Abby felt a little uncomfortable with the hungry way the new minotaur woman was staring at the few remaining human guests. None of the other creatures here had shown that sort of… interest... in people so far. Or perhaps, she feared, they were just better at hiding it. She started to feel guilty about having intentionally spread this change once already, if someone could be turned to cannibalism… or human-eating, she supposed was more accurate, so easily during the change. She’d just wanted to try out her wings, she didn’t want to put anyone in danger!
On the other hand…
She glanced toward the two cats, drained of their sense of self, letting anything and everything said to them fill the gap. She didn’t want that fate on the remaining human guests, either. Her eyes darted back and forth between the cats and the minotaur again and again. Would it be better to try and get the remaining humans to leave before they could be changed, and prevent Rosa and the Minotaur from getting their hands on them, or change the humans for their protection, even at the risk of creating more tricksters or literal man-eaters?
Unfortunately, she wouldn't be the one to make that choice. Three girls wearing different kinds of dog or wolf costumes were each brushed by the snake head of the newly created Chimera as he passed them heading toward the snack table. Each of the girls shivered slightly, feeling the air against bare fur, rather than slipping through a costume.
Where one of the costumes had been of a gray wolf, another a golden retriever, and the third a husky, all three had their fur slowly turn pitch black. In a haze, all three girls stepped toward each other, each feeling a tugging sensation in their spine, as their costumes’ once flopping tails began to stir, and rise with a life of their own.
“I’m feeling so weird,” the one in the wolf costume, Brenda, thought out loud, “Everything’s-”
So loud, so disorganized, a voice like hers, but subtly bolder, spoke into her mind.
“So loud and disorganized. I know it’s a party, but can’t we keep some order?”
Their faces each began to stretch out to fill the heads of their costumes, their jaws pulling forward, and their ears moving up the sides of their heads, rising up to triangular points.
The girl in the retriever costume, Bonnie, shivered. “Why’s every smell getting so much stronger? Why do I feel chilly? Was something in that punch? I knew I should have-”
Kept better watch on everyone.
“Kept a better watch on everyone. Those cat girls and the monkey are acting weird, and that fight out back was getting crazy. It shouldn’t be like this.”
The girl in the Husky costume, Beth, looked around. “This party’s been nice and all, but we could really use-”
A guard or three.
“A guard or three. Yeah, just someone to keep things from getting too crazy, you know.”
All three of the girls subconsciously reached out for each other, and, hand in hand, their bodies began to join together, Brenda on the right, Beth on the left, with Bonnie sandwiched in the middle. The extra arms, legs, and tails receded into their body as their torsos merged into one, and became heavy-set, with firmly defined muscles. The remaining arms and legs bulked up as well, while each of their identical heads lined up next to each other.
The three heads blinked briefly, before they quickly adjusted to their new body. The fog of Rosa’s spell lifted from their mind, causing them to realize what was truly going on at the party; and their new instincts didn’t care for all the potential damage these creatures could cause. They began to discreetly move to the front door, determined to make sure the partygoers wouldn’t go outside and make trouble.
“I’ll watch the back door,” Beth said.
“I’ll let you guys know if anybody tries to leave through the hall to the garage,” Brenda added.
“Good,” Bonnie mumbled. “I’ll try to keep an eye on the Tanuki and Kitsune. Those shapeshifting tricksters will wanna make things difficult for us. Be sure to keep your ears and noses open for them, as well, they don’t usually bother masking the other senses.”
“Should we try to get the Unicorn or Pheonix to help?” Beth asked. “They seem trustworthy.”
“If it comes to that. Just, stay on guard for now.”
Rosa normally liked being the center of attention, but she didn’t care for the look the middle head of the new cerberus was giving her.
Kacey shook her horned head. While she’d been hoping to keep the other mythical creatures from making a scene and disturbing the peace, locking them in Brad’s house all night, or even longer, might just make for even worse trouble as the stronger personalities butted heads.
