"Wise Yuna," I ask my new friend, "What exactly are you, that you are a creature that would be so powerful that you could change your form, and mine, but not be able to escape a cage?"
Yuna's sweet, keening voice sighed low, and I felt my heart sink with it. "Man's contraptions seal the doom of many of my ilk. I can see in your eyes that you wish to help creatures pained and weakened in this world devastated by the worst of your kind. But if I were to give joy to one such as you, that the power that is greater than mans folly could be shared but one more time; I would share it with ten thousand times over, if only I could.
"Only speak your desire," she asserted, "And it will be given to you."
And I could have claimed anything then, just to please her. Really, I would have. But this gnawing ache that held firm in my mind, this simple reprieve, begged me to understand the truth.
I breathed deeply, and tried to speak against her seductive words, "But this is more than about just showing your gratitude or even your power, isn't it?"
"Oh?" her pretty eyes blinked. There was an emptiness that filled the room that even the fire could not fill. What was it that I was missing? She was... A trickster? A changeling? What dangers would her powers possess, even after they changed me? What would she have in store for me once she had changed me? And then, at once, a precept caught in my thoughts, and her grateful demeanor and voluptuous intrigue raised my mind to alert: here sitting opposite of me, lay a wounded yet cunning predator in front of me. The next statement flooded from my lips: "There was no cage, was there? You weren't really in any danger."
She did not respond, but merely cocked her head like a listening or confusing puppy. This is all child's play for her. "You can change me into anything, once. Why not change yourself into something that you can gain from? You created this cage or this illusion of a cage so that... So that you can trap someone or something else that would attack you at your weakest? How do I not know you wish to trap me right now?"
The comforting presence I felt around her vanished, as the atmosphere changed to a gluttonous uncertainty. "That is an interesting notion, human. Tell me why you think this." I could feel her sneer in her words.
The change in the mood felt so real and sudden, I latched onto the one thought that whispered above the roaring fear and the demands of acquiescence: do not give her what she wants.
"No," I said, "you are more than a master of transformation, you are a deceiver... No, ah, more like ah... A Manipulator. You change how I feel, and what I want until I no longer know what I am or I desire. I am not myself nor could I ask to change myself to something I wish, while you continue this way, in my presence."
I felt the atmosphere clear, suddenly. Her eyes began to question, and I heard an echo of doubt within me. Was it coming from her?
"Please," I said, "I don't feel safe. Were you going to kill whomever or whatever came up to you and would try to abuse you while you were trapped? Were-"
"And you think I couldn't lie to you just as easily now?" her posture moved not one millimeter, but as her eyes shifted to that cold nonchalance, I felt myself in mortal danger. "Do you not think I could shift your confidences again, back into my favor, if I were this kind of monster you think that I am. Tell me, are you asking all these questions just to garner more sympathy or- or -how do I not know that you are not merely tricking me? Do you not think that I have been so pressed against for displays of my power, that I would only give you one taste so that you would not relentlessly summon me or seek me out - or my kin folk to repay you endlessly for your One moment of kindness? Are we not, then, responsible for turning you into anything but ultimately into a monster? What more guilt can you rend from us? Can we not simply change you and then go in peace?"
The log on the fire cracked, her words underscored. She rose, easily, and made for the door. The bandage that I had dressed her with, unraveled itself and fell, leaving no blood on the floor. The door opened itself as she neared it, the cold creeping inside unbidden. She came up short, just outside, and I heard her speak, "Forgive me, human. I could not give you my gift for the lack of the curse that came with it. To have met one such as you..." she hummed for a thoughtful moment and then laughed while shaking her head, "It is sobering, to be certain."
I saw her leave. I watched her walk away, my dream dying with it. And sometimes, when your mind tells you that you have saved yourself, that you have pulled yourself from the edge if the cliff, you really can take a moment and realize that you had saved yourself. That you are your own hero.
But as I rose and rushed to the door, I knew that even that was not good enough. I didn't just want to dismiss and reject...whatever Yuna was or what she offered, same as I didn't want to blindly accepting or be forced into accepting it. No, I was better than my fear, or my ego.
I cried out her name and I told her what I wished for.
For a moment, nothing stirred. I knew, in my brief courage, that she had heard me, but my doubt began to overwhelm me.
A howling gust drowned out any sounds of her return, and I had just sank to my knees when I saw her approach me.
I blinked and she was hurtling herself through the air, just before my eyes. I was on my back and the fiercest claws were digging into my overshirt. Her eyes were widened and a third eye appeared and seemed to split open her skull as it pushed against my face, to peer into... I know not what exactly. Her teeth were barred and seemed to extend down her jaw, split her neck in half, and extend her gaping maw all the way vilely, from one shoulder into the other. Truly, to be breathed upon by moistened stench of her maleficent intent would be the same as feeling the first fanned flames of the gates, of the pit itself.
"What Did You Say!" she hissed into me.
I closed my eyes to escape my fear and spoke against my translucent terror. "You heard me then as you heard me now. Make me like you. Make me understand you, your kind, your ways. Where you go, I will go. What you change into, I change into. You will teach me and I will learn or I will perish. It fulfills your original proposition, one change, now until you decide to release me from your service, kill me, or I fail to learn."
"I will turn you into dog food, and eat you, and shit you on the doorway of your own home and you will exist to regret your foolish choice, or a mongrel comes and eats you to shit you out again, or this house burns down for neglect of the fire inside."
"Perhaps Lady Yuna," I said, "But you will first have to turn yourself into dog food, eat yourself, and then eventually become dog shit."
She stopped. She smiled. She stopped smiling. She yowled this scry'ippling laughter. She snorted, dug her claws further into me. All her eyes measured me, weighed me, contorted then settled.
