Alyssa looked at the ribbon with some confusion. Cater didn't let his smile drop a bit.
"You want to braid my hair...why?" she asked confused. She was never allowed to be a girl, and that woman always reacted violently if she dared to deviate from what she expected of her.
"Because I think you'd look extra cute with pigtails, Alyssa-chan," said Cater honestly. That and his sisters had dumped a ton of their old clothes on him. He usually donated the more girly stuff, but with a bit of resizing he was sure Alyssa would enjoy them.
Alyssa was unsure, but it was an easy enough thing to remove. To be fair, it wasn't just because Cater thought she'd look adorable with ribbons in her hair.
Riddle was ridiculously uptight on a good day, but Alyssa was more relaxed. And judging from what Trey and to a lesser extent Che'nya had told him, it was unlikely Alyssa had been allowed to be feminine.
Which was why Cater planned to slowly help Alyssa explore a few things he knew all girls liked (mostly thanks to his overbearing older sisters), and let her be herself.
He didn't know why his housewarden had a split personality, and honestly he didn't care. As far as he was concerned, Alyssa was Riddle's way of venting all the crap his 'mother' put him through.
Braiding was harmless enough, and Cater soon had Alyssa relaxing in the seat with her tea while he did her hair. Who knew all the practice he had gotten from his sisters would come in handy?
Alyssa looked extra cute, and Cater was able to surreptitiously post at least ten photos of her in braids and ribbons, with her tea and one photo (that soon became the new background of most of the dorm) of her with the hedgehogs on her. She looked ridiculously cute with the little critters, who crawled all over her without any care in the world.
~*~*~*~
It was a complete accident caused by one Floyd Leech that caused the entire can of worms that was Riddle's split personality to be brought to the teacher's attention.
Not because of the fact he was switching genders, but due to the reaction he had to a mild potion that only really affected beastkin.
That was part of the reason the class was working on it, with the few beastkin students working in a side room to prevent issues.
Riddle collapsed on the ground after being splashed by the potion, writhing in pain. To the disbelief of Professor Crewel and the other students, a set of ears and a long fluffy tail came out.
He was quickly carried off to the infirmary to be treated from the potion.
Considering Professor Crewel had held this same class countless times before, the headmage was more concerned about why there was nothing in Riddle's file about him being a kitsune beastkin.
It had taken them all of half an hour to narrow down his specific breed, mostly due to Cater coming clean about the server that the Heartsabyl students were all apart of.
Only a select few beastkin could shift genders and masquerade about as a human for long periods of time.
Riddle was out cold through most of this, but thanks to the counter-potion was at least no longer in any pain.
Three days later...
Alyssa woke up with a migraine, and had a slight panic attack when she realized she couldn't retract her ears or tail.
She relaxed a fraction when she saw Cater. She was in her room, and could only guess Trey or someone had used magic to dress her in her usual sleeping outfit.
She noticed idly that a few of the roses from the maze were in a nice vase, which filled the room with the pleasant scent of her favorite flower.
A quick look at her phone told her how long she had been out.
She vaguely remembered the potion accident, but not much after that.
"Don't try to move too much," said Cater.
Alyssa idly noted that her pants had been switched out with the double-zipper type that most beastkin wore.
She attempted to retract her tail, but to no avail.
"What's going on?"
"From what we were told, the potion's side effects won't fully wear off for a full month. You had a pretty strong reaction to it, on top of getting nearly double the dose a normal beastkin could handle. It was overwhelming you," explained Cater.
Trey was too busy keeping the house in line to be here, so Cater had volunteered to explain things.
Alyssa had a slight panicked look on her face. If her 'mother' disliked it when she switched genders, she was downright apoplectic whenever her tail or ears were out.
What Cater was not telling Alyssa was that Crowley was already looking into her home life after the revelation of the fact she was a kitsune beastkin in a known human household.
Riddle's mother and her husband were confirmed human, even if the husband had died in suspicious circumstances. There was no possible way for a human to give birth to a beast kin child. And considering some of the rumors about Riddle's "father"...it was entirely possible that his parents were not his actual parents.
Crowley absolutely did not want to deal with that mess until he had to.
Riddle was walking on eggshells for the past several days. This had everything to do with the fact people were still staring at his new tail, as the ears were easy to ignore. It was very fluffy, and kept knocking things over.
Vil gave him an annoyed look when Riddle's tail nearly knocked over a chair.
"Still having trouble with the tail?" asked Leona.
"I'm not used to controlling it," admitted Riddle tightly. It had been bad enough having to get used to the back zipper and not getting his fur stuck in it. It was like his tail had a mind of it's own.
"I'm still surprised that there's a type of beastkin that can hide their true nature," commented Vil.
Leona snorted, but didn't comment. It wasn't exactly talked about, and honestly why should he care?
Riddle would be glad when he could retract his tail again. He could live with the ears, but the tail was an absolute pain to deal with.
In the rose maze...
Riddle wanted to chase Che'nya out, but he was just overwhelmed. It had been a trying week and he still had to deal with the potion's side effects for another three.
