Hunter & Hunted

It was never supposed to go this badly.

Nolan was a professional hunter. He hunted game for exotic restaurants to put on their menus, and he hunted problematic predators: Bears that needed to be put down, or anything like that. His latest commission was to find a wolf that had been continually eating the livestock of a group of farms, and capture it—or kill it, if necessary. This wolf was especially large, by all accounts, and its behavior was a little strange too. It worked alone, for one thing, which was very rare among wolves. And it seemed unusually intelligent; every time the farmers grew more vigilant in one area, it would move on to the next. It seemed to know when their guard was down to go grab its latest meal from their sheep, chickens, goats, or whatever else it could get its paws on.

He'd tracked the wolf into some woods; the size of its tracks matched the claims about its size, despite how unusual they had seemed. He'd brought a crossbow with tranquilizer darts, and a regular bow, and a pistol, and his usual knife. He'd been quiet, careful, worn camouflage, masked his scent. Yet it seemed all of that had not quite been enough.

The sight of the actual beast was something else. He'd thought he was looking at a brown bear, at first, given the thing's size. Regardless, he had enough knockout drugs to put an elephant to sleep, so he thought it wouldn't be a problem. He thought it hadn't noticed him, which was probably his first mistake. Nolan had carefully raised the bow and tried to take a shot, and...the wolf had dodged it. It just suddenly jumped away to one side. Then it turned its full body his way, and its big yellow eyes were practically staring him down—even though it shouldn't have been able to see him! Then it started running in his direction. He fired at it several more times, and it dodged every one. He tried one more shot, nearly point-blank, and seemed to land a hit—but this was somewhat futile, because the wolf had been hit mid-pounce, and it landed on him before he could try to dodge.

As the giant animal's weight hit his body and the crossbow clattered to the ground several feet away from them, he had several thoughts. He should have just dropped it and run after that first miss. He should have gone for a killshot. He should have loaded more drugs into each dart instead of counting on landing multiple hits if the beast was too big for just one. It shouldn't be able to tear into him for too long if the one shot he managed to make had an effect, and maybe...just maybe, he could survive. But while those thoughts were going, his body more or less moved on its own.

He drew his pistol and fired a couple of times, before the animal's paw knocked it out of his hand. Then he got out his knife and started trying to cut its throat. The wolf drew its head up out of his reach—again displaying an unusual amount of intellect—and continued clawing at him, tearing through his clothes and his skin. Keeping the thing from biting his face or neck did let Nolan survive a little longer, but it seemed increasingly likely that he was just going to bleed out if the wolf didn't finish him sooner. He fought as hard and long as he could to get free, despite feeling that the effort was entirely futile.

There was a small flash of hope when the wolf suddenly, without warning, collapsed. The knockout drug...had worked after all? Or maybe he'd inflicted more wounds than he thought with the gun and knife. But now Nolan had a new problem: He was, himself, very badly wounded, much of his strength spent, and the giant animal lying on top of him was too heavy for him to move. He grunted, trying three or four times, without making any headway. He could feel the beast's shallow, ragged breath across the side of his face—it wasn't dead, and it would wake up in only a few hours. Would Nolan even be alive by then?

He seemed to have lost a lot of blood...he felt kind of lightheaded. Nolan tried one last time to shove the animal off of him, with no success. He thought, desperately, as he started to lose consciousness: I want to live...!

This was when something very, very bizarre happened—bizarre enough that Nolan thought perhaps he was starting to hallucinate, or had already lost consciousness and was dreaming his final dream. The giant animal lying on top of him..started to glow. A bright yellow light surrounded its body, and then seemed to swallow it up, turning it into a brilliant silhouette. And then there was a blinding flash from that light, and..the wolf was gone! He could no longer see it, nor feel any part of its body or fur on top of him.

Also, Nolan suddenly felt..better? He breathed in and out slowly a couple of times, feeling less faint and more conscious, and then slowly sat up and looked around, trying to take stock of what had just happened. The wolf..wasn't anywhere he could see. Looking down, he found his clothes just as torn-up as before, but his wounds...seemed to be in the process of closing themselves at an impossibly rapid rate.

"Uh..what..?" he mumbled softly, his sense of confusion only growing stronger. He reached a hand up to his forehead as he felt a slight headache coming on. Thinking back on the last several minutes, he thought he could remember...seeing himself from far away, running up toward himself, from a lower perspective. Shaking his head slightly to try to clear it, and trying to make sense of this memory, he felt sure it had to be what the wolf would've seen! But..why would..?

Nolan shuddered slightly at this point, feeling a sharp tingling sensation race down his spine. At the bottom, this continued, joined by a strange sort of stretching feeling, like there was a limb right there that had been cramped up before. On top of that, his ears went through some similarly intense tingling, then stretching, prompting him to reach a hand up and touch one to try to comprehend what was happening. "Aah!" He jerked slightly in place as his hand found soft hairs all over an ear that was bigger than it was supposed to be, and at the same time the ear itself proved terribly sensitive to his hand's touch. "I..w-wha..?" He ran his hand along the ear to try to comprehend what was happening, and only felt the hairs growing longer, and the ear getting bigger. On top of that, he felt something from beyond the base of his spine, covered in a mass of long hairs, moving along the ground behind him as it continued to stretch out. When he turned around to look, he caught sight of a mobile, growing tail!

The strangest thing about finding a tail presently growing from his back was that it made Nolan feel a little bit less confused. His first thought was, oh, that's just my tail, and it required a mental double-take for him to realize it should've been why am I growing a tail!? But then his ears stretched out a little more, and the one his hand was still touching ran across his fingers, drawing an odd sound from his lips. "R-rrfh..!" But—barking was perfectly normal too, wasn't it? He was starting to get another slight headache. He moved his hand from the ear to his forehead.

Just as the tingling started to fade off of his now-huge ears and a fluffy tail covered in deep brown fur, which was now at least two-thirds the length of an arm, it seemed to spread down from the base of those ears across Nolan's scalp. He shuddered slightly, finding this sensation odd but difficult to focus on. He was remembering..hearing the sound of a projectile coming toward him, and moving quickly to dodge. And then, before that, a whole day before that of being a big, fur-covered wolf, wandering the forest. And the day before that, and a week, and a month...

"I..I-I'm..?" His confused stammering was interrupted by the feeling of hair tickling his cheeks, and falling across the back of his hand that was still on his forehead. "W-wha..?" Turning his head around and feeling with that hand, Nolan discovered hair that was now long enough to touch his shoulders, and was still rapidly growing longer and more voluminous in the back. Besides that, the tingling had spread down past his face to his neck, and now was steadily flowing its way down the rest of his body. His hand happened to move from his hair to his cheek at about this point, and found the skin there surprisingly soft and smooth, all traces of his beard completely gone. That was weird, he thought at first—shouldn't he have more fur instead of less? But...fur? No, he wasn't supposed to have any fur!

Nolan shook his head, feeling even more dazed and confused as he argued with himself. He could remember watching humans try to guard their flocks, keeping track of the ones most likely to slack off or doze, stalking in at just the opportune time of night, coming away with a sheep or goat and gorging himself on it for nearly a week. But that wasn't right..? Or...was it?

"A-aah..?" He found himself shuddering again, just as the tingling finished flowing down through his ankles and feet, the part that hit his toes beginning to fade. He felt..a pressure starting to build all around his body, making him feel strangely tight. It made him pull his knees up to his chest and hug his arms around them, shuddering. "W-wa~aah...rr-rfh..!" His voice cracked strangely, and a higher-pitched bark than before came from his lips, as he found himself becoming..decidedly smaller. The strange pressure pushed his body inward, making him shorter and slimmer all over. He could see, and feel, his arms and legs slimming and weakening; his clothes fell loose around him as his frame collapsed inward, his shoulders narrowing. "Aah, a~aah..r-rfh..y-yip!" He couldn't help making noises this whole time, and every single one came out in a higher pitch than the last. His heart was racing, his face burning with a blush, and he was starting to feel a sharp tingling..down between his legs!

"A-aa~ah..wah, w-why~yYYyy..aah, aa~aah..!" Nolan felt deeply confused as he kept steadily shrinking. He was...supposed to be bigger and stronger, not smaller and weaker! Every part of him seemed to agree with this, and yet his body and voice seemed determined to contradict these thoughts.

"Rr-rfh..!" The tingling between his legs progressed into a tugging, slipping sensation as the pressure began to ease off, his body having reduced to a small, slight thing with slender arms and legs. He slowly relaxed his arms and legs, but he still felt very excited, his whole body hot. "Aa~ah..hff, ffh, hff..!" He was panting rapidly, his ears going low out to the sides of his head and the new(?) tail wagging back and forth behind him, as he felt his manhood slipping away. All because...he...enjoyed it? This feeling..! Even though he—that is, the wolf—had always been male..!

Nolan gasped, and then let out a high, helpless, "Aa~aaah...rr-RRRFFH..!" as his last bit of maleness melted away down between his legs. "AAAH! Hffh...aaAAaaAAAHH..!" Then there was a rush of feelings from down there, as womanhood formed rapidly into place, and finally a deeply pleasant, fuzzy feeling. "M-mnnNNNnngh...r-rrfh..!" She shivered again, not because of any chills or tingling, but from sheer enjoyment. At the same time, the new girl could feel her hips gently puffing out, her thighs growing a little thicker, and her chest tingling sharply before quickly springing to life. "Aa~aah..mm~mmh..." The feeling of her nipples spreading forward, growing a pair of bumps of terribly sensitive skin out behind them, was exciting her newfound womanhood too. "O-ooh...hfffh...mrr~rrfh.." Even if it was a fairly short-lived feeling, she enjoyed it immensely, and it left her with a nice pair of breasts to match her new small, cute form with its girly figure.

