To Trick a Troublemaker

When Axel looked over the table full of food in his well-hidden den, he felt an intense sense of pride. After he ran away from his stuffy parents as a teenager, he'd awoken as a kitsune and not taken long at all to earn a total of three whole tails for himself! He earned his every meal through increasingly novel and clever tricks as the people of the nearby town grew wise to the old ones, and despite how hard it was getting, he always sought to outdo himself. Whether it was disguising himself as a poor beggar or a starving stray cat, or creating a distraction so he could snatch a meal right off of someone's plate, it was always exhilarating to see just what he could accomplish!

Of course, it wasn't pride alone. There was also the happy anticipation of actually eating all that delicious food. He'd worked himself pretty hard recently, and he didn't come across such a big feast often. Those dumb food carriers from out of town had no idea what the people who'd used a computer to pay for it all even looked like; he just needed to be in the right place at the right time...and, for the hard part, make sure the real buyers weren't! But now he had meat, bread, vegetables, and—best of all—a big pie, all for himself!

With no further thought on the matter, Axel dug in. He saved the dessert for last, because he always found it was sweetest that way. He ate just as much as he wanted of everything else, stowing away what he knew he couldn't finish, but left enough room for at least half of that pie. And, finally, he went for it. It was just as delicious as it looked and smelled, and once he'd started—even though he was getting quite stuffed—he just couldn't stop until he'd finished the entire thing! At the end of it, he let out a loud burp (which nobody would hear, with how deep in the woods he was) and went to curl up on the pile of pilfered pillows in the corner of the room to sleep. He'd started yawning from maybe halfway into the pie, and felt close to a food coma by now. So the sly fox drifted off to sleep in no time at all, still dreaming of the flavor of that pie...

Axel woke up some time later, still feeling groggy and stiff. It took his sleepy mind a long moment to register that something was off, then even longer to figure out what it was: The surface he was curled up on top of wasn't right. It was rigid and flat rather than soft and lumpy, one object rather than a disorganized pile. And there was something on top of him too, which was also unusual. He slowly came to the conclusion that he was lying on a bed with covers over him, and that was very wrong. But even knowing that, he still had significant difficulty mustering the energy to get himself out of it; he still felt unbelievably sleepy. He fought the urge to go back to sleep anyway, instead uncurling himself and pulling the covers off to sit up and look around.

The bed was in a bedroom, of course. It was a small, fairly stark room featuring a dresser, a nightstand, two doors, and no windows. One of the doors was half-open with a bathroom obviously behind it—no exit through there—and the other one was closed. Axel slowly got himself to his feet, wobbling slightly as he was still strangely sleepy, and tried to concentrate on making a plan to get out of here. He stepped over to the non-bathroom door and tried it, finding it—predictably—locked.

He'd been practicing short-range teleportation recently; such a trick was difficult for someone with just three tails, but he could definitely make it to the other side of the door. Only, when he tried to summon up his power to do it..it wouldn't come. Confused, he tried again and again, even attempting some simpler tricks he knew as 'test cases', all the way down to things he'd been able to do with just one tail...but he came up dry every time. It was like his magic wasn't there at all! He was a lot less sleepy by the end of this, but no less confused—and a lot more frustrated.

"Oh my, it looks like you're awake already," a woman's voice said from the other side of the door. "I was certain you'd be out at least a few more hours after consuming an entire sleeping-potion pie."

"Wh—who are you!? What am I doing here?!"
"My name is Rillimia, and I put you in there."
"With some help," a deeper voice pitched in.

"Indeed. I also placed the seal on that room, which you have been trying in vain for the past several minutes to overpower."

Axel was starting to understand his situation. He masked his mounting fear with some faux-righteous anger. "Y-y-you can't keep me in here!"

"I'm pretty sure we can," the deeper voice replied. "You're wanted for like, a lot of crimes? I got bored reading the list."

"Wh—I was just doing what I hadta to survive!" the fox protested. "And I fooled those people fair and square. And I never cost anybody that much money anyhow!"

"All good points—save for the second one," Rillimia said. "With the approval of the authorites, I do have something other than a prison sentence in mind for you. I think perhaps a more..poetic punishment is in order."
"Wh-what's that supposed to mean?!"

"You'll find out soon enough. Hold still a moment."

"N-no way!" Axel backed away from the door and ran for the opposite wall. His foxlike ears could hear his captor muttering something that sounded kind of like a language, and kind of not; his sensitivity to magic could feel something in her voice, like there was a power behind the words themselves. He tried going all around the room to get away from that power, but once he felt it starting to press in on him, no amount of movement seemed to shake it loose. Within a moment, he found his run slowing to a walk, and then that to a standstill, his legs rebelling against his continued efforts to move. Rillimia's voice telling him to 'hold still' echoed in his mind again, and he now found it impossible to disobey that command!

"Wh-what're you..h-how..!?" Axel could feel the power pressing in on his body, attacking his tails. He usually kept two of the three hidden, and whatever 'sealing' was on this room hadn't messed with that. But now he felt them coming out into full view, and felt strangely exposed. That wasn't all; the magic affecting him began to push against one of the freshly-revealed tails, causing it to start to shrink. It wasn't just hiding itself again; it was really getting smaller!

