October Tails V: The Witch of Tricks

October Tails Series:
I | II | III | IV | V

---

I had a pretty hard time getting this written in time, but I'm still very happy with the results. And...I had barely even gotten halfway through the conversation at the start before realizing this was definitely going to end up as a story, so yeah. Happy Halloween!

---

It was already Halloween, and still no witch. Sure, Thana thought, it was probably foolish to expect more than one person to respond to that strange ad run in just one day's newspaper, but if she was really being honest she'd sort of hoped to just...run into the right person. Maka thought that notion was foolish: For one thing, how would she even tell who would make a good witch on just meeting them? And more importantly, the demon-girl was sensible enough to note she shouldn't commit herself to being someone's “pet or whatever” (a phrase which suggested she only sort of understood what the nekomata wanted, but Thana appreciated that she was trying to help nonetheless) without really getting to know them first.

Maybe she was in too much of a rush, she thought. It had just seemed so...right to find a witch during this magical month, and perhaps to bring her along to that party Frenella kept pushing. Before the afternoon was half-finished, the catgirl made the firm decision that she would go to the party anyway, to enjoy herself and maybe take her mind off things. Putting this much pressure on a deadline like this really couldn't be good for her, especially when she knew full well that nekomata don't even get old over time.

So when it came close to sunset, she reorganized her clothes into some sturdy, close-fitting “mummy wraps” for a costume, and poofed herself over to the front door of the house the party was at. It was amazing how easy some things were to do on a whim, when others had to be carefully guided and directed to do quite the thing she wanted them to. Well, perhaps it was just that another person was far too complex to leave up to her newfound 'magical instincts'. That made a kind of sense in the part of her head that had come with these powers, that always seemed to understand what was going on as far as magic went.

Someone literally, physically jumped inside when she rang the doorbell. A little later, the door swung open to reveal a very tall, red-eyed werewolf woman—evidently electing to use her full werewolf form as a “costume”, but still wearing a t-shirt and shorts that appeared better sized for a smaller “mostly-human” form over it anyway. “Um, hi, welcome,” she said a little nervously, the massive height difference making it difficult for either of them to find the other's face (or...muzzle). “You're um..wait I think I recognize you!”

“We haven't really been introduced,” the nekomata said with a winning smile. “I'm Thana. Fren wanted me to come.”

“Oh, of course! My name's Reiko. Uh, come on in.” She moved out of the way, waving inward. The catgirl nodded, accepting the invitation.

The party turned out to be just the thing. The candy-witch and her catgirl came with loads of delicious treats, with added enchantments to prevent them from making people sick and even making the chocolates safe for animal-folk who would have otherwise found them poisonous. There was a wide, energetic variety of guests, the party spilling out of the space Reiko had planned and all throughout the backyard; Thana offered at one point to 'expand the space' herself but the werewolf politely declined, something about wanting to be able to find her way around in the morning.

Maka was there too; they hung out for a while, but eventually the catgirl got distracted and wandered off, as cats do. That was how she found herself in the backyard, watching some of the party-goers. After wandering around a bit, a man dressed up like a stage magician—suit, top hat and all—caught her attention. He was showing off a few not-actual-magic tricks with cards and a stuffed rabbit and so on.

...And here she'd come to the party to take her mind off this stuff. But it was just too good an opportunity to pass up; at least she could give it a shot, right?

Thana slid up next to him as a few mildly-impressed partygoers wandered away, still arguing with each other over how he'd known which one was their card. “Heyyy there,” she said. “Are you a real magician?”

“Heh, well, just for tonight,” he said nervously, visibly eyeing her ears and tail. “To be honest I only learned three or four tricks from a book in a rush over the last week.”

“Well, I'm impressed you can learn that much so fast,” she said. And tried offering him a handshake. “My name's Thana, I really am a nekomata for the record.”

“Oh, cool. Cassius,” he said. His handshake was confident yet gentle..very nice, she thought. “I gotta say, I didn't even know there were this many uh, magic folks around this town.” The way he said it suggested he wasn't sure whether that was an offensive term or not, but strongly hoped it wasn't. “But maybe you're just all in the same place tonight?”

“Maybe! There's also more of us than there were at the start of the month,” she added with an air of mystery. And leaned in slightly for the kill: “How would you like to join us, hmmn?”

“Uh..how do you mean?” said Cassius, raising an eyebrow. Ohh, he was at least a little interested.

“Well, I've been working on spells that should draw out and amplify someone's natural talent for magic, provided there is any,” she said. “The method's not perfect yet, but that's what tests are for, right? I'm in the market for good guinea pigs, is all.”

“When you put it that way..I have to wonder what the risks are if it doesn't work as intended,” he said.

“It's perfectly safe,” she said, “there are just, y'know, unexpected results sometimes. I don't know if anyone's let you in on this, but magic is super complicated and not always easy to predict.”

“Heh, I think you could say the same thing about science," he said. “We've just gotten really good at that difficult prediction part in a lot of fields.”

“Oh, are you a scientist?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

“Mmhm. I do research and teach at the uni, you know. A few years ago I wouldn't have believed, well...any of this stuff could be real. The world just changed so fast. I mean, for the better for sure, but..”

“Yeah, I get the feeling," she said. "It was the same for me at the time.”

Thana had started walking while they talked, and Cassius had followed. In this way she subtly guided him over to a less crowded part of the yard, near a fence. He hadn't accepted her offer yet, per se, but she could almost see it in him...

“Really? Is, that what you meant about 'more of you'?” he said.

“Mm-hm! Someone helped me awaken these powers I didn't even know I had back on the first of the month,” she said. “I highly recommend it to anyone it's available to. Though I'll admit it doesn't look like you have any hidden powers quite like this.”

“That..spell of yours doesn't care, though, right? Just that there's potential?”

“Yep!” she nodded cheerfully once again. Her tails flicked back and forth eagerly; there was a bit of a feeling like having a fish firmly on the hook, ready to be reeled in.

“What kind of, 'unexpected results' could it have, anyway?”

“Well, the last person I tried it on had a strong potential for dark-magic and became a demon as a result,” she said. “It came with some physical alterations, which I actually am powerful enough to undo, but she didn't particularly want me to. On the other hand it would be a bad idea to try to 'undo' someone turning into a demon, for example.” Thana quietly prided herself on the agility with which she danced around the arguably most major of those alterations. “So..a fundamental change of nature like that is the biggest risk. But it wouldn't bring out anything that's not sorta in you already, anyway.”

“Do you...know what's 'in me', then?” he said, sounding curious.

“Uhm...some potential for sure,” she said. “I wouldn't offer to try the spell on you if I didn't think it would work. I don't have enough experience identifying the kind of potential someone has, though! The only way I know to tell is to cast it and see what happens.”

“Well...okay, what the heck,” Cassius said, nervously adjusting his hat. “I..to be honest I was sorta invited here by a stranger. I decided to come because this one part of what she said while giving me that invitation that kept coming back was how it could be an adventure. I thought...something unexpected might happen for once, and maybe I'd really enjoy it.” He shrugged. “So, I dunno, if I wanted to turn down an uncertain surprise I should've just stayed home. Right?”

“Yeah...” Thana said, a little dreamily. She was practically mesmerized by that speech. After all, a wonderful surprise had been sent to her, sneaking its way in through an unassuming package. Someone willing to take the dive all on their own deserved quite a bit of respect in her eyes.

She snapped out of the amazed stare after a moment and drew herself up as much as she could, knowing there was something serious to be done now.

Seeing her posture, Cassius said, “Should I, brace myself or something?”

“You can if you want to. It won't hurt but I'm told it's at least a very exciting feeling,” she said. He nodded and stood a little straighter too, before making a small gesture with a hand to indicate he was ready. Finally, it was time to test out her new version of the spell...!

Thana carefully channeled her magic, making use of the several mental notes she'd made during Maka's change. Her body gained a blue, fiery glow, and some of the mummy wraps burst off of her arms and legs as they grew fur from the elbows and knees down respectively, her feet turning to more catlike hindpaws and lending an extra inch or so of height. She did this sometimes to bring out her animal side a little more, which somehow made her magic a little easier to control, but the fur and paws were sort of unwieldy in everyday life. At any rate, it was some nice special effects for Cassius to enjoy. Then she cast her hands forward, slowly sending some of that fire toward him. It went in through his stomach and spread outward, gradually making his entire body glow.

With that, the spell was cast. The glow slowly faded from view, but Thana could see the magic doing its work now, and Cassius could clearly feel something, as he was looking at one of his hands with a kind of uncertain expression. The glow remained in his eyes, and their color shifted along with the glow to a bright pink shade. But that...! Seemed to be it?

Thana could feel the pulse of magic through him. Spells were probably entering his head, and he was beginning to smile as the power settled into his body. It seemed she had succeeded in making a magic-potential-amplifying spell with no side effects...including the ones she really wanted. She kept a positive smile on her face, knowing this should be a happy occasion for him at least, but couldn't prevent her ears from lowering a little bit. It was fine, she tried to tell herself, plenty more people to try this on.

