Maggie brushed her golden hair as she looked in the mirror. It was a bit hard for her not to stare at her own reflection. It was hard to believe she was beautiful again after her body had been ravaged by that horrible flesh-eating bacteria. It hardly mattered to her that she was now an anthro mink. It was uncanny that she resembled Minerva Mink from Animaniacs so much, but that was her choice when she signed up for Project Phoenix. Of course, she didn't exactly resemble Minerva, being a more realistic, but no less beautiful and sexy, anthro mink. Her fur was only its lovely snow white because she had her virus treatment spliced with a leucistic American Mink. Otherwise, she'd just be brown. Thankfully, the leucism didn't affect her human hair or eyes. She had considered dying her tail blonde, but she decided it would just look silly. Beside, she could never get her tail to be luxuriant and mane-like as Minerva's.
But today wasn't about her beauty. After her interview on Animalia Ambassadoria, other fellow conversions from Project Phoenix approached her about wanting to learn about modeling. Maggie would have wanted to waited until she had a proper place to teach them, but she figured she could tell the basics to start with. Right now, she was using a spare room at the Claw Coliseum until a better place was found. Besides, she only had four other women to teach right now. After making sure her hair was right, Maggie walked into her impromptu classroom.
Her students were talking among themselves, trying to get familiar with each other. Of course, there was Martha, whose serious obesity was caused by a leptan deficiency was now a sexy vixen and the mate of Deputy Mayor Robert. Karen, who had been losing hair to cancer but was now a snow leopardess with luscious locks and fur. Gwen suffered from multiple sclerosis until Project Phoenix, now she was a squirrel with fur as auburn as her hair. Zoe was the youngest of the group at 13. Her parents had been one of the first people who were against vaccines, which led to her getting polio. The irony that she got a shot of Animalian Virus to cure it wasn't lost on her or her parents. Zoe didn't look at all like a teenager, being an anthro lioness with long brown hair. She was a bit young to be getting into the modeling business, but she did have her parents' permission. They felt they owed her a lot for putting her health at risk in the first place.
Maggie noticed that the girls were looking at a flier with interest. "What's that you're looking at?" she asked.
"This is about the upcoming Lunar New Year celebration," said Zoe, "It's really interesting what's going on, including the food, the parades, the fireworks..."
"And the Miss Zodiac competition," said Gwen.
"The what?" asked Maggie.
"Well, along with the other events, they're going to be doing a beauty competition. However, the only ones who are allowed to join are women who are the same animal that this is going to be the year for," said Gwen.
"So there are going to be a lot of hens who will competing to be Miss Zodiac 2017," said Karen.
"Probably not as much," said Martha, "I doubt there would be many people who'd want to become a chicken."
"But there are plenty of uplifted chickens, roosters and hens," said Karen.
"Well, this will just be a prelude to next year. There are going to be lots of dogs competing for Miss Zodiac," said Martha.
Then Maggie clapped her hands to get the other women's attention and said, "Ok, gossip corner is over now. Let's get to business." The other girls put away the flier and turned their attention to Maggie. "Now then, you four want to get into the modeling business, eh? You think that now you have the bodies of goddesses, it should be easy, right?"
"Egyptian goddess in my case," joked Zoe, referring to her resemblance to Sekhmet, goddess of war.
Maggie gave her an amused look before saying, "Well, it's not going to be as simple as that. There's more to learn her than just posing for cameras."
"I thought that's what modeling was all about," said Gwen.
"It's more complicated than that and a lot more demanding. Just because the Animalian virus gave us fit, sexy bodies doesn't mean we have to put in less work," said Maggie, "You can't be beautiful without effort. You will need to learn to do the right poses, the right walks, the right expressions to bring out your true beauty. You're not going to learn everything in one class. Some of you might more adept at grace than others. There may be some of you who will realize this isn't the right line of work for you and will want to quit. No one's judging you for that, but I expect you girls to put in some genuine effort before throwing in the towel. And I won't have any undercutting or other forms of bullying in my class. You are here to learn, not to compete. I expect you to be supportive of each other and give constructive criticism, not jab at others' self-esteem. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Ms. Jones," answered her students.
Maggie smiled at that. She could get used to be addressed this way. "Good. For our first lesson, we'll start with seeing how long each of you can hold a simple pose," she said. Her class may be starting small, both with the lessons and the number of students, but Maggie was confident both will get bigger and better over time.