Half a dozen hands immediately shot up out of the thirty or so students seated in the forum. Cecily picked one at random, her finger landing on an eager looking college-age girl who looked like she'd been warped here from summer vacation. She was wearing little more than shorts and a tanktop, her skin showing a slight tan. Her hair was black and loosely tied back into a ponytail.
"I think I'll take.. you, in the tanktop. Don't worry, everyone's going to get a turn sooner or later. What's your name, and what's your favorite animal?"
"I'm Vivian," she said, standing up, "and I love foxes."
Inside, Cecily was a little relieved. In prior classes, she'd had the first volunteer ask to be a dragon or a lamia, neither of which were ideal for a first-time transformation. "Well, you picked an excellent first lesson. Come down to the center, and let's get started."
Once Vivian was standing in the middle of the forum, Cecily raised her hand. A spark of light emanated from her fingertips, so bright that it made even the daylight outside seem dark in comparison. The spark broke off into shards, each one of which flew to a student and phased into them, causing the spot where it entered their bodies to glow for a moment.
"Congratulations," Cecily said. "Each of you is now a witch, a wizard, a sorcerer.. whatever you'd like to call yourself. You've all been imbued with a shard of Circe's power. You'll have enough magic to practice transformation, but not enough to do much else."
She could hear the chatter in the gallery. "Am I really a witch?" "Can she even do that?"
"Of course, magic won't do you much good if you don't know how to use it. Let's get started with our first lesson. We'll be turning Vivian here," she touched Vivian's shoulder, "into a fox. We'll be going all the way from total human to total fox, and then back. That is, assuming Vivian gives me her permission. You'll only be on four legs for a short time before I turn you back."
Vivian nodded. "I.. I guess I'm fine with that."
Cecily looked into the gallery. "If any of you would like to follow along with your own bodies for the first lesson, feel free."
She activated the chalkboard again, which wiped itself clean as the chalk began to fly once again. "There's more than one way to become a cat, but I prefer doing as much as possible while still on two legs. Normally, it's best to strip before you begin, but that's up to Vivian. If she'd prefer to stay clothed until her fur is grown in, that's fine too, and it's good practice if you want to assume a hybrid form."
"I think I'd rather stay clothed."
"That's perfectly acceptable. If you wouldn't mind, can you lower your shorts a little? Just enough to expose your tailbone. We'll start with your tail."
While Vivian lowered her shorts, Cecily cast a quick spell, creating an intangible "camera" behind Vivian. In front of the gallery seats, "screens" of magic appeared, showing a close-up of Vivian's lower back.
"For this lesson, I'll be helping Vivian with her tail. Pay attention to what happens. Now, magic is all about projecting your will onto reality. There's no magic words, and spells are mostly just tools to help you focus your will. I'll be projecting my will into Vivian to help her transform, and she'll be trying to project her will to help me."
Cecily concentrated, and pushed her will into getting Vivian's tail to sprout. With her expertise, the bones in Vivian's lower back began shifting, the movement visible under the skin. "If you look closely, you'll notice Vivian's tailbone starting to extend and change position. We need to build the bones of her tail before anything else."
A lump formed at the base of Vivian's spine, guided by Cecily's magic. The bones underneath were starting to pop and crack. "Tell us how you feel, Vivian."
"It.. it feels like a really nice stretch. Like I'm stretching a limb I didn't even know I had. It doesn't hurt, even though it sounds kinda gross."
The lump extended outward slowly, growing fractions of an inch each second. Cecily could feel Vivian starting to take over on her own, and began to let go. "Vivian's taking over now, and she's doing an excellent job. I'd like you all to notice that even though this is her first time, the growth is nice and even. Can you tell us what you're doing, Vivian?"
"I'm just thinking about my.. tail.." she grunted. "Not the muscles or the bones, just.. just the tail."
"That's a great way to think of it. When you're using magic, there's no need to worry about being anatomically correct. The magic will handle that for you. If I had to worry about every bone and muscle every time I transformed, I'd never do it at all."
