A Summoning: Part VI

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VI
~Moon~

The meeting was an extremely productive one, Prama going out to her car about halfway through and retrieving a laptop to type up a thorough description of the “wish rules” everyone had more or less agreed on to print and distribute for reference the following morning. After that, some proper roles were defined, and also typed into a rudimentary charter: The genius girl was the natural choice for accountant; in her own words it would make “good practice for when I'm fabulously wealthy.” Anika's new powers made her ideal as an independent magic-caster and illusion-maker, in case anything needed to be hidden or anyone deceived and Zotha for some reason couldn't do the job. Since everyone else was a soft, squishy girl now, Cameron and Riana (at least their male forms) were put in charge of any needed physical work: Lifting things and carrying them around if it needed to be done without magic, and physically defending other members if that ever somehow became necessary (although everyone agreed it shouldn't, and probably never would with the amount of sheer power the neophyte deity already had on hand). Riana had the additional duty of being an extra “moral compass” since (s)he had already demonstrated a willingness to challenge and confront Zotha when she thought the demoness was about to do something bad.

It lasted long enough to get into suppertime, and Zotha summoned a fully-stocked buffet table up from the floor for everyone to enjoy. Prama ate a notably small portion; the animal-girls both found themselves eating considerably more meat, and enjoying it more, than they usually would have. Unlike the ice cream before, the demoness treated herself to a heaping plate of the meal as well, quelling any remaining worries in Anika's mind over whether the food was somehow tainted—despite her own considerable sense of magic detecting nothing at all unusual about it.

Eventually it seemed it was time for the meeting to wrap up.

Anika said goodbye to everyone and drove out first, heading straight for the “supernatural incidents” people.

“Alright. You two want a ride back?” Prama offered the gender-reversed couple, standing up and packing her laptop away. “I need to show up a while after she does anyway so we don't look like parts of the same incident.”

“I guess so,” Riana said. “Sorta wished we'd taken my car, though; this is the closest to a really private place we've got and we have a few things to discuss.” He gave the wolf-girl a pointed look and her ears drooped considerably in response.
“Instant, easy transportation is among my personal powers,” Zotha said. “I could offer you a use of it, just this once, if you really wanna stick around here for a bit.”

“That would seriously help, thank you.”

The demoness nodded. “You know what to do, then.” She grabbed Jess's arm and led her out the door.

“Okay. Welp, you two have fun then~,” Prama said, giving a small wink and a peace sign before heading outside herself.

After that, Riana pulled Kamari off of him, setting her down to one side, and changed back to her natural-born form, taking a small sigh of relief at no longer feeling...boy things. It was nice, maybe, but it didn't seem like something she'd ever be completely used to. “..There. Now then, you wanted to say something?” she said.
“Me? Um..I-I did, but I thought you wanted to talk,” the wolf-girl said, instantly confused.

“I wanted to talk because I knew you did, silly,” she said, ruffling her hair a bit.

“Oh! Well um.”

The wolf-girl looked around nervously for a moment. “I'm..really sorry,” she said finally. “Like really. After we..first got together, you always...made me want to change, and be a better person, because..i-it seemed like you were the first person to really believe I even could. I'm, I d-didn't know I was, hurting people again, until you told me—just now.”
Riana frowned at her. “I've been trying to tell you that for months! You just wouldn't listen!”

“I know. I'm just, stupid is all. Really, really stupid. It's like sometimes I can't hear anything but whatever I wanna hear. You know?”
“Yeah, I could tell.”

Kamari turned her head away for a moment. “You know—I wanna be a big shot, like a great person, someone everyone looks up to. That's why I even joined up with this, weird stuff in the first place...but it's, it's no good if I'm not a good person too. Sometimes I just don't know what that—what me bein' a good person—is s'posed to look like.” Then she looked back up at her girlfriend, her ears flipping ever so slightly upright. “Heh, I-I guess I shoulda just been lookin' at you.”

