A Statue in the Woods 6: Decoration

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It was like Ronan had been studying her entire life for this particular shopping trip. She had a store (which catered exclusively to women) picked out before Ty even had time to start her car, and apparently the place had special considerations for people with tails—something the wolf-girl hadn't even realized might be an issue. She offered to measure their chests, but Elise rebuffed this by noting 'they might not remain the same' and that she could just 'make the bras fit' anyway. The catgirl shrugged and went to have a professional measure her.

With undergarments out of the way, Elise didn't seem to have much trouble picking things out (both for herself and Ty), and Ronan threw in some of her own suggestions while excitedly dashing around seemingly the entire store to find outfits for all three of them. Ty had to have help figuring out how to put some things on, which Ronan seemed to be already an expert on.

With each outfit, Ronan just had her (or Elise) come out and do a turn-around in it, asked for an opinion, and gave feedback on what she thought and, especially, how well it fit. It took disturbingly little time for her to seemingly catch on to Ty's desire to dress more, say, 'tomboyishly', and Elise wanting much frillier, girlier things for both of them. As a result, it wasn't long before Ronan was picking out exclusively things that either Ty found she liked herself, or that she couldn't say no to on seeing Elise's reaction to her wearing them. She was basically just stuck in the changing-room area trying one thing on after another, always getting a few more added to the pile just as she came to the last of its previous contents.

Honestly, it was kind of convenient this way. Ty didn't know what she was looking for in the first place, much less where to look or how to be sure things would fit. Ronan seemed to intuit everyone's exact sizes before very long, and..she really was good at picking things out the two of them liked, by all appearances. How in the world the blond catgirl found time to try on her picks for her own outfits in between everything else was a complete mystery, but by the time Ty was getting exhausted of trying things on, and even Elise seemed just about done with this errand, Ronan had a bundle of clothes about as big as both of theirs combined.

This was going to be...somewhat of an expense, but Ty could still afford it without too many worries. However, depending on how generous her pay was, Elise seemed likely to need two or three months' worth to pay it back...if she didn't 'conveniently forget' she was supposed to be doing that or something. But then, it wasn't like Ty was going to charge her any interest.

Ty changed back into her original outfit to leave—being the kind of person who really wanted all the labels removed and the clothes fully washed before wearing them around. The other two had no such compunctions, and the fox-girl came to the checkout counter wearing a white-and-red sundress, while Ronan went with a short-skirt-camisole combo. There weren't very many people in the store to begin with, so the line to check out was conveniently near-empty. A fairly old-looking man, maybe in his sixties given his balding, grayed-out hair, checked them out—taking care of Ronan first, then the rest.

While he was scanning that second batch of items, Ronan was squinting at her receipt for some reason. "What, something more expensive than you thought?" Ty asked.
"Uh, nah. Actually, it's less..Hey, what's this 'percent-sign-EMP' thing?"

"Oh, pardon me for not explaining," the cashier said. "Since you young ladies have brought us so much business, I went on and applied my employee discount to your purchases. Ten percent off."
"Oh, sweet!" Ronan grinned big.
"That is terribly kind of you," Elise said. "You ought to be rewarded for such ample generosity."
"Awh, it's no big deal," he said. "Old feller like me doesn't get much of a chance to use it here anyhow."

Ty already had a fairly good read on the Kitsune's sense of humor. So, when she saw Elise grinning at this remark, she had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen next. Ronan was hardly paying attention to the conversation beyond 'ten percent off', and was at this point running off a short distance toward the entrance to take some selfies in her new outfit. Looking at the old man as he kept scanning outfits and sort of hummed to himself, Ty caught sight of a faint red glow outlining his body. Then she looked at the fox-girl. "Elise.."
"Ssshh." She gently placed her index finger on the wolf-girl's lips, which—besides making her hear skip a beat and her cheeks heat up a bit—made it feel like she was somehow complicit in this whole thing, and so had to stay quiet and not spoil the surprise. So Ty just turned to watch.

The first sign of something happening—other than that faint glow, which had already disappeared by now—was the old cashier's hair. Its color darkened as it spread up into the bald area, the gray shifting back into a deep brown as he soon regained a full head of hair. He seemingly failed to notice this happening, beyond reaching a hand up to scratch at the top of his head while he continued working with the other one. His hair continued to grow, fairly slowly but still visibly, while another shift started. The wrinkles and knots of his face started to tighten up and fade off bit by bit, and his beard and mustache started to shorten and thin. When he hummed to himself a little more, the age seemed to be disappearing from his voice too, leaving it sounding a bit higher and brighter.

His complexion softened, his face growing fully smooth, at about the same time as his hair trailed out to halfway down his cheeks. He now looked not a day over thirty, maybe less, as he paused to scratch his head once again—still seeming to not notice anything strange. This began the next phase of the change, as he started shrinking. "Hmm~ hmm hmm~m.." The pitch of his humming lilted even higher as his shirt steadily fell looser across his narrowing shoulders, and his pants began threatening to slip right off of his waist and hips. Soon his face's shape had rounded off a bit, completing its very feminine new look alongside the soft locks framing it on either side. "Hmm~ hmm~ hmm~mm..." His shrinking accelerated, and so too did the growth of his hair, and all the while he kept humming in an ever higher, softer, cuter voice. Before long, he was nearly as short as Elise, and just as slender, with hair down to his waist in the back.

At this point, the formerly-old man's shirt began to shrink tighter around his slim frame, its hem fluttering out and gaining some frills as it converted into a thigh-length dress. His pants gave up entirely, slipping off of his hips, but then suddenly split apart at the thighs and pulled close against them as a pair of stockings. He shuffled the last item over into its bag before looking up, seeming to jump slightly in surprise and confusion at what must have seemed a very sudden shift in perspective for him. "Uh, s-say..?" he started, and then seemed to notice the high pitch of his voice for the first time. "Erm.." His cheeks were starting to redden, and Ty had a guess that he was rapidly approaching a change of sex. "Do I, er..that is, is somethin' kinda odd..? Mmm~n.." His legs fidgeted back and forth against each other, his blush deepening.
"What ever do you mean?" Elise asked. "You seem like a normal enough young woman to me."
"Y-young woman? But I...I..." He trailed off. "Mm~nnngh..!" His hair went through a sudden spurt of growth at this point, becoming long enough for the tips of the locks to reach past the dress's skirt and touch the backs of his legs. "Aah, aa~aah...?! O-oo~oh.." This last, fairly quiet utterance came with a slight jerking of the cashier's body, an immediate further brightening of the cheeks...and was almost certainly the point at which he turned fully into a girl.

"A-ah..mm~nngh..!" She squirmed her legs back and forth a little more as curves began to come to her. The dress's skirt fluttered out, visibly widening a little in response to the growth of her hips, and at the top it was quite tight enough to show a pair of bumps steadily raising themselves up from her chest. "O-oo~h..m-my goodness...mngh...!" Her blush didn't get any better as the tiny bumps began blooming outward, forcing the top of the dress to grow a bit of space for them. "Aa~aah...hff, ffh.." It didn't take very long for them to grow to a moderate size—a perfect fit for her petite height. "A-ah..um..."

"Are you quite all right?" Elise asked at this point. "You seem somewhat distracted, but..our items have been..'scanned', yes?" she continued, the word 'scanned' sounding like it was still a little foreign to her.

"Uh—um. Yes. Tha~at's, uh," she stammered a little nervously, clearly trying with no success to make her voice sound at all 'normal'. "That's everything, ma'am. The total's right there on the screen," she said, pointing at the screen—and seeming to use a very familiar habit of her job to recover a little bit of composure.

"Uh, thanks," Ty said, going and taking care of the payment.

"Are you...are you quite sure nothin' unusual just happened?" she asked. Ty felt like the word 'unusual' was going to lose a lot of its meaning for her pretty soon.

"How do you mean?" the Kitsune asked, almost audibly grinning from ear to ear.
"W-well, I coulda sworn just a minute ago, I was..a little older?" she tried cautiously. "M-maybe not quite so..short?"
"I'd say you've been just as young and cute as you are now ever since we first got here," Elise said. Considering that she was over a century-and-a-half old, even not counting her time as a statue, Ty could see how one might interpret that as a true statement. "Thank you again for the discount~."
"Err, certainly. Anytime," the cashier girl nodded, her face wearing a slight blush still alongside an expression of near-total confusion.

