A Statue in the Woods 9: Recreation

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"Rrrfh..."

Ty woke up hugging a pillow again. This was probably going to be a pretty regular occurrence, unless she could start waking up earlier, or learn to wake up when Elise (no doubt) teleported herself out of bed, or stop being so clingy while asleep. Then again, she didn't actually mind, especially considering the nights that preceded waking up this way. So she gently let go, pulled up and sat on the side of the bed, stretching out and yawning.

"Morning, master~!"

"Wah!" The wolf-girl toppled backwards in surprise at a voice suddenly not two feet away from her, and sat up to find Elise leaning partway down toward her, wearing shorts and a tank top again.

"Oh." She'd either teleported in or been standing there, invisibly waiting, either way with the express intent of startling Ty. "Morning. Your boobs look bigger than last night."
"Pffheheh! Why is that your first thought?!"
"I dunno, just something I noticed. It's a good look."
"Well, thank you." Elise offered out a hand, and the wolf-girl took the help hopping up out of bed, then allowed herself to be briefly spun around and pulled into a brief hug.

"Mrr~rfh. I guess for you, changing around your proportions is the same as any other girl getting a haircut. Or changing clothes."
"Indeed—though I do like to have some consistency. But I can do just the same for you, master~."

"Sure," Ty said, and gently freed herself from the embrace, taking a small step back. "I guess I'll go take a shower now..."
"All right. I'll have breakfast ready by the time you get out!"

While this breakfast wasn't as extravagant as the first one she'd made, Elise's cooking was as good as ever. "Don't feel like you have to do this every morning," Ty said. "I mean—I know how to cook too. Or, we could go out for breakfast some time."
"Ooh, I'd like that," Elise said—but this also helped the wolf-girl remember how it had gone when they'd gone to a restaurant with Ronan right after releasing her. Elise just softly giggled at the brief face Ty made in imagining a repeat of that.

"Uh—anyway. Tonight's usually board game night with the guys. And it's my turn to host, so..obviously you're invited too."
"I see. So I might get to meet some more of your friends?"
"Right. Rona'll be here too, unless some conflict comes up."

"That may be a good opportunity...considering that you awoke as an Ookami, and she gained a feline appearance without my meaning to—well, my magic may have accidentally awoken her as well."

"Does that uh..come with any special powers?" Ty asked, trying hard not to imagine the chaos that could ensue from Ronan having Elise's level of magical power.
"Not immediately, usually. Neko do have a little more talent than an ordinary human if they put in the effort to learn certain kinds of magic, and they can gain a second tail and ascend into Nekomata—whose power is comparable to that of a nine-tailed fox. But that tends to take an entire lifetime, and a great deal of wisdom; most never even come close."

Ty's ears picked up the mail truck coming and going while she was doing the dishes, so after that she went out to the box. Aside from a couple of pieces of snail-mail spam, there was a large packet from the people who were supposed to be hiring Elise. "I think this is your paperwork," she said, placing it on the table and opening it up. The kitsune watched from one side while Ty picked up the pages and sifted through them to find a quite boilerplate, mundane-seeming agreement. The only thing sort of notable was that the contract could be terminated by the employee at any time, as opposed to needing to give some kind of notice. "Looks pretty normal. There's like ten places you'll have to sign or initial."

"Thank you~." Elise took the papers, then spread them out on the table before her, leaning over them.

"I'll find you a pen...I guess you want to read the whole thing yourself?"

"Indeed. A wise fox never enters any agreement in ignorance," Elise said.

"I guess I'll get to work while you do that, then." Ty handed her a pen, and Elise set it on top of the papers before straightening up and pulling the wolf-girl into another close hug.

"You don't mind if I steal a kiss first?" she said, already starting to shift her master's form. Ty's curves flattened out as she started to get taller.

"N-not a~at all," she said, her voice quickly deepening. In a moment, the wolf-girl had turned back into a tall, strong man, and holding the cute, curvy fox-girl in his arms created an entirely different—but no less pleasant—set of feelings for him. It was no less so when she locked her lips onto his, initiating one long, passionate kiss that left both of them panting as he gently set her back down onto her feet.

"H-heehee~...You're getting very good at that, master~! I believe I'll be grateful to be sitting down for a little while," she said.

