Monday, April 2350

Aurora Borealis, 12 years old

The last rays of light hit the little house on the hill. Aurora never felt secluded, but no one was pretending that she wasn’t removed from normal society. She liked her cute house. It had a traditional Japanese roof with a balcony to overlook the city. She had her bookcases brimming with new and well-loved stories. She had also gotten into manga recently and her sponsors have been sending her volumes upon volumes of the popular graphic novels. They informed her that she would be attending school, and told her that a vehicle would pick her up to take her to the public transport stop. No public transport went near the scientist’s mountain, nevertheless to the top of it. So they would fetch her. The scientists that created her have been removing their influence on her life more and more. It started with locating her at the top of the mountain instead of being in the facility. They are recognizing her individuality and that is a good thing. And hopefully with her attendance in school, it will gain her a spot in the world. Perhaps it will give her a feeling that she was meant to belong. But it’s also possible that she isn’t ready for any of it. It’s much better than being a lab rat, she thought to herself.

An alarm woke her up, the first time in a while. She had gotten too used to being on her own schedule. Clearing her eyes, she got up to get dressed for school. She delighted in seeing herself in a school uniform. Taking a look in the mirror, she spun around, letting the miniskirt twirl. She laughed in delight, and hoped with all her heart that school was going to be like the manga and anime she watched. Her eyes shimmered as she fitted the cute sailor tie around her neck. She had long submitted to her being just like the flat-chested girls that anime has. The scientists that created her were unable, or found it unnecessarily complicated, to code in reproductive organs for her. So the cartoons that have poked and prodded at girls that were flat chested, have also prepared Auri for what jokes may be pulled on her in the future. But she mustn’t expect everything in anime to happen in real life. Where anime was her only experience with how school life would be, she suspected that a good portion of it was exaggerated or fabricated. And she also reminded herself to keep a low profile. She knows that she will be going into school with much more knowledge than a 12 year old would have, as she has had a long time to read books. The scientists have watched her mind learn and develop, so they have pushed her harder than most cram schools ever would. She is going into year 1 of junior high school with a year 1 of senior high’s knowledge. They didn’t teach her English though, for an experiment with her ability to learn in public education. That and she has no social skills so far.

The car arrives outside her house and she picks up her bags to meet it out there. She doesn’t like to be late to anything and is always prepared. She climbs in the car and sets the book bag next to her. She sits daintily and looks to the driver’s seat to see who is driving her. She shakes her head and looks again, as there is no one in the car but her. The car starts moving and makes its own way down the mountain. Befuddled, she guesses that it must be an invention that they have been working on. Self driving, huh? Probably not allowed on real roads. That must be why they are having me take public transportation the rest of the way. The car stops and she awkwardly says thanks for the ride to thin air. There must be cameras and a mic, she assumes, and leaves it as that. She doesn’t have to wait long before the bus arrives. Her first encounter with… normal furries. She stands and holds a pawrail, gawking at all the different types of furries around her. Canines, felines, and many more. She didn’t see too many furries that were rare to Japan. But she knows scientists that are species not normally seen around here. But normal furries are much different. They are louder, for starters. Her sensitive ears are exposed to an overwhelming onslaught of noises. She puts a beanie on and folds her ears down to protect herself from all the chatter. She will have to ask for hearing protection when she gets home. She stays discreet and silent when on the bus and her body lulls and shifts to the movement of the transport, keeping a steady balance and trying her hardest not to bump into furries. Her eyes stay down, because she never has talked to a normal furry before and wouldn’t know what to say.

The bus ride isn’t long and she gets off at the nearest stop. Only a block away is the school. The entrance is lined with big trees that provide shade and coverage for the school. It is a cold morning, but Auri likes all temperatures. She has yet to be in a climate that she doesn’t enjoy. The scientists must have coded in some sort of resistance to extreme temperatures, because she finds herself playing with dry ice or fire like it’s a toy. They did say that her fur was fireproof, but never really talked about how far she could push her body to survive in.

She stands in front of the school’s entrance and takes a deep breath. She sees most students her age being dropped off by their parents, but some have taken public transport like she has. The bell sounds off to start going to class and she walks briskly to her homeroom. She doesn’t make eye contact with students in the halls and arrives at her homeroom before the bell rings. She really doesn’t know what to expect as she takes an empty seat at the front of the classroom. It’s interesting no one took the front seats. The class starts with the teacher taking attendance. Aurora is near the top, and when her name comes up, she stands up and introduces herself.