“What...wait, wait...I know!” Cassius said, with a tone that suggested he had just realized...something. What it was, Thana wasn't sure. But no sooner had he said that than he spread his arms out, closed his eyes, and began chanting a spell. A magic circle glowed into view on the ground beneath him, splitting into two smaller circles to either side of him, and then two little translucent white ghosts spun up from them, summoned by whatever spell he was casting. Each one had a...witch's hat on?

Thana wasn't actually sure what was going on, aside from her senses informing her of powerful magic happening over there. Cassius dropped his arms to the side once the ghosts had risen to float in the air next to him, and took a deep breath that suggested he was finished casting the spell. The ghosts seemed to take this as a cue to float closer to him, up to the hat, and begin their mysterious work.

First they swirled around the hat, slowly at first but accelerating into a mostly-white blur. The hat's brim grew wider, and it poked upward, like it was being squeezed into a steadily narrower shape the farther up it went. Soon it came to a point up at the top, and as the ghosts slowed and made their way down from it, its shape was quite clear: A huge brim and a tall cone. An orange ribbon with a huge bow depicting a candy in its center had appeared just above the brim, and now that it didn't have ghosts swirling around it, gravity took over and the hat folded itself down to one side. Thana could hardly believe what she was seeing—it was unmistakably a witch's hat!

One of the ghosts went to Cassius's face next and began patting it with its cute little hands; the other one produced a brush from thin air and started running it through his hair. “Aaahhh..” He closed his glowing pink eyes, giving a relaxed sigh, as the facial hair drained from his skin, his face turning smaller, rounder, and cuter, and his hair flowed out, trailing along next to his cheeks before falling down to his shoulders, and then continuing its way on down along his back. While this happened, he started to shrink ever so slightly, his entire body getting subtly shorter and smaller.

The nekomata was completely transfixed by what she was seeing; she felt certain she already knew what the end result would be, and yet dared not celebrate yet for fear her guess would be proven wrong. Her ears did pick up the sound of others turning to watch, moving closer, murmuring to each other...

The ghosts moved down, running all around Cassius's clothes next. The dark vest gained bright orange accents here and there, while the slacks developed a pattern of horizontal orange and black stripes all the way down its leggings. Then they reconvened to either side of his waist, and began doing the same trick as with the hat, swirling around it slowly at first before rapidly picking up speed. His suit pulled tighter onto his body, and his waist responded to the swirling by shrinking inward, growing slimmer and flatter; his height sank down a little faster now, and the tightening suit made visible a narrowing of his shoulders and a slimming of his arms that were coming along with it.

Cassius had reopened his eyes by now, and looked around with a bright smile on what was now an adorably cute face framed by silky brown hair, enjoying the attention of the gathering audience to his change. When those eyes turned on Thana, she could swear he gave her a little nod...!

The ghosts suddenly split off away from his waist, one of them swirling figure-eights on down his legs while the other went up past his chest to run from one hand across his arms and shoulders to the other, and back again. With them out of the way, the sharp inward curve of his waist was quite visible, along with his belt, which was now placed higher than before, far thinner in a bright orange shade with a jack-o-lantern buckle.

The ghosts' motion seemed to encourage the shrinking of his arms and legs to accelerate a bit, and his hands grew smaller and more delicate with pretty, manicured fingernails; by the time they calmed down and marshaled themselves to new positions—one in front of his chest and the other behind his back—Cassius had gained a rather short, girlish figure for a guy. The ghost in front floated forward a little more to rub its hands up and down his neck, while the other one seemed to just disappear right into his lower back, going intangible along the way. “Heheheh....” Cassius started to laugh, like the ghost touching his neck tickled. “Haa~aa, hahahahah...!” His voice began to rise in pitch, and his initially boyish chuckle turned into giggling. “HeheheEE~heeheehee, haa~aaa~AAAh, hehehehe~!” He folded his slim arms over his stomach, his cheeks starting to redden with a blush, and it was quite clear that the ghost which had disappeared inside of him was definitely accomplishing something, something which caused little cries of delight to mix in with the giggling as his voice floated higher and higher. And then...!

“Heheh, eeheehee~EEeeheeheeehee~!” Cassius's voice deepened and matured, his giggling turning into a kind of cackle briefly, before it was interrupted by a rather final-sounding “Ooooohh~...” and a sharp deepening of the blush. Thana was not the only one who suspected that the person before her had just changed sex, but her powers automatically informed her that this hunch was correct. The ghost that had gone into Cassius's back came out from the middle of her stomach, its job finished, and floated up next to the other one, which was dropping its little hands away from her neck. They quickly whirled around the new girl's upper body, and little ripping sounds could be heard as the sleeves of her suit tore away, except for a couple of pieces on the left wrist and forearm, and the collar split off from a deep V-shape the rest of the shirt was opening into along her neckline. The ghosts were on either side of her at the end, and the vest had clearly turned into a deep-cut blouse, the tie now a deep purple ribbon helping keep it together in the middle of the chest. It had quite visible cups to it there, which were looking awfully empty...and at this point each ghost moved into one side of Cassius's flat chest to correct that.

“Heheh...mmmh~..” Cassius chuckled softly, blushing brighter again, as two little bumps rose up there. “Aah? Hmmn, hmm hmm hmm~,” she hummed a pleased little tune to herself as they continued to grow and rise, clearly already quite comfortable with the deep, sexy feminine purr of her new voice. She sucked in a sudden gasp as the bumps jumped a bit in size, and then let out a pleased, breathy “Aaahhh~” as they bounced out bigger still.

Soon they filled in the top quite nicely, and the growing seemed to slow to a halt. But she looked down at her newfound bust and tilted her head slightly. “Hmmmnn...hmn!” she raised her hands up and swept them in a swift outward gesture, and her breasts began growing all over again, visibly stretching the material out as they did. “Heeheehee...mmmnnnh~...!” She closed her eyes again, her face almost entirely red, as the top grew to fit her enhanced endowments, only for them to stretch it out even further, two or three more times. Finally, the ghosts popped violently outward, leaving her new, enormous pair of globes to gently bounce into place. The whole display had left Thana with her jaw hanging down and quite a blush of her own, especially when the beautiful woman reopened her eyes and gave a little wink.

The ghosts arced their way around and inward, clearly aiming for Cassius's hips to perform one final step in her transformation. They swirled around her pants, up and down around her legs. From the thighs down, the leggings grew tighter as their material changed to soft, shiny thin cloth, while the upper part of the pants steadily puffed out more and more. Her hips grew wider, her thighs thicker and her butt bigger, further accentuating her narrow waist and giving her the bottom third of her generous hourglass figure. The ghosts ended up on either side of the puffy upper parts to the pants; each one grabbed a side and pulled, and with a small ripping sound the leggings separated into a pair of striped thigh-high stockings while the rest spread out into a short skirt, deep purple like her blouse with a similar bright orange frilly trim. They kept on pulling the skirt out while the new witch raised her right hand, making a basket full of candy appear in a small shower of orange sparkles, and adjusted her hat ever so slightly with her left. They looked just about ready to lift the skirt all the way...!

And then, finally, the ghosts disappeared into white puffs of smoke, blowing away in the wind and dropping her skirt to let it swish gently back down. There were a couple of seconds of dead silence, just the gentle wind and the quiet swishing of fabric, and then the whole gathered crowd applauded and cheered, every one of them having been as impressed by whole the display as Thana was. The noise was enough to break the nekomata out of her stupor, and once she had picked her jaw up off the floor she joined in enthusiastically, even going so far as to un-fur her arms to have human hands to clap more loudly with.

“Thank you, thank you~!” the witch said, nodding and waving to everyone, and giving a small twirl. “Now, some of you may have met me earlier, but allow me to reintroduce myself. I'm Cassilda, but you can call me Cassy if you want. I knew a few tricks before, but thanks to the lovely Thana here” (she waved toward the catgirl, who blushed and ran a hindpaw across the ground nervously in response to the sudden attention), “I know quite a few new ones, and would be more than happy to show them off for you. If you want?”

The response was a predictable but overwhelming cheer of approval.

“Wonderful~! Now, let's see if we can make a little bit of a stage.” The witch led the way to a spot a little closer into the yard, waved for people to make some space, and cast a spell to summon up a raised platform covered in purple curtain. Several ghosts similar to the ones that had changed her were summoned after that, bringing out of their magic circles a bunch of folding chairs so everyone could sit down and enjoy the show. Thana was offered a front-row seat by some of the other guests as thanks for whatever (to them) unknown help she'd given the witch, and took it after only a little bit of protesting.

The show went on for a couple of hours, past midnight that night, but eventually Cassilda said that was all for the night, and gave a little bow to the audience's roaring applause before disappearing from the stage in a puff of orange smoke as one final trick. The platform sank back into the ground, and the summoned extra chairs disappeared as soon people got up from them and headed off to resume the party or go home. After a short while Thana got up herself, knowing full well that the witch was just invisible in the same place, and walked a little closer to her after the crowd had mostly dispersed.

“Soo, what'd you think?” Cassilda said when she came closer, reappearing through some orange sparkles.

“That was amazing!” said the nekomata. “I-I mean, I've had magic for a month and never thought of anything as creative as that stuff...but um, I think your first trick was still your best, to be honest.”

