The group revisited some of their older biome projects to see how they were doing. Ari and Aura needed to put some more work into their rainforest because the insect population was slowly getting out of hand, but they already had a plan to combat that. Anna also learned that the sisters were planning to get their parents into this world and that Maya had yet to meet them, as well.

  "Alright, is everyone ready?" The sisters and Maya were in the cottage's living room when Steph addressed the other two.

  “Let’s start the operation!” Sophia energetically raised her arm.

  “Does it matter if I’m ready or not?” The cat-girl was still rather nervous about meeting her girlfriend's parents for the first time.

  “Nope!” The sisters shook their heads.

  “Okay, let’s go!” As she knew it was of no use, Maya knew that it was best to just get over with it.

  “Let’s go!” Sounding much more enthusiastic, the sisters grabbed one of Maya's hands each and went to the portal room to take the special one connected to Earth.

  Back when they first ended up there, Sophia had put one into her old apartment, but they had since relocated it to the house of her parents because there was no reason to keep the apartment any longer after Steph had also stopped being an Earthling.

  As they ended up in a closet on the other side, the trio first needed to go downstairs to meet up with them. Hearing some sounds coming from the kitchen, they decided to take a look there first.

  “Hello!” The sisters barged into the kitchen without a care.

  “H-Huh?!” Their mother, a woman in her early forties with short ash-blonde hair, jerked at the sudden arrival of their daughters. "D-Don't scare me like that!”

  “I told you we were coming!” Steph didn’t understand her surprise.

  “T-That doesn’t mean I’ll expect you to appear out of nowhere! We’ll install a doorbell in the closet!” She didn’t let that excuse slide. “Also, you’re over an hour too early!” She then pointed at the clock above the door.

  “Ah.” The sisters scratched their cheeks.

  "If you live in a world that has more days in a year and where there are no clocks, being on time is harder than it seems." Steph tried to come up with an explanation. “The clock on my phone also gets confused because there’s obviously no service. Me barely using it anymore is completely unrelated, though.”

  “You? Barely using your phone anymore?” She raised an eyebrow. “That world really must be something else.”

  “YES!” The dog-girl heavily agreed with that. “Okay, I’m still taking a ton of pictures.”

  “That sounds more like the daughter I used to know.”

  “I’ve changed a lot!” Steph started pouting.

  “Uhh, yeah.” The woman stared at the dog-girl. “You’ve always acted like a puppy, but yes, you do, in fact, have changed a lot.”

  “Grr!”

  “So has my tiger.” She then focused on the other daughter. “Though, I can’t really say you’ve always been like one in the past.”

  “I was more like a skittish housecat, yes.” Sophia had to accept it.

  “I’m glad you were the one who said it.” The woman smiled at her. “Though, it seems like you’ve changed even more since the last time we’ve seen each other.” She scanned the tiger from ear to toe.

  “Well, I’ve gotten new clothes.”

  “So do I!” Steph nodded along.

  “I can see that.” She glanced at the dog-girl. “Though, you don't have much new clothes.”

  “I get warm easily!”

  “Your body seems to have changed, though?” The woman ignored the younger daughter and kept focusing on Sophia. “It’s not just the clothes that made you look curvier, right?”

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  “I told you the loose top makes it obvious,” Steph smirked at her.

  “Ahaha.” The tiger looked a little awkward. “I, uhhh… had a growth spurt.” She left out the magic-assisted part.

  “Is that so?” She tilted her head. “Then again, you told me you got younger when you ended up in the other place, and you did have quite the explosive growth spurt a few years ago. You’re still a good couple of centimeters shorter, though. If we exclude your new ears, that is.”

  “I like my current height, so I’m okay if I don’t grow any taller.” As it was actually her choice to stay the same height, she was confident of it not changing.

  “You look cute, though the tiger bits are still hard to get used to.” Unsurprisingly, their mother still found the sight of their daughters having functional animal parts attached to their bodies a little strange. “Anyway, I’m glad to see you two again!” Saying so, she got closer to her daughters and gave them a hearty hug at the same time.

  “Yes!” The two felt the same.

  “By the way, is Chloe not with you?” She noticed the lack of a particular pink fluff. "I would've loved to see her, too. It’s been a little while already, after all.”

  “Sorry, today is already planned for other things.” The dog-girl smiled at her. “Don’t worry, you’ll see her again soon, though.”