And then she reverted back to her normal fox-like self. She positioned herself over my chest and I could feel her crystalline laughter reverberate inside me.
"Hee hee Heh huh hee heeee hh,hh,m,m,... I-
"I- think I get it now...human. You think, to a degree of excess.... Your mind might just be the most beautiful, and confusing, and terrifying thing about you. And maybe you might understand this- perchance likely not- but I could do with that kind of company.
"Granted this wish, in all likelihood, is simply a way to allow you to render more use from me, but maybe ill risk such an ordeal to prove you wrong."
"Maybe you'll be proved right as well, ladyship."
"It is now, only 'Yuna'," she said, "And you?" she asked considering. I arched my head back to attempt to see what she saw. I looked back up at her, as she looked down at me, a most dangerous human grin forming on her face. Her features changed and elongated; slowly, impossibly. Where once she had transformed herself into something incomprehensibly noxious, she changed herself into something stunningly beautiful...but deadly. She held my face as she kissed me exquisitely, expertly, and I knew I was lost once again. A powerful paralysis had now taken hold of me and, oh Gods, it was not magic.
"And you," she said again, as she lifted me easily into her arms and set me down in front of the fire, more easily than I had set her down. With swift teeth and expert hands, she undressed me till I was all parts exposed. She looked down at me, her careful fox fingers unable to hide her exposed giddiness, and considered my nakedness, the room, the fire, and the outside.
"And you, Ynette, your first challenge will be to learn to trust me and yourself." She flipped her hair prettily at me and a luminescent log's end (just the size of your hand) cracked and jerked off the fire and landed only an arm's length from my face.
" You may not survive this," she said, "but oh, promise me you'll try."
"'Ynette'? But my name is-"
"Irrelevant now, my lover." she said, as she gathered herself between my knees. "Who you were, what you were, all those things are mine now. And if you past but this one trial, all of what I am will be yours.
"Now," she said, breathing on my inner thigh. The embers on the log's end began to catch fire to the wooden floor. "Now, give yourself to me," her final word ending as she began to use her dexterous tongue on my penis.
I exhaled loudly and moaned at the intensity. The fire that was slowly growing on the floor spread. As I breathed in and out, it responded, as if being blown upon in a kiln, the fires inside me creeping up as well. I felt her tongue caress me, and yes I had been ready for her for some time, but now I felt manhood diminuate and lessen and I- I tried not to panic.
Trust her, I thought, as the fires grew. Trust her I thought, as I started to feel her magic and her tongue inside me. Oh and the flames rose inside of me and I knew, I just knew if I concentrate on this feeling, I would know her meaning. I would survive, if I just trust her; this dangerous, clever, true creature that - that - that had somehow stolen my heart.
And I felt it: the doubt. Could she have planned even this?
"Ouhhh, I trust you Yuna. I trust you. "
I heard myself whimpering for her in this yippering voice, I opened my legs to her to let more of herself, her magic, Her, in. The flames spread near me and to the surrounding walls. I breathed in the smoke and my ecstasy and I coughed and pushed them away. The flames encircled, but did not touch me. I accepted every wave of nausea, of bliss. I felt the roiling of my skin as fur passed up from my groin, over my abdomen, and into my face, and recalled back again. My form and features changed; I saw my lover's head between my legs just inside the cleavage of a pair of breasts that had formed on my chest, as my new tail whipped and tettled in slight maneuvers.
I took all that she offered me and held it there for that moment. I looked towards the dressers and the tables affixed with my effects, from a life i was willing to leave behind. The silhouette of my parents, my grandsire's old woodworking tools, the clothes of the diligent salesman; a useful son and families' prized possession gone. One bible and one hundred books rebutting it collected, read and forever cherished in my memory; fuel for my unending quench, my yearning fire. A scented handkerchief and an old cane staff, and an unfinished carving of a man at arms; goodbyes once said, repeated, now ending. The fire ate them all.
As all things began to climax, I heard parts of the cabin began to weaken. Yuna rose and lay beside me, her fingers playing in my long hair as they became paws playing with my changing fox ear. She whispered to me, "Ynette, now is the time. You must summon the strength to change us into a creature strong enough to escape your crucible. I have fulfilled my oath and changed you into that which is myself. If you desire, I will allow you to die in your ecstasy."
A timber beam fell down near us, but I couldn't be moved.
"But I will be sad. I do believe in you, and you are such the only human I do believe that I ever desired to understand. I will escape if you are unable. But please...please try."
"How?" I whispered, in a cracked, dry voice that, even then sounded more beautiful than before.
"Just try. Think of it. Think of your change. Think of your desire now. Think of me. Above all, let it come to you."
I leaned in and faced her, not understanding my new fox body and not caring. I needed to make a choice. For her, for me...
I chose to
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Good day, this is your new best friend LazyTrainInTheRiver (ill answer to doofus, Ltitr, Train, or Lazy-Bumpkins-You-Havent-updated-in-2-weeks (really I will try)). I would like to thank the original poster for this most fun concept to run a Potentially different direction with.
I am very new to this environment, so many patience, much pointing in right direction. Great tons of stern but affectionate reproaches could be of use to a ne'er do well such as me.
Really though, Ynette and Yuna are going to be a lot of fun working with for many tf escapades (without hesitation, I desire to run the gambit with this pair). if you, my new best friend, have swell ideas, please feel free to interject, or drop me a line. Collaboration may turn this (admittedly, only a) decent plot into a superb venture. To that effect, im leaving no immediate choices; only your and Ynette's choice can save her.
(If you do decide to let Ynette die, allow me to say this: Tragedy makes foolishness, the Gods' plight; ill leave it in your capable 9hands.)