The Next Chapter: 3

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

The Next Chapter
Chapter 3: What'll We Wear?

Once her wolfish ears had heard Jay's footsteps fade into the distance out in the hallway, Ed quickly yanked the shirt she'd woken up in off of herself and pulled on one of her t-shirts. Since it was designed to fit a man some six to fifteen inches taller than her, its hem hung down to her thighs, but it was also designed for a wider person, which meant it hung halfway off of a shoulder no matter what she did, the collar even threatening to expose part of her new breasts. She eventually gave up on improving this situation, and started toward the door—only to realize that her stupid tail was flipping the shirt up in the back! It took conscious effort to keep the front half or so of that tail still so it wouldn't do that, and she found it strangely hard to keep her balance with it not automatically helping, despite the fact that she'd lived most of her life without a tail!

Throughout the entire process, Ed's stomach growled, and she felt increasingly famished. So her first act once she felt relatively covered and able to walk was to follow Jay straight to the kitchen for some breakfast. Her stride was noticeably shortened, making her want to walk faster, and giving in to that led to her losing focus on keeping her tail from lifting the back end of her shirt up...! She soon decided that, as long as there wasn't anyone to see it, this was fine, and then she took off at a brisk walk the rest of the way to the kitchen.

It was in this that she discovered a minor advantage to her new appearance: Walking fast like that, for a moderately long distance, didn't seem to tire her out at all. Moving at such a speed, even with her shortened stride, would probably let her get places faster than before while also being less exhausted by the trip. It was strange: Nothing about her appearance seemed any more fit than before; certainly there was no visible muscle or noticeable solidity to her; yet the evidence still suggested she was decidedly more physically fit than before. Did this have something to do with being part-wolf somehow? That didn't seem to make any sense; maybe it was an unrelated effect of the magic that had changed her.

Ultimately, she caught up to Jay while the redheaded fox-girl was still browsing the fridge. Of course she heard Ed's approach, which slowed considerably as she focused on making her tail behave again, and quickly turned to look. "Heey! They've got donuts in here. You want some donuts?"
"Uh, sure."
"Chocolate, right?"
"Yeah," Ed said with a nod, and then something occurred to her. "Wait—if we're part, like, canine or whatever..is chocolate poisonous to us now?"

"Mmm...I sure hope not! I say we should test it out."

"Maybe you should; I'm not gonna make myself sick."

"No need to worry about that," a third voice cut in, making both of them jump slightly and turn toward the kitchen's door. Camilla was standing there, wearing a t-shirt and some shorts.

She was fairly curvy despite looking quite fit, taller than Jay (now was), and had gray eyes and short blond hair. And, somehow, both of their super-enhanced hearing had missed her entrance entirely. "Hey, g'morning. I'll assume you two are Jay and Ed, and not some squatters or whatever," she said, giving a small wave. Camilla's voice was almost as deep as a girl's could be while still obviously belonging to a woman. "Anyway—being part-animal doesn't introduce any dietary restrictions. And you're officially members now, so the kitchen supply is as much yours as the rest of us's. So, eat whatever you want."
"Cool! Chocolate it is~!" Jay said, immediately pulling out a box and opening it up to face Ed.
The wolf-girl shrugged, taking one of the donuts and going to look for a plate. Those were...in a cabinet above a counter, she remembered. She then found that her hand could easily reach the lower corner of the cabinet door to open it, but not the uppermost plate of the stack.

"Whoop, lemme get that for ya," Camilla said, pulling down a plate and handing it to her.
"Uh, thanks..."
"No prob. I guess it must be pretty weird losing a bunch of height, huh? I think there's a stepstool in here somewhere, or something."

Jay, meanwhile, had selected a donut and started scarfing it down, with the box still open on the counter in front of her—and the refrigerator still open, too. "Will you at least close the door?!" Ed demanded.
"Mmf, shrry," she said, gently kicking the refrigerator shut.
"Ugh, I swear..." Looking back to the very tall blond woman, Ed said, "Anyway uh...I'm Ed, he—uh, she's Jay. For the record."
"I might've guessed," she said with a slight shrug. "You sure you're good with just one? Apparently the way this place's transformations work can make people super hungry after."
"I'm sure I'll be fine."

Camilla went and took a donut for herself from the box before Jay could eat all of them. Eventually the three of them made it to the dining room and ate together.

"So, like: Nancy's super busy with some stuff today, so she lent me her card so I can take you two shopping for stuff. Score," Camilla added, waving said card in the air briefly before pocketing it again. "She totally won't mind if I get a few things for myself too, after all."
"Uh, really?" Jay said. Ed realized at this point that her plate was empty, she barely remembered taking the first bite of her donut, and she was still feeling fairly hungry.

"Yeah. I guess you guys don't know? Nancy's family is like—super ultra rich," Camilla said. "Her parents are a pair of Mammon who've been billionaires for like a century; all her older siblings are really successful. Like, her next-older brother's name is literally 'Rich', and he's gonna marry a literal dragon pretty soon apparently?"

Ed sighed, letting herself down onto her feet, collecting her plate, and heading back to the kitchen for seconds. She slipped up and let her tail do whatever it want as she hurried that way, but just decided to let it go.

"Told ya," Camilla said behind her before continuing.

"Sooo, sorry if I seemed kinda unfriendly the first time we met. It wasn't a sure thing you'd join, and some guys just can't tell the difference between a girl being friendly and flirting with him."
"Wha—really?" Jay said.
"Ooh yeah. You two'll know exactly what I mean by like, this time next week, trust me. And as for last night, well, Nancy really likes to talk. And I don't care to talk too much when someone like that's in charge of the conversation, y'know?"

Ed returned with the remaining two donuts from the box stacked on her plate. At least this meant nobody had to put it back up, she supposed.

"Anyway," Camilla continued, "I've already got a boyfriend I really like, so I can't have any other guys thinking I'm interested."

"It really just looked like you didn't wanna be too distracted from your game," Jay said.

"...True, that too," she nodded after a brief pause. "But I'd have still made a little more of an effort to be friendly with some female visitors, at least, sooo." She gave a brief shrug.

"Anyway, like I said—we're gonna go shopping so you can get some clothes that fit you. And other necessary stuff for living as girls for a while—you'll get what I mean once we get to it," Camilla said. "You two gonna go in what you have on?"
"It's not like anything else fits me right now," Ed said. "If this even counts."
"Yeah, same. I mean, I know it's PJ's, but still," Jay added.
"Yeah—those getups aren't nearly the weirdest I've seen walking around campus on the weekend," Camilla said with a small shrug. "Seriously, button that thing all the way up first though," she added to Jay, who (already done eating) nodded and got straight to work on that.

"I guess it's pretty weird to just, wake up as the other sex, huh?"
"Yeeeaah," Ed said. "Plus having weird furry parts, and like, fangs."
"I dunno, I think I kinda like it," Jay said.

"Can't say I really get the appeal," Camilla said. "I like how I look now, is all. I guess L'hoxie might have a better idea..."
"Uh, how so?"
"Oh..y'know. Just, sheeee's been around magic stuff her whole life," she said.

Ed had the distinct sense that Camilla was lying-by-omission with this answer, but decided not to press her. Instead she said: "'L'hoxie'? She called you 'Cammy' before, too."

"Just little nicknames. Me and her go way back. Like, I knew her in high school. She's really mellowed out since then. Way more fun to hang with these days."

The first thing Camilla wanted them to get was..undergarments. Particularly, she pushed both of them at a lady whose job it was to measure their busts. Ed really questioned whether the small pair she'd wound up with were worth the embarrassment, but neither Camilla nor that store worker were about to take no for an answer. It turned out there was more to measure than just their chests anyway. After learning her new body's various sizes, the wolf-girl selected some sensible-looking...things, including mostly shorts for the lower undergarments; she noticed Jay mostly going for decidedly frillier options. Then it was time to get outerwear. Thankfully, Camilla left the two of them alone for this now that they knew their sizes. Ed knew exactly what kind of clothes she wanted.

A little while later, she crossed her arms, staring into the mirror.

She'd picked out a black t-shirt and some jean-shorts, but wasn't entirely sure about the results still. "Hmmph." Somehow having a bra on under the shirt made her bust look slightly bigger...and despite definitely getting the right size for everything, and it all feeling like a very comfortable fit, it still looked kind of tight. Tight enough to not leave much of her newfound figure to the imagination. Well, it would have to do; she could buy some oversized shirts, sweaters, and so on to feel a little less exposed, she decided. It was nice to at least feel fully-clothed again.

"Heey, are you done in there?" Jay asked from outside the little dressing room.

"Uh, yeah.." Ed went and opened the door.

"Check this oooouu~uut!"

The redheaded foxgirl had garbed herself in a black-and-red dress, complete with some tight black thigh-high stockings. She was blushing but also beaming as she picked up the skirt a bit at the sides and twirled a little to show it off. "How's it look?"
"Uh, fine I guess? You're...really going all-in on dressing like a girl, huh?"
"Sure, why not? I mean, if I am one anyway! I like being attractive for once in my life is all—even if it's 'pretty' or 'cute' instead of 'buff' or whatever."
"You really don't seem like you mind being 'pretty' at all," Ed pointed out.
"I guess not, heheh. But hey, you look really cute in that too!"
"'Cute', huh.." It felt like her friend's vocabulary was fixed on that word alone when it came to Ed's new appearance. Yet she couldn't deny it. As short as she was, and the way her face looked, and her body's curves...if Ed had been asked before all this to say how someone who looked like she did now looked, words like 'cute' and 'adorable' would've been the first to come out of him.

