A Summoning, Part XXIV

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Part XXIV
~Tower~

Early in the morning, hours before sunrise, three Kitsune stood in a basement of an old science building, in a roughly triangular formation: Two facing a third, who was looking straight on at the space between them.

“Okay...ready?”

'Andrew' turned his head toward Steph, nodding and projecting—trying, in fact, to feel—a level of confidence that would've been impossible for him a week or so ago. “I've got this. Let's start.” The two other foxes began channeling magic toward him, and held out his hands, weaving it with some of his own. His body glowed white, his hair turning the same color and appearing to grow out much longer than it had been before, and his other three tails spilled out into view; the effort and concentration required to produce their desired effect made hiding these traits impossible.

Outside, a fair distance from campus, a roaring wind began, and clouds formed in the sky as if from nowhere. Meteorologists—those who were awake at the time, anyway—quickly took notice. Before long it became clear that a freak thunderstorm was on its way, with the potential to turn into something even nastier. It was headed, as though carefully targeted, right toward the center of campus. What woke many of those on campus who were ignorant of this development was the first booming peal of thunder.

Although it was an illusion, Steph could see the strain on Andrew's face. Maintaining the 'male' illusion was going to be even more difficult now that the storm was underway. He turned to the third fox in the room. “It's started, let's go. Hurry!” he pointed dramatically out the door, and she nodded quickly before running, stopping to go back and grab a backpack, then—nodding to Steph again—heading out.

Anika exhaled a sigh of relief, fully dropping the illusion—which looked like Andrew's body melting the rest of the way down to be hers. “I'm off too,” Steph said. “Just keep it up as long as you can.” She nodded, managing a slight smile in his direction despite her eyes being closed, and then he grabbed a backpack of his own and headed out to do the work.

Almost an hour later, the powers that be had scrambled to determine the possible severity of the storm, then canceled classes and sent messages to commuters not to come to campus at all that day if they could help it. This was not a decision taken lightly, as it was the sort of announcement they couldn't take back. Therefore, it was somewhat to the annoyance of many people on campus who had—for one reason or another—looked forward to having classes that day when the storm seemed just as suddenly as it had appeared to melt away, the clouds disappearing and the winds dying down, under the light of the rising sun. The campus was not really any worse for wear, just wet; even the few strikes of lightning had landed harmlessly and failed to start any fires or hurt anything. However, it had been somewhat redecorated during that period when nobody really should have risked going outside.

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On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Shane's alarm was set very, very early. It would buzz once and he'd turn it off right away, hopping out of bed, so his roommate—strictly speaking, the person renting the other bedroom of his apartment—wouldn't complain of the noise waking him too. Then he would quickly change clothes and head outside for a jog. Today was no different from any other Thursday for him—not until the thunder hit.

When the wind picked up, he didn't worry; if anything, it was a nice breeze. He was a bit over halfway through his jog, already having turned around to start heading back to the apartment, so anything that would cool him down a bit until he got back to shower was a welcome blessing. However, that sudden, loud crackling boom in the distance was a bigger concern. “Dangit, weatherman,” he mumbled to himself between breaths. Today was supposed to be a clear day. Well, he was already on his way home, so if it was going to start raining he should just pick up the pace and turn this part into a flat-out run. He was certainly capable, being on the school's track team among other things.

Unsurprisingly, Shane couldn't outrun the weather. Before long there were light drops of rain hitting him, which steadily grew heavier as he continued. Running into the rain was surely soaking him more quickly than walking would have, but—well—he was headed to shower and change anyway. The only shelter he wanted right now was that of his apartment, which drew ever close even as the weather turned worse. So the freak storm made this an unusual Thursday, a mildly inconvenient one at worst—at least at first.

As he kept running, Shane felt the weight of slick, soaking hair on the back of his neck sometimes. His forward motion drove it backwards away from his head, but its own weight and some gusts of wind from behind would make it swing forward. He was so intensely focused on running that it didn't occur to him that his hair wasn't supposed to be long enough to do that until he felt wet locks hitting his cheeks and shoulders, and when it did he kept running for another couple of yards yet before slowing to a halt as he tried to understand it.

He realized then that he was panting very heavily, his body feeling pushed to its limit. Shane thought, I'm supposed to have more stamina than this! but his aching muscles demanded this break all the same, forcing him to focus on something other than running for a moment. That something was the peculiarity with his hair, as he drew a hand up to run through it and found black locks all the way down his cheeks, unusually long bangs, and hair in the back even falling a few inches past his shoulders.

“Hfff...ffh, whh, what thh..?” he muttered, looking down at some of it and getting a second surprise: His t-shirt and gym shorts, both specifically chosen to be fairly tight on him so they wouldn't get in the way while running, looked unusually loose. The shirt seemed to hang off his shoulders strangely, and its hem was trailing down onto his upper hips instead of stopping just at the top of the shorts. Past that, the hairs on his arms and legs looked shorter than usual.

