NOVEL NEXT Prologue – A day at the beach
It was a beautiful summer day with lovely weather, perfect for a day at the beach to play with friends. Everyone had been a big fan of that idea and decided to do just that for today’s activity.
“Wow, it is so beautiful out here!” Sophia, a mostly humanoid blonde tiger-girl hybrid of the beastfolk race with fitting ears, feline eyes, and a tail, was looking at the scenery before her. It was a picture-perfect beach with almost pure white sand, beautiful palm trees, crystal-clear water, next to no clouds in the sky, and just about everything else one could ask for.
Fitting for the occasion, she wore a light-yellow bikini with a somewhat revealing top, which managed to go well with her medium build and flattered it exceptionally well. On top of that, she also decided to opt for hotpants over her bikini bottom to add a bit of a twist to it.
“It really is!” Maya, a white-haired cat-girl, which was styled into a big, braided ponytail over her shoulder, appeared behind the tiger. Just like the blonde, she was a feline hybrid of the beastfolk, only that she was part cat with ears and a tail in the same snow-white color as her hair. Cat-like eyes and fangs could also be found on her. “I would even go as far as calling it breathtaking.”
She wore a mostly white bikini with dark red highlights, and her bottoms were designed to look like two different sets combined. A wider white one over a smaller, more suggestive dark red one.
“Are you talking about the beach or your girlfriend on which your eyes are obviously glued onto?” Ari, a black-haired jaguar hybrid of the same general feline beastfolk race, slowly shook her head after noticing how shamelessly the cat-girl was staring at Sophia's mostly bare backside from behind.
“Yes!” Maya had no intention of settling for one or the other.
“Haa…” The jaguar with the yellowish-golden rosette pattern shimmering through her black hair and tail let out a short sigh. “You really never change, huh?” She seemed used to her antics. “Well, she does look quite nice from behind, so there’s little I can blame you for.” Ari, too, was able to appreciate a nice back. Her rather thick and bushy tail, for a feline, also started swishing from side to side during her observation.
Ari, too, wore a two-tone bikini that looked like a combination of two different styles over each other. Still, the cut was a little less revealing, and the main color was black, with the secondary color being a darker orange for accent.
“Thank you very much~.” The blonde in question turned around and smiled at her as she was happy about the compliment. “Right back at you, too. Very nice to look at~.”
“As usual, you two get along slightly too well…” Anna, another tiger-girl with the same animal parts as Sophia, just with a darker orange color scheme rather than blonde, joined the conversation. Her humanoid features were rather different, though, as she was roughly 20cm taller and quite a bit more developed in other areas, as well. “Ari’s mine!”
“You’re still that hung up on it?” Maya smiled at her. “There’s really no need for that anymore, is there? Not after everything that happened~. Anyway, speaking about nice to look at,” Her eyes started wandering on the tall orange tiger and her black bikini that had a hint of a very dark orange to it. More than the bikini, the cat-girl paid extra attention to the parts it didn't cover, though. She especially liked how her bikini top seemed to be not getting paid enough to do its job. “Thank you very much!”
“W-What’s that supposed to mean?!” Anna instinctively covered her chest with her arms.
"I agree. Thank you very much!" Steph walked over to the cat-girl and nodded a few times. Contrary to the other three felines, she had a few features of a dog. A very fluffy tail, similar to a husky, and ears that were a mix between a husky and a shiba, with one of them being kinked. Her color scheme was quite different from the norm, though. Her short hair was violet, with some strands having white tips, while the insides around her neck were a little darker. Her fluffy tail was similarly colored, only with the whole underside being white. She was a little shorter than the blonde tiger, and her other sizes were also on the more modest side of things.
The girl’s bikini resembled that a lot, as well. It was rather playful and could be described as cute rather than revealing. A mixture of pink, violet, white, and lots of frills.
"Why did you get to wear such a cute bikini but made me wear this?!” Another girl joined their conversation. Chloe, a fox-girl with long and curly pink hair, looked at the dog with a slight blush on her cheeks. Her hair wasn’t the only fluffy part of her, though. Together with her long and pointy fox-ears, a massive and extremely fluffy tail came out of her back, which actually seemed to be bigger than the actual girl attached to it. Just like the dog-girl, she also had odd eyes, one being pink again and the other having a light-violet hue. “I mean, look!” She pointed at her rather skimpy bikini top. She was the shortest one out of the bunch, but she was far from the smallest and only narrowly beaten by the tall tiger.
Her bikini was colored mostly pink and white and had many frilly applications, but it was much more revealing. Especially her top covered only the very basics that needed to be.
“Okay.” Listening to her demand, everyone did just that and focused their gazes on the fox-girl's chest.