"I bet that'd look even better with some stockings, and be warmer too. And you should get at least some dresses and skirts, you know?"

"I don't see any reason to waste the money on that," Ed said. "This already feels weird enough to wear. A skirt would feel like no pants at all. Wait—how is your tail not flipping that skirt up, anyway?" she asked, remembering her experience with the big shirt that morning.
"Huh? There's a hole for it, duh." Jay turned partway around to show the hole. "There's clearly labeled stuff all over the store specifically for people with tails. And wings, and horns, and whatever else, too! I guess that's why Camilla picked this store specifically."
"Oh...I guess that makes sense, at least."
"C'moooon, Ed!" Jay leaned down at her friend a little bit. "We're not paying for this stuff anyway! Let me pick out a couple of more girly things for you."

Ed sighed. "I guess that's true. Fine, I'll do that if you at least pick a few more...normal things. Like, tomboy, casual stuff. For yourself."
"Hmmh, okay. Works for me!" Jay agreed, and then happily headed back out to the main store to start looking around.

"Wait up—I need to actually tell you what my sizes even are!" Ed hurried to follow her out.

---

Two unique-looking individuals were taking a shortcut through greek row. When they were about to pass by the building Omega Zeta Kappa hoped to make the home of their new chapter, one of them stopped short, turning to stare at it for a long moment. The other, after briefly continuing forward, realized he'd stopped, and turned back to see why.

The first was a handsome, slightly skinny guy with sky-blue hair, brown eyes, and—what stood out the most—a pair of large, bright, white-feathered wings coming out from his upper back, presently folded together but no less conspicuous for it. "Hmm." Still staring at the building, he put a finger to his chin.

"Something special about that building?" asked the second, a girl with no wings, yet no less odd-looking for that. She had unusually pale skin, pitch-black hair, was dressed nearly all in black, and even the irises of her eyes were dark to the point of near-black as well. She had an outdated handheld game console in her hands, and continued playing on that throughout their conversation.

"But of course! How else could it possibly have caught my attention?" the winged one replied.

She spared a short glance the building's way. "Looks pretty normal to me."

"Yet it wasn't there at all last semester, and now here it is before us, complete! Construction projects on this fair campus of ours of such a scale hardly ever show such alacrity as to be finished in the span of one mere summer."
"Okay? So it was a rush job. Prolly gonna collapse in like, two years."

"Oh, I very much doubt that," he said.

After this, he waited a long moment for a reply. Near the end of that moment, he turned to his friend, whose expression suggested she was already very bored of this whole conversation. She sighed, but still humored him with a completely deadpan "Why's that."

"Well, I suppose your senses still aren't so finely honed as mine are, or you surely would have noticed it already: That entire building is enchanted," he declared.

"'Kay. Sooo...is it supposed to be?"
"I certainly hope so. One part of the magic suffusing that abode is dedicated to granting its interior more space than its exterior would otherwise allow. The whole place really could collapse if that sort of magic were applied carelessly after its completion, rather than during its assembly..or perhaps a very carefully-planned expansion. But that isn't even all of it! There's something else...a bit more complicated....and I can't quite make out its details from here. Quite intriguing."

"Then, I guess we'll just have to ask someone who lives there, huh? But like, later. We got places to be right now," she pointed out, then turned and started off toward their original destination.
"Mmh, right you are. Truly a shame, but I suppose I'll just have to savor the mystery itself for a while." He turned too, easily catching up to her sluggish gait.

"Sure, whatever makes you happy," she shrugged, still not looking away from the console's screen.

---

This part is where you can start to see what I was talking about, with getting multiple "variant" images of the same people. It's particularly tough to get Jay's fur just right, with the dark ear-tips and white tail-tip, so I cheated a little bit here.

It's probably obvious by now, but this story is organized a lot like most of mine, rather than following OZK's formatting. There kind of are supposed to be two main characters, but we'll be following others' perspectives along the way as well.

The Next Chapter: 2

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

The Next Chapter
Chapter 2: How Did We Get Here? (Remix)

"I'm not saying we should go through with it..."
"But you want to go back to talk to her again anyway," Ed finished.
"Yeah! Let's take that tour. Maybe ask to meet those two 'prospective members' she was talking about. I mean—maybe that'll actually give us a really good reason to say no!"

"Hmm..." Jay's best friend and roommate would get this expression, with his finger under his chin, whenever he was seriously thinking about something. It was a good sign; it meant he was taking the suggestion seriously. "Yeeaah, you're right. Like, that building was built probably over the summer or something. Maybe it was a rush job. She could totally be lying about those 'top-notch facilities'," he said, making air quotes. "We don't even know if those other two people exist, anyway. Maybe we were talking to an actual crazy person all along!"
"Yeah, yeah—or maybe they're both total jerks. The whole point is to get in a house with people we can actually get along with, right?"
"Right..."

The night after meeting Nancy, Jay had thought about it—really thought about it. Magic was real, and yet had largely been quite distant from him and Ed for most of their lives until now. So the concept of himself being turned into a girl was kind of a shock, a surprise—something that had never entered his mind before. His first thought was that it would be very, very weird and uncomfortable, and that was probably what Ed thought too—and most likely where his thoughts on the matter ended. But not Jay's.

Wouldn't it be kind of interesting, to try out a different body? That was where his mind went next. Even if it really didn't work out, a little bit of experience being a girl might make him a little more of a hit with the ladies afterward—having more empathy for how their bodies worked and felt, and all. But also...every publicly-known instance of a person transforming had resulted in...

All Jay had to do was bring up some pictures. Whether it was a man turning into a woman, or a woman turning into a man, the end result was usually at least a little bit more attractive. And typically they would end up physically fit—not necessarily having any new muscle tone, but certainly a lack of excess body fat appeared to be a constant. For a guy as unused to exercise as Jay, and with as severe of a sweet tooth as he had, the idea of magicking himself into some much more favorable metabolism was very appealing. That change might even persist through the process of some additional magic turning 'her' back into 'him'!

Besides that: He'd learned to sing very well with the voice he had now, so wouldn't it be interesting and exciting to try out singing in a completely different range? Maybe even a good experience for his education, for his future as a composer, to know from firsthand experience how a girl's voice felt and worked. Also...there were some rumors that Ursa Major was doing something similar, with the male vocals on some of her tracks rumored to be herself, transformed. If she was connected to an organization that was willing to casually enchant an entire building in the way Nancy had claimed, then that went straight from 'strange rumor' to 'extremely likely' in Jay's book. It's totally what he would do, given access to such an option, anyway.

The tricky part would be convincing Ed to come along, then. He certainly didn't want to leave his best friend behind to have to room with someone else. Anyway, Edward was the kind of person who liked life to be on a straightforward, simple path...maybe too much so, to the point of it being overly predictable and boring. Jay could easily think of many times he'd pulled Ed out of his comfort zone before and into something he wound up enjoying...and, sure, a few times he hadn't enjoyed so much too. So this could...just be another of those adventures, right? But he also knew that Ed wouldn't be convinced to go along with it if Jay put it that way. So, as usual, he would need...other methods.

After a brief phone call, they had successfully scheduled a tour. Late in the afternoon, once both of their classes were over, they walked up to the house's front door, and Jay knocked on it. A voice that, notably, wasn't Nancy's called from inside: "Coming!" A moment later, with the clip-clop of some hard shoes on hardwood floor, the front door opened.

A girl with purple skin was on the other side.

Purple skin, darker-purple shoulder-length hair, yellow eyes, pointy ears, batlike wings, a slim black tail ending in a heart-shaped tip, and horns coming out of the upper-side-corners of her head. She was wearing pretty normal clothes, however: A skirt, camisole, and some thigh-high stockings. "Hey there~," she said, smiling and completely ignoring the fact that they were both staring at her. "You must be Ed and Jay, right? I'm Lu-hox-if-el." Jay found out later that this name was spelled L'hoxifel; in the moment, it just sounded like a jumbled barf of random syllables.

"Uh...sure..." Ed said. "I guess you're...one of the 'other prospective members' Nancy mentioned the other day?"
"Oh, 'prospective' nothing, we're totally doing this!" she said. "I mean, Camilla and I already moved in and everything. I'm totally committed to making it work." Then she tilted her head slightly, perhaps pretending to only now notice their expressions. "What..? You two never met a demon before?"

"Uh...nope, I guess not," Jay said.
"Well—no need to worry," she said, "I don't bite. I'm a Thumos—rage demon. That means I feed off of the anger of others, so I'm pretty good at controlling myself."

"Uh-huh..." Ed nodded slowly. "Well, I guess this means you're leading the tour, then?"
"Right! C'mon in, then, I'll show you around," she said with a light wave toward the inside of the house. "Introduce you to Cammy while we're at it."

