A War's End

While this is yet another story, it falls under the category of "extended caption" rather than whatever the other category of stories I post here is called. So if you were longing for a caption this will hopefully fulfill that want.

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Mero awoke, and quickly realized he had gotten himself captured. Only a week ago he had proven his mettle and become the new alpha, and in that capacity had scouted a less-traveled part of their forest territory where some humans had recently been sighted. He had gone alone because if there were humans there, he had wanted to try and speak with them instead of just perpetuating the seemingly endless war between the two races. If he could just achieve a temporary truce, he had thought, that at least would be something.

For as long as Mero had been alive, some twenty-odd years perhaps, it had been on and off again: Skirmishes, fights, full-scale battles. The humans had their fields and pastures, and the Lupin (Mero's people) had their forests, and through all the fighting neither side had gained ground, or really anything at all. It was just an old grudge match nobody remembered the reason for; it was pointless, and it only lost to both sides people and resources that would be better spent elsewhere. Mero had recognized this for a long time, and his drive to become alpha was the opportunity to seek an end to the bloodshed.

But he had just gotten himself captured instead. Some human trick had produced a mist when he came to that part of the forest alone, and he had been a little too slow to hold his breath; it knocked him out, and now he awoke bound in tight ropes, with even a muzzle fixed around his head. He was a tall, strong, valiant Lupin, fully covered in thick gray fur, with sharp claws and sharper teeth...but little of that was going to help in his current situation; the muzzle barely allowed his mouth to open, and the ropes were stronger than he was. Really, it was surprising they hadn't just killed him if they were able to do all this.

He actually looked around the room he was in for the first time. He was sitting on stone floor (lying on it before waking) with strange markings all over it; there was no sunlight here, but a dim glow from th ceiling, and it smelled faintly of ash. A large door a ways in front of him was the only apparent way out of here...and as he looked at that, thinking maybe he could find a way to wriggle to it and out, it swung inward, opening, and a human man in a dark red robe walked inside.

"I thought you'd wake up by now," said the human, coming a little closer but not in the Lupin's reach even if he weren't still fully bound. He was a young man; as far as the Lupin knew of human age they were probably close to equal. Mero just growled, and the human knelt so their faces were opposite each other. "I'd like to apologize for my rudeness first of all. Or...well, I suppose you'd say that term doesn't even begin to cover it. But—I couldn't see any other way to ensure we could talk in complete privacy, and you not just tear my throat out."

Mero glared. "You have good reason to be afraid," he said; the muzzle did allow him enough space to speak at least.

"I know, you are the newest alpha. My sources suggested that you feel differently from how the old one did. About this war and hatred business, I mean."

"That would have been true before you did this to me."

"Oh come on, this is bigger than your pride. Isn't it? Years of hatred and death, for what?"

"You're just trying to deceive me. What, you want a pet? I'll die first!"

"No, no no no..." The human shook his head, looking distressed. "Look, I—I promise I'll get you back to your forest as soon as we're through talking, no matter what. Or, I'll untie you and you can do whatever you want to me. Just—hear me out. Talk to me as if I hadn't had to do all this, just for a moment."

"...Fine." Mero shook his head, and said something he'd been meaning to say to whatever human he found who would listen: "The fighting is pointless. When we fight amongst ourselves it is to grow stronger as a people, and there is a ban against killing. When we fight you, our strongest die and are maimed for nothing."

"Well, I share most of the same sentiments." The human moved to a sitting position. "I was recently elected—err, it's sort of like being alpha but we go about it differently. The point is that I'm the leader of the humans now. I want peace as badly as you do. But I think our people will have a hard time accepting it. They'll just elect someone else—or, in your case, you'll have an endless string of challengers for alpha—unless we can get both sides to stop hating each other."

"I do not fear such challenges," said Mero. "I would not be alpha if I were not already the strongest."

The human gave a serious, searching look. "You think you can change your people's opinion of us if the fighting stopped for long enough?"

Mero nodded. "They will bend to my will."

"I don't have the kind of power over my people you do. I have to get them to see your people as people before they can begin to understand. I want...I need your help with this. That's, the real reason I brought you here specifically."

"...How is it you wish me to help?"

"I'm...a wizard," said the human. "I know a lot of magic, 'human tricks', you might say. I studied it for a long time, and I found a spell which can...well, frankly it would make you appear more like a human. Not entirely, and not permanently; to be more accurate it would give you the power to change between appearing largely human and looking like your own kind. Humans are shallow; they'll listen to you if you use the form this spell would provide."