A skinny guy in a snake costume, tail dragging behind him, tapped Abby on the shoulder. “Hey there!”
Abby let out a startled whinney, doing everything she could not to instinctively kick at the boy behind her, her wings fluttering. “D-don’t startle me like that!”
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, “I just wanted to say your costume is cool, and I wanted to know how you made the wings.” He reached out to grab them, and she quickly pulled them away.
“Could you please not touch them, they’re sensi- I mean, fragile.” Abby backed up. “I didn’t exactly make these myself, I can’t really tell you how they’re made.”
“You didn’t make these?” The guy in the costume blinked. “But they look so real! There’s no way you got it from a store.”
Abby noticed the green scales starting to poke through the skin on the boy’s fingers.
“Look…” Abby paused, trying to recall if she’d heard this boy’s name before.
“Trevor,” the boy said.
“Right, Trevor… I can’t really help you out, but I feel like if you wait a little longer, you’ll figure it out on your own.”
“What do you mean by that?” He asked, idly scratching his changing right hand with his left.
“I’d… rather not talk right now, please go…” Abby looked away.
“Oh.” Trevor shrugged. “Okay.” He turned away without a fuss, much to Abby’s surprise.
Trevor scratched at his arm again, the itching sensation having spread up further. But he still hadn’t bothered to look down at the source of the problem. He moved to a quieter corner of the room to think.
“It looks like she used real feathers in those wings of hers,” Trevor muttered to himself. “And the way they moved was so fluid… I couldn’t see any sort of strings or anything, so it had to be motorized… But then how’d she get them to move outside of a couple predetermined motions?” Tracy had been asking questions like this about James most of the evening as well, but with all the attention the dragon attracted, it had been hard to get in to actually ask.
It slowly dawned on Trevor, overcoming the haze that Rosa’s spell had put on the remaining humans, that his skin didn’t quite feel right. Looking down, he gasped as he saw right arm was completely covered in green scales, with little claws starting to poke through the fingertips.
“What?” He tried to pull up the shirt of his costume, only to realize it had already become a part of him, and was already turning into layers of green scales, with white scutes on the front. “What’s going on? This is-”
A learning opportunity, suggested a voice in his mind, much like his own, but with a slight hiss.
“A learning opportunity.” Trevor paused, feeling a pressure in his lower back, as his spine and flesh grew back into the costume’s increasingly longer, thicker tail. “This must have been what that pegasus girl meant when she said I’d find out how her wings worked.”
He twitched, and realized he was starting to lean more on his tail, he felt an intense pressure on two spots in his back, while his legs felt tingly. Looking down, he let out a hissing gasp to see his legs were shrinking. “Th-this can’t be happening, I-”
Need to ascend.
“Need to ascend…” Trevor looked back, as the pressure in his back became greater, and wide, red-feathered wings sprouted from his back. “In a literal sense,” he mumbled, flapping his wings, without a care that his legs had completely shrunken away, replaced by his tail. After all that was more than a fair trade.
The large snake head began to press down on his skull, seeming to force his jaw forward into the snout like clay being squeezed. Two of his front teeth grew far longer and thinner, the rest becoming less prominent, but still sharpening. His ears shrank back, while his nostrils became little more than slits in the front of his snout. His eyes turned a bright green, his pupils narrowing, while a crest of vibrant red feathers formed on his head in place of hair, fanning out behind him, while a similar plume sprouted at the end of his tail.
“I’m not imagining things… I am-”
A feathered serpent descendant of Quetecoatl, god of wind and learning.
“A feathered serpent descendant of Quetecoatl, god of wind and learning,” Trevor said, a feeling of deep pride in his voice. He turned back to Abby, and gave her a reassuring smile. “I know you wanted to be left alone,” he whispered, knowing his was far outside her range of hearing, “But thank you.”
With a flap of his wings, he slithered toward the sphinx, eager to see what another seeker of knowledge had to offer.
