This is a completely unremarkable bit of beach.

Well, most of the world is empty. It's a nice beach.

She doesn't smell any curse-monsters around. She'll disguise herself as a horse in case any people show up to be alarmed by a giant fox, and go for a run.

It's not a huge beach and there's woods farther inland, but she can get up to a nice canter for a little bit before she has to stop, if she's willing to get her hooves wet.

She is magically nimble and will keep going through the woods faster and surer than a horse has any right to be, sticking towards the coast as much as she can.

Then in not too long she will reach a little fishing village.

She 'grazes' from the treeline and observes the village and listens with foxlike ear. (The horse image is just an illusion, anyway.)

Huh. They don't seem to have anyone other than humans here. And aren't speaking anything she's ever heard before.

...Skiiiirt around the place and keep going, how about.

The woods have no complaints about this plan.

She pauses to hunt something, then keeps going. Drops the horse illusion after a while of no people.

Which way is the sun going, which way is she going can be figured out by it- Oh, wait, she has a compass stored in her tail. If this place has a magnetic field, anyway. She'll check that too.

She's going northish.

...She kind of expected a new world to be more exciting? Rifts are all supposed to be interesting, in a chinese proverb sense.

Well, maybe whatever's going to happen just hasn't hit yet. And it's not like a day spent dashing through unfamiliar woods is a bad day.

'Nother village?

...She lingers near this one for a while longer, trying to make sense of the language. It's slow going.

It feels like she's waiting for a shoe to metaphorically drop.

It sounds maybe Spanishesque.

...Weird. But better than starting from nil. She does kinda sorta vaguely remember a little of it...

Oi. Something itches. Something is trying to mess with her cute foxes. Oi oi oi oi oi.

Hold on a sec. Hoooooold on just one sec, little Weiss. Big Sis has something to take care of.

She catches it as it attempts to settle on her fox, a seeking protrusion of a vast web of magic, and examines it like a bird caught mid-flight.

Oh, should it not go there? It doesn't have to. If you ignore it it will go away.

Poke poke poke peel- Yep, it looks like it really will go away if you ignore it. Okay~ Unpeel~ Calm now~

She's very protective of her foxes. Even if some of them can use a good kick in the pants sometimes! What were you gonna do, hm?

Shapeshifting and contact-range matter rearrangement powers through a visual interface and then if you're with the being extremely beautiful program additional magic powers.

Come on, you can tell me more~ What's the catch?

Kitsunes already have some amount of shifting. Not nearly so free as that! What a cleverly optimized piece of reality! Kitsune shifting mostly works on their bodies not being quite real in the first place. It works like this- Twobaseforms-spiritworld-mimicothersspecialpower-sexstuffiftheywantit-subconsciousreading. Is any of that gonna mess something up?

Look, the magic itself doesn't know that much stuff, she might want to refer to its creators, they're over there, they left a map.

Okay. Hold still while she zoooooooooooooooooooooooooooms.

Hi! Your thing is trying to attach to one of my projects and I don't want it to mess anything up for her. It looks like there might be a conflict in the underlying magic- Here, and here. Two different kinds of shape-shifting! Recipe for disaster, really. 

Also it's expensive to act this far out of my native zone :/ but that's my problem.

(what the fuck, Tamamo, what are you doing)

It's fiiiiiiiine just hold on.

Oh, well, they designed the magic for the native biosphere of the proxy war planet? So it might not be right for this other kind of person who they weren't aware of. But as long as they're in communication, does she want to be one of the things they are instead? They left that option open in case anybody wanted it and that's one way the dueling shapeshiftings could be a problem, if it confused that mechanism.

Oh, yeah, rifts will get'cha like that, unexpected kinds of people stumbling in. Big chaos. It's fun.

She almost definitely doesn't want to be a new kind of thing? How's that mechanism work?

If you don't seem to want to be your original thing any more you can be one of them instead! This has many convenient properties like being immortal and having better instincts for how to be beautiful and get more magic.

That does seem convenient compared to being a squishy mortal! She thinks the people who don't change would take it better if they did this - the feeling of a point of no return, a transformation, a rebirth. Some of them will decide not to be Pretty and report the feeling to other humans, and some will decide to be Pretty. And then other-humans will be less scared of being Pretty. As a professional humans understander and a former human herself, long long ago, she definitely recommends it to maximize the number of people who want to be Pretty actually doing it!

Oooooh that's a really good idea but unfortunately by the terms of their proxy war they can't actually change anything about the design right now. They might be able to pay her to do it if she can?

Hehehehehe skirting around a treaty is always fun~ She'll have to think about the structure here for a while~ At worst, she can hang around adding that part manually every time for a while if there isn't a neat little snip-and-tuck to add it to the whole structure... Oh, this part that changes who they like to look at and touch, why's that there? That's another thing they can get weird about.

That was the best idea they had for how to do the feeling of a point of no return thing. It's better than no warning at all, they think? Also they just kind of didn't like thinking about their proxy-war allies and friends getting........ icky....... some of the species on that planet have some icky anatomy that they just are really stumped on how to square with their aesthetics.

Huh. Eh, that's their prerogative. She gets having a super strong aesthetic. So valid. See: Fox.