  “Great!” Their mother seemed to like the fox a lot.

  “While we’re on that topic, there’s someone I would like you to meet, though.” Sophia’s tone turned a little more serious. “Things have been pretty all over the place for a while, and with Steph being hasty as usual, we kind of missed the opportunity, but this is long overdue."

  “Oh?” The woman tilted her head. “What’s this about?”

  “I know you still don’t fully believe me because of how I used to be, but today, I come with proof that I indeed have a girlfriend!” Saying so, Sophia briefly left the kitchen to bring in her cat-girl, who had been hiding in the hallway until now, to mentally prepare herself. "This is Maya! The girl I’ve been dating for a year already!”

  “H-Hello!” The girl in question was unusually nervous. “I-It’s a pleasure to meet you! Just like Sophia said, my name is Maya, and I’ve had the pleasure of being with her for the p-past year." She only bit her tongue twice while introducing herself as her tail nervously twitched all over the place behind her back.

  “Sophia, dear,” Her mother looked at the tiger instead. “I know you’ve changed beyond recognition, but there’s just no way this girl is your partner.” She shook her head a couple of times. “I love you, but you scoring such a refined and cute girl is simply not possible.”

  “P-Pfft! Refined…” Steph tried her best to hold back a chuckle. She had gotten to know her quite well by now to know that this wasn't her most defining trait, after all.

  “How terribly rude!” She started pouting. “Also, she’s the one who went after me first because I still was a mess when we met and about as dense as a black hole.”

  “Even though I can see that you changed, very much so, all those years before your disappearance are still ingrained in my memory.”

  “That is very true.” Steph understood her. “It took me a month to get used to this Sophia, too. She’s the bestest now, though.” She liked her improved sister a whole lot.

  “Maya’s one of the main reasons I changed and turned out the way I am now.” The tiger ignored her sister and faced her mother. “She’s the one who broke me out of my shell. She taught me a myriad of emotions and feelings that were unknown to me. She’s the one who made me realize that being close to people is a good thing. She showed me what it's like to be loved by someone outside of family. She caused me to love someone for the first time. She made me a better person in every conceivable way. She’s my everything. Everything and so much more!”

  “…” The cat-girl’s entire face lit on fire from all the heartfelt praise.

  “Is that true?” The woman looked at the cat-girl.

  “I-I just fell in love with a shy girl that caught my interest…” She had no idea what to say. “If anything, I just selfishly tried to get closer to her… While, uhh… doing so, I made her break free of her… restraints?” Maya looked even more awkward. “Okay, I also wanted to help her… She seemed to have suffered in the past, b-but I still was selfish.”

  “Selfish definitely is true.” The sisters had the same reaction.

  “H-Hey!” She didn’t like them agreeing with her. "A-Anyway, your daughter is amazing, and I'm grateful that I got the chance to meet-, ah.” The cat-girl wasn’t able to finish her sentence.

  “Thank you!” Their mother got closer to Maya and tightly hugged her out of nowhere. “We often tried to help her out, but most of the time, it backfired because we had a hard time understanding.”

  “Me not wanting to talk about it also didn’t help.” Sophia looked at her mother with an awkward smile.

  “Thank you so much!” She hugged the cat-girl even tighter. “For breaking her out of her shell and improving her life by so much!”

  "A-Again, my initial motivation was just me being selfish…” Maya only got more bashful but eventually managed to return the hug. “I’m glad it worked out, though.”

  “Yes!” The tiger felt the same.

  "Still, I can't believe both my daughters have such excellent taste!" After around a minute, she let go of the cat-girl and took a better look at her once again. “Chloe is such an adorable and well-mannered girl, and you are just as lovely! Pretty and honest, and caring!”

  “Hey!” The sisters didn’t like that. “Why can’t you believe it?!”

  “That’s just what every mother says when it comes to this topic.”

  “My mother said the same when she met you, remember?” Maya glanced at her tiger.

  “And you got just as pouty as we did just now.” Sophia stared back at her.

  “Okay, fair.” There was little she could say there.

  “Alright, let’s head to the living room!” She looked at her daughters before smiling at Maya. There are so many more questions I have!"

  “O-Okay.”

  Afterward, doing as told, the girls left the kitchen to get comfortable in the living room so that they could chat in a more leisurely way before the sisters could eventually talk about the main topic of today's visit.

  - Felipo -

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