Axel curled that tail up in front of him, grabbing it in his arms to try and keep it from getting smaller and shorter. "W-wait..! No no no..!" He could feel that it wasn't just the physical tail leaving him, but also the portion of power that he'd gained when he'd earned it. The smaller it got, the more his attempt to resist the power pushing in on his body weakened, until he felt it penetrating into him, seeping into his body—just as that tail finished vanishing away completely, leaving him with just the two.

What was that woman's power doing..!? Axel found himself shuddering violently as a sharp tingling sensation engulfed every inch of his skin. He found a sense of softness settling across his form, and when he looked down he could see the hair of his arms, legs, and chest all disappearing away, leaving his skin smooth. His hair was affected too, the slightly unkempt dark red mop growing out enough to frame his face and touch his shoulders, and at the same time brightening its color to a much more vibrant shade of red. Between trying to process these bizarre changes, he almost missed the same pressure that had lost him a tail before now working on another one.

"Aa~ah!" The kitsune's voice squeaked strangely as he brought the tail up in front of him, only to see it shrinking before his eyes. The color of its fur had changed just like his head-hair, and its shade brightened even more as it shrank smaller and shorter, the fraction of his power it represented waning along with it. While he gripped at it desperately, trying in vain to keep it from leaving him, Axel felt the pressure on his body growing even stronger, pushing it downward; his perspective sank downward and his clothes grew loose as his figure slimmed and his frame narrowed. "N-noo~oo...!" The pitch of his voice rose upward as he spoke, the maturity draining from it as his precious tail grew smaller and smaller, until it, too, finally left him.

"Aah~!" Axel jumped at a strange feeling on the base of his sole remaining tail, and quickly turned around in a panic. But there was no pressure against this tail; instead, his hair hadn't stopped growing since the rush of tingles, and its shade also hadn't stopped growing brighter. There were now some brilliant pink locks streaming all the way down his back, and that feeling had been the tips of some hairs touching his tail—whose fur now sported mostly the same color as that hair. Confused, he ran a hand down through the long, soft hair, muttering a soft "Wha~aat..?"

Even though he wasn't losing his last tail, Axel could feel his power waning even more. It was getting difficult to sense Rillimia's magic on him, even as he felt it continuing to press his body inward, making it even shorter and smaller. "Aah, aa~aah..." The pitch of his voice slid up out of masculine range as he felt a strange tingling between his legs and an accompanying warmth to his cheeks. His height finally quit sinking at this point, leaving his shirt to fall across some slender, narrow shoulders, awkwardly hanging off of one of them, and his pants and underwear to give up entirely, sliding down his smooth, slender legs to fall around his ankles on the floor.

"Wh-what're you..d-doing..aa~aah..!" The tingling progressed into a tugging, slipping sensation. "Mnnh—mrrr~rrh...!" In spite of himself, Axel found this feeling irresistibly pleasant, drawing a soft vulpine churring from his throat. His ears were lowering in submission, his tail starting to wag...but no, no! He wasn't supposed to enjoy something like this! Rillimia had to be some kind of witch, and she was cursing him...but...! "Mrrfh..aah, aa~aaAA~AAaah..!" As his manhood slipped away more and more, Axel found it more difficult to think such things. After all, this just felt so...nice, didn't it?

"M~mh—!" The Kitsune felt his manhood melting away. Why did it feel so good!? "Mm~mm~mMMMM~MMMMHhhhh...!" Mid-utterance, his sex changed, and she found herself wriggling around in place, enjoying a wave of impossibly pleasant fuzzy feelings down between her legs.

"M-mrr~rrrh...!" Her extremely high-pitched voice deepened again as she let out another vulpine churr in response to a gentle push from her hips, bottom, and thighs; her stance widened as the tops of her legs were pulled apart, and she found herself feeling soft all over. "Aa~ah, mm~mmnh..!" Her voice audibly matured toward a lower soprano or higher alto—either way a thoroughly feminine tone—as a sudden wave of sharp tingling across her chest gave way to a forward push, and a pair of very sensitive bumps raised themselves up around her nipples.

"W-wah! Mm-mm~mmnh..!" The feeling of those budding breasts brushing across her shirt alone was enough to erupt her new womanhood into more pleasant, fuzzy sensations all over again, addling her mind and making her cry out. At the same time, Axel could feel some changes coming to her clothes. Her shirt pulled itself close around her waist, shoulders, and growing chest, but spread out all the wider around her hips and legs. Her underwear climbed its way back up her legs, making her shiver slightly; its material was much softer than before, and it now pulled tight around her hips, close around the flatness between her legs, and failed to cover her upper thighs at all. Then her pants (what was left of them, anyway) snaked their way up her legs as a bunch of thin, tight cloth, wrapping itself around them from the bottom of her thighs down to all the way around her feet.

