A Statue in the Woods 1: Petrification

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Two men were walking through a forest. One of them—Tyler—was average-looking in nearly every way: Dark hair, dark eyes, unremarkable build—neither fit nor fat. The other one, named Ronan, was slightly shorter, built skinny, with bright blond hair and emerald green eyes. Tyler was wearing moderately thick clothes and a backpack full of supplies; Ronan was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, like he was just taking a walk down the sidewalk.

They stopped, and Tyler sighed. "We're lost."
"Wha—no way! We're not loooost!" Ronan spread out his arms as he emphatically spread out the word. "We've totally been going, uh, north this entire time. So, we just need to, like—turn around, and go...south!"

"Uh-huh." He crossed his arms and glared. "And which way, exactly, is that?" They couldn't even see which direction the afternoon sunlight was coming from through the thick canopy of trees above. And he was pretty confident they'd turned around innumerable times since entering this forest, which had happened at least a few hours ago.
"Um..that way? I think?" Seeing that Tyler was unconvinced, he briefly fidgeted nervously before visibly having a realization, and getting out his phone. "A-ha! We'll just use technology to get directions outta here."
"You mean like I tried to, like, five minutes ago?" They were out of cell-tower range; GPS wasn't working. Tyler had already turned off his own phone to conserve what was left of its battery life.

"Weeelll uuhhh..but—wait! I got a—mine has a built-in compass!" Ronan announced confidently after some verbal fumbling, holding his phone out with the screen toward his friend.

"By which you mean...you installed a virus app claiming to make your phone work as a compass." Tyler shook his head.
"No, no—it totally works! Look." Turning the phone around did indeed appear to make the needle rotate. "Sooo, we just go the way this says is north."
"You mean south?"
"South! Yeah, right," he nodded.

Tyler just shook his head. There were enough supplies in his backpack to last them one night, and these woods hadn't seemed very big in the satellite picture. If they could just get going in a singular direction and not turn around again, then they'd definitely be out before they ran out. Or, at least, in range of a cell tower. It wasn't like he had any better ideas, and their entire situation was Ronan's fault to begin with, so Tyler was in the mood to make him keep trying to fix it for as long as it took for him to finally give up and beg for help.

Ronan had seen a bunch of 'totally real' pictures online of a cave with brightly-shining, supposedly-magical crystals strewn throughout. They'd all been tagged with the same location, which was somewhere in the middle of these woods, and he'd even reached out to one of the people taking the photos to get more exact directions. Tyler was pretty sure the pictures had been faked from the start, but he couldn't make him see reason, and he also couldn't let him go out into the woods to starve alone—or worse, eat some nightmarishly poisonous mushrooms or something. Someone with half of a brain needed to be with him when the trip inevitably went wrong...which it very quickly had.

They continued going "south" by Ronan's phone's reckoning for a good several minutes, and it did at least feel like they were going in a straight line. They carefully went around trees, thick brush, and other obstructions in a way that kept them more or less still on that same line after every detour. Tyler thought again on the images of these woods from the satellite picture—they really hadn't looked so thick as this, nor like they should take this long to get out of. Had he underestimated those things, or was something else weird going on? He had heard of some real places genuinely being somehow 'bigger on the inside' ever since the veil over magic was lifted, usually the residences of gods or other absurdly-powerful magic users. But then, who would ever want to make a forest bigger?

His thoughts were interrupted as Ronan pushed past some brush in front of him and suddenly stopped. "Whoooaaa!"

"What is it—" Tyler came up next to him to look. Past the brush was a sudden, complete break in the trees. It wasn't the outer edge of the forest, but a roughly circular, treeless grove, carpeted by soft grass that seemed like it could've been mowed just last week, surrounded by the woods all around like a wall. His friend had probably been impressed not by this very unnatural-seeming phenomenon, however, but rather by what sat in the middle of the clearing: An exquisitely detailed, larger-than-life stone statue of a fox. It was standing upright on its four legs, had a large tail that would be bushy if it weren't made of stone, and came up to maybe two-thirds the height of a person.

Ronan stepped farther into the clearing, spreading out his arms. "Dude, look at this! Where'd it come from? How's it so clean!? I gotta get some pics!"

"Uh, hang on—" Tyler was immediately suspicious and worried. Something as weird and incongruous as this had to be magical in some way. Maybe it was a weird trap laid by some old-school "eat your children"-type faires or something. But then, Ronan ran right up to the statue and took a bunch of pictures of it with no apparent effect. Tyler just sighed and trudged up to a bit behind him, letting him have his fun for the moment.