“My name is Aurora Borealis. A fun fact about me is that I love reading manga.” And she sits down again, trembling from being nervous. She spoke with a strong voice, she thinks. And all the other students look nervous too. She breathes out and tries to pay attention to the other student’s introductions. Another shy girl like her says that she likes watching anime, and Aurora makes a mental note to talk to her, Yuki Asuna. Better be safe with what you know, she tells herself. Shy girls need to stick together. After the introductions are done, the teacher claps her paws together and introduces herself. It’s also written on the board, ‘Sonake-Sama’. Her one fact was that she was going to be a lawyer but loved teaching too much and switched to it instead. Homeroom starts off with some basic team building exercises. Aurora was able to pair up with the girl from before, Asuna.
“Asuna-San…” Aurora whispers to get her attention. Asuna smiles at the new friend and informs her that she may use her first name. “Would you like to be my partner, Yuki?” Yuki smiles and nods, scooting her desk over to Auri’s. Auri stands out among the furries. Not many furries have such brilliantly blue fur, nor does their hair shine so many bright colours. And when you take a closer look at the hair, it sways and floats on the air much more than normal hair. But Yuki didn’t seem to mind and went to work with Auri just like any other partner was working with their friend. She didn’t prod Auri about her appearance. Despite Auri’s best intentions, she couldn’t help but become doubtful of Yuki’s actions towards her. Does she really not have any questions? Auri thought that hard to believe and suspected maybe the teacher was told to tell the students in advance that Auri was different and to be kind. But she soon tossed this discrepancy out, for it lacked any basis. And some students arrived after Auri got here, so that made it seem even less plausible. She took a deep breath and decided to just take her new-found friend for face value. She gave Yuki a smile and started focusing on the project.

During the project, Yuki and Auri talked a lot about anime they watched and manga they read. They had a lot in common. It was easy for them to complete the project, so they had a lot of time to talk. Auri insisted that Yuki call her Auri. If they were going to be on a first name basis right off the bat, then why not use a nickname? Besides, no one has ever used Auri’s self-given nickname before. If the scientists are feeling cruel or think that Auri can’t overhear, they will refer to her as One Nine Three. Her experiment number. And that number coincidently says exactly how many other siblings before her didn’t make it. 192 brothers and sisters. Back when she figured out that, she was appalled at the scientists. She almost was driven to her wit’s end. The poor 6 year old was rocked to her core as she realized that she was just lucky number 193, nothing more. The most the scientists could say to comfort her is that the first 100 never made it out of the test tube. That just made her cry harder. But she made it. It changed her perception of her scientists and soon after she started trying to be more independent. They gave her more freedoms as they saw this. And that road led to here, the 12 year old Auri going to school on her own.

“Auri, what do you think of this school so far?” Auri responds that she enjoys it so far, and is excited for the next classes as well. She remembered to include meeting Yuki was the highlight of her day. Yuki blushed and didn’t know how to take the compliment. At least Auri isn’t the only socially awkward one here. All the students seem to be in the same boat Auri is. She just had nothing but the mature scientists to refer to when she thought of how she acts. But alas, Auri acts just like any normal kid. She has to paw it to her scientists, they did get child development spot on. If only she could have had one of them at least pretend to be her parent. But she isn’t worth that type of effort, she thinks. But she is quick to shake her head to clear those thoughts. I’m clearly not worthless if they spent so much money and time on me. I just wish they would have made it feel more normal. I know I’m not natural, but it just hurts that they won’t even give me the pleasure of pretending.

Yuki interrupts her train of thought, “You have a peculiar look on your face, are you doing ok?” Auri was surprised that Yuki was so perceptive. Or that Auri’s expression betrayed her inner conflict so clearly.

“Yeah, just getting adjusted to school,” She didn’t want to betray her inner feelings, but was comfortable with Yuki enough to open up about some things, “I never attended school until now.”

“It must be very different for you then, you can ask me for help if you ever need it,” Yuki smiles at Auri pleasantly. Auri studies Yuki’s face. She sees the friendly look and matches it. Real life is a little more subtle than anime, but its expressiveness has been helpful for Auri. She never has displayed emotion until now. But smiling felt nice, and it felt like her heart was swelling with joy in her chest. It was very strange for her emotions to be turned so strongly by this girl’s offer. Yuki noticed Auri cheering up and hugged her. Auri was taken by surprise from the gesture. After a short second, Auri relaxed into the hug, and hugged back. The emotion started to overwhelm her. Was this what it felt like to be cared for?

✶ ✶ ✶

Borealis

Borealis blinked. He found himself in the embrace of a girl. He let go when it felt appropriate. He looked down and his heart jumped as he saw himself in a schoolgirl uniform. He was beginning to piece together this mystery. He has come to the conclusion that he shared a body with a girl. Or more accurate, he was an alter ego of a furry with multiple fursonality disorder. He was quick to assess the situation and usually was able to keep a low profile so furries didn’t discover that anything was different. But he felt like his other fursonality made a friend. And this will be hard to pull off, depending on how well the friend knows the girl version of him. But if he focused, he found himself able to get a general understanding of who furries are. The girl was still a mystery to him, as she always seemed to take over when he was sleeping. Hopefully she won’t be too confused when she regains control. Bo was a critical thinker. He was able to figure out that when he went to sleep, things changed around him by the time he woke up. And these clues led him to believe that a girl inhabited his body when he slept. The miniskirt now confirms his suspicions.

