It was two months after his birthday that he received a surprise. As he was outside the house working on his latest idea for trying to recreate his old body enhancement with arcanistry a portal suddenly opened near one of the trees nearby. The old foxkin woman stepped out, flanked by two very large foxes. It took a few moments for Marik's mine to register what he was seeing. The bet with the twins hadn't been the most prominent thing in his mind so he had half forgotten about it, but seeing the two large foxes now made things start to click.

"Master," he shouted towards the house. "We have company!"

He turned back to see that the twin foxes somehow had smug expressions. As one of them began almost half melting as it lifted its front half, supposedly to turn back into the foxkin form, the other one suddenly leapt forward and tackled him to the ground.

"You stupid girl! What are you doing," the old lady began shouting. "You have no clothes! Go back if you aren't going to be in fox form, you idiot!"

Marik silently thanked the old lady for shouting before he tried to see what was going on while inwardly cursing his newly forming hormones for making him want to take a peek anyways. Luckily, or unluckily depending on how he looked at it, the giant fox currently on top of him suddenly moved forward a bit to lie down on his face so that he couldn't see even if he had wanted to. He had to admit that his face felt pretty comfortable being smothered in the soft and warm fluffiness of fox fur.

"You can't look," came the voice of whichever twin was on top of him at the moment.

Marik gave up and decided to just lie there on the ground for a little while, enjoying the soft fur until he was allowed to move again. He could vaguely hear footsteps disappearing and then things were mostly silent for a few minutes. There was a slightly strange sound again that he thought he had heard before but couldn't quite place and then the footsteps came back. Finally the large fox twin got off of him and he looked over to see Kiara standing next to the old lady, fully clothed.

"What was that sound I heard just now?"

"Sound? The magic gate opening, maybe? That's not important, boy. I have some chicken feathers to pluck with you."

"You have some what?"

"A problem, boy! An issue with something you did!"

"Oh. It's a saying. Like having a bone to pick. Got it."

"What? Picking bones? Whatever. I'm not here to discuss linguistics with you, boy. Did you, in fact, tell Sai that you would teach her, how did she say it, how to be special?"

Marik sat up to look at the old woman while the fox, who was apparently Sai, sat on her haunches next to him. He looked the woman in the face and felt a slight urge to make some kind of joke or something. Noticing how serious her face looked with its traces of anger, he quickly decided to not go the fun route and to be serious and honest back. He tried to remember how the conversation had gone as best he could so as to not anger her any further.

"I gave her several conditions and told her that I wouldn't tell her more past that until she met those conditions first, but yes, I did say that if she worked very hard and met any prerequisites I would say she needed that I would teach her how to be special like me."

"Do you realize what that means, boy? Are you actually going to do that to her?"

"If that's what she really wants at the end of it all, then yes. We already knew there would be others, right? I'm not saying I'm going to be stupid about it either. There's a reason I didn't tell her more than I did, you know. It wasn't just to motivate her one step at a time since she's crazy, not stupid, and could probably handle motivating herself just fine."

"That's not the problem, boy! How do you plan to deal with it when she learns what she has to sacrifice?"

"Huh? What are talking about you crazy old lady? I already told you I'm not stupid and neither is she. When the time comes for me to tell her that step and she decides that the sacrifice isn't worth it then that's all there is and she'll have still gotten something from the process. If she does still want to go through with it then that'll be her choice. Not yours. Not mine. Hers."

"Be careful how you talk to me, boy. You should remember who and what I am before you your mouth gets you in trouble."

"You should probably do the same thing then, granny."

"Granny?! If I weren't in a pact with you, boy..."

"But you are. So let's go ahead and hash this out now, anyways, while you remember that. How or what I think of you shouldn't really matter, but I DO respect you and I DO trust you and regardless of what you might tell yourself on lonely nights behind your desk you ALSO trust and respect me to at least some extent. You might not like every decision I make and that's fine. I'm not living my life to try and please you, anyways. And as far as insults go, if you think granny is actually insulting then the ways I call you in my head would make you livid. I don't know your name because you and Master refuse to tell them to me, and I will NOT call anyone but Master, Master. You have a temper, I get that, and my mouth probably isn't helping much, but remember that I'm fighting puberty here and just a bit of a bad mouth is still far better than all the other problems I COULD have picked up with my kind of experience."