"Oh yeah, I wanna take a selfie with it too!" Tyler shook his head, quietly sighing again. Ronan's cheerful, carefree attitude, even in a dangerous situation like 'lost deep in the woods', was a big part of why a lot of people liked him. Whether it was a virtue or a fault tended to depend on the situation, but he had to admit it was, at least, endearing. "Hey, you wanna pose with it?"
"Uh, no thanks."
"Aww, c'mon! We might never see this thing again once we get outta here!"

"My phone's off to save batteries. You know, in case your 'compass' idea doesn't work out?"

"Well I'll take it with my phone then!"

"Okay, okay...sheesh."

He went and stood next to the statue and crossed his arms, tilting his head slightly toward the statue. Ronan took a couple of pictures, then said, "Hey, get closer! Like, lean on it or something."

"Why?"

"People aren't gonna believe you were really there if you're not touching it!"

"I don't know if I really want them to believe, to be perfectly honest."

"Come ooon...!"

"Fine, fine..." They needed to move on at some point, and just giving in seemed like the most expedient choice. So Tyler went and lightly leaned his right hand on top of the vulpine statue, somewhere toward the middle of its back. Ronan took his pictures, and Tyler started to pick his hand up off of it again when he noticed...something brushing across his fingers. Something that felt soft and bristly—an awful lot like fur.

"Uh—" Turning fully toward the statue, Tyler saw the spot he'd touched suddenly looking a lot less like stone, and a lot more like the top of an actual, living fox, complete with bright orange fur. The edges of that spot were also in motion, a stone-to-fur transition visibly spreading outward. "Ronan..!"
"What?" He was, of course, busy flicking through the pictures on his phone, and still wasn't looking up from it even now.
"Ronan, look!"

"Wha—oh! Dude, what'd you do?!"
"I didn't do anything!"
"But you touched it!"

"That was your idea, and you touched it first!" Tyler kept his eyes on the statue while he argued, quickly taking several steps backwards as he saw the effect spread toward its limbs, head, and tail. If it was coming to life, well...a normal fox might run from humans, but something this size might be willing to consider either one of them a handy snack!

"Well nothing happened when I touched it!"

"RrrrrAAAAAAAAaaaah...!" At this point, they were interrupted by a deep, bass voice making a sound somewhere between a growl and the groan of someone just waking up, feeling exceedingly stiff, and stretching hard to try to work it all out. At the same time, the now-non-statue giant fox violently shook, seeming to employ for this action every muscle it had from its nose to the tip of its tail. "Oough..." It then sat—the way a dog might sit—and looked around. It had bright orange fur everywhere except near the tip of its tail and its inner ears—which were white—but its eyes were a bright, piercing shade of blue. "Pardon me, that was most entertaining, and I'm ordinarily not one to interrupt an argument—but you've no idea how uncomfortable it is to come out of a petrification." The fox's muzzle moved in perfect time with the deep voice, and it seemed to be coming from that direction, too. So: The giant formerly-stone fox was also a talking fox, apparently. Tyler was quickly returning to his original conclusion that this was some kind of highly-dangerous magic thing.

Ronan wasn't so worried. He stepped slightly closer to the big fox. "Petrifi..you mean, like, in video games?!"

The fox's head tilted slightly. "Err..video what? Mayhaps that's a new term..."

"So, someone turned you into that statue?" Tyler said. "And you just turned back?"
The fox turned its head his way, then nodded it a couple of times, saying, "Oh, yes, that is an accurate summary of events. Hmph, shameful for an old fox to be fooled so easily."

"You know, uh, who did it exactly?"
"I have a pretty good idea, yes. Those fools didn't do much to disguise their methods. I'm certain, to them, one less 'monster' in the world for a while was worth the expensive ritual, plus the risk that one of their relatives might stumble upon me and accidentally..." He trailed off for a second, seeming to realize something.

"Ah, that's right!" Suddenly the fox stood up and moved, closing the distance between him and Tyler in maybe a quarter of a second.

"Aaack!" Tyler stumbled backwards slightly. If the huge canid had intended to pounce on him and tear his throat out, he wouldn't have even realized it was happening before the pain started. Instead, he went right back to a seated position.
"You! Yes—you're not actually associated with the so-called 'holy warriors', are you?"
"Uh..no, I don't know anybody like that."
"In that case—I owe to you my freedom! You have the gratitude of a five-tailed fox, son!"