His name was Aurora Borealis, or One Nine Three. From scribbles he found laying around and now to the schoolwork he finds in his book bag slinged around his shoulders, he can see that she calls herself Auri. To make things easy, he shall call himself Borealis. He is planning on enacting communication with her, such as leaving notes in the form of writing. Soon would be the time to do it, for she will be confused when she won’t be able to remember what happened during a school day. When they were in the facility or in their new house, they had a schedule. Borealis was nocturnal, and he found out that Auri was in control during the day. He was certain once he found himself waking up with anime on, where he assumed Auri tried to pull an all nighter but fell asleep during it. And of course, manga appearing and doodles on sheets of paper all over. But earlier, while they were in the facility, he had no idea. There was no ownership of things, so he wasn’t able to figure out the discrepancies of another fursonality moving things around.

He had decided to keep himself secret from her. A few days after they lived in the house, when he figured out things were changing that he didn’t do, he started putting things back where they were before he went to sleep. He assumed that Aurora did not notice, because in the first 3 days, he didn’t settle into the house as fully as she did. He never had a need for things, so he never asked the sponsor for any items. When manga started showing up, he drew the conclusion that his other fursonality was the reason. That must mean that the scientists know of the duality, but never let them know. They gave him the opportunity to own items, and her as well. So they know the difference between Aurora and Borealis, to contact them separately. And he’s certain they watch their behaviour closely. That’s the reason that they live in the house now. It’s to see how the fursonalities live together.

Auri hasn’t figured it out yet, and he hasn’t let on. But this event of them switching now will make Aurora suspicious, he is certain. He wonders if there is a way for him to switch back. That would keep his confidentiality. Besides, it’s embarrassing to be in a skirt. Auri would just assume she blacked out a little bit, not as concerning as a completely different furry living the rest of her day in her stead. Yes, until he decides to start communicating with her, he wants to remain as secret as possible. That way he will have control over what and how she finds out about him. If they have the same brain, he is certain she is as intelligent as he is. So it’s very surprising that he has gotten away with being secret so far. Blame her obsession with anime.

Borealis closes his eyes, knowing that Yuki has been silently watching him. Auri will probably explain that she spaced out after the hug. Which is sort of true, because her fursonality did lose control. The only difference was that another one took control, and that is not what he wants her to think. He breathes deeply and thinks about switching. About Auri. About… Skirts.

✶ ✶ ✶

Aurora

Aurora comes to. She is no longer hugging Yuki. The emotions come flooding back. She must have been overwhelmed. Tears come to her eyes and she openly admits, “I’ve never had a friend before. I’ve never even talked to someone my age…” Yuki’s confusion turns to surprise and then empathy, her eyebrows knit together in worry. She is unable to speak, and decides to hug Auri again. This act just makes Auri cry more, and Yuki quietly coos and attempts to calm her because she is making a scene. Some students turn and then the teacher comes over and excuses Yuki and Auri to the hallway. Yuki understands, as the older adults tend to want to hide embarrassment because they traditionally keep up a stoic fursonality. She herds Auri to the hallway and pats her back as she let it all out. The empty hallway echos as Auri sniffles, slowly calming down.

“Thank you...” She is able to say through her emotions choking her up. Yuki shakes her head, “Don’t worry about it,” and gives her another of those friendly smiles that Auri will never get over. Interaction is so amazing and wonderful.

The girls went back in after Auri collected herself. She was glowing with happiness that she found such a good friend right off the bat. Students sent them looks when they got back in, either out of curiosity or just a subconscious reaction from the door sliding open. Auri took a deep breath, and smoothed the back of her skirt so she could sit down. She crossed her legs, wanting to retain her composure this time. Her long tail splayed itself out over the chair and dipped to the ground. Her hair and tail grew fast so she always had long locks to deal with. Probably another of the scientists’ brilliant ideas, she thought to herself. But it was really cool anyway. Her hair made perfect wigs for other furries. It had an insane tensile strength and was, of course, fireproof. It’s rapid growth required frequent grooming, and she felt good that she was able to donate it. It made a lightweight wig for furries without a full head of hair.

The class seemed about done with the partner tasks as well, and the teacher started up a more comprehensive ‘get to know you’ exercise. They were in groups of four students and the objective was to learn their names. She also instructed them to say 4 more facts, so classmates will be able to connect the name to a fursonality better. Auri started thinking about hers and wrote them down to remember what to say. Yuki started, shyly introducing herself as Asuna-San. Auri noted the formality, and she suspected it was because the other 2 students were boys. Her facts were that she loved swimming, coding on computers, she has 2 younger brothers, and that she wants to make a game in the future.