"The boy poses a fair point, you know."

Apparently his master had finally made an appearance while everyone was focused elsewhere. The foxkin granny scowled heavily at his master before shifting into a grimace as she sighed.

"You're taking the boy's side here, I see."

"Granted his mouth HAS been getting worse, but you do have a temper that wasn't helping in this situation."

"I still don't agree with him taking my great granddaughter under his wing regardless of how many years later it might be. Those kids have been through enough, already. Making that kind of sacrifice and bringing even more trouble after that..."

"That'll be her choice when the time comes, though," Marik chimed in while ignoring the scowl directed at him. "She might actually be the smartest one out of all of us, you know. She just has less knowledge and isn't the best at focusing on a single task. You're smart, grans, and probably the best at what you do. I'm not forcing...no, that's wrong...I WON'T force them to choose anything they don't want to. I've given them some advice, some help, and told them of directions they didn't know they could take. Before all of that, though, you should first ask who even brought up the idea of her choosing to take the 'special' route."

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"Wait. You just said you told her that you would teach her..."

"Do you really think that I'm so naïve that I couldn't understand the dangers it would bring to whomever was taught or that I cared about them so little that I would decide to entice either of them to try and become like me? If you want to blame someone for that part then you should probably check a mirror. As I remember it, it was you that told them about it and I actually tried to do some damage control by convincing Sai to do the opposite. Taking this path is what she's decided to do, for now. If she decides to follow it all the way, then in the end I'd rather support that as properly as I can than outright deny her and drive her to do something we'd all regret."

"You're pinning this on me, now? No, wait. I might have mentioned something about that in passing..."

As foxkin granny started to devolving into mumbling, Marik looked to his side and realized he had started petting Sai unconsciously. Sai actually seemed pretty pleased by the act, which had him worrying how he could read the face of a fox somewhere in the back of his mind. Kiara, deciding that she could move now without getting caught in the crossfire, walked up to where he was petting her sister and leaned down to talk quietly where the two masters would have a hard time hearing.

"So it seems we transformed first at the same time. We decided to both come claim our reward for our birthday."

"Did you bring clothes back for Sai," Marik asked her, more out of an attempt to keep from thinking about Kiara's reward than actual curiosity.

"Huh? Uh, ya. Master has them, I think."

Marik looked over and saw that there was, indeed, a small bag on the ground right behind granny fox. He looked over his shoulder and saw his master watching the old fox with a hint of amusement and decided that the mumbling would probably end before too much longer. He stopped petting Sai so he could push himself back to his feet and heard light whimper from her direction. After he stood up and looked around briefly to get his bearings and clear his head, he contemplated about the current situation. He did kind of owe them a reward for winning the bet but just doing nothing while Sai played with his tail and Kiara did...whatever she was going to do with her broken toes seemed like it would be time wasted. He decided to go grab a tome of spells that had the most illusion spells in it as far as he could remember, just in case Sai got bored with his tail and started asking questions.

"I'll go get something and be right back. It'll probably take a couple minutes, so you can go around the corner and put your clothes on before we head to the river."

He didn't wait for an answer and ran inside to look for the tome he wanted. He made sure he picked up the right one by leafing through various tomes briefly and checking the spells his eyes could pick up while skimming. After noticing at least three illusion spells in one of them, he picked that one up and trotted back outside. On his way out he saw his master and granny fox sitting at the table inside taking sips of what he could only assume was tea. Granny fox scowled at him as he passed by her on his way to the door but didn't say anything and let him pass without interruption. He nodded only slightly, acknowledging her presence, and went out the door.

Outside he saw Kiara's back as she looked around to observe all the natural scenery. He could hear Sai trying to sneak up behind him and took a quick step sideways just as she got close. He turned a bit to see her with arms outstretched as if she were about to grab something in front of her and a surprised look on her face as she looked back at him. He smiled lightly at her and started walking in the direction of the river.

"Come on. The river's this way. It's a pretty calm place that's good for all sorts of things like naps or being alone for a bit."