“What's..?” Beyond the soreness of his muscles and the water soaked onto his body, clothes, and strangely long hair, Shane also perceived now the force of the raindrops hitting him. It was a really peculiar thing; he felt as if the pressure was pushing his body inward, forcing it to become smaller...and, since he'd been looking down for several seconds now, he noticed a subtle upward motion of the sidewalk beneath his feet that suggested this wasn't his imagination.

“N-no way, no way..!” Shane snapped his head forward again, mentally declaring to his body that he'd stopped panting and therefore had enough rest, and began a less calm, more panicked run homeward. He felt like he was sprinting harder than before, yet the buildings to either side flew by more slowly as he continued. He felt the weight of his hair trailing farther and farther out behind him, and each time the wind whipped it forward the locks whipped lower down his back, along with those around his face occasionally threatening to temporarily blind him. His shirt began to tent out around him as he shrank down, the world around him growing bigger and bigger; his shorts started to feel like they wanted to slip off, and his pace slowed even more as he dedicated one hand to holding them up through his shirt. Worse still, his strides were getting shorter along with his legs, and the act of running itself became more difficult, like his well-honed muscles were losing their strength.

As his apartment came into view, Shane found himself slowing to an exhausted walk, panting heavily as his left hand kept hold of his shorts and his right fumbled for the keys. The top of the doorframe had been maybe a foot above his eye level when he left; now the doorknob was about at his chest. Furthermore, as he reached out his hand with the key to put it in the lock, he saw a slender, short arm ending in a small, delicate hand, the body hair completely gone to leave its skin soft and smooth-looking. He grabbed the doorknob, shoved it open and stumbled inside, still gasping for breath as he yanked out the key and tossed the door shut behind him.

The sound of air coming in sounded strangely high as he began to catch his breath, looking down at himself again. His hand slowly lost its grip on the shorts in shock, letting them drop to the floor, as he saw a small, slim body with narrow shoulders, slender arms and legs, and no trace of the strong muscles he'd built up all his life. His shirt hung awkwardly off of his right shoulder, its hem falling all the way down to his thighs, and his hair was long enough to reach past there, the tips of the locks tickling the back of the bare, soft skin of his legs. “W-whaa~aa..?” he muttered, and heard a high, girlish sound from his throat that made him clap a hand over his mouth.

“Shane?”

“Eep!” he squeaked, jumping slightly at his roommate's voice from his bedroom, and realized he'd just slammed the door loudly enough to wake someone. How was Ferris going to react to seeing him like this? He looked practically unrecognizable, and he felt..weird..

Shane's face felt warm; in fact his entire body felt a bit hot. He'd been running through freezing rain a moment ago, and though of course the exertion had kept him relatively warm, he shouldn't be feeling this hot while still soaked. Only..looking down, his clothes and skin looked rather dry. The long hair along the sides of his face and all the way down his back no longer felt slick, either, just...soft, like it was freshly washed a while ago, then fully dried. But—back on the topic of the warm feeling—Shane was aware of a vague, tingly, slipping sensation between his legs, and it was making his cheeks even hotter. “Aah..w-whaa..?” he mumbled; this new set of surprises made it impossible to focus on the problem of his roommate. Then, there was a high, gasping squeak from Shane's throat at a sharper, more sudden tug between his legs—followed by more blushing and confusion.

“Aah?” Shane felt strangely...empty down there, like something was missing. Squirming his upper legs together, something was gone indeed—his manhood! There was something else there, faintly tingling and making him—him?—blush more, and it dawned somewhat slowly on Shane that this was the sensation of being female. The weird feeling of being warm everywhere was gone, but what had happened just now, plus the deeply unfamiliar sensation following it, had her face burning with an even worse blush. While still in shock from that, there was a gentle sort of pushing from her hips and her chest as she gained the faintest of curves, her bottom rounding out slightly while a pair of tiny breasts grew into place under the very loose-fitting shirt. “Aa~aah..!” she cried softly, these further sensations seeming to agitate her newfound womanhood in a way that might have been pleasant were it not so bizarre.

And then—as if to emphasize that no matter how bizarre the situation, it could continue to get worse—Shane felt a sudden bursting, popping feeling from her right ear, drawing a surprised squeak from her mouth, followed immediately by another from her left which she let out a small, high “Aah!” of surprise in response to, and all of a sudden her ears were huge. She could feel her hair across just their bases, and faint air currents running across the rest, now covered in thick, soft hairs that made them extremely sensitive. They twitched and turned all on their own, easily picking up the sound of Ferris's bed creaking and his feet touching the floor. A spike of panic hit her as she realized that most recent noise had been louder than any of the others, and hearing it must have been enough to convince him to investigate..! But then, worse still, she felt a push as violent as the growing ears had been from her lower back, forcing a startled “Waah!” as she felt a long, slim appendage slip out past the back hem of her shirt, twitching back and forth as it grew nearly to the length of one of her arms. It was a catlike tail to match the huge, fuzzy triangular ears now spiking out from the sides of her head.

