Starry Treat

Well, I wasn't sure I was going to get anything but a bunch of Battle Vixens done this month, but I finally had a decent idea for a Halloween-adjacent caption. So here it is!

 

Well, it came out rather long, and I appreciate it might be a pain to read in image form as a result. I still wanted it to be "a caption" since I hadn't had one in a while. But, if you prefer, you can read it in "story form" below instead.

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There was a little house right in the middle of the suburbs. It was smaller than its neighbors, a single-story home with only a couple of bedrooms, but otherwise quite average looking. When the holidays came it was modestly decorated at best; anyone unfamiliar with the neighborhood wouldn't perceive the place to stand out at all. However, every October the kids would eye that house in anticipation, eagerly awaiting the last day of the month when they could visit it in costume. This was because the owner and sole occupant of the house, Jean Eaton, always had the very best haul of treats. He gave out high-quality candy, seemingly personalized to the tastes of kids he'd seen before, and in generous quantity—all without ever seeming to run dry, despite an ever-increasing demand.

Really, Jean was well beyond the point of getting on in years. He was living out a peaceful, reasonably happy retirement despite being a childless widower. His means were modest, but he made a special point to save up for Halloween and find the best deals on the best candies, for two main reasons: He remembered the joy of his youthful days, when he was just like those children, and wanted to keep that joy alive for the next generation. A Halloween party was where he'd first met his eventual wife when they were teenagers, both of them in costume, so the holiday held a special significance to him. Second, of course, he and his departed wife had always wanted children of their own, but in lieu of what was now a complete impossibility, at least making the kids of others happy for one special night was something that brought him joy.

Most kinds of candy didn't really go bad, but Jean generally wanted it reasonably fresh; he tried to go out to buy the stuff at that point in September when everything was just starting to go on sale, but was still around in abundance, largely ignored by the sorts of people who would invariably panic-shop at the last possible moment for their trick-or-treating audience. For this reason, he was mostly stocked up by mid-October, when a trip to the grocery store took him by a new, temporary shop set up somewhere along the way. But as soon as he saw the place he pulled in, its extensive decoration compelling him to at least take a look.

Standing a short ways before the front of the big tent, he paused for a breath as well as to appreciate the place. "Fren and Ko.", the sign at the top proudly declared in pink lettering against a black background; the striped tent in orange and black was really something to see, and some further Halloween decorations, impressive in their own right, encircled the establishment. After taking it all in, Jean continued on inside, every other step supported by a quad walking cane which he occasionally insisted he didn't really need.

It was a lively place, and surprisingly sold candy alone—no costumes or decorations like those outside, despite whoever owned the shop clearly having an eye for that sort of thing. There were plenty of customers around, though of course most were well below Jean in age, and some attendants running around answering questions, helping people get things off the shelves, even offering free samples sometimes. It was hard to overstate his delight when Jean examined the prices of the candy a little more carefully; the majority seemed to be house-branded, including some equivalents to better-known brands but also a number of unique concoctions as well.

One display stuck out as unusually expensive, selling only single pieces at what seemed to be exorbitant prices, yet it, too, was somewhat popular for some reason. Oh well—perhaps those tasted especially good to the younger crowd, but Jean's interests were well covered here, too. He went around the store thinking about the tastes and mentalities of the neighborhood kids who would show up to his place in about half a month's time, pulling down a bag here, a box there, until he calculated that the contents of his cart would fully exhaust the rest of his candy-buying budget for the year. He'd managed to pick up basically everything he wanted and even a little more, so he was satisfied to continue on his way to the front to pay.

Before he could really begin the work of unloading the cart so its contents could be scanned, the girl behind the counter swiftly went around to the front to take care of it for him. "I can take care of that, sir," she said cheerfully. She was a short, white-haired beauty with eyes of green and blue, dressed in a sort of faux-maid costume and possessing catlike ears and a tail which—watching her work—Jean perceived had to either be real or extremely good facsimiles. He was old, but still young enough to enjoy a cute girl's appearance, so he just watched in appreciation, letting her take care of it all since she seemed so eager.