"Hmm." Mero detected something about the man's wording. "It would not give me the power to look exactly as I do now," he challenged after a moment's thought.

"Well, uh." The human shook his head, apparently trying to think of the right way to put it. "You would lose none of your strength and skill. But the spell is called the Maiden Ritual. It would...make you female, and that wouldn't be something you could go back and forth with."

"I see." There was a long pause as Mero thought. "Anything is worth it to stop the killing of my people. I still do not know whether I can trust you, as much as I want to."

"Maybe, uh...think of it this way," said the human. "My people elected me when I returned from learning a lot of magic, believing initially that I would use my powers to escalate the war and end it in the worst way it could for the Lupin. The mist spell I used could've as easily been deadly poison, but it was purely an ultimately harmless sleep effect. The floor in this room is inscribed with markings for the spell I mentioned; I could've cast it while you were asleep, or done any number of other things really. I didn't; I only restrained you so you'd hear me out instead of attacking me right away. I had to carefully adjust the sizing of what's on your mouth right now so you could still speak with it on.

"...You could have come to that part of your forest with a few of your best warriors, in case a human was really there. But you came alone. Because...you wanted to talk, right? In the same way, I chose at every point the least hostile action I felt I could, because I want the same kind of peace as you do, and just as badly."

Mero considered his words for a long moment. And then he said, "...What is your name?"

"Oh? Uh—Terin Asuron. I'm sorry, I meant to introduce myself before I went into all that."

"My name is Mero," said the Lupin. "You have my permission to use your spell, Terin."

"I—I do?" he seemed briefly shocked. "I mean—okay. I'm, I'm glad you're choosing to trust me. Let's try and make a peace that lasts. Just...um, I want to say hold still but the ropes are still there. The spell will get rid of them, though." He stood up, walked to the edge of the markings, and then turned again to face Mero. Then he began to speak in a language the Lupin did not understand, though evidently something in the room did since the outermost markings began to glow.

Mero watched with some interest as Terin waved his hands around a bit in the air, a white glow trailing each one. While he did this he continued to chant, and the glow spread inward through the markings steadily until reaching those just under the Lupin, and finally the glow spread upward along his body itself and the ropes on him. And then...the magic began to do its work.

The Lupin felt a curious tingling all across his body, and then he felt the ropes starting to loosen slightly. Looking down, he realized that most of his fur was starting to get shorter and thinner; then, the muzzle fell off, clattering a bit on the ground when it landed. Examining his snout now, Mero realized that it was slightly smaller and shorter than before, and indeed it was still shrinking.

The ropes loosened further now, and Mero could see that the cause was his body actually becoming smaller; his broad shoulders were narrowing, his frame diminishing, even his height was beginning to decrease. He looked up briefly to see his view of the world sinking. By now his body fur was little more than a thin coating, and he felt his hind feet starting to reshape themselves, the back part sinking down to the level of the front and reforming to the shape of human feet. The pads disappeared from the palms of his forefeet too, and all of his claws shortened and grew less sharp. And Mero's muzzle...he could barely see it before his eyes, and then he couldn't even see it at all. He felt a burst of tingling all across what had once been a snout as the fur fled it entirely, leaving soft, smooth skin. That burst spread downward, bare skin appearing on his shoulders, arms and chest, stomach, down through his lower body and legs. Some of his scars from past fights and battles remained, much more visible on bare skin than they had been through fur. His tail tingled too, but its fur had never actually shrunk, and now seemed to grow slightly thicker, at the same time turning fluffier and softer.

The upper part of Mero's head tingled next, as the fur there (which had also remained) suddenly grew up and out, becoming steadily longer and longer. The same tingling hit his ears, and they changed just as his tail had. He saw gray head-fur before his eyes, felt it tickling the strangely sensitive bare skin of the sides of his face, and then felt it spreading its way downward along his shoulders and then back.

The shrinking had continued to progress this whole time; when he looked down to see the long, soft locks of hair he now saw a slim, small, effeminate body with ropes loosely hanging off of it. But he also saw that what he had grown used to having between his legs his entire life was much smaller than it had been before, and as if in reaction to this realization it suddenly was hit with its own sharp burst of tingling, and began to shrink much faster.

"Aaah!" Mero surprised himself with an outburst in response to this; it felt...good? And his voice was higher than he was used to, maybe as high as it had been when he was a pup just inside of puberty. He wriggled on the floor slightly, his face starting to burn with heat, as he felt it shrinking more and more, slipping steadily inward. Now his hips pushed their way outward, his thighs grew thicker, and at the same time his stomach shrank still more, gently curving its way inward. "Ah..mmnn...Rrrf!" Higher and higher his voice went as he made increasingly wild, animal-like sounds, and then...