(Let's think about Pretty foxes at each other for a while!!)

..................

...Okay she thinks she sees how to do this, it's measuring the difference-from-base-form and if you add a little interrupt heeeeere, you can attach the point of no return. She can do that. And it's her doing that on her whim, not them messing up the agreement. If they felt like giving Tamamo some generic energy or consulting services at a later date that's entirely unrelated~

Totally has nothing to do with anything for sure!

It's going to be fun watching all the people freak out.

...Hey. Hey Weiss. You still there?

Yes. I'm here. What the hell just happened and why is it important enough for a god to interfere for the third time in my life? (Her tail lashes in annoyance and her ears lie flat.) Is it an apocalypse? Some sort of global invasion? A Demon Lord?

What are you going to do? Talking like this is uncomfortable, but- She is kind of scared.

Sorta sorta. These two sets of weird aliens are both invading and doing a proxy war thing. Sort of like those novels! The magic is autonomous and chose you, that's how I noticed, and now I'm going to snip out a couple little inconvenient bits of it and leave you to it. The prettier you get according to those alien sensibilities (which do seem to be mostly close to most humans'?), the more of an extra little power you'll get! Or just ignore it and it'll go away.

Just don't go too far. Feel this? Keep going past that, and that way lies ego death. Some poor abused mortals might prefer it but Weiss surely does not.

Hey, you like having monsters to fight, right? You can do that if you want, or not. I'll need you to stick around for at least a few months. Here, have a language blessing. Have fun~

wtf wtf wtf wtf-

Yeah I can't really fix the proxy war thing what I can do is try to help. Snip snip... Shape-evaluating magic, you will store two copies of her form and evaluate them depending on this transform-trigger... Aaaaand just for one of her more tsundere girls, she also snips out the brain change for her specifically... There we go.

Aye aye captain interfering force that is not from a treaty-managed angle.

And Tamamo retreats from her brain with a laugh.

Ow.

Well, that sure is a shoe drop. Should she worry about it...?

That. Sounds difficult and annoying. And like... Tamamo already did something.

Ehhhh fuckit.

She's used to doing illusions over herself, this is kind of the same thing almost.

Hey, new magic thing... 

She'd like her white fur to be brighter, and her dark fur to be darker, and all of it to be silky and combed and clean,

and these stains and tears on her nice ribbony-cape-thing in shiny dark grey with red trim can go away so it's like new,

and maybe the white ribbons trailing off it can have shiny red thread running over them in swirly patterns and flutter dramatically above and behind her as if moving in an unseen wind,

and her tail can be a little sleeker and less poofy and slightly longer, but no less smooth or fluffy,

and the white tip of her tail can have a sharper delineation from the orange main color,

and her claws and teeth can be nice and straight and sharp and clean,

and the weird mane she never really liked can go away, leaving her neck much sleeker,

and she can get a subtle motif of swirling flames going in the embroidery patterns of her cape-thing and patterns of slight color differences in her fur,

and she can change her eyes to a deep piercing large-irised gold for a bit of color accent...

...That's a lot, actually. Even if most of it is just coming off her usual 'majestic spirit guardian' illusion.

All that seems like a good start, right?

Oh yeah! She looks so awesome! She can have some magic!

Sweeeeeeet... Huh. She can feel that. And she can feel it changing slightly as she makes her own changes. This is fun to play around with, like optimizing for some sort of score...

So... Her dominant colors right now are white, black, orange, red, and a single highlight of gold, in her eyes...

A/B tests: 

The black spots at the tips of her ears: Keep, or change to white to match the rest of it?

The general muscled-barrel-chest situation, what if she makes herself a tad longer and more even?

Two more ribbons, shorter and lower than the first two?

A thin meshy criss-crossing set of gold chains draped over her tail, plus gold threading and the odd tasteful ruby on the cape?

Capething lined in gold instead of red?

Capething sprouts additional layers folded over each other in a sort of scallopy pattern?

Sharpening the fur-highlights until the flame motif has much higher contrast?

Subtle hue-shifts of her orange fur to be slightly more reddish, or slightly more goldish?

Wings... No, not yet, she wants to think about those for a while. Even if she is jealous of winged foxes.

Keep the black tips. Longer more even build is good. More ribbons is better. Cape alterations all good (scalloppy thing least so), tail chains not really. Gold good for capething. Contrast should go up tooooo.... there, that's the sweet spot. Can she maybe do a subtle gradient across her whole body from slightly reddish to slightly goldish?

She doesn't realize the color fading thing right away, she plays with cape layer patterns and wind flutters and poses and whether some sort of leg accessory or alternate tail adornment is good for a while, but she stumbles on it eventually. 

...Wow, she's looking pretty darn great.

Her wings are going to have to fit right into all this... Majestic. And with unnatural magical strength maybe she could even fly!!! But. Later.

She is sitting on a very nice and tidy pile of magic. It's one of the ones that goes up smoothly, not separate spells.

...Poke poke.

It feels like a thing that has a location, like illusions do. So- One of those thereish?

A faintly copper-colored force shield springs into existence in midair.