“Heheh, I thought you might say something like that.” The witch moved a little closer, and before Thana could wonder what she was doing she'd pulled the catgirl into a close hug, running one of her soft hands down her head and across her fuzzy ears. She had ended up at about an average height for a girl, taller than the nekomata by just enough that her head wound up half-buried in that gigantic pillowy chest from this gesture. While Thana returned the hug, purring and blushing profusely, Cassilda continued: “I really have to thank you for giving me such a wonderful opportunity. You know, at first I couldn't make sense of all that new power at all, but something just clicked when I thought of myself as a witch on a stage. Can't say I ever thought about turning into a woman before, but now I can hardly imagine being without it.”

“Mrr..I-I know what you mean,” Thana said, leaning her head back just enough so her voice wouldn't be muffled.
“Oh, really? You too? Heh, small world.” The witch released the hug and took a small step back, patting the catgirl on the head. “Uh, sorry if that was too much in your personal space. Not sure what came over me.”
“I-it's fine!” said Thana. “Actually...in fact, I really liked it! Um...I dunno how to explain this, but ever since I turned into this I've wanted a pretty witch to pet me...” she said quietly.
“Well, you're awfully cute. I'm surprised nobody else took you up on the offer by now,” said Cassilda.

“The only witch I could find already has a kitty,” she said, “so...I thought I needed to make one.”

“I guess you succeeded at that,” she shrugged, and crossed her arms, looking slightly away to one side. “The one thing I kept thinking during tonight's performance was how nice it'd be to have a lovely assistant to work alongside me.”

“Really?” Thana knew there were probably stars in her eyes from the way she leaned forward and said that.

“Hahaha..you like the idea that much?” She patted the nekomata's head a couple of times again, and she replied with a loud affirmative purr. “Still, we sorta just met. There's no telling how well we'd get along if you just suddenly committed to it right away.”
“Aww, you sound like Maka,” the catgirl said, her ears lowering a bit.

“Who's that?”

“Um, the person I was talking about before, who turned into a demon? But I guess you're both right...” Her expression brightened again, and she looked up at the witch with her ears up and tails flicking across each other again. “You'll just have to take me on on a trial basis and see how it works out!”
“Oh, now that could be arranged,” Cassilda said.

After that, she pulled Thana gently into a side-hug and began leading the way toward the backdoor of Reiko's house. “I left my phone in the dining room, I think. We should at least exchange numbers so we can start planning our first performance together, right?”
“Yeah!” the catgirl said happily.
“My, you've got a lot of energy,” the witch said.

“You know, this really could be the beginning of a beautiful partnership. Or a huge disaster! That's just the nature of stepping out into an adventure, though, isn't it?”

“Mm-hm,” Thana agreed. She purred softly again, feeling quite optimistic about this one, and guessing from Cassilda's bright smile that she was thinking the same. Maybe it wasn't Halloween anymore, but there was still magic in the air, and plenty of room for tricks...and treats!

October Tails IV: A Special Invitation

October Tails Series:
I | II | III | IV | V

---

In what I hope to be the penultimate entry of this series of captions, Sage helps Reiko send an invitation to that party of hers, with somewhat predictable results.

October Tails III: Bracelets of Power

October Tails Series:
I | II | III | IV | V

---

This part of October Tails is...a story! Why? Well, I wanted it to be caption, but when I moved it to the word processor for editing I found that it was about 5 pages long! And if I did try to make it into the usual caption-image format, it takes up so much vertical space at any halfway reasonable text size. So...standalone story ("extended caption") it is, instead.

---

There was an especially strange personal ad in the paper one day in the middle of October. "Wanted: Someone desiring incredible magical powers." And an address. That was it. What kind of person would even respond to a ridiculous ad like that? They didn't even leave a name, or any indication of who they were, nor when they would be available at that address.

Well, there was some kind of sucker born every minute, it seemed. Mark knew it probably made him one, but after some consideration he figured incredible magical powers sounded like they could be a lot of fun; maybe it'd at least be enough to get him out of a dead-end job serving coffee for abysmal wages. And if it was some weird sort of hoax it could be good for a laugh, maybe. He decided he'd stop by after his shift was through and see if there was even anyone there.

The first surprise when he drove to the address from the ad was that it was just someone's house. He'd expected maybe an office building or something; being unfamiliar with this part of town wasn't really helping him. Come to think of it, anyone could put an address in the paper, even if it wasn't theirs, which meant this could be a weird indirect prank. He could just...leave politely if it was something like that, though. It just changed his approach to the situation a little bit.

Mark got out of the car and walked up to the door, ringing the doorbell. In a couple of seconds the door opened to a short, dark-haired girl who looked...mostly normal, except her eyes were a florescent purplish-blue shade and she had two each of cat-like ears and tails. "Hello there, can I help you?" she said cheerfully. The animalesque body parts looked...quite real, especially the way they moved around while she talked.

"Uh..did you put out an ad in the paper?" he asked.

"Mmhm!" she nodded. "Come on in, I'll share some details with you." With no more than that, the odd girl turned around and strolled inside, leaving the front door still open behind her.

After hesitating a second and shrugging to himself, Mark followed. He reached to close the door, but before he could it shut itself, pulling to gently as if some invisible third person were doing it. That was slightly unnerving, but there were windows right next to the door and it didn't actually lock or anything, so he steeled his nerves and continued the rest of the way inside, to a nice little living room.

The owner (maybe) of the house was waiting patiently in the middle, her arms crossed and a slightly smug expression on her face. "Allow me to introduce myself first: My name is Thana," she said, putting a hand up toward him.

"Uh, Mark," he replied, shaking the offered hand.

"You seem like just the sort of person I need. Enough whimsy or desperation maybe to respond to an ad like that," she said, putting her hands palm-up.

That was...not a reassuring thing for her to say. "Well, at least you're honest about it," he said.

"Heheh. Just watch." A small shower of blue sparks heralded the appearance of a sky-blue bracelet in each hand. "I found these little trinkets on sale somewhere recently. From what I can tell, they're supposed to draw out and amplify the wearer's magic potential. But my potential's already as amplified as it can get, so they won't work on me." She smiled, her lips open enough to show off her teeth—including some distinctly feline fangs. "So, how would you like to test them out for me?"

There were some ways in which this was an increasingly concerning situation. But Thana had just shown off, twice, that she did have either some very impressive tricks up her sleeves or, somehow, actual magic. And the sense that she really was some sort of cat-person had only grown stronger the longer he'd watched her ears move around, plus there were those teeth...

"Well...sure," Mark said finally. She pushed her hands up toward him just slightly, and he carefully picked up the bracelets, examining them more closely. "Do I just..put them on?"

"Yep!" she nodded.

"Okay..." He tried them on, first snapping one around his right wrist. "It's a little snug," he said; it wasn't enough to cut off his circulation, but it didn't exactly seem sized for his wrist.

"Don't worry, it's magic! It'll fix itself once you put them both on," the catgirl assured him.

"I guess we'll see..." He put the other one on his left hand; it seemed just as overly tight. But as soon as they were on, they began to gain a faint white glow. "Well—this is at least something," he said, bringing a hand up to examine the glow more closely.

"Oh, that's just the beginning," Thana said, getting a concerningly happy grin.

The glow grew brighter and flickered around a bit, sort of like a fire. It spread down across his hand and up on his arm slowly, before suddenly the parts touching there turned a deep purple shade. That color spread back into the bracelets, and then the purple fire spread out much faster, racing up his arms before going up and down across his entire body. "Whoa..."

Looking at the fire on his arms, Mark noticed it beginning to apparently "spread" to the hair and skin there, visibly burning away the hair from the ends upward. In fact he was starting to feel some warm, tickly feelings spread over his body in the same order as the purple fire just had, likely signaling that this was happening everywhere. His eyes widened a bit as he connected the visible burning with the warm feeling. "Uhh.."

"Oh, it's working!" Thana said excitedly, putting her hands together with a very pleased expression. "Aww, you don't need to worry about the fire," she added. "Just harmless special effects. If it was gonna really burn you up or something then it already would've when it first spread, right?"

"I..I guess so?" This was so strange that he felt compelled to trust an expert opinion, even if the "expert" in question reacted as if she hadn't been sure the bracelets would do anything at all. As the fire reached his skin, the warm feeling spread inward, and it came with a mild squeezing sensation that varied in intensity from one place to another. It pushed its hardest against his face, stomach, and limbs—except for his upper legs. As it progressed he could actually see all those parts of him beginning to get thinner, his clothes getting steadily looser around them. He looked up from watching all of this in increasing astonishment to find the catgirl standing a little taller somehow..? Wait, no, he was shorter!

"W-what does amplifying magic have to do with me shrinking?!" Mark said, increasingly distressed by this turn of events.

"Not sure...I guess we'll find out?" she said. "After all, it doesn't hurt, does it?"