“Perhaps things might not go completely out of control, yet,” Kacey sighed with relief at the presence of a calmer mythical creature.
Unlike Kacey, Trevor felt no alarm at the presence of the descendant of queen Pasiphae, nor the tricksters or the wyrm. Nor felt much dismay at the two oriental nekos having been made into blank slates. He understood all of them had their own path to enlightenment. Even the two nekos who had been cleansed of who they once were he sensed, were already building a new sense of self, nature abhors a vacuum. Dwayne's queen Fanya, whether it was due to the magic or not, was filled with the persona of her former incarnation, another of the Monkey King's lovers. Quite a save given the nekomata's dangerous nature that was now cleansed from her in exchange for being the queen of a demigod.
And Wendy, the bakeneko, she'd taken to answer the door for the trick or treaters who came, resulting in one golem with a human soul, a thunder bird, and one skin-changer (a distinct being from werewolves) and their parents a clown and guardian angel of all things.
Quickly absorbing the trick or treaters playful and friendly manner into her own sense of self.
The chimera's lion head looked at the cerberus and trotted up to her.
"Hey there beautiful, our name is Corobhan, what's yours?" Said the lion head of the chimera.
"I... WE-" the three separate minds' heads swam. They were united in body, they were united in purpose, so they should be united in identity as well? "We, I am-" "Bre-" "-Deth-" "-onnie!" They then said together. "I am Bredethonie!"
"Well, nice to meet ya Bredethonie!" said the snake head weaving about some. "What are you up to?"
The cerberus admitted. "We're trying to keep the troublemakers from causing more trouble outside the party. And to see that the remaining humans aren't harmed."
"Seems like the party is taking care of itself if you ask me," said Corobhan. "And it looks like the last two are well on their way to joining the REAL party!" The snake head gestured.
What had been Brenda's head turned on her own head, spotting the last two humans. With the entire party now almost completely composed of mythical creatures, it was rather silly to think the two hadn't already been touched at some point during the commotion.
Evan and Alice, the two were famous for having gone steady since Junior Year of high school. Evan's passion was mythology (or at least the 'fun' parts as he put it) and Alice's was botany. Evan had chosen to come as a billy goat, while Alice had dressed up as a deer doe.
While Rosa's enchantment had kept them from noticing the Monkey King and Martin being on display, or to be more precise, kept them from considering it unusual, the two had begun to make out on a large chair in the corner of the room. They didn't really notice how the entire room was now looking at them with baited breath.
Evan and Alice passionately embrace resulted in a feedback loop, and their transformation, physical and mental, happened faster than any of the others. That they two were so into each other plus their respective costumes, it was easy to guess what they'd become.
The two didn't notice, and couldn't have cared less as they begin to be able to feel through their 'costumes.' Alice didn't pay attention to her flesh turning a more wooden pattern than her make-up, or that her 'make-up' was no longer smudging. Her dyed green hair ceased to be dyed... or really hair, and more green growths from her head, the flowers in her hair now growing OUT of her body. Alice's internal organs, bones, muscles, all become shaped like wood, with sap moving like blood flowed now through her body. Her eyes became a dark solid green with a sparkle like emeralds. Her wooden nipples pressing against Evan.
The rules of the transformation that had spread among the party goers however, had to be obeyed. The fake fur of her costume became green moss across her body, caressing Evan's body. Her face mused with the doe mask as her head became a perfect living carving of a deer doe. Also, since reindeer were the only deer Alice really knew, she kept the pair of horns upon her head (the only species of deer that had the females grow horns). Her feet, like Evan's, became hooved and digigrated. And like him, her fingers became like hooves evolved into hands, though hers were a wooden imitation of such things. And a leafy tail growing from where her tailbone would have been before.
She was a living breathing wooden statue of female perfection, while Rosa strung along men with her cunning and wit, Alice's feminne beauty simply was, it was who she was.