The two of them had toured several frat houses in the past week or so—even more since they'd met with Nancy. Leaving aside the other people in them, all of those buildings had seemed like excellent places to live—paradises, compared to the dorm the two roommates were in now. But this newly-built house belonging to a sorority chapter which might wind up not even existing was about as far above those as they were above the dorms. The bedrooms were spacious, each with its own bathroom, and there were dozens of facilities for members and guests to use: A gym, a game room equipped with consoles and big TVs and a couple of arcade machines, a lounge full of comfy seating, another place that was practically a private theater. By about halfway through the tour, Jay was having some difficulty believing that all of this fit in the house they'd seen from the outside. There was also a fully-equipped kitchen and a dining area, several laundry machines, a painting studio with giant windows to let in tons of natural light, a room specially designed to have great acoustics for recording, a room for people to play board games or card games together in, a small computer lab with two 3D printers...Ed looked dizzy by the time they'd seen the majority of it.

Along the way, they ran briefly into Nancy, who was busy sewing something (in a room designated for the purpose, of course), and also met Camilla, but she was busy gaming and spared them not much more than a grunt and a wave and a quick "Hey." That perhaps left L'hoxifel as the weird one..but out of the three of them, she acted the most like a normal person, which only further enhanced the surreality of her being visibly, obviously, a literal demon.

They took a break in the lounge at one point and got to talk with her for a few minutes. L'hoxifel was a junior taking a creative writing major, and she wanted to 'get famous writing romance novels'. Her interests all seemed perfectly mundane. She seemed friendly and cheerful and (looking past the demon horns) even cute. At any rate, she was extremely easy to get along with, and told a couple of jokes that even had Ed laughing. It was hard to say much for sure about the other two residents of the building, but it certainly seemed like they could get along with this one pretty easily.

At the end of the tour, the sun had set, and L'hoxifel insisted on treating them to a supper, to "show off what the kitchen can do!". She corralled the other two residents of the building to come eat with them; Camilla stayed quiet most of the time, while Nancy seemed eager to be the star of the show. And whether it was the kitchen or just the demon-girl's own talents showing, the meal was amazingly delicious. The three of them saw Ed and Jay off with some friendly farewells afterward.

They spent the first few minutes of the walk back to their dorm room in complete silence, both just trying to mentally process all of the things they'd seen in that house. It was Jay who spoke up first, with just: "So, uh..."
"Auuuuggghhhh...!" Ed's immediate response was somewhere between a very loud groan and some kind of guttural sigh. "That place, is amazing! I hate having to go back to our dorm, after seeing that!"
"Yeah...it is pretty good," Jay said, in a deliberate understatement. "L'hoxifel is nice. Nancy seemed pretty friendly. I guess Camilla's a gamer, at least?"

"Uuhh huuuh."

"And I mean...if we're worried about the other people who'll join...being some of the first would mean we decide what the culture's like, right?"

Edward sighed loudly. "We'd just. Have to let the magic house. Turn us into girls."
"Yeah. I guess we would," Jay said, using a tone of voice that suggested that he considered this part to be a negative.

"We don't fit in at any of the frats. We've been to all of them."

"Yeeeaah. That last one wasn't bad, but..."

He sighed a second time, less loudly. "Let's...sleep on it. I'm still trying to get over meeting an extremely cute wrath demon."

"Pfft, yeah. All right."

And so they slept on it. By the end of the next day, the decision was made. It wasn't hard; Jay just had to wait for Edward to ask him so that he was the one "reluctantly agreeing to it", and then they were locked in. By the end of the day that Friday, the three girls had helped Ed and Jay move their stuff into a room on the first floor of the OZK house, they had gotten their beds made and everything settled into place, and after another supper in the house's dining room (cooked by the demon girl again), they relaxed for the evening and, eventually, went to bed. Somewhere in between, there had been talking with their parents about the decision, signing some legal paperwork, and Nancy promising to buy them everything they'd need for their new appearances on Saturday morning.

Jay wasn't a naturally restless person; he usually fell asleep as soon as his head hit the bed. But tonight, he was too excited to sleep at first. He wondered what he'd wind up looking like: Tall, short, fit, curvy? For that matter, how would Ed look as a girl? What would the process of transforming feel like? Or would they just go to bed male and then wake up female, without experiencing the change at all? How would their voices sound? But anyway, excitement could only keep him from sleeping so long, and after a little while, he drifted off...

Jay found himself standing in his bedroom back at home. Funny; the last thing he remembered, he'd been lying in a bed many miles from there. Yet he was still wearing the exact same set of pajamas. He looked around briefly before spotting something odd in the mirror above his dresser. "Hmm..?" His hair looked a little longer than usual, and its color a slightly brighter shade of red. "Ah..!" As if prompted by his noticing these differences, both of them intensified: His hair burst out several inches longer, enough to fall across his shoulders, and its color became an even brighter shade of red at the same time. This came with a burst of tingling all over his scalp, and he could feel the slight weight of the locks all across his shoulders, too.

"Oh, wow.." He reached up and put a hand through the hair, finding it pleasantly soft to the touch. He'd started to suspect that he was dreaming, but somehow..he could still feel these things. And he was starting to feel something else too; the tingling across his scalp hadn't gone away entirely after that burst of growth, and now it seemed to be slowly flowing downward across his face and beyond. Jay leaned forward a bit toward the mirror. "Huh..." Those tresses continued to slowly brighten and grow out, but he was presently more interested in the sight of what that tingling on his face was doing, his bits of unshaven facial hair almost seeming to 'un-grow' themselves away until there wasn't a trace of it left. He put a hand to his cheek and found the skin there pleasantly smooth.

"W-whoa!" This was followed by a sudden rush as the tingling—which had only now reached the bottom of his neck—suddenly raced down the entire rest of his body. He shuddered, then felt the heat of a blush on his cheeks when the tingling reached the thing between his legs and grew especially strong right there. "A-aah..!" Even as it faded off everywhere else, it grew even stronger, and he could feel it starting to get smaller, even as this sensation seemed to..stimulate it. "O-oh..m-ma~an..!" His voice cracked slightly mid-word, and he shuddered again. His hair's color had shifted by now to a brilliantly blazing, fiery red, and it was still slowly growing longer despite now spreading out to maybe halfway down his back behind him. From the spots where his hair had first touched his pajama tops, a shift in color began to spread out, the deep blue being replaced by a bright pink. "W-wow...mm~mh..!" His voice came out slightly higher in pitch, and squeaked slightly again when he softly cried out in response to a slight..tug, from down there.

"I-it's re~eally happening. wa~ah..w-woo~oow...!" He listened to the tone of his voice changing step-by-step, now already leaving its familiar range for a high, boyish tenor. The tugging was getting sharper and stronger; the pink coloration reached the hem of his top and began to spread its way down his pants, too. The pajamas also began to pull tighter against his body, which—surprisingly—seemed to yield to this pressure, shrinking smaller rather than insisting on retaining its original shape. Before his eyes, his shoulders narrowed, his belly began to pull inward, and his arms and legs slimmed down. "O-o~oh..coo~ool..!" Jay was having some difficulty concentrating on these changes compared to the more intense sensation of his manhood getting smaller and smaller still, tugging its way into him...making his heart race and his face redden with an ever brighter blush...!

The tugging and tightening and shrinking all seemed to sharpen at once. Jay found himself squirming around and crying out: "Aah, aa~aah, aa~aa~aAA~AAAaah...!" The masculinity vanished from his voice as its range pulled straight past tenor to a high, cute soprano, and his body's fat vanished away, his waist trimming inward while his arms and legs grew slim. Before his eyes, his face shrank to a smaller, rounder, cuter shape, and his adam's apple disappeared, and then, with one last tug...! "OOOOO~OOOHH...!" Jay's pajama pants, and the underwear beneath them, suddenly pulled tight and flat between the legs—revealing a complete lack of a bump that would be there if Jay were still male. Instead, she had fully become a girl! "MMH—mmmm~mmhh..!" Her squirming around continued as she felt a fuzzy feeling coming on down there, and at the same time a slight sensation of her body 'bouncing back' from the recent shrinking: Her hips and bottom and thighs pushed out wider, plumper, and thicker, beginning to fill out some girlish curves. Then her chest tingled sharply and perked up, starting to grow out into a small pair of breasts.

"Aa~aah...h-heheh..! Wo~wh..!" She watched as those small breasts steadily grew bigger and bigger, proving sensitive to the feeling of the pajama top's material rubbing across them in response. "Mm~nnh...!" This drew still more of that fuzzy feeling between her legs...which she was really starting to like quite a bit! "Oo~oh...heheh..!" The new girl watched happily as the topmost button of her pajama top came undone, then another, then another, giving the increasingly large globes plenty of room to keep expanding out bigger and bigger...!

Finally, Jay's new breasts gave one last push, bouncing out into place as an enormous bosom and completing her shift into a fairly tall, very curvy young woman. Her brilliant, fiery red hair now trailed out all the way down to her hips in the back, and an adorable, soft, girlish face grinned back at her from the mirror. "Hffh..a-amazing..I-I...mmfh..?!" She was a little confused—since the change seemed to be done now—when another wave of tingling hit. "A-a~aah..!" She shivered slightly; it was very faint and brief everywhere except for her ears, and a spot on her back right near the base of her spine. In those spots, it seemed to rapidly grow stronger.