Her tail slowly fwipped back and forth across the couch, audibly thumping against the back every time, for a moment, and then she looked down again slowly. “Are you um..s-still mad at me?” she said finally.
Riana sighed. “You know I can never stay mad for long. I guess you're gonna ask me to change you back, huh?”
“No, actually. I mean, net yet. Um..” The wolf-girl looked up again, blushing lightly. “I uh. It feels like sometimes I can't think with anything but my, y'know.”
“I know,” she crossed her arms again.
“But I can't do that if I don't uh, have one, right? Heheh. W-what I mean is, I feel like I can almost be a little less stupid by bein' like this, s-sometimes. And anyway um...” Her blush deepened considerably. “I-I like how it feels to be um..pet by you. I really hate feeling, being small and weak, except...except that I get to be smaller than you.” Her ears sank again. “Uh. Feel like I'm just talkin' nonsense here.”

“That's okay, I guess. Our whole situation is nonsense right now. I mean, we were a huge part of turning some random guy into some sort of...demon god? Seriously?” Riana said. “Anyway, if you want me to pet you a little more before we go I can do that. I admit I'm really starting to like the way your fur feels..”

“Heheh,” the wolf-girl giggled, leaning herself forward into a gentle hug. Her girlfriend returned it for a moment before reaching one hand up and another down, rubbing the wolfish ears and tail gently and drawing some more soft, cute barks from her.

Their relationship had always been a little strange, Riana thought as Kamari slowly climbed up on top of her again to nuzzle her face. Now, that strangeness had seen an unimaginable upgrade. But...things were already much better, it seemed. He—she rather, was talking about how she felt and what she thought again, and listening to Riana about those things too, which was as much as she felt they'd really been lacking for maybe half a year now.

That demoness fed on gratitude, right? Well...Thank you, Zotha, she thought to herself, giving a slight return nuzzle to the tiny wolf-girl in her arms.

---

After a deeply embarrassing talk with the supernatural incidents people, during which they repeatedly tried to get her to “at least” call her family and tell them what had happened because it would “make things easier”, Anika slunk out to her car and drove it back to the dorm, placing the 'close enough to Andrew' illusion over herself before going outside and fortifying it during the drive into one that would remain even through the deepest sleep. She went inside, up the stairs, and turned the key in the door before opening it.

“Hey, welcome back.” Predictably, it was late enough for her roommate to already be there. He turned his chair away from the computer in front of him. “'Secret society' business take longer than expected, huh?” They had long since established rules as to how much Andrew was allowed to answer about that stuff so long as his roommate wasn't a member—which he'd made it clear he wasn't ever going to be.
“Yeah, a little.” She headed for the bathroom. “Left me exhausted, too, and there's more tomorrow. I'm just gonna go straight to bed.”

“A'right. I'll try to keep it down.” Fwip. Halfway to the bathroom, Anika's eyes (and head with them) were turned involuntarily toward a certain sound from the direction of her roommate's head. And it turned out to be exactly what her first guess was: A pair of tall, black-furred fox ears appearing in place of his regular ones. Her first thought was since when?! and her second was to keep the illusory “Andrew's” expression totally blank since it was too late to hide that she had turned to look.

“What's up?” He had already noticed “Andrew” staring, of course.
“Nothing.” Anika turned back toward her bed. “You know, when you're tired enough you can just stare into space for no reason sometimes?”
“Not me, I'm never tired. I guess I've seen you do that before, though, hah. You prolly should get to bed, really, you sound a little hoarse or somethin'. Can't have you getting sick, or I could catch it.”

“Yeah yeah. Always about you, Stephen.”

“C'mooon, it's Steph. We're friends, right?”

“Only if I don't wake up to another of your pranks.”

“No promises!” he said teasingly, but she recognized this response as one of acquiescence.