........No, that doesn't look nearly good enough, especially if this magic runs on good-looking. How 'bout- Gold, for a start, and faintly luminous in the way that especially holy Light God artifacts get, circular and slightly convex, with symbols of protection in solid flame running around the rim-

She can change the color with the magic it came into existence with, but making it light up and symbol-y will have to be on her other magic. It's helpful though!

She is kind of ridiculously good at illusions! It's not costless on energy but it's one of the cheapest things, much less than everything else she'd throw out in a fight. And the helpful magic is right there to anchor them to! She also does a conditional so it'll ring metallically super satisfyingly when stopping things.

Hm. How to test the strength, though... She doesn't want to start a fire in these woods. This calls for another bit of beach or rocks.

Rocks are quicker to come by.

She increases the intensity of fire spears thrown at her own shield until she has a feel for how tough it is. And tries making multiple ones, smaller ones, bigger ones... And letting her own attacks through?

(This is not particularly subtle.)

It's pretty tough, though she can bust it with anything really heavy duty (not just throwing a rock). It's not selectively penetrable, exactly, but she can make it penetrable in one direction.

Ooh ooh ooh idea she can already jump ridiculously high, can she DOUBLE JUMP. Can she do the ICE POWERS THING and run on a path spilling out afore her in midair eeeeeee.

She CAN do that!!!!

This is so awesome! So now she is sprinting along the coast on a road of golden sparkly light ten feet above the waves, all ensemble of aesthetic improvements and everything.

An iridescent orca breaches the sea nearby and makes a loud lovely whale noise at her in what might be a friendly sort of way.

This must be someone else with the shapeshifting magic.

Hey, maybe their aesthetics can run over each other and interact interestingly at the edges; She runs in circles and does aerial acrobatics and adjusts a few parts of her ribbons to match the iridescence, barking and laughing.

Oooh! The orca will play with her, sure, she can go oranger and try to leap in unison.

Whee!

She's having so much fun playing with the barriers, magic powered by looking awesome is just viscerally satisfying and NEW MAGIC is equally compelling in general.

Sheeeee is kind of scared of getting wet, still, that's a lot of water, but maybe she can go under during a particularly energetic leap, that seems like a cool move.

Ooh, underwater is a good place! Would she like to be buoyed back to the surface on the orca's head?

Sure, and then she can almost-howl through the spray and be miraculously clean and dry and run on her barriers more. Not gonna do that again...

"This is awesome, though. I wonder how I'd look framed by lightning and stormclouds... What do you think?"

...whale noise?

"Can you understand me? Is this- Tamamo mentioned ego death, fuck-"

Whale noise? Sparkle sparkle?

Dammit dammit.

Tamamo, you fuck, what happened to her?

She felt the point of no return and blew right past it. I dunno what to tell you. Her life sucked, probably.

Well... Damn.

She's mood-swung right out of that exultant playfulness now and feels like sulking instead. Back to shore...

Bye bye new friend (one might interpret the whalenoises as saying).

She is now Grumpy. There is a Grumpy giant fox looking for a deer or something to eat. Or a piece of civilization that's not a tiny fishing village.

There's a hare over there.

It doesn't really stand a chance.

A wee bit of violence calms her down a bit. Coasts are supposed to have cities, she thinks? At some point? She'll keep going northish, using beautiful powers to go much faster, not caring that she's extremely obvious.

There's a town. It's not really a whole city.

Are we talking like, a couple hundred people, a thousand? Are there any big boats? Castle? Walls?

This one has walls and a castle! Maybe five hundred people.

She has definitely been seen but she wants to see how the supposed 'language blessing' works...

Gods. She's never really directly interacted with them before. She caught Tamamo in a good mood, eh?

...So she'll go a ways past, duck into the woods-

-And shift. This shape is symmetrical and blemish-free and has a pair of gold ring ear piercings and the hair is styled, but that's about all it has going for it, beauty optimization wise. She's slim, especially in the chest compared to most women, and still has digitigrade feet and claws, and her tail, and is wearing a very minimal sleeveless top with a triangle pattern and a loinclothy thing and leather bracers.

Well that's no good at all. It's your business if you want to have boobs but you need to wear something nice, come on.

Oi where'd the barrier magic-

Right, it's powered off looking awesome, and she hasn't done all the embellishments on this side yet-

.........The thought of doing said embellishments hits differently now. She will... Put that off for later... She always does any serious fighting in fox form, anyway.

Well. She can touch up the wilderness stains on her clothes, loose threads, little tears, at least. And add some invisible fleshtone spandexy leggings, since that's easy-

And actually now that she's started it's easier to keep going, she'll whip up her disguise-outfit of a nice collared white dress shirt with a few shiny black buttons and white ruffles and the poofy shoulder-sleeves and a black bow-tie, and a swooshy pleated skirt with a slightly longer white layer and a slightly shorter red layer, and shiny dancing shoes, and ditch the leather bracer for a little gold- No, gold is expensive, grey iron wrist-bangle. Also white leggings with a thin red line near the top. And more little bow-ties- Off to the side a bit on a belt on her skirt, and two little ones attached to her braids.

...This kind of fancy, clean outfit is also expensive, lol. She was planning to be invisible at first anyway.

It liked the gold more than the iron :( The outfit is good otherwise though!