Auri introduced herself as Aurora-San, deciding to copy Yuki’s formality, but was more relaxed in that she still wants furries to use her first name. Her 4 facts were that she has never seen the ocean, loves eating sushi, draws her own manga characters, and wants to be a voice actor someday. The boys finish their introductions as well and Yuki whispers to Auri that she has a hard time remembering names. Auri, on the other paw, has a mind like a lockbox. She not only remembers that the gray wolf is named Suda-San and the silver fox is Ishido-San, but she also remembers that Suda-San likes baseball, PE, staying up late, and waking up early, and Ishido-San likes football, running, reading books, and meeting new furries.

Auri studies these new furries. Suda-San is well built for a 12 year old, stockier than Ishido-San. The football player is skinny, built like a runner. He wears glasses to school, but she would think he would want to wear contacts when playing football. He doesn’t look like a goalie, so she asks what position he plays in. He says forward, which makes sense. His small body would allow him to quickly move around other players and shoot or pass the ball. She asks the same question to Ishido-San, hoping to continue the conversation and be inclusive. Auri finds out that he is the pitcher, which would mean his body type wouldn’t have much of an effect on his gameplay. Ishido-San then goes on to ask Asuna-San what stroke she swims. Yuki is surprised that the attention had turned on her and shyly responds that she does backstroke. Suda-San turns to Auri and asks if she has ever done any sports, but Auri can only shake her head and say she has never been in sports or played games beside video games. That gets a chuckle out of the two jocks.

Homeroom wraps up and they get an interlude before the next teacher comes in the classroom to teach. After Auri and Yuki talk a bit more, the new teacher enters and clears the board to write his name. He does so in neat and precise kanji. Murake-Sensei then informs the class that they may just call him Sensei as they see fit. He is their Japanese and English teacher. Auri realizes that this will be one of her challenging classes. Her Japanese could use some work and she has no clue how to speak English besides “Hello” and “Thank you very much,” which she says with a thick Japanese accent, almost the point of furries not being able to understand her. Murake-Sensei dives right into kanji and the history of the Japanese language. The class starts off very densely packed with information, no doubt review from last year. But Auri didn’t have classes last year, so she paid close attention to everything he said. Students groaned when he told them to open the book and Auri looked around in surprise at them. It was much easier to learn from a book, she didn’t understand all the fuss they were making about it. You can’t rewind real life if you miss something in a lecture. But you can always reread the paragraph or section. She finished reading the section much before any of the students, so she went back to fine-tune the details, and looked in the index for terms she didn’t know. She also flipped to the glossary because there were things she never heard of. She just knew the language from being taught by her scientists. They didn’t say any of these peculiar words to label parts of speech. They just spoke it to her. She shrugged it off and knew if she spent some time reading these definitions, she would be able to familiarize herself with it all. When the class was about finished with reading, he started rattling off questions and barely gave time for answers before he wrote answers on the board. How or why these things were important were unbeknownst to Auri, but she could guess that their significance would play out in the later days of this class. It was only the first day and most these students had known it all from prior Japanese classes. The hour passed slowly as Auri tried to retain all the information she could. She looked like the only one trying to take notes on this introduction to the class. Most students were messing around as silently as they could, but earned themselves a quip from Sensei when they became too obvious or disruptive. Auri could hear all the little scuffle noises and conversations throughout the classroom. She daren’t waste her time tuning into any of them, lest she miss important details. If she wanted to, she could pinpoint and mentally isolate conversations from within the crowd of talking. But her focus was on the teacher’s droning, so she didn’t bother turning her attention to them. The class was long, and when she thought it was done, he switched to English. At least he was doing the introduction in Japanese. She would have been completely lost if he started spouting a foreign language. This teacher had a superpower to slow down time, she thought to herself as she was writing notes in her English section now. He just packs the time full of so much information. She hopes the year won’t be like this the whole time. By the very end, her right paw was cramping and her brain was tired. Yuki sees her and asks about it.

“I’ve just never taken either of those classes, so I have a ton of catching up to do.” Yuki offers to bring her notes from last year so Auri can take them home tomorrow and study them. Then she looks almost embarrassed as she suggests that Auri come over if she is still lost or struggling. Yuki offers to be a tutor for her. Auri never thought of going to someone’s house and doesn’t know if she even can. Heck, she didn’t even know if she was allowed to have friends over at her house…

“Thank you, that would be really helpful. And I’ll have to ask about going over, I’ve never been somewhere besides my house and now school…” This last statement seems to take Yuki by surprise, and Auri wonders if she let on too much. At least she didn’t say who she was asking. That would be another conversation for another day. It would only cause more questions and some would be hard to answer. She gets excited about the thought of it though, and now will have to ask her sponsor for permission and for hearing protection, she remembers. Her sponsor was the head scientist, he funded the whole program and had the authority to buy her things. Other scientists were strictly meant to observe and record. She liked the head scientist, considering he both provided the means to create her and supplied everything she needed to live comfortably. She wondered if 192 failures had made him indifferent to her or not. But the amount they went through to make her will keep reassuring her that she has both a physical worth, of finances, and a scientific worth, to study the life they created out of genealogy. She hopes that her involvement with Yuki doesn’t encourage the scientists to study or observe her or her family if Auri does visit. She doubts that is legal, to watch a civilian without consent.