"My, in that case, we may have to come here again," the fox-girl said.
"Uh, c'mon—we're done paying," Ty said, feeling like she couldn't keep this up much longer without saying something. Seeming to sense this—or maybe just deferring to her so-called 'master'—Elise nodded and followed her out.

Ronan finally looked in their general direction as they came up to her, Ty gesturing to follow. "Heeyy, where'd that cutie come from? The nice old dude have some trouble or somethin'?"
Ty just sighed. "I'll, tell you in the car, okay?"
"Okaaay..?"

After Ty told her what happened, Ronan's response was..fairly predictable. "Duuude! That's a heck of a way to thank someone for a discount!"

"I just thought it'd be entertaining," Elise said. "I used some illusions to hide it from him as long as possible so he wouldn't panic until it was too late~. After a certain point, there is no not noticing such a drastic change."
"Are you sure it's okay to just, like, leave her like that?" Ty asked.

"I'm certain she'll work it out. After all, she's quite mature and experienced for her age...which should be around nineteen or twenty now, I believe," Elise said with her usual bright, teasing grin. "Our world now has people whose job it is to make the old young again, so I'm hardly disrupting society by getting a little bit ahead of them, now am I?"

"I mean—we might get in trouble or something," the wolf-girl said. "I'm not sure if it's a crime to transform someone against their will, but it...sounds like something that probably should be?"
"A crime is only a crime if one is caught," Elise said.
"Uh. Okay, do me a huge favor, and don't test that theory," Ty said.

"As you wish, master~.

"By the way—would you like to use a new name?" Elise asked the catgirl, suddenly changing the subject. "While female, I mean. Since you were kind enough to grant my master one~."
"Uh, I dunno. I guess it wouldn't hurt, huh? Something liiiike...'Rona'?"

"I think that fits you quite well," Elise said.

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Sometimes I think that the reason a lot of transformation stories feature the "whole reality changes, nobody remembers how it was before" angle is due to the author being inexperienced and/or lazy, and so not wanting to deal with the fallout--nor even to let the reader imagine it. But I think dealing with the consequences is part of the fun. This story has us tethered to the main character's perspective, so we get shuffled away from this person quite quickly. But her life has kind of been turned upside-down all the same! And whether or not this will have further repurcussions for the "main characters" remains to be seen.

A Statue in the Woods 5: Customization

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Tyler had his car call Ronan. Or—had his car tell his phone to call him, whatever. His friend picked up in only a couple of seconds. "Heeey, Tyler! You haven't dropped Elise off somewhere yet, have you?"

"Uh, no—she's in the car with me now."
"Oh, perfect. Yo, Elise!"
"Hello there~," she said.

"Uh, so this is kinda awkward, but—I took some pics of you as a statue, and like when you were almost not a statue anymore..but I realized this morning, I never got like an actual pic of you! And, the statue pics totally blew up! But nobody believes a person came out. So, like—can you guys come over and lemme take some? Just like, one or two?"
The fox-girl tilted her head again. "I'm sorry—the pictures...exploded?"

"In popularity," Tyler said. "As in, a lot of people liked them, or at least are talking about them."

"Ooooh~. I'm quite popular, then?"
"Uhh, at least kinda?" Ronan said.
"Then I'd be happy to grant you a few pictures."

"Yeah—anyway," Tyler said, "we were gonna come over this afternoon maybe, for something else, if that's okay."
"What for?"
"Well, you know..Elise kinda needs some clothes. And..I need some clothes too, for...reasons. So..I thought you might want to go sh—"
"Dude, absolutely! Count me in!" Tyler hadn't even gotten the word 'shopping' out.

"Okay, great. We've gotta, look into getting a phone plan for her, and then we'll come over to pick you up after that?"
"Sure! I can take some pics before we leave, and maybe of some of the outfits after?"
"No objections here," Elise said.

"Uh, just to let you know though—we might look a little, different? From yesterday," Tyler said.
"Yeah? Different how?"

"Well uh..Elise shrank herself a little bit. I guess she probably could change back at will though."
"If you like~," she added.

"Aaaaand, she-can-turn-me-into-a-girl-too," he added rapidly. "One of those, uh, 'reasons' I mentioned. So there's that. See you then."

"Wait, what—" Tyler pressed the button to hang up at this point.

"Pfft—heehee," Elise giggled. "I couldn't have cut off that conversation more perfectly myself."
"It's just uh, kind of awkward to talk about, and I think it'll be way easier to explain it in person. If he really wants to know, he can call back."
"But otherwise, you'll leave him in suspense?"
"Just, like, an hour or two," he shrugged.
"You didn't mention your fluffy ears or tail, either," she pointed out.

"Again, I think that's easier to show than tell."

They went back to Tyler's house for lunch, Elise playing with her new toy throughout the entire drive. It seemed like it didn't take her very long to at least work out how to take pictures with it, and she snapped a few out the window.

Once they came inside, Elise said, "Well, master, shall I?"
Tyler needed a moment to catch up to her meaning. "Shall—? Uh..I guess so," he shrugged. No good delaying the inevitable; at least this way she wouldn't do it while he was trying to eat.

"Very well, then.." The fox-girl moved a little closer to him, looking up at him with her bright blue eyes with a happy grin on. After seeming to think about something for several seconds, she hopped up and threw her arms around him in a hug, leaning in to nuzzle his cheeks. "Mrrr~rrh..."

"Oh, uh..aa~ah..!" Initially confused by this gesture, he'd almost instinctively put his arms around her. But no sooner had the nose made contact with his face than he felt a somewhat familiar rush of tingling, and then a pressure. "M-mn~ngh...rr~rfh..!" She was rubbing his ears now too, which seemed to make the change go even faster. However, it wasn't quite the same as before. He didn't seem to be getting all that much smaller—or at least not much shorter. "A-aa~ah, oo~ooh..rrfh..!" The shift to his voice was quite different too, keeping it fairly deep even as the masculinity drained out of it. His clothes also pulled tight against him throughout this change rather than waiting until the end, the pants splitting off around the upper thighs to become a pair of tight, short shorts and, separately, some long stockings. All the same, his frame was slimming, and the (currently very excited) thing between his legs was tingling as it shrank, then tugging and slipping inward, and before long Tyler could feel himself turning back into a girl.

"Mm~nngh...!" A deep, alto tone rang out from her lips as she felt a rush of fuzzy feelings down below. Immediately, her hips began pressing their way out, and her chest sprang to life, taking only a couple of seconds to turn into a pair of breasts about the size she'd had before. "Mn~nh, mrr~rffh..!" But no part of her curves seemed content to stop where they had the night before, instead continuing to push out even bigger, making her bust practically engulf the smaller girl's chest as they remained squished together by the close hug. As she finished filling out, Tyler felt her hair tickling her shoulders and the very top of her back a bit as it grew just an inch or two longer than before. Then, within probably less than a minute of the hug, the change was done.

Elise pulled her head back enough for their noses to touch. "So? Did you enjoy?"
"U-uh, yeah.." Tyler was having to get used to her voice sounding yet another different way from before. "I seem to be kinda, taller though?"
"Among other things~," she said teasingly. "I thought I might try it on you for a little while, since I've been quite enjoying being the smaller of us. You don't mind, do you?" she said, rubbing one of the wolf-girl's ears again.
"Rr~rrfh..!" The bark came out almost as high as any the night before. "Um..n-not at all," But when she tried to talk, her voice most naturally came out in a deep tone that almost couldn't help sounding mature and..honestly, kind of sexy.
"Oh, that's right..do you mind if I take a picture as well?" Elise asked, gently slipping herself back out of the hug and taking a small hop backwards.

"N-no, that's fine.."
"Wonderful. Smile for me, master~!"

She felt kind of nervous, and wasn't quite sure what to do with her hands. Weird—Ronan had taken Tyler's picture plenty of times without him caring one bit how he looked in them. "Was uh..that okay?"
"Perfect! Now, I believe we were planning to have a lunch?"
"Y-yeah...I'll just make some sandwiches or something, since breakfast was so big."