"Well..no, but..!" he protested incoherently. If anything, the pushing felt kind of nice, like a very bizarre sort of massage. He felt as if his body was relaxing more and more as it happened. Then he was distracted by some of the fire running past his eyes...and something brushing against his cheeks. Wait..that wasn't magic fire, that was his hair! He brought a hand up, hesitated with it in front of his face briefly on noticing how much smaller and more delicate it looked, and then ran it through his hair, which was now trailing its way to his shoulders. It was indeed long, with a purple tint that seemed to be growing stronger and brighter, and it felt much softer than usual.

Mark noticed his pants threatening to fall off, and quickly grabbed them with the hand not already up in his hair, blushing slightly on imagining what might've happened if he hadn't caught it. But this may not have been the best idea, as the bracelet on his wrist came into contact with both his shirt and pants, and the fire flared out from it across them. The pants began to "burn" away entirely, as if in actual fire, while the shirt instead reshaped, some pieces of it burning away while it pulled itself rapidly closer against his body. "W-waah!" This made his blush brighten considerably as he tugged down at the shrinking shirt to try and keep his underwear out of sight. The catgirl just giggled lightly, apparently finding this funnier than it was offensive.

The pushing sensation was starting to die off, but there was something else down between Mark's legs..a kind of tingling, tugging, slipping sensation that grew strong enough to really notice just as his clothes began "burning" and he blushed. This feeling, whatever it was, made his heart race, his cheeks flush warmer, which only seemed to make said feeling stronger. "Wh, whaa~, whaa..?" he mumbled incoherently; his voice sounded stranger with each syllable as a warm feeling made its way through the depths of his throat.

A sharper tug came, causing a slightly louder "Aaah!" of surprise from Mark's mouth. It was..his voice was higher than before, and then a second, longer tug and a louder, longer "AAa~aah!" during which his voice audibly rose another few notes of pitch. Finally, there was a third one, and Mark cried out in a voice that started out sounding like a young boy's and ended quite clearly as the mature, deep voice of a full-grown woman: "Ooo~OOOOooo~oohhh..."

Something pulled close, flat, between Mark's legs; what had been male underwear was a very tiny pair of panties. A gentle upward push hit the pit of the stomach just above there. Where there once had been a man, there was now a strangely flat-chested woman with only the lightest hint of curves in her slim stomach and slight arms and legs. Her top, sleeveless with a curious little hole in the middle of the chest, just barely reached down to her upper thighs. Some of the aura of purple fire surrounding her bound itself tightly to her right thigh, turning into a silver band with a small purple gem on it.

The new girl blinked in confusion at the strange sound she had made, her face still very warm from what she had just felt down there, as the change of sex she'd just experienced sank in. She looked down at the catgirl—still shorter than her, but not by nearly as much now. "Wh-wha, why—" was all she could get out before her hips pushed themselves outward, her thighs growing thicker, her butt pushing out behind her—all of which startled her, drawing a confused "Aah!" from her lips and making her jump slightly. This was a poor time to jerk about in surprise, however, as her center of balance had just completely changed. "W-waaaah!" Her slender arms windmilled in vain for a second before she began to tumble forward.

It seemed like she was going to fall onto Thana, with how close they were. But the fall went much..slower...than it seemed like it should, as if gravity was just suddenly not feeling so strong. And she landed lightly on her hands and knees before that feeling of lightness and perhaps moving in slow-motion died off.

"Phew, that was close," the catgirl's voice said from over her. But the new woman couldn't respond to that as she now found herself panting heavily, gasping in air. Her body felt as though it was beginning to exert itself somehow, entirely without her bidding. The warm feeling returned, and grew toward an almost burning one, at several points of her body: Two spots on the corners of her head, her chest, her ears, just along the back of her shoulder blades, and the base of her spine. She had a particularly hard gasp as the warmth grew nearly feverish and then let out a loud "AAAAaaaah~!" as the heat released outward, her ears stretching themselves out to the side and—something—sprouting out from the corners of her head, pushing some bits of hair aside. It felt...good, releasing that, and there was the oddest feeling that she understood just what was being released somehow.

"OOooohhh~!" The next release was around her chest area: Her chest blooming forth into a nice, big pair of breasts to complete her newly curvy figure, and some kind of new appendages..wings?..making their way out of her back. "AaaAAaaahhh...!" Finally, she let out a cry of surprise mixed with pleasure as her lower back released a long, slim tail, and at the same time her newfound womanhood responded favorably to all of these changes, giving her a taste of what her new sex was capable of feeling.

After a moment, she mostly caught her breath, and pushed herself up onto her knees. At this level, Thana's head was slightly above hers. "Hahh..hahh...wh-what was, that all about...?" she said, reaching her right hand up slowly to feel her long, bright purple hair and the horns now curling their way out from her head.

"Well, the bracelets did their job," said the catgirl. "But..."

"What? ...Something wrong?" She was quickly getting used to this higher, feminine voice...in fact her whole body, even the various new appendages and attachments, were starting to feel pretty natural on her. The fire was gone, but at the same time it was..in her. Hers to control, somehow.

"Well, um. It turns out you had enough dark magic potential to get turned into a demon by such a huge boost," Thana said. "The bright side is all that amplifying probably gave you some amazing powers to play around with!"

Her head was starting to fill in the gaps on just how to use those powers, too...but the catgirl's ears were drooping in a way that suggested she wasn't exactly happy with this result. The demon-girl slowly stood herself up, finding her new center of balance just as natural as everything else, even with that tail swinging around behind her and her wings wanting to stay stretched out back there. "I think I like this..you still don't seem particularly happy with it, though," she noted. Thana was about as tall as her chin now; she must have lost a foot or more in height..but was hardly missing it at all.

"Um, well—to be honest I was trying to find someone to make a witch who could be my master," said the catgirl. "Soo, my spell didn't exactly do what I wanted. But I really just wasn't specific enough with it, I think!"

"Your...spell?" Mark pointedly looked at the bracelets on her wrists.

"Oh, yeah," she nodded. "Okay so I didn't actually buy those, I just made them a minute ago, enchantment and all. The spell was spent up on you, and now they're just regular bracelets. They look good on you, though."

"Thanks..?" Mark shrugged. "Sorry I didn't turn into a witch I guess?" she added, twisting around a bit to examine her new appearance a bit. "This is really very nice, though."

"Oh, it is!" Thana agreed, brightening up a bit. "Lemme help you.." With a small wave of her hand, a full-length mirror appeared next to the demon-girl. She turned to look at it for a moment, slowly smiling at the pretty girl in the mirror.

"I'd feel awful trying to un-demon you or something, not that that would even work, hahah! Just need to try a different spell on someone else."

"Was..turning me into a girl part of your spell?" she said, turning back toward Thana.

"Not explicitly. You'd be surprised how many people have magic potential that's easier to tap with radical physical changes, though! Like, uh, those," the catgirl replied. "I guess that's gonna take some adjustments..."

"I'll figure it out." She smiled. "Really though, thanks for trying your spell out on me. Even if it was just for yourself, I'm quite happy with these results." Then she pulled the catgirl into a brief hug, which was enthusiastically returned.

"Oh, anytime! Well—not really, just the once I think. But if you need any help with, stuff, I'd be happy to provide!" said Thana. And she added more quietly: "Having experienced something similar..."

"Oh, really?" The catgirl (nekomata, something in Mark's head suggested) nodded. "Maybe I could use a little advice. How do you pick a new name?"

"Well, uh, I just sorta rearranged the syllables in my old one. Nobody says you even have to take a new one, though," said Thana.

"Hmn. Maybe Maka?" she suggested

"That's cute! Um, if you care."

"Sure. I think I like cute," she said with a small, slightly mischievous grin.

The demon-girl exchanged numbers with her benefactor after that, ostensibly for when she had more questions but honestly just to stay in contact in general. Then after another brief hug, she started toward the door. "Now if you'll excuse me..the first thing I want to do is find an exciting way to quit my old job."

"Oh? Have fun!" said Thana.

"I'm sure I will. Maybe a few other people will, too..." Maka was already beginning to get some ideas. It was possible that demonhood also came with a certain wicked streak—not that she was complaining.

The "Best" RPG Ever-59

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

Rose made a swift dive at the end of the impromptu race course, crash-landing into a long roll across the ground for several feet past the "finish line". Mira swooped down herself just after, bringing her broom along to a nice steady stop before stepping off. "Hey, are you okay? That looked pretty rough..."
The dragon-girl just laughed, popping back up onto her feet. "I won!"

"That you did...only by a second or two, though," she nodded. "You really don't fly like someone who just grew big enough wings a couple days ago, so I guess it was just something you forgot and remembered again."
"Mm-hm!" She nodded. "I'm sure of it now, yep. I wonder.." She hesitated for a second, her expression turning slightly more serious. "Uh, I wonder what else I forgot, but at the same time I'm really not totally sure I wanna know all of it."

"Not every memory is happy, sure," Mira nodded; Katherine had shared the Captain's story about the nice nature dragon with everyone else. "But even the sad ones can help you out sometimes, you know? At least, you might have other 'powers' like the flying that you forgot you could do."
"Yeah..." She agreed halfheartedly, sounding slightly wistful; it made the witch want to cheer her up somehow.