She didn't seem to need to scan anything, instead just moving it all into a few bags, examining each item in turn, before going back behind the counter and swiftly typing out a total—which looked to be a bit lower even than Jean had guessed—perhaps he'd overestimated the tax or something. The register dinged when she finished entering it in. "Oh!" Her ears went up excitedly in response to the noise, and she leaned forward slightly—which definitely would've had Jean's attention if she didn't already. "Hey, your purchase qualifies for a special promotion of ours. It's um..'buy enough and get a specialty Star Candy'! Yeah!" The way she said that last part sounded like she'd either forgotten what it was called or just fabricated the promotion herself in that very moment, but she did seem perfectly ready to pull out a wrapped candy from under the counter and drop it into the least full of the big bags. "It's uh, kinda an experimental new creation of Fren's, so we'd really appreciate it if you'd try it out when you get home and let us know what you think!"

"Oh? Well, sure, miss," Jean said. How could he resist a cute face like that? Anyway, 'Fren' was presumably one of the owners or something going by the shop's name, and with prices and variety like this, he certainly hoped they'd be back next year. He handed over a card to pay for his purchase, then let her put the bags back into the cart and energetically roll it out to the car for him, even going as far as to load it all into the trunk.

"Thanks again, miss ah..?"

"Kora!" She said eagerly, nodding. "Remember to try the Star, sir!"

"'Course."

One grocery trip later, Jean got home. Everything came inside at a frustratingly slow pace, but it was nothing he wasn't used to, and soon enough it was all put away; the big new bags of candy now occupied the same table as all his earlier purchases, all awaiting final preparation a bit later into the month to be given out for Halloween. Then he finally remembered he was supposed to be trying something from one of those bags, and dug around for a bit until he finally found it, pulling it out to examine it a bit more closely.

While he understood the appeal of candy more than well enough to fulfill the tastes of the neighborhood kids, Jean had quite a mature palate these days, and his health wouldn't tolerate eating too much candy anyway. But surely trying this one piece in appreciation of those excellent prices and service wouldn't hurt. Anyway, on closer inspection this seemed to be one of those high-priced "specialty" candies he'd seen on display, judging by the highly decorated, branded packaging applied to just the single piece. It was artfully done, and almost a shame to unwrap it—but unwrap it he did. The inside of the wrapper had a phone number written on it in pen in one place, which he took mental note of, presuming it to be what he should call to give feedback on the treat.

The artfulness of the treat extended beyond its wrapping to even its physical form—impressive considering the fact that most people were liable to pop the thing in their mouths before they got a chance to appreciate it with their eyes. It was a dark-shaded chewy, gummy sort of candy in the shape of a five-pointed star (true to its name); mostly a near-black with one of the arms of the star along with the same-facing side of the two neighboring arms brightening through a dark purple to a pinkish shade right at the tip. The center was engraved with "Fren" in signature-type cursive, and turning it over Jean was slightly surprised to find the opposite side signed "Kora" in the same way. Clearly the girl who'd checked him out was more than just a temporary counter worker; she was evidently half of some sort of partnership involved in both owning the store and producing the candy itself.

Well now, that was something. Given the slightly suspicious way she'd announced the 'special' to him, Jean had the impression now that he'd somehow caught a co-owner's eye enough for her to want him to sample a new product for them. Maybe it was because of how much he'd bought, but in that case he had to hope they weren't under the impression it was all for himself. Hopefully, as well, they wouldn't be too disappointed if the treat didn't satisfy his personal tastes too much. But—either way, he'd agreed to try it, and certainly wanted to express his appreciation in this small way, so he popped the sugary little star in his mouth to see just what it was like.

Before taking a bite, he made a point to play it around on his tongue a bit; even if his feedback wasn't particularly helpful, Jean wanted to be sure he gave the best he could. The flavor was surprisingly complex, a sort of mixture of slight sweetness and subtle sourness that somehow made him feel intrigued and curious to try more. Finally biting in and beginning to chew seemed to amplify the subtle flavors into something steadily increasing in intensity, yet always in a strange sort of balance that Jean found unbelievably pleasant and delicious.