While he had been warned once already, Tyler thought it'd be a good idea to make sure Ronan knew it wasn't two complete strangers showing up at his house. After pulling the car into the driveway, she sent him a text: At your place now, about to come to the door. Then she got out and led the way there. The door opened before she could think about whether to knock or to ring the doorbell.

"Dude! Wait, are you Tyler or Elise?"
"Uh—she's Elise," the wolf-girl said, pointing; the fox-girl helpfully waved, too.

"Dude!" he repeated, in the exact same tone of voice as before. "What a look! I'd never recognize you. And you're super hot, too!"

"Uh, thanks.." It was weird to feel herself blushing at a compliment from Ronan, but there it was.

"That bod is pretty cute on you too, Elise!" he added.

"Oh, why thank you~."

"Uh, can we come in?"
"Yeah—sure, sure! Welcome," he said, rushing to get out of the doorway for them.

"So what's with the furry parts? I mean, not that they don't look great, but—"

"I wished to help him better understand my desire for a master," Elise said. "And it worked~."
"Uh. You could put it that way, I guess."
"So—you went for the whole 'master' thing after all, then, huh? I mean—not that I blame you or nothing, but I was hoping I'd be next in line if you were gonna be stubborn about it, hahah!"

"I..guess so," Tyler said.
"Hey hey—how 'bout I call you Ty? A little better match to that look, don't you think?"
"Um.." The wolf-girl didn't realize she was nervously glancing Elise's way until the fox-girl seemingly answered for her.
"It's quite cute," she said, "I approve."

"I, uh, guess that's fine, then..."

Ronan kept on chattering while he took pictures—of Elise alone first, then her with him, then Ty, and on through every possible combination, ending with all three of them.

"Is that quite enough?" Elise asked after that. "I can certainly appreciate the desire to immortalize our beauty, but we do have other tasks to get to today."
"Yeah, yeah—sorry. We're good! But about that," he said, putting his phone away. "I was wondering—do you really need to buy clothes at all? I mean, like, what Ty's wearing right now isn't something she owned before, right?"
"It uh..my clothes kinda turned into this," the wolf-girl pointed out.

"Yeah, so—can't you just poof up anything you want? Or, like, turn random rags into something good?"
"I could make do with that, certainly," Elise nodded. "However, I sadly lack creativity when it comes to outfits. I would much rather be seen in something an artist such as yourself devised than the relatively meager options I can think of. It's even worse to consider that I've missed on on many decades' worth of advancement, so much of what I might invent would be well behind the times. Besides, when I alter clothing, it tends to maintain its original level of comfort. Something made from rags would surely remain scratchy and unpleasant, and what I can produce out of thin air is also rarely ideal for comfort."

"Ah, yeah, gotcha," Ronan nodded. "So—we heading out then?"

"Well, we aren't quite prepared yet, are we?"

"What do you mean? We forget something?" Ronan seemed to direct this question Ty's way, and she just shrugged.

"Oh, you don't know either, master? Did you not say your friend here would despise being left out?"

"Uh, yeah—so we invited him, and he's coming with us. Right?"
"That's not quite how I took what you said..hmn. I suppose this may be more of a surprise than I thought, in that case. Ronan—as much as you clearly enjoy women's fashion, wouldn't you like the opportunity to try it for yourself? I do owe you at least a small favor, after all."
"What, you mean like—turn me into a chick too?"
"If you'd like?" she offered. "Even if only for the afternoon—long enough to properly enjoy the experience with us."

Ty honestly wasn't expecting Ronan's response, especially since it came after a long, slightly astonished pause. "Dude, are you kidding?! That sounds awesome! Can you uh, make me look super cute?"

"Without a doubt."
"And and, you don't mind if I take some selfies either?"
"That is..pictures of yourself? I hardly see why that would be my business," she said.
"Great! Hook me up."
Elise directed her head-tilt in Ty's direction for this one. "Uh, he means go ahead and do it."
"Oh, I see," she nodded, and stepped a little closer to Ronan. "One 'hooking up' for you, then."

The Kitsune seemed to take a second or two to mentally prepare herself, then reached up and just sort of..gently brushed her hand through Ronan's hair a little bit. "Uh.." He was briefly confused by this gesture, but she hadn't even taken her hand back out of his hair before it suddenly began growing, easily getting half a foot longer before she'd even dropped her hand back to her side. "W-whoa!" That was, of course, just the beginning; as the still-growing locks came to frame his face and started streaming down his back, Ronan's face visibly shifted, its skin smoothing as it shrank into a softer, rounder shape. "D-duude...!" He quickly reached his hands up to rub his cheeks a bit as this happened.

"W-wah!" His hands popped back off of his face as his hair made it to waist length, and he shuddered briefly as he began to visibly, swiftly shrink. "O~ooh, m-ma~aann~nn..!" His cheeks reddened, his voice cracking and squeaking as its pitch shifted upward. Ronan's shirt tented out around his narrowing shoulders as his height rapidly diminished, his skinny build starting to look more natural on him, as well as more decidedly feminine. "Aah, aa~ah..!" All of a sudden, a big, fuzzy triangle of bright yellow fur (which perfectly matched his hair) poked its way out from the left side of his head—an animal ear of some sort—and then another from the other side. "M-mrowh!?" A confused, decidedly 'meowing' kind of sound came from his lips as he brought his hands up to touch the strange new ears; at the same time, a slender tail appeared from his back, already busily twitching and swishing its way back and forth.

Just about as Ronan's height loss came to an end, so did his hair growth, both of which seemed to have worked together to leave his golden locks streaming out all the way down to his hips. At about this point his clothes started shrinking to fit him: His jeans simply yanked nearly all of their leggings up off of some slender, smooth legs, his shirt losing its sleeves and dipping down in the front to shift into a tank top. "Aa~ah, uh, w-wha~ah..?" he mumbled in confusion as his voice settled into a high, soft tone to match his new build.

However, he didn't have much time to worry about the ears, as the shorts now hugging close to his hips were pulling awfully tight against a bulge between his legs..which was already quite a bit smaller than one might expect, and visibly shrinking still. "A-a~aah..ah, m-mewh~!" He cried out helplessly, blushing even brighter, as it flattened away, and then she started crying out as her hips gently puffed themselves out, the shorts growing only enough to stay tight against them: "Aa~aah.. o-oh, d-du~ude..!" Finally, Ronan's chest sprang to life, drawing a high gasp followed by a feline "Mm~rroo~ooOOOooo~wwh...!" out of her as it quickly became a small pair of bumps, which then pushed and stretched the tank top out as they filled out into some proper, full-size breasts. As the shift came to an end, Ronan was left as a slim, fairly curvy catgirl maybe half a foot taller than the vixen who'd changed her.

"Aa~ah..w-wow!"

"Oh maa~an, that was really extra! You made me a catgirl, too!?"

Elise had a finger on the bottom of her chin. "I hadn't necessarily intended to, but I do think it's quite a good look."
"Oh, yeah—I gotta see—hangon!" Ronan dug at the minuscule pockets of her shrunken pants and came up empty, then looked around with a very slightly panicked expression before noticing that Elise was gently pointing at a chair next to her, which now housed a small purse containing what had once been the contents of those pockets. "Oh, sweet, thanks!" She got out her phone and pointed its front at herself, basically using it as a mirror. "Aah dude, that is sooo cute! Even my face looks different. Have my eyes always been that green!?"

…They spent the next five or so minutes letting Ronan take more pictures—most of which included herself.

---

I doubt Ronan getting transformed in this part was much of a surprise to anyone.

A Statue in the Woods 4: Reintegration

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"Mnnh...nn~nn?" Waking up that morning was extremely weird for Tyler. The first thing that came to mind was how oddly high-pitched of a voice that first groan came out in, and the seeming impossibility of making any further utterances come out much lower. Next there was the awareness of hugging a pillow quite tightly, followed by the realization that the body hugging said pillow was small, soft, with curves—including breasts!—and, furthermore, sported big fuzzy ears and a huge fluffy tail. As the last of these dawned on her, Tyler finally let go of the pillow and struggled herself around the covers in the strangely large-feeling bed to finally sit up and look around. Elise was nowhere in sight; it briefly felt like the events of the night before had been some sort of dream. But then, of course, there was the fact she was currently a small wolf-girl to consider.

Elise's head poked past the bedroom doorframe. "Master? I see you're awake!"