All the while, she struggled to do much of anything at all but enjoy the pleasant, girly feelings resulting from her breasts continuing to slowly push out bigger and bigger. But finally this, too, came to an end, and the kitsune let out a helpless, relieved-yet-pleased "Aa~aaahnn...!" as she felt the girlish pleasure resolving itself, coming to a satisfying end. Last of all, she felt a slight movement along the top of her head, something soft attaching itself just in front of the bases of her ears.

Axel realized that she'd closed her eyes at some point, and so now she opened them, blinking a couple of times before looking down to find herself in the form of a slight, fairly curvy woman. Furthermore, her outfit had shifted into no less than a full maid's uniform, complete with a huge frilly skirt, an equally-frilly white apron, and dark silken leggings running all the way up from her feet to past her knees. "I..wha..what'd you do to me!?" she demanded, wanting to go pound on the door—but her traitorous legs still wouldn't move.

The door opened itself anyway, revealing a red-haired woman in a decidedly witchy outfit whose height matched Axel's—but only because of how much she'd shrunk! "Isn't that obvious enough?" she answered in a smug tone of voice. "I've made a maid of you—for the time being. And an obedient one, at that."

As much as she wanted to protest some more, the kitsune was struggling with a brand new problem now; she knew that this was the person who'd introduced herself through the door as 'Rillimia' earlier, but looking at her now, her mind kept spitting out 'Master' as who she was.

"You—you—you cursed me, or something?! Master, this is cruel and unusual! I won't stand for it!" She'd been trying not to use a name or pronoun at all, but the word 'master' spilled itself out of her lips anyway. She still couldn't step away while the witch walked closer to get a close look at her, but did manage to make her right leg raise up and stomp that foot on the floor.

"I think you'll find you can't do anything but stand at the moment," Rillimia said with an infuriatingly amused grin. "Really though—this is quite temporary. Think of it as rehabilitation."
"Reha-what?!" she demanded, and then added involuntarily in an embarrassed tone of voice: "I-I don't know that word, Master."

"I just want to teach you how to function in society as something other than a thief," the witch explained patiently. "And perhaps you can repay those you've wronged a little bit along the way."

She turned away from the witch standing in front of her, huffing: "Hmph!"

"Look, I do understand that it's in a fox's nature to trick people, but you can be far less harmful about it," she continued. "If you obey me willingly, that curse won't have such a strong effect on you. And I won't abuse your obedience to do something bad either. The sooner you learn some useful skills and make up for your past deeds, the sooner I'll set you free. Deal?"

Axel's mind rang slightly at the word 'Deal', forcing her to look at the witch again; she found her extending out a hand as if to shake. "I—fine, I'll do whatever you say for a while! But only 'cause you were clever enough to trick me in the first place," she said insistently, not taking the hand or agreeing to the offered Deal.

"Good enough for now," Rillimia shrugged. "Now, what shall I call you?"
"My name's Axel," the kitsune said.

"That's not a very fitting name for a cute, obedient maid though—is it? Wouldn't you prefer to use a psuedonym—"
"I don't know that word, Master," the fox interrupted, anticipating an urge to point that out and taking advantage of the opportunity to say so in an annoyed tone.
If anything, the witch just found this amusing. "Heheh. A false name, is all I meant—to spare yourself the embarrassment once you're free and can go back to normal?"

Her ears lowered slightly. "I-I guess that'd be for the best..."

"Then, you'll be Lexy while you're a maid. Now, come with me," her Master gestured. "I'll show you around the house. And you can meet Hyra—you don't have to call her 'master', but you will obey her as you would me."
"Yes, Master," Lexy replied involuntarily. Finally her feet could move again—but only to obey this new command, as she followed Rillimia out of the little room.

"This is Hyra. Say hello."
"Hello," she said—the word coming out of her mouth before her mind even fully registered the command.

'Hyra' turned out to be the owner of the deeper voice that had spoken through the door earlier. She was a terrifyingly tall werewolf woman with deep brown hair and fur, and bright purple eyes. She spent a moment looking Lexy over before saying, "Well, aren't you just adorable?"
"Am not!" she protested, pouting and stomping.

"Pfft. You realize that just makes you even cuter, right? Whatever—I guess I'll be in charge of teaching you. Poor Rill can't cook to save her life."

"Wh—cook!? You expect me to cook?" she demanded in the witch's direction.

"Among other things," Rillimia answered with a slight shrug. "It is a maid's kind of work, isn't it? Besides, haven't you ever been curious just what goes into making the dishes you've been stealing?"
"Nope."

"Well, just imagine if you could make that stuff yourself," Hyra countered. "You could make what you wanna eat instead of only having what's around and stealable. And you could have it hot and fresh, instead of it always getting cold on the way to your place. Think about it."

Lexy wasn't entirely sure whether she really thought about it because she meant to, or because she was ordered to. But after she did, she said, "I-I guess that's not so bad..."

"But you will be making food for others as part of your punishment," the witch clarified. "Including those whose meals you've been taking."

"Whaaat!? No way!"

"You did say you'd obey me, didn't you?"

"I—hmph. F-fine, then..."

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The image used for this story was found using an image generator. If you don't recognize the witch and werewolf in this story, they're from this one. I had another thing with them half-written much closer to when that came out, but have never managed to finish it.