She collapsed onto her back, and was left panting, gasping for air, for a long moment. Then, slowly, she sat back up and looked around and down at herself, trying to take stock. her clothes...had shrunk. Shifted. They were still torn up from the fight, but suddenly all of her gear and thick clothes had been replaced by a tight pair of pants and a close-fitting shirt. "W-wha..?" she was still feeling very confused. And now, her ears twitched, picking up the sound of someone approaching.

Her first thought was: Oh no, is it a hunter? She felt so small, weak, and defenseless now...she'd have to get up and run. But she couldn't even get herself upright before the owner of the footsteps appeared from behind a tree: A man, reasonably fit and about average height, with black hair. He was considerably better-dressed for being out in the forest than she now was.

"Helloo?" he called, coming closer. "I thought I heard a gunshot out this way...oh, what happened to you, miss?"

"I-I.." She struggled to come up with an answer, the 'human' and 'wolf' sides of her memory giving conflicting suggestions on what to even do.

"Are you in any pain? Looks like your clothes, at least, took a beating."

"N-no, I. I'm not hurt. I-I'm a hunter!" she managed finally.

"A hunter?" He knelt in front of her to get his eyes at her level. "You don't look too well-prepared for being out in this forest."

"I..I don't know, what happened to my weapons, b-but, I can take care of myself," she said.

"You sure? It really looks like you've had a rough time." He stood up straight again, and offered her a hand. "Can you walk? C'mon, I'm a local doctor around these parts. I'd like to make sure you're okay."

"I-I-I.." Nolan's face was flushing red, her heart beating fast again...! And her tail was wagging! What was happening? Well, this guy was...cute..! Especially that sweet, concerned expression he had turned her way just now. But..that wasn't right at all! So rather than taking his hand, she hopped up to her feet all-at-once on her own. "D-d-don't treat me like I'm helpless! I'm a wild animal, I'll bite you!" This second part she blurted out suddenly, and only realized how absurd it was afterward. She'd shrunk so much..this guy would've been slightly shorter than her before—than human-her at least—and now her eye level was at his broad, manly chest. She had to tilt her head up to actually address him to his face. "I mean—I'm a perfectly functional adult! And I'm not hurt. My name's Nolan."

The doctor tilted his head. "That's an odd name for a girl..but all right. You at least seem a little confused, maybe you got a concussion and didn't realize it? If you can walk, I'd really like to take a look and make sure you're okay."

"I-I..uh.." With that look of genuine kindness and concern on his face, she just couldn't reject his offer. "A-alright. B-but I can walk on my own! S-s-so don't, try to do anything weird, or I will bite you, seriously!"

"Hahah, okay okay," he nodded. "The way out's back where I came from," he said with a gesture.

"I-I know that! You think I'm stupid?" she said. Although, the reason she knew...was it because she'd studied maps before coming to hunt the wolf, or because lived in these woods for a long time? It was...both???

"No, of course not. Anyway—my home's not too far from the edge."

After that, they started walking. The wolf-girl's stride was much shorter than she was used to—in either side of her conflicted sense of self—but she seemed to have enough energy to take two or three times as many steps, and so kept up with the doctor.

"I suppose I can see why you might be uncertain about things around here," he said, "we don't have too many beastfolk. Oh—is threatening to bite people just a cultural thing? I hope I haven't been too insensitive."

"Cultural? No, I will bite you if I don't like what you're doing!" she said first. Then: "I mean I—I don't know why I keep saying that. I wasn't, I haven't bitten anyone since I was like three years old. Except—I mean..? I..?" She wanted to contradict herself immediately: After all, she—the wolf—had bitten the hunter...which was now also her. But how could she tell him that she'd bitten herself? That wouldn't make any sense. It didn't make any sense to her!

"All right, all right," he chuckled. And she felt a little insulted—was he not taking a dangerous wild animal like her seriously!? "Anyway, my name's Angelo. Nice to meet you, miss Nolan."

"Uh.." Miss!? she thought. But then—she was, undeniably, very much female now. "Uh, s-same..." she half-mumbled.

As they came out of the edge of the forest, Angelo pointed. "My place is just down that way, a little farther. Are you still okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine!" she said. In fact, even though she felt terribly weak now, her body still seemed to have as much stamina as ever, if not even more. Still, she was kind of looking forward to going somewhere indoors, and maybe getting something to eat. Right away she remembered nostalgically the taste of raw meat..but she quickly shook her head. No, she was a human, and wanted something properly cooked! But...meat sounded really good right now either way...

"So, what brought you out this way in the first place?" Angelo asked.

"Like I said—" Nolan cut herself off, and made herself take a deep breath. Snapping at this guy wasn't making her more believable; however insane the thing that had happened to her was, she needed to present it as rationally as possible. "You—you live around here, right? You must have heard about the big wolf stealing people's livestock, then."
"Oooh, yeah. I remember hearing they'd hired someone to capture it or take it down." Angelo sighed slightly. "A real shame, in my opinion. That wolf must be a beautiful, clever creature; treating it like a monster to be slain is terrible."
Beautiful!? Nolan's face flushed again, and she had to take a moment to catch her breath. Even though..it wasn't her he'd called beautiful. Or, it was only sort of her, now. "Uh, y-yeah, but he..it was doing people a lot of harm. So—that's, me. I'm the hunter who was, hired to do that. Except, something really weird happened, and now I'm, I'm like this."

"I see..." Did Angelo believe her? His response was too neutral to tell. "Anyway—here we are, home sweet home." They'd arrived at the front door of his house. "Let me just, get the door now..."

After leading her a short distance inside, Angelo turned around, looking the short wolf-girl up and down. She felt her ears lowering, her tail wagging...and, simultaneously, an urge to pounce at and bite him. He said, "Well, you really do look uninjured. You're ambulatory for certain, don't seem to be having any pain or exhaustion from all that walking. You just seem a little confused...you haven't felt dizzy or lightheaded, have you? Any headaches?"
"No, not at all," she said, shaking her head; this was a slight lie, with the tiny headaches she'd had while the wolf's memories rushed into place. Knowing that that look had been to assess whether she was okay made her feel equal parts pleased and disappointed. Was it her 'wolf' side that had wanted him to like her, or her 'human' one? No, both felt the same way...this conflict was entirely separate from that one!

"Let's see now..maybe you can take a seat in the living room?" Angelo said, turning and trying to lead the way into his living room. It took Nolan a good several seconds to realize he'd moved and hurry after him. Then she sat pointedly far away from where he did, leaving her on a chair and him in the middle of a couch.

"So..how would you say you're 'like', and what weird thing happened, exactly?" he asked.

"Oh—well. F-first of all, I'm. A girl? And I, I wasn't before! A-a-and I keep thinking..feeling like I'm. The wolf. You know, the one I was hunting. It's like I can remember everything from hi—from its perspective. To the point where I, can't tell the difference between me and him at all."

"That is pretty weird. I guess some kind of magical event happened?" Angelo said. Despite 'magical event' sounding absurd, he said it as though it were a perfectly normal, clinical term.
"Well, it was. I fought—we were fighting, I mean. I tried to shoot me—to shoot the wolf! With a tranq dart, and I dodged it and jumped on me and tried to kill me. We tried to kill each other. I think, I feel like, we should've succeeded. But then, the wolf was unconscious and there was this flash, and it was gone! And then I, turned into this," she said, gesturing to herself emphatically.

"I see..." Angelo nodded, looking obviously interested. "Definitely some kind of magical event. That wolf was known to be unusually smart and strong. Ah, maybe he was one of those 'magical creatures' you hear about now and then!"

Nolan's head tilted hard. "Magical...creatures?" In all her time as a hunter, she'd never heard of such a thing.
"Yeah, you know. Usually cats, or foxes. But a magical wolf isn't unimaginable. They're usually really smart, maybe as much as a person. And they're supposed to be able to 'merge' with humans to become a single being, if both parties agree to it."

"Buh..but I didn't agree to any of this! A-and, I was male! I mean, the wolf was male, and Nolan was male. So why..?"

Angelo shrugged. "I guess you'd have to ask a mage that question. I couldn't guess, beyond 'magic is weird'. As for the agreement, well, do you remember what you—either of you—were thinking, just before all that happened?"

"Well..." The wolf-girl turned her head to one side, thinking. "It was...I was pretty sure I was dying, and that I was dying. I mean—both of me. And I thought—I just want to live. I don't want to die here. Now that I think of it, the wolf was, thinking that too."
"Ah, see? So, you may not have made a very formal agreement, but both of you were desperate, and wanted 'the same thing', to some extent. Maybe that's enough?" Angelo said.

"Maybe..." She put a hand on the side of her head. "Ooh, having two sets of memories is a headache. And, I'm gonna have to figure out all kinds of things with my body being completely different now..."
"I can imagine. Well, at least the 'wolf problem' is taken care of now, even if in a very unconventional manner? So you might still get paid," Angelo said. "Anyway, maybe you can put off figuring all that out until tomorrow. The sun's close to setting now, so..perhaps I can put you up for the night? Share some supper?"

Food! Meat!! The wolf-girl suddenly remembered how hungry she was, and suddenly sat up very straight. "Uh. Th-that'd be really nice of you. I-if you don't mind..."

"Yeah, sure," he said, giving her a kind smile that made her heart skip a beat. Then he got up and started across the room toward the kitchen. He paused in front of her for a second, looking down at her.