The Lupin's ears lowered, his tail beginning to wag faster and faster, as his sex now fully changed. The appearance of womanhood came along with an unexpected gift: a burst, a sample perhaps, of the kind of pleasure she was newly capable of feeling. Her whole body seemed to burn with warmth and pleasure as she felt her hips expanding out further, her stomach pushing in more, and now a new sensation of her chest gently tingling. "Aah..arf....rrf!" She let out a series of high, excited, girlish barks as her nipples grew slightly larger and taller, and then began to push forward, dragging surrounding flesh out along with them into a pair of small bumps. And then, as she let out a high, deeply feminine howl, those bumps rapidly bloomed out, becoming a nice big pair of womanly breasts, completing the change to her body.

The ropes, now in a loose pile on the floor around her, glowed faintly from the magic, and suddenly drew themselves upward, wrapping themselves around her bare body into a small, torn-up assemblage of close-fitting clothes. Lupin needed no clothes due to their fur, but now Mero was no Lupin, and the tight, soft bits of cloth felt strangely right on her new form.

Terin approached her cautiously. "Did it all work? How do you feel?"

Between sharp, rapid panting she said, "I..I feel.." Her mouth, still wide open as she kept panting, gained a hint of a smile. With a small wave of her will her hands became covered in fur again and gained claws, and then changed back. It was simple to control, and she felt she knew how to go back to a Lupin form just as easily.

"I..." Her blush deepened again and her tail began to wag again as her gray eyes turned up to the human leader. He was...nice-looking, and she rather liked his scent. More importantly, he was the first human she'd seen willing to try and forge a peace with her people. He had been so honest and kind this whole time, and she was...attracted to his intelligence, his thoughtfulness, the cute little nervous way he tended to talk.

Mero caught her breath finally, closing her mouth in a way that still showed off a couple of her longer fangs and letting it turn upward into a grin. Again her ears lowered to the sides of her head, and her tail's wagging by now had grown faster even than before.

The human seemed uncertain about this expression. "Um.."

With no further warning, she jumped and tackled him, knocking him to the ground under her. She would have been much taller than him before, but now they were just about the same height, maybe an inch or so to his advantage if you didn't count her ears. Her strong, slim arms were wrapped around his body, her new breasts pressed against his chest, and the instant her face was close enough in the middle of the tackle she had pressed her lips directly against his, an expression of deep affection which a Lupin's long muzzle never would have been capable of. He hesitated briefly in her arms, but in seconds he began submitting to her, returning her kiss enthusiastically with his arms wrapping around her small waist and holding her as tightly as he could.

Only when she was fully satisfied, probably several minutes later, did Mero finally release him from the kiss, pushing herself up with her elbows just enough to put a tiny bit of space between them. They panted for a long time, her enjoying the scent of his breath for a while. Then she gave him a teasing grin. "You did say I could do whatever I wanted with you after you untied me."

"Err..will the other Lupin, recognize you?" This issue hadn't really occurred to Terin before, by the way he said it.

"My scent is still the same. And if they do not, I will retake the position of Alpha again. This form will appease humans enough for them to listen?"

"I-if it doesn't, I don't know what would," he said, his blush brightening a bit.

"Good," she nodded. "We will bring peace to our people. And then...you will be my mate."

"Uh—um.."

"You do not like this plan?" she said, tilting her head slightly.

"I, just really flustered is all," he answered. And then, "I...Yes. I, I like this plan a lot."

Mero responded by giving him another kiss, this one longer and deeper than the last one. She felt his hands wander up through her soft hair, all the way to her ears, and then start to give them a good rubbing and scratching, and let out a few muffled barks through the kiss, her still-new womanhood bursting with more pleasure than she had known possible before.

When it was over, they separated, sitting opposite each other on the floor. Mero's tail was still wagging furiously, and both of them were giving the other a goofy, blushing grin. It was a while before Mero was able to stand again, and they took that time to work out a more detailed plan. After a more gentle parting kiss, Mero reformed her fur (though, she noticed, the long hair from the top of her head remained) and left to return to her people for a time.

A truce was agreed upon within a week. The wounds of war and hatred took far longer than that to heal, of course, but the truce being sealed by the marriage of the Lupin's alpha with the town's mayor made the tensions die down much faster than they otherwise would have. It was only a few months before some of the Lupin asked for the kind of power to change that their alpha had, a wish the wizard became good at granting, and within a few generations the two groups had largely become one, a new race neither human nor Lupin who came to call themselves werewolves.