At the same time, Alice's soul entered a state of quantum flux, with the body Evan was making love to merely an extension of the real her. Either her soul resided in the oak tree of Brad's backyard, or one of the oak trees that resided in the forest that lay on the edge of her parents' property at home. Both of these trees were the place of Alice's soul, and true at the same time, to be quantified by Alice's own fate later.
Alice also didn't think of how some part of her now felt shy around this many people; with Evan by her side, the shyness faded, she had flirted with him, strung him along, letting him give chase, playing hard to get, until at last she allowed him to catch her, letting him have his moment of victory and allowing to claim his prize. Whether this had been the truth before no longer mattered, it was the truth as far as Alice remembered it, and was now how Evan remembered it, except of course in Evan's perception he had claimed the Dryad after his exciting (in every sense of the word) case with the playful Dryad and his persistence rewarded.
Evan meanwhile, lost the feeling in his toes, but felt through his hooves, he felt his tail wave in the wind, the warm air of the living room on his bare skin. His lower body became digigrated. He felt his chest hairs grow curly and furry. His ears grew longer and wider. The big brown fake beard he'd put on became larger, curly, and dark brown. His eyes' pupils became square, and his nose dark and square. A pair of ram horns grew from his head. Due to the nature of the transformation, he was not a perfect reincarnation of the satyrs of myth, but he was quite close enough as Alice would certainly bear witness to! Just as Tanuki were legendary for their pouches, satyr were legendary for something else as well. Evan felt himself have more passion and stamina than ever, and Alice was as stalwart as an oak tree!
The cheap plastic pan flute he'd gotten from a novelty store became a beautiful crafted wooden piece of work.
Both satyr and dryad grew shorter, but their figures remained stunning and muscular at their physical-prime.
Alice thought, 'This is so intense! I could do this forever! If this is a dream, don't wake me up!'
A voice like her, but ... actually not all that different from her own at all began to say, I are no longer human and-'
'I couldn't care less! If this is not being human, than I don't mind!'
'I am one with nature-' 'Just like I've always wanted! Humanity doesn't care what it does to the world! Now I'm closer to life than any of them!'
'Trees poison the soil to sabotage their rivals-' '-and I understand completely. Life competes with life, but there has to be balance. Be it among plants or beasts.'
Alice didn't lose her humanity, she slam dunked it into a recycling bin and skinny dipped into the green not looking back.
Evan's thoughts... weren't really all that different. He felt his passion grow and grow, feeling it consume him, BECOME him. He didn't think once about how he'd gotten his manhood out of the costume, or that people were watching, he plunged it into his lover, and he'd never felt so complete in his life. Their lives joined together into one, their fates intertwined.
'Alice is-' '-like the perfect tree in a garden of delights, I wanna make love to her for eternity!'
I am a satyr- '-and who cares? I do! It's great! I'm better than ever! Spread fun! Have fun! This is what I always wanted!'
'This party has been-' 'So totally tame so far! Someone outta liven it up!' Evan thought before his other voice could even finish. Evan practically tore his humanity from him and skinny dipped after Alice.
With a passionate cry out, the anthro satyr and dryad consummate their bond, far past caring where they were or who saw them.
"WAY TO SCORE EVAN!" Martin cheered, slapping his own pouch in approval.
"Giving you any ideas?" Corobhan's snake-head asked.
"Not on the first date honey," the cerberus' left head said.
"What do you think of that show my queen? Getting any ideas?" Dwayne asked with a grin, wrapping his tail around her waist.
"If their passion is what you wish to inspire me my king, then it shall be, I shall be passionate!"
"Happy to hear! You're the best babe!"
With no humans present, Venessa felt no more impulse about her natural prey.
Evan reluctantly pulled himself out of Alice, and turned to face the crowd, standing on Alice's knees, giving her a good view of his body. Evan's manhood was on full display for all to see, and the thought didn't even cross Evan's mind beyond, say, how he'd be proud of having a handsome face. Modesty? Shame? THey were no longer part of his context.