The next 2 classes pass by much faster and are easy, math and science coming like second nature to Auri. She could take the final right now and pass with the highest marks. Those classes she will have to find something to do, she knows she will doodle but also wants to make and complete a goal. It’s too bad the science they are learning is parliamentary to her. Maybe she can get the classes waived with a test if she gets bored in there. But it’s nice to be sitting next to Yuki still. She wouldn't want to do something bothersome to distract Yuki from her studies. And at least science will be fun, she will be able to do science projects with Yuki.

Auri needs to be careful. She scoffed far too loud when the teacher said you can’t square root a number that is negative. The Sensei raised an eyebrow, her name Tsubaki-San.

“It seems that some of you may know, there is indeed a way to square root negative numbers, but it can only be expressed in complex numbers. You won’t get into that subject until senior high.” Auri looked embarrassed from the scoff but was glad for the acknowledgement.

✶ ✶ ✶

Asuna, Yuki

Yuki was glancing at Auri, surprised that she knew more about the subject, even to the point of it being information from later classes. This furry never stopped surprising her and that’s why she felt so drawn to her. She wanted to know everything about this mysterious furry that sprung up out of nowhere. She also was happy she could connect to some girl like her, who enjoys anime. She peeked over at Auri’s doodles during math and her jaw dropped at the masterpiece forming on her paper. It was almost as good as the cover of manga visual novels! When she offered to tutor Auri in Japanese and English, her heart almost fluttered out of her chest. She couldn’t believe she invited Auri over. Never has she been confident enough to ask anyone if they wish to come over. There was just something about Auri. And come to think of it, she never would be the first to hug someone. That was so out of character. She would freeze up if she even thought of hugging someone on any typical day. But again, Auri seemed so… different from the others. And that both intrigued Yuki and made her want to protect her. She could tell that Auri wasn’t good around furries. And that was confirmed when Auri admitted she never had any friends before, or even talk to kids her age. That really threw Yuki a curveball. She is still thinking about that. What was life like for Auri? How could she never had gone to school but have such an understanding, way beyond other students? There was so much she wanted to ask. But she couldn’t. Well, at least she think she couldn’t. She has been doing a lot she thought she never would do, now that she is around Auri.

Yuki had a hard time at home. She was the first child, the psudo-parent. She watched her two younger brothers and had to be their mother. Her own mom and dad were always working and never making enough. She was certain her dad was in sketchy dealings, but she just had to accept he had to do what he had to. He put food on the table. And the two terrors devoured it as soon as he did. They weren’t raised with adults present most the time. They were hard to control. Yuki liked watching them, however stressing it can be at times. It still had its moments, and she was intent on keeping the positives at the forefront of her mind. But there wasn’t much to be done about their financial situation. They worked themselves into a corner. They were making the bare minimum to keep the family going, but there was little time for fun and even less time to pursue anything better. They were stuck in their jobs and the dad’s occupation has recently made less and less. He’s working just as hard, it’s just that whatever business he has been up to isn’t as lucrative as it used to be. Only Yuki remembers a time where money wasn’t a problem. That was when his risky business returned much more. But now the risk is still high and the return is meager at best. She found out her mom sold her ring just to make payments last month. Not directly found out, but the missing rhinestones were obvious at the dinner table. The beautiful wedding ring that Father gave her was replaced with a simple gold band. Yuki said nothing, as finances were never a pleasant subject to bring up. That day she made it her goal to get a really good job and help her parents out.

Maybe she can see about going to Auri’s house. It might be uncomfortable to have someone over. Mother resorts to yelling for just about everything, and her 2 brothers do many things that make her yell at them. She is only around for dinner and bedtime, because she works during the day. That works out good with school, but when there isn’t any school it is all up to Yuki. Her father’s hours are extremely random and sometimes very long. He can be out for days at a time and come home with no explanation. If asked about work, he says it went well. If any further inquiries are made, he refuses to go in depth.

The school bell rings, signifying the end of their first day. Yuki smiles at Auri, “So how did you like school?”

“You sure made it better,” Auri is quick to work in the compliment. She looked like she really meant it, and Yuki didn’t know how to react. Her mind kind of went blank because she wasn’t used to compliments, and she heard herself say “aAaAa,” as her mind processed it, but was especially happy because Auri was the one complimenting her. She held fond feelings for the mysterious blue furry. Yuki stood up with her bags and shyly went for another hug. Auri accepted it with gusto this time and Yuki’s face lit up with a smile. It was a really pleasant hug and she could almost feel the warm embrace linger after they broke apart. Yuki put a paw to her cheek, not able to contain the smile that glowed afterwards. It felt nice to see the lonely furry warm up to her so quickly. That Yuki filled the spot as Auri’s friend, a spot that has never been filled up until now.