"W-what!?" She was getting that pleased/upset emotion all over again.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Just the strangest..." He backed up a couple of steps. "I had this odd temptation to pet you for a second. Really sorry, I know that'd be pretty inappropriate," he said, continuing on toward the kitchen at a safe distance away from her.

"Y-yeah! I'm not a pet, like I told you—and now you know I'm a wolf!" she called after him. "You don't pet wild predators if you wanna keep your hand!" But she was also very disappointed that he hadn't done it...

Supper was good, and did include a healthy portion of well-cooked, well-seasoned meat! Angelo spent some of the time talking about himself, how he'd been hired on as a local doctor for the people nearby. In turn, Nolan managed to sort out her thoughts enough to talk about her past, human, life and interests without getting it too tangled up in her memories of being a wolf. He didn't seem to think it was a big deal that he was getting groceries and minor favors from most of his patients in place of actual payments, even though it sounded like he could be making a very generous salary in an actual hospital in a city or something.

"So...I don't have too much around here to do," Angelo said, getting up and taking the plates. "Just some books..but I think the medical ones would just bore you."

"I wouldn't understand them," Nolan agreed. "Besides, I...a big part of me just wants to curl up and go to sleep right now. I think, 'merging' or whatever, is exhausting."
"Almost dying certainly is," Angelo said. "That is a medical fact," he added with a slight grin.

"Heehee..." A small giggle escaped the wolf-girl's lips while she stood up. "S-still, I wouldn't mind talking for just a little longer first," she said, starting toward the living room.

"Yeah, sure. Err—I wouldn't mind sleeping on the couch if you'd like a bed."
She put her hands on her hips. "Don't start that 'chivalry' garbage with me! I've been a man all my life, and slept in the grass more than half of it! I'll sleep on the couch or the chair just fine!"
"Hahah, okay okay. I'm sorry if I insulted you. It's just..still a little hard to believe, looking at you, I guess."
"Hmph..." Nolan huffed and continued on her way. But her cheeks were hot again, and her tail wagging. She went back to the chair and leaned back, yawning quietly. The running water and clinking from Angelo cleaning dishes in the kitchen should have been noisy enough to bother her, but instead she found it kind of soothing. Maybe...a short nap until he finished up wouldn't hurt. She closed her eyes and dozed off for a moment...

Those noises ceasing stirred her partway out of sleep, and the sound of Angelo's footsteps coming in from the kitchen brought her up into near-consciousness. She was aware enough of her surroundings to know he was standing over her like before...and that part of her that had wanted him to pet her was much more awake than the part that wanted him to stay away. If only he'd...!

And...! He did! "Mrrfh..?" The wolf-girl awoke a little more fully to the feeling of a man's hand gently rubbing the base of her ears. "Aa~aah...mm~mmh.." She leaned up and forward slightly into the petting, feeling her tail start to wag as she came up into full consciousness. Only..when she blinked her eyes open and looked back up at him, that other part of her was back at full force.

Angelo had stopped short. "Uh.." he drew his hand off of her ears, seeing her expression, but that was hardly enough. All of a sudden, Nolan was very mad.

It was just...he didn't know what it was like! To suddenly find himself a girl, and part-animal, and want someone to pet him! And to..enjoy the whole process, of changing and her looks being admired, and someone putting their hands on her fur! It wasn't fair that she had to put up with all of these weird feelings, and he could just take advantage of them!!!

That sudden burst of thoughts expressed itself in the form of Nolan pulling herself suddenly forward and upward, opening her mouth wide and snapping it down around his hand. The bite only lasted a second or so before she realized what she was doing and let go, quickly falling back into the chair. "Aack!"
"Owh.." Angelo winced, shaking his hand around briefly before bringing it up toward his face to examine at it for injuries.

"I-I-I told you!" she said first. "I said I would bite you! E-even though I really didn't mean to! It's just, I was half asleep and you were—and I was—!"

"Uh, i-it's okay. I really shouldn't have done that," he said. "At least..it doesn't look like you broke the skin, even though those fangs are awfully sharp."

"Um, tha-that's good," she said. "J-just don't..."

"Huh?" He dropped his hand to look at her, because she'd suddenly trailed off. She'd been about to tell him not to do it again when something strange had caught her eye. "What's wrong?"
"Y..your hair.." she said, raising a hand to point. It had grown several inches longer in a matter of seconds, and was continuing to grow, his locks beginning to fall down across the sides of his face.

"My..huh..?" He reached a hand up to feel it. "That's...stra~ange.." Angelo's voice cracked slightly mid-word. "A-and...huh.." Then he shuddered slightly. "O-oh..I..I'm starting to feel pretty we~eird.." His voice cracked again, coming back a little higher in pitch afterward. Nolan could see his face's complexion shifting now, turning softer and smoother as the bits of facial hair he had thinned and shortened themselves out of existence. His pitch-black hair was now down across his shoulders, fully framing his face with some long bangs, and showed no signs of slowing down in the back.

But Angelo had much worse problems to worry about than hair care. "A-aa~aa~aaah..!" He suddenly shrank, no less than half a foot all at once. At the same time, his voice rapidly changed, the masculinity draining out of it and leaving him sounding quite boyish by the end. His shrinking was not only vertical, as his shirt seemed to hang in the air where it had fit him for a second before falling down very loosely around a body that was suddenly much slimmer than before. He staggered backwards, his pants slipping off of him and landing on the floor before he fell back onto the couch.

"Aa~ah, aa~ah, aa~aa~AA~AAAAAAH...!" No sooner had his butt landed than he shrank again, this burst lasting longer and doing even more damage than last time. His voice landed at a soft, mid-range alto, entirely a girl's voice, and his shirt became too long for his arms and slipped off of one of his shoulders, its hem coming down to his upper thighs. He was now only a few inches taller than Nolan!

"W-whaa~aah..I-I..m-mnngh..!" Angelo mumbled confusedly, shuddering again, as his face grew increasingly red with a blush. His still-growing hair began to land on the sides of the couch, and now his ears suddenly poked out past it on the sides of his head. They were now a pair of black-furred, fuzzy triangles with white fuzz inside them, and were quickly growing bigger and fluffier. "Aa~ah..rr-r-fh..!" What Nolan half-feared was happening now proved to be true, as Angelo let out a soft bark. His mouth was open wide enough to make out his canines rapidly growing into long spikes—fangs, just like hers. "Rr~rrfh..!" And now a black-furred tail pushed its way out too, forcing its way down and forward past his bottom to appear hanging down between his legs.

"Aa~ah..o-oo~OOO~Ooohh..!" Angelo shivered, his ears lowering out to the sides of his head. Nolan could actually smell the change of sex happening somehow, and it was only a brief moment before there were two wolf-girls sitting in that living room. "A~ah..rr-rfh...o-oo~oohh.." The new girl's hips and thighs began to push visibly out wider and thicker.

"M-mah, m-my, I-I'mmMMMMMMmmmmMMMMMhhh..!" She tried valiantly to form some kind of sentence, but only wound up groaning in pleasure, as a pair of small bumps from her chest pushed out big enough to lift her shirt a little bit. And then, "Rr~rrfh! Aah, aahh..!" They began to grow bigger..and bigger..! "Oo~oh..oh, ah—aAAaah!" Angelo squirmed around in place, rubbing her legs together, as she grew rapidly bustier and bustier. "Rr-rfh..y-yip! A-arfh..!" Her voice proved itself to have quite a range, too, as some of the canine noises coming from her lips sounded just like those of a small puppy. "AA~AAAHHhhffh..!" Her own puppies grew to what must have been C or D-cup size without showing any signs of stopping. But only a little after that, they did slow down, then gradually settled themselves into an enormous pair of globes, impossible to miss even under her now-very-loose shirt.

"R-rrfh...aa~aah..." Like Nolan before, Angelo was left panting briefly before she could gather herself. Her eyes had, at some point, turned a bright, piercing shade of red; she blinked them a couple of times before looking around the room briefly in a confused daze, and then slowly turning her gaze downward, at her own girly, curvy body. "I-I...uh..?"

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?"

"Uh—um." Nolan wasn't sure what to do or say about this. It had all happened so suddenly!
Angelo seemed to agree on that point, at least. She hopped to her feet. "I-I turned into a wolf-girl, like you! I—I've got boobs and a—! A-and furry ears and a tail! A-and my underpants turned into..uh..!" Her face flushed red all over again, as she seemed to realize her tail—which was now waving out high behind her—was pulling her shirt almost far up enough for Nolan to see just what her underwear had become. And she quickly put both her hands on the front of the shirt to try to prevent that. "H-h-how did this happen!?'

"I-I don't know!" Nolan said, hopping to her feet herself.
"Did you curse me or something?" she asked, risking letting go of the front of her shirt with one hand to point forward. "M-magic animals are supposed to have those kinds of powers too!"

"I, I don't—I didn't mean to! But I did bite you..!"

"And you were really upset at me, too! Oh, no...I, th-then this is my fault. I knew better than to just pet you unsolicited...!"

"I, b-but I kinda. Wanted you to! Even though...even though—I thought it was unfair, that you didn't have to go through all the weird things I did."

"W-well I guess this is weird enough, huh?" Angelo said, putting her arms out to the sides.
"I-I'm sorry..." Nolan lowered her ears apologetically, bowing her head and frowning.

"Oh...oh no..!" Angelo dropped her arms again and shuffled slightly closer. "I-I didn't mean to make you feel bad. I-it must've just been an accident, after all. A-and it was completely my fault. A-a-a-and anyway..um.."
"'Anyway'?" Nolan asked, turning her head upward slightly. Angelo was...blushing very brightly! And despite the fact that she probably didn't want it to keep flipping her shirt up right now, her tail was wagging vigorously away behind her.