"O-ooh...mrr...rrfh..!" A strange, canine-like bark came from Jay's lips at a sudden, strong push from her right ear, and in the mirror she got to see what this feeling meant right away. That ear grew huge, poking its way out past her hair as it rapidly covered itself in fluffy fur: White on the inside, bright red like her hair on the outside, but fading to pitch black near the tip. "Aa~hhrrfh..!" A similar sound and sensation accompanied an identical growth of her left ear. "Mngh...heheh...are those...f-fox ears?!" She'd started to reach up to feel one of them, when the sensation from the base of her spine intensified and gave way to a quite similar pushing, growing feeling back there. "W-whoa! Aa~aah...mmh, mnngh, mmrrr~rr~RRRRRRrrrh...!" A tail to match those ears rapidly pushed its way out between the hem of her top and the top of her pants. It started out as a slim line of bright red fur with a white tip, but it very swiftly became bigger, longer, and fluffier, and within a matter of seconds she now had a huge, plush fox-like tail wagging back and forth behind her.

"O-oh..heheh...w-wow...!" She found it effortless to pull the tail up in front of her, running her hands across it, and then hugging it...! Jay had never even considered what it might feel like to have fur like this, but she already loved it! She rubbed her face against the tail's tip a bit, closing her eyes, and felt...briefly like she was falling backwards. The landing was gentle, the back of a bed seeming to appear behind her to catch her, followed quickly by sheets and covers falling down around her.

"Mrrr~rrh..." Jay very quietly churred, coming slowly up out of her sleep to the warmth and brightness of the sun. Her ears twitched as she slowly released her tail from the hug, hearing the sounds of a girl's voice crying out softly, and then barking, yipping...

She realized after a moment that that voice had to be Ed's! Which meant he—or probably she by now—was mid-change, probably most of the way through! So the fox-girl tossed off her covers and sat up, making her way to the side of the bed to look. It was hard to see much through the covers, but Ed's face was already adorable (with that blush, too!), and she, too, had some big fuzzy ears—a little smaller than Jay's, but no less cute! A short moment later, Ed threw the covers off of herself, giving the fox-girl a full view of the body her friend had wound up with. She heard Ed murmuring confusedly as she fully came to, in a fairly deep, mature sort of feminine voice.

At this sight, Jay just couldn't help herself: "Oh wow, you turned out super cuuuute!!!"

"Wh-wha..?" Ed turned her head the fox-girls way very briefly, then adorably squeaked, her face flushing bright red, as she sat up and yanked her shirt as closed as she could for such a swift motion. "H-hey, don't just stare like that! I'm barely wearing anything!"

"Pfft, like we haven't seen each other shirtless before," Jay said, shrugging. "You're not gonna catch me complaining about it!"
"W-well you should be!" Ed's blush persisted when her eyes properly focused on her roommate, her gaze very clearly hitting Jay's considerable bosom for a second before she snapped it upward towards her face. "At least t-try to button up or something!" she said while hurriedly trying to match some buttons over her own chest, which wound up putting a couple in the wrong holes and leaving a gap large enough to see most of it anyway.
"What's the big deal?"
"I don't know if you've noticed but we both have boobs now!?"

"Well, yeah, but—so what?" Jay shrugged. "Since we're both girls, neither of us has anything the other doesn't, riiight?"

Ed just gave up on this, hopping down onto her feet. "Ugh, whatever..."

Jay decided to stand up herself, and found that..while she had shrunk a bit in the process of becoming a curvy fox-girl, her friend had shrunk decidedly more, which really accentuated the height difference between them. Ed's eye level was probably around her chin with both of them standing up like this. The little wolf-girl clearly noticed this too, frowning and blushing briefly before tilting her head upward and away from the bigger girl's chest again.

"Wh-why'd you end up practically fully clothed while I'm like...this?!" she said, waving at herself.
"Dude, you sleep in boxers and a shirt. What'd you expect, for those to turn into a complete dress?"

Ed raised her hand with the index finger up, then slowly lowered it, sighing—knowing that Jay was right. So instead of responding to that, she changed the subject: "A-and why do we both have fur now!? I don't remember that being part of the deal!" She reached the other hand up to lightly pull at one of her own ears, like they weren't obvious enough already.
"The contract said something about 'possible side-effects' of the transformation. So I guess magic's just gonna magic sometimes," Jay said with a shrug. "Anyway, I think I like it! Like, I get a big warm pillow that I can hug anytime I want!" She pulled her tail up in front of herself and wrapped her arms around it briefly to unnecessarily illustrate this point. "Besides, you look really cute as a wolf-girl!"
Ed's blush brightened again. "Y-yeah, we've established you think I'm 'cute' now...whatever.." She quickly turned around, heading for her dresser to try to find something that fit her considerably diminished new form. "Good luck washing and brushing all that fur..and hair..."

"Is it weird that that kinda sounds like fun, actually?" Jay said, releasing her tail to start over toward the bedroom door.
"Yes, that's weird. Are you going out in that?"
"Sure, I guess? I'm pretty much fully clothed, and nothing else I own really fits now, so I'm sure I can at least get breakfast in this," Jay said.

"Good, I can change shirts in peace...but button up first, seriously!"
"Okay, okay..." The fox-girl made a point of just fastening a couple of buttons near the top together, leaving plenty of room for some cleavage to show, and then headed out the door. She was actually..really hungry, now that the idea of getting food had entered her head!

---

Demons in this setting are supposed to very commonly have "inhuman" skin colors like purple, blue, green, cherry red, etc. It's so nice to be able to actually get images of that if I want them, honestly.
Anyway, if every transformation worked exactly the same as the one in part 1, it'd get stale pretty quickly. I had various ideas of ways to mix things up instead.

The Next Chapter: 1

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

The Next Chapter
Chapter 1: How Did We Get Here?

Edward lay awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He turned his head to one side to look toward the nightstand, at the alarm clock atop it displaying the time of 3:42 AM. Then he turned to the other side, where his roommate and best friend was evidently sleeping peacefully. It looked like he still hadn't changed at at all yet...

How did I let myself get roped into this...?

He turned over again, then wriggled around in the covers, knowing full well the answer to that question. He must have mentally rehearsed the full set of events leading up to this moment at least ten times tonight alone instead of sleeping like he was supposed to. But he couldn't help the insomnia, the nerves...knowing what would happen by the time he woke up the following morning. It was still a little hard for him to fully accept...

The two of them had been friends since middle school, always hanging out together. They'd eventually decided to go to the same college specifically so that they could be roommates, instead of each having to live with a complete stranger. It certainly didn't hurt that said college also had a very good reputation in both of their desired majors, of course. Jay was studying music, looking forward to becoming a classical director and/or composer, while Ed hoped to land a nice, stable job as a software engineer or IT guy or something after graduating in computer science.

A couple of weeks into their first semester, things seemed to be going reasonably well. They both had some serious complaints about their dorm and its rooms, however, and the number one advice the upperclassmen they'd met had was: Rush into a fraternity. In fact, it seemed like a lot of the friendlier people that either of them encountered were either in a GLO or planning to join one as soon as possible. It felt an awful lot like, if the two of them didn't rush, then they were going to be socially left out. So, naturally, they took the tour to see what all the fraternities had to offer. And everyone was friendly enough, but...

On their way out from the third frat house tour of the day, Ed sighed.

"Hey, what's with that sour note, man?"

"You saw all those guys, right? Now look at me for a half a second. Heck, look at you," he said with a slight gesture. Ed had short brown hair and blue eyes; he was a little on the short side for a guy, a little thin, and kind of scrawny. Jay had dark auburn hair, and was a little taller than average, but he was no more fit than his friend, instead sporting a bit of a belly and having an overall slightly chunky build.
"Okay, sure, they're clearly making a lot of use of that room full of weights and exercise machines," he said with a shrug. "So what? I think both of us could probably use the exercise anyway."

"It's not just their looks, though. Their whole—attitude. All testosterone. Bragging about sneaking kegs into their parties...with mostly underage guys attending. We're dealing with a bunch of party jocks, Jay."
"Yyyeaaah...but they're nice guys. They didn't say we have to be the life of the party or anything, right?"

"I think participation is implied," Ed said. "It was the same with the other two, too. Most of the guys in that second one are on the football team, Jay! Those are the kinds of guys who beat us up our first year of high school!"

"Sure, but, things are different in college! I think," he said with a small shrug.

Ed sighed again. "I mean—sure. They're nice, maybe more mature...a little bit. Maybe. But, like—we'd never fit in with guys like that! Both of us would have to totally change our personalities. I like me, how I am."

"Yeah, same," Jayden nodded. "Hmm. I guess we keep looking, then?"
"Maybe...I guess so. I'm just—starting to think every frat is like that. I mean, that's kinda the reputation. I was just hoping it was...overblown. Exaggerated."

"Well, maybe it is! I mean, if literally everyone joins a frat here, then there must be one that guys like us go to. C'mon, let's get lunch, and then we'll get back to it!"

The three houses they visited after lunch hardly seemed any different. One group even made a point of how many of them were in "nerdy" majors like math, computer science, and engineering, yet they were also mostly on the school's soccer or tennis teams. Edward left the last of those frats with his head hung a bit low, and even Jay seemed to be missing a bit of his usual optimistic energy.