Ferris's door creaked open, and he looked out at her. Her hands both went to pull her shirt down, feeling suddenly very indecent with only the shirt on and a man—who looked very tall to her shrunken stature—staring down at her.

There was a long moment of awkward silence, during which Shane perceived the cutting feeling of her keys being squeezed into the palm of her hand, which had been clutching them tightly ever since the door shut. Her brain spun to life trying to think of ways to convince the person in front of her of her identity, perhaps using them, as he mouth spat out “F-f-Ferris!” in a desperate bid to gain the initiative in this impossible conversation.

“It's me! I ran out and I was on my way back and it-it started raining so I ran back and I was shrinking,” she said so quickly it might as well have been all one word, “and I kept running and it, I'm, I..!” She felt like she was going to tear up from anxiety, but Ferris wasn't running to call the police and she thought—or maybe just really hoped—she saw something in his eyes.

“Shane? Really?” It wasn't a skeptical 'really', it was disbelieving-something-which-appears-true 'really'. That was a good sign; he must have recognized her clothes, maybe?
“Yes! It's me! Look, I, I got in with my keys,” she said, holding her hand out with them. There was nothing too remarkable about Shane's key ring, but maybe her car keys would at least look correct to him.

“...Wow,” he said after staring at the keys, and at her in general, for a moment. “I mean, either it's you, or a really elaborate prank. I've heard of people spontaneously changing looks before, but uh..it's supposed to be super rare.”

“It wasn't spontaneous!” she blurted in protest. “It was the rain!” She felt absolutely certain about this somehow; it was just that weird sensation of pressure when she'd first really noticed she was changing. Anyway, something like this couldn't possibly just happen biologically, at random; something had to have caused it!

“Really?” Okay, that was a skeptical one. “Some normal rain turned you into a catgirl,” he said, taking a few steps toward her.

Shane felt her ears fold back in annoyance. “What, l-like that's less likely than it just, happening on its own?! I could feel it, it—I..!”

“Rain doesn't just make people catgirls, is all,” Ferris said, stopping a bit in front of her and crossing his arms, staring down to examine her again—making her feel nervous and exposed all over again. She tugged awkwardly at the shirt, thankful that her weirdly active new tail at least seemed content not to try and flip it up in the back. “Well, there's an easy way to tell if the rain really did it.”

“W-what? No!” He took a step to one side of her toward the door, and she quickly moved to intercept him. “Don't go out there!” He ignored her, easily getting around her shorter stride as she tried to stop him, opening the door and stepping out onto the doormat. “Ferriiiis!” she yelled, simultaneously feeling embarrassed at how high, squeaky, and weak it sounded, and hopelessly defeated as she saw he was already getting soaked, spreading his arms out skyward.

The small catgirl felt a growl in her throat—the lowest-pitched noise she'd made since reaching the apartment, but still higher than most of what had come out of her mouth since puberty—as she stepped over and reached out to grab up at his collar, yanking him back inside. This was going to make her arm a little wet too, but she figured—or at least hoped—that the rain had already done what it wanted to her and wasn't about to do any more.

She wasn't strong enough now to actually force him inside, but the sharp tug was still enough to throw him off balance. “H-hey!” Ferris stumbled several steps back, tripping over the threshold and falling down onto his butt. The catgirl found her reflexes perhaps better than before, allowing her to effortlessly dance out of his way and quickly shut the door against the thunderstorm still going on outside.

“...Ow. Yeesh,” Ferris chided, “you don't have to make such a big deal out of it.”

“That rain turned me into this!” she said emphatically, sweeping a hand down along her own embarrassing appearance. “Who knows what..oh no.” Her ears drooped as she realized that even the brief moment out there had, in fact, been enough, which meant she was effectively too late.
“What?” Of course, her roommate couldn't see what she was seeing—not yet.

“Your hair's growing! That's how it started for me, too!” In addition to visibly getting longer, Ferris's hair appeared to be paling in shade through progressively lighter browns.

He reached up a hand as it began to trail down his neck and cheeks, brushing through the wet hair quietly. “..Oh. Well, maybe it's just—” Ferris's head flinched as, seemingly in retort to the incomplete hopeful statement, his left ear visibly grew up past his hair, becoming taller and taller with short white hairs growing on it, until it looked like a giant bunny ear. “Uhh.” The other one followed, but with a less violent motion of his head in response.

“Okaay, so..” By now, his hair was a very light brown, passing shoulder length and not showing any signs of stopping in the back; overall the catgirl's roommate looked a lot less wet than he had a moment ago, much like her own miraculous drying-up after she got inside. “Maaybe it is the rain?” Ferris shrugged.