"Uh..yeah, I guess I am." The wolf-girl got herself the rest of the way up onto her feet while Elise talked some more.

"I was up ahead of you, but you were far too adorable to disturb. And...you had quite the grip on me, besides. Fortunately, we foxes have our ways out of situations like that. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to make you some breakfast!"

"Oh—you're cooking something?" Without even really thinking about it, Tyler tilted her head upward slightly to sniff the air. And, indeed, there was the delicious scent of bacon cooking—among other things. Her nose was decidedly more sensitive than before.

"Indeed!" The Kitsune hurried closer, stopping a foot or so away from Tyler. "It only seemed appropriate to repay your hospitality, after all."
"Well, uh, thanks I guess. We need to—ugh." The wolf-girl found herself craning her head upward to not just be talking to Elise's enormous chest. "Can you..being this much shorter than you is getting kinda annoying, you know?"

"Oh? Then for my master, I certainly can~!" Suddenly, right before Tyler's eyes, Elise shrank. She grew shorter and smaller in every way, her breasts seeming to rapidly deflate to something a little smaller than the wolf-girl's own pair. Even her muscle tone faded off as she quickly slid down to only barely above Tyler's present height, leaving her a petite, cute fox-girl—although her hips were still something to behold. "How's this?" she asked with her usual bright, teasing grin.

"Uh—th-that's..fine," Tyler said. She obviously hadn't meant to ask for that, but her heart skipped a beat from finding herself face-to-face with Elise's suddenly-smaller form. Her cheeks got hot all over again, and she even felt a tiny bit of fuzziness between her legs...was she thinking about hugging and petting this new form already!?

"Well, if it meets your approval, that's all I need~. Now, I need to get back to work on breakfast, so I'll leave you to freshen up, master~." With that, a puff of red smoke replaced Elise as she—apparently—simply teleported herself back to the kitchen.

Tyler's life was going to be very weird from now on, she realized. This probably should've been obvious much sooner—maybe from the moment a giant fox that was formerly a statue started talking—but somehow this was the point where it really hit her. Well, that was no reason not to wake herself up with a shower like usual...although she was going to need perhaps less soap, but also a lot more shampoo. She realized after tossing the girly clothes aside and getting clean that none of her clothes were going to fit her very well, but decided that a very loose-fitting t-shirt over some boxers she needed to hold onto while she walked were fine for just getting around the house...for now, at least.

Elise had made quite the breakfast; the only complaint Tyler could think of was just how many of her groceries this was using up at once. "Wow...I guess you didn't have any trouble using the appliances." The fox-girl only needed tilt her head ever-so-slightly for her to further explain: "Like, the oven and stuff?"
"Heating food to cook it is centuries older than I am. Those of the demon realm use ovens heated by their rivers of lava," Elise said.

"There's a 'demon realm'?"
"Oh, certainly—where else would all the demons come from? I've some old friends from there who are likely still around, so, I could take you along for a visit sometime if you'd like."

"I dunno about that..rivers of lava sound kinda, dangerous?"
"They're hardly worth mentioning compared to the lesser demons. But I'd protect you, so you'd have nothing to worry about."

"Um..let's put that aside for now, okay? Before you uh...shrank, I was gonna say we need to get in contact with the rejuvenation people. I was gonna look up their number last night, but I got uh.." Tyler felt her face flush again. "Distracted. You know."
"Kitsune are well-renowned for our ability to distract~," she said teasingly.

"Anyway, hopefully we can set up some kinda appointment or something."

"Thank you—that was delicious. I, need to have a smaller breakfast most mornings, you know, but.."
"I understand completely," Elise nodded. "I couldn't resist a chance to show off for the first one."

"I guess I can clean up the dishes later..." Tyler headed back to her room to get her phone, the Kitsune following her. She brought it up in front of her, then paused.
"Is something the matter?"
"Uh...just...I'll probably need to identify myself to these people at some point? I guess they'll know magic is a thing, but they might still find it a little weird to hear...this voice coming out for someone named 'Tyler'."
"You could just call yourself something else?" she suggested.
"Uh, no—what I mean is, they might have access to records of who I am, that say I'm a guy?"

"So, you want me to disguise your voice, or make you male again?"
"Um.." It was genuinely tempting to just pick the former...but this call was to set up a meeting, and Tyler didn't want that to be complicated by the Kitsune casting an illusion over her entire body. "Just turn me back, please. For now."
"Very well~."

Elise reached across and gently patted the top of Tyler's head. She felt a slight rush of excitement from this touch first, before realizing that her body was starting to stretch out and press in in different places: Her curves flattened, her frame squared out, and her height grew. It was about as strange a feeling as turning into a girl, but the whole process seemed to go much faster. "A~aah..aah!" Her voice audibly deepened during the change, and then a low "Rr-rrfh!" came out in Tyler's original voice as she turned back into a boy. His build was back to exactly as it had been before last night, meaning his clothes fit normally again, too. However, the wolfish parts had stuck around, and Tyler's hair was no different either—still just as long and just as white. Likewise, his eyes hadn't changed back.

He looked around, prodding at his tail for a second and noticing that Elise's smaller form looked very cute from up here. "Uh...I guess this works," he said. The fox-girl's head was tilted just slightly, but she didn't say anything while he got his phone, searched around for the right number, and called it.

A high, chipper female voice rang out on the other end of the line: "Rejuvenation service, would you like to make an appointment?"
"Uh—hey. Maybe. I have kind of a, weird situation here," he started. "We, weren't really sure exactly who to call, but it's very much magic-related, so.."
"Indeed? Well then, maybe I can point you in the right direction, sir~."

"Right. So, yesterday..."

He went through a brief account of accidentally unsealing a Kitsune and then finding out she'd been stuck that way for at least seven decades.

"...and we were kinda hoping you might, at least, know of someone who could help her get caught up with modern society and stuff? Like, get an ID at least?"

"One of our divisions should be able to help you out with that. Now, I'll need names, and a general location so I can figure out who to set you up with. Just what zip code you're in is enough."

Once she had that, she said: "Ah..hmm...yyyyeeeessss...aha! You're in luck. One of our people shooouuld have an opening later this morning for you."

"Okay, that's great."

Their appointment was in slightly under an hour, and (a quick map search found) not too far from Tyler's house. With that done, he set the phone down. "I guess we can head out about half an hour from now."
"All right," she nodded.

"So, uh..you left this stuff," he said, prodding one of his own ears. "I guess you, like it that much?"
"I certainly do adore that fur~. But I did try to change you entirely back to how you were before. Those parts simply didn't take," she said with a slight shrug. "I could try again if you'd like."
"That's okay..um." Elise was looking up at him this entire time with a very..expectant sort of expression. He didn't need a lot of brainpower to guess what she wanted, and tried reaching down and gently rubbing her ears between his fingers.
"Mrrr~rrh..." The fox-girl's pleased churring and big smile. Then she practically pounced on him, tossing her arms around him in a hug high enough up for their faces to be in front of each other. "I'm exceedingly happy to have a master who knows my needs," she said, her smile turning a little more teasing but the slight blush on her cheeks reddening as he near-unconsciously returned the hug.

"Y-you know we can't play around for very long," he said.
"I know. But there is one little thing I want." With no further warning, Elise leaned in and pecked his lips. She only pulled back an inch or two to have room to say: "This shouldn't take too long, hmn?" Her ears were lowered a little bit as she expressed this request, which of course meant...
"Uh, I g-guess not.."

"Wonderful~," she said, and went in for a much longer and more passionate kiss. Tyler couldn't help reciprocating it, either, leaving both of them somewhat breathless for a moment afterward.

"Um..I-I did say I'd clean up the kitchen," he said once he started to catch his breath, gently rubbing one of her ears while keeping the other arm around her.
"Mrr~rrh..very well. Don't want to spoil things by rushing them along anyway." She let go and gracefully hopped back down to her feet, then scurried out of the bedroom. Tyler took a moment to actually put on some pants before continuing to the kitchen after her.

Later, he drove them out to the address—a nondescript-seeming office building—and they followed the directions Tyler had gotten over the phone: Elevator to the third floor, take a left into a hallway and the third door on the right. He knocked on the door and waited a moment before a male voice inside said, "Come in."