"Hmm~Mmm." He stood up straighter, letting go of his cane without really thinking about it, and leaned back and forth without feeling at all at risk of falling over. Then he found himself stretching, leaning back slightly with his arms raised to the air and letting out a low, grunting "Mm-mnh" as his muscles from head to toe all seemed to easily loosen up and relax from the gesture, as though it had come right after an unusually effective massage. Afterward the candy's flavor seemed to ramp up its intensity more—both the sour and the sweet—beyond what he would've expected to enjoy before, but the contrast and balance between the two flavors seemed to serve to make them more appealing instead. How did they manage to concoct something like this to continue changing its flavor, Jean wondered, the intrigue from before turning to a level eager curiosity he'd thought himself incapable of for at least the past couple of decades.

"Mmh?" He looked around, realizing that thinking about the candy so much had made him oblivious to the world around him for a moment at the same time as something unusual which he couldn't quite immediately place caught his attention. Jean examined the kitchen for just a moment longer before realizing what it was: Everything just looked a bit...taller than he was used to. In fact, it seemed like it was all very slowly climbing upward still, apparently unsatisfied with the small amount it had grown so far. "Whmmgh?" Mouth still full of candy, he looked around and down in amazement before arriving at the conclusion that the floor was getting closer to him—so the room wasn't actually growing, but instead he was doing the opposite!

"Hummh!?" Jean's teeth audibly smacked with the candy between them as he looked, mouth slightly agape, back and forth again; in fact the shrinking was getting faster! But it didn't feel bad at all; instead he felt rather good. Looking down once again, he saw his that clothes were looser around him than usual, but also that the skin of his arms and hands looked softer and distinctly more youthful than they had before, and the hair on them was thinner and shorter, too. Just then, finding his smaller lower body insufficient to hold them up, his pants and underwear all slid down to the floor, exposing legs which were undergoing much the same transition as his arms.

"Wha~a's..huh?" he mumbled, not willing to open his mouth wide enough to risk losing any of the delicious treat he was still chewing, and got to hear his voice crack oddly, then come out sounding a bit different—a bit higher in pitch and definitely younger-sounding than before. Then Jean felt something tickling his forehead, cheeks and the back of his neck, and his hand reached up to find soft, increasingly long locks where a balding head had been before. Some of them trailed to his eyes, displaying a pure, nearly-black brown instead of the bright gray he was used to, and at the same time his fingers brushed across his cheek and found it soft and smooth, the body hair utterly gone from its surface.

"Mm~mmh..?" His voice changed more as he tried to think through what was happening, but found the now unbelievably pleasant flavor of the candy he was chewing to be a bit of a distraction. Still, he noticed that the sense of relaxed looseness he'd felt after stretching was now even more pronounced than before, and some experimental stretching and leaning found absolutely none of his body to be sore or stiff the way he was used to it being. As his head-hair trailed its way on down past his shoulders toward his belly, he looked down again to see his limbs now completely devoid of body hair just like his face, leaving their skin as soft and smooth-looking as a baby's. In addition, his arms and legs looked slimmer than before, his hands smaller and more delicate—and all were still shrinking as the floor continued to creep upward on him.

"I-I'm..?" Jean swallowed a little more of the delicious candy. "Yo~ounger..?" he mumbled, his voice continuing to rise and shift. "A~aammh..!" Then he felt another, even more unusual sensation as something pushed its way out from his lower back, sliding right down along the back of his shirt past the hem as it rapidly grew longer and longer. "Mmrr~rrh!" An almost feline noise came from his throat next as he felt his ears sharply tingle, seeming to stretch themselves eagerly upward and outward right past his hair; both sensations had been extremely bizarre, and yet he also greatly enjoyed them, as well as the way the results felt afterward.

He employed his body's newfound limberness to bend around and get a look behind him. He saw a long, slim black catlike tail twitching around back there; the feeling of air moving across its fur (and also that of his newly big, triangular ears) was bizarrely refreshing. "C-ca~at..!?" A voice not unlike a young, teenage boy came from his lips, cracking and squeaking as it changed even more. It was just like Kora's ears and tail, though perhaps different in coloration...