“Do you take the bus home?” Yuki asked, wondering if she was going to say bye to her now or be able to ride the public transport with her new friend. Auri nodded, so they both walked to the station together.

✶ ✶ ✶

Aurora

If Auri thought it was crowded when she was going to school, she was appalled when she saw the state of the transport when she was about to go home. There was no space to breathe. Auri looked at Yuki, her face an expression of terror. Yuki met her eye and gave her an apologetic look. Auri felt Yuki take her paw, a comforting gesture. Some furries spilled out, so Yuki took that chance to fill the space they left. Auri was led into the fray, Yuki’s paw her only saving grace. She held onto it as if it was her lifeline, the only thing that could save her from being consumed. It was completely impossible to not touch or bump into furries. They were pressing on her from all directions. She knew she was only one stop away so she held her breath the whole time, from when the transport jumped to a start until it screeched to a halt. It was luckily Yuki’s stop as well, Kami-Sama bless. They squeezed their way off the transport, Auri took a huge breath of fresh air, her eyes tearing up.

“That… was awful…” She managed to speak. Yuki rubbed Auri’s paw with hers in an empathic gesture.

“So where is your house?” Yuki asked, and Auri pointed up the mountain. Yuki’s eyes followed her claw and her eyebrows raised as she saw the tall hill.

“I have a ride up it, don’t worry.” Auri squeezed Yuki’s paw. They walked paw in paw until they had to part ways. Auri waved at her wonderful friend, “See ya tomorrow, Yuki-Chan!”

The term of endearment that followed Yuki’s name made Yuki smile, and she hugged her one last time before walking home. Auri went to the spot the car dropped her off at, and lo and behold it was waiting for her patiently. She heard the locks click as the car recognized its passenger arrive. She opened the passenger door and sat down, not surprised at the lack of a driver this time. The car obediently took her to her house on the top of the mountain. She admired its Japanese look as she always does, and thanked the empty car for taking her up the mountain. It parked itself on the side of the house, and she guessed they programmed it to do that recently, as it was never there before. She slid open the decorated front door to her house. It was red parchment with black swirls and silhouettes of vines wrapping the frame. She set her bags down and sighed. A wonderful day, getting to meet Yuki. She will see if the school can do anything about math and science being too easy for her. But the last thing she wanted to do was be moved out of Yuki’s class, even if for just 2 hours. She will take care of that tomorrow morning. For now, she needs to mail a letter to her sponsor. She gets out a fountain pen and parchment paper. She likes to be formal with her sponsor. In fluid, well-practiced calligraphy, she writes in educated Japanese. She asks for hearing protection and about having friends over or going to a friend’s house. She decides to throw in asking for a new manga series that Yuki told her she read and enjoyed. Then they would have yet another manga to fangirl over. That gave her the thought to ask for supplies to entertain her during math and science. Not that she didn’t already have a lot of art supplies, but something more portable would be suitable for school. Some sketchbooks and a coloured pencil carrier.

She goes outside to mail it, but the mailbox was gone. She gets a confused look for a bit, until the car came out of the side yard and opened a door for her. She giggles, and incredulously places the envelope on the seat and closes the door. The car drove itself down the mountain and parked itself in front of the research facility. Her hawklike vision was able to see the door open and one of the scientists take the enveloped that had its recipient’s name written on the front. The car waited for a response back and she giggled with glee as the car got an envelope to take back and started its way up to her house again.

“Good boy,” she patted the roof and couldn't help but treat the car as a pet. It almost had a fursonality! She would find out only a little bit later how true that last statement was. She took the document off the seat. It was a paper on a clipboard, obviously scrawled quickly because he must have been busy. It told her that the car would bring up the items she wanted when they were delivered to the facility. But Auri celebrated when she saw that he would allow her to have friends over. She didn’t mind that she wasn’t permitted to go to their house, she kind of expected it. On the clipboard, it also had a keychain dangling off it. The P.S. at the bottom told her that the car would respond to buttons pressed on the keychain, if she ever needed it. She took a look at the keychain and saw some helpful buttons. One emergency one to call the car to her, wherever she may be. The postscript on head scientist, Musake-Sama’s, document told her that the emergency button was to be used with care, as the county has not expressively verified that the car can drive on real roads yet. The other buttons were more like check ups. The keychain would say the location of the car if she clicked the biggest button with a target on it. The next one would say the arrival time along with current destination, it had a simple arrow on it. The home button made sense to her enough, along with the bigger building that she assumed was the research facility. And it wouldn’t be a car keychain if it didn’t have the typical lock, unlock, trunk, and panic buttons. She turned it over and was surprised to see a simple LED display and a keyboard. An entry field for location? It would take either an address or coordinates. Once this was verified for real roads, this would make Auri a free girl, basically. The car surprised her by closing its own door and parking itself next to the house. She decided to test the location button. A robot voice spoke to her, saying that the car was parked at home. Pretty awesome, she thought to herself. She went indoors and put the beeper in her purse.