“How can you be so casual about this!?”
“Well, I mean, not like I can stop it, right?” Ferris began to get shorter and slimmer now; Shane could see the fat of his belly melting away and his body and facial hair seeming to run the process of growing out in rapid reverse. His clothes, rather than loosening on his shrinking frame like hers had, seemed to tighten themselves on him instead, making the changes all the more visible. “Soo, I'll just ride it out, and..” He trailed off, looking down toward the transformation himself while his hair—now a pure, snowy white like the fur of his ears—grew on past his waist.

Ferris's belly went completely flat, and his waist curved in at the sides. His shoulders narrowed, his arms and legs losing their fat too. “Mm~mmh..” Shane heard his voice changing a bit during this mumbling noise, and continuing to do so in some similar ones that followed. His clothes were changing shape, too, the shorts he'd worn to bed spreading their leggings out more and more until they combined into a single hole and the material began to fold itself into pleats all around his thighs. His shirt's sleeves grew longer and its collar dipped down, revealing another shirt suddenly present beneath it and a thin red ribbon tying itself around its collar.

“Mn~nnh..” Ferris's hips visibly pushed outward, his bottom growing bigger beneath him, giving him an increasingly feminine figure which—even while he was still quite male—sported deeper curves than the catgirl watching had. “Aa~aah..!” The noise from his throat was a bit more excited this time, a blush appearing on his cheeks, and his voice seemed to settle into a tone not quite as high as hers, and a little more mature-sounding. “Oh, oo~ooh..” He squirmed back and forth in place for a moment, letting out some rather feminine noises, as—obviously—his change of sex approached, and then gave a high, girly gasp when it actually happened, the blush growing much brighter than before.

“Mmh, oo~ohh..” The rabbit-eared girl's eyes fluttered shut at some sensation Shane couldn't exactly see the source of. However, at the same time she did see a small, round tail push its way out from the lower hem of her top, just above the pleated skirt her shorts had turned into. “Aa~AAaaah...!” Then, however, as Ferris cried out a little more loudly, the reason become much more obvious. Two bumps visibly pushed out from her chest, seeming to stretch and grow the material of her top—a bright orange sweater now, by the looks of it—to accommodate them. “Aaah~, oo, oh!” There was steady growth alongside some more sudden pushes as they swiftly surpassed the catgirl's bust size and kept on getting bigger, making her womanhood all the more obvious as they did. Then, with one fairly deep “Aa~AAaa~ahhnnn...!” the bunny-girl's breasts grew an entire cup size more all at once, and finally bounced gently into place as a seeming coda to their rapid growth into a mature woman's bosom.

“Hff..phe~ew.” Ferris's eyes opened, her cheeks still alight with a blush. “That was, well, something all right! I kinda like it though.”
“W-what?!” Shane couldn't react with anything but shock at her roommate's disposition as her lips curled upward in a pleased smile.

“Well, if I'm gonna get turned into a girl by the rain, at least it feels good, right?” Recovering quickly, Ferris pulled herself up onto her feet. In addition to being more mature-looking and visibly curvier—which Shane insisted to herself she was not jealous of—the bunny-girl was still half a head taller than her roommate—which was something to be jealous of, for sure.

“I-it doesn't matter how it feels! You, you just got turned into a chick! How is, how are we even supposed to—!?” Shane stammered uncomprehendingly. The fact that she'd been right about the rain being responsible for her change was deeply unimportant in the face of a situation which ratcheted upward in bizarreness with each passing moment. First the rain had made him a girl, then a catgirl, and then her roommate, and then Ferris was just okay with it like it was no big deal...!

The taller girl's rabbit-like ears lowered slightly in concern as she watched Shane's panicked, confused expression. “Hey, look. There's supposed to be people who can deal with weird stuff like this, so calm down, okay? We can go to them as soon as they're open.”
“R-really?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Maybe they can even just—turn us back.”
“Really?” The catgirl was unaware of how adorable she looked, leaning forward eagerly with her ears popping up to vertical and her tail whipping around behind her—but if she had been aware, she surely wouldn't have cared.
“Yeah. But they're not open yet, 'cause you get up way before the crack of dawn. So: Are you hungry?”
“Um..” Food was the last thing on Shane's mind, and yet thinking about the answer to that question seemed to cause her stomach to audibly growl. “I guess so.”
“Let's get some food in us first, then,” Ferris said, reaching out and taking one of the catgirl's hands in her own slim, delicate fingers. The gesture would have been strange if they were still male, but Shane let herself be led this way over to the kitchen table to sit down without finding it the least bit unusual until she thought about it after the fact. By then, of course, her body reminded her that it was still physically exhausted from all the running and compelled her to take a moment just to rest while her roommate eagerly got to work making a breakfast for the both of them.

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It was a little after the thunder that the goddess Zotha awoke, not from the noise of the weather but from something else, a feeling beyond the senses she had had as an ordinary human. When she sat up in the bed, it also awoke her priestess, who sat up next to her with a quiet, tired groan. “Mnnh. Master? Something wrong?”