Jean turned forward and looked around again; the world had finally stopped getting taller, leaving him at what he'd later measure to be a good foot and a half shorter than before. But before he could wonder whether it was over, he felt a strange, distinct tingling, slipping, tugging sensation down between his legs. "Mm~mnh..mrr~rrowr..?" Another feline noise came out as his cheeks rapidly grew warm; the feeling was deeply pleasant in a way he hadn't felt in many years. And yet it was quite different from what he was used to as well, as the very parts of him which felt it rapidly became smaller and smaller, seemingly shrinking even faster in response to his enjoyment too! "Rr~rh..aa~aAAaa~ah..!" His voice changed even more, growing younger and higher still, stretching up out of the range of any male over thirteen.

His hips squirmed back and forth as his mind caught up enough to comprehend just what was happening down there—what the end result was going to be—and somehow this just seemed to make him all the more eager for it to continue! This, in turn, appeared to cause a sudden, sharp, final tug that drew an excited "MmmrrRRRRrrrRRR~RoOoOOw~!" of pleasure from his lips as his manhood melted away into its opposite; her voice ended up at a high, childlike tone which belied the very adult sort of sensations she was experiencing just now. Indeed, Jean immediately got a taste of the kind of pleasure a girl could feel, and squirmed in place a little more, her ears down on either side of her head and her tail twitching excitedly around behind her, as she felt her hips and bottom gently plump their way outward. "M~mnh, aa~aahnn~nnh..!" She heard her voice mature ever so slowly, remaining quite high in pitch but taking on a decidedly womanly tone to match this steady appearance of curves.

Then, gasping in some breaths in the wake of all that excitement, she gulped down the last of the delicious Star Candy and immediately felt a sharp, pleasant tingling all across her chest, seeming to spread from the nipples outward. "O-oh..! It's.." she muttered to herself, finally putting two and two together. Up until now she'd been far too distracted by one thing or another to even question why she was suddenly shrinking, getting younger, growing kitty ears and a tail and now becoming a woman—but now that she'd had an instant of clarity it seemed somehow obvious that the delicious treat had been responsible. There wasn't much time to ponder that, however, as the tingling was followed by the most wonderful sensation yet, the transformation approaching its end with a gentle, steady forward push of her chest.

"Aah!" Jean was startled at first by the feeling, but then quickly settled into a satisfied purr as two little bumps raised themselves up from her newly-sensitive chest, brushing against the soft material of her shirt—which itself seemed much softer than before. "Mrr~rrh.." Her ears were down and her tail twitching rapidly again as she got a second wave of girly pleasure, at the same time eagerly encouraging the little breasts to grow. So they did, expanding out bigger and bigger and making her squirm with excitement and enjoyment of her newfound sex for what felt like a nice, long time—but couldn't have really been even as much as an entire minute. Her purring climaxed at the end with a very human, very womanly "Mrr~aa~AAaaAA~aahnn..!" as the transformation completed, leaving behind an adorable, petite yet quite curvy catgirl standing there in the middle of the kitchen.

"Hff, hh~aahh.." Jean panted softly, adorably, bending forward slightly and feeling slightly unsteady on her feet after all of that excitement down there. Yet her tail seemed more than capable of keeping her balanced, swishing agilely through strands of hair that now trailed down long enough to be felt by her bare upper thighs. She opened her eyes slowly again, standing up straight and blinking once or twice around at the room like it was all just as brand new as she felt herself to be. Looking down briefly, she found that her shirt had converted itself into a long-sleeved, slightly low-cut sort of top that hung comfortably loose across her slender frame, yet not so loose that it didn't show off the lovely new assets her chest now sported. It was black with thin, bright-pink lines decorating it along with the text "meow" running upwards along the middle of the chest—in short, it was very cute on her. Plus there was a little red ribbon around her neck with a bell hanging from it, and where an old man's boxers and long pants had been on the floor there was now a little pair of boyshorts and denim short shorts under that. She ran her small, delicate hands through the absurdly long hair, which in addition to the dark brown she'd seen before had purple to bright-pink highlights running through it, in some ways not unlike the candy responsible for her new appearance. "Ye..yes..!"