It got later, so Auri made herself dinner. She was beginning to be quite the cook. They send her ingredients all the time, so she is well stocked to cook anything she desires. She went through an entire cookbook of traditional Japanese meals and returned to her favourites to make after she completed everything. She has to special request some of the more rare ingredients, but they cover all the common ones. She feels like seafood and decides to go through the perishables first. They gave her shrimp not too long ago, so she frys them with coconut shavings and makes dipping sauce. She then, of course, cooks rice to go along with it. She sat at her low table on a pillow, with her legs under her. She’s minding her manners while she’s along, because if she ever goes to Yuki’s house she wants to impress the parents. And also Yuki, she smiles to herself at the thought. She eats rice with chopsticks expertly and decides to pick the shrimp up by the tail with her claws. Her claws slide out, as they are retractable. She hasn’t gave herself a pawdicure in a while, so they are dangerously sharp. She should of thought of that before going to school. The lightly fried shrimp with coconut went perfectly together. She smiled at her success and decided to make her claws safe for school. If anyone saw her dulling her claws, they wouldn’t think it feminine at all. She didn’t get out a file. She got out the belt sander. Her claws were intensely tough. She had to grind her points off. She rounded them off and used a finer grit to make it look nice. Then she thought, why the heck not, and painted them bright red. She had quick setting nail polish, typical for any furries that had retractable claws. It would be a pain to keep the claws out for a long time. Her usually white claws now caught her eye when they slid out. The bright red made her feel happy. I love being a girl, she thought.

✶ ✶ ✶

Borealis

Bo woke up with a start. He realized he must have done it. He was able to go back to sleep and let Auri take control. This day has confirmed all his suspicions without a doubt. There is the possibility for there to be multiple other fursonalities, but for now he’s assuming it’s just Auri. Night has fallen and he got a good amount of sleep. He usually never wakes up, so it was surprising to see himself switch in place of Auri. He doesn’t know why he switched, but it must have not been on purpose. She would have to be aware of the other fursona, like he was when he went back to sleep and let her take over again. It was a risk, because if he went to sleep and she hadn’t taken over, Yuki would have thought they passed out. But it was much easier to let Auri live the rest of the school day than have him pretend to be her.

Bo flexed his paws and groaned as he saw red nails slide out of their sheathes. They weren’t even sharp anymore. Not that he is trying to impress anybody, but it still feels demeaning. He did find the car, though. And that was perfect for him to set his plan in action. He got in the car and pressed the facility button on the keychain. The engine revved to life and the headlamps winked on. The auto driving car took him to the facility, and he stepped out and approached the building. It had massive windows, exposing every level. The lights were always on, and he walked up to the glass doors. He entered and didn’t get time before a scientist approached him.

“Hello, One Nine Three. State your purpose.” He obviously didn’t want Borealis there if he was being so cold about it. That never phased Bo, but he assumed that Auri would hate it.

“I would like to see Musake-Sama.” The canine in the white lab coat shook his head, “He’s usually very busy…”

“Take me to his office.” The scientist finally obliged, and led him up a floor. The head scientist’s office was shuttered off, but Borealis knocked anyway. The male canine that took him up there scampered off, not caring to take responsibility.

“Come in.” A huff resounded from within the quarters. Borealis pushed the door open, and entered, sitting in an available seat in front of Musake-Sama’s desk. The large panda raised an invisible eyebrow at the light blue experiment of his. To Bo, it just looked like the panda’s dark eye circle stretched more oval, but he understood the gesture. The head scientist didn’t expect any visits from this particular test subject. He tended to stay at a letter’s distance away.

“You may call me Borealis.” He started the meeting off simple, but had a greater plan he hoped he would set in action.

“Last name basis, eh?” The panda was playing it off as if Bo was the one and only test subject. That was understandable, as he had to assume the two didn’t know each other. At least directly.

“I choose that name to be distinguished from my female version, Auri.” The head scientist was stunned by this blunt admittance of how much he knew. He recovered quickly and gave a knowing smile.

“Noted. Continue,” he gestured, knowing there was more behind the visit.

“I have kept my existence secret from her. I have learned much about her, as she believes she is the only one who lives in the house. Along with your most recent shipment to her, please include a notebook and encourage her to write in it. You can play it off as a scientific log of her inner workings. I would like to get an insight of who my alter ego is.” Borealis lays out his whole plan, as the panda patiently listens to the whole request.

His deep chuckle fills the large office space, “So you are planning on reading the girl’s diary?”

“Precisely,” Bo wouldn’t put it as crudely as that, but it seemed important to understand how his other fursonality thought. That way he can reveal himself in an intelligent manner.

“I’ve delivered plenty for the girl. It’s not too much to ask to deliver a bit more. I’ll think up a reason to give her that should explain it. You’re a quick witted one, aren’t you, Borealis?” The big panda patted his rotund belly in delight, happy that his experiment is more brilliant than he could ever imagine. It was kind of being like a father. But few fathers have gone through as much as Musake went through for the child. This blue 12 year old was the culmination of an expensive genealogy project that spanned decades.

