Gift of the Fox

Chapter 6: Reflection of a Boy

The sun shed its light upon the fields of Wanglong. The rays penetrated through the leaves of the forest and roused the maid sleeping at the riverside. Tamie groaned and opened her eyes, rubbing them. Then she started and looked at her hands - they were unusually big.

Didn't I... have smaller hands before?

She blinked. Once she looked down at herself, she screamed in shock.

I've grown?!

She looked at her robust body and long legs. What was more, her body was covered in mighty muscles and she had torn her clothes, so big she had gotten in just a single night. There was also something else - her breasts had gone! She yelled again and rubbed her chest, but all she could stroke were muscles. Then, she noticed that another thing had changed, too... Sweat poured off her forehead as she shuddered and crawled up to the river, looking into it. 

What's wrong with me?!

Once she saw the reflection, her astonishment changed into panic and alarm - the water reflected a manly face! It was a young man of her age, a little taller than her, with almond eyes like the Wanglongians, and with the same eye and hair colour as hers - brown. But those eyes... their expression was just like hers!

What the heck is this?

She looked around, searching for the strange boy that was reflected in the water. There was no one at the riverside save for her.

Where's... my reflection?

She tilted her head in surprise. Instantly, the boy's reflection in the water tilted his head too. Tamie widened her eyes, and so did the boy.

"I'm a boy? I am really a boy?!" She stroked her face, her arms, and her chest. There was no doubting it - it was a physique of a man, and it belonged to her. "No, this can't be! This has got to be a dream, a nightmare... This is a nightmare! Wake up, Tamie, wake up or you'll be sent to an asylum... How the heck would I become a boy? I'm a girl!"

Stress and alarm seized her. She was madly glaring around as if wanting to find an answer in the surroundings. She caught a glimpse of a black thing on her left arm, sort of a drawing.

A tattoo? Since when the heck do I have a tattoo?!

She carefully observed the weird new tattoo and let out a gasp - it was a fox depiction! The remembrances of how she had saved a fox came back, and then she recalled her dream of how a fox had breathed air onto her.

"So it was not a dream! That fox was the one Wanglongians call shape-shifters - the fox in disguise. She turned me into a boy!"

As the one who loved literature, she had read a lot of books about legendary Wanglongian foxes that could take various forms and were in fact damsels in disguise. They had the power to let others shape-shift, too. She had read many fairy-tales of how these foxes made people shape-shift in order to bless or curse them, according to their mood.

"So, she did it because... I cried so hard yesterday? This fox tattoo is the symbol that tells I'm a shape-shifted one. Unbelievable! What a mess... How can I be a boy? And I look like a Wanglongian! Good thing I at least know their language, and their script, too. Whew, at least that's a relief... But my clothes, they're torn! I've turned taller and broader as a boy! Ugh! Now, what should I do? I can't run around naked, and I can't run in a dress as a boy, either! Ugh, what a fool I am, wishing I became a boy! Who needs to be a filthy boy? Devil take it all!"

Now she cursed her thoughtlessness, but it was too late - the fox had already started her trial for her. She had to live through it, like those people from the fairy-tales she would often read. Just as she was lamenting and complaining about her carelessness, she heard horses' hooves stomp on the ground, some people whistle and dogs bark. She started and looked in the direction where these sounds were coming from.

"It has got to be the princes! They're on the hunt again. I can't show up naked, but, if they see a boy in a girl's clothes, they'll surely think I'm a madman and will behead me. Ugh, I need to hide away!"

She dropped her clothes off her body and jumped into the river. However, in this corner of the forest, the river was not as smooth as where she used to wash clothes together with other water-maids. The tide quickly took her away. Even though she tried hard to resist it with her newly-acquired strong manly body, it still prevailed and led her off her sleeping place. The fast tide made her crash into a giant rock in the river, and she lost consciousness.