It is at this point that she walks towards the town, paying attention with really quite sharp for a human senses for signs of human presence. She'll go invisible once she gets close and just wander and listen.

If she's invisible she can get a look at people hanging out outside, sitting on rocks and logs and chairs to spin or yell at their playing children, walking from here to there carrying water or babies or laundry. People are asking their friends if they saw "the creature". Some of them saw her and some of them did not.

...These people need that, that loom thing, that she can't remember the name of... Has she ever actually been in places of industry, she has a great memory for detail probably as part of the illusions power if she can find a mental prompt for the scene... She'll have to think on it more.

Also it's still a small enough town that a stranger will be, well, notable. It's good to confirm the language blessing works though? She's hearing sounds and understanding them, and feels like she could make the right sounds...

...Maybe the locals can learn Tirran wizardry? Gah. She feels an attack of Responsibility coming on...

Does there appear to be some sort of inn or tavern around? She might be better off foxing in the woods for the foreseeable.

There's a tavern over there.

Blehhhh. She'd better just... Be semi-open. No elaborate shipwrecked girl or merchant disguise. She'll just be... A wandering hero, blessed with magic powers.

She goes along whatever most resembles a path nearby, and finds a nice deserted spot to de-invisible. She'll hide her ears under slightly more voluminous hairstyling, pressed flat against her skull, and the tail in a longer version of the skirt, wrapped around her legs. She pulls out a serviceable steel sword from the Crown forges of Noten and disguises it with an illusion to gleam like bright brass. She's not great at swords, preferring tooth and claw for serious fights, but can probably pass. It gets a white-trimmed flame-patterned leather holster. She also removes an unremarkable leather backpack with unremarkable travel supplies and a few coins, kept explicitly for disguise purposes.

Then she will walk into town, smiling and humming a cheerful tune.

Everyone seems to think this is pretty sus, but nobody is immediately attempting to confront her about how sus she is.

Hello, lovely day isn't it? She'll offer to help carry water if anyone is visibly struggling, but leave it if declined.

Foreign coins for whatever's on in the tavern? There's some good sized coppers, and slightly little silvers. Unfamiliar and fairly detailed designs.

...sure, she can get ripped off for a beer if she's flashing silver.

"No, no beer- Just food. Bread or stew, or meat, juice, or milk if you have it."

She can have stew and a hunk of bread.

She'll happily pay significantly more copper than these are probably worth, but is not generous enough to jump straight to silver. 

"Thank you." A beatific nod. She's trying to maintain an aura of cheerful uncaringness. "Say, do you get ships coming by, here?"

"Now and again, yes. Usually they're bound for the city but sometimes they'll stop near us for a spell."

"So I'll need to go to the city. More likely one there is heading somewhere interesting, too."

"Where you from?"

"It's called Dusee Rusa- The Duchy of Roses. Little town called Two Creeks. I've been all over for years though, it's nowhere near here."

"What are you... being all over for?"

"I have been blessed with magical powers- I know it's an outlandish claim, I'm happy to prove it however you like- And so I decided to wander, where I'm happiest, and do good works where I can."

That's so sus of her. "Did you bring it here?"

Well, that's what she gets for being obvious about it.

She finishes her bite of stew.

Sigh.

"Oh, I am it. I swear to all that is good and just I mean no harm. I'm... Rather lost, actually. I only speak this language because of magic. I fell through some sort of magical hole and arrived unexpectedly this very morning, at a beach far south of here."

Shrug. 

"I met a magical whale along the way. I think... Magic just leaked through to here from somewhere far away. It's rather a big deal."

"Girls've been turning into - things. I reckon you'd better put them to rights, witch."

She sours instantly.

"Go ahead and don't believe me, I didn't cause this. I'm just the messenger. I'll talk to them, if they like."

"You said I am it. What in the Hell is that supposed to mean if it doesn't mean you brought this on our town?"

"Oh. I'm the giant fox that was running around earlier. Not - everything that's happening. I'm sorry, that was very unclear of me."

"So you're somebody's girl, run off to be a giant fox. Ought to run home to your family if they'll still have you."

"Oh shit. Uh. Most girls shouldn't try to be foxes or whatever. Please, make sure to spread that. They will get - stuck. I was magic even before the starscape, shape changing thing."

"Of course they shouldn't be foxes or whatever! None of them should be anything! It's happening anyway!"

"...It sure is. I mean, I think it's pretty great, but..." Sigh.

Sheeeeee'll just keep going on the stew, how about. 

What time even is it. Taverns are usually pretty busy in the evening, is it still early afternoon?

It's getting on dinnertime but at least this one guy is looking in and seeing her and leaving.

Actually: This sucks.

She grumpily finishes her stew and bread and doesn't bother asking about a room. She'll unhide her ears and tail and march straight back out of town, northwards.

Nobody is going to go after her with pitchforks and torches but one woman covers her daughter's eyes while she passes.

And none of the 'girls' are visible and/or look like they want to talk?

See if you get her attempting to re-derive the jacquard loom.

Tamamo, are you SURE I have to stay here?

She does not see any girls who appear to be magical.