Bo felt pleased with himself. Hopefully Auri won’t suspect a thing. This was the best way to find information about her indirectly. He wanted to approach her later, through leaving notes after he knew all he could about her innerworkings. It’s possible that their fursonalities were quite similar, which would make the whole process much easier. If they were compatible and would work together, it would be beneficial to reveal himself. But he will also be prepared to stay secret if he has to. Bo exits the office, as he achieved what he wanted. No scientists approached him on the way out and he climbed in the waiting car without any further ado. It took him home when he beeped the home button. It must be a satellite connection, if the button works from anywhere. That seems a bit much for its use at the moment, but since Bo read the message that the head scientist responded to Auri with, he knows that it will be able to drive on the road someday.

He arrives at the quaint Japanese hut, and makes sure to put the beeper back in the purse. The car parked itself, and he checked that the note to her was where she left it. His second time ordering something from their sponsor and he did it under the guise of new scientific studies on Auri. She would fall for it. Hopefully she doesn’t hold back too much from the journal. But her whole life is monitored and she knows it. Well Bo will know as much as the scientists will find about her soon enough. He just gets to read it first. If he ever had to censor something from the scientists, he could. He will keep that in mind, even if it would betray his secrecy from Auri.

At home, he uses a computer he stashed away under the floorboards, which was his first order from the sponsor. He didn’t directly order it like he did the diary, but they kinda just caught on. The info passed up the hierarchy and soon enough it was delivered to him at night. Now looking back on it, they pointedly made it come at night because they wanted to see him keep it secret from Auri. Which he did. He both encrypted it and hid it under the floorboards to take out each night. He made sure to never use it tired, as he was finding out that’s when the switch happened. He put it away if he felt tired at all. That would be a big mistake to let Auri take over while the laptop was still out and running. He does all his research on it. He investigated MFD completely and he knows exactly how his situation fit into other’s multiple fursonality disorder. It was funny to note that Auri seemed more right-brained and he was more left-brained. If they were actually contained completely in either of those sides, he wouldn’t know. But he’s certain the scientists do know. They performed an fMRI and know which portions light up when either furry is awake. They occasionally let him see the results to some tests, but didn’t even acknowledge him when he asked to see the results of the brain test. It was peculiar then but now he totally gets it. They wanted him to find out about Auri organically, so anything that could potentially give her away that they did, they hid it from them.

In any case, he was now researching computer science. He wanted to know everything about how they worked. And possibly find out how that car drove itself. His gut told him that they programmed some sort of AI, or artificial intelligence. How advanced it was is unclear, but it has to be pretty good to drive successfully. Not on real roads with other cars for now, but just driving the mountain was impressive. He wondered how it would handle the chaos of driving the roads of the city. But a quick google search showed him that westerners were way ahead of them. Pretty much all their cars were self driving. A little late to the game, huh, Japan? Well, in any case, it was impressive for their city. They were known for genetics, not artificial intelligence. And in genetics they were extremely successful. 193 was the only case of life from nothing, ever. The actual creation of life from nothing but 4 nucleotides and phosphate bonds. In any case, it was impressive and took the world by storm. The scientists have been close-fisted about the project, but not so much so to stir up commotion. They collaborate easily with curious labs, but don’t leak any info that can be used for harm. The tension between countries are very tight, in a political sense. Normal scientists continue their love for science in a healthy and progressive way, but there are military labs that are searching for anything they can weaponize. In particular, the Japanese facility was extremely tight-lipped about features of 193 that could be used to make super soldiers. The claws, fireproof fur, and rapid healing were top secret. They made sure to keep those DNA strands to themselves. Japanese had honour and the good scientists would never sell their findings to any military, no matter the price. It would be used by politicians to gain the upper paw and slaughter their enemies. Though, the scientists were prepared to defend their findings from the military. That could make furries nervous. What the scientists don’t tell the public is what precautions they take. They design safeguards for their work and take defensive measure if necessary. They can’t let some of their work get into the wrong paws. 193 was safeguarded, and Bo could only imagine the amount of defense his mountain had. It was safer than most military bases.

He locked his laptop and tucked it away again. He had a good night for research, learning more about the self-driving car. He hoped his plan would work and wondered how soon Auri would start using the journal. He didn’t touch much in the house, so he decided to call it a successful night. He wonders if he goes to sleep early, does Auri wake up early? Or will their body sleep for real for the remaining amount of time between the switch? That would be a hard one to find out. He gets in the bed, throwing the anime sheets over him. Of course she got anime sheets. Well, her sponsor got it for her creationday. That and a body pillow, he thinks as he turns his head to look at the pillow with a furry anime girl that has long twintails. He wonders if he cuddled it, would she wake up in the same position?