To her great (but well-hidden) dismay, Anika discovered yet another aspect of her curse as she got ready for bed, particularly while changing clothes. She tried putting on a pair of male underwear, and it shrank into a frilly pair of panties. A t-shirt changed into a soft nightgown, and then the next one she tried on just pulled tight, short enough to only just cover her waist, and gained a deep dip that showed off much of her neckline. Loose, male gym shorts pulled into female ones far too tight to sleep comfortably in. Even after the clothes were off of her they stayed transformed, although she was able to use her powers to turn them back. Eventually she sighed to herself (muting the sound of it for her roommate) and just went back to the nightgown; at least it made it all the way down to her thighs.

This was deeply irritating—she couldn't even just wear male clothes to feel less feminine; her favorite clothes could just turn into something else entirely—but it was technically convenient. No need to shop for new clothes that would fit her, she guessed. Maybe it would be better to just change things she was about to wear herself, with her own power, so that (for example) at least every pair of jeans wouldn't arbitrarily turn into a skirt and stockings like the pair she'd had on when first given the tail had. But that was...almost certainly what the curse was supposed to encourage her to do, and she resented that almost enough to just keep putting on male clothes and letting the curse change them out of spite. Either way she wasn't going to win, though, so the whole decision was rather pointless.

Curled up on her side in bed, she tried to reassure herself one more time that the vast powers she felt within her were worth it. But it was difficult to do when she had barely used them to do anything thus far beyond masking the curse. There was the most curious thought in her drowsy head then—if only she could think up a nice prank to use them for...

---

Zotha and her high priestess were walking from the latter's car to “their” dorm. Jess looked around a little bit. Have you noticed...? Some people look..different?

Yeah. It didn't seem important at first—my brain just processed it as something normal somehow. But look, she thought, mentally directing Jess's gaze toward some of the others in the dorm's hallway. There's a Kitsune, there's a person with a cat tail..an actual demon over there, with red skin and horns; maybe that's a werewolf? I've never noticed that about any of those people before. I think..I know why, too.

You do?

My power totally overrides the Veil. As you also have it in you, the Veil is torn asunder for us both.

'The' Veil?

At this point, they reached the door, and Zotha let them both inside before continuing the conversation aloud, which felt much more natural despite how easy the mental communication was. “The Veil, right,” she nodded. “I feel as if I was just 'filled in' on it on the drive back here. That little veil I put over us this morning—wasn't necessary at all. There's a more general, wide-ranging glamour all throughout the Earth that ensures anyone who doesn't know about a certain kind of magic person, just sees them as human.”

“So...demons, have been walking the Earth all along? I just, I might've even met some and not even realized it?!” Jess said, incredulous.

“More than likely. Are you disappointed~?” Zotha teased.
“Mmn...Not..really,” she said, after thinking about it for just a second. “I can't imagine any 'normal' demon could be as wonderful as you,” she said, looking up at Zotha.

“Heheh. I still can't really believe how enamored you are with me, when we've still barely even met. And yet, just feeling that emotion from you makes me want to reciprocate hard.” The demoness went over to her own bed and sat down. “Is it all physical, I wonder? A fleeting fantasy? You've been wanting someone like me for so long, and those thoughts have latched onto me, but eventually you'll see past that shallow surface and get tired of me, and the whole thing will just fade off?”
“No! It's not..” Jess seemed very upset at the mere suggestion; she rushed over and sank to her knees in front of Zotha, looking up. “M-master, it's...at first, before we had really talked at all, I wanted someone like you, it's true. But the more...the more you've revealed your nature, your thoughts, your beliefs to me..the more I like you, and the more I want to keep serving you. It's not shallow anymore, already, so, I can only imagine getting to know you better will only deepen it more. I..I-I want to be yours, forever, Master,” she said, giving a concerned frown with puppy eyes.

“Alright, alright...” The demon deity patted her little priestess on the head and ruffled her hair a bit. “I'll believe you for now.” Jess giggled nervously, blushing. “Come on up here.”