“Hmm.” Rather than responding verbally, Zotha mentally communicated the sensation she had more directly. The first conclusion to draw from it was that the rain outside itself was unnatural, magically conjured; however, this was not what had awoken her. Rather, it was a further feeling that something somehow similar to herself was being channeled through the rain—or perhaps, through the magic causing it. She was able to discern with some ease that there were two different actors here—one, weaker party, making the rain, and a vastly stronger one channeling something through it without the other's even noticing.

Jess nodded after a moment, comprehending all of this after a moment's processing. “..What do you think it is?”

“I think...someone's using the rain to transform people.” Zotha crossed her arms. “How I know that is another matter. I'm not 'actively sensing' anyone being transformed, but...”
“'Change' is your domain,” the priestess said. “So if someone uses their power to make a big change, it still falls under you enough to 'feel' it.”
“Yeah...” The goddess nodded in agreement, having thought of this at about the same time.

“Should we...do something? Try to stop it?”

“Hmmh.” Who had the power to hijack an already powerful, wide-ranging weather spell into doing something like this? That list seemed rather short. Thinking about it, Zotha leaned down onto her back again. “I don't think we need to go out there until it lets up. Then we'll be...very busy, I bet. So you should get some rest for now, little priestess~.”

“Mmh..okay.” Jess let herself down onto her pillow too, knowing from experience that she'd just be 'ordered' back to sleep anyway if she protested. In no time at all she went back to sleep, and Zotha put herself into the same state after setting herself to wake the instant the magically-summoned storm cleared up.

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In the realm of "stupid, arbitrary nonsense that I'm pretty sure didn't used to exist", I had to remove the "story" tag from this post because suddenly I'm only allowed to put 20 total tags on a post? Anyway, I thought that'd be the least important tag since the tag "summoning" already marks this as being a part of that story.

Delicious Dream

Not much to say here; this was essentially done being written a couple of weeks ago and then took until now for me to have time to finish it up. Though, I will note Google has relented on the matter I mentioned in the previous post. They're still pushing the awful "mobile friendly interface" as the "default" but supposedly the one that works better will remain an "option".

The "Best" RPG Ever-105

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Lynn stayed with Rast in the cafe for a good hour or more after they were finished eating; the staff didn't particularly seem to mind, even though they'd already paid their bill. This was the sort of place that catered to people who just wanted to sit and chat, after all. It was nice enough just talking to him.

At some point, she visibly noticed someone out the window, drawing Rast's attention behind him to look. "What is it?"
"Uh, someone who looks..a lot like, your 'girl' form," (she said the last few words very quickly and quietly) "was looking at us out there."
"Aah, I see 'er. That's my ma," he said.

"Looks like she's coming in."

"Oh. Uh, try t'act natural."

"Well, hel~lo theere," she said, coming up to them with her bushy, purple-furred tail wagging vigorously behind her. "Are you miss Lynn?"
"Uh-huh," she nodded. There were some signs of age here and there, but Rast's mother looked relatively youthful for what Lynn understood Canis lifespans to be and how long ago she'd have to have been an adult in order to have a child.
"I'm Rast's ma," she said, ruffling the top of his head—which drew a bit of a blush from him, but he didn't recoil away or anything. "Heard an awful lot about you, mostly not even from my son, mind."

"Yeah? Nice to meet you," Lynn said, offering her a hand to shake. "We were planning a visit to introduce me tonight, maybe."

"Yeah, to you an' pa," Rast added, half-turning her way as she took the handshake heartily.

"Oh, well, there's no need to wait on that. If ya'll ain't busy, Soren's home now. I'm sure he'd appreciate a chance to get to know ya personally as much as I would."

After a brief glance Rast's way to get the approval of a subtle nod, Lynn shrugged. "That's fine with me, if you're not too put out."
"Aww, don't be silly. I'll go get dinner started, and you two can come along whenever you're ready. I'd hate to interrupt a cozy li'l meetin' like this any more than I already have."

"It's no trouble," Lynn said. "Thank you."
"Sure!" She ran off energetically, looking genuinely eager to start cooking something.

"Welp. That's my ma for ya," Rast said a moment after she was out of sight. "Pa's a lot more subdued than that."

"Uh-huh. So was that code for 'stay here a few minutes so I have time to actually cook something', or..?"
"She don't care if we're on her tail straightaway, I'd think," he said.

"Well, I'm in no hurry, but you know..whenever you're ready..."

---

Mira leaned over toward the dragon-girl, speaking quietly: "I think you might be setting a bad example, Rose." She pointed over toward Zack's end of the table, where Lupa was holding a steak in both her hands and messily tearing juicy pieces off with her teeth. The knight was leaning back in his seat and pointedly trying not to look in her direction, having already given up for now.

"Oh. Sorry. But um," she whispered: "This stuff," she vaguely twirled a clawed finger near the side of her head, "kindaa, made me forget how to use utensils and things...that's why I don't order anything that takes them if I can help it."

"Yeah, I guessed as much. She, on the other hand, 'knows' how to use them thanks to Kath but...doesn't."

You know she can still hear you, right? the psion chimed in.