Of course they're fucking- Hiding them or something, what kind of patriarchal bullshit, Tirra was never this bad, maybe because people COULD turn up with magic grumble grumble grumble.

She's in a bad enough mood that she identifies the impulse to spy around and find them as the kind of Idea She Used To Have During The Bad Time, and discard it.

North, at the sprint in humanoid form. Running isn't thinking.

Oh, there's a magical girl, once she's past the farm belt. She's trying to build herself a house out of conjured pieces of stone and it's not working at all but she's keeping at it like she thinks there might be a knack to it.

Slow, slow, stop. Deeeeeeeep breath.

What picks her out as magic? Can she just - tell - or is it obvious?

"-Hey!"

"- hi! Oh, you're so pretty!" This girl has wings, big white bird wings.

"Heh. Uh, thanks."

She shakes her head. Does an ear-flick.

"...If you figure out how to fly I'll be really interested in copying your work. People are pretty heavy though."

"I flew here, I crashed once but it worked fine..."

"-Huh. I really thought it would be - you know, hard. I'm Weiss."

"I'm... hm... you can call me Rosa."

"Don't like the old one? Ah- No, sorry. Forget I asked."

She frowns thoughtfully at the house-attempt.

"Do you know how to make this work? I can make all this stuff, but..."

"Well it's sort of- Not really real, right? Like a dream or a faerie wish. I haven't- Hmm. I bet if I kept taking off the same hat, the same thing would happen."

Now she's wearing a cute little bowler hat. Red. And throwing it. And again. And again.

"Yeah, that's what happens to me, too, but I just think I ought to be able to build stuff..."

"Well. I'll help you build stuff out of - real materials, if you like. I'm, uh. I've been magic for longer than you, for years and years, but it's different. The starscape thing is new. If you get pretty enough you should get an extra magic power. Maybe that'll help, if you haven't got it already."

"...you were magic for years? How?" She shuts her eyes and starts updating her outfit.

"I think I'm from - very Very far away. Another world. I fell though a magic hole, which are known to happen sometimes where I'm from, and then I was here and a while after that the starscape thing. Magic seems to like having a strong theme, little decorative bits, about three colors and sticking to them, but I'm hardly an expert."

"I was only wearing one color before..." She's discarding ideas almost too fast to see, ruffles and buttons and buckles and gathers and ribbons.

"Maybe blue? Or something with... Feathers..."

She cuts a lock of hair with a little blade of magic from her fingernails, then reverts her hair to exactly the way it was before and observes the cutoff.

That's sure some hair.

"Ha!"

Look, magic, this long sturdy structurally sound mahogony stick coming out of her arm is definitely part of her. Until it's not.

"What?" says Rosa, still in starscape.

"I cut my hair and it stayed. So I tried growing a branch and if it sticks around too you've got wood to build with!"

"...oh. I kind of wanted to make a stone house, do you think that'd work?"

"Hmm, well, try it? Is there a quarry around here somewhere?"

"I don't know." She starts trying to grow a rock out of her arm. It does not really work.

She tries it too...

What about......... Coral? Isn't coral a rock.

Coral will grow!

She sprouts coral antlers, white and slightly spongey and brick shaped.

"Coral skeleton works! It's pretty rock-ish. Look!"

Crack, crack. Ow. That hurt her skull a little bit actually.

Rosa opens her eyes. "Ooh, coral's good enough. Did it have to be on your head? If I can't make mortar I have to make it all fit together in the first place and that might be hard on my head."

"I think if you grind up coral it can make mortar? Maybe you have to fire it, like clay? And no, my arm worked fine for that piece of wood." 

"I mean with magic."

"It seems to be alive stuff... There's this tree called rubber, it has really sticky sap..."

...Rubber branch off her arm, as sappy as can be?

"Coral's not alive though."

Rubber branch!

"Uh, no, it definitely is. Or was. Real slow, but alive."

"How would you know?"

"I read it in a book. They're teeny little things all clumped together, sort of like germs... Or beehives and anthills. Also if you take coral from the ocean and don't know how to take care of it, it'll turn white and die."

"Sort of like what or beehives or anthills?"

"Germs are what makes people sick. They're about as small compared to ants as ants are to us."

Sheeeee doesn't have a microscope, she could fuck around with illusory lenses but then she could just be faking the whole thing... Hmm.

"That sounds stupid."

"Sure, I don't have a burning need to prove it... It might be important, though. Disease is really terrible. Just the worst. But like, people aren't going to believe it very easily so why bother..." Sigh.

"Maybe you could get very small and slay all the disease with your sword," giggles Rosa.

She snorts. "Too many of 'em. The real answer is excessive cleanliness. Soap kills them, careful washing, staying stringently away from anyone sick with things that spread and wearing face masks or doing more washing when taking care of them, building clean outhouses and the like... Oh. I wonder if I could make penicillin... No, I don't know what the source looks like in enough detail. Like. Willow bark can relieve pain and penicillin can fight infection but I have no idea whether I'd get it right."

"I knew about willow bark."

Nod nod.

"I think there's something you can do to make it work better but I can't remember what..."

Hmm

"What kind of look are you thinking for your place?"

"Oh, just a little stone cottage and a wall around it to keep chickens and goats in. Once I get some."