Vivian's tail was thin and whiplike, perhaps an inch and a half in diameter at her back and long enough to reach her knees, and still completely furless. There was a slight "thud" every so often as her tail started to move, gently beating against her legs. "You'll notice that she's able to move her tail now, and that her posture is starting to adjust. This is what we call tail adaptation - it's her brain adjusting to the new weight on her backside."
Vivian's tail reached her calves, and Cecily wheeled her desk over, offering it to Vivian as a support. Vivian turned to grab it and nearly fell over, letting out a shriek, before getting a grip and supporting herself in a slightly bent-over position.
"Just stay there, Vivian. Focus on your tail, and tell me how it feels." Cecily touched the base of Vivian's tail with one finger and forced her will into it, causing soft, reddish-orange fur to sprout.
"It's like I'm being tickled... it's like there's little hands reaching out and tickling me." For the first time, she reached back and touched her tail, feeling the fur growing near the base. "Ohmigod! I actually have a tail! I didn't think it was real!"
Cecily giggled. "You did most of the work. Now let that fur spread. Make your tail as big and bushy as you'd like."
The fur washed over Vivian's tail like a wave. She couldn't help but pet herself, the fur floofing out until it looked like her tail had tripled or quadrupled in size. Everything looked normal.. until a few inches down, a ring of black fur sprouted, followed by another ring of orange, followed by a ring of purple.
"Now, it's very important when sprouting your fur that you have a mirror handy." She waved a hand, and a rectangular area in front of Vivian's face began to solidify and turn reflective, like a giant pane of glass floating in the air. As soon as Vivian realized her mistake, the colors began fixing themselves, the fur shifting to a uniform orange as the fur neared the tip, turning white as snow. "Fortunately, it's fixable. That's quite the lovely tail you've grown, Vivian!"
Vivian waved her tail in the air experimentally, her body still getting used to its new addition. She could feel her fur brushing against the back of her legs when her tail passed by, and felt it brush the floor when she finally felt ready to stand up. She could hear the other students talking, most of them amazed at what she'd just done.
"As you can see, she's done a great job. Her tail's got a few inches of clearance above the floor, and it looks like she's got her balance back. How's it feel?"
Vivian took her tail in two hands and hugged it against her chest. "I was a little worried at first about the whole becoming a fox thing, but now that I know it's real... it's great! It's soft, and warm, and fluffy, and it doesn't feel as weird as I thought it would. It feels like it's a part of me."
Cecily beamed with pride. There were few things that felt as good as her students enjoying their lessons. "Before we move on, I'd like to mention that any of you who plan to have a tail like hers should invest in a brush, and probably some shampoo as well. Are you ready for the next lesson, Vivian?"
She nodded enthusiastically.
Cecily concentrated, and a square section of marble softened and rose from the floor, reshaping itself into a padded chair with a large slot in the backrest. "For our next lesson, I'll be asking Vivian to sit down. A big part of learning to transform is learning to transform your environment as well. Even the little sparks of magic I've given you should be able to handle that. Vivian, if you would."
Vivian sat down in the chair, only to rise back up and try again. "As you can see, one of the downsides to having a tail as long as Vivian's is that sitting down can become a little difficult. Always make a slot in any chair you plan on using long-term, and avoid rocking chairs and anything with moving parts. Eventually, this will be second nature to the point where Vivian will likely start mentally adjusting her tail when she sits down even if she doesn't have one."
On her fourth attempt, Vivian managed to slide her tail through the slot, the fluffy appendage billowing out a good distance behind the chair.
"Now then, lesson two," Cecily cleared the blackboard again. "Paws. They can be as accurate or inaccurate as you'd like. Since Vivian is eventually going to be on all fours, we're going to make hers anatomically accurate so she doesn't have problems later." She moved the camera to focus on Vivian's feet. "Vivian, if you wouldn't mind taking your socks and shoes off so the rest of the class can see.."