Yeah, but if she's actually listening she doesn't show it. I don't suppose you could knowledge-pump a dragon once you get past the 'haze' thing?

Maybe. Depends on how she was made to 'forget' in the first place.

Zack growled, unable to stand it any more, which drew the smaller wolf-girl's eye. "Gods' sake, Lupa, at least use a napkin," he said, grabbing one and mopping up some of the worst mess on her clothes.

"Eep! This one is sorry, Master," she said, folding her ears in contrition and dropping the steak back onto the plate (which splashed in the sauce, exacerbating the mess). "It was just so good.."

Sighing, he said, "If you really like your clothes, at least eat carefully enough not to ruin them, okay? And don't call me that in public," he added quickly in a much quieter voice.
"Oh! R-right." Whether the first message got through at all was unclear to any but the mind-reader.

"Here," he reached over a bit closer, spreading a relatively clean napkin over her legs.

Somehow I knew Zack would fill the 'primary guardian' role pretty well, the witch thought. You think he has any young relatives back on Earth?

I'd rather not speculate, the catgirl replied.

"Um.." Rose leaned back in Mira's direction. "Is your, uh, thumb..?"
"Oh, yeah, this," the witch said, holding her right hand up where it was a bit more visible. The skin of her thumb had turned a very bright red, like it was badly sunburnt or something. "Someone said the magic words."

While not feeling particularly conversational at the moment, Clera felt compelled to ask: "Since when do you have 'magic words' to turn your thumb different colors?"

"Oh, just the past hour or so," the witch said, shrugging as if that was that.

After getting some inquisitive/annoyed expressions, she continued: "Okay okay. So I'm doing some base-level testing on curses. Only testing them out on myself, naturally, and only completely harmless nonsense like this. My end goal is to see whether I can develop actually beneficial curses which are easy to dispel on purpose but impossible to dispel by accident. At the moment I'm working on 'key phrases'. So—if anyone happens to say 'this one', it turns it red or back again." Since she said it, the color faded back to normal again. "The curse is fully dispelled after three hours, or when someone other than me says a certain opposing phrase."

"Which is?" Zack said.

"Oh, now, that'd be telling," the witch said with a mischevious grin.

"Well, whatever. Is looking into curses dangerous or anything?" he said, obviously understanding one possible purpose to understanding them to have to do with his own curse.

"Nope. I mean—obviously, like any magic, it could be used irresponsibly, but for that reason I'm being quite a bit more responsible than usual. Which, you know, is quite a bit."

The wolf-girl snorted, but didn't say anything specific to that.

"Anyway—" she continued, not losing a beat, "—there are basically two broad 'categories' of curses. Those designed to be dispelled when certain specific conditions are met, and those which are supposed to follow a person their whole life. Griselda usually favored the former, being a huge fan of ironic punishment, but was known to..occasionally do the latter, of course, when she thought a person didn't deserve to be free of whatever it was.

"It turns out that 'conditional' curses are actually much stronger against what I would call 'general attacks', like overpowering them or whatever, than the 'forever' ones, but that's only when you're comparing two curses that had equal power put into them. Dumping a lot of energy into a curse is a good way to make it difficult to break no matter which kind it is. Still, it's good information I'm getting in the process of studying curse-making, which I feel like most who try to break curses tend to lack."

"Indeed, I haven't heard of anything like that," Clera said—speaking from the fire mage's perspective. "Even the most studious of 'ordinary' mages treat information about curses like bedtime stories and wild legends rather than looking for anything practically useful from them. Is it true that a kiss can break most weak ones?"

"Weeellll," the witch spread out her arms a bit. "Not just a kiss. The conditions for that sort of 'general' cure are, ironically, quite specific. Like, I couldn't just dispel this one by pecking my own thumb once or twice," she said, holding her thumb up so it could be seen turning red again.

Lupa, who had turned to holding the steak in her hand and roughly cutting off chunks almost small enough for her mouth with the knife before stuffing them in to barely chew and swallow, chimed in at this point: "That one?"
"Huh?" Zack said, turning partway toward her.
"That what, Lupa?" Rose added.

"This one thinks 'that one' is the opposite of 'this one'...right?" she replied, further confusing most of the table.

"Ding ding ding!" the witch said, displaying her thumb (which should have, perhaps, faded partly before turning red again) returning to normal. "Were you thinking about that the whole time?"
"A little bit," the wolf-girl admitted. "Do curses always have opposite things like that, big-hat?" (Mira wasn't wearing a hat at the moment.)

"Mm-hm; very perceptive, Lupa. This is kind of a sticking point in my research so far," she said. "Often a conditional curse needs to have something about its 'nature' which is 'opposite' the thing that's supposed to dispel it. It's all very conceptual and abstract, and it's not an absolute rule—just necessary to get any kind of cost efficiency, which happens to be an advantage that that sort of curse usually has from the perspective of the caster. Like: A fire-related curse is easy to make dispellable with some specific use of water, but tricky and/or costly if you want wood to get rid of it instead."