Something about that brings up her own feelings again. Complicated relationship with "home". She bounces on her feet a bit.

"I wish you the very best of luck with that. I'm going to travel far. Spread tips and news about this. Ohhh... I... Have reason to think monsters might show up soon. I dunno what they'll be like."

"More monsters?? Didn't we have enough??"

"What monsters did you already have?"

All she's got going for her is Tamamo's cryptic comment about a 'proxy war'.

"The little black things that started appearing out of nowhere over the winter."

"...No, yeah, I think those are the monsters. I didn't know about them though."

"They're awful. They killed four of my dad's sheep and my brother's best friend."

"...Holy shit. Fuckdammit. I'll definitely splatter any I come across. I'm pretty good at fighting. But you can't be everywhere, right?"

"...yeah?"

"So I can't save everyone. I think people who get the starscape are supposed to - get magic and then go fight them. If they want to. Fighting is awful for a lot of people even if I kinda love it."

"Well, I did that, but then everyone was weird about me having magic," pouts Rosa.

"Oh yeah, I bet they can't stand the thought that a woman might have higher hopes and dreams than marriage and eight babies."

"...that didn't even come up?"

"-I guess I wouldn't know. Sorry. That kind of thing happened sometimes where I'm from."

"I don't think anybody is going to want to marry me if I'm a witch anyway."

"What, magic powers don't make you better? Eh. I don't intend to marry, ever, what do I know. -Shutting up now." Sigh.

"Why don't you want to get married?"

"I apparently have issues about men. And I don't need it, and I just don't want to, so... No." Shrug.

"...I don't think convents want witches either."

"Who said anything about a convent? I'll live in the woods, and if anyone objects, just laugh or wander off. Maybe kicking monster butt will inspire respect. Also... I'm not from around here. I've got friends back home and expect to go back some day."

Rosa looks a little dubious but shrugs.

"...I think I'm going to keep going soon. It was nice to talk to someone who's not being, as you said, weird about it."

"Thanks for the coral idea."

Nodnod.

"Best of luck with everything, Rosa! Byeeee!"

And she'll resume her run northward. If there's a convenient graveyard at some point she'll foxify, but it's not urgent.

There's graveyards near churches and there's churches in villages.

Eh. Not convenient enough. She'll slow down going past villages in case anyone wants to talk (unlikely) and keep going after dark a ways, lighting her way with blue fire, she doesn't quite feel tired. And eventually sleep in a tree. 

What's the moon situation like? The current phase, that is.

Waxing crescent.

Well, at least it's not new. Good enough to do her usual nude moonlight dance, with appropriate illusory cover, and refill the kitsune powers tank some.

And then sleep. She's probably gonna sleep in well past sunrise, as is her usual schedule.

If she's used to sleeping in the woods, these woods are not special in any way, and she will sleep just fine, until about four in the morning when there appears a swarm of badwrong.

Murzzzwha?

wut

Monster.

She is on it like a fox on a rabbit.

It's new, lots of little bugs and not one big monster, but each one can be squished.

She burns them. It's faster. And blue kitsune fire only burns what she wants it to.

Ugh, gross.

Well, back to sleep, she guesses.

No more new swarms tonight.

She keeps going north. She's much faster as a fox going along the coast, so she'll do that. Hoping to find a proper city eventually.

If she follows the coast and not any rivers, then she won't find a city till well after her overall trajectory goes from northish to eastish.

(She doesn't actually realize that cities tend to be a bit more inland unless she overhears it somewhere)

Nobody is talking about the typical placement of cities upriver where she can hear them during her journey. But eventually she reaches the city of A Coruña. It's got an old Roman lighthouse and stuff.

The one person who seemed happy to talk to her so far was magic, so being obviously magic is possibly a good strategy? Completely ordinary foxgirl here, walking along the streets and seeing the sights. The lighthouse is pretty cool.

People are definitely pointing and gawking. Somebody calls, "Maria!"

Are they - calling for someone named Maria, or calling her Maria?

This old lady is calling the name Maria and looking at her!

"Hello! I'm not Maria, I'm Weiss!"

"I don't care what you call yourself, it's time to come back home and stop worrying your mama!"

Oof, yep. She stays a good few feet away, to avoid sudden Babushka Grabs. She's going to have to bolt at the end of this. But there's no reason to be... Mean.

"...No, no, I'm sorry. What's Maria like? I can look for her."

"Maria is the one who sprouted a foolish tail just like that and ran away from home! You get down here!"

One more try but she's already backing away and looking for another street to hop to. "What's your name, I'll tell her you're still looking for her if I find her?"

"Don't you try to pull that with me! How many girls with tails can there possibly be?!"

...This may be futile but dammit she'll try to be nice.

"Oh, plenty. Look, I can get rid of it."

Behold: No more tail. She could use the starscape for this probably but it's easier to just reach for her long-ingrained habit of kitsune illusion.

"Good! Now go home!"

"I'm really sorry ma'am, I tried."

She goes over a building to a different street and resumes looking for Magic People.

None on this street, but on the next one there's a girl who has antlers. She's got them wrapped up in a scarf sort of thing but it's not designed to fool observers from above.