"Yeah!" she shouted, a little more loudly, lifting her hands. "This is awesome! How did they—how did I—heheh, I gotta take a look in the mirror!" The new catgirl dashed to the mirror, enjoying every bit as much as her small, light-feeling body the sensation of air rushing across her new fur, her ultra-long hair billowing out behind her, and the sudden sense of energy and outright youthfulness she was experiencing. The girl she found in her bedroom's full-length mirror looked every bit as energetic, adorable and gorgeous as she felt just now, complete with a purple, star-shaped tattoo on her left cheek and eyes that glowed with a pretty, dark-purple shade. The pinkish highlights of her hair even extended to some of her ear-fur, in addition to some pure white fluff on the inside.

She took a moment to prod and brush the big, fluffy ears with her hands and found it quite an enjoyable sensation. Not only were they soft and warm between her fingers, but the ears themselves found her slim fingers running across them pleasing in a way that'd be rather difficult to describe to anyone who didn't have fur. She even found herself purring a little more in satisfaction and just plain happiness in general.

A little while later, the new girl lay her small, slender form down across her couch and called the number she'd found on the wrapper. It didn't ring long before being answered. "Hi, Fren & Ko., Frenella speaking," said a deep, mature woman's voice on the other end.

"Hi! Uh, this is.." Well, Kora hadn't really gotten her name, had she? "So, Kora asked me to test out Star Candy today?" she said instead.

"Oh, certainly." One could almost hear her nodding on the other end of the line. "How'd you like it?"

"I-it was wonderful! It tasted really great! But, but also it um—well, I dunno how else to say it but it made me younger! Like, way younger!" It was hard for her to not notice the abundant energy she felt was spilling out into her speech as well. But—it was also pretty cute, so she wasn't unhappy with it either.

"Heheh," the woman on the other end chuckled. "Sounds like a success. Any complaints?"

"Well—so it's not a complaint exactly, but it did turn me into a girl and give me uh, kitty ears. And a tail!" she said. "Iiii like them, a lot, but someone else might not?"

"Oh, I see. Yes, I may need to tweak the recipe a little. But its main effect sounds like it was perfect." Frenella seemed to pause to take some sort of notes, perhaps.

"Um! Heyy, I was wondering," the catgirl said, eager to get this question through before any goodbyes could be said.

"Yes?"

"Is it uh..the, what the candy did, is it only..temporary?"

"Well. In the sense of being reversible if you want, yes. But it won't wear off on its own if that's what you mean," Frenella said. "If you like how you are now, you'll stay that way by default."

"Oh, awesome! I mean uh, that's great," she said, feeling herself blush a little bit at the outburst. Okay, maybe she did have a little too much energy. Then again...it felt good!

"Heheheh," the woman on the other end chuckled again. "Glad we could help. Hope you have an excellent Halloween, and many more to come, ma'am."

"Oh—yeah. Definitely! You too," she said.

After that and some brief further goodbyes, Frenella hung up. The new girl was left to eagerly ponder the implications of her newfound youth and womanhood, and to begin to plan out her actions for the next few days—then the remainder of the month—and indeed, on into the rest of her greatly lengthened life! She hopped up off the couch before long, ecstatically eager to start getting those things done.

Some of the suburb's kids were suspicious to find Mr. Eaton's house so much more and better decorated during the latter half of the month. Rumors abounded that he'd moved or died, that the house had been bought or inherited by someone much younger—and further rumors placing a young, kitty-eared girl on the scene did little to quell them. But they all came anyway that Halloween, and received an even better reward for their faith than they expected.

That girl who'd been spotted was there indeed, answering the door dressed in a zombie costume which was a perfect balance of realistic-looking and adorable and introducing herself as Jenna, often with a sucker or some other treat in her own mouth. And she gave as generously as Mr. Eaton ever had and more so, seemingly having inherited his knowledge of the kids' tastes along with his house (if indeed that was what had happened). When a curious few asked her what had happened to the house's prior occupant, she just winked and said "He's still right where he's always been", or something else equally mysterious. Whatever had really happened, the house with the new girl in it remained a fixture of the neighborhood kids' Halloweens for many years thereafter, spreading the joy (and candy) to all who came.