"H-Hey!" Just like Anna before, Chloe quickly covered her breasts with her arms. “Seriously, why did you make me wear something like this when you don’t do the same?!”
“Well,” Steph looked down at herself. “I’m not compatible with a top with a cut like that. Also, as your girlfriend, it makes me very happy to be able to see you looking like this~.”
“Urgh.” The fox-girl hung her head. “So unfair! I chose this bikini for you because you look adorable in it, but it seems like I had the wrong priorities!” She regretted her decision.
“Hehe!”
“Those girls are as tight as ever, aren’t they?” A little further away from the six, Mira was watching them with a smile on her lips. Similar to Chloe, she also had some fox animal parts attached to her humanoid body. She was a bit of a special case, though. Contrary to everyone else, she had nine individual tails. Her hair, ears, and tails were mostly white, but she had many teal accents, like strands of her hair, or the tips of her ears and tails. Her level of fluffiness, thanks to her tails, was on a completely different level.
She was wearing a mostly teal bikini with a couple of white accents and a few flower applications. She had combined the bikini with a white sarong wrapped around her hips and legs and a straw hat on her head that came with holes for her ears.
“Is tight really the right word here, though?” Next to the nine-tailed fox, a speaking real or full fox with the name of Feyanis, or Fey, looked back at her. She was much larger than a normal fox, though, her shoulder height almost reaching Mira's hips. She, too, was mostly white, but her accents, like the tip of her ears and tail, or some sprinkles in her fur, were red. She also only had one tail, which was quite similar in size to Chloe's, maybe slightly bigger and at least as fluffy.
“As tight does not equal one solid entity, it certainly is not the right word if you ask me.” Fen, who resembled a full animal like Fey, replied to her. Other than her, he was a darker grey wolf with a few brown accents in his fur. He was a bit bigger than the fox, too. Sitting on his hind legs, he was roughly at the same eye level as Mira next to them.
“Mhm, I would say it's somewhere in between." Fen wasn't the only full wolf around. Another one, a female wolf, was sitting right next to him. Her size was similar, but she was much lighter colored. Her fur was a mix of mostly white and greyish blue with some darker spots here and there. “Okay, that admittedly depends on their mood for the day. Sometimes it's closer to one, and on other days, Fen has a point.”
“Hey!” Sophia glared at the four from afar. “We can hear you!”
“So?” The male wolf tilted his head. “Come here and say it to my face if you think your group dynamic is straightforward and easy to explain.”
“Nothing about me is straightforward!” The blonde raised her voice. “Especially the straight part!”
“Thank you very much for confirming my claim.”
"A-Ah…” She got a little embarrassed after noticing she had walked right into that.
“Heh.”
“Anyway, enough of that!” Sophia decided that she wanted to change the topic. “We’re at the beach! Beach, I say! Let’s play!”
“Yay!” Steph, Chloe, and Anna, heartily and loudly, agreed with her plan.
“That’s a great idea!” Though sounding slightly less enthusiastic than the other three, Maya and Ari also were a fan of it.
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Mira, Fey, and the wolves weren’t that interested in playing, so they decided to just get comfortable by sitting on the sand while watching the girls enjoy themselves.
The six went all out, though. They ran around a lot because everyone had way too much energy. Played around with a beachball, which Steph, the dog-girl, really enjoyed, and the group even had a contest on who could build the most impressive sandcastle.
The competition quickly turned into something else, though. Rather than using their hands and a few tools, some of the girls quickly started using their magic and ended up creating actual castles by controlling the sand directly. It got so out of hand that Feyanis had to jump in between to stop the worst of them from terraforming the entire beach. They had way too much energy, after all.
Once their innocent building activity was so rudely interrupted, Sophia, Steph, Chloe, and Anna pouted for a little while, but Ari and Maya talked them into going for a swim instead to cool down. They were at the beach, so a dip in the sea was obligatory.
Which was a mistake.
Everything started out rather peacefully. They relaxed a little by trying to float on the water and simply waft around, though a few of them had more success than others for some reason. After a little while, the sisters, who didn’t look like they would be, Sophia and Steph, got playful again. Contrary to their looks, their relationship definitely matched that of siblings, after all. In the beginning, the two were just harmlessly splashing each other with water, which quickly escalated once they started using magic to control the water around them. At first, there were some waves that started getting bigger and bigger, but it soon enough began to look like a storm was forming in the sea. The little sister, Steph, liked the idea of that very much, and losing against her older sister wasn't an option, either. Because of that, she felt like trying to recreate a tsunami would be a fun idea.
Fey thought otherwise.
Having to intervene and keep them from destroying the place again, she decided to for a less gentle approach this time. She decided that playtime in the water was over. Unfortunately, she could also use magic, and her control over it was excellent.