"Uh, y-yeah, good, thanks," Tyler sort of mumbled, feeling too flustered to form a meaningful sentence right now. She just giggled again in response, halfway falling onto the chair, so he headed over toward his office to try and focus on something else for a while.

Elise took at least half an hour to thoroughly read through the document, calling out to ask Tyler the meaning of a couple of terms at first before coming to one he didn't know off the top of his head—at which point he pointed out she could look them up on her phone. After mailing the signed contract back out, she went and played more of the game from their first night until lunchtime.

It was an occasional bad habit of his to stubbornly continue working on an article until it was done, pushing a meal out an hour or more past when it should really happen. Today, the Kitsune came into the room and said, "Maaasteeerr~...I'm hungry."

"Oh." Looking between her and the clock in his computer, he nodded. "Yeah...I'll make us something." So he didn't wind up having a late lunch this time.

After lunch, he tried calling Renard's number. Elise stuck around in the kitchen to listen in on the conversation, her curiosity obviously piqued. "Helloo...Renard speaking."
"Hey, this is Tyler—"
"Oh, with the rip van Kitsune?"
"Uh, yeah," he said, taking a moment to interpret that figure of speech.
"Guess I did give the number to both of you. Something wrong? Is she giving you trouble?"
"No—uh, nothing like that. It's just—well, we thought you, or youuurr...organization? Might know something about Ookami?"
"Huh. Well you're in luck, actually. I dunno about the organization overall, but I did some studying out of personal curiosity a couple years back. Wait—is it you? I caught a whiff of celestial magic when we met, but thought it was just leftovers from that curse you freed her from."

"Well—that's the thing. I, was, a normal human before..she stopped being a statue. I mean, that same day, but slightly later, she transformed me, and I guess—accidentally 'awakened' me too?"
"I see..makes sense you'd want to know, then. Lemme just, take a minute to pull up some old notes, huh? Make sure I'm not imagining what I think I remember..."

After a brief pause (during which Tyler heard the faint clicking of his keyboard's keys), Renard said, "Okay, right, right. So—Ookami have powers concentrated heavily into 'protective strength' and 'restoration'. That first one, it's not like their magic makes them super-strong all the time the way dragons are, although they can 'force' it to enhance their strength with some general magic practice. But anyway...you ever hear of people picking up, like, an entire car to get someone else out from under it? 'Miraculous' strength like that, that comes up in a time of need, is a kind of celestial magic that humans have wielded sometimes even while completely under the veil. And, Ookami are supposed to be naturals at that. If a lesser demon is threatening you or someone else, for example, you can probably banish it in one punch, without much effort."

"That's...pretty cool, I guess." Kind of hope I never need that, though.

"And, 'restoration'. It's partially what it sounds like—healing magic comes in many flavors, but the easiest and most convenient kind is the celestial one. It's doesn't require you to have a medical doctorate to do it right, 'cause it's incapable of doing something 'wrong' in the first place. But it's also more general than that. Things like fixing recently-broken objects, or reviving wilted plants, or whatever. I'm not sure how much of it comes naturally, or how much you need to actually train to use, but pretty much every Ookami I was able to dig up information about was able to do that sort of thing."

"Also sounds good."

"That's most of what I've got. Help you out some?"

"Yeah, thanks. I haven't really, felt like I could do anything new or special, but I guess I haven't been in a situation where I needed either of those things, so..."

"Hey, if you want—I know of exactly one other living Ookami. Now I've never actually met this person, but, I'm aware of him since he's one of Sol's lieutenants." Tyler sat bolt upright; Elise didn't seem at all impressed by this name-drop, but she was also probably very good at hiding her reactions in the first place. Renard just casually continued: "I could kick an email upstairs, see if something gets all the way through to my boss's boss's boss's..aah, you get the point."
"Uh, wai—hold up a minute. What does your boss have to do with the god of the sun?"
"Oh, you didn't know? Our organization is full of former veilkeepers, and Sol was always in charge of those guys. I guess technically we're a joint venture by Sol and Azoth, but he's the one who had all the administrative structure and financing in place back when this whole 'rejuvenation' thing started out. So, yeah, I dunno if it'll go anywhere, but I could send something off to just try and let that guy know another Ookami exists, and would he like to meet up."