On the way back to the house, Lupa paused and turned her head upward, sniffing the air a few times. "Smell something?" Zack said.

Her ears folded back slightly and she quietly whined, just once. "Um—rain," she said, taking a second to remember the word for it. "Smells like, big rain."

"Oh. Well, we better get inside, then." He gestured in the direction they'd already been going, and Lupa nodded, hurrying to catch up toward the front of the group.

Can you smell the weather? Katherine asked him, to which he mentally shrugged.

I don't think, any more than I could back on Earth. Definitely not "miles-off rain and here's how heavy it is". So either her nose is better than mine—which is definitely possible—or she just thinks she knows what weather smells like.

Hasn't been wrong yet, but I agree—not a lot of data points, either. Guess we'll see.

---

"That's an interesting plan, to be sure," Nora said. "You're not at all worried about the shops finding out you hired others for essentially the same task?"
"Nah," she shrugged. "They get paid the same for this job no matter whose I think is best, and if in the future they become competitors, that can only be good for innovation in the end, right?"

"That isn't what I meant," she said, shaking her head slightly. "Suppose they collude, and the first shop you asked makes something cheap but minimally useful, then proceeds to sell it to all the others?"

"I've spread my offer pretty far," the shifter said, "So I'm sure there's at least one rivalry that would prevent total collusion. And then I can choose only to go back to whoever made clearly original, superior work with my next offer. If word gets around that handing me the cheap stuff loses you out on future jobs, I may have people knocking on our door with their own, honest attempts. Or, maybe it is a total failure, for that reason or any one of a million others, and I have to come up with a new strategy," she shrugged. "That's just the kind of risks you take trying to personally jump-start a tech industry."

As if to punctuate this last statement, there was a sudden, loud peal of thunder outside which made all three jump—Nora, being in fox-form, had ears as sensitive to the sound as Rayna's, and Aria had also taken on a vulpine appearance to 'fit in' with them, so was no better off.

"Yyikes! Little warning next time, rain!" Aria said, shaking her fist vaguely skyward. There was the light tapping on the windows now of the beginnings of a rainfall.
"I'm sure this society has weather forecasters of some sort," Rayna said. "I mean, I can predict the weather myself if I look up at the sky the right way—I just, haven't today."

"None of us really reads the newspaper," Nora stated. "Perhaps it would be wise to at least peruse it."

"Oh, yeah, man! That's such an obvious place for quest and story hooks!" Aria said. "Can't believe I forgot about that."

The door to town was thrown open, and someone ran to the stairwell and upstairs too quickly to be properly made out as more than a white-and-red blur. After a brief pause, Aria said, "Uh..was that—?"

"Lupa, yep," the illusionist nodded.

Then everyone else who'd been out for lunch filtered in after her, Zack coming into the living room first. He opened his mouth to say something, saw that Aria was already pointing toward the stairwell, and exhaled a short sigh, opening the door and heading up right away.

While the storm was beginning to pick up outside, the group coming in looked mostly dry.

"What was that about?" the shifter asked.

"The wolf was terrified of thunder, and Lupa still is," Katherine replied. "She heard that crack, yipped and just bolted."
"Huh, that's a heck of a min to take," Aria half-joked. "I guess Zack has it in hand, though?"
"Should," Mira answered. "He's proven pretty good at the parental role so far, anyway."

"Or at least the 'older sister' role," Rose said, and then "..What?" as a couple of heads turned her way. "Oh! Um..brother?"
"Blame the curse," the witch said, "Anyway, I have some research to get back to." She headed for the stairs herself, Clera following a bit more slowly but stopping in front of the door.

"So, any of you seen Lynn?" Rayna asked. "I'm not too worried, but she has been out with him since this morning and all."
"Didn't pick up either one's thoughts on our way back," Katherine said. "But I'm sure they'll find somewhere to ride out the storm."

"That's what I'm worried about!"
"I thought you said you weren't worried," Nora stated, finally drawing everyone's eyes her direction.

Rose spoke first, pointing dramatically in surprise: "Nora, you're a fox!"

Upstairs, there was no immediate sign of the smaller wolf-girl. That was, at least, until a relatively distant, quiet peal of thunder hit, and Zack made out the clear sound of whimpering from his room. When he got there, she was still not visibly present, but his ears picked up her location easily enough. "Lupa...come out from under the bed."
"No!"

"No?"
She whined, and then: "No."

The knight knelt next to the bed, leaning his head to one side where he could just barely see her bright red eyes peeking out at him. "Is this what you did when you were the alpha of a giant wolf pack?"
"This one went deep in the underground place and growled at any who came close. They learned quick to stay away when this one growled."

"You were fine when we fought the fire giant."

"No loud noises then!" The conversation was interrupted by another nearby bolt of lightning, the resulting rumble drawing another whimpering squeak from Lupa as she pulled herself into a tiny ball under her bed.