Their host, sitting behind a wide desk, seemed to be another Kitsune. His hair was a brownish shade of almost-white, with most of his fur being likewise—a much darker brown occupying some patches of his inner ears and the tip of his sole visible tail. He was wearing a suit and some square-shaped glasses that made his eye color difficult to discern. "Hello there—you must be Tyler and..Elise, was it? Take a seat," he offered, gesturing to two chairs that seemed a little hastily positioned on the opposite side of the desk from him.

Elise hurried ahead of Tyler to sit in the chair he started heading toward so he'd have to go to the other one, then seemed to change her mind just as he was almost to that one and actually sit there instead. The man behind the desk, seeming to completely ignore this whole dance, said, "So, my name's Renard. I've been given the brief on your situation, and just need to know a few details before we get things sorted for you."
"I'm a little surprised to see a fellow fox working with the former veilkeepers," Elise said.
He shrugged. "They aren't keeping the veil anymore, and besides—I'm just an accountant. But I have a guess that someone thought it'd be good to have another trickster examine the situation. Which brings me to the first thing..."

"I don't want to be rude, but before committing any resources, we need certainty that the story you told over the phone is actually true. Do you have proof?"

"Well, I was there to see it, plus a friend of mine named Ronan," Tyler said. "I, could get you his number? Oh, actually—he took pictures of her as a statue...since we didn't know it was a person at the time. And the last one might actually show when the curse started being lifted or whatever?"

Renard took a second to adjust his glasses. How was he keeping them straight in the first place, with those giant ears waving around constantly? "That should be adequate. We'll verify those claims later, of course, but I don't want to waste anyone's time doing it now. Next..miss Elise. Where are you from?"

"I once resided in the woods I was sealed in," she said, "and still hold some power over them yet. Perhaps..half an hour's drive from here?"
"Helpful, but not what I meant. When and where were you actually born?"

"Ah. I hail originally from Nippon..or, whatever it's called these days," she said. "That would have been...hmn...perhaps two centuries or more ago, now? You'll forgive me if I don't know the precise year. But I stowed away on a boat a very long time ago, in search of someplace more exciting. This, won't make things difficult for me, will it?"

"Naaah, you prolly don't have any ID there either. We'll just register you as a US citizen if you're planning to stick around for a while, and, you can figure out a passport later if you ever want to visit Japan. I guarantee the country's changed a lot since what you'd remember, even if you went there right before the whole 'holy war' mess."

"Interesting..." The fox-girl had leaned forward slightly, her tail weaving back and forth through the air. It seemed like a trip to Japan might be in Tyler's future.

"Anyway, unless you're planning to either go back to living in the wild, or mooch off of the guy who freed you—"
"Er, 'mooch'?"
"You know, be a freeloader?" Renard tried, but she didn't seem to know that word either.
"He means, like living in my house and eating my food without paying for any of it," Tyler explained.
"Ah. No—I'm no parasite. It would be a deplorable way to show my gratitude."
Renard just nodded. "Yeah—so, in that case, you'd need some kinda job. We're, uh, not actually a job agency or anything, but...you feel pretty powerful. How good are you at transformation magic?"
"I've always had something of a talent for it," she said with a hint of pride.

"Well—you know, our Rejuvenation service involves transforming people. We don't actually need someone like you for the main work, since it's done using Azoth's power, but occasionally there are complaints about the details of the resulting appearance. Like, old women turning into young men by accident, when they wanted to maintain their original sex. You could probably fix that kinda thing, right?"
"Easily enough. But..'Azoth'? That isn't a kind of power I'm familiar with," Elise said.

"I guess your 'rescuer' hadn't mentioned it yet?" Renard said, looking Tyler's way. When he shrugged, the Kitsune continued: "We got a new deity while you were out. Azoth, or Zotha, or Zeke or...whatever. Big part of why the veil was lifted, as far as I understand." He leaned back in his chair a bit, putting his hands behind his head. "Oooh man, even if nothing else checked out—that look of surprise on your face is pret-ty believable. The other gods weren't expecting it either, I think."

"Anyway—" he sat up again. "So you could work for us, doing that. Few times a week, go some place to meet people and correct their looks. Pay's decent enough, to get you started. No commitment or anything—this is a 'starter job' while you get used to the modern world, 'till you find something else you want to do more. Sound alright?"

"It seems like it could be fun," she said, grinning slightly.
"Yeeeaaah...have your fun, but just don't get us sued."
"In trouble," Tyler translated immediately for her. "Don't make their customers angry."
"I can exercise restraint," Elise insisted.

"Ookay then. Next thing, we need an address to mail a bunch of paperwork to. I'm assuming your woods don't have a mailbox." The fox-girl shook her head. "Then, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess you're staying with him at the moment?" She nodded. "You mind if I mail the stuff there, then? We could set you up with an apartment—uh, a place of your own to stay in—in like a month once you're starting to get paid."

"Oh, but I'm very much enjoying staying with Tyler," she said.

"Uh-huh..is that okay with you?" he asked Tyler directly.
"Um..yeah. That's fine. I've, got a guest room," he said (not that she'd used it yet). Renard seemed about to say something else, but he probably caught something in Tyler's or Elise's expression that hinted at..how things had been between them since last night, so he closed his mouth again and shrugged.
"Lemme get your address, then. Stuff should be there in a day or two."

After getting the address, Renard picked up a pen and twirled it in his fingers for a moment, seeming to mentally go through a list. "ID, housing, job...I guess that's about it," he said after a moment.
"Oh? But isn't everyone in this modern world supposed to have a phone?" Elise asked.
"It's true, tragically few people can live without them," Renard said. "But we're definitely not a cell carrier. Hmm..some of them are pretty generous about giving out phones when you sign up, and the bill won't come until after your first paycheck does. So—that shouldn't be too tough for you. And I'm sure you're wily enough to see through any bad deals."

"Uh, we can go look into that after lunch," Tyler offered her, and she smiled again.
"Very well~. Thank you, Renard," she said, hopping to her feet to offer him a hand. "I'd give you a tail under the table if I thought I could get away with it."

"That's okay—I'm pretty stubborn about how I wanna earn mine," he said, shaking her hand. "Heck, I'll give you my number. You have troubles your, ah, benefactor can't help you with, maybe another fox can." He handed her a business card from one of his desk drawers.

Back out in the parking lot, Elise said, "What shall we do now?"
"I guess—go shopping for phones? Then get lunch..."
"Would you like to be a woman again?" she asked, about as casually as asking someone if they wanted the last of her fries.
"Uh—maybe. But like, not—getting transformed out in public here," he said.

"I didn't necessarily mean right away~. But, it would be nice to expand my wardrobe a bit, and I thought you might like to join me in that endeavor."

"Oh. I've..definitely never shopped for clothes as a girl before. I guess it'd be something different..wait. You don't actually have any money to buy them with yet, though."
"You could lend it to me?" she said, lowering her ears in the usual way. "I promise I'd pay you back, master! I'd even pay for your wardrobe, for the benefit of seeing your beautiful form in it."
"O-okay, okay! That's fine, I guess we can do that after the phone. There's just one thing, though."
"Which is..?"

"Well—if Ronan hears we went shopping for clothes, especially girl clothes, without him...he'd be pretty upset. So, we're gonna have to invite him along."
"I see...well then, the more the merrier~! I do owe him a favor or two, after all," she said, smiling. Tyler had the slight impression that she'd inferred something from that which he hadn't necessarily meant to imply, but decided to just let it go and get in the car for now. They had a lot to do today, after all, and he kind of needed to get it all done to have time to do his job tomorrow.

---

Here's that advantage of generated images I was talking about back in part 1: It's relatively easy to get multiple "versions" of the same character, with some recognizable features but possibly completely different body shapes. Given Elise's self-professed talent for transformation magic, it only makes sense that she'd be able to mess around with such details practically at will. However, that might raise the question of how her attempt to shift Tyler's ears and tail back to normal could possibly "not take".

And as always, I do enjoy inserting cameos from other stories; Ren here was introduced in Midas Journal and also a connected caption. It does force me to commit to where certain characters "are" at various times, which could be a lot to keep track of if I ever decide I want them for something else around the same time period.