"Oh, speaking of powers! I figured out a trick you might like to see."
"Hmn?"
Mira chanted softly in the tongue of dark magic, and her form glowed faintly with a purplish light. She shrank downward and inward, her clothes shifting along with her to continue to fit, and before long she looked as she had just after entering this world. "Ta-dah!" she said, waving a hand to the air. Her voice was back to the "Mika" one, too. "So, I can actually 'revert' to old appearances whenever I want. I know you liked this one, right?"
"Yeah, it's super cute~," Rose said, grinning brightly. She reached over and patted the smaller Mira on the head a couple of times.
"I agree. It's also kind of nice being in this 'lighter' form, to be honest. I have to turn back to the bigger one to use my 'full power', though." This came with a stat shift; she didn't go back to her original weak stats in this form but traded around some stats, particularly strength and constitution down and agility and intelligence up. Spells over a certain level were locked off, but this form seemed likely to have its uses. And if she gained a third form that would mean even more options.

"I haven't actually told the others about this, I thought it might be a nice surprise later," she said. With a shorter incantation, Mira grew back into her 'taller' appearance. "Tonight I'm planning to summon a new demon to eat. It'll be tougher than any of the ones we beat before, but with all eight of us, I'm sure we'll be more than able to handle it."
"Um..." The dragon-girl headtilted slightly. "Do you, want me to help?"
Mira crossed her arms. "I don't want to give you the impression that you have to. But if you want to then I'm sure everyone would appreciate it."

"I'll help, then!" Rose said, her tail whipping back and forth like a happy dog's. "I was planning to stay around here today, anyway, after spending all of yesterday back in my forest. Awwh, and I meant to ask about the plans to make a big tree for the town to use as a landmark! I totally forgot, maybe I can track down the Captain again later."

"Hmm..." Mira remembered the mysterious extra door their house was provided with.

"Hmm?" Her head tilted a bit.
"Uh, nothing." It was probably a good idea—no, a great one, and almost certainly what Captain Ezra intended by putting that into the plans, but it was still best offered after talking to the others about it. "You want to go for another round?"

"Sure! I'll leave you in the dust as many times as you want!"

---

"Well, I should try and get some sort of lodgings arranged," Loren said, finally standing up. Aria stood up too, waited only a second for the tiniest bit of dizziness to clear, and came closer to him.

"Hey, I don't know if I've emphasized this enough: I am really happy to see you—to see you again. Whatever," she said, leaning over to wrap her arms around him.
"I uh..yeah." He loosely returned the hug, clearly embarrassed but at least agreeing with the sentiment. "M-me too." She pulled back out, looking up at him. Loren was tall, she realized. Aria herself was pretty tall; most of the girls were shorter than her, except for Nora of course. But it was a little odd looking up at him for some other reason, regardless.

"Thanks for coming out here to see me. And uh, not giving up too soon."
"I'm glad I didn't," he admitted. They stood there for a second or two, then she nodded and waved at the door, and he nodded back before heading out. "See you again soon."
"You sure will!"

As soon as he got to the door, it opened up thanks to the cat- and fox-girl coming through from the other side with a sheep. "...Is this gonna be a habit?" said Katherine, her ears down on one side with mild bemusement.

"I certainly hope not." He began to go around them. "I'm just going to assume that I don't want to know what that sheep is for."
"Good assumption!" Rayna nodded. "See you later!"
"Uh, yeah, sure." He awkwardly shuffled out the door after that, and shut it behind him.

"Well, I'm going back upstairs until lunch," Aria announced, and began toward the stairwell. "Unless you need me for something?"
"No, we're all good here," said Rayna.
"Wait—where's the dragon?" the catgirl asked.
"Out flying with Mira, last I checked."
"Okay good."

Once she got up there, Aria made her way to Nora's room and knocked on the door. She hadn't missed the elf fleeing upstairs with her book. After a moment's hesitation her voice came from inside: "Y-yes?"
"We need to talk clothing for a second, if you don't mind," said the shifter.
"Oh, um...okay?" After another pause for her to get up and come to the door, she opened it.

Aria crossed her arms. "Level with me please. Is that really the same clothes you started out in, like a week ago?"
"Um..y-yes?"
"Isn't it totally gross by now? Do you have no spare outfits at all?"

"Um, w-well, I bought some other clothes i-in case these get damaged..."

"And then didn't change into them when those got dirty?"

"I c-can just lift the d-dirt out of them," she said. "It's j-just earth, so..."

"Okay, that is both really cool as a stain-removal tool and totally disgusting as far as 'cleaning' goes. If you handle our laundry at some point promise me you will actually wash mine and not do that." Nora nodded nervously to that. "And you should clean those, actually clean them, and wear something else sometimes! Also, a much more important point: Loren recognized that outfit as one that a 'priestess of Haestra' would wear. We have established that you 'ran away from home' and there are people looking for you. We're gaining a reputation in this town, people are starting to recognize us, and the more that happens the more risk there is that someone recognizes your outfit and a rumor spreads that there is a priestess of Haestra in this town. Maybe it's already happened! And that rumor can get out to people you or we in general do not want coming after you!"
"Uh, um..." Nora fidgeted with her fingers nervously, and Aria realized after a second that she'd ranted a little more excitedly than she'd meant to. At some point she'd started gesturing loudly with her entire arms, and they were still up in the air now!
"Sorry, uh..that came out way louder and harsher than I meant it to," she said, lowering her arms back to the side.
"I-it's okay," she said, and nodded slowly. "Y-you're just concerned for me. I understand. A-and you're right. Both reasons...I j-just haven't been thinking about it. It's like..um, i-it feels like I've already been wearing th-these forever, a-and changing into something else felt..strange. B-but you're right, that's not normal, or h-healthy. I'll uh..ch-change clothes now. Thank you..."

"You'rrre, welcome, I guess?" Talk about mild-mannered, she thought. Getting angry back was a more normal reaction, even though this one wasn't particularly unwelcome. The elf waited for her to start walking away toward her own room before shutting the door.

On the way there, she paused, hearing Lynn's door open. The human stepped out wearing a nice dress, looking ever so slightly taller so probably in some heels? Remembering once again that she would not be present during lunch today and also why, Aria rushed closer to her. "Hey! Looking good," she said.
"Uh, thanks." She fidgeted with it. "Even though this feels 'normal' in some ways, I still have some nagging reservations about a big dress like this..."

"I think it looks good, at least. I don't doubt Rast will have better compliments than that," she nodded. "Buuut speaking of, there's something I just found out that I should tell you before you go?"
"What's that?"

Aria relayed first that Loren had shown up, and secondly the gist of what he'd said about beastfolk instincts.

"Soo, I mean every person's an individual so I'm not saying you should make any assumptions, but, you shouldn't be surprised if at some point Rast leans in like he wants you to pet his ears."
Lynn crossed her arms. "Well...to be honest I sort of expected that, uh, eventually, maybe...it sure explains how Rayna was acting recently, at least."
"You aren't too weirded out by it, are you? After what you said last night, I wasn't sure if you'd rather be left in the dark but I was already gonna announce it to everyone else anyway, sooo..."
She shook her head lightly. "No no, it's just—it's weird coming from her, from someone I've known for a long time and, you know, never uh..well, never had ask me to pet him or, her before. I guess one way or another I'm still struggling with the dichotomy of us all being from/not from this world," she said. "But it wouldn't feel so weird from someone I'm just getting to know, entirely from here, and...especially who I like—I mean, you know...like."

"Uh-huh..well, best of luck!" she said, grabbing Lynn's hand for a brief encouraging shake before heading the rest of the way to her room.

---

When Nora came down to help with lunch, she was finally wearing something different: A pair of jean-shorts and a sleeveless white crop top cut very close to the top of the stomach. She periodically tugged at the top, just feeling not used to 'normal' clothes somehow, but it wasn't uncomfortable or anything. Aria seemed to make a point to tell her it looked good on her when she arrived. The dragon-girl wasn't hungry yet; when the topic of food came up she said she'd had a huge boar for breakfast and was still stuffed, so she'd head off into town to try and find the Captain again.

A little later, the shifter made a sweeping gesture (that almost knocked over her cup) to get everyone's attention. "Listen up! I have good news and weird news. What do you want first?"

"..Let's go with 'good'," said Katherine.

"Well, I sat up on the bed, stood up, and walked all the way downstairs without any dizziness at all. So I think I must be fully recovered now!"
Zack pointed at the cane she'd set against the wall behind her chair.

"Wha—oh, that?" she said, after turning half around to see it. "I've already built up a habit of carrying it around, so..I did. I don't think I need it anymore is the point."
"I still have not cleared you," said Clera.

"I know, I know. I'm just saying, I'm pretty sure you will," she said. "Okay: Weird news! Loren, who remember is actually from this world, told me something kinda pertinent that you probably wouldn't be able to find out from any books..."

---

After lunch, Zack helped with the dishes and looked at Katherine for a second or two afterward.
"...Oh yeah, that's right. Let's go," she said aloud, nodding as if he had reminded her of something they planned on doing before starting off toward the door to town. He followed her out there and down the street a short ways before they stopped next to an empty bench, in a nearly deserted side street.