She picked her priestess up under her shoulders and pulled her into a hug, which was returned eagerly. They shared a close embrace for a moment or three, and then Zotha decided to try something. She knew she had total control over her priestess's form, but had hardly used it at all since defining a new 'default' look through that seed of power's growth in her. For now, she was curious if she could be made male again, and set to work on that.
“M-mnh..?” Jess made a soft, confused noise as her body began to steadily grow and shift. Her breasts deflated, her hips and bottom shrank inward; her curves rapidly flattened away. “W-wha..m-master?” she said in a steadily deepening voice. Jess's face remained every bit as pretty, and her hair just as soft and long, but soon her clothes all vanished, replaced by a pair of boxer shorts, as she regrew that which he had lost the very night before.

Zotha grinned, blushing mildly at the feeling of her handiwork against her body. He was quite tall, fit and handsome, and he was blushing just as much as she was as his restored equipment revealed just how much he was enjoying their closeness. “Heheh..interesting~,” the demoness murmured, before pushing him down under her, planting her lips on his in a long, deep, passionate kiss. At first Jess was practically in shock, but before long his body's natural inclination took over and he began to return it; then he started to fully realize and appreciate what was happening and became rather enthusiastic, making cute, deep-voiced noises in his throat while his hands ran up and down Zotha's generous curves.

The demoness felt she could keep going forever, but it seemed like her toy needed to come up for air soon, so she pulled her head off of his with a loud, satisfying smack. “Mmnh~..how fun,” she said.
“Aah..m-master..” He was too stunned to say much else.
“Do you know, that was my first kiss? With anyone?” she said with a little wink. “You seem experienced, though.”

“No..um..” If his blush could get redder, then it would have. “M-mine too...I w-wouldn't be surprised if that's just, one of your powers.”
“Quite a power, then, eh? Let's go in for a second.” Without waiting for him to respond, she pressed herself down onto him again, appreciating the masculine form quite a bit more than she ever had when she'd had one of her own.

Halfway through the second kiss, Zotha realized that she was actually maintaining the current form of the boy in her arms. It wasn't taxing at all, especially with the rush of sheer enjoyment and gratitude coming out of him in response, but that realization made her curious: What would happen if she stopped doing that? So..she did, and immediately felt him beginning to shrink in her arms.

“Mm..mmnh...?” He made a confused noise as his muscles faded once more, the thing between his legs getting smaller and smaller all over again. He struggled briefly as if to leave the kiss, but when she didn't let him he submitted fully, letting it continue as his body's manliness softened away. Zotha kept him male until he was all the way down to Jess's usual size, with a slender waist and wide hips stretching the boxers awkwardly tight, and then finally released the kiss immediately before letting his sex change, and enjoyed the sound of Jess's cute, high voice letting out a loud “AA~AAaaAahHHnnNN~!” as male pleasure melted into female and her breasts instantly inflated back to their usual size, squishing closely against Zotha's own.

Both of them were panting rather heavily after that, and the demoness turned them onto their sides, pulling apart just enough to give them both room to breathe and cool off. Speaking aloud wasn't much of an option at the moment, at least not without a lot of annoying pauses, so she resorted to mental communication instead: You know something, I had to 'keep' you male for you to stay that way. It doesn't feel like it'd be the same if I just wanted to alter your current look a little bit.

Master...? How are you still thinking about anything after...that?

She ruffled Jess's hair. I'm always thinking. But trust me, I enjoyed that at least as much as you did. Also consider how many females we wound up with today. Anika's not my fault...I think...but why was a small, cute girl your first thought for little Kam, hmn?
I just um... Her breath mostly caught up, she said in a soft whisper, “It seemed like the natural thing to do somehow?”

Zotha ran a hand through her priestess's hair. “You know something else? Out of all the numerous things I can do with myself instantly, at will, I feel almost unable to think about turning myself male again, even for a temporary disguise. It feels..anathema, like it's against my very nature. I don't suppose repeatedly telling everyone that your ritual would make a beautiful woman, and always thinking of the results that way yourself, somehow imbued me with 'femininity' as some sort of core part of my nature?”
“Um...t-that's, definitely possible. I'm sorry, Master,” she said with a worried frown. “I really..after everything, I guess I really only sort of knew what kind of power I was playing with.”