"I guess..that's fine? If you can, maybe try to make sure he doesn't show up completely unannounced? I mean, I have no idea how intense someone who directly serves under a literal god is gonna be..."
"Yeah, good point. I'll hold off on giving contact info, maybe, act as a go-between for setting an appointment up."
"You don't mind? I mean, that's not really part of your job or anything..."
"Nah, it's fine. Should be interesting," he said. "Okay, I'll admit: I'm also hoping to get to see an Ookami's powers for myself. Maybe I can learn a thing or two."

After hanging up, Tyler said, "He wants to learn from a celestial? Can Kitsune do that kind of magic?"

Elise nodded. "We can learn any kind of magic we like. It simply takes much more effort to do things that stretch outside of our usual nature..." She paused, titling her head slightly. "Ah—I see. He said something about wanting to earn his tails a particular way. 'Magic purists' are quite rare...I'll be interested to see how far he can take that road."

Tyler went back to work for a few more hours, happy to have some articles to write to take his mind off of all of the magic stuff. Then it was time to get everything out and ready for board game night. Elise watched with interest as he started getting a bunch of snacks and junk food out, then started following him around, eventually coming so close behind him that he nearly ran into her when he turned around.

"Bwah!" He bounced several steps backwards.
"Pff—heehee!" Elise just giggled.

"Uh—do you wanna help?"
"I wouldn't mind lending some aid to my master when he's working so diligently~," she said teasingly.
"Okay then." After that, they did the rest of the preparations together, winding up with everything ready a good half-hour ahead of time. Then she offered to teach him to make rice balls, and they wound up with several of those (his were merely passable, while hers were of course perfect) for everyone to enjoy as well. Then, finally, everyone else started showing up.

There were eight of them in the group—nine counting Elise: Tyler, Ken, Clay, Al, Jay, Rona, Lucia, and Freya. Those last two were women, and Elise, of course, remembered Tyler calling the whole group "the guys" before and took the opportunity to briefly tease him about it. He tried teasing her back, asking if she was jealous, and she responded by glomping and kissing him, nearly (but not quite) knocking him over onto a table. If any of them had been unclear about the relationship between Tyler and the fox-girl, then they probably weren't anymore.

Their first game was the latest leg in a several-session-long, cooperative campaign. Elise declined joining the game formally and instead watched them with interest while reading through the rules. By about halfway through the session, she suggested a strategy to the entire group that would get them through a tricky situation they were in. Everyone celebrated when it worked, and wanted her on for the next week's game. She just smiled peacefully and said, "We'll see!", which gave Tyler a very bad feeling. But that would be a problem for next week. For now...

"Come on, this is pick-up-and-play!" Their next game was a fairly simple game that used regular playing cards, to mentally cool down from the intensity of the first one.
"Yeah, you'll figure it out in no time. Rona understood it after one hand!" Lucia said.

"Heey, what's that supposed to mean?" the catgirl protested.
"What's the rook do in chess?" she shot back immediately, twirling her bracelet with her index finger.

"Hmph." Rona just momentarily pouted at that.

"It's really not much fun to just watch," Tyler tried, and Elise nodded.

"Very well, then—I shall join your game. I'm certain you'll all be honest with me about the rules~," she said.

"Okay, great," Ken said. "So, once Jay finally finishes shuffling, he'll deal us each seven cards..."

On their fifth hand, Elise was the first one to go out. "Hm..'tis the trouble with a game largely of chance," she said, shrugging.

"Yeah, that was a bum hand, sorry," Freya said with a shrug—having been the dealer.
"Nothing to apologize for, unless you know the sleight of hand to guarantee such a thing."

"Nah, no Vegas dealers here," Al said quickly. "Anyway, we cut the deck after shuffling..."

After they went a couple of rounds with nobody else going out, Elise sat up. "I'd like to make this a little more interesting for myself...you all are aware of how powerful I am, hmn?"
"Oh, yeah—like seven tails or something, right?" Clay said.

"Five, but I do appreciate the flattery."
"You're not gonna make the cards start coming to life or something, are you?"
"Oh, no—nothing like that. I only meant—I'd like to offer the winner of this hand a small boon," she said with a grin. "To be claimed at the end of the night."