"I-it was...the feeling of changing was, strangely pleasurable.." she said. "I-it's kind of nice to be able to look you right in the eye like this..y-your face is so cute~..." Each sentence came out a little quieter and more shyly than the last. And her expression was the same kind, gentle look as before, only now...!

Nolan's heart raced. She stepped closer. "I-it's really weird, to be called cute, you know...e-even more that I want to. Especially, if you're the one saying it. W-well, now you're cute too, s-so how's that!"

"I-I'm...cuu~uute.." Angelo mumbled softly, her head turned downward slightly to look the shorter wolf-girl in the eyes. They differed by just a few inches or so; turning her head like that wouldn't be necessary if they weren't standing so close.

"Y-yeah! S-so you'd better get used to it!" Nolan said, then suddenly, aggressively pounced up the small distance to pull herself around the bigger girl in a hug—one that had their chests squished together, and their faces right across from each other.

"I-I...oh, oo~ooh..." Angelo's voice went low, her blush getting even worse as her ears lowered down to point out the sides of her head. Nolan's ears were in much the same position, and she was feeling...about as hot as she had right near the end of her own transformation. "I-I think..I really could get used to this~..." she said, her deeper voice succeeding in making this statement sound extremely sexy to Nolan. At the same time, she wrapped her arms around the smaller girl.

"Uh. Um. Uh." Nolan felt extremely flustered by all of that, but also felt a strong urge to be the one in charge here. She was...a man. A former man, and a wolf! A—former—big, strong, predatory wolf, after all. "A-a-and, this too..!" she said, reaching her hands up to start rubbing Angelo's ears. They were so soft and fluffy, and the big, curvy, busty wolf-girl's reaction to this touch was—to yip softly, then bury her nose in Nolan's cheek.

"Rr-r~rrfh..! O-oh...I-I think I might actually..arfh...l-like this curse quite a bit...!" she said, slowly stumbling backwards before falling back onto the couch—with Nolan now on top of her. Then she reached up and started petting the smaller girl's ears.

"Aa~ah—!" This time, there was no conflict at all. A burst of fuzzy, girly feelings hit her right between the legs, and she pushed her nose hard into the bigger girl's cheeks, starting to nuzzle her back. "M-mrrfh..rrfh..!" She couldn't talk right now if her life depended on it...! All that came out were those high, cute puppy noises.

"M-mrr~rrfh..." But the same seemed to be true of her 'pet'...or maybe her 'master'. "Ooo~ooh..." Aside from the occasional deep, womanly groan, that is. Angelo slowly sank and twisted around until she was lying on her back across the couch, Nolan on top of her. They stayed in this position for a long time...and neither of them wound up sleeping in the hostess's bed.

Within a few days, everyone came to know the village doctor by a brand new appearance, and a slightly different name: Angela. And they were more than happy to welcome a career huntress, a short wolf-girl by the name of Nolan, as a member of their community, too.

---

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted something, hasn't it? Well, I've been pretty busy. I've actually been doing a lot of writing, however, and have it in mind to dump a lot of what I have in one lump across this next week or two.

One thing that I've been busy with lately, although this is far from the only thing that's delayed publishing more things, is improving the tools I use to make generated images. The pictures used for this very story are some of the fruits of those efforts. I'll emphasize again that I am not an artist in any reasonable sense of the word; I can't even claim to have done any of the work of building the tools I used to get these images generated. But I'm still very pleased with the results, and find them extremely helpful for writing more stories and things. Hopefully you're happy with the results, too.

This was going to be a caption to come back with, but of course its length got to be a little much, and really I didn't feel like it would flow as well as two separate captions/stories. For a one-off, I guess the distinction is kind of arbitrary anyway.

Aetuornos Beta 3a-3

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3a-3: Sciuridae Anthropophagus

Scylla got bored of walking-without-talking very quickly, and audibly set out to find another topic of conversation. "Let's see..oh! If you don't mind sharing...what's your line of work? I own a gym, Kite does uh, computer modding?"
"Magic computer modding," the fox-girl said.

"Right!"

"I'll go as far as to say I'm a professional musician," Hatchet said. "You might've guessed as much from our talk earlier—or at least that it's among my interests, anyway."

"Uh.." The bunny-girl fidgeted nervously for a moment. "Fra—um. I'm, actually still in college," she said, surprising herself slightly by automatically talking in her in-character manner at first. "Haven't really..figured out, what exactly I wanna do yet, either."

"Eh, you'll figure it out," Hatchet said. "That's what college is for, right?"
"I wouldn't know," Kite said. "I'm pretty much all self-taught. Started doin' my stuff as a hobby in high school, and figured: No use wastin' time, money and effort when I've already got a living lined up. That road ain't for everyone, though."

"Wait, how'd you get in the beta then?" Scylla asked. "I mean, not to brag, but the pod and stuff is kinda expensive, right?"

"I um.." Franka found herself tapping her index fingers together a couple of times, and quickly stopped, dropping her arms to the sides. "Guess you could say I'm from a, pretty rich family? Our parents adopt a kid every few years or so, and most of them end up wealthy, or famous, or both. I was super excited about this game when I first heard about it, and my big brother's a major investor in it, so I basically begged him to let me play. He eventually gave in, on a few conditions I'd, rather not mention right now..." One of which was having a female player character.

"Do you...feel a lot of pressure from your family to be successful?" Scylla asked, her tone a mixture of curiosity and faint concern.
"Mmh..it's not that they ever, talk or even act like they expect me to get an amazing career..but, seeing what my siblings have accomplished, it's hard not to feel...I dunno, inferior? Like I'm not contributing enough. If I don't at least do something. I mean, I can't help being kind-of-a spoiled rich kid sometimes, but I really don't like the idea of being a freeloader."

"I bet you'll figure somethin' out," Kite said. "If your family's that well off, you got plenty of time, so 's long as you keep lookin' and really want to, you'll find your niche. Worst case, they cut you off and you work 'cause you have to, right?"

"Um...I really hope it doesn't come to that." Not one of Frank's siblings had ever been 'cut off' before, but again—it seemed like all of them knew what they were doing by this point in their lives.

"Hey, back in character—look over there," Hatchet said, pointing. A bunch of sheepbits were scattering away from something on the other side of a nearby hill. "What d'you think spooked them?"

"I guess we better go find out!" Scylla drew her sword and took off running, leaving everyone else to try their best to keep up with her. She stopped at the top of the hill, pointing down it. "Look!" she said excitedly, but quietly.

Franka's 'ingame lore knowledge' had let her know that man-eating squirrels were pretty big—big enough, after all, to conceivably eat a person. But it was really something else to actually see a pair of them! Even at this distance, they seemed to tower over their surroundings, their gigantic bushy tails looking capable of squashing a person flat all on their own. Their mouths were lined with big, razor-sharp teeth, and their paws were large enough for each one to be currently physically holding a sheepbit up in the air, rotating, shaking, and examining the struggling creature like it was an acorn.

"You all ready to get 'em?!" Scylla asked. Everyone was still somewhat out of breath from chasing after the wolf-girl, Hatchet the least so and the bunny-girl the most.
"Hhf...h-hang on," Franka said, still bent over forward and trying desperately to catch her breath. "These monsters...ffh...work in packs, taking their prey back to their den. Sorta like the way normal squirrels hide nuts?" She finally managed to stand fully up again. "Following them would reveal where they're hiding. To make a new buddy, Franka needs the soul of their alpha, so knowing where it's hiding really would be best!"

"We could still kill these and track where they came from," Hatchet said, "but that sounds like more trouble than just following. Unless they notice us following and turn around to attack."
"If that happens, then we kill 'em," Kite suggested.

While they'd been discussing this, the two giant squirrels had been bashing the heads of their prey on the ground until they stopped moving. Now they picked the sheepbits up gently with their mouths, went on all fours, and began bounding away.

"Okay okay~! If we're gonna follow them, then we'd better start!" Scylla said, hurrying after them.
"Not too close, now!" Kite advised in a sort of loud whisper. She seemed to accept this advice enough to slow her pace a bit, so the others were able to mostly keep up with her without going into a full-on sprint.

The squirrels' path was fairly straightforward: They skirted around some woods, took a cut through a valley between some hills, and then scattered as they came upon what looked like the ruins of a fairly large fortress.

"Which one do we follow?" Scylla asked, darting her head back and forth to watch them as the rest of the party caught up to her again.

"I think this is the den, actually," Hatchet said, pointing as one of the squirrels made its way through an oversized doorway (missing its doors) near the front. The other one went up to the mostly-destroyed ruins of a side structure and straight into a big hole leading to what had once been its basement.

"Well then—which way in first?"

Kite said, "If I had to guess...that basement's prolly 'storage', and the main entrance goes to the 'den'. Maybe we can sneak in easier through storage if it's connected? Though, charging in the main way is an option for sure."

"There's no guarantee that basement is even connected to anywhere else if these big guys can just carry their prey around outside," Franka pointed out. "Franka thinks straight in is the better choice."

"Charging in it is~!" Scylla said, starting off in that direction herself.

"Just try to be a little cautious..it might be bad for us to get pinned between two groups of those things," Hatchet pointed out as everyone followed her.

There were no squirrels immediately inside the entrance, leaving the party to look around on what appeared to have once been a grand entrance hall, complete with a balcony at the top connected to the upper floor beyond—perhaps a place for the ruler to come out and be seen by the commoners going in and out. In its present state, the balcony was half-collapsed, its entire left side converted into a large pile of rubble all across the floor. There was practically nothing left as far as furniture or decoration went, and the once-tiled floor was heavily scratched, broken, cracked, and largely covered in debris with an extra topping of shed fur and dirt from the building's present occupants. The doorways from the balcony to beyond were only human-sized, but the three first-floor doorways—one left, one straight, one right—were either large enough for the man-eating squirrels originally, or had been "modified" by way of some additional destruction.