The catgirl crossed her arms, looking up at him. "Well?"

"Don't 'well' me. You already know, right? As soon as Aria started talking I could tell Nora was thinking about it, which made me think about it..."

"Look, just because I can read people's minds doesn't mean I want every conversation to turn into 'you know what I'm going to say already so I'm not gonna say it,'" she said.

"..Fine. You know about what happened last night, right?"

"Yeah. And?"
"And you're. I mean, can you not tell anyone about it? Please?"

"You don't even have to ask me that!" she said, putting one hand up in the air. "Look, I learned a long time ago not to spread people's secrets around for no good reason. Being a mind reader only reinforces the need to protect them since it's like twelve times easier to learn secrets that people aren't intentionally telling me." And she dropped the hand again, to her side. "Anyway, what do I care about what you do to relax?"

Zack knew he could be thick, but the tone of her voice with that last question, as well as the fact that she was looking away with her ears down, suggested the very opposite of apathy toward the subject. "Wait, are you—?"
"I'm not jealous," she snapped, anticipating the last word before he could actually say it. "No! Not of any of, that." Then, more slowly and seriously: "I'm not, really. I just..urrgh. I really shouldn't be upset, at all, about this, but."

"But what?" Zack gave her a concerned look. "What's wrong?"

"Just..it's not fair for me to be upset," she said. "I can't get mad at someone for some stupid thought that passes through their head they don't really even mean to think, or for some negative opinion of me that they have no intention of ever saying aloud."

"Look, it's fine. You can be mad at me, I don't mind," he said. "What did I, think exactly?"

"You, it's, not a specific thought," she said. "It's just—whenever you mentally list the people who respect you and your, situation, and who you trust to deal with anything awkward or strange that comes from it—I'm not even on the list. You don't even think I could use my powers to help wash the back of your tail from a distance without making it weird," she said.
"Kath..but I...I don't.."
"I know you don't mean it, too! I know as well as you do that we've trusted each other with our lives. And that thing, after that night with the demon—I know, I know. But I can't help the way I feel about it, no matter how much I tell myself it's wrong to feel that way."

The catgirl looked like she was on the verge of tears; Zack had never seen or even imagined her like this. She was usually confident, calm, totally in control of things...this was terrible to see. He didn't know what to do about it mentally, but after a moment's hesitation he just let his body do what it wanted, stepping closer to pull her into hug. She returned it, burying her head into his shoulder and sniffing a couple of times.

"I'm so sorry," he said quietly, "I never meant to.."
I know, yeah, she replied through his mind, since her face was currently a little hard to talk with. This is why I really, really didn't want to bring it up at all. You're the kind of person who doesn't want to see anyone get hurt, much less feel like you did the hurting. You shouldn't feel bad, really, this is just me being stupid for no good reason...

"It's alright," he nearly whispered, running a hand from the top of her head down to the back of it.

A second or two later, both of them realized he'd done that, and they carefully took a mutual step back away from each other. "Uh—sorry."
"I-i-it's fine," she said, "You're just, um. Instinct, whatever." Both of them were blushing slightly, even though it didn't seem like anyone around had taken special notice of the gesture. "A-anyway, I feel better after letting it out. Sorry for, 'yelling' at you."

"It's okay. I know what it's like to just, feel something that doesn't make any sense," he said.

Katherine took a deep breath, let it out, and wiped her eyes on a sleeve. After that, she gave her usual, confident grin again. "We should probably find some errand to actually do in case someone asks," she said. "Maybe I can help you come up with a plausible way for Nora to 'learn' those skills while we're at it. You two don't seem to have much actual experience with roleplaying, after all."
"...Thanks."

---

Clera put her hand on Aria's forehead, letting her powers 'feel' for any lingering damage. Her palm glowed faintly blue; somehow it felt good to use magic again, like stretching a limb that had been asleep for a full twenty-four hours.

"Well, what do you say? Am I cleared for takeoff?"
"...You have no business trying to fly," she said, fully deadpan. "There is a trace of that healing spell's side-effects still present, but I am reasonably confident you will make a full recovery by tonight." The winged girl dropped her hand and crossed her arms. "Keep using the cane until then."

"Will do." Aria reached over and ruffled Clera's hair without warning. "Thanks, doc."
"Gah! D-don't do that," she said, taking a big step backwards away from her.
"Sorry...I thought you were starting to like it, after the last two or three times," she said.

"I was merely, tolerating it," she said, her face a little warm. "At the very least you shouldn't, just do it out of the blue like that."

"Awwh, did I startle you? I promise I'll move my hand a little slower next time, okay?" Aria said teasingly.
"I-I just said not to do it at all!" Clear protested, but at the same time realized she was sending mixed messages. The shifter just giggled and wandered off toward the library.

Did she actually like it..? It was just a small affectionate gesture, after all. It didn't hurt or anything. Did one part of her like it and the other one find it irritating? And if so, which one was which...?
"Hey, are you gonna make rounds again?" said Rayna on her way into the living room. Clera jumped slightly at the sudden sound of her voice, but recovered quickly enough that it didn't seem to be noticed.
"I was planning to wait until near sunset," she said. "There was nothing for a great distance away this morning, and we should do all we can to avoid being interrupted while confronting the demon."

"Alright. I just thought I should let you know I leashed the sheep to one of the training dummies so it wouldn't be too hard to find. It was off on the opposite end of the fence when I went out there just now. Uh, did you see where Katherine went?"

"She left with Zack on some sort of errand," Clera reported. "Mira left to look for Rose, if you are wondering about her."
"Aaand Nora's prolly back upstairs with her book, I bet," said the fox-girl. "That's about the whole roll call until Lynn gets back."

The winged girl fixed her with a look. "You are resisting an urge to go spy on her date again, aren't you?"

"Hahah..yep."

"You could look for a more productive use of this time. I believe you mentioned wanting to exercise at some point?"
"Err..who told you that? But uh, yeah...I mean, a little more endurance wouldn't hurt when I literally need to run around and stuff."

"Perhaps you could go for a short jog outside," Clera suggested. "I do not know whether the 'stats' respect natural growth from exercise, but it only seems natural that they would. If you make a regular habit of exercise then you should build up the endurance you want."

"Heheh, you've got me there too. Uh.." Rayna paused for a second, lifting an arm up to examine the sleeve on it. "I don't know if this is the best outfit to go running in. I'll, change clothes first."
"You fight monsters in similar outfits," the winged girl pointed out. "I suspect your real problem with exercise comes down to procrastination and excuse-making."

"Wow, harsh..." The fox-girl's ears drooped, and she bent over slightly, defeated. "Totally true, though; always has been, even back on Earth. I guess this won't fall off of me from a slow jog."

"That's the spirit," Clera said, giving an encouraging nod while Rayna started toward the front yard.

October Tails II: Full Moon Mint

October Tails Series:
I | II | III | IV | V

---

In part 2 of October Tails, another person gets a special treat and I get to write a wolf-girl caption. Win-win, in my opinion.

October Tails I: Awakener Chocolate

October Tails Series:
I | II | III | IV | V

---

FINALLY got myself writing captions for the Halloween season. A series is planned to come out over this rest of this month, in case the titling style of this one isn't clear enough about that.

The "Best" RPG Ever-58

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

Aria went back up to her own room after breakfast; she'd taken a book of meditation tips up there the night before and thought she might read a little more of it. Only a few minutes later, Mira poked her head in the door. "Hey!"

She pointed at the witch. "Knock first! Respect the privacy!"
"You're just reading a book."
"You wouldn't know that if you'd bothered to knock." The shifter crossed her arms.
The witch gave an annoyed expression, leaned back out of the doorway and knocked sarcastically on the door.

"Ye~s?"

"I—or rather Katherine—just thought you should know that Rose is coming in, and has a guest you specifically invited here with her."

"Huh?" She didn't recall inviting anyone in particular. Unless... "Wait, Loren?! Why didn't you say so earlier!?"

Aria jumped off of the bed, shook her head to try and dispel the tiny bit of dizziness still left over, and then made her way past the witch (who was still busy rolling her eyes at the whole exchange) to run down the stairs. Carefully run down the stairs. With the help of the banister. She didn't particularly want to faceplant half of the way down. She gave herself temporary cat-ears to be able to hear whatever was going on down there.

Rose seemed to have come through the door first. "Whoaa, it's way bigger than it looks. Oh, hey Nora!"

"Uh, h-hi."

"Where's everyone else?"
"I'm here!" Wait—Mira's voice? "Welcome to our humble new abode~." There was only one set of stairs and the witch hadn't passed her on them.

By this point she got to the foot of the stairs, and stepped around to where the "front" door to town was."Hey Aria!" the dragon-girl waved, so she waved back with her free hand. "Um.." She bounced around slightly, looking behind her. "C'mon, don't be shy!" she tried to wave someone in.

"And shut the door please!" Mira added. Glancing over at the witch, she had her broom in one hand and was standing next to an open window, which together answered the question of how she got down here. The person outside entered and shut the door behind him, Rose stepping to one side so Aria could see him—or maybe the other way around. She gestured excitedly toward the shifter and said, "So, so—is this who you were looking for?"