"I don't think this is gonna work ooouut..."
"Eh, maybe joining a frat isn't all it's cracked up to be. All I know is, I want a milkshake after all that."
Ed turned his head partly Jay's way. "You always want a milkshake."

"Yeah, but, like. More, now."
"Guess I can't argue with that logic." With that, they started on their way out of greek row.

Ed would remember this exact moment as the point when the trouble started. "Hellooo! Excuse me, you two?" A woman sitting at a booth in front of one of the houses was yelling and waving at them, so they came over. "Hey theeere~," she said with a bright, friendly smile.

She was around average height, with waist-length brown hair and deep brown eyes, and a decent figure enclosed in a fairly stylish outfit: Strapless dress with a mid-length skirt, striped stockings, sparkly earrings. "I couldn't help but notice your shirt!" She was addressing Jay. "You a fan of Ursa Major?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah! I was at like...her third concert ever?" he said, nodding. "She's totally amazing. No label or anything, just started posting videos online and suddenly she's all over the place. I bought her first album, too—love every song on it!"
"Oh, me too, me too!" she said, still smiling. "Lemme introduce myself—I'm Nancy Tanner," she said with a slightly dramatic twirling-wave sort of gesture toward herself.
"Oh, uh, Jayden. Jay to most people."
"Ed," he added. "We're uh..freshmen here."
"Good to know~. I'm a sophomore myself," she said. "I don't suppose you two have been looking for a place to rush, have you?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Ed said.
"We haven't really found the right frat yet," Jay added with a slight shrug.

"That's too bad~. I might have a solution, though." She gestured to some of the material on the booth in front of her, advertising a GLO Edward hadn't heard of before: "Omega Zeta Kappa". On very slightly closer inspection, however, it was a sorority—which made sense given they were talking to a female recruiter. "Heh-hem," she sort of fake-cleared-her-throat, and then said: "If you're tired of party frats, jocks, mean girls—GLOs populated entirely by the popular kids who bullied you all throughout high school, thee~en: Oh Zee Kay is a place for artists and gamers and nerds, a shelter for outcasts and weirdos, with deep connections in the artistic world, creative industries, and the relatively-new magic-based type of careers. And shall I mention that Ursa Major's one of our alumniiiii~?"

"Uh..." Edward looked at his best friend, both of them exchanging a meaningful and highly confused glance. Nancy was very obviously reciting some kind of recruitment pitch...which, in the present situation, made absolutely no sense.

Jay broke a moment's silence, during which Nancy had maintained an unblinking, bright, teeth-gleaming grin toward both of them. "That's cool but uh..we're, y'know, guys? You're talking about a sorority here, right?"
"Hmn? Oh, sure," she said, making a gesture of waving off a trivially minor concern. "Obviously you aren't familiar with our history. The original—and currently only—chapter of the OZK started out as a fraternity. They made the switch using some of those connections to the magical community I was just talking about? Point is, whether you're male or female really isn't much of an obstacle. Actually, our freshly-built house" (she gestured vaguely at the large building behind her) "is enchanted to seamlessly fix that issue with basically no hassle~!"

"You..uh..so. That's the Omega Zeta Kappa house behind you," Edward repeated (and she nodded in reply to this), "and—you're saying it's enchanted." She nodded again.
"Mm-hm! Any man who sleeps inside, the enchantment makes a woman. Simple!"

The two of them exchanged another meaningful glance, this one featuring slightly less confusion with the mutual thought of are we talking to a crazy person taking up all of that vacated space.

Nancy understood this look well enough. "It's all in the brochures," she said matter-of-factly, picking one of them up and shoving it Jay's way. "And the legal paperwork and everything. I commissioned the enchantment myself and saw it happen. My older brother—I mean sister, tested it out, too, soooo. No problem~!"

He took the proffered piece of paper and opened it up where both of them could see it. Indeed, there was an entire section titled "Men welcome to join, but..." with a general outline of how OZK was a sorority and the house was enchanted. Not that something completely insane being in print made it any more likely to be true, but she'd also just casually mentioned something about legal paperwork...

Ed's brain trawled through their entire conversation so far again, and caught on something else strange that she'd said (although much less so than the more recent declarations). "Wait—you said something about the 'only' chapter? Like, at another college?"
"Mm-hm! I'm trying to start a new one here, is all~."
"But..you..." Jay sputtered, gesturing forward. "There's a house. Fully built. Sitting right there behind you."
"Yep," she shrugged. "I'm not likely to fail, but if I do, we'll just donate it to the college or something. And then theeeeyy get to figure out what to do with an enchanted building, heehee! But I don't think it'll be a problem, I mean, I've already got two prospective founding members besides myself...so if you two join, we'll already be halfway there~."

All that Edward could say to that, after a long pause, was: "...'Kay."

Nancy drew herself fully upright, crossing her arms and beaming. "I'm not gonna rush you two to a decision or anything—pun intended~! But think it over. You could be among the founding members of the second chapter ever of a very prestigious organization! And perhaps you'd like a tour later—our facilities are top-notch, practically a luxury suite compared to the standard college dorms you've been living in so far. If you wanna join a GLO, I don't think you'll find a better place to fit in with."
"We'd just...need to let your enchantment turn us into girls," Edward said.
To that, she just shrugged. "There're plenty of ways to turn back. Plus stuff that'd let you switch whenever you want. We just technically need the members of a sorority to 'all be female', and our agreement with the college is that if we're all girls when we wake up in the morning, then that counts~!"

Edward thought to himself: Back at that first meeting, Nancy had seemed charming, cheerful, excessively energetic, maybe slightly ditzy...and definitely somewhat insane. But there was a master manipulator behind all that. She knew just the right thing to say or do to get people to do exactly what she wanted. That had to be it, right? She'd gotten to Jayden starting with a mutual like of that indie pop starlet, poked and prodded to convince him, and then used him to convince his friend...

And so now here he was, lying in bed, knowing that when—that if he fell asleep tonight, it would be his last moments as a man for possibly a long while. And he finally realized (at 3:52 AM now): Jayden had already crossed that threshold. That meant, if Edward stayed up all night and backed out now, then he'd be male and his best friend—who he badly wanted to remain roommates with—would be a girl. That wouldn't work out at all! So...he had no choice...right? He blinked his eyes a few times, ending with them closed, and finally felt just how tired and sleepy he was. Maybe...he could put up with it...just for a little while. To stick with Jay.....

The next thing Ed knew, there was a little bit of bright sunlight hitting his eyes. Even though they were closed, the bit of light coming through the blinds was bright enough to notice, meaning: It was morning. For a fraction of a second he was confused, possibly slightly relieved, because he was still him, didn't seem to have transformed while he was asleep. But then he realized that his body felt oddly heavy and stiff, and refused to move more than just wriggling around a little bit. "M-mfh..?" And he could also feel a faint tingling playing its way across...quite specifically, the very thing that made him male. Was this...when it was going to happen? And how?

The answer seemed to be a resounding yes. The tingling grew steadily stronger, making him squirm around in place a little more as it seemed to stimulate that part of him a bit. At the same time, he had the very distinct sensation of it starting to get smaller. Then that tingling pulsed outward from the spot to his hips, and then simultaneously up his torso and down his legs, making him shiver. "Mm-mmh..!" Everywhere it went, that tingling started out faint and then quickly grew intense, usually lasting only very briefly before fading off once again. It persisted across his scalp and, a little more curiously, his ears. The former made sense enough when he felt soft locks of hair pushing their way out across his forehead and cheeks, then beginning to touch his shoulders: He was already getting the long hair of a woman.

"Mh..a-aah...!" Ed squirmed a little bit again, feeling a very slight tug as his manhood continued to shrink. This was followed by the feeling of his boxers suddenly pulling themselves very tight around his hips and legs—and of course between his legs. The sensation of tightness and pressure from that bit of underwear then seemed to spread out as well, the very same way the tingling had, until he found himself slowly wriggling around under a strange squeezing that covered nearly every inch of his body. "Mmm-aah...!" He then began to feel..the covers falling down around his body, as they suddenly discovered empty space where parts of him had been. And his feet were pulling themselves upward. "Aaa~aah.." In the soft, involuntary vocalizations he made in response to these sensations, his voice cracked slightly. "M-m~mmh..!" Squeaked. "Aa~aah..!" Shifted slowly, steadily upward in pitch. He was...shrinking, and his voice was changing...!

"Mm—mmh..!" As he slowly shrank, Ed started to perceive a difference in the amount of pressure on different parts of his body. He became aware of his face just gently being rounded and softened, while his arms and legs slimmed, his shoulders narrowed, and his waist trimmed itself slimmer. Some of his squirming made his legs rub against each other, and he could feel from this that their skin had suddenly become completely soft and smooth. Perhaps the result of all of that tingling at the start..? "Aa~aah..!" But speaking of that, his ears were still tingling; if anything, it was getting even stronger. They seemed to be one of very few parts of his body not being squeezed smaller, but instead felt as though they were..stretching out? The way he might have stretched his arms out if they felt a little stiff. It soon became obvious that, in fact, they were growing...!