"Five-tailed...wait, like a Kitsune?"
"Oh, but of course." The fox took a moment to preen himself with a forepaw, as though he were brushing some hair atop his head. "If you know our kind, then you must know how much power I possess."

"Hey, what about me?" Ronan asked.

He gave the blond man a brief aside glance. "Hm? Well, you didn't free me, did you?"
"But having Tyler touch you was my idea! A-and so was coming out here in the first place!"

"It's true," Tyler added quietly.

The fox's upper body moved in a way that seemed to suggest a shrug. "I suppose that is worth a small favor or two, when I get around to it. But you," he said, turning his head back toward Tyler, "I could very well take you on as a master if you'd like—for a while, at least. Until I become bored with it."

"Uh, 'master'? Like..some kinda slave thing?"
"Don't be ridiculous!" he huffed, standing up and aggressively baring his teeth. "No fox will ever be anyone's slave. But some of us do enjoy the game of behaving as a willingly obedient pet. It is usually entertaining to see what an 'ordinary' mortal will do with the power of a fox at his disposal."
"Um, okay, I dunno about that. But—do you think you could uh.."

"Yes?"
"It's just...I mean, Kitsune can shapeshift and stuff, right?"
"We are excellent at taking on all manner of appearances, indeed. In fact, I pride myself on being especially talented in that regard."

"Do you think you could..I dunno, try to look a little less threatening? I keep thinking you're gonna literally bite my head off."

"Oh, I see. Yes—I wouldn't mind giving a small demonstration—for my potential master."

As soon as he'd said that, a brilliant red glow appeared all across the fox's body, seeming to turn him into a bright silhouette against the dark backdrop of the forest behind him. He stood on his hind legs, the fur visibly thinning and shrinking from most of his appearance as he grew and reshaped into a humanoid form. The tall, fluffy ears remained unchanged, and the huge tail coming from his back seemed to split once, then each resulting tail split again, and then one of the 'copies' of the original split one more time, for a total of five visible tails. Just as the former-fox's body had taken on the proportions of a very tall human man, it suddenly shrank a few inches downward again, its frame narrowing and slimming.

Hair streamed out from the top of his head, growing longer and longer, as his waist visibly trimmed inward, his hips spread outward, and he sang out a soft "Aaa~aa~aaaahh.." that began in the original deep, male voice, but rapidly lilted higher and higher in pitch until it hit a mid-range, feminine low-soprano tone. As the glow faded, a pair of extremely short, tight shorts appeared around the now-humanoid Kitsune's hips, pulling visibly close and flat between—now—her legs. A tight, white tank top appeared around her upper body as the last of the glow faded, and then her chest suddenly, abruptly pushed out into a pair of breasts, rapidly forcing the top tighter and yanking it up off of her midriff as they filled out larger and larger, quickly becoming a huge pair of globes—easily some D cups or more. Finally, what was left was a very tall (slightly above Tyler's height), fit, curvy woman with long, brilliant-red hair. She had a bright blush on her cheeks and a big, teasing grin on her lips.

"Well?" she said. "I hope this is unthreatening enough for you. I thought of using my typical form at first, buuu~ut..."

"Uh, yes, that's fine," Tyler said quickly.

Ronan had a characteristically bigger reaction. "Dude! You can just, like, turn into a hot chick at will!?"

"'Chick'?" She tilted her head rather like she had as a fox before.

"You know, like—lady, woman, girl?"
"Oh, yes. A new meaning to an old word, I suppose?" she said, turning her head Tyler's way again to ask this.
"Uh, yeah."
"In that case—I suppose 'hot' means..attractive?"
"Right again..."

"Then—indeed. Powerful enough foxes can look however we like, after all. These are quite real~," she added, placing her hands under her impressive breasts to lift them slightly.

"Uh—anyway, mister—uh, miss..I assume you have a name?" Tyler said.
"Oh, my, I must have been so excited that I completely neglected the introductions," she said. "I hope you'll understand. You may call me Elise," she said. If her 'typical form' was male, this probably wasn't her 'real name', but that really wasn't important right now.

"Yeah, okay. I'm Tyler, he's Ronan."
"Hey!" he waved. Then, half-under his breath: "Man, no one's ever gonna believe this.."

"We have kind of a problem, and I'm sure someone as, uh, powerful as you can probably help us out with it?"
"What ever could that be, hmn?" Elise leaned in toward him a little bit while saying this, making Tyler feel threatened in an entirely different way from before. He wasn't sure he liked this any better, to be honest.