Seeing that this might be a long conversation, Zack pulled himself into a cross-legged sitting position to be slightly more comfortable down on the floor. "It's just a loud noise, though. That sound can't actually hurt you."
She managed a fairly weak growl. "This one knows that! The big fire flash is the hurty part. Not any less scary!"

"Well, you can't live your entire life hiding from every thunderstorm."
"Why not? This one did before!"
"You'd miss out on a lot, for one thing. For another, people are a lot harder to fool than wolves. You won't be seen as a strong person if you panic every time there's a little thunder. And what if there's something else dangerous, that someone you care about needs protecting from? Would you run away then?"
"Nooo...but this one would really want to."
"That would make you a lot worse at actually fighting," he pointed out. Lupa just whined in response, unable to think of a meaningful reply.

"You realize, if lightning did strike the house, you'd be much better off on the ground floor instead of upstairs."

Lupa whined quietly a bit more, and then: "This one feels safer here."

"And why's that?"
"This is this one's place. With Master."
"Well, I wanna go downstairs. So would you rather stay under the bed alone, or come with me to where everyone else is?"

The wolf-girl whimpered again, and then slowly poked her head out from under the bed before bringing one of her arms out. Zack tried his best to give an encouraging smile (and succeeded much more than he thought he did), reaching out a hand and putting it on one of hers for a second. "That's it. Come on." She continued slowly crawling out, pausing to flinch but not retreating backwards when another distant thunder echoed through the house. Eventually Zack got up with her, an arm around her upper back with the hand gently rubbing the far shoulder. Lupa went with him to the stairs, then willingly got in front of him (but stayed very close) on the way down them.

"Why thank you," Nora said, straight-faced. "That means a lot coming from you."
"Errrm, no I mean uh," Rose spouted confusedly. "Like, not that you aren't, I mean not that I don't think you're—but like, you're really um, a.."
"Yes, we did the Thing," Rayna said, rescuing her. "The Vulpin spirit weave costs a bunch of height and some physical stats but grants higher intelligence, wisdom, and especially charisma."
"And she doesn't stutter or pause like this!" Aria added enthusiastically.

"Interesting...I don't suppose this is a direct result of the higher 'charisma'?" Clera said. "Since it appears you may be able to enchant someone with a higher amount of that soon."

"Hm..you know, I hadn't thought of that," the illusionist admitted. "I'd say it's worth a shot. Maybe a temporary patch, but it would be handy to talk like that in your other forms, right?"
"'Handy' is a severe understatement," the fox-eared elf said. "I'd daresay I didn't realize the value of being able to speak unimpeded until it was taken away from me."

"Well, it's a deal then. Whenever, you know, I learn to do that thing to a sufficient degree," Rayna shrugged.

The winged girl got out of the way as the stairwell opened again, Lupa coming out trembling a bit with Zack behind her, hand on a shoulder. "Clear a couch."
After exchanging a brief glance, Rayna and Nora split off to a couple of chairs to comply, and Zack set the smaller girl down before sitting himself, letting her hold close onto him. A sudden, loud crack of thunder that made most present jump also caused her to make a gasping squeak noise and bury her head in Zack's chest, keeping it there even after the noise died down. He just put his arms up in a nonverbal 'well, whatever' response to a questioning look from Aria before dropping one of them around her in a gentle return hug.

"So, she's a lot more afraid of thunder than we thought," Katherine said, pointing. "This is kind of a problem."
"This is already an improvement from hiding under the bed," Zack replied. "Anyway, you can't always control what you're afraid of, right?"
The catgirl's ears folded back slightly. "I know that only too well. Hey, while you were upstairs—"

"I could hear," he said, pointing to an ear with his free hand—the other arm still wrapped around Lupa. "You look nice, Nora."
"Heheh," she giggled, looking slightly flustered for the first time since getting fox ears. "That's a...somewhat unusual first response."

"Well, what do you want me to say?"
"It's perfectly fine, just unexpected," she shrugged.

"I'm going upstairs," Clera announced, and entered the stairwell—having already opened the door during the conversation.

---

Things have been relatively quiet lately due to a case of general overall writer's block on my part. Most of this was written quite a while ago, with bits and pieces chipped into get it to this 'finished' state over a month or two afterward, so I can't really guarantee the block is over, either. 

(Ranting below, ignore if you want...)

Contributing to my stress over the last month or two is google, who are once again meddling in things they shouldn't and trying to fix what isn't broken. In this case, they've arbitrarily decided that the blogger editor that has been in use ever since I started using the site is no good and they need a "mobile friendly" interface for a task involving typing a large number of words (i.e., a task for which computers will always be better suited than phones), so rather than offering the new interface as an option they're trying to shove it down everyone's throats as the only option in the near future. I've been sending complaints, but I doubt they'll listen to me or any number of people. I don't think it's going to make the site unusable for me, but it's just yet another thing that'll be less convenient and more annoying overall, and I feel powerless to stop it.