A Statue in the Woods 3: Demonstration

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After a relatively uneventful supper (although they did have to work to keep Elise from ordering the most expensive item on the menu), Ronan dropped his passengers off, and Tyler led the way to his front door. Elise glanced around at her surroundings, taking in the look of an ordinary, modern suburb with keen interest. He held the door open and gestured for her to go past him, which she did with a very pleased smile.

"So..yeah. This is where I live. I've got a guest bedroom, so, I guess you can sleep there tonight," he said.

"Awwh, but it's far too early to sleep yet. I've been 'asleep' in stone for over half a century!" Elise said. "Besides, you promised to let me play some of your 'video games'," she said, only sounding a little bit like the new term felt weird on her tongue.

Tyler didn't recall ever 'promising', or at least using that word, but he had more or less agreed, so... "Yeah, yeah...here. I'll show you some of the basics, I guess."

He chose a console game which he'd beaten a few times already—figuring that, given the opportunity, the Kitsune would at some point ruin his saves if he appeared to even remotely care about them. "...You're playing as that guy with the sword. When you move the analog stick, he goes the way you're pointing. This button makes him swing the sword, and this is the pause button.."
"He can grow paws?"
"Uh, no..this opens a menu where you can change what weapons and armor he has on and stuff."

"Do you have any games where he can?"
"Uh—there's an earlier game in the series where he...I mean, actually I think it's one of his ancestors, is like a werewolf or something? I thought this might be something better to start with, since it's not all that complicated."

"Oh, very well..."

Elise was an extremely fast learner once he had the basics explained. She took all of ten minutes to find a way to abuse the game's physics system and have the main character flying through the air at ludicrous speed—although making a safe landing proved to be much more difficult. She laughed uproariously at the results; actually, both of them did. Even though she kept dying and made no actual progress thanks to this, it was fun.

For his job, Tyler spent a lot of time playing games on his own, meticulously analyzing their strengths and faults down to the finest detail. Sometimes he just couldn't play one to relax, no matter how much he wanted to. This game, he'd thought himself so tired of and bored with that he'd never smile again from even looking at it. It hadn't been all that long since he'd played a game with someone else—Ronan being only one of his frequent visitors—but it was usually with people just as used to games, and maybe almost as jaded with them, as he was. So it was very different to, more or less, vicariously experience something like this for the first time alongside her. He'd planned on going off and taking care of some work while she played around, but even after she asked to try another game, and then a third one, he wound up near-exclusively hanging out with Elise well into the night.

After a particularly powerful yawn, Tyler got up. "Uh, look, you can keep playing if you want, but I've gotta go to sleep."
"Oh, that's all right. I was starting to get weary myself," Elise said. "Are you certain I can't stay here longer? I'd really like to play more of these games with you." She was doing that thing again...where her ears were low and her eyes practically sparkling.

"We don't have to both live here for that," Tyler said. "And, it'd be kind of weird for a girl to just..live at a guy's house for a long time."

"Is that no longer normal for a husband and wife?" she asked faux-innocently.
Tyler sighed. "You know what I mean,"

"It would be quite normal for a master and pet to live together," Elise insisted, standing up herself.

"We're not that, either. Look—I have a pretty good life already. And I feel like having a powerful Kitsune as a friend is cool enough as it is," he said. "I released you by a total, freak accident, so—you don't owe me that kinda thing."
"But it's what I want," she said. "In all my years, I have never wanted anyone for a master before, you know. It makes you quite special."

"To me, that whole concept is just...really weird, though."

"Hmm.." Elise frowned slightly, thinking for a moment. "You just don't understand what it means to me, I suppose."

"That's true."
"What if...I were to help you understand, then? I believe there is something I can do to demonstrate it for you." Elise's lips curled back into a bright smile at this point, which probably should've made Tyler very cautious about whatever she said next. "Will you..let me do that?"
"Uh, sure, I guess." To be fair to Tyler, he'd just spent the last few hours interacting with her like a perfectly normal person, rather than a capricious, magically-powerful trickster fox spirit. And he was a little tired.

"All right then~. Just, hold still a moment for me?" He probably should've been worried by this request in particular, but he just shrugged and stood there. So Elise reached her hands across and gently tickled his ears.

That was kind of a strange thing to do out of the blue like that, but Tyler didn't have much time to wonder why she was doing it. Almost as soon as her fingers touched his ears, they erupted in a sharp spike of tingling, running from the point of contact outward. The tingling seemed to produce more and more hair across the ears, and brought on a strange sort of stretching sensation; the hair made them more sensitive to her touch, and the stretching seemed to give them more surface to be touched, too. In a matter of twenty to thirty seconds, Tyler's ears had grown out into a pair of big triangular things covered in thick, fluffy fur, and Elise was still touching them—or more accurately by this point, petting them.

No sooner had the ears finished growing than the tingling from them seemed to flow out from their bases all across his scalp, and from there to cascade its way down his face to his neck, and continue on the rest of the way down his entire body. This sensation made him shiver slightly, and he felt a weird sensation in his mouth as the tingling got about halfway down his torso just before hearing a confused noise come from his throat. "Rrrrfh?" It was his own voice, coming out in something sort of like a canine bark. At this point he knew something weird and magical was going on, and maybe could've pulled out, but bizarrely, the feeling of the fox-girl's fingers running across his ears was really nice, and only seemed to get nicer the longer she did it.

The tingling feeling faded fairly quickly from most parts of his body after it hit them, with the exceptions being his scalp and a particular spot near the center of his lower back. The cause of the former was soon revealed as he felt Elise's hands brushing through his hair a bit to keep going at his ears—hair which shouldn't have been long enough to be an obstruction before. He could feel its strands tickling his forehead, his neck, and the upper sides of his face too. Meanwhile, the spot in his lower back tingled more and more strongly before there was a sudden pushing, stretching feeling that drew another, more startled "Rrr-ruffh!" from his mouth. Something like a brand new, very mobile and flexible limb rapidly grew out longer and longer, tingling intensely as it swiftly gained longer and thicker hairs all across it—becoming furry, just like his ears had. It waved back and forth behind him involuntarily, making him feel the rush of air across all of that sensitive fur both while it grew out and afterward—once it had attained its full size. By now, he could feel some hair falling all the way down his cheeks and the back of his neck, and just a little of it lightly touching his shoulders.

"Mm~mmh..mrr~rfh..!" Tyler felt his voice crack slightly as some more confused utterances came out, and realized he was starting to feel pretty weird. A sort of pressure was starting to build all across his body, and the fox-girl standing in front of him looked, strangely, a little taller than she had before. At this point it was very obvious that Elise was making some significant changes to his body, but she was also still petting his ears. After growing a tail, the feeling of the Kitsune's fingers rubbing his ears had gone from just feeling very nice to kind of..addictive, and it put Tyler's mind into a very happy, slightly-confused haze. Things that he normally would've objected to, or at least been concerned about, didn't seem to matter very much...she could do what she wanted with him, for now, as long as she kept doing that to his ears.

And so, Tyler's voice began to audibly change. "Rr~rfh...y-yip! Aa~aah..rrfh...!" Bit by bit it lilted higher and softer, as Elise's face rose slowly higher upward in his view, her arms needing to start reaching downward to keep going at his ears. The strange pressure was gently sculpting his face into something smaller and rounder, narrowing down his shoulders, slimming and shortening his arms and legs. Furthermore, just when he'd thought the tingling was all over, it started up again in just one spot..right between his legs. "Rr~rfh..!" His face had grown warm with a blush at some point, and he was actually feeling kind of excited down there—another good feeling on top of the haze from being pet. But the tingling made it very clear that what he had down there was, also, getting steadily smaller and smaller. Elise's smiling lips passed his straight-ahead vision, and then her chin, her neck...until finally, her enormous bosom came fully into Tyler's view. All the while he grew smaller and slimmer, and the strange, dog-like cries from his lips rose higher and higher in pitch...