Vivian took her shoes off and dropped them on the floor, her socks quickly following. Cecily conjured a cushion of air underneath them that allowed her to put her feet up in plain view.
Just like before, Cecily focused her will into Vivian's body. "It's typically best to start with your feet when doing paws or hooves, and you always want to be sitting or lying down for it. Some people do them before the tail, but I find that having a tail makes it easier to balance."
The skin on the bottom of Vivian's toes and a patch just underneath them turned black as night, except for her smallest toe. They became textured, and then started bulging outward into paw pads. "Notice how she's only got pads on four of her toes. That's because she'll be losing her smallest toe as part of the transformation when it becomes her dewclaw, so there's no reason to do any excess work on it. Right now, she's being set up to walk on her toes, what we call a digitigrade stance. If she wanted, she could opt for a hybrid stance that allows either digitigrade or plantigrade movement and add a pad on her heel."
The cracking and popping of bones was much louder than it was during the first lesson, as Vivian's feet reshaped themselves.
"Just like a dog or a cat, Vivian's heels are being absorbed into her ankles. She won't be able to walk like a human anymore, but that won't be a problem. Now, I'd like you to pay careful attention to her smallest toe."
Vivian's smallest toe shrank away as the other four shifted to be equal in length, receding back to the side of her foot. Her toenail sharpened and darkened, turning into a claw, the only evidence she'd ever had that fifth toe. The nails on her other toes followed suit, shifting into four claws on each foot. Vivian gasped a little bit. In just a few minutes, she'd gone from human feet to vulpine paws.
"Now we'll finish off her paws with a coating of fur. I prefer the traditional black "gloves and stockings" pattern for foxes, but we'll see what Vivian comes up with. I'm going to let go and let her choose."
Vivian remembered the sensation of the fur sprouting from her tail, and pushed her will into her paws. Yielding to her will, her skin sprouted tufts of black fur that slowly coated her entire paw up to her calves. She could hardly believe she'd done it.
Cecily removed the cushion of air, letting Vivian's paws slowly sink toward the ground. "Okay, Vivian, it's time for you to try standing on those. You won't get it right the first time, but I'll be here to catch you."
Vivian instinctively tried to plant her heels to stand up, only she couldn't. She didn't have them anymore. With her eyes focused on her feet, she put her paws down pads first and put some weight on them without standing up. Finally, she stood up.. and then immediately fell back down into the chair. No one laughed.
"It's pretty hard. How do I do this?"
"You had it right. Put your weight on your toes, and forget you even have heels. Let your tail help balance you."
She tried again, and managed to stand up. Her legs were still wobbling a little, and she wasn't sure she could take a step, but she was standing on her paws.
Cecily opened a drawer in her desk and removed a small cardboard box full of metal badges on lanyards. "I think this is as good a time as any to hand out your student IDs. These go on your neck any time you're practicing at home. All you have to do is touch them and they'll open the portal here. Vivian, would you mind handing these out for me?"
"Me? I can barely walk!" she protested.
"It'll be good exercise. You can do it."
Vivian carefully stepped forward, trying not to lose her balance. The second step was a bit easier, and the third easier than that. Her claws clicked against the marble floor as she walked. It was like walking on tiptoe, only more comfortable and natural. She walked to Cecily's desk, picked up the box, and got up the stairs of the gallery with no problems. Before long, she'd handed out a badge to each of the students in the gallery and taken one for herself, having done a complete circuit of the forum.
Cecily took the empty box from her on her return to the lower level. "It's easy when you don't think about it, isn't it?"
Vivian nodded. "I.. I guess it is. I'm still a little shaky, but I could get used to it."
"We'll get to your forepaws in a moment, but before that, a few words of caution. Vivian's claws are relatively harmless, but when we get into more advanced species you'll need to be careful of your claws. The best way is to never make them sharp unless you need to. With that, we'll take a short break. There's no cellular reception here, but feel free to talk amongst yourselves. If any of you attempted a tail of your own, let me know."