Scylla led the way through where it was clearest of debris, taking the group over toward the left wall and around toward the forward-center part of the room.

"Which way now? Which door?" the wolf-girl whispered, looking around as she went.

"Hmm...you'd think the leader would be in the throne room, and that should be straight ahead," Hatchet said at a similar volume.

"Who says squirrels'll think like people?" Kite said. "Just as likely it's living in the guardhouse or servant's quarters or whatever."

"Llllet's just go left, then," Franka suggested. "It's the closest entrance."

Scylla nodded, and continued toward that doorway. "Hey, you used the first person," she observed.
"Err. Franka, couldn't think of a way to say that that wasn't super awkward." the bunny-girl said with a small shrug.

"...Me either, actually."

They entered a hallway with several doors on either side, none of which would be large enough for the squirrels, and most of which had collapsed or just led to small rooms full of debris. One of them did lead to a room containing a large blue crystal, the game's equivalent to a 'save point', which everyone made a mental note of. At the end of the hallway, they came to another "expanded" entrance with a large room beyond it. Scylla signaled for quiet (not that anyone was being loud at this point) and crept a little closer, leaning in toward the door to look. There were two of the man-eating squirrels inside, neither of which looked particularly special. But there was also...

"Treasure!" she whispered after turning her head back. "And two baddies. Let's kill 'em and get it?"

After everyone shared a few contemplative glances, Franka said, "Yes, but—allow Franka to take advantage of the element of surprise, please?"
"Me too," the fox-girl chimed in. "Sounds like they're eating?" Everyone present having animal ears made it easy enough for them to hear the noise of sheepbit flesh being torn up and chewed.
"...Yep," the samurai reported, carefully drawing her sword. "What're you two gonna do, then?"

"Uh.."

Since Franka was hesitating to answer, Kite answered first, pulling out a charm from her inventory. "One-use explosive. Not big enough to kill, but maybe leave 'im stunned—has to be attached to the target."
"Ooh..! Target some of the roof instead?" Franka suggested, pointing diagonally forward-up, roughly toward the top of the room the squirrels were in.

"Rocks fall, every-squirrel dies," Hatchet chimed in, "hopefully."

"Yeah, but I ain't sure how I'd reach all the way up there."

"Kite doesn't have to," the bunny-girl said, holding out her 'little friend' and having it wave its left 'hand'.

The miko nodded, "Gotcha," and offered the charm over; the rabbit doll 'held' the charm in its hand. "I'mma charge it up now, hold it, lemme know when I oughta release."

"'Kay."

Franka's doll floated, under her power, through the door, then up to the ceiling over where the two squirrels were. They were too focused on their food to notice something so small floating around, and it had the glowing charm affixed to the ceiling in no time at all. Then Franka floated it over to a corner of the room, well clear of where all that stone would fall to. She nodded to Kite, who'd been holding her gohei up in front of her in both hands this whole time. The fox-girl shook the gohei just once, and an explosion sounded from above, followed by the sound of an entire upstairs room falling onto the pair of giant squirrels. They squeaked and chittered with distress, starting to push and throw the pile off of them in the process.

"Okay—now go in for the kill~!" Scylla proclaimed, running inside without a second thought.

"Wait a—ugh." Hatchet reached to hold her back but was too slow, so instead he just facepalmed and shook his head. Kite ran past him, quickly summoning a barrier in front of herself and the wolf-girl before they could get hit by a bunch of debris being thrown out off of the pile. Franka's doll quickly ran over to behind the two of them to stay safe too, and she herself went up as far as just inside the doorway to wait the barrage out.

"Uh, sorry—thanks Kite!"
"No prob'. Better you're closer to 'em once they're free, anyhow."

"It'd just be better if we'd planned to do this ahead of time," Hatchet said, coming up next to the other melee fighter now that there was a shield to protect him.

Nobody present had actually encountered an angry squirrel before (in the real world), so they didn't really know what to expect. Once the two monsters were free, both of them stood fully upright and loudly squeaked, swiping their forepaws around in the air threateningly. Kite dismissed the shield, and Scylla stepped forward. "What's the matter—you still hungry?" She unsheathed her weapon. "I've got something you can eat right here!" With those last two words, she leapt forward at the nearer of the two squirrels, slashing into its upper belly and kicking off of its underside to jump back and land on the floor before it could catch her in its paws. It pounced after the wolf-girl and landed hard on the floor, catching nothing and leaving its back wide open for her to land on top of, run up, and slash it a few times in the back of the throat.

Hatchet threw one of this eponymous weapons at the other squirrel to goad it his way, and made a lucky hit right in its left eye, sending the already-injured carnivorous rodent into a frenzy. It went on all fours and ran at him with distressing speed, only to bounce violently off of one of Kite's barriers, shattering it in the process. The axe was dislodged from its face and fell loudly to the ground, so he ran up and recovered it on his way to bury another one into the top of the stunned animal's head.

Once Scylla's opponent had landed face-first on the ground, the rabbit doll came up, hands fully converted into flame-wreathed knives, to chop up its face. It stood up and Scylla leapt back; it grabbed for the doll but Franka managed to quickly float it away, just out of reach. The squirrel tried three more times to catch the small target floating around in midair just in front of it, during which time the samurai wolf-girl sheathed her weapon and tensed up, readying a technique. Then she executed it, seemingly disappearing before reappearing an instant later on the opposite side of the beast with her sword most of the way in its sheath again. When she put it the rest of the way in with an audible clink, the attack took effect, making the monster "feel" some ten or twenty slashes all-at-once through its hind legs and lower body.

The wolf-man drew back when the squirrel started to stir, after making his second chop into its head and leaving the weapon behind. It stood up, loudly squeaking again and thrashing back and forth, and so succeeded in throwing the axe off its head and over toward a far wall. He gave it another one, which made a fairly shallow cut into its underside before glancing off, and it went to charge at him again. Kite was ready with a barrier, but the squirrel bounded right over it upon coming within pouncing range of the two of them, and she had to quickly place another one above them so they could dive away to either side and get out of the way of its slightly-delayed landing. Franka quickly sent her doll over to stick some knives in its face while it was still stunned, and—more importantly—to get its attention on her little buddy so her two party members would have time to recover their feet.

Scylla, meanwhile, was having basically no trouble with her opponent. After having its hind legs turned into mincemeat, it was trying scrabble around after her with its forepaws, squeaking and chittering furiously the whole time. She laughed and taunted it in her usual way, letting it get close before leaping over it and slashing through its back with her sword mid-leap. Between all the damage it had taken from the roof collapsing and what it was enduring now, that squirrel was not very long for the world.

The other one obliged Franka by trying to catch her doll as it flitted around in midair, giving Hatchet some time to recover his feet, draw two of his axes in his hands, and ready a technique of his own. He held his arms out in an X-shape in front of him, then jumped at the monster from the side, slashing hard with one axe, then the other, both strikes having enough force behind them to go all the way through the beast's flesh. He kicked his feet off of the monster's side (not quite as adroitly as Scylla's similar maneuver earlier) and landed rolling away, leaving behind two very deep cuts in its side. The squirrel shrieked and tried to jump after him, but got caught by another barrier, skidding down it (as this impact hadn't been enough to shatter it) and crumpling onto the floor briefly.

Franka's doll had traded knife-hands for having a small ball of fire floating over each hand now, and went to work tossing them a few feet over at the prone beast, which quickly succeeded in setting some of its fur on fire. It panicked, shrieking and flailed around wildly—no longer interested in prey or revenge, only in putting the fire out—so everyone just stood clear of it, Hatchet tossing it a few more axes for good measure. When it seemed to have just about gotten the fire put out, Scylla ran up from one side, leapt, and made a clean slash right across the front of the squirrel's throat, finishing it off. She landed, then its body landed loudly on the ground behind her. The other one had died from her assault just a few seconds earlier.

The samurai maintained a dignified stance with her sword out for a second or two, then gracefully sheathed it. Then she raised her hands in the air and celebrated: "WOOOOH~! That was awesome!"

"We didn't bury the treasure, did we?" Hatchet asked, looking around.

"No, it's over there," Franka said, pointing to a part of the room beyond the pile of collapsed upper floor. A few stray stones had been thrown in that general direction by the squirrels in their initial flailing, but a small pile of gold flanked by two treasure chests was all still quite intact.

"Loooot!" The wolf-girl dashed over in that direction immediately.
"Don't forget it might be trapped," Kite pointed out.
"I know, I know..."

"So: What have we learned?" Hatchet said, going around the room to retrieve his scattered weapons.

"These squirrels don't pay attention to much of anything when they're eating," Franka said.

"Rocks fall, monsters die! Or at least get easier to kill," Scylla added.

He nodded his agreement. "Most important, though: Fire status effect, super effective. It basically stopped attacking once its fur was on fire."

"Wouldn't you?" Franka said.
"Sure," Kite said. "So we oughta be ready to take advantage of that 'gainst the alpha, too."

---

Another case of managing to write more of a story I haven't touched in a while.

...I feel like Dan Shive wouldn't approve of this episode.

A Summoning, Part XLIV

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Part XLIV
~Tower~

"Full moon tomorrow night." Boreas said this in about the tone of voice an old farmer might use to announce the likelihood of rain the next day.