"A-aah..mm~mmh..!" Ed's underwear hadn't stopped getting tighter. Its leggings had steadily grown shorter, and now were pretty much completely gone, only leaving a bit of cloth hugging either side of his hips. And...between the legs...there wasn't much left for them to press tight against. "A~aah...mmrrfh...!" A strange sound, almost like a soft bark, came from his lips in what was now a soft, high tenor tone, as the slight tugging he'd been feeling for a while now progressed into something a little sharper and deeper. "Mrr~RRffh..! Aah, aa~aaah..!" His squirming became a little more violent as his voice crossed up out of male range entirely. His ears spread themselves out a little more, and he could feel that the one now squished into his pillow was completely covered in soft, thick hairs...fur?! But there wasn't really time to think about that...!

That tugging sensation was giving way to the feeling of his manhood slipping its way inward. "Aa~aah..!" It was really happening! Edward found himself curiously excited as the moment he'd dreaded drew near. Perhaps it was just because all of the sensations that this change had caused—the tingling, the pressure, the tugging down there—were all bizarrely pleasant. He...enjoyed them..! And now, it seemed like the climax of them was coming. "Aa~aa~AA~Aaah...!" Indeed, the feeling of Edward's manhood melting away, and something completely different taking its place, was...indescribably pleasurable. "Mrrr-RUFFH..!" She found herself making another strange barking noise as an unfamiliar, fuzzy, tingly sensation hit her right down there, accompanied by a sudden burst of tingling and 'stretching' from a spot on her lower back right near the base of her spine.

"Aah..? M-mmh...!" Indeed, simultaneous to the new girl's hips beginning to spread wider, her bottom puffing out bigger and her thighs thickening, she was rapidly growing out a thick, fluffy tail to match those newly-furry ears of hers! It came out wagging, making the covers above it flap around a bit and making a soft noise every time it lightly hit the bed. And now her chest was tingling again! "Mm~mmh...!" Her voice deepened slightly again, landing on a mid-range alto, as the feeling of some bumps pushing their way up from her nipples, sliding across her shirt, brought on another rush of fuzzy tingling from her new womanhood. "Mm~mh...o-oo~ooh...!" Edward squirmed around, lost in the wonderful, girly sensations, as her bust slowly filled itself out bigger and bigger, finally becoming a moderate-yet-mature pair of breasts perfectly fit for her slender, petite build.

"H-ha~aah..." A high, cute, girly sigh came from her lips as she came down from all of the excitement, now fully transformed. "Hffh..." Her t-shirt had grown long sleeves, pulled tight against her slender frame, and split apart down the middle while she wasn't paying attention, with some buttons that would perhaps allow it to be closed up again; and her underwear, of course, was now a soft pair of panties that held completely flat between her legs. She turned over onto her back, fought briefly with the covers on top of her, then semi-accidentally tossed it all off in the direction of her feet. "Aaah..!"

With open air now touching her face, most of her front torso, and all of her legs, the new girl suddenly felt awfully exposed. She folded her arms to try to cover up. "Wh-wha...I-I..!?"

A high-pitched, cute, chipper voice said from the bed next to her: "Oh wow, you turned out super cuuuute!!!"

---

So, here's another thing I've been working on during the long absence: A new story, whose title is a deliberate pun. Yes, it's a sequel to OZK, sort of. It didn't quite start out that way; the seed of the idea was just "people being transformed in bed/half-asleep". But when trying to think of a good premise behind that happening, things sort of clicked together into this ridiculous overall concept. I even took the time to make sure that the timeline made sense, for Ursa Major to have graduated and started her career by the time Nancy would plausibly be in college.

For this story, I'm generating lots of images. Not just one image when a person is first transformed, but also some images of people who weren't transformed; additional images of the people who were; and so on. I'm seeing to what degree that kind of thing is doable, but so far it seems to be "very much so".

A Summoning, Part LVI

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

Part LIV
~Lovers, Part 2~

A little while after supper, Prama was back in her dorm room as usual. A text came from Logan: im here. So she went and opened the door, and was surprised to find herself looking at the cute, two-tailed fox-girl he'd turned into on Wednesday! "Uh.."
"It's an illusion—sorry," 'she' said, in Logan's regular, male voice. "I thought, nobody would get suspicious this way."

"Oh. R-right." Why hadn't she thought of something so obvious? Prama hurried to get out of the way, and Logan waited until the door was shut to drop the illusion, a brief puff of his characteristic blue smoke accompanying a return to him looking fully like himself. "Well, take whichever seat you want," she offered, and he went for the computer chair. So she hopped onto the bed, sitting in her usual way, with her legs out in a W-shape.

"So, what'd you want to talk about?" he asked.

"Well, I um. I wanted to apologize, for one thing. For..Wednesday."
"You already did, right after, didn't you?"

"I guess..I mean, I do still feel a little guilty about that, but I meant for what happened after. Or..how do I put this...my attitude?"
"You're not apologizing for introducing me to Anika, who helped me turn back," he stated as a fact both of them knew. "So—which 'after' do you mean?"
"I-I mean when I, sort of, pushed you into letting me touch your tail..." she said, her voice softening near the end of that sentence to the point where Logan probably needed the giant fox ears to hear it.

Logan's ears folded back. "Uhh, what."

"Huh?"
"For someone who brags about being a genius all the time, you're being kinda stupid right now," he said, annoyed. "You didn't push me into anything. I let you do that because I wanted you to! I mean—I was curious what it'd feel like, for one thing. And you know what, I did like it, too! It's...really weird to me that I'm that level of 'part-animal' now, but it still felt good."

"Oh. Um.." She hadn't really anticipated this response at all. Had she managed to construct a completely false memory of that evening? "B-but I.."

"Yeah?"
"I wasn't thinking about what you wanted, at all, then. I just..like I always do, tried to do anything and everything to get what I wanted. A-and you know, when Anika turned you back, I didn't like it, because it meant I couldn't have you. I was thinking about you the same way I do a stuffed animal, just a possession for me to keep around and play with when I wanna. So, I'm just awful."

"Oh please. I knew nothing about magic," he said, "remember? If you really wanted to 'keep' me as a fox-girl, all you had to do was tell me that it was irreversible. There's tons of ways you could've explained it that would've had me just shrug and be like, 'welp, guess I'm stuck like this for a while'! So—whatever you were feeling, you sure didn't act on it.

"Anyway, you know..Prama, you are cute," he continued.
"Uhhh.." Her mouth gaped open, her face flushing a bit.

"C'mon, that's not a surprise, right? You used to be a guy, and you've seen yourself in a mirror."
"S-sure, but, i-i-it's something else for you to just come out and say that."

"Well, I'm trying to make a point here."
"Uh..wh-which is?"

"Yeah, you're cute, just in general, but usually you've got this—hard expression on. If you're not super-nervous like we were when we first met, then you always look like you're trying to act confident, and putting up some kinda wall, or something. Except—when you were talking about your stuffed animals, and then asking if I'd let you feel my tail. You looked, actually soft and kinda innocent, and really cute, then...I dunno if I'm explaining it well enough."

"Errrmh..." This was a different kind of loss for words from usual for her: It wasn't that strong social anxiety Prama felt since trading her social confidence (among other things) for becoming a genius; it was that she really didn't know how to deal with someone basically saying he was attracted to her. She certainly didn't know what to say.

"Uh..yeah...that's the look," he said quietly.

"So...does that mean you like me? Want me? Even if it's just as a possession or whatever."

"I...I, guess? I—don't—know," she said, haltingly. "I have no idea what that's supposed to feel like. A-a-anyway, we've barely even met at this point! I don't know that much about you as a person, at least."

"That's fair, you know. But you liked it when I hugged you, and you wanted to feel my tail—I mean, when I'd been turned into a girl. It..really seems like it's not that hard to find ways to transform back and forth, right?"
"Uhm. Y-yeah. I mean, I'm priveleged with access to more ways to do that than many others..."

"Yeah, so. It wouldn't be hard for you to get me access to one of those, if like..you only like how I look as a girl. I'd rather...you know, live my life as a guy, generally, but after taking some time to think about it, I know the way I feel is really that..I wouldn't mind turning back into that for you sometimes. And, and I can't believe I feel this way, but—that's especially if you'd, y'know, pet me? Oof, that still feels wrong coming outta my mouth."

"I..w-wouldn't say that I only like you as a girl.." Prama said slowly, quietly. She softly cleared her throat, trying to shake the butterflies out of her chest. "I mean—you're really cute that way, and it's nice that you're the same height as I am, more or less, but...I'm definitely enough of a girl right now, I guess, to appreciate how—attractive you are as a man, too. Only, I—well, I have my education to get through, and a career to start. Lots of irons in the fire right now, you know? I didn't really plan on looking for anyone to—be with, for a while, or not necessarily—ever?"

"Yeah...I'm fine with taking things slow," he said. "You can't be saying that you wouldn't be able to find time to date or whatever sometimes though, right? Miss 'expert of time management'?"

"Pffheheh..I did say that, didn't I? I mean, I certainly found time for our meeting tonight, huh?"

"You sure did." He was smiling across at her...Prama understood very well the biological mechanisms that were making her feel slightly giddy with a racing heart, but that didn't make it all rushing in on her any less of a surprise.