"Ah. Like turning Ronan into a catgirl," Lucia said. "Cool if you're into that..."

"Perhaps. I cannot grant every possible wish, but I'm quite good at altering appearances~," Elise said, demonstrating by growing herself half a foot taller. "The winner and I could..negotiate. That ought to keep things interesting."

"Uh, okay, sure," Ken said. "We don't do gambling here, ever, but if you want to offer a prize of your own free will, that's fine. Winner gets a fox-magic boon, I guess," he said with a shrug.

The hand went several more rounds before ending, with Al as the winner. By that time, everyone had mostly forgotten about Elise's prize, and the conversation moved immediately to picking their next game to play for the night. But Tyler didn't forget, and of course the Kitsune didn't forget either.

A few hours later, they wrapped things up, put everything away, and began filtering out. Elise disappeared in a puff of red smoke, appearing next to the front door as Al came to it. "Whoa! Uh, hi," he said.

"As I recall—you won a boon," she said. "Unless you don't intend to claim it?" She gave a slightly hurt-looking expression at that notion, although Tyler could tell this was faked.
"Oh. N-no, I..actually almoooost forgot about it. I mean, I waaaas thinking about it for a while, then I got distracted," he said, letting her lead him back away from the door. Tyler took over letting everyone else go, taking advantage of his wolfish ears to pick up on the rest of their conversation.

To Rona he said, "Hey—just so you know. Elise 'accidentally' awakened me as an Ookami, which is some kind of magic wolf-person thing. And, we're pretty sure she might have made you a Neko, hence the 'accidental' ears and tail. You may..want to look something up about that."
"Oh, really? Cool!"

"Just...if that is the case, you might be stuck being part-cat forever, I guess.."
"Oh, that's fine! I'm getting pretty used to it~," she said, bringing her tail up in front of her to run a hand along. "Mrrr~."
"Okay, well, as long as you're happy I guess."

"Yeah! I don't say this kinda thing too often but...thanks for letting me know, and you know. Being concerned enough about me to come out to those woods in the first place," she said.

"Uh—yeah, sure. Couldn't let you get lost alone."

Meanwhile, Elise was saying: "I'm pleased to hear that~. It'd be a shame not to carefully consider how to spend such a generous offer."

"Y-yeah, of course." He was probably a little afraid to insult her. Although their group had had plenty of friendly back-and-forth with her joining in, it was different being one-on-one with a magically powerful fox-girl.

"So, what is it you were imagining?" she said; Tyler could hear her predatory, trickster sort of grin in her voice at this point.

"Well, you knooow—you said you're good at changing how people look?"
"But of course~."
"Does that...I mean, is it completelyyyy, superficial, oooorr, actual anatomical changes?"
"Transformation magic is a quite thorough thing," Elise explained. "I made myself female, and I am that in every sense of the word~. Less extreme alterations—height, proportion, hair color—are all no different."

"Oh, cool. Soooo, just.."

Tyler had finished speaking with Rona at this point, so he headed to the living room where the two of them were talking, stopping in the doorway. He had a guess where this was going...but part of him really wanted to let it play out, and see what happened. Maybe being Elise's 'master' was starting to get to him...

"You knooow.." Al patted his belly. "I've carried some weeeight, pretty much my whole life. I guess I've been lazy about exercising most of the time, but I've been trying lately. So what I'm getting at is—you cooouuuld, like, just transform me to be more fit, right? Maybe have a little bit better metabolism, so I don't gain the weight back in like two weeks?"
"Oh, certainly," Elise nodded. "A couple of little things like that are no trouble at all for me~. But you understand, of course, I can't make you permanently fit. Maintaining your fitness is still up to your own efforts, even if it is a little bit easier."

"Yeah, sure. So if..that's not too much for like, a boon from juuuust, winning a card game? I'd love that."
"Hmmm~..." Elise pretended to just now remember that it was only supposed to be a small boon, and lightly tapped her index finger against her lips a few times. "Do you want this...badly enough, that you won't mind if I play a little trick or two on you along the way?" she asked.