"Yeah?" Prama said. "I suppose that has a lot more meaning for a werewolf than it does for me."
"Sure. I'm never open full moons, so don't show up. I used to take a nap all day, since I got old. But maybe I'll run 'round my land for once, hunt something. Been a while."

"Got it."

---

At one point during supper Tuesday night, Onida paused, sitting up in her chair slightly. "Uh, hey." Sam had noticed something was on their alpha's mind ever since she got home, so she also sat up to listen. "I...need to admit something, I think. I feel a little bit like I've been dishonest, not mentioning it 'till now..."

"I'm sure it can't be that bad," Damon said.
"W-well. It's, not that it's bad. It's just a little—embarrassing? Strange?"

"We've got a lot of strange going around in the first place," Sam replied. "Aah, don't feel like you gotta bring it up if it's too embarrassing, though."
"N-no no..I just. I'd rather let you know. La Lune's blessing..that made me a werewolf. Came with um, a bonus? Something she said was 'unique'. I can...turn into a man, if I want to."

"Wh—really!? That's amazing," Sam said. "I didn't think La Lune could grant something like that!"

"What do you look like?" Damon added.
"Uh. W-well, I guess I can just show you...later. I've, tested it a few times, and bought some clothes that'll fit better than, what I have on right now. But, sorry I didn't mention it until now."

"Naah, I can see how it'd feel a little awkward," Sam said. "Especially since, aaah, you know.." she added, folding her ears down a little bit and blushing.

"Right, exactly..."

True to her word, Onida showed off the male form right after they'd cleaned up the dishes. She went to her room, took everything off, changed, and put on some clothes that now fit: Boxers, gym shorts, a tank top. Looking in the mirror...the tall, fit, handsome man with long silver hair and the ears and tail of a wolf, felt like he could've been her older brother or something...but that was Onida now—was him. He took a deep breath, and stepped out to the living room.

"S-so uh.."

"You look great!" Damon said first; Sam was still taking it all in.

"Th-thanks, I guess. This feels really weird too." Looking at Sam was making him feel...something, in that part girls didn't have. She was blushing, and seemed even cuter than usual right now...!
"C'mon, what do you think?" Onida's sister pressed her.

"Aaah. It's just. I've never, aaaah, felt attracted to a dude before in my life?" she said finally, and slowly. "Let alone...this attracted. You're...really good-looking, Onida."

"Um," Onida flushed. That compliment, plus the expression on Sam's face...he was feeling kind of dumbstruck for a moment. And, also, kind of like picking her up in his arms and aggressively kissing her and...!

"Uh. Th-thanks. But I'mgonnachangebacknow!" He turned and ran back to the bedroom, shifting back to female form along the way. She had to catch the shorts and underwear with her hand to keep them from falling entirely off on the way into the door.

After Onida returned, Sam said, "Aaah, I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable or anything?"
"N-no. It's just, really weird being the other sex. I guess I don't have much ground to stand on with that around you two, but..."
"Nah, at least we both get it," Damon said. "Buut, you bought clothes for it anyway! So you must be planning to use it sometimes, riiight?"
"Uh, m-maybe. I don't know, I just thought..." What had she been thinking? Something like, 'if I need to be male for some reason, I want to be presentable.' But why would she ever need to? Maybe 'need' was a little too strong, but at some point she and Sam might want to...

"Hey, aaah, don't worry about it," Sam said. "You let us know, you showed us. We can just move on from that if you want. Like, tomorrow's a big day, right? First full moon for you—second for Damon, but, practically the first really."

"Oh. Y-yeah." Damon's expression fell a little bit, thinking about that.
"We'll be here for you," Onida reassured her (glad for the rescue!). "It's just one night, anyway. I guess—if we won't be able to sleep, we could spend some of the day before napping, and then just..hang out around here. You can still play games in werewolf form, right?"
"Aaah, technically?" Sam said. "I usually don't, though. Too restless, and the claws make your hands kinda clumsy. A little running around can help."
"Maybe, something with motion controls then? Or, I guess we could all just go into the back yard if the zoomies are that bad."

"Yeah, we can figure something out. Anyway, Damon can still type or write even if she can't talk, so aah.."
"R-right. I'll be okay," she said a little bit softly, but nodded.

---

Since becoming a young woman, Boreas hadn't actually tried out her full-wolf form. He'd usually only shifted to that shape when he absolutely had to; making a mess by shedding a bunch of extra fur around the shop was just a pain, and he could usually burn off plenty of moonlight by just keeping the ears and tail around. That part about not wanting to make a mess was still much the same, and as Wednesday wore on, she could feel the steady buildup of a youthful urge to go out and hunt—something that she'd last felt so long ago that it was barely familiar now. So she went outside a little before sunset, wearing only a very loose-fitting tank top and shorts, in order to voluntarily shift before the moonrise could force her to.

She needn't have been so cautious about the clothes. The difference between her 'human' and 'wolf' forms was about the same as it had been before that recent transformation: A little taller, a little more muscularly built, but otherwise just herself, covered in rough fur in the same pattern as a regular gray wolf. Some women apparently gained a cup size or two when shifting forms, but that wasn't the case for Boreas—which suited her just fine; those things were big enough to deal with as it was.

The self-examination done, and nothing else really on her mind, she went for a little patrol of her 'territory'. It had been so long since she'd gone outside like this that hardly any of it was familiar. Maybe a few of the trees were the same, but the rest was all quite different. A canine's sense of direction, and her own scent, were the main things ensuring she didn't get lost or wander far enough out to get outside her own property.

She eventually found a few deer in the more wooded part of her lands, and carefully stalked one before taking it down. Freshly-hunted meat was a somewhat nostalgic flavor, but her sense of taste had been ruined by her work as an alchemist for so long that even being young again hadn't fixed it. She ultimately lacked the appetite to have more than a little of the meat, and willingly left the rest of it to scavengers, heading off to a small stream nearby to drink and clean up. Nature, at least, was efficient in that way.

It was more than two thirds of the way through the night by now. She rinsed off, lapped up some water, and then paused, sitting up, at a specific sound in the distance. Her ears twitched: Someone was howling.

Wolf howls might sound very much the same to most humans, and even to young werewolves. Some of even the latter would have a hard time distinguishing an animal from a fellow werewolf. But Boreas had the experience, plus the time running around with some really wild werewolves to know...that howl didn't sound right. It was from a werewolf, but it didn't have any information in it. It was like a person screaming out incoherent nonsense at the top of their lungs.

It was someone who'd gone feral. And they were close enough for her to get to tonight.

According to old traditions—which someone of Boreas's age held to with full devotion—dealing with feral wolves, those under La Lune's curse, was a burden that fell upon all werewolves who benefited from La Lune's blessing. The howl repeated, and Boreas carefully traced the location. Outside of her territory proper, but she didn't know of any wolves who'd seriously staked a claim that nearby. Which meant this was her responsibility. She took off at a run right away; the owner of that voice hadn't moved much between howls, but there was no telling what a feral would do next.

At least a quarter-hour later, Boreas paused, hearing the noise of another wolf running up, slowing down, coming to a stop. She moved carefully, quietly in that direction, sniffing the air occasionally. There were...at least two werewolves nearby, besides herself. Another feral? Or someone from around here she didn't know about? It was too far from the campus to be a student unless they'd run a really long way over the course of the night, which wasn't impossible.

The one she'd been hearing was making more noise, making it easy for Boreas to get closer. Through some brush, and then...

"Waugh!" Boreas turned a corner and nearly ran into her. She yelped and jumped back slightly, landing on all fours. "Who—what are you d—are you—!?" The strange werewolf tensed up, trying ask several questions at once, completing none of them. She was quite a sight to see: Brilliant silver fur with some light-blue highlights, blue eyes, a chunk missing from her left ear—and taller, curvier, and stronger-looking than the alchemist could imagine ever being. Maybe Lucent in his prime would've been a match for someone like that...maybe.
"Easy." Boreas took a small step back and just sat on all four feet. "I'm not the feral 'round here."

"Feral? Oh—you mean. So you're, not, the one who howled a few minutes ago?"
"I'm not. You don't know a feral when you hear it?"
"I-I don't know about that, but. But what I do know, is that my bro—my sister recognized the voice of the werewolf who bit her, from over a month ago!"

"Over a month? Hmm. This been reported to them celestials?"
"Cele-what?"

"Veilkeepers," Boreas tried.

"I guess? Uh, last full moon, he—she. It's, a long story."

"You reported it when she turned," the alchemist concluded for her. "That would explain why they haven't tracked 'im down yet. Got it."

"So, you. You're after this, 'feral'?"

"I heard the howl. Someone's got to take up the burden. Didn't know you were 'round."
"What were you...planning to do?"
"Whatever's necessary. You?"
"I-I-I don't know. Catch him, hold him down to make him listen? Demand to know—to know why he bit my brother?"
"Feral won't have an answer. Like talking to a wild animal. Might be nothing we can do for him."
"Nothing—what do you mean?"
"Just what I say, miss. Not much you can do for a rabid dog." Although, if this one had gone unnoticed for more than an entire month...then his human form probably maintained some level of sanity. Or else he was just especially people-shy, but that didn't track with him actually biting someone. Boreas thought it best not to bring all that up; if this girl wasn't prepared for the worst possible outcome, then she shouldn't be along for the hunt at all.

"Th-that's not. It—I know someone, who can fix it! M-my sister was feral, before she—before that someone did something to her, and she's back to normal now! M-mostly. If y—if we could just, knock him out and get him to her.."
"A minute ago you sounded awful angry at 'im. Now you want to help 'im?"
"If...if he really couldn't help it. Then yes, I do. I..I know what that looks like, a-and some of what it feels like..."