“Awwh~, I'm not mad,” she said, running a hand across Jess's soft face. “But I do want you to tell me everything you know about that ritual, though—where you found it, where you got the idea of what you thought it would do. Understanding that is a key to understanding me, and that's pretty important, you know.”

“O-of course. Um..I can show you everything I know,” she said.

“Alright. Assuming we have time, after the meeting tomorrow is good.”

“Yep!”

---

Stupid homework: Finally done. Now to check on the roommate.

“Hey, are you asleep yet?” The whispered question that always drew a 'yes' if he was received no answer instead. Steph got up out of his chair and walked a little closer to Andrew in his bed. He sniffed the air, and knelt close to the floor just in front of the bathroom. There was the smell of a fox that wasn't Steph, and the faintest traces of white fur shed there on the floor: Amateur mistakes that no born Kitsune would ever make.

And his voice had sounded odd. too. Something had happened to him, and Steph's instincts were telling him that someone else was definitely cutting in on his trick. The biggest question was who—barring someone in really deep cover, not a single student on campus was anywhere near old enough to be powerful enough to grant tails. And Andrew of all people did not have the personality to be seen as worthy of one by a Wise One, either, and if he'd had serious magic potential then surely..surely it would've been picked up on and trained some other way, well before now.

Eventually he realized there was only one conclusion that made any sense with the timing, and Steph really didn't like it: Their little secret club. He'd gone invisible and eavesdropped on a few of their big meetings before and concluded that it was all nonsense. There wasn't a speck of magic there! There were even a few magic-aware among them who were just watching the spectacle for laughs. Their leader was an idiot crackpot, completely under the Veil, who thought he knew some fancy magic but was just spouting gibberish nonsense and pretended to teach it to everyone else! So how...? How?!

He stopped short of getting too angry, taking a couple of steps back and quite a few deep breaths, one after another. It wouldn't do to lose his concentration right now, even though this was a low-risk location to do it. He'd just renewed that afternoon while Andrew was conveniently away for several hours, and it was way too soon to go through the trouble and cost of doing it again so soon. It was over two and a half, almost three years in now, and whoever, whatever had messed with this...secondary scheme was not going to make him ruin the primary one too!

Steph sighed, looking at the undoubtedly brand-new Kitsune in the bed. If someone taught him to hide his tail then they should've told him to also hide his scent and taught him how to disappear stray fur, too. But if someone had just dumped a tail on him out of nowhere then he wouldn't even know how to hide anything. That meant...somehow he'd been given the tail and some education by either a Kitsune who wanted to giggle at an amateur making mistakes that were obvious to them but obviously wouldn't be to a normal human (which, in Steph's opinion, was thoroughly Not Funny; it was like giving a toddler who didn't know how to read yet a keyboard and then laughing at them when they didn't produce an original work of literature within the following few hours)...or somehow by a non-Kitsune who understood some of the illusion magic necessary to hide the new traits but not all of it?

No, no, that was impossible. Both answers were too stupid to be real. The only logical answer was that something had definitely happened at the crazy cult meeting, and a Kitsune was somehow involved but obviously not directly so.

Well then. He knew their leader's scent. It was all over that shack they used to meet, and he had made a point of learning it just in case that guy went too far and actually came close to hurting Andrew. It was too late now to track somebody down and expect to actually be able to reach them, but in the morning...In the morning Steph would find out the truth of the matter.

He proceeded toward bed, and after he was in it realized how much he was obsessing over this, when it should be small in the grand scheme of things. Okay...maybe it wasn't such a secondary scheme anymore. His priorities had just never been...tested this way until now. He sighed quietly to himself, and closed his eyes, assuring himself that at least chasing after this had a reasonably low risk of messing with the primary..the original plan, at any rate.