The girls followed him, Kiara looking around and enjoying the fresh view, and Sai pouting like someone had taken away her favorite toy. Once they reached the river Marik stopped and let out a small, quiet sigh before turning around to look at Kiara's feet. As she stopped walking and looking around and saw him staring at her feet she tilted her head in confusion. Sai stopped as well and looked over at her as well, her face shifting from the pout to a teasing look as she just bored a hole into her sister with her gaze. Kiara finally seemed to realize what was going on and an embarrassed red flush started to fill her face as she quickly removed her shoes.

Marik wasn't exactly looking forward to this but he walked over and lightly grabbed her arm to pull her to the river's edge anyways. He figured that if he was going to do this then he could at least give her a place to sit down and cool her feet for afterwards. After having her sit down with her feet legs stretched in front of her, he bent forward and grabbed the second toe from her smallest. Sai walked up to her other foot and, after glancing at which toe Marik had grabbed, grabbed the mirrored toe. He let out a slight grunt right before he snapped it to an awkward angle so that Sai could try and catch his timing, which she did. Kiara screamed out in a way that Marik could have sworn she had just had an orgasm. He quickly straightened back up and walked a little further away before sitting down, making sure that Kiara stayed out of his vision at all times.

Sai soon came, after making sure her sister would be fine by herself, and sat down next to him. Marik reached behind him and grabbed his tail. It took a little shifting to make sure he would be in a comfortably position but he eventually settled on leaning his side, with his back slightly turned, against Sai so that he could plop his tail in her lap. She let out a happy little squeal and started petting it immediately while sinking her fingers into its fur. A strange and kind of itchy, but not unpleasant, feeling shot through his tail and up his spine. It was probably several minutes before he finally came back to his senses and remembered the large book he still held in his hand. He tried to mostly ignore the rather pleasant feeling as he started looking at spells even though he couldn't focus enough to fully understand or remember what he was reading.

Maybe an hour or so went by and he had finally gotten used to the feeling of Sai's hands combing through the fur of his tail as she stroked and petted it, which actually felt far better than he wanted to admit even to himself. He was busy reading, checking, and comparing a few spells that he had some ideas of trying to add to his arcanistries at some point. Sai seemed to not lose any interest in his tail at all while Kiara had finally seemed to calm down and fall asleep, thankfully.

"So, what you reading?"

That was probably the calmest he had ever heard Sai's voice. He was actually so surprised by how calm and relaxed she sounded that he couldn't even think of responding for a few moments. Once his brain rebooted and he remembered the question, he turned to look at her so he could answer. As soon as he saw her, the way she looked made him freeze all over again. She had the same kind of calm and relaxed face as someone who was petting a small sleeping animal in their lap would have while sunlight streamed down slightly behind her. It was actually very picturesque and made her look very attractive while hinting at a promise of incredible potential for future beauty. Looking away from the rather mesmerizing sight and shaking his head lightly to clear his thoughts, Marik finally managed to answer.

"I'm just checking on spells. I have to kind of make my own to make them work because of the special thing but I can get hints and ideas by looking at spells other people have made."

"Hm. I see."

There was a long pause and Marik continued looking through the tome while Sai continued stroking his tail.

"Do you always work that hard? You don't ever go and just play around have fun?"

"Hm? I mean, I try to make some of what I do as fun as possible, I guess? When I come over and play with you two I kind of let loose and focus more on having fun."

"That's all? Why are you working so hard? We have our while lives ahead of us, you know?"

"No. It's kind of what your master was mad with me about. Because I'm special there are people who hate me just for existing. A lot of them, maybe even all of them, will want to hurt me, do mean things to me, or kill me. I want to enjoy my life and go out and have fun but I learned early on that I had to make a choice. I could have fun as a child and then get killed when I wasn't or I could work hard as a child so that I could have fun when I wasn't. I want to live a good and long life, so I chose the second option. Otherwise the whole life ahead of me would be a very short one. Your master didn't want you to be caught up in that by being like me and that's why she was angry with me for saying I would make you special, too."

"How sad."

No more words were spoken until evening approached.