Che'nya gave him a commiserating look, and patted the ground next to him. Poor Riddle had never been allowed to actually be himself, as his 'mother' had demanded absolute obedience and would punish him harshly if he ever dared to express himself.
And after hearing from Trey about Riddle's tail, he had brought a spare brush he often used on his own.
Riddle did his best, he really did. But the soothing motion of having his tail properly brushed had a strong tranquilizing effect on him. He was soon out cold on Che'nya's lap, with Che'nya's own entwined against his own in a protective fashion.
Needless to say Cater immediately took multiple photos for the server the second he found them.
With a grin, Cater held up a long white ribbon for Che'nya. The other teen grinned and carefully wove it around the fur on Riddle's tail.
It took Riddle three hours to notice.
~*~*~~*~
In retrospect, it was inevitable Riddle would find out about the secret server where they shared pictures of Alyssa, and to a lesser extent Riddle after his true features came out. By now the potion had worn off and he was able to retract his ears and tail, but the 'itch' it created became insufferable (according to Riddle) if he did it for more than a few hours or so.
Riddle took one look at the candid photo of Alyssa and went absolutely pale.
Trey saw this, and immediately went to distract his friend but the damage was done.
In less than an hour Riddle, red faced, was glaring at Cater. It had taken him little time to find out who the one running the server was by asking around.
Cater looked as unrepentant as one could get.
"What is the meaning of this?"
Cater considered how to handle this...before he decided to hell with it. There was really no point in hiding the real reason behind the server, not with how popular Riddle's female side was.
"The entire dorm knows about your female side, and we still consider her the Queen of the dorm. If anything, we find her himedere behavior adorable as hell," said Cater cheerfully.
Riddle briefly had a confused look on his face.
"Himedere?"
"Royal version of a tsundere," said Cater helpfully. "You have no idea how popular she is among the dorm."
Riddle might not be very well versed with pop culture, but after hearing several of his dorm calling him a 'tsundere' before (on multiple occasions no less) he had looked it up.
He was not amused.
"Shut the server down, now," said Riddle.
"It's not going to help," said Trey. "When Cater said that it's wide spread, he wasn't joking. Pretty much the entire dorm is on that server and so is Che'nya. It's an invite-only one, so it's still contained."
Cater couldn't really tell what was going on through Riddle's head. However after talking to Alyssa while he did her hair, he did know that her male side was absolutely terrified of their so-called mother.
Obviously Riddle was terrified his 'mother' would learn that he had been letting loose and would retaliate.
He didn't know what made him do it, but he got up and pulled Riddle into a hug. Riddle stiffened for a bit, before Alyssa's influence allowed him to relax.
After a moment, Riddle spoke up.
"So...everyone knows?"
"The dorm and the teachers do," said Cater. "So far only Heartsabyl and Che'nya have access to the server, but I think Vil has some suspicions."
That made Trey blink.
"What makes you think Vil is suspicious?"
"Rook's been looking into kitsune, and he found out that they can switch genders. Pretty sure Vil's been putting two and two together about the 'mystery' idol that Heartsabyl has become enamored with of late," explained Cater.
Trey would have denied it, but he was in the same club as Rook and shared classes with him. Rook being interested in an until now unknown type of beastkin was entirely in character for him. Vil was highly perceptive, and Rook had been asking questions about the idol that the dorm had taken an interest in.
Rook was very passionate about observing beauty in all forms. Which was why it wasn't out of character for him to be very interested in learning more about this idol that had managed to captivate an entire dorm. Vil was interested because he was always on guard for potential rivals in his work.
The next time Alyssa was out, she went up to Cater with a slight amused expression on her face.
"You've been taking candid photos of me?"
Cater blinked, before nodding.
"I'm surprised you didn't make it a public server," she commented.
Cater shook his head.
Riddle was pent up enough as it was, and was always on eggshells whenever his feminine side was even remotely brought up. It had taken a lot of coaxing and good behavior from the dorm before he calmed down about people knowing about his tail and ears, since there was little that he could do to hide them.
There was no way Riddle would react well if the server had been public.
Still, now that she was aware of the server, Alyssa had no problems with dressing up. So long as the server remained private until her male side was no longer under that woman's control, they could continue to share the photos with others.
Cater rather cheerfully made a poll of what outfits the dorm would want to see their unofficial idol and Queen to wear first for the server.
Oddly enough, Alyssa in the female version of the dorm head uniform won by a landslide.
Alyssa did a pose that was reminiscent of the Queen of Hearts statue on the main road, her hair braided up by Cater with some new ribbons and her ears and tail out. Her tail had a small bow tied down it, which made it even cuter and went well with the ones in her hair.
It was beyond cute, and within seconds of it being uploaded half the dorm had it as their new phone wallpaper. It didn't hurt that Alyssa had an imperious look that was so familiar on Riddle's face whenever he was doling out punishment to some poor idiot who failed to uphold the Queen's rules. Her full himedere personality was showing, and the dorm loved it.