"So...uh." Logan rolled the chair up closer to the bed. "I am curious if the way I felt from you touching my tail had anything to do with me being a girl at the time...probably not, though, right?" He brought one of his tails up into his lap.

"Not likely...you, want me to experiment?"
"Yeah, sure, if you wanna."

Prama scooted forward and gently ran her hand up and down the tail. It was just as warm and fluffy as ever..!

"Mrr~rrh." Logan's voice came out in a deep churring noise. "Y-yeah, that feels..just as nice."
"Uh..g-good...ack!" Something soft had tickled her cheek, and Prama jumped slightly before turning to find that it was his other tail. "Oh."
"Sorry—didn't mean to put it right there," he said, shrugging. It seemed he had just wanted to swap out which tail was in his lap for her to pet.

"I-it's fine...just startled me."

"Mrrr~rrh..."
"Um, y-you know, I had a thought the other day. About, if you had wanted to stay a girl."
"Yeah?"
"I thought, in Japanese at least, feminine names have a tendency to end in '-ko'. So, maybe you could call yourself 'Loko'."
"I guess. It does roll off the tongue pretty well. So, whatever—I could try that out later, if there's some convenient way for me to change."
"R-right..."

---

Around halfway into the date, Jack needed to use the restroom. He got up and made his way there, pausing just briefly before turning towards the men's room. If he'd been doing this on their last date, he would've needed to remember to use the other door.

It seemed like it was going pretty well. Boreas hadn't been as physical as with "Jackie" at their earlier date, at least so far, but he was starting to get a sense for the alchemist's overall mood, and he was pretty sure he was putting her in a good one. She hadn't felt "up to" a kiss last time, but she might this time. Or...he thought to himself, as he washed his hands: She might ask him to turn into a girl for just a few minutes for some petting similar to the end of their first date. He'd..like that, too.

He turned his head up from the sink, happening to look into the mirror, and jumped slightly before quickly turning around. The bathroom was empty other than him right now, but he could have sworn he just saw a tall man standing just inside the door behind him, giving him a big grin and a thumbs-up. Jack took a moment to get some more water on his hands and lightly splash his eyes with it; he hadn't had anything unusual to drink today, and really shouldn't be "hallucination" levels of tired, either. Besides, what a weird thing to think he was seeing! He was resolved to put it out of his mind by the time he was through drying his hands.

When he came out of the men's room, he nearly bumped into another werewolf who'd been on her way out of the the door straight across from him, which led to the women's restroom. She was brown-haired, cute, and wearing a long, dark dress. "Uh—sorry!" she said, hurriedly backing up and gesturing for him to go ahead of her out of the little hallway that led to the two doors they'd come out of. "I um, guess I should've heard someone coming."

"No big deal," Jack said, heading through the open space to get fully out of her way. He didn't think this restaurant was fancy enough for a dress like that, but maybe she had someone she was trying to impress. He quietly wished whoever she was with luck; she was pretty good-looking, after all, but not really his type.

---

After their dinner, Graham invited her guest to the living room couch so they could watch a movie together. She sat right up next to the werewolf, winding her twin tails around Damon's, and they leaned against each other quietly for a while. Around a half-hour into it, she gently rubbed the wolf-girl's ears, making her softly bark and pet Graham back.

They didn't really catch too much of the movie's plot, since it wasn't long after that before the Nekomata was on her back on the couch with Damon holding onto, petting, and nuzzling her. It was just as well; she'd picked something fairly boring anyway. She thought that this would've been a bit much for a "first date", but with all of the times they'd met up at Damon's place, it hardly counted as that.

"Mrr~rrrh..." She couldn't resist letting her 'true form' out a little while later; the height gain put Damon's face in her chest. "Pffheehee."
The werewolf quickly lifted her head. "Mrrfh..uh, s-sorry."
"Hey now..'s long as you appreciate 'em," she said, gently lifting Damon slightly into the air to bring her back up to where their heads were across from each other.

Another while later, Graham was gently stroking a hand through the smaller girl's hair. "Mrroo~wh. So, you said...turning 'full werewolf' doesn't hurt anymore?"
"Rrfh..r-right. After the first coupla times...like last full moon, it felt uhm..mostly normal. But..I still uh, can't talk like that."
She rubbed Damon's ears, drawing some soft barks from her. "I hope it's not too insensitive, after what you've been through with it..but I admit, I've gotten a little curious how you look? Are you any taller?"
"Mmh..y-yeah...among other things," she said, blushing. "I guess....we don't really need to talk right now, anyway?"
"If it's okay with you~," Graham quietly purred.

"O-okay.."

Damon leaned down, pressing her nose into the catgirl's cheek, for a moment, then softly barked a couple of times. After that, the Nekomata was rewarded by the feeling of the woman in her arms growing taller, curvier, and noticeably stronger too—while, of course, also becoming fully covered in fur. When she could feel about half of Damon's muzzle across her cheek, its cold canine nose touching her ear, she was struck with an impulse, and simply followed it.

"Mrr~rrrh." Graham's present look, first gained when her tail finished splitting, had come with some snowy white fur across her arms and legs; it felt nearly effortless to let that spread in to the rest of her body. When the fur made it past her neck to her face, it seemed to cause her to grow out a feline muzzle, shorter than Damon's but just as animal-like. She pulled the werewolf close after that, inviting her to some more close hugging, petting, and nuzzling now that they were both fully fuzzy. Damon accepted this invitation readily, shivering slightly in response to a touch around the middle of her back.

Well, that was how they missed the rest of the movie.

---

Sam didn't really know much about how a date was supposed to go. To be completely honest, she didn't even fully get the point of a date when they already knew they liked each other, but Onida had just a little bit of old-fashionedness to her (presently his) personality, a certain idea of how romance was supposed to go, and Sam was happy to respect that and play along if it made him happy.

Ultimately, it didn't feel too different from the many times before when she'd hung out with, or talked with, Onida since moving in and becoming a part of the "pack". He did seem a little uncomfortable still with being a guy, or possibly with the physical reactions his body had to Sam's compliments or smiles, but she kept those coming anyway. It surely didn't qualify as a date if there wasn't any flirting or anything, right?

When it was over, Sam came up next to him, taking up the same position she'd had as they'd walked to and into the restaurant, and they walked out together into the night, making their way back toward home. "This was fun," she said after a little bit of walking. "Aaah, did you enjoy it?"
"Y-yeah...um." They were far enough from the restaurant to be hidden from its lights, but not enough to be under the proper streetlights yet. Onida gently pulled himself off of Sam's arm to get to where he could face her. "I...if you don't mind, I'd.."
"Aaah, yeah?" she said, tilting her head slightly.

"Could I, pick you up?"
"Anytime." Sam felt her face flush slightly at the idea, since it would also be a hug.

"A-all right." So Onida just went for it, lifting the much shorter girl up in his arms until their faces were across from each other. She couldn't resist pulling her arms around him in return.

"Errm." He looked slightly unsure of himself; there was no way he didn't know what they were supposed to do next, but maybe he wasn't sure if she'd be okay with it. Sam gave back an encouraging smile, letting her tail wag freely back and forth behind her. When that wasn't enough, she leaned her face slowly closer and closer to him until their noses were touching. That seemed to do it, and Onida pressed his lips into hers, initiating a kiss.

"Mmfph." It was hesitant and gentle at first, but almost as soon as Sam started participating rather than pulling back, he became much more aggressive and passionate. This she liked! Onida was a kind and considerate person, but she would never have been worthy of the title of "alpha" or such a blessing from La Lune without having the capacity to take charge. Sam felt like he was strong enough to take care of her—to take care of anything. It made her feel safe and happy; she wanted to support him any way she could. And right now, it just physically felt really good.

They came out of the kiss panting, and Sam at least wasn't able to get enough breath to speak for a long moment. Once she finally could, however, she waited a little longer—letting herself fully catch her breath. It wouldn't be any good for what she wanted to say to be misunderstood. "Onida...aaah. I think I'm in love. Aaaah, not that I really know what it's supposed to feel like, but aah. I dunno how else I could be this happy~."
"M-me too..." he said softly, stroking a hand through her hair a couple of times. Then he grabbed her into a second kiss about as long and passionate as the first.

After this one, he gently set her back on the ground, taking a small step back. Sam wobbled around a little in place, needing to put some effort into making her tail counterbalance her so she wouldn't topple over. "I'm, aaah...fffh...gonna need to....lean on you to walk...y'know?" she said.

"Th-that's fine," he said, coming around next to her to make it easier to do that. Putting an arm around her shoulders so he could catch her if she did fall over.

With that, they started out toward their home together. Sam decided that maybe a date wasn't so unnecessary after all.

---

After a dinner and a lot more talking, Fel found herself walking out of the restaurant next to Billie. The catgirl walked over to one side of the front doors on the sidewalk, keeping an arm around Fel's waist to gently but insistently bring her along, and then let go to bring herself around to in front of the werewolf. She was smiling, and blushing just slightly. "Well now..I had a great time with ya," she said.
"Uh..m-me too..." For a moment, Fel wrung her hands, not feeling certain about what to do next. Part of her wanted to...! But another part very much didn't. It wasn't that she was at all worried about Billie's reaction to it, but rather her own...