“Calm down already, idiot!” Saying so, the fox looked at the violet dog-girl before catapulting her out of the sea by changing the water around Steph into a whirlpool, which then shot her to the beach.
“O-Ouch!” Landing face first in the sand, she first rubbed her bruised nose a little before glancing at Fey. “T-There was no need to overdo it that much!”
“Oi.” The fox's voice changed. "That is the last thing I want to hear from you."
“I-I am very sorry!” She immediately backed down.
“That was amazing!” The other girls had also left the water, on their own accord, and Chloe looked at the violet dog with sparkling eyes.
“Don’t encourage her behavior!” The full fox faced the pink one.
“I want to, though!” Chloe’s expression turned into a pout when she looked back at her.
“…” Fey wasn’t sure how to reply to that.
“Since when has your magic gotten so strong?!” Sophia walked up to her little sister while tilting her head. “You’ve gotten quite good at your control, but not to that degree! You almost had a chance of getting slightly close to my power!”
“I was totally beating you before the referee ended the game!” Steph didn’t agree with her assessment of the situation.
“Debatable~.” The blonde smiled at her. "Still, where did that boost in power come from?"
“That would be because of me.” Mira joined the conversation. “Or rather, the place we’re in right now. Don’t challenge Steph to a magic duel when we are in my domain. This is my place, filled with magic attuned to me. The same magic your sister uses, too. Her authority inside my domain, the one I rule over, is many times higher than usual.”
“Come at me, sis~.” Steph smirked at her.
“So unfair!” Sophia started pouting instead. “I want a beach in my dimension, too!”
“No one’s stopping you from getting one.” The teal fox gave her a thumbs up.
“Seriously?!” Her eyes grew wide. “How do I do that?!”
“Well, you need a substantial amount of basic materials, like water, soil, plants, and the like, in your domain. You know, to use as a starting point and reference for magic. Afterward, it’s all a question of your imagination.”
“Ohh!”
“You could also borrow places from the world.” Mira added another example. “Like, if we visit a nice beach that tickles your fancy, you could literally copy it to your domain.”
“S-SERIOUSLY?!” The tiger got loud. “You mean that I can go around and recreate the best places of the world inside my own dimension?!”
“Yup.” The many-tailed fox nodded. “This beach here is a replica of a place that I loved, too~."
“That’s so amazing!” She got even more excited. “Let’s go! Let’s go exploring the world IMMEDIATELY! I want to see all the interesting places and copy them! I want my domain to be the most amazing one that ever existed!”
"Are you for real right now...?" The atmosphere around Steph and Chloe suddenly changed before the dog-girl glared at her sister. "The two of us have been bugging you to go exploring for months already! You're the one who couldn't be asked to leave your house because your stupid cat brain couldn't deal with the cold and the snow!” She sounded slightly upset.
“Well, it was cold! It’s not like that was my fault!”
“There were many solutions and workarounds for that, though!” Steph’s glare intensified. “You can literally use magic to warm up your surroundings!”
“It still would’ve looked cold, though! That’s enough for my tiger brain to become uncooperative. Just like here, my domain will be permanently summer even if the outside is not, too!”
“You’re insufferable...” She let out a sigh in response.
“You should be well aware of that by now!”
“Haa... Mira,” Steph faced the fox. “With the extra magic power from being inside your domain, it means that I’m currently stronger than my sister, right? Do you have an arctic-like region around here? I think I want to persuade my dear tiger to get used to the cold.”
“Oh, that sounds fun!” Chloe seemed to like the idea. “Just like Steph, I, too, am quite fond of the cold, after all~.”
“T-There is no need to go to such extreme measures!” Sophia started panicking. "I am deeply sorry for everything!”
"Y-Yeah..." The other three cats, Ari, Anna, and Maya, also turned pale. “We’re all friends, right? That means we should forgive each other..."
“You’re just saying that because you lot were just as useless during the winter as her!” The dog-girl wasn’t in the mood to forgive. “How many times were all of you just huddled up in front of the fireplace without moving a muscle? All the time!”
“...” They went silent again.
“It’s not like you and Chloe didn’t join them a lot there, though.” Fey, once again, was the one to defuse the situation.
"A-Ah.” The two had nothing to add.
Afterward, once the topic was over, the group finally returned to enjoying the beach. They played a bit more, relaxed on the beach chairs, and had some ice cream, for which Sophia was teased a lot after the previous topic. Everyone just had a great time with each other.
The illustration (make sure to check the extra versions) isn't all there is!
It also comes animated!
Obviously, the .GIF had to be severely downscaled to fit in here. Make sure to check the album here for the high-quality versions (including .MP4 videos) and the other variants in there. You can also choose between birds/no birds (ver. 5-8).