Evan looked around and realized there wasn't a single human being at the entire party, and actually giggled a bit, like he'd been the last let in on an inside joke.
James, Rosa, Martin, were all excited that the time for deception was over. Brad couldn't help but admire the room full of mythicals who'd been his classmates and friends that now made up his family living room. He genuinely wondered what his parents would say. Kacey likewise found a deep satisfaction of seeing restoration of magic on such a scale. Abby for her part was just in awe at being a part of this. Tracy and Miriam (who had indeed hit it off very well), were quite interested to see what was going to happen next. Bredethonie felt tense, but also a sense of relief that with all the humans changed, none of the party goers were really vulnerable, but she still felt the need to keep order hope at things not breaking down into total chaos. Corobhan for his part thought to it best to throw his lot in with the other 'one who is three, three who is one' mythical here.
Cutiepie, as she'd been named by one of the party goers, the black furred bakeneko maid... felt a sense of deep satisfaction she wouldn't now have to continue to explain or keep up the farce she was a creature of chaotic messy free will and instead a being of purpose purified by Lady Rosa of all those annoying distractions.
Dwayne for his part almost felt like a king at court, almost. As he felt lifetimes of previous incarnations' wiliness begin to seep through him. He leaned back and crossed his legs.
"My King, YOU should say something!" Fanya whispered.
"Not right now beautiful, let's sit back and watch the show some more."
Rosa, Martin, and James all grinned at practically the same time.
"Yo! Any human beings here? Raise yer hand if ya aint'!" James boomed, after all, he'd brought the enchanted costume, he'd brought this transformation here, the upgrade these guys had all gotten had been due to him. None of them were quite as mighty as a dragon, but his friends and classmates were all definitely much cooler now! Everyone in the room raised their hands. "That's what I thought! No need to hold it in anymore buddies! It's just us mythics here now!"
"Just what I wanted to hear!" Martin laughed, the pouch between his legs expanded in size until he could use them as bean bags and did just that! Then in an act of true showing off, he morphed them into a stereo-system playing pounding music!
Abby, James, Brad, Trevor, and Miriam all opened up their wings and flew to the ceiling, it was clear as crystal to anyone watching this was no trick with wires! But the ceiling was just too confining. None of them could resist now that they'd gotten a taste of true flight and no longer felt constrained. While Bredethonie had thought to keep her eyes on the normal exits, she hadn't thought about the backyard and the fliers.
Once outside, their feet never touching the ground, the five fliers were twirling and doing loop-de-loops in the night sky. Abby and Brad's worries, James' sense of draconic superiority, and Trevor and Miriam's clinical curiosity were all for the moment forgotten, the sheer freedom they experienced was a greater high than any drug could give. The crowd of other mythicals returned to the backyard, in awe at the sight themselves.
Rosa narrowed her eyes slightly, James' impulsiveness had served him well for once, with the others' sights all on them now. Well, Rosa wasn't done yet.
She stepped in front of the crowd, turned, and spread her tails, flames appearing on each end. "When you were all little humans, I had to hold back, now let me show you what I can really do!" The kitsune declared, the flames swirling around her, and launched in the sky as well, creating a light show that any rock concert would be proud of. To Rosa's credit, none of her performance actually harmed the fliers; in fact, with her lights, she made their flying part of her own show. Martin, never wanting to miss a chance to impress Rosa, changed the beat of his music to be in time with Rosa's lightshow.
Dwayne and Fanya thought it was a show fit for a king, Cutiepie loved seeing Lady Rosa bring order to chaos. Venessa, Corobhan and Bredethonie were all left enraptured. Alice and Evan leaned against each other. Even with Martin's music blasting, he took out his pan flute and began playing a background tune, the satyr's music subtly tearing down inhibitions between couples.