"Uh.." He took a few steps closer.

"Hi," she said a little quietly, feeling inordinately shy for no immediately obvious reason. They stood in front of each other quietly for a moment.

"Hey, uh, Zack's out in the front yard if you wanna say hello!" said Mira, practically pulling Rose away. Nora seemed to have also fled the scene at some point, for the same purpose of leaving them alone.

Loren was watching her face intently. She had a go at breaking the silence. "Heheh...it's a little weird. I don't know whether to say 'it's good to see you again' or 'it's nice to meet you'," she said.

He frowned slightly. "You don't..remember me?"
"Well, I do. I mean—you look familiar, the first thing I thought when I saw you was that I'd really missed you," she said. "But I can't—not much of anything specific."

"It's really you, huh..." He seemed like he was going to continue that train of thought before it was violently interrupted. "Wait, was that a witch?!"
"Oh, Mira? Yeah, she's nice," she nodded.

"I think that's convincing evidence for sure," he said, putting a hand up to his face to adjust his glasses in a way that registered as 'exasperated'. "In the span of a year, while suffering from severe memory loss, you've managed to befriend a dragon, a witch, a psion—anything else I should know about? Like, did I spot someone wearing the traditional garb of a priestess of Haestra a moment ago?"
"A year? I've only been around here for about a week," she said.

"But—then what were you doing before that?!"

She crossed her arms. "Look, the last thing I remember is having that sword in my hand, and then being..somewhere, and then landing on the ground like five or six days ago? I almost killed some people and then killed a big ogre attacking them instead, and then I wound up here. I mean, in this town in general."

"But it's been a year since you pulled the sword out of the stone," Loren insisted.
"Well, you...my memory of it is fuzzy, but you like teleported me out here somehow right? Is there some way that could've delayed my arrival?"

"There shouldn't be, not if I did my calculations right," he shook his head. "Unless—well, the ward spells on the sword might have still been active, and interacted in some unexpected way...what kind of place were you in before landing? Any idea?"
"I dunno, but—actually, where I landed is just out in the front yard here. It's where Mira's been using to summon demons to eat."
"Uhh—" He shook his head, visibly resisting an urge to say something about that. "That would involve a portal to the demon realm. I suppose it's possible the interaction slipped you somewhere in between, until eventually tearing that portal open weakened the space..."

"I think this conversation's officially jumped the rails," said Aria.
"Huh?" He didn't seem to understand the expression; maybe this world never had trains.
"Um—we got a little off topic," she said. "Or way off topic. You're convinced I'm the same person you knew as Ares?"

"Well, there is a lot of evidence for it. Although I don't see that sword anywhere," he said.

"Oh, this sword?" She pulled it out of her inventory, and he jumped back several steps on seeing it.
"Where did that come from!? Put it away!"
"Relax, I don't go berserk unless I take it out of the sheath," she said, putting it away again. Explaining where it had come from raised an interesting problem if "having an inventory" wasn't actually a normal thing in this world. "It's just...with me, and I can put it away or take it out whenever," she said with a shrug.

"W-well, it's certainly the same sword. I could feel the demon's power pulsing from it," he said, with a touch of fear. "You..how much is it affecting you? Or the wards—I mean, using a different name?"
"I didn't remember the 'real' one right away," she said, crossing her arms. "Anyway, do I look like an Ares to you?"

Having attention brought to her appearance caused him to stare for a second, blush slightly, and cough. "No, I suppose not..."

"Anyway, I can 'feel' the demon's hunger for blood, and it makes my dreams weird but Kath—uh, the psion you mentioned has been helping me with that, and it's perfectly happy eating monster blood. It can put me on edge if I don't 'eat' often enough, but I've been getting better at managing it. I have no idea what the wards did or were supposed to do, did we know much about them in the first place?"

"I uh...just that they were there, and very powerful. Prodding a complicated magic trap like that is a good way to have it explode in your face," he said. "I was spot-on with the memory loss guess however; it's a pretty logical thing to do if you're worried someone will want the sword for something specific. Drastically changing someone's appearance so that others can't remind them what they wanted it for makes sense too...perhaps in your case the wards 'saw' your skills at shapeshifting and resorted to changing the one thing our natural powers can't change back?"

"...We should sit down if we're gonna keep talking for a while," said Aria, starting toward a couch. "I got hit in the head pretty hard a couple days ago, and the vertigo's only mostly gone. I actually started to remember things while I was unconscious from that," she added.

"...I was just about to ask about the cane," he said, moving toward a chair opposite her planned seat. "So—" He was interrupted by a loud growling, and yelped, jumping away from the source. The wolf had been lying next to the chair (Zack had sat down there a short while ago), and all the talking seemed to have woken him up. "I-is that a dire wolf!?"

"Um, that's just Zack's—familiar? Pack-mate? Whatever. Hey, calm down," she said, waving the cane at him from her seat. The wolf barked disapprovingly at her, and then made a run for the front door (to the front yard) in a huff, pointedly avoiding Loren although he was already very interested in staying out of its way himself.

"H-how can you be so calm!? That's a literal monster! It's almost as tall as I am! Or—at least as tall as you are now!"

"He's on our side?" she said in a tone that suggested this was obvious.

"Is this Zack some kind of monster tamer?" he said, half-turning toward the door the wolf had gone out. "I've never even heard of a docile monster before. The prevailing theory is that chaotic magic causes them to attack people and normal animals on sight."

"He's just a knight. As I remember, they were fighting a big pack of dire wolves that kept blocking the road from time to time, and the pack's big alpha challenged him to a fight, and joined Zack's 'pack' when he won." She leaned forward slightly, and half-whispered, "he doesn't like being called a P-E-T, but that's more what we're looking at here if you ask me."

"A knight you say. What order?"
"Order? I dunno," she shrugged, glad she'd at least resisted the urge to say 'burger and fries' in response his question. "He wears armor and uses swords and a shield, some light magic stuff, soooo: A knight. Or is the right word paladin?"

"Paladins are warrior-clerics devoted to a specific god," Loren said, slowly moving back to the chair and sitting down slowly and cautiously, as if expecting another giant wolf monster to interrupt him. "This memory loss is going to turn into me explaining a lot of things most people know to you, isn't it?"

"Maybe. You or someone else, anyway," she said.

"So...you said 'him'? Zack, lives here too?" said Loren.
"Riiight?"
"Is he...I don't know how else to put this...the only male, living here?"
"You know what, you should meet him before I answer that question," she said. And immediately yelled: "HEY ZACK, YOUR WOLF NEARLY SCARED LOREN AWAY!"

Loren winced, covering his ears from the sudden yelling, and then protested: "It did not. I was just spooked, is all."

Outside, the wolf started barking angrily again. "Aria, I just got him to calm down!" Zack called back. "And I can hear you from out here anyway." He came inside after that, the wolf firmly against one of his legs and giving a low growl. "Would you be quiet already?" The animal made a sort of grunting noise that indicated he would, but would not be happy about it.

Loren, of course, was staring at Zack from the moment he appeared in the doorway. "...What?" Zack's response was to cross his arms and glare at Loren, his ears folding down slightly in annoyance. Aria leaned to one side so she could enjoy every bit of this exchange.

The shifter cleared his throat. "Um. Just so that I'm not mistaking anything, you are Zack, right?"
"Yeees?"
"Okay. Good. Yes." He nodded repeatedly as he said this. "That's all cleared up. I think I understand now," he said, nodding.

"Understand what?"

"Well, it's—I mean, I don't really want to pry, but if you are who I think you are then I certainly don't blame you at all, seeing you...ahh. Just, seeing you."

The knight took a few steps into the room, still not looking pleased. "Could you explain who you think I am, exactly? Instead of talking circles around it?"

"I-it's just that, about half a year ago I remember an article in the newspaper about an order of knights wiped out by a powerful witch using an army of demons, while trying to apprehend her. Only—the witch was dead, and one of the bodies wasn't accounted for. And her body was alone in the top room of that tower, clearly having been run through by the blade of a member of that order. I don't, presume to know exactly what happened that day, but I'm sure by now they must have stopped sending out search parties, believing that if the missing member of the order did survive then he must have just fallen from his injuries later, somewhere very difficult to find," he said.

"Yeah..sure," Zack noncommittally agreed. Halfway turning toward Aria he said, "I'm gonna go back outside now. Don't yell so loud if you need me for something else." And then he walked back out the door, the wolf following as closely as ever.

"Anyway, the answer to your question is yes, as much as it even applies in the first place," Aria said. "I'm perfectly happy being a girl, personally, but we're different people in pretty different circumstances."

"I might have guessed this wouldn't even faze you," said Loren, shaking his head slightly. She then saw his expression change, something else occurring to him. "Wait..you don't. You're. Um. You're living with three different beastfolk here?"
"Yeah. Well—four actually. Clera's a, um, half-avian, but she went out flying for a bit to be sure there aren't any monsters coming toward the house. Why, are you some kinda racist?"
"No! Just—look, do you remember...about beastfolk," he said quietly. "The uh...um."
"Maybe you should just tell me and then I can find out whether or not I remember," she suggested.