...If Ms. Antlers wants to talk to a visibly more Magical girl, she can come towards Weiss on her own initiative, or give some indication.

So she'll go back to ground level and just be - in Ms. Antlers's field of vision, maybe make eye contact, but not like, march right up to her.

Antlers's eyes go wide and she immediately turns and pretends she didn't see Weiss and has been very absorbed in her spinning.

Fair enough. (Sigh.)

Nobody else around who wants to talk to her?

It's not like she needs the city. That town was kind of a bust, too.

She'd like to talk to people, maybe help out, or whatever, but there's no notch in the system for girls with magic yet, aye? ...And she resolved a while ago not to get too involved in City Things, because they're always more complicated and fraught than they seem.

Bleh.

Hmph.

She takes a break on a roof and sees if she can grow an apple from her arm. On a branch if necessary.

She can grow an apple from her arm. People walking by keep looking at her.

She eats the apple and people-watches right back.

One other person thinks she's Maria but this one can be dissuaded. Somebody tells her to get off the roof and go fight monsters, that's what God sent all this magic for.

"Have you seen any monsters lately? Tell me where! If I knew where they were I would be fighting one. I ran all up the coast and only found a bunch of little ones once so far."

Man, screw the Jaquard Loom, what these people need is ham radio.

"They come out of the ocean!"

She stands up on a platform of gold. "I'll go run over the ocean, then. Thanks!"

And... Off she goes, she guesses.

Cities are more trouble than they're worth. Killing monsters is always satisfying. And she can go back later, maybe try to do the uplift thing but that sounds annoying and awful.

-Her bangle can be gold, and she can try a few extra ribbons and some adjustments to the cut and height of her various garments, and some color highlights or subtle gold threading or whatever, trying to eke out a bit more approval from the magic. Idly, while cruising out to sea. Oh, also her tail color can be sharpened and deepened like her other form got, and she tries out enlarging her breasts, adjusting the shirt's cut appropriately. For science. ...Footbangle in addition to wristbangles?

The magic is indifferent to breasts. Doubling up on bangles is good. There's a monster over there.

Monster! Okay! Time to fight. While trying not to get wet.

The monster doesn't want to come up and fight her, actually, it wants to glide underwater toward shore.

Unfortunately, kitsune fire does care about water. Somewhat.

Can she manage enough barrier to inconvenience the thing's progress while also 'flying'?

She doesn't have quite that much range on the shields.

...How about in this shape, with all its previous optimizations? Flying ribbons, fire SFX, and all.

A little more? Still not all the way out to the edge of her swarmsense and the monster is pretty close to that edge.

Nope. She fuckin' hates the ocean, she's not going under it.

She follows it until the shallowing water forces it closer. Then she can burn it.

It does eventually have to get near the surface in order to ATTACK THAT FISHING BOAT OMNOMNOM

That fishing boat has a barrier between it and the thing! And the thing is now on Lots of fire! (Yay! A completely unobjectionable outlet for her built up vicious Annoyance!)

It shapeshifts a tentacle around the shield to try to grab at the boat! It shrinks away from on-fire locations!

She bites the tentacle. With magic fangs. And her foxfires are mobile.

Ooh, is she sure she wants to bite the tentacle? It can shapeshift. And now some of it is in her mouth, and it's SO GROSS and also sharp now.

She spits it out and fills her mouth with fire FUCKING OW.

Time for her kitsune regen to start doing some work FUCKING OW. 

Regen so expensive though. What a stupid move. It'll have to be claws or maybe ribbonblades instead FUCKING OW.

Claws are pretty risky too, it's going to try to dig into her paws.

Meh. Her fangs and claws are the only bits of her she's ever managed to get extra magic to stick to. They should be doing extra damage, at least, right? These things can cut through even the real big nasties back home.

Also fire: Still a thing.

Yeah, it's shrinking as she burns parts of it away. It has abandoned the fishing boat to fight her. But it can shapeshift very suddenly, in an eyeblink going from all on the far side of a shield or the sharp end of a paw to arcing around or spearing forward.

She's used to reacting quickly in fights; Heart pounding, blood racing, sudden lurches or dodges to avoid things. Sudden appearance of barriers helps, too. But probably some will get through. She'll bleed. She just ignores the hits and undoes the blemishes and keeps brawling. The pain, if anything, just makes her angrier.

This thing is... It's not easy but it's not terrifying like Cryptids, since it's just... Slowly dying and not pulling any new terrifying tricks like teleporting or putting her to sleep or illusions and elemental attacks of its own.

Nope. Its one trick is shapeshifting and it never stops doing it, but it gets smaller and smaller, and eventually, if she stays in the fight, it's a bunch of ugly goop in the water. (The fishing boat used the distraction to escape and is all the way over there now.)

She runs over to the boat. After making sure the last bits are melted.

"You guys okay?!?"

"AAAAGH!"

"Row, you idiot, don't stare at it!"

...Right, the others who look like her don't talk. She feels like rolling her eyes. Looking human would. Help. She doesn't think she can fight one of those things in twolegged form right now. Also, this one fight consumed a kind of unsustainable amount of kitsune energy...

"Sheesh, I'm trying to help. I'm guessing you don't want a tow to shore?"