"Hey, can I take a pic with you?" Ronan, probably accidentally, interrupted them.
"A 'pic'...picture? You have one of those cameras somewhere nearby?" she asked, looking around as if expecting to locate a large piece of furniture. Tyler would've been grateful for the save if he didn't have something actually important to ask her for.

"Uh, yeah? Right here?" he said, waving the phone still in his hand.

Elise went over to examine it more closely, moving no less swiftly than she had in giant-fox form. "My...that's unbelievably compact compared to what I've seen before."

"Uh, hey, Ronan?" Tyler said. "We kinda have something more important to worry about right now!"

"Like what?"
"Like how we're still lost in the middle of a forest!" Then, seeing that he'd gotten the fox-girl's attention again with this short burst of shouting: "Uh, yeah, that's the problem I was talking about."

"Oh, I see," she said, nodding lightly. "I should have no difficulty getting you out of these woods. After all, they were my home, once." Elise reached out and gently took Ronan's phone at this point, examining the screen with an expression of intense curiosity. She turned it around in her hand, watching the whole screen turn itself around to match its orientation.

"Uh—whoa, hey—that's uh, kinda mine," Ronan said, having taken a moment to even realize she'd slipped it out of his hands.

"Is this truly a camera? How do you take pictures with it?" she asked, practically ignoring him.

Tyler sighed and walked a little closer to them. "Uh, it's actually a phone—it just has a lot of other features, including being a camera," he explained carefully. They were definitely dealing with some kind of rip-van-winkle situation, he'd realized by this point. And they didn't know exactly when she was from, but if she knew what a camera was, she probably had some clue of what a phone was. "I'm sure we can uh, get you one of your own once we get back to civilization," he suggested.

"Oh? Is that a promise from my potential master?" she asked, turning her head his way while holding the phone out kind of in Ronan's general direction, pressing its very edge between just a few of her fingers like she was dangling it in front of him.

"Well, uh, phones do cost some money..."
Elise's ears lowered slightly, like a cute dog begging for a treat. "Please?" She let go of the phone at this point, prompting Ronan to quietly yelp and practically dive at the ground to catch it. She didn't even turn to watch this happen, but Tyler had the distinct impression that she was laughing on the inside anyway.

"Uh—look, it seems like you were petrified for a while. I mean like, probably at least a few decades or something? A-and I guess since we found you in the woods and all, it'd only be responsible to help you get used to modern society anyway," Tyler suggested. "Nearly everyone has a phone, so, I'm sure that'd be uh, a normal part of that at, some point?"

"Oh, you're too kind," she said, smiling brightly. With that face she'd been making, he actually wasn't sure he could've said no to her if he'd wanted to. "I really think I will make you my master. But first, I agree—we should depart from these trees. Come with me, gentlemen..."

Elise turned in a seemingly specific direction and started walking toward the edge of the clearing, raising her right hand and gently waving it forward before dropping the arm down again to her side. As she did this, the trees in front of her parted, a gap between them appearing and widening until there was a corridor between them, brightly lit by the sun, floored by the same soft grass as the clearing and wide enough for two people to comfortably walk it side-by-side. There was something about how it happened that made this feel like an optical illusion—as if the trees had never actually moved, but rather they just hadn't noticed that the path had been there all along.

Ronan, halfway through standing up from his dive, froze in place with his mouth agape. "Duuuude!"
Elise turned her head partway backwards, just enough for one of her bright blue eyes to be barely visible from behind. "Well, are you coming?"
"Uh, yeah," Tyler nodded, going to follow her.

"Yep! Hmp—on my way!" Ronan said, grunting as he stood up and then half-running to catch up to Tyler as he came up to just a bit behind her—just out of reach of the big, fluffy tails still waving out from behind the redheaded woman's lower back.

...He kind of wanted to touch one of them. Someone with Ronan's level of self-control probably would've. But Tyler had Tyler's level of self-control, so he didn't.

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Yes, it's another new story. Well, it's not that new to me; I've been chipping away at it for some months. I didn't even wind up using the image that originally inspired it (which had black hair and yellow eyes), and it doesn't even entirely follow the outline I first drafted for it. I must admmit to some concern that you may find this story a little predictable; stories with the same overall premise are a dime a dozen. But as always, I feel like the value of art is not in its idea, but its execution. So, I hope you'll enjoy what I have for this so far.

...And yes, this will be using generated images. By part 4 or so, you'll see how this story makes use of some of their advantages.