"Okaay. Well—aside from Avians, beastfolk tend to have certain...instincts, toward people they're close with," he said, decreasing his volume even more. "Um, what I'm trying to say is that they like to express affection, even just toward good friends, very uh, physically?"

"You mean like petting," she said. Rayna's sudden urge to get someone to touch her tail made a lot more sense with this information in mind. It made sense that nobody would've discovered this from a book either, as it seemed to be common enough knowledge for people without memory loss to have no reason to point it out specifically. This would be good information to let everyone else know about too, she thought.
"Right, exactly. In regular beastfolk society, like in towns where they're most of the population, it's—well, there's a lot more tolerance for public displays of..a-around this town, there's such a variety of people they probably wouldn't do that kind of thing in public. But, living in a house with three of them..."

"I get what you're saying," she said, nodding. "It doesn't seem like that big a deal, though?"

"It would be for me," he said. "Isn't it, don't you find it a little strange you might walk in here to find one of them on top of another, doing—that?"

"A little, maybe? Can't uh, shapeshifters like us get animal ears or tails of our own too?" she said, forming a fox-tail from her back to demonstrate.
"What you just did...would take me three hours to get right," he said, a touch of annoyance in his voice. "Er—putting aside your ridiculous talent, yes, in fact some of us prefer to keep parts like that around when they're handy and the average shifter can't swap them out rapid-fire like that. Which is why, it's just, dangerous around beastfolk, because they tend to get the wrong idea and start thinking of us like members of their race and..."

"Well, that doesn't sound all that bad either," she said.
"Y-you have no idea," Loren said. "Just—try to imagine keeping a tail around for balance while climbing all over a narrow platform around the focus crystal to repair it, and next thing you know someone's trying to touch it with theirs while they're thanking you..ugh." He shuddered slightly.

"I suppose it's a little worse if it's a stranger who thinks they're just expressing gratitude," she said. "Well, I don't think I have too much to worry about here. They're all pretty respectful of other people's personal space, if not outright wanting people out of theirs."

---

Mira had managed to distract Rose with the idea of flying around in some kind of race, leaving Zack alone in the yard again. The dragon-girl was concerningly easy to distract, he thought; it could be a problem if they ever faced a clever enemy of some sort. He went back outside, the wolf following him closely, and after going a short way out into the yard he knelt over on one knee to be about at the same level as the animal; the wolf sat in front of him, sensing he wanted to talk. "Look, you can't just keep barking and growling forever at every stranger who comes into our house," he said.

The wolf replied with a brief fit of whining.

"What, he startled you? That's fine, I get making a little noise in that case or if you don't think we know the stranger's here. But I think you scared him worse than he did you. And, just in general, once we all know what's going on, you should quiet down again."

The wolf growled, but seemed willing to obey this order.

"Good." Zack nodded, reaching a hand to hover over the wolf's head. When the wolf didn't move away, he ran it down its back a couple of times before standing up. The animal looked off to one side and made a small kind of "Hmph" noise under his breath, but his tail wagged in a way that suggested he was enjoying the attention.

He stood up and turned back toward the training dummy out in the yard. The knight had come out here in the first place to try and think through some movements to more effectively use the dark-form shield as a weapon. It just didn't seem to come naturally to him, but it was logical that a big, sturdy magic-shield-thing should be a nice source of close-range blunt damage, and he was sure he could get used to it with some more practice.

A little later, his ears picked up a flapping sound, and he turned to find Clera in the process of landing. "Hey. See anything?"
"No, all clear." She looked around. "I noticed Rose flying around here with Mira on the way back."
He nodded. "Loren showed up with her. Uh—Aria's backstory friend or whatever. I guess we can start getting rid of all those notes now."
"Right...we were under the impression it would take him longer than one day to respond," she said, heading toward the house.

---

"So...what do you plan to do now?" said Aria.
"Hmn?"
"I mean—you found me, I'm here. I probably need to stay out here in the frontier to kill monsters for blood for, at least a long while, and I've got a pretty good gig here specifically. Now that you know that, do you plan to go back tooo...whatever you were doing before?"
"Well...I don't know, really." He shrugged. "I didn't honestly think all that far ahead. I mean—I didn't know for sure if you were still alive after I sent you off. I made a habit of checking to see whether that Beacon had been activated that lasted a whole year, even when I thought surely you must be dead or have no interest in your lost memories once a few months had gone by. And now...here we are just, talking the same way we used to, except you don't remember it which makes it even stranger that you act pretty much exactly the same way. I guess not even widespread amnesia can change some things...but..."

Loren took a moment to adjust his glasses. "Well, I was between jobs anyway, to be honest. Something would've probably come through in the next few days or so, but now I've spent quite a bit of magic coming out here. I probably need to rest for a day or two if I did want to go back. But on the way here, one of the town guard conveniently mentioned a possible job for me here, and anyway the captain of the guard here seemed...happy?...to see me, at least as much as the term applies to her. I do have the means to stay here for a little while at least, and might be rewarded for doing so, and..."

He hesitated to say the next part for a moment, but Aria leaned forward, her tail swishing back and forth slowly, to indicate she did want to hear it. "Well, I would like to stick around and see if I could help you remember some things," he said. "I don't expect a complete recovery anytime soon since the wards are still as fresh as a week for you, but...well, if it's alright with you, that is."

"That's okay by me," she said. "Even if I don't remember the specifics, you're fun to be around, which is plenty as far as I'm concerned. You couldn't stay here, though, for reasons I think are pretty obvious. Plus we're all out of beds."

"R-right. I'm sure there are some inns back in town," he nodded.

The front (to outside) door opened, and Clera walked inside. "Hey, how'd the scouting mission go?" said Aria, popping back to sitting up again.
"No major issues." She turned to the guest. "My name is Clera."
"Oh, pleased to meet you," he replied, turning toward her as much as he could in the chair. "Loren Sigrith."

The winged girl nodded to him, and turned toward Aria. "I hope you've been careful while I was away."
"Duh, I haven't fallen over once even! I'm pretty close to normal anyway."
"You won't fight anything until I clear you," she said bluntly. "We can rely on animal blood if we have to to keep you sane."

"Yeah, well, you can check on me this afternoon and see," said Aria, crossing her arms. "I guarantee I'll be great by then."
"We'll see." Clera nodded toward Loren again, and went on toward the library.

"Is she a...healer?" he said.

"Yeah, an Empath," Aria nodded.
He was surprised by that last word. "Are you, sure you have the right term?"

"Pretty sure. I wasn't wrong about Zack being a knight, was I? She has like a second soul tied to her main one, and magic that lets her heal herself quickly and 'absorb' injuries from other people...that sound about right to you?"
He shook his head. "Unbelievable...but yes, it does. Is there anyone else I should know about living here too? Any exiled duchesses or famous performers or something?"
"Hmm, I think the only person you haven't met yet is Lynn. She and Rayna used to work as traveling performers; I dunno about 'famous' though. She's busy getting ready for a date, so I don't really wanna yell her down here."

"I'd really appreciate it if you didn't."

---

"Well...we have successfully acquired a sheep," Katherine said, pointing out the obvious. It was following behind them on a leash. "That was astoundingly easy compared to what I was prepared for."
"Buying livestock is a perfectly normal thing," said Rayna. "Restaurants might do that instead of buying meat, for example." All we had to do was avoid blurting out that we wanted it for a demon summoning ritual, she added mentally, like Aria or Rose probably would.

Yeah, charisma is weird in this stat system. Seems to translate partially to 'basic verbal impulse control' from what I can tell.

"So, what are we gonna do with this guy once we get him back to the house?" she said aloud. "I mean...I guess we could just let him graze in the yard, as long as Zack keeps the wolf away from 'im."
"Yeah, we do have a fence, after all." We should probably keep Rose away from him too; a dragon seems likely to spook any herbivore, and he'll be no good as a sacrifice if he dies of a heart attack first. I could stun him if he started to run away tonight.

So...Lynn and I came up with a theory yesterday, Katherine said mentally. She relayed her memory of the conversation about Aphera being a "matchmaker in the sky".

"Hmm..." So you think we'll return to see Aria grabbing Loren for a kiss?

I doubt it'd go that fast. I mean, the transition from 'male friend I haven't seen in a while' to 'girlfriend' is a pretty big one and Loren seemed like a relatively 'normal' person from his surface thoughts. But if they blush at each other once or twice then there's certainly a possibility.

The fox-girl thought, You think we should be cheering for that kind of thing, or trying to prevent it? I mean, if you run into someone and you're just starstruck do you want me to try to snap you out of it?

My opinion is, as long as they're happy and it's not clearly an unhealthy relationship, there's no real reason to interfere. I would think you felt the same way, since you don't seem too interested in disturbing Lynn's plans...

I guess so, yeah, she shrugged. It's fun to tease her about it, but ultimately I'm happy for her.

In my case, if it seems like I'm going really fast with someone I would like to be reminded to think rationally about my choices and at least make sure I really know them before doing anything too extreme, Katherine thought. But that just seems like the obvious thing to do?

Pretty sensible to me, too. Let's make an agreement to remind each other of that if something should happen.

The catgirl nodded.