When I woke up with three tails sticking out my backside, I have to tell you, I wasn't that surprised. After all, everyone had some sort of Inheritance on their eighteenth birthday. I wasn't expecting mine to be a creature inheritance, let alone a Kitsune Inheritance, seeing as those were pretty rare. Still, it had always been a possibility, so waking up with three fox tails was shocking, but not debilitating.

My eyes were also sharper than they'd ever been. That wasn't hard to accomplish, honestly, since before my Inheritance, I had worn pretty thick glasses. But now, I didn't need them at all! I looked down at myself, noting the retractable claws that had grown in place of my fingernails. A soft noise caused my ears to twitch, and I realized that I had fox ears as well as tails!

The soft noise repeated itself again, and I looked up, eyes narrowing. It sounded like a soft squeaking. My tails swished of their own accord, and my ears were twitching. Then the door slammed open, startling me.

"Oi, Morgan! Happy Birthday, dude!" My best friend, Sean, burst into the room, holding a small wrapped gift. He didn't notice anything different for a moment as he started whooping. "Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birth-huh?" He finally noticed my ears and tails. "DUDE! You got a Kitsune Inheritance!" he said excitedly.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Yup!" I popped the 'p' in the word. "It's so weird, I can hear and see a lot better than I could before."

"Weird, I've hardly seen any Kitsune with white and blue tails before," Sean hummed thoughtfully.

"Yeah, they're normally fiery red and orange," I nodded.

Sean put a finger to his lips for a moment before snapping them. "I know, we can look up Kitsune Inheritances online!"

"We'll have to go to the library, " I said. "Matron Foley won't let us use her computer after we got that virus on it."

That's right, I'm an orphan. My parents died when I was very young in a tragic magic explosion. Apparently they had been inventors, and tried combining technology with magic, with explosive results. Sean's mom had abandoned him at the orphanage when he was seven, and he had never known his dad.

"Yeah... well, come on, open your present, dude!" he said, handing me the wrapped package.

I ripped open the wrapping paper and stared down at the -real!- watch in disbelief. It was tradition for a male's parents to give them a watch upon their eighteenth birthday. It was traditional. I was touched by Sean's caring, but also concerned.

"Where did you get the money for this?" I asked. "It's a real watch! It had to be like thirty gold, at least!"

"Well, you know how you've been wondering where I've been going to these past couple weeks? And I said I had a girlfriend?" Sean asked.

"You don't have a girlfriend, do you? You were working odd jobs to pay it off, weren't you?" I said.

Sean smiled at me. "Happy Birthday, dude."