand the words I use to describe myself. This is honestly the closest we've ever been."
"Aww, that's real sweet of him, Stella," said Ashlee.
"About that name," Selena said, raising a hand, "I think 'Stella' has something shi wants to tell you."
Ashlee raised an eyebrow. "Why the air quotes around Stella's name, Selena?" The cheer captain gasped. "Is that, like, not the real Stella?! Is that an alien?! I totally bet that's an alien! Is it gonna, lay its eggs in me?! WHO ARE YOU, MS. ALIEN, AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH STELLA?!!"
Skyler laughed as she raised a hand to calm Ashlee down. "Whoa, take a chill pill, Ash! You'll have the entire freaking cafeteria gawking at us if you keep that screeching up. Don't worry, I'm not and alien and I am the real Stella Bentley. I just don't use the name Stella anymore. That's my deadname. As an enby, I needed a more neutral name. I did a lot of thinking last night, and I decided that my real name is Skyler. Everyone here like that name? I've only told Selena about it until now."
Beck gave Skyler two thumbs up. "Congrats on the name, Skyler! I still remember how right it felt when I swapped 'Rebecca' out for 'Beck.' Hey, what're your pronouns? With your Dad on your side, you must be out now."
Skyler nodded. "Totally out! Dad's even gonna help me go through the process of getting my name legally changed from Stella to Skyler. As for pronouns, I'm going by 'shi/hir' in all forms these days. I really feel like me when I use those words."
"This is so cool!" Ashlee said. "I didn't even know ONE non-library person before I joined this pack, and now I know, like, TWO!"
"Non-BINARY, boo," Zoey corrected, stifling a laugh. "Beck and Skyler are non-BINARY."
Brianna laughed. "Beck had better not be non-library if she's dating me, considering how seriously I take school! I'm hoping I can become an environmental lawyer after college."
"Can a wereheinous be a liar?" asked Ashlee. "I didn't think they had jobs."
Brianna snickered. "The word is 'lawyer,' and I see no reason a werehyena can't practice law. Surely you've seen movies about superheroes living a double life?"
"Of course," said Ashlee. "Black Widow is, like, totes the second hottest person on Earth after Zoey."
"Think of it as something like that," said Brianna. She turned to Beck. "So, wanna tell everybody about what we discussed last night?"
Beck nodded. "Okay. Well, meeting Ellie made me reexamine everything I thought I knew about beauty and bodies. I'd never met someone who cherished being chubby before. I just blindly accepted that it was a bad thing to be avoided at all costs. Now... I think I want it for myself."
Ellie smiled at Beck. "Really?"
"Yup," said Beck. "I wanna feel like I'm full of Jell-O. I wanna give Brianna some nice, jiggly skin to play with. Most of all, I wanna have a sexy, round belly like you did. Looking back on them, your curves were maybe the single most sensual thing I've ever seen."
"Thanks, Beck," said Ellie. "Harper seemed to think so."
"And I still do, honey," Harper said sympathetically as she patted Ellie's taut, flat tummy. "Don't worry, you'll be getting all of that pudge back soon."
"I'll be sure to tell Morgana about your wishes, Beck," said Selena. "Maybe she can get you into Kyūri Sensei's class. She's supposed to be setting up the exchange program today. You'll be on your way to Kyoto in no time, Ellie!"
"Any details on what it'll be like?" asked Ellie. "Harper told me I'm in."
"You are indeed!" Selena beamed. "The kappa's name is Kyūri Sensei, and his sumo school, or heya, is called Kyodainayokai-beya. It's built beside a river in a mountain valley just outside of the city of Kyoto. Males and herms are segregated into two separate classes that try to interact as rarely as possible. They mostly only meet when fighting each other as rival teams in sparring matches. Other than that, it's separate classes, separate lodging, separate meals, separate everything. It's actually against the rules for a herm to even look at a male outside of an official match."
"Don't worry about that!" Ellie laughed. "I'm one hundred percent lesbian. Only she's and shi's do it for me."
"Kyūri Sensei will like that," said Selena. "It really tips his bowl, so to speak, when people don't respect his traditions according to Morgana. By the way, Harper can indeed come if she's willing to help out with odd jobs around the heya."
"Which I am," said Harper, looking up once again from her furry sketches.
"Expect to see quite a few tanuki," said Selena. "Almost two thirds of their species is made up of herms."
"A... tablespoony?" asked Ashlee. "What's that?"
"Well, a TANUKI is a raccoon dog yokai," Selena answered. "The're mostly herms and they're pretty pudgy, so Kyodainayokai-beya has a lot of them enrolled. Careful around them, though. Some of the tanuki can be pretty mischievous."
"Hey, how's the cub coming along, guys?" Skyler asked Zoey and Ashlee.
"Pretty good," said Zoey. "Ashlee's cummed in my pussy twice now, and we've picked out a name! Bailey Taylor Kline. Bailey because it's a totes adorbs genderfree name for a herm, Taylor after Taylor Swift... and, uh, after you, I guess, Taylor... and Kline because Ashlee's gonna be the sire."
"That's a great name!" Skyler grinned. Shi suddenly saw the time. "Crap, lunch was over six minutes ago! I'll be late for Civics class!"
"And I've gotta get to English class!" gasped Ellie. She glanced down at her flat, buff body. "Ugh, I hate, hate, HATE my teachers and classmates having to see me like this!"
"I actually think I've spotted a bunch of them checking you out," Zoey commented.
Ellie rolled her eyes. "Checking this body out you mean! This hard, flat thing isn't me by a long shot. Sorry, really got to run!"
With that, the werehyena pack dispersed back into the chaos of their separate human lives once more. Selena thought to herself that the day they all had a proper home for themselves couldn't come soon enough.