---

Even in sleep, the new Kitsune didn't seem to get relief from her torment. She found herself fully lucid, sitting in..some kind of comfy chair; the details of everything around her were distant somehow but the idea of a 'room' was there. And she was in the very same ultra-feminine form as her waking self, in the same nightgown she'd fallen asleep in (which, sitting down, felt entirely too revealing, and it was even worse that she'd removed her bra for comfort). All four of her tails were visible and she felt unable to hide them—to hide anything about her appearance. All of this she confirmed, and crossed her legs in an attempt at preserving some modicum of modesty, before she became aware of another being in the “room” with her.

It was a pair of glowing red eyes in the “shadows” before the chair at first. Then, slowly, their owner stepped into visibility: A tall, voluptuous woman wearing a traditional kimono, with long blonde hair and uncountable tails in a variety of colors spinning out behind her. Her presence exuded power, and without even thinking about it Anika understood what—who she was looking at: The person responsible for her curse and the subsequent messages through Zotha, and more importantly, the goddess of all Kitsune. But if she had an actual name, Anika didn't even feel capable of knowing it.

She had what seemed to be a permanent smirk that just barely showed off some predatory fangs from behind her lips. Now that she was fully present, she lowered herself onto a chair as it too became visible, crossing her own legs gracefully in the process. “You're every bit as entertaining as I'd hoped for,” she said in a deep, sultry tone. “I suppose there's no need for introductions, so let's get on to business.”
Anika felt extremely small and comparatively powerless in her presence; there had been something similar with Zotha once she had started to instinctually reach out with her own powers and 'feel' for the power of others, except that there was no sense of a threat there. Here there wasn't...exactly a threat, but certainly the sense that doing the wrong thing could still result in the magical equivalent of her head being bitten right off. All the same, she managed to gather the courage to speak. “I g-guess it's your fault I'm like this,” she said.

“Oh no, of course not. That's your own~,” she said, teasingly, “and your precious godling's. She could have given you a single tail without overshooting, but just doesn't have enough experience in power conversion yet.”

“Y..you are the one who cursed me, though.”

“Indeed. As the one presiding over the event, it also fell to me to determine your punishment,” she said, placing a hand on her own chest. “'One who cheats for a tail must suffer punishment of a severity matching the crime',” she said, as if quoting from a legal book. “The rules are quite clear, and not even I may break them. That is the first thing you should know, as a Kitsune. You should feel lucky I want to ingratiate myself to her, and so chose the most merciful curse I could think of. You could have wound up nearly powerless until your next tail—and it was her power that caused your physical change in the first place, so you would still be stuck that way but with no illusions to hide it. Or...I could have formlocked you as an ordinary fox, or sealed you away for a thousand years and/or until a true-love kisses you on the lips...”
“Yeah okay, all of that sounds way worse,” Anika said. “But you're not here just to rub that in my face, are you?”
The goddess's smirk turned to a full. open-lipped smile, baring an entire mouthful of long, sharp teeth. “You catch on quick, at least. The second thing to understand is that we have the right to make Deals, both with each other and with other kinds. The explicitly stated content of a Deal must be followed to the letter, or else great punishment will be faced by whoever broke it. First I will tell you what I want, and what I believe you want that I can give you. Then we can negotiate, and see whether we come to terms,” she said.

“Okay...?”

The fox-goddess leaned in slightly. “Your new goddess has already learned to shut me, and by extension other gods, out of her head. It's not much of a surprise; doing so is practically one's instinct not long after 'birth'. But I am very interested in her, and I want you to be my representative before her. I desire the right to overshadow you, and speak through you, in order to contact her. I propose that you become aware whenever I wish to speak with her, then inform her of this yourself and determine an appropriate time to speak. When you are in the right place and time, and fully willing, I will overshadow you for the express purpose of talking to her. I will do nothing to or with your body during that time that is not necessary to make continued communication with her convenient. Afterward, you will have full and complete memory of what happened while I overshadowed you barring any spoken information that she and I agree should remain a secret. If something I did was not to your approval but also not covered by the contents of the original Deal, you can tell me and we can agree to add new conditions, or revise old ones, to accommodate.