"Iiiii..guess not? These are, uh, harmless tricks, right?"
"Oh, of course, of course! Besides, my Master's around to make sure I don't misbehave too much~," she said, gesturing Tyler's way. Al turned to look, and jumped slightly at realizing he'd been there the whole time.

"Uh, yeah, hi." He waved. "Sorry to, eavesdrop like that.."
"Nah, it's cool—this is your house and all. Iiiii dunno where we could go so you couldn't hear us with those ears anyway," Al shrugged. "Besiiiides, you've heard me complain about my weight before..."
"Yeah. So, I'll make sure Elise doesn't leave you with something you hate," he said. "Right?"
"Oh, certainly~," she said with a reassuring nod. "Then, in that case, shall I grant your boon?"
"Uh.." Al looked back and forth between the two of them a couple of times. "Yeah, sure. Please, go ahead. Do I need toooo, do anything special?"
"Just stay right there...and enjoy~," she said. Before he'd even asked the question, a familiar red glow had begun to surround his body.

"Okay...? Ah!" He jolted slightly, then shuddered. "W-whoa.." All at once, Al's complexion shifted, becoming a little paler and softer. The bits of fuzz on his cheeks and chin thinned and vanished away, followed by the hair on his arms—and probably his torso and legs too, but his clothes hid those from view. At the same time, his black hair spilled out from the top of his head, his bangs threatening to hide his eyes while the rest quickly fell down across his shoulders on the side, and a good few inches farther down his back. The glow faded off as he reached a hand up to feel the silky-looking hair, running down some locks that now framed his face. "Uh..?"

Al jolted again. "O-oh!" Then he started shrinking. "W-wha~a..?" He only took a couple of seconds to lose half a foot of height, and at the same time his frame swiftly collapsed inward, his shoulders narrowing, arms and legs slimming down, and his face growing rounder and cuter. This first bit of shrinking went so fast that his shirt seemed to hang in the air around him briefly before falling down across his smaller form, only to continue to loosen around him as it went on. "Aa~ah..aa~a~aah..aa~aah..!" His voice cracked and squeaked, its pitch rising rapidly higher, as his height sank down one jerking step at a time; each time his shirt fell back around him, it revealed a smaller belly, until about the fourth jolt when it had become completely flat. By then, the shirt's hem was down around his thighs, and his pants had given up completely, their fall to the ground revealing soft, smooth, slender legs. His face flushed increasingly red as his height slid down to Elise's level, and then past that to the shortest the fox girl had been, and then—with one final little jolt and a soft, high, almost child-sounding "AaaAAaa~ah!"—he was a few inches shorter than even that.

"Mmh—mnngh..w-wa~aah..!" Al's face was completely red now, as he squirmed there in place for a moment. Tyler guessed that his underwear had shrunk with him, as otherwise it would surely be on the floor with his pants. The shirt now tented around him began pulling itself smaller and tighter, and when the hem flew up past his hips it revealed a pair of boyshorts tightly hugging his slim upper thighs and hips and a very small bulge between his legs. "Aa~aah...!" His voice went even higher for just a second as that bulge flattened away completely, leaving Al an extremely petite girl.

"M-mnn, n-naa~ah.." Then, just as suddenly as everything else, her voice began to audibly deepen and mature again—though, obviously, toward sounding like a woman rather than a man. This came with a sudden shift to Al's eyes, as a deep gray color seemed to flow out from their pupils into their originally-brown irises like paint staining water. "A-aa~aah.." With her mouth open, Tyler could also see the growth of her canines into fangs. Then—"A-arrfh!" Al barked, as her right ear suddenly pushed out past her hair as a big triangle covered in pitch black fur. "R-rfh..!" The other ear followed suit with this second bark, and a slim, black-furred tail pushed out from her lower back, starting to wave back and forth behind her.

"Rrr, ruffh..!" Just as her shirt finished shrinking to fit her tiny torso, the new girl began to grow again. Her height shot up a half a foot or so at once, her hips and thighs spreading out a bit thicker in the process, and the now-tight top made visible the growth of a tiny pair of breasts. "Aah, aa~aah..!" Her voice continued to deepen and mature as she steadily grew taller now, and curvier too. "Rrhf..y-yip! Aa~aah..oo~oo~OOO~Oooh..!" She squirmed her legs back and forth as her breasts spread out bigger and bigger, pulling the top up off of her belly. It struggled to hold her growing bosom, and in the process seemed to need to sacrifice the material for its sleeves and short way down her neckline. Besides getting bigger and curvier, her tail grew thicker and fluffier, and Tyler began to see some muscle tone appearing on her limbs and her now-flat belly.