"Aa~aah.." A high, cute soprano tone rang out from Tyler's throat as he felt the tingling between his legs intensify, progressing into a strange tugging, slipping sensation. He felt so small...and soft. Was he...cute? He found himself kind of wanting to be—that way, the gorgeous fox-girl would keep petting him! Maybe...she'd even let him pet her back? "Mmn~ngh..!" His heart was racing now, his face burning with a much more intense blush than before. His shirt was hanging awkwardly loose across his tiny frame, and his pants had fled his hips a while ago, but his underwear seemed, if anything, much tighter. "Rr~rrfh..y-yip..!" In fact, its leggings were gone, and it was feeling quite snug between his legs. And then, with one particularly sharp tug..it fit just right. Tyler was assaulted by a strange, fuzzy sensation down below, drawing a helplessly high, girly "Aaa~aaAAA~AAaaah..!" from..well, her lips. Because that last tug had taken away the very last thing that was remotely male about Tyler, replacing it with the complete opposite. And it felt..really nice!

"Mm~ngh..rr~rfh..!" The new girl could feel her shirt shuffling around, tightening against her slender form, and her pants suddenly crawling their way back up her legs. Or...was that her pants? They seemed awfully tight and soft. At the same time, her bottom was gently pushing its way outward, her hips and thighs growing a little wider and thicker. Her chest erupted in tingles just briefly before beginning to push outward itself, first budding into two small bumps, then blossoming out into some proper breasts. "Mnngh..rr~rfh..! Aa~aah..." All of these changes felt..awfully good, too, drawing more soft barks and other quite girly cries from her lips. She hardly noticed that Elise had let go of her ears for a moment, as her curves spread out into place, and her clothes fully shifted into a small, frilly sort of dress and a pair of tight, soft white stockings reaching up to her thighs.

"Mrr~rrfh..!" But, finally, the change came to an end. The last bit of it that Tyler felt was something fixing its way around her neck—a collar simply appearing its way into place right there. She was left to softly pant and catch her breath for a moment before the pleasant haze from all of that petting and changing finally wore off—and then she was faced with the sight of a room in her own house seeming alien and huge before her, the fox-girl who she'd nearly matched in height before seeming to tower over her like a giant—and particularly in a way that put a sharp focus on her humongous breasts!

"Wa~ah, wha..!? What did you—aah!" Tyler only moved slightly, to try to take a step back, but her tail didn't seem quite prepared for this, so it did a bad job at counterbalancing the rest of her weight. As a result, she stumbled around briefly before landing her butt onto the hassock. Well, at least now that she was sitting down, she couldn't fall over anymore. So she looked at Elise and demanded: "What was that!?"

"Y-you turned me into a tiny girl?! A dog girl?!"
"Wolf, to be precise," Elise said, sitting down on the couch nearby. At least she wouldn't have to crane her head up to face her now. "You're very fetching like that, I must say."
"Wh—that's—" Tyler stammered, feeling her blush come back as bad as ever and a fluttering in her chest at the..possibly compliment? "I-I-I didn't say you could, like, transform me!" She'd had a couple of opportunities by now to notice that her hair had turned a bright, snowy white—and her tail was much the same, and probably her ears were too. She'd find out later about her eyes brightening to a sharp, fiery red.

"You agreed to a demonstration, so I'm giving one," Elise said. "I won't mind changing you back a little later."
"Wh-what's this supposed to 'demonstrate'!?" Tyler said, gesturing down at herself.
"The reason one might wish to be a pet? You did seem to like the way I handled your ears," she said.
"Th-that was—wasn't that some magic thing you were doing?!"
"It wouldn't have worked if you didn't at least like it a little bit in the first place," the Kitsune insisted. "And since you seemed so uncomfortable living with someone of the opposite sex, I thought I might correct that for you too. So there should be no obstruction to my staying here?"
"You can literally decide what sex to be at will!"

"But I'm enjoying this form," Elise said. "Especially since you clearly like it, too~," she added, leaning up in the wolf-girl's direction.

"Wh..what's a guy supposed to say to that!? Obviously I'd be more attracted to a curvy woman than a man!"

"Even now?"

"I...I don't know! Th-this is seven different flavors of weird!"

"But amidst them, you did enjoy the feeling of me petting your ears, didn't you? Would you like me to do it again?"
"I-I..." Elise had leaned in even closer now, maybe even scooted closer to Tyler. She felt as cornered as she had when a giant, former-statue fox had just rushed up to easy striking distance of her (him at the time), but in a very different way.
"I wouldn't mind at all—if you'd be willing to reciprocate~," Elise continued. "Really, I've wanted to feel your hands on my ears like that for hours now. Or at least for you to touch just one of my tails? Please?" That was the killing blow. The fox-girl's ears had lowered; she had on once again that irresistibly cute expression. Tyler was never going to be able to say no to her when she made that face. This was...going to be quite a problem. It was especially going to be a problem because of what happened next.

"O-okay okay! F-fine..!" The wolf-girl gave in, reaching her hands across to gently run them through the Kitsune's ear-fur. It was wonderfully soft and warm, and made her feel like she'd been missing out on a feeling like that her entire life.

"Mrr~rrrrh.." And Elise responded to her touch adorably, leaning in closer while a deep churring sound echoed from her throat. Only she followed that up with suddenly reaching forward and grabbing Tyler, pulling the much smaller girl into a tight hug on top of her on the couch!

"Aack! E-Elise!"
"What, you don't like it?" It was very strange to suddenly have breasts, and the feeling of them pressing into the larger girl's much bigger, firmer pair was maybe ten times weirder still. But 'weird' and 'good' were hardly mutually exclusive.

"Y-you should at least ask before grabbing me like that!" Tyler protested, bringing her hands back down to the fox-girl's ears.
"Oh? How about before touching your ears?" The Kitsune started petting the wolf-girl's ears without asking, seeming to want an answer in actions rather than words.

"Mrr~rfh..n-no, you should ask to do that too!" Tyler said, having to muster quite a lot of willpower to interrupt her own happy barking. "D-don't stop right now though..rr~rfh.."
Elise leaned herself in closer, touching the tip of her nose right against the wolf-girl's "I won't if you don't...master~," she said, her lips curling up into a sly grin. Tyler..wasn't in much of a position to object to the strange title right now.

"Mnn~nh..rr~rfh..!" Instead, she leaned in closer, pushing her nose into Elise's cheek and nuzzling it, listening to the low churring rumbling through the bigger girl's throat. "Y-yip!" It took the Kitsune very little time to start curling her tail up across Tyler's own, starting with touching it near the base where it was at its most sensitive! And she couldn't make it stop wagging either, which kept its fur constantly brushing along the fox-girl's warm, fuzzy tail.

She thought, maybe...playing 'master' to a Kitsune 'pet' wouldn't be so bad. It was probably going to be a while before either of them actually slept at this rate, though...

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You can probably guess which game, of which series, they were playing.

A Statue in the Woods 2: Explanation

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"A cave full of crystals? There are no caves in my forest. Or—were none, at least, before. It wouldn't be impossible for one to have been dug or raised, but it doesn't seem very likely."

"I told you those pictures were faked," Tyler said.
"Wha—you don't know that! Maybe they just lied about where they were taken! You know, to like, hoard the crystals for themselves or something."
"Pfft—heeheehee," Elise giggled lightly. "I think you were just tricked. But I am quite grateful, all the same. If I ever happen to meet the prankster responsible, I must reward them appropriately..."

"You know it sounds kind of like a threat when you say that," Tyler said.

"Oh, but I meant it quite sincerely," she said. "Perhaps the way tones of voice are interpreted has changed during my time as a statue."

The Kitsune and the two formerly-lost humans had been walking along the path between the trees for a few minutes now. Elise seemed to dislike awkward silences, and had started up a more-or-less casual conversation with the two guys so smoothly that Tyler took a moment to realize it had even happened. "I guess I wouldn't know," he said. "I mean—seventy, eighty years? We weren't even around for three-quarters of that time."
"Doesn't it freak you out at all?" Ronan asked. "Like, finding out how much stuff you've missed?"
"I think it's exciting," Elise said. "I was around for twice as long as that before being petrified, and the world as I knew it changed very little during that time. Yet it seems to have changed quite rapidly while I was 'away'. Humans seem to have been busy inventing all sorts of interesting toys...and the gods finally gave in to the Ruler's demand to drop the veil, too? There must be all sorts of new things to see and do...and plenty of new opportunities besides."

"Uh, 'opportunities' for what?" Ronan asked.

She paused to turn half-around and give him a brief but searching kind of look. "Hmm..perhaps you are the naive, innocent sort. But I'm certain your friend is well-enough-aware of a fox's favorite pastime."