“Now, you—” she pointed a finger toward the smaller fox-girl—“want to be rid of your curse. Naturally I can't get away with removing the whole thing; suffering your punishment until you properly earn a tail is in the content of the relevant Rules. But I can remove an effect or two from it that you find particularly inconvenient—say, allow you to make male illusions and wear whatever clothes you want?”

It seemed like it was time for negotiations. Anika was tempted to ask for more—just to be able to speak how she wanted. But it was...best not to press her luck. Fixing her illusions would make it much easier to pass as her old self, and...the thing with the clothes bothered her much more than expected. She could offer to trade the clothes part for freeing her speech, maybe, but...that didn't feel like a good trade. The opportunity for occasional physical comfort was more important to her than the ability to declare herself male, she realized.

The goddess's conditions on her own side of the deal seemed thorough; Anika could hardly think of anything to add at first. Eventually it occurred to her to imagine what might happen if—for some reason—a discussion lasted all day, or all night, or something like that. “Um..Would you, say...if my body needs something in the middle of the overshadowing, you will take care of it?”
She nodded. “In a way that is as close as possible to how you would have,” she said. “Truly, this falls already under the conditions on my control of your body—the 'necessary to make communication convenient' part? In fact—I will also only overshadow you for up to one hour at a time, after which you will regain control until you relinquish it willingly to me again. Is this addition to the terms acceptable?”

“Yes. Uh...” She strained her mind to try and think whether anything else needed to be specified. She was dealing with a deity of tricksters, after all; surely there was something left out on purpose.

“Before you worry that pretty little head of yours,” the goddess said, leaning in closer and putting the tip of a finger on Anika's forehead, “you should consider my motive. I want to have an open channel of communication with Zotha. In order to facilitate that, it's best that said channel is happy being one, and that Zotha still wants to speak with me through it. Her general disposition would leave her ill-inclined to speak with me if it were a source of torment for you, don't you think?”

“I don't know her that well, but...I guess so?”

“Right then. Do you accept the terms now laid out?”

It was too attractive to pass up. Anika needed to keep things as normal as possible, and it was already pretty obvious the “psuedo-Andrew girl” illusion wasn't going to cut it. Besides, this was the person who made the curse and so—maybe also the only one who could remove more effects from it later. Making her happy was Anika's best bet at becoming able to say she was male, or “Andrew”, again sooner, even if it wasn't part of what they were doing right now. “I...I do,” she said, nodding.
“You're starting to scheme like one of us already,” the goddess said with an expression of...almost motherly pride. Then she reached out a hand. “I also agree to these terms. The Deal is made, then. Let us shake on it.”
Anika reached out her hand, nervously, and took the offered one. As soon as they made contact, the goddess held on to her hand briefly, and then—

Her eyes opened. There was sunlight coming in through the windows; it was morning. She could remember the contents of the dream clearly and vividly. Slowly sitting up and looking around, Anika found her roommate missing. He wasn't usually such an early riser, being the sort to stay up late instead most of the time. But him not being here was convenient...so she tried revising the illusion still over her, to actually look and sound like her old self. It was effortless, nothing blocking it at all. Then she stood up and went to a drawer, pulled out a t-shirt and draped it over her nightgown. No change. The goddess of Kitsune had held up her end of the deal perfectly.

And...she wanted to speak to Zotha today, if possible. Whenever it was convenient—probably after they 'blessed' the rest of their followers, and after Anika herself explained what was going on to Zotha. Anika found this something she was aware of without the feeling that someone else had said it to her—as though it was something she wanted to do herself, but not quite. She nodded, to herself and to the deity no doubt watching: It would be done; she was good for her end of the bargain too. But for now...she needed to get ready for that meeting.