Kacey, being a unicorn, knew beauty when she saw it, and couldn't deny the spontaneous performance was transcendent. Kacy couldn't stop herself from adding a few sparkles herself to the show. Some of the grounded mythics began to dance, on their own or in pairs, to the rhythm of the tanuki and faun’s music.
What none of the mythicals anticipated, was all the magic they collective poured into the performance that was visible to houses, trick or treaters, and backyards for several city blocks. Neighbors craned their necks up to watch, surprised to see a show like this on Halloween. Some stepped outside to get a better look, some made frustrated calls to the police about illegal fireworks, a couple tried to ignore only to steal glances at it, the rest just gave occasional looks at it, but continued on with their own lives. And, of course, there was always the people who took videos of it with their phones... and posted it on the internet.
As the night wore on, the party continued, with little sign of stopping. By one AM, A few angry neighbors started to show up to complain about the noise, only to find themselves changed as well, the lack of a costume “base” triggering the magic to pick their new species based on the 'persona' they presented to the world, all humans wore masks after all, it was just on Halloween they were literal about it. A large green piggish orc and a swan maiden danced, while their son pigged out at the buffet table. A purple and gold scaled dragon whelp zipped around like a bullet with no sign of getting tired, while a feminine golden eastern dragon was amazed at her son's boundless energy.
Meanwhile, on the internet, the videos of the party got hit after hit, and were then linked to those people's family and internet buddies, spreading further and further.
Brad’s parents, finally back after a long airplane ride, saw the fireworks as they drove in at three AM, concern growing in their faces when they got close enough to realize that the light and noise had been coming from their house.
Brad, however, saw them coming, putting a fear into him that even immortality couldn’t quell. “They’re gonna be chewing me out for weeks,” he mumbled, before diving down to Rosa and Martin.
“GUYS!” He tried to shout over the noise for several minutes, to little effect. “GUYS, STOP! My parents are almost here, and-”
“BRADLY RICHARD KOSS!” A woman’s voice barely made itself heard to Brad over the music, and he felt a hand on his shoulder.
Brad’s mother wasn’t quite sure WHAT was going on here, or even quite sure how she could tell at a glance that the bright red bird-man in front of her was the boy she’d raised for eighteen years, but what she did know was that this party had clearly started going overboard.
“YOU HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO!” The air around her seemed to sizzle as her body turned red, and not just from rage.
“WHAT?” Brad yelled, having a difficult time making out what she was saying over the noise. His eyes darted over to his father, who looked to be changing, as well.
His mother shook her head, sighed, then, erupted into a pillar of flame that pierced through the fireworks, accompanied by a shriek of “STOP THE MUSIC!”
Rosa, Kacey, and James’ fireworks sputtered out, Martin’s speakers shrank back into his pouch, and Evan dropped his pipes. The flying partygoers quickly dropped to the ground.
As the pillar of flame dispersed, a pair of phoenixes, one male, one female, stood tall, their lustrous plumage, and broad tail feathers clearly visible now that any clothing had been burned away.
Mrs. Koss took a deep breath, then spoke, at a much more controlled volume. “Brad, I’m happy you and your friends have all had such a good time. I gave you permission to hold a party here, as long as you didn’t bother the neighbors-”
“They, uh,” Rosa interrupted with uncharacteristic meekness, ”they didn’t mind once they-”
“Hush,” said Mr. Koss softly. Rosa nodded. In that moment, feeling less like the cunning kitsune she'd become, and more like a teenage girl whose antics had gone too far.
“And as long as you cleaned up any messes you made. So, for now, I’m declaring the party over; you can all go home, and get some rest before school tomorrow. AND I expect to see you all BACK here tomorrow afternoon to help tidy up.” She leered at the satyr and the dryad. “Especially you two. Those stains on my husband’s favorite chair aren’t going to be easy to get out.”
The crowd of mythical creatures slowly dispersed, heading back to their homes, their bodies suddenly seeming to remember just how late it was.