"She means opportunities to prank and trick people," Tyler clarified for him.

"Ooooh, yeah, that."

"We can have all sorts of fun together, master~," she continued. "That is—I hope you wouldn't try to put too tight of a leash on me, knowing the nature of my kind."
"We still haven't exactly, uh, agreed on this whole 'master' thing," Tyler said cautiously.

"I was just trying it on for size," she said with a slight shrug. "But I do think I like the sound of it. Why, don't you?"
"It's..still a little weird. You've gotta understand, among human culture, the idea of one person calling another 'master' is synonymous with being their slave most of the time, and that has like, a whole entire, super unpleasant history for us..."

Tyler trailed off at this point, because the corridor suddenly opened up, and the three of them stepped abruptly out of the woods into the golden light of the setting sun. The road they'd driven on to reach the gas station was in clear view—the station where he'd bought some of their supplies, and where Ronan's car was parked.

"And here we are!" Elise said, gesturing out with her right hand. "I believe it's your turn to guide me from here on out."

"Uh, yeah—I think the station's that way," Tyler said, pointing.
"Right," Ronan agreed. He probably had no clue, but was happy to defer to Tyler's sense of direction at this point.

"We've gotta get to our car first, and then we can drive—uh—somewhere, I guess?" Tyler explained to the fox-girl as they started off. "You..do know what a car is, right?"
"Is it something like a cart?"
"Uh—maybe, automobile?" he tried.

"Oh! I am somewhat familiar with those. I suppose they've seen some improvements compared to the ones I'm familiar with as well."

"Oh, totally!" Ronan said.

"Surely they no longer require burning up that dreadfully stinking oil to move, then?"
"Uh...we're still kinda working on that part," Tyler said. "I mean—ours, or more specifically Ronan's is electric, but the electricity still kinda comes from something like that...I think."

"It's electrified?" she said with the usual head-tilt.

"Not like 'it'll zap you', but it uses electricity to run. It's—perfectly safe," he tried.

"Pfft—I was teasing you on that one. I don't imagine humans would be adventurous enough to use a vehicle that often shocks them. Although that does give me some ideas..."

They got to the station before too long, and, thankfully, Ronan's car was still there. The Kitsune seemed to at least understand that the front passenger seat held some form of prominence, as she hurried to sit in it before either human could do much about it—pausing only to make all but one of her tails vanish from view. Tyler hadn't had his heart set on riding shotgun anyway, so he sat behind the driver. "I guess we'll get back to town first, at least?" Ronan said.
"Yeah. Maybe you can buy us supper, since this whole mess is your fault."
"Mess!? We befriended a super-powerful Kitsune...right?"

"That is hardly mutually exclusive with being a mess~," Elise said teasingly. "Mmh, now that you mention it—I am quite famished. Even discounting the time I was turned to stone, I've had nothing to eat for at least half a day."

Tyler dug around in his backpack, getting a granola bar. "Town's like half an hour away, so.." He offered it up towards her. "You want a snack?"
"Oh, certainly!" She said with a heart-melting smile—but after taking the bar from him, she held it up in front of her face and audibly sniffed the packaging like she wasn't sure whether she was supposed to eat the plastic.
"Uh—that's—you're supposed to tear that part off," Tyler tried to explain. When this just made her tilt her head, he took it back long enough to open it partway. "Like this.."
"Oh, I see~! Thank you," she said, and then went right to eating it. Considering how talkative the fox-girl had been until now, her complete silence while she rapidly devoured the snack evinced that she hadn't been exaggerating her hunger.

Guessing that she might be at least slightly thirsty after all of that, Tyler offered her a water bottle as she finished the bar. "Mmh..." She didn't have as much trouble figuring out how to open that, and took a long gulp before actually speaking. "My, you're considerate! Thank you again."

"Yeah, sure. Uh, I guess we need to figure out what to do with you at some point?"
"Hey, if people being petrified or magically sealed or something is a thing, it's gotta be a more-than-once kinda thing, right?" Ronan said.

"It isn't exceedingly common, but I'm hardly the first case," Elise agreed.
"Yeah—so, uh, maybe there's some like...non-profit or something whose job it is to deal with this stuff? Or like, the regenerator people could handle it?"

Elise, of course, didn't know what he meant by that. "The..?"

Tyler sighed. "Rejuvenation service. They're..some kinda charity group who use magic to make old people young again, or something like that. Mostly celestials, I think?"

"Hmmn." Elise appeared to think carefully about this information for a moment. "A certain world-spanning organization—its members mostly celestials—was responsible for maintaining the veil in my time. It isn't inconceivable that they might have a new occupation now that there is no veil to protect. And—I believe they also helped newly-created celestials to integrate into society."

"Uh—'created'?" Ronan asked, confused.
"Oh, yes! Are you unfamiliar with the process? Sometimes when Sol hears of a job that needs doing, he makes a brand new person to do that job." Elise explained this with a perfectly straight face, the way someone might explain the job of firemen to a grade-schooler, but Tyler still had no idea whether she was messing with them or not. "So they should surely be able to help me."

"Okay then, I guess we at least have a plan for now," Tyler concluded. "But it's getting kinda late to try to contact them today, so—I guess you can just crash at my place for tonight?"

"'Crash'?"

"He means, like, y'know, come in and stay the night? Sleep and stuff?" Ronan said helpfully.

"Ooh! You mean to invite me into your home?" Elise said, obviously delighted. "You'll make for a wonderfully kind master indeed~!"

"We still haven't—ugh." Tyler just facepalmed and shook his head. "Look, it's—just for tonight. Until we find you something more permanent. So you don't have to like, sleep on the street or in the woods or something."
"Sleeping in my forest isn't so bad~," Elise said. "But I'm very grateful for your hospitality all the same."

A short time later, she said, "Hmmn..I actually know precious little about you two. Other than your names and personalities, I suppose. What can you tell me?"
"Well, I'm a fashion designer," Ronan said, "and sometimes artist and photographer, but that's kinda more of a hobby."
"Is that why you wanted a picture with me before?"
"No, he just wanted to post about meeting a Kitsune," Tyler answered for him.
"Post...meaning, mail?"

"Uh, no—there's..."
"Awwh, man, now you've done it!" Ronan laughed. "Now you get to explain the internet to her!"

Elise, mercifully, was a very swift learner. Once Tyler had the basics out, she started drawing her own conclusions aloud—most of which were more or less correct. "And your phones are connected to it as well? I suppose that is what makes them so valuable."

"It's definitely a big part of why," Tyler said.

"Ehehee~, now I just want one even more. I don't suppose I could just borrow yours for today?"
"I literally watched you drop Ronan's phone, on purpose, just to mess with him," Tyler deadpanned. "I'm not gonna trust you with mine."
"I wouldn't dare damage something belonging to my future master," she said, her tone a kind of feigned astonishment at the suggestion.

"Maybe not, but you could do way more harm using my phone than breaking it. So—no. Maybe whoever we talk to tomorrow can get you one."

"I certainly hope so! I'd hate to miss out for very long," she said.

"So, you're an artist of various media, then," Elise concluded—returning to where the conversation had been before an explanation was needed. "What about you, Tyler?"

"I'm a game critic."
"You..criticize games?"

"You heard us mention video games once, right? They're..another, newer art form," Tyler explained. "Interactive. The people who make the game do most of the work, but the person who plays it is still, like..a participant, in a way."

"Intriguing. Like an improvisational performance at the theater? I'll have to try one of these games some time," she said.
"Hey, there's plenty of 'em at Tyler's house!" Ronan said, seeming more than happy to throw him under the bus.

"I guess you couldn't do that much harm trying a couple tonight," Tyler said with a slight shrug. Actually, it'd be great to have something to keep her busy enough to not be constantly on top of him.

"Wonderful~! I knew you'd be an excellent host," Elise said—although there was no telling what her evidence for that was. "And so, you judge works in this new art form?"
"Yeah. And write articles about them for a journal. Uh, a publication. Like a magazine."

"Is it on the internet?" she asked, seeming to immediately make the connection that it'd be a natural way to publish things.
"Yes, actually."

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I made the decision to just let this story flow more or less naturally, rather than trying to shove a transformation and/or image into every single part. I think the results are much better than if I'd done that.