"Hmm.

"Trying to just knock out a feral is tougher and more dangerous than going for the kill. Don't think I could do it on my own, but you look plenty strong. I'll give it a shot if you'll help."
"Uh—sure. Of course!"

"After that, you can call your miracle worker. Long as he don't cause any more trouble, it won't be my business anymore."

"Okay," the silver-haired wolf nodded. "Okay."

"But first, we have to track him down. Keep quiet, and follow my lead."

"O—" she started, then cut herself off, and just nodded. Well, whoever this was, she was very inexperienced at hunting. But at least she picked things up quickly enough.

Boreas raised her head and sniffed the air, trying for that other scent now that she'd eliminated her temporary partner's from consideration. After a moment she caught it, and began following it. The two of them had made an awful lot of noise, between the silver-haired one's loud running around and her yelp, then their entire conversation, and they had most likely spooked him. But Boreas's sense of smell was exceptionally good even compared to other wolves—one of the things that made her such a talented alchemist in the first place—and she could follow a scent quickly and quietly. Her short-term companion kept up easily, and was steadily picking up on the way the old werewolf was moving to keep from being heard, making her own movements quieter and quieter.

Eventually, Boreas stopped, raising her head to look around and to sniff the air once more, and soon realized something. Of all the... They were back where she'd been only a short while ago. Even the silver-haired wolf had to hear it—had to smell it. The scent of carrion, and the sound of someone's sharp teeth tearing through flesh. It was the deer Boreas had left behind earlier, which meant she had, entirely by accident, baited a trap for that feral werewolf.

Boreas pointed in the direction of the noise, just in case the silver-haired wolf didn't get it. Then she pointed to herself, and off to the right: I'm going to flank. Her hunting partner nodded recognition of this signal. Then Boreas just barely whispered: "Tackle him, pin him. Make a fist." She demonstrated doing this with her own right forepaw. "Then go for the head. It'll look real bad, but we heal up quick if we're not dead." And, she nodded again.

Assured that they both knew the plan, Boreas headed off. She made a wide circle, came up to him on one side. He was huge, with thick brown fur all over; a tank top and some shorts were clinging tightly to his body, looking considerably less damaged than one would expect from someone who'd been running loose for over a month—which was even more evidence that something a little unusual was going on. Ignore the clothes, and it'd be easy for a human to mistake him in the dark for a grizzly bear...which could be another reason he'd gone unnoticed for so long.

Now that she could see what they were dealing with, Boreas formed the rest of the plan. The silver-haired wolf was the physically stronger of the two of them. Boreas had the fighting experience and speed to take down a feral wolf properly with her fangs and claws, but even her regained youth hadn't made her all that strong. So...it was better for her to flush him out. She ran out in his direction, loudly barking. The feral wolf yipped and ran, his wild side obviously somewhat of a coward despite his impressive size. Then a great mass of silver fur, gleaming brilliantly in the moonlight, appeared from the shadows, leaping right on top of him. The two of them tumbled, rolling, the feral swiping and yowling. Boreas moved up to them, readying to assist in case he got loose, as the roll came to a stop. The silver-haired wolf was holding him down with her right hand on his chest and her knees on his belly. He kept flailing and squirming, but couldn't get loose before she'd raised her left hand up, balling it into a fist, and then struck him on the forehead, bashing it in once—and then, when he kept moving, a second time. After that, the feral wolf went limp.

Boreas untensed; the silver-haired wolf quickly stood up. "Is—did I—?" she asked, her voice high and mortified.
"Sshh." After a second's silence, the alchemist said: "Hear that? He's still breathing. You did fine."

"Oh. Okay...good. Um." She looked around. "I...have no idea where we are. A-and I left my phone at the house, and.."
Boreas sighed, intentionally making it audible in order to cut her off. "You oughta be able to smell your way home. But it'd be a long way to drag this one. We're not far from my place, and I got a phone. You know this person's number?"
"Yes!"

"Then let's get this over with." Boreas gestured for her to pick up the unconscious feral, and then started off on a straight line towards her shop.

"So. Name's Boreas. Alchemist by trade."
"Oh! Uh. Onida. I'm uh...just an office worker.

"So uh...alchemist is aaaa. Real job title."
"Yep." This one must've been yanked out from under the veil pretty hard, Boreas decided.

A short while later, Onida made a brief, choked noise. "What...what is that...what is that smell?!"

Right—they were getting pretty close now; Boreas hadn't even noticed. "I told you I was an alchemist. We work with plenty of chemicals. You didn't smell 'em on me?"
"I..I guess I just wasn't paying that much attention, now that you mention it. You smelled..distinct to me, but I wasn't sure why. But that...! It's so strong! How do you even—?"

"You get used to it."

Boreas stopped in front of the door. "Hold on to 'im there for a minute. I got something that'll keep him asleep 'till morning."

"Uh..nothing dangerous, I hope?"

"Not at the right dosage." But so much for not shedding a bunch of fur around her work area. Boreas went inside only briefly before coming back out with a vial of the potion. It was really an accelerated healing potion that knocked the drinker out for a while as a side effect, but in this case both would be helpful. She dumped it into the feral werewolf's mouth, made him swallow it, then stood up. "That'll do it. Let's get him to a couch, and you can call whoever you need to."

"Okay. I...I should probably also call home. Let them know what happened, that I'm okay."
Boreas just shrugged. "My phone's not billed by the minute."

---

Felix woke up unusually groggy, and with a pounding headache. He shifted slightly, raised a hand to his forehead to feel it, and found the spot somewhat sensitive, like it had a bad bruise. He quietly groaned a complaint, wondering whether he'd managed to fall out of bed and climb back under the covers without remembering it. He hadn't heard his alarm or anything, and he felt really sleepy, so he just wanted to stay there with his eyes closed and go back to sleep...but he couldn't get comfortable. It took a fair bit of shifting around before he started to notice that something was actually quite wrong.

There was only a blanket on top of him, with no sheets. There wasn't a pillow under his head. The 'bed' had a cushioned wall on one side and dropped off very close to him on the other. And, he could hear someone talking not very far away.

One woman's voice practically grunted: "Prolly should've arranged a meeting in-person earlier, I s'pose."

Another, in a more chipper tone of voice, said: "It's no trouble. Prama's directions were about as perfect as you'd expect."

It required more willpower than it really should've for Felix to shove the blanket off at this point and try to sit up. He winced pretty hard when that exacerbated his headache, but he pushed through it, rubbed his eyes, and looked around. He'd been...lying on a couch, in a small, unfamiliar room. There was some..what, chemistry equipment? Lying around on some shelves and a small table, all in a fairly messy arrangement. That was about as much as he registered before one of the doors opened, and the owners of those voices stepped through: A tall woman with short, largely gray hair, and a black-haired woman of more average height.

"Uh.."
"Looks like he already woke up," the tall (grunting-voice) one said.

"Well, that should make things more convenient," the other one said, and then actually addressed him with a greeting that was far too cheerful for this early in the morning: "Hello there~."
"Uh. Hi. Who are you, where am I, uh..?" He was still feeling a little disoriented.
"And what's going on? We can do things in that order if you'd like," she said in a friendly tone of voice. "I'm Zotha, this is Boreas—we're at her house-slash-place of business. As for what happened, that's..slightly more complicated."
"You remember anything from last night?" 'Boreas' asked.

"Uh, not really? I mean, I got sleepy really early, went to bed...next thing I know I'm here, with this..ugh..headache." He shook his head slightly, trying to clear it, and instantly regretted that, as it again made the pain slightly worse. But: "I guess..I've been having some weird dreams lately. Did I, sleepwalk? All the way here?"
"After a fashion," Boreas said.

"Er, to clarify—do you have any specifics about these dreams?" Zotha asked.
"Uhhmm...I've been keeping a dream journal lately, ever since they started. Sometimes, it's like..I'm running through a forest or something like that? I've also had dreams about standing in front of this huge pit, and someone runs up and pushes me over, but not lately..."

"You ever wake up with a stomachache? Or notice anything out of order in your room?" she continued, gently.
"Yyyyeah, sssometimes. I usually get over it, but I'm not hungry like, all day when that happens. I toss and turn pretty bad..been thinking about getting a sleep study done..." Come to think of it, his stomach kind of hurt right now.

"I think I should just rip the band-aid off at this point. What would you think if I told you you were a werewolf?" Zotha said.
"Uh..?"
"Like Boreas here?" she said, pointing at the other woman's head..or, more specifically, a short distance up from where her ears probably were under her hair.

"I don't think he can see 'em," Boreas said, observing Felix's look of further confusion. "Well, isn't this a pickle. Turning, but staying under the veil the whole time..." Were these two being serious? But, it was hard for Felix to see how they could be saying all of this without really meaning it.

"Ah," Zotha clapped. "I can do something about that! Just, watch this for a moment." She held out her hand, and...something appeared above it. Felix would be hard-pressed to describe just what it was. Bright lights, shifting colors, a roughly spherical shape, would all have been words he'd try, and still come up inadequate. His mind reeled briefly at a sense of sheer impossibility, which clashed hard against the undeniability of...whatever it was she was doing. He blinked a couple of times at it, wondering whether he was actually still asleep and in the middle of a particularly lucid dream—like that one with the weird catgirl a few nights back. But, after only a few seconds, the...whatever Zotha had done...was gone, and he could turn his eyes elsewhere.

"...Bluagh!" The first place he'd looked was back at Zotha again, and the shock of the sight had him bound entirely over the back of the couch to behind it, landing a little roughly onto the floor. "Ooowwh..." Of course, this made his headache act up again. But how else was he supposed to react to her suddenly looking like some kind of...demon!? With, like, cat ears, and horns, and big bat-like wings, and a tail..?
"Take it easy—I'm no threat to you," Zotha said.