"Pfheehee~..!" The catgirl responded to this with a soft giggle, then drew herself close, effortlessly pushing Fel's arms out of the way to pull her into a hug. One of her hands reached up to rub the top of the werewolf's head.
"Aack! Uh...o-oh...mrrfh." Fel carefully returned the hug, still feeling very...uncertain. But, feeling like she knew what the other girl wanted, she brought a hand up to gently rub Billie's left ear. It was soft and warm, but the most surprising part was how much it twitched and moved between her fingers.

"Mrr~rrrh." The catgirl's response to this was some deep, satisfied purring. And then something equally soft and warm very slightly, briefly touched a spot near the base of Fel's tail.

"Y-yip!"

"Heh.." Billie let go after that, seemingly taking advantage of the slight jolt of surprise to make it easy to disengage. She stepped back enough to look Fel in the eyes. "Y'know..."
"Uh...y-yeah?"
"As much as I wanna ask you to my place~, or if I can come to yours? I get it. You're not ready for anything like that, right?"

"Um...n-no...sorr—" Her word of apology was cut off by Billie putting an index finger on Fel's lips for a second.
"Shh-shh! Don't apologize. I'm happier if you're honest with me. And I'd hate to push ya into something you're not ready for. If I really like you, I oughta think about making you happy first, right?"

"Uh...I, I guess so?"
"So, this is goodnight for now, eh? We've got each other's numbers, so I'll be after you for another date before long. Maybe let me see how you look as a young man," she suggested.

"Oh, s-sure, I guess. Maybe."
"Iiif you're all right with it. Anyhow, I'll see you later no matter what, Fel," she said.

After that, Billie stood still for a moment, still beaming, and reached her hand across to pat the wolf-girl's head a couple of times. Then she turned and walked off toward, presumably, her own car.

Fel breathed a small sigh of relief. If the catgirl had really asked for something like that...she wasn't sure how easy it would've been to say no. But she'd been right, too—Fel felt so far from ready!

She was about to head toward her own car too, but paused for a second, thinking she saw something odd about Billie's tail. Right at the very tip, it seemed maybe twice as thick as the rest? She shook her head gently and headed towards her car, thinking: It wouldn't be that unusual for the fur to frizz up or something. It was probably nothing important.

---

On Saturday morning, Zotha woke up, took a shower, and put on clothes. None of these things were technically necessary: Her power as a goddess was perfectly capable of keeping her clean, retrieving or creating clothes directly onto her person, and so on. But it was a routine that made things feel relatively normal. It helped to make her still feel human. Likewise unnecessary but habitual, she finished up by stopping in front of the bathroom mirror to brush her hair. The degree to which this was necessary (if she wasn't using her powers to fix it, at least) had increased dramatically since becoming a girl, an event which had involved growing out some extremely long hair.

This particular morning, she stopped, letting go of the brush still stuck inside her hair. "Hello?" Because this time, there was somebody else in the mirror, next to her reflection.

It was a tall, fairly handsome man, well-dressed, with dark hair and dull-colored eyes. She fixed her gaze on that man in the mirror, not turning around to look at the rest of the room, because she could sense that he wasn't in the room. He wasn't behind the mirror either, as though it had suddenly become a window—but somehow he was still in it.

"Hi there." He gave what seemed to be a gentle smile. "You must have visited the other gods' domains by now, right? Maybe even that old dragon. Did you, perhaps, notice the lack of reflective surfaces?" His voice seemed to be coming out of the mirror itself, rather than from the position he'd be in if he were where his reflection appeared in the actual room.

"Not really..." Zotha crossed her arms. Right: among the many names she'd heard the god of love went by, one of them was, in fact, "the man in the mirror". Apparently this was something of a literal description—or, at least, could be if he so chose. "I guess I should ask who I'm talking to, exactly, right now?"

"Oh, let's say Narcissus," he shrugged. "You were admiring your own lovely looks a moment ago, right? It hardly matters anyway."

"And you can just, appear in any reflection like that?"

"More or less. I'm sure you've heard before, about how seeing one's own reflection in a dream is impossible?"
"I guess that makes sense..."
"Don't get the wrong impression. La Lune has a grand, placid lake in her domain which she'll visit from time to time. And Sol brought one huge, full-length mirror up to his space station with him; keeps it in a back room with a blackout curtain draped over it most of the time. It's just that I can only visit them when they feel like seeing me."

"But, since I have a mirror here, you can visit me, I guess."

"Certainly." He paced a bit, crossing behind her in the reflection and looking around the room. "It's refreshing, really, to see you keeping up human habits. You don't know how many people would throw those away as soon as they realized they didn't need them."

"I've been given the impression that you're a little unstable, and dangerous," Zotha said.
"Oh, I am extremely unstable and dangerous," he said, maintaining a gentle sort of smile. "But today, I am in quite a good mood."

"Should I not have a mirror around, then?"

"A reflection can't hurt you, Zotha. Look." He stopped partially behind her, on the opposite side from the one he'd started on, and placed a hand on her reflection's shoulder. "You feel that? Of course not." Indeed, it didn't feel like there was anything touching her. Then he let go, dropping his arms back to his side. "You'd be foolish to let me physically enter your domain, certainly. But I can't do anything except talk from here. And, wave at you, I suppose." He did wave, briefly, moving back to fully on one side of her reflection.

"That's a relief, if it's true at least," she said. "I guess you just wanted to meet the new blood, since you're feeling good today?"

"I will admit to being interested in seeing you. We've already been doing a lot of good work together, after all," he said.
"We have," she said, half a question.
"Oh, certainly. The kind of change you bring on, and the results it brings, are very good at bringing together extremely compatible people who would either have no interest in each other otherwise, or might never even meet. And aside from that romantic love, there was that little miracle of the love between siblings allowing them to recognize each other despite every possible obstacle. There's obviously someone you love, as well."

Zotha remembered several of the people she'd changed, and what she knew of what was going on with them now. "I guess I can see that...but how do you mean, 'compatible'?"
"There's no such thing as soulmates—anyway, not as far as I can tell. But since it is my area, I'm pretty good at seeing whether any pair of persons are likely to hit it off. Usually what kind of relationship they'll wind up in, too. It's not perfect—I'd have never guessed you and Jerod, for one. But you fixed that, the results of your actions helping her to become someone different, to change at a level deeper than any magic could force. Anyway—that makes me the ultimate matchmaker, for better or for worse."

"Hmm. Your answer sounded like a 'no'," Zotha said.

"I see we have a sharp one on our hands. Well, that's because it was. As I said before, the other gods only let me talk to them when they want me to. And I have a message I'd like to relay now, rather than later."

"I guess it must be pretty important, then."
"Yes, very much so," he said, nodding. His smile looked a little more mischievous for a moment. "I think they've been afraid to tell you about it so far, but we have a little...problem. It predates you by about a week, although the full extent of it wasn't comprehended immediately. If the other gods, especially the ones who weren't happy you ascended, have seemed unusually nice to you, it's because they've been distracted by that problem. Bigger fish to fry, and all that."
"I've had some hints of that," she admitted. "But I figured displaying a little bit of trust wouldn't hurt. I can wait until they're ready to tell me about it."

"They don't want you two to collide. I think it's a ridiculous fear, honestly, but all right. Just tell them: No need to worry. I have it taken care of."

"You...have it taken care of." Zotha crossed her arms again, frowning. "This problem so huge that a new god showing up who some of them don't like, could be practically ignored by comparison. You've just, fixed it, all by yourself?"
"Yes," he said with a small nod.

"You know if I do tell them that, they're gonna want to know how," she said.
"By working within my own aspect, of course. If you like the world you're living in, you probably won't want to destroy it. But if the person you love lives there, you would feel compelled to preserve it instead. Simple enough. I had some false starts at first, so of course I didn't report anything for a while, but I'm absolutely certain I got it right this time."

For as much as she wanted to respect the wishes of the other gods as far as knowing about this entire situation, Zotha couldn't help drawing some obvious conclusions from what "Narcissus" was saying. The problem was a person, and he'd made that person fall in love with someone else. Or, helped along a relationship with someone highly "compatible", or whatever it actually was that he could do. She didn't share his confidence that this would be enough to fix everything, but thankfully, defending him wasn't going to be her job.

"So you just want me to pass that along?"
"If you don't mind," he said, spreading his arms out in front of him briefly.

"I can do that."

"Thank you. I'll leave you alone, then."

With that, just as suddenly as he had been in the mirror, he was gone. It occurred to Zotha after this that Jess probably should have heard some part of that conversation, or at least noticed she'd been taking longer in the bathroom than usual, but had given no indication of either. A brief mental conversation confirmed that Jess was still out there and fine, but also hadn't noticed anything unusual at all. However the god of love's "mirror-appearance" trick worked, apparently it had some measures built in to make it extra private. That was probably convenient most of the time, but in this case it just meant she had to tell Jess what was going on before heading out to ask to see Sol again...

---

It's a nice coincidence that "LV" is half of the letters of the word "love", given what I was going for with these two parts. Anyway, this couple of parts are taking place on April 23 and 24, which are concurrent with Kael's first meeting Brian. The last section of this part might qualify as a partial retcon: Kael's power does favor turning guys into girls through touch for some reason, but several of the earlier ones seeming to be extra attracted to him might at least partially be due to a certain someone's interference.