When they woke up the next morning, each of the twenty partygoers (and a few confused neighbors, trick or treaters, and Mr and Mrs. Koss) found themselves back to being just a human in a costume, with a note from the shop James, Rosa, and Kacey had bought their costumes, about an “exchange opportunity.” Several were content to quickly get out of the costume, forget their weird dream the night before, and rush to get ready for school, still exhausted from a lack of sleep.
But a handful tried zipping the costumes up again, disappointed when nothing happened. The costume’s magic had ended just as Halloween had.
Abby was among them. And after what had felt like the longest school day in her life, followed by a few hours cleaning Brad’s house and yard, she snuck her costume out of her house, and made her way to the address listed on the note.
She pushed the glass door open, looking around at the dozens of costumes lining the shelves.
“Ah, Abby Forrest!” A young woman’s voice came from behind Abby, startling her and causing her to turn around. “I had a feeling you might get yourself stuck in your suit.”
“Stuck? No,” Abby shook her head. “Its right here." She held up the pegasus costume. "I came to-”
“Honestly, kid,” the woman interrupted, “you already came all the way here in that old thing, there’s no shame in admitting you just got the zipper caught. You're not the first, this morning; the poor Bell lad, with how tight the costume was, it's impressive he was able to walk all the way here.” The woman reached to the back of Abby’s neck, where Abby suddenly felt a sharp tug. With a sharp gasp, she turned to face a nearby mirror, only to see a metal zipper trailing down the back of her neck, on her human skin, its slider in the grasp of the woman.
Before Abby could ask what was going on, the woman yanked down on the slider. “Don’t worry, I’ll have this off you in a jiffy!”
Abby shuddered, then suddenly felt as if an immense pressure was being lifted off her as the zipper tugged down further and further. Abby felt her wings from the night before break free through the opening, then her tail. Soon, she was able to wriggle her arms, legs, and hooves free from the tight enclosure of the suit that had once been her human body. With a tug on her head, the mask came off, releasing her silky mane.
She let out a delighted whinney, wings spread wide, before it dawned on her what had truly happened. “H-how did you do that?”
“With the zipper you mean?” the woman asked nonchalantly. “It’s all in the wrist, you see-”
“No, I mean... this…” She gestured to her nude pegasus form.
The woman’s eyes twinkled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear. Now, I know this suit was rent to buy,” she said as she held up the still-clothed suit shaped like Abby’s human self, “but seeing as it really didn’t seem to fit you, I’m assuming you’re not interested? I mean, I think people’d find it a little ridiculous seeing a pegasus stuffing her wings into a human suit, and just WALKING around town, wouldn’t they?”
“Uh, I guess…” Abby blinked, “But wait, I-”
“Great!” The woman said, tossing the human suit and the old pegasus suit behind the counter. “I’ve got another shop four parallel universes down where humans are the stuff of myth, this’ll be a huge hit over there!” She turned back to Abby. “Well, you already paid the rental fee, so no need for you to stick around much longer.” She got behind Abby, and shoved the pegasus girl out the suddenly-open front door. “Have fun out there, kid!”
Abby blinked, straightening up as she suddenly realized she was out in the open, a hybrid in nothing more than her fur and feathers, in the middle of town. She braced herself for stares, gasps, and anything else…
But nothing happened. The people going to and fro on the sidewalk didn’t react to her new self at all. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Quite a few guys turned their heads, but not the way she’d expect them too when she was basically naked. A passing old lady complimented her mane, and a little boy holding his mother’s hand mumbled something about pretty wings.
Nobody was freaking out? They were treating her like any other girl?
She grinned, and spread her wings wide once more. Getting a running start on a clear section of sidewalk, she flapped her wings, and leapt into the sky, rising high above the city streets.
In the corner of her eye, she could see a feathered serpent taking off in the opposite direction from the costume shop, a dragon and kitsune embracing each other on the city's tallest rooftop, and a unicorn running swiftly and silently through the forest at the edge of town.
“That was the best party EVER!”