"GET THEE BEHIND ME -"

"What does that even mean, how will it help if it's behind you?!"

"Whatever, don't want my help, farewell."

She runs off. Bad idea to plant the idea that big 'monsters' can go back to being 'normal'.

Maybe she'll try the next one in twoleg form, but like, do that on a full tank.

She'll go nap on a beach or cliff.

There's a nice beach over there if you don't mind it smelling like dead fish.

She'll go nap in a clearing next to a river or something. Or just say 'fuck this' and retreat to the Woods Between if nothing presents itself.

Tamamo has just realized that she has, perhaps, made a mistake done something that had unforeseen consequences in the short term.

People who blow past that point of no return become much better in a fight against these goo-things. They can catch the monsters sooner. They endure damage and heal really quite well. They get the extra boosty magic easier. And now there's a lot fewer of them than there would otherwise be.

Oops. Hehe.

These guys are total idiots (so, normal humans) and she kind of feels bad about it in the bits of her that are still incarnate-shaped.

Hey, everyone else, want to come help me out here?

We cannot really afford it. Acting in this new place is, as you can tell, rather phenomenally expensive. Even small peeks and subtle informational nudges cost many times the attention, focus, and energy as they do on Tirra itself. What would you have us take away at home? We must remain vigilant and attentive to see the investments we have made grow.

The people of this world have done nothing wrong and suffer in the short-term because of you, however well-intentioned and however good the long-term. It is right for you to want to pay the cost. To incentivize this sort of Tamamo-behavior, I'll help out a little. We can also all provide ideas for efficient use of intervention.

Yeah, about it being so expensive, if I do most of the work in communications and not direct miracles that goes away. My fox on the ground even had the idea about coordination already. I bet I can actively nudge the Super-Pretties that do exist towards the worst monsters, at the very least. Talking to humans is often trickier, but I'll can figure out which ones are brave and point them to allies, maybe? Spread the knowledge of how to fight blobs and optimize your look with visions. Or point them towards the blobs before they group up all big. Maybe throw in some combat premonition on a limited basis, when promising sprouts are gonna kark it. Maybe even make a few more foxes over time?

They won't even be wrong when they think a god is doing it, hehe.

Tamamo did the right thing. The people who would have been Super-Pretties absent her intervention would consider it equivalent to death. She is saving lives, and the after-effects are causing harm; This is a tragedy, not a mistake.

The impulse to defend your loved ones is a deep and powerful thing. Humans working together can work wonders. We should look for those who would defend each other and their communities, and bring them together, and inspire them, and help them.

Great and terrible things can be done for want of a nail, that is equally true here as at home. We have decided long ago to remain within Tirra, to focus on the effects of the Cataclysm. Has that changed? Is an era of isolation at an end? Let it be decided decisively, if so. Far more wonder and far more danger lie beyond the horizon and the fullness of time.

No, the cleanup isn't done yet. They already set that goal post, no moving it now, you of all people should know that. Tamamo is just cheating, as is her wont. Moments like this are why we tolerate the worse ones... The Super-Pretties are amazing, perfect, grand. They're entirely aligned with their purpose, fulfilling it in every act and feeling the innocent joy of it! Can't we just make a few thousand more of them?

Let's work out some proposed courses of action and maximize marginal utility per unit of attention and energy.

You can do that if you want but I'm bored. I'm going to see if I can prompt a Super-Pretty into Mitosis!

She peeeeeeeers with godsenses.

It is possible for cryptids to do mitosis, though they will have a hard time of it if it involves not being pretty at any point in the process.

Fun, fun fun fun. 

That seems like the most straightforward path here. She'll start working on Aesthetic visualizations of a budding-off for various cryptids. Once she has a pretty good-in-her-opinion way for it to happen she'll bounce that excitedly at the cryptid in question. Meanwhile she'll nudge them with, hey there's a badwrong out of range of your senses, over that way. 

She'll also pick a few human magical girls likely to get along and share goals and nudge them towards each other, nice and subtle, here and there, because she can't resist meddling when there's a thing to meddle with.

Galasa dutifully helps, as she said she intended to.

Ragni helps too! He likes cryptids!

Cryptids duly split off and diverge in aesthetic and go hunting.

The next few cities she tries wandering through, trying to find friends in... Don't really work either... Everyone is so upset and tense, the culture is just so... Nothing, pray and sit still and- She doesn't get it, and isn't interested in keeping trying. It's far easier to give up on that in frustration. Forget the idea of spreading germ theory, or industrialization, or whatever. She'd probably do a shitty job of it anyway.

There are monsters to kill. She can kill blobs. It's an outlet for the frustration. She can nap in the woods, or in her Woods, and grow fresh food from herself, and treat it as a sort of enforced vacation.

She kills monsters, mostly in giant form. She talks to other transformed girls once in a while, in human shape, but the conversations never seem to amount to much. Eventually, Tamamo tells her that she's clear to go home.

She still has this new ability, and it's a damned useful one, so the whole trip can't be considered a waste, but it still feels like something of a missed opportunity.

Oh well. Back to the Duchy of Roses, back to hanging out with her sister-kitsunes. They'll be so jealous of the new thing, hehehe.