"Interesting trick," Boreas commented—probably to Zotha, unless she somehow thought Felix clumsily scaling the back of the couch and hitting the floor was impressive.

Felix carefully picked himself up and peeked over the couch, looking over the two women again. Zotha still looked..rather like a demon to him, and he felt like he could see what she'd been trying to point out about Boreas before: Two big, furry ears poking out past her hair. There was also a furry tail moving around behind her, not to mention some sharp teeth showing in her mouth when she spoke. But the more he looked at those unusual traits on both of the women, the more it felt like..they really had been there all along, but he just hadn't been paying..enough attention to them before? How was that possible?!

"Okay, I guess I'm seeing..something that was always there, but I couldn't..see it, before?"
"Right. Long story short, there's a thing that keeps 'normal' humans from seeing unusual things. But, since you're a werewolf, it's not supposed to still apply to you," Zotha said. "So I went ahead and fixed that. Can you remember anything more specific about your dreams now? Especially on the nights before you woke up sick?"
"I uh..not really? It's still pretty fuzzy," Felix said. "But...I don't think. I didn't, really fall asleep, did I? It..something was hurting, pretty bad," he realized aloud "A-and the morning, there was all this shed fur! It got all in the vacuum, and—I thought it was just dust!"

"Try not to panic too much," Boreas said. "Take a deep breath or two."
"Okay, okay..." He inhaled, then exhaled again. "So I—I guess I am a werewolf. Is that..how bad is that?"

"Depends on the person," Boreas said. "It's meant to be a blessing, but sometimes it's a curse. Your case in't normal, being separated from your wild side by the veil itself for so long."

"So, next time there's a full moon...d-do I need to, lock myself in or something? Have someone guard the door?"
"It'd be easier if we could just fix the separation—which I probably can," Zotha said, "and definitely fix your bruise there at the same time," she added while pointing at her own forehead. "There might be a, side effect to my cure, but I can undo it easily enough."

"That sounds. Um." Felix stood all the way up, brushed himself off slightly. When he looked down, he realized he was brushing brown fur off of his white tank top. "If I'm being honest, suspiciously convenient. How..how'd I get this bruise in the first place?"

Boreas crossed her arms. "Sane wolves have to keep feral ones from hurting folks. I thought you needed to be put down. Another werewolf by the name of Onida thought Zotha here could fix the problem, so I let her knock you out instead of me tearing your throat out."
Felix felt far more distinct emotions from that explanation than should have ever fit into such a short time span: Sheer terror at the idea of being 'put down' and basically disappearing forever with hardly a trace, shock at hearing Onida's name come up (there weren't very many people with that name, right!?), relief that he hadn't been killed by this terrifying woman who apparently had no hesitation about the idea of doing so...then, finally, a spark of realization. Onida had been looking..different lately; now that he thought of it, he could actually remember the ears, the tail! How had he not noticed that, either?!

And then: "Waa, wait a minute. Onida's brother went missing after a bear bit him." Felix's memory of those dreams still wasn't very good, but he thought he remembered standing over someone, and then running away from a lot of noise. "Thaaaat...that wasn't a bear, was it?"

"I'd guess not," Boreas said.

"Oooh, boy." This was going to make things extraordinarily awkward at work today. Or...probably tomorrow, or whenever he managed to get back to it. "Okay. I think I believe you know," he said in a near-falsetto tone.

"You want me to try my cure, then?" Zotha said.

"Yeah. Nooo, no more biting people for me, please and thanks."

"Okay. Just hold still; this won't hurt a bit." the demon-looking woman said. And then, after taking a moment seemingly to consider what word to use, she put her right arm out toward him and said: "Uɴɪᴛᴇ."

There was something strange about what she said..or how she said it. It was a lot like that floating ball of..whatever that had been above her hand a moment ago; Felix could barely comprehend it but not entirely put it into words. It felt like, for that word, her voice had authority. It was...an irresistible command. It brought on a faint purple light that flowed from her hand swiftly into him, and the sound of her voice saying that word seemed to echo briefly in his mind. It drowned out his thoughts, his worries, made him feel calm..and seemed to dredge up something that he hadn't noticed.

In the dreams Felix had of running around, things were too vague and abstract to make out his own form—his own appearance—and his mind had played tricks on him, simply filling in that he was his usual, human self that whole time. But he remembered those dreams more clearly now, enough to make out what he'd really looked like—what he really was, in some sense. He could remember..not so much thinking, as feeling, during all of that time. He felt that he was a wolf; he needed to run around; he was hungry, or scared, or angry, at various points. All of these were things the wolf felt, but they were also things he felt. He was, after all, one and the same as the wolf.

One and the same...all along. Something—that 'veil'—had kept him from noticing. But, like a lot of other things in the past minute or two, it seemed terribly obvious now.

"Aah..r-rrfh..!" A soft bark came from Felix's mouth, as he felt his ears unfold, a tail make its way out from his back. It was strange, but extremely familiar—this, and more, had happened each night he had one of those so-called "dreams". But this was followed immediately by a strange, sharp tingling that ran inward from the bases of those ears and that tail, all the way across his skin. The tingles went down through his scalp and head, and up from the base of his spine, meeting around the middle of his torso, while some more of them spread downward through his legs. He shuddered violently, almost falling over but leaning on the couch instead, in response, as he felt the weight and motion of his hair suddenly fluttering out longer and longer. It tickled his cheeks, landed on his shoulders, then gently tumbled its way down along his back.

"R-rfh..? A-aa~aah..?" Felix being the wolf, and the wolf being him, made an utterly bizarre amount of sense. What was happening now, however, was a complete surprise. He felt the tingling give way to a warm, massage-like pressure all over, and the world rushed upward around him, his clothes loosening around his body, as that pressure shrank him smaller and smaller. This motion didn't make his head hurt..in fact, it no longer hurt at all—the injury evidently healed during that first bit of tingling. "A~ah, arffh, rr~rfh..!?" But that didn't make it any less strange to find himself shrinking, and as he let out some soft barks, to hear his voice coming out in higher and higher pitches...!

Just before his boxers might have given up entirely, Felix's clothes shrank, pulling close against his slimmer, shorter frame. The shorts seemed overeager in this effort, quickly losing half the length of their leggings and pulling awfully..tight...down between his legs. "A-aa~ah..!" That was what prompted him to notice that he was quite a bit...smaller down there than he was used to, and was starting to feel a weird kind of tugging feeling down there. That feeling, strangely, seemed to excite him, making him pant heavily between soft, high-sounding barks and squeaks, his face going terribly warm. "Rr~rfh..! Aah, aa~aah..!"

"W-waa~aah..!" And, just like that, a final tug took away Felix's manhood entirely. All of her—her wolf side, her human side, which were both the same thing now—shivered again, feeling a nice, fuzzy feeling down between her legs as a new sex settled into place down there. "M-mm~mmnnn~nnnh...!" Her hips gently puffed out, her chest tingling sharply for just a second before starting to grow, gently shoving the material of her top out as it reformed into a mid-sized pair of breasts. "A~ah, rr~rrfh..!" She could only happily bark in response to these last couple of changes—thanks to how bizarrely nice they felt! And..something about how cute, and pretty, she was becoming was...nice, too.

"M—mngh..." Felix let out a soft noise, then panted for a moment, slowly blinking her eyes open. In no time at all, she'd gone from a human man to..a werewolf girl, her ears and tail as plainly visible as Boreas's were. She was a little shorter than Zotha...maybe average-ish height for a woman, with a fairly slim build but still a pretty good figure.

"A..ahahah..s-so, 'side effects'...meant this?" she asked, trying to get used to the high voice that came from her lips. It wasn't that high, maybe a mid-soprano or so, but still a stark contrast to how she'd sounded a minute or two ago.

"Yes, that's pretty much what I expected," Zotha said. "I can change you back if you want."
"Uh, well." Looking down at herself for a second, patting her chest with one hand for a second due to a lingering uncertainty that all of this was real, Felix felt unusually hesitant. She...really should ask to be turned back to normal, right? What would everyone at work say, seeing this walk in? Even if most of them couldn't see the furry parts! "I uh.."
"Hmm, you seem conflicted. I can change you back in a way that'll let you look that way again, if you wish," Zotha said.
"R-really?"
"Sure," she shrugged. "I've done it for plenty of other people. Your clothes won't change with you when you do it yourself though, so be ready for that."

All of a sudden, Felix's mind lit up with..exciting possibilities! For the exact same reason as her worries a moment ago—nobody would recognize her—she could do things looking like this that 'Felix' couldn't possibly be seen doing. But she had to accept the offer first, so she quickly tried to calm herself down...

"Th-then yeah! Yes. I uh, i-it'd be best if I look uuh..as much like myself as possible. But, seriously, thanks. Oh! Also uh...I don't suppose I could bother one of you to, help me catch a ride home?"

---

The full moon was always going to be some kind of big deal, but it took me a while to figure out exactly why and how to handle it. And it's going to continue to bother me that the dates of full moons between this story and Midas Journal don't and can't make sense without some kind of local time paradox, and/or this universe's Earth having a different-length lunar month, but I'll get over it. If there's a fourth full moon within these stories, it will be at a time that actually makes sense, I swear...

Anyway, I've recently stumbled onto a (in hindsight slightly obvious) method for refining the results of my image generation stuff a bit better. At least, I think the results have been better. The image in this story part is the first actually published instance of said results; I'm hoping some of the other results can be shown off soon in other stories, too.