"M-mngh..ah, AAH, Aaa~aaah...!" Al's height pushed up past Elise's again, as her breasts expanded to what must have been at least C cups, her ears lowering and her tail wagging the whole time. "R-rrfh..a-a-ARROOOOOOOO~OOh..!" Finally, as one last little burst of growth brought her height up a few inches more, she helplessly let out a loud howl. She was..still half a head shorter than before, but was now a curvy, fit wolf-girl with a solid set of abs. During the howl, the pants she'd lost to the floor crawled their way back up her legs, splitting apart as they went; most of the leggings converted themselves into a pair of soft black thigh-highs, while the leftovers pulled up around her hips as a tight pair of jean-shorts. With that, the change finally finished.

"Aa~aah...hff, ffh..." Al panted, slowly coming down from all of the excitement. Her voice seemed to naturally come out at a very deep, mature-seeming alto—but that howl earlier had revealed a very high ceiling to her voice's range, too. She blinked a couple of times, looked down at herself and patted her bust, her belly, then her tail.

"So—what do you think of your new form?" Elise asked.
One of her hands still hovering a short way above her new breasts, Al looked up, at the fox-girl and then at Tyler. Her lips curled up into a slight smile, the remnants of a blush still on her cheek. "Hmm~mm.."

"This's not so bad..I think I could get used to this?" She reached a hand up, running it through her hair. "Am I..hot now? I feel like I must be at least an eight out of ten, right?" She directed this question at Tyler—which made some sense; he was the only male present at the moment.

"Uh, I'd say so. But—as a girl? Besides being furry now..you don't mind that part?"
"I dunnoo~oo.." She shrugged. "I definitely wouldn't have ever asked for this, but uuuh...Elise's turned you into a girl too, before, riiight? So you knoooww...what I mean?"
Tyler's cheeks heated up. "Uh..y-yeah." Elise was grinning over at him, which didn't help matters. "But, you might—I mean you wouldn't. I-if you change your mind and really hate it later?"

Al shrugged again. "Yeah, that's a risk. But—maybe I could just try and earn another 'boon' then, right? Or, maybe I'll get to be such good friends with your fox waifu that she'll just be willing to do it, huh?"

Tyler stammered, "Uh—"
"His fox what?!" Elise said, and burst into an immediate fit of giggles.

"That is totally the situation you're in, right? Magical manic pixie dream girl whatever?"

"...Okay, I guess that's fair. But we're still kind of uh—figuring things out?"
"Yeah, cool. I can befriend her either way then, right?"

"Obviously. Uh, Elise, the moment's seriously passed.." The Kitsune was still doubled over, trying to regain her breath and composure from the laughing fit.

"Pfffh...you're going to have to explain that one to me, Master~," she said, finally straightening up.
"Yyyeah, I'll do that."
"So—hey, do you drink? Tyler's a complete teetotaler," Al said, practically ignoring their conversation.

"Oh, indeed? I was wondering about that," Elise said.
"Yeah. If you want—Tyler's got my number; I know some good places. Not to stereotype, but if you're fond of sake, there's this bar downtown..."
"That sounds delightful," Elise said with a bright smile.
"Yeah. Maybe we can drag him along, get smashed, make him drive us home."

"I feel like I'm starting to understand why you couldn't keep the weight off," Tyler said.

"Aww, a few drinks won't hurt my weight that muuuch. Anyway, I guess I've got some shopping to do tomorrow, so I'd better get back and get a good night's sleep. Thank you soooo much for the boon, Elise~."

"Ooh, you're very welcome," the fox-girl said.

After Al's car left the driveway, Tyler said, "So...how many of my friends are you planning on swapping the sexes of, anyway?"

"Hmmnnn...perhaps half of them? I can't really predict when the mood might strike me," Elise said. "Now, Master—what, exactly, does 'waifu' mean?"

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This story part has one image generated using the "newer" methods